Rule of Lawler is reinvigorated after our extended break. The House of Representatives, not so much.
Here is our esteemed Representative Mike Lawler on the House floor Wednesday, eating up his designated 2 minutes the way he usually does, berating his Democratic colleagues with falsehoods and misdirection.
Can you imagine if he brought this same passion to battle the cruelty and destruction of the Trump administration? The overnight shutdown of US foreign aid programs around the world; mass firings of federal workers without notice, planning or rationale; defunding critical medical research at universities because of their diversity policies; the militarization of our cities; masked ICE agents profiling and harassing at will, ripping apart innocent families; extrajudicial killings on the high seas. You get the idea.
But here is Lawler summoning his deepest moral outrage over the fact that Democrats are using the only leverage they have to demand bipartisan engagement and action on health care, as insurance premiums are set to double with the expiration of Obamacare tax credits. And as usual, the centerpiece of his 2-minute tirade is a lie:
[The Democrats] have held the American people hostage trying to extract insane things like free healthcare for illegal immigrants.
A statement which AI declares “largely false and misleading,” much like Mike Lawler. Do the research.
Mike Johnson and Mini Mike Lawler didn’t have to shut down the House for 54 days. They could have been working with Democrats this whole time on a health care solution, but chose instead to support the Trump program of maximizing the pain of the shutdown for political gain.
Meanwhile, Marjorie Taylor Greene (MTG). She has always been a bit extra. That extra “e” at the end of her name undoubtedly stands for “extreme.” Rule of Lawler started a project several months ago to review how often our “moderate” Mike Lawler has voted with MAGA-warrior MTG. A “Marjorie Meter,” if you will.
We’ve only gotten through 2023 so far, Lawler’s first year on the job, but already confirmed that he voted with MTG 95%+ of the time — on everything from investigating grounds to impeach Joe Biden, to censuring Adam Schiff, defunding climate action, “denouncing the horrors of socialism,” etc. And more recently, the Gulf of America Act. That’s our guy.
The Marjorie Meter has been breaking down during this shutdown, though. Compare Lawler’s gutless party patter with MTG’s open-eyed self-criticism of GOP House leadership. She called Johnson’s failure to convene the House during the shutdown “an embarrassment.” And on health care, she said:
“I’m going to pick on Republicans. Republicans never fixed it and then the ACA tax credits were passed in 2021 and there was a sunset date of the end of this year …. Republicans never made a plan for that,” she said, adding that she hopes Johnson will articulate his policy proposals related to health care.
“The country deserves it, and it shouldn’t be a secret, and I shouldn’t have to go into a SCIF to go find our Republican health insurance plan. There’s no consensus, and I think that’s a failure.”
Compare Mike Lawler making excuses and prattling on in an interview with Brianna Keilar on CNN:
The Marjorie Meter is also breaking down on the Epstein files. While Mike Lawler is calling the Epstein matter “a political distraction,” saying “it’s time to move on,” MTG and like-minded colleagues are forcing a House vote next week to release the files. How will Lawler vote?
Mike Lawler no longer has the cover of a government shutdown to spin on. With health care and Epstein front and center, what now Mike?
Since the Marjorie Meter is no longer reliable, it’s probably time to recalibrate using the Mike Meter. I suspect we can count on Mike Lawler to continue taking orders from the most subservient House Speaker in American history, Mike Johnson. Frick and frack, arm in arm, defending the indefensible.
Rule of Lawler 