They are aiding and abetting a train wreck coming straight for us. Ohio Republicans in the U.S. House and U.S. Senate own the damage being done to constituents whose federal assistance and critical funding is being torn to pieces on the tracks.
While rudderless Democrats stare like a deer in the headlights, Republican lawmakers Ohioans sent to Congress look the other way or insist that the brakeless locomotive barreling down on communities across America will only demolish stuff that doesn’t matter.
Like science and medical research to cure diseases (with cutting edge innovation and thousands of Ohio jobs at stake) or Medicaid health care coverage (insuring more than 3 million Ohio residents) or food aid (serving ever rising numbers of Ohio families and seniors on fixed incomes) or affordable child care, housing, clean air and water, consumer financial protections, quality public education, veteran affairs, federal aviation security, and more.
Can the federal bureaucracies established by Congress to serve the public be more efficient and cost-effective? Absolutely. But government watchdogs, or inspectors general, who find and prevent waste, fraud and abuse within federal departments were purged en masse by Donald Trump with no outcry from Ohio Republicans on Capitol Hill. None.
Never mind that the president is required by law to give Congress a 30-day notice of any such terminations and cause for removal. Trump just fired over a dozen IGs who provide nonpartisan oversight of trillions of dollars in federal spending and the conduct of millions of federal employees.
Where was Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan’s outrage on the House Oversight Committee or does his performative indignation only apply to Democratic administrations?
Unless and until a Democratic leader emerges somewhere to at least slow the train wreck Trump and his billionaire buddy Elon Musk have engineered — to indiscriminately destroy government of, by and for the people — the Republican-controlled Congress will greenlight the real-time destruction of American democracy and the constitutional order.
GOP lemmings have abandoned every single one of their alleged principles (i.e., constitutional conservatism, defense of democracy, due process) to serve not those who sent them to Washington but a convicted felon and his unelected proxy.
“President Trump and Elon Musk are protecting America,” Jordan posted in trademark subservience to the MAGA king. “Let Trump work to make America a better place” after he usurps congressional lawmaking authority without a fight.
In a stunning profile in cowardice, U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson ceded Congress’ Article 1 power of the purse (or power to control government spending) to the Dear Leader.
He “wholeheartedly” agreed that Trump — using the richest man in the world and his unvetted minions — could make sweeping cuts to federal spending without Congress’ approval. “There’s a presumption in America that the commander in chief is going to be a good steward of taxpayer dollars,” said Johnson.
No, sir. There’s a presumption in America that Congress holds the purse strings in the federal government and enacts laws the president swears an oath to faithfully execute. But not in a co-equal branch of government that no longer acts like one.
Congressional Republicans bow to a vindictive White House bully and his shadow president feverishly pouring through private data and deleting whatever he deems necessary from congressionally appropriated funding to entire agencies processing everything from tax refunds to Social Security payments.
The Trumpian rubber stamps in Congress do as they’re told. Trump offers a ludicrous clown show of objectively unqualified looney tunes to run massive government operations?? No problem.
Brand-new Ohio Republican senators, Bernie Moreno and Jon Husted posted their party line “yes” votes on every Trump nominee worse than the last.
For defense secretary, why not a cable TV weekend host reportedly forced out of leadership roles at two small, veteran-focused nonprofits for gross financial mismanagement, abject drunkenness, and sexist behavior?
Pete Hegseth also paid $50,000 to a woman who accused him of sexual assault in 2017.
But Moreno gushed about him at the helm of the Defense Department without any concern for the country that a reputed fall down drunk with credible accusations of abuse against women (that even his mother excoriated) will lead the U.S. military: “Pete Hegseth will be a phenomenal Sec. of Defense. I liked him before I met him and was incredibly impressed by him. Brilliant choice.”
Husted posted a pictured of himself smiling with Tulsi Gabbard, a fangirl of brutal dictators in oppressive, anti-democratic regimes and Kremlin allies, and a serious national security threat tapped to lead America’s vast national security apparatus: “She will serve President Trump and our nation well by pursuing the facts on threats and security.”
In the same lockstep conformity, Husted confirmed a deeply troubled and reckless conspiracy theorist/anti-vaxxer to the top health post in the country: “I think RFK Jr. will be a breath of fresh air and bring new ideas to the Health and Human Services Department.”
The train wreck is coming straight at us with stunningly unfit government leadership, wholesale shutdowns of government services and blanket firings of government employees. It will end badly.
Ohio Republicans, too afraid of the Oval Office mob boss and his billionaire enforcer — to stand up for the people they represent and stop the pain millions will needlessly suffer — must answer for their indefensible complicity in the wreckage that lays waste to America.
