My representative in the U.S. House is a Republican named Mike Lawler. By current GOP standards Lawler probably qualifies as a “centrist,” meaning he doesn’t support stealing bread from homeless orphans, but it’s hard to tell. Whatever. I’ll be voting for his Dem opponent, Mondaire Jones. The Dems seem to think this is a flippable seat. A lot of money is going into the campaigns.

Mike Lawler suddenly has a Hatian problem. Politico reports,

New York Rep. Marc Molinaro last week gave oxygen to the debunked rumor that Haitian newcomers to Springfield, Ohio, abduct and eat cats and dogs — posting it to X, Instagram and Facebook as one of a multitude of attacks meant to challenge his Democratic rival’s commitment to border security.

Two congressional districts to the south, Rep. Mike Lawler, whose constituency includes a sizable Haitian American population, released a statement urging his fellow Republicans to refrain from circulating unsubstantiated rumors. It was attributed to a spokesperson and blamed no one by name.

Lawler is trying his best to signal the Haitian community that he’s not on board with the hate on Haitians being pushed by other Republicans. But he’s trying to do this without calling out other Republicans. Mondaire Jones has no such restraints, of course, and I understand he is running with the issue. It might make a difference in the election.

And I’m wondering if the extremism coming from Trump and Vance might impact other House races in “purple” districts. Trump and Vance are getting more disgusting by the minute.

The Wall Street Journal is reporting that Vance knew good and well there was no pet-eating going on in Springfield before he started pushing the story. From Rolling Stone:

According to a Wednesday report from The Wall Street Journal, on Sept. 9 — the day Vance first posted on X claiming local cats were being eaten by Springfield’s Haitians — most of which are in the town legally — his office called local authorities to verify the claim. 

A Vance staffer “asked point-blank, ‘Are the rumors true of pets being taken and eaten [true]?’” City Manager Bryan Heck told the Journal. “I told him no. There was no verifiable evidence or reports to show this was true. I told them these claims were baseless.” 

The subtext, I suspect, is that the people in charge at the Wall Street Journal realize the Springfield-Haitian flap is hurting Republicans more than helping and are trying to tamp it down before it does any more damage.  If they have to throw Vance under the bus, so be it. Nobody likes Vance.

Of course, House Republicans don’t need much help at being their own worst enemies. Some time today the House is supposed to vote on a government funding bill to avoid a partial shutdown starting October 1. “Johnson’s proposed bill combines a six-month stopgap funding measure, known as a continuing resolution, with the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (Save) Act, a controversial proposal that would require people to show proof of citizenship when they register to vote,” says the Guardian. This is on orders from Trump, of course.

This same bill was pulled last week because Johnson realized he didn’t have the votes. Even some of his colleagues are surprised he’s pushing the same bill now.  Oddly, to me anyway, it’s the Crazy Causes that opposes the bill to be voted on today. I take it it’s not crazy enough.

The Senate has already made it known it will not pass the spending bill with the voter measure included. So even if it passes in the House — and it probably won’t — it’s dead in the Senate. And Mitch McConnell is calling out the House maneuver as beyond stupid. Congress should not be risking a shutdown that will be blamed on Republicans right before an election, says Mitch.

If the poison pill spending bill fails to pass in the House, the sensible thing to do would be for the House to quickly pass a “clean” bill that isn’t too crazy so that the Senate will pass it to avoid the shutdown. I don’t think either party wants a shutdown drama right now. But whether the House Crazy Caucus will let Mike Johnson get away with that is a big question. Marjorie Taylor Greene is already on the warpath about a possible “bait and switch.”

“Johnson is leading a fake fight that he has no intention of actually fighting,” Greene said Tuesday on X. “I refuse to lie to anyone that this plan will work and it’s already [dead on arrival] this week. Speaker Johnson needs to go to the Democrats, who he has worked with the entire time, to get the votes he needs to do what he is already planning to do.”

Donald Trump, who has championed baseless claims of widespread non-citizen voting, has increased the pressure on Johnson by insisting that the House should only approve a government funding bill if it is linked to “election security” measures.

“If Republicans in the House, and Senate, don’t get absolute assurances on Election Security, THEY SHOULD, IN NO WAY, SHAPE, OR FORM, GO FORWARD WITH A CONTINUING RESOLUTION ON THE BUDGET,” Trump wrote on his social media platform, Truth Social, last week.

Trump does not care if this costs Republicans the Senate and House. He’s just thinking about himself.

[Update: The bill failed in the House. All but three Dems and 14 Republicans voted no. Marjorie Taylor Greene and Thomas Massie voted present. I’m still looking for the identity of the three Dems who voted yes.]

Dana Milbank:

In the first 18 months of this Congress, only 70 laws were enacted. Calculations by political scientist Tobin Grant, who tracks congressional output over time, put this Congress on course to be the do-nothingest since 1859-1861 — when the Union was dissolving. But Johnson’s House isn’t merely unproductive; it is positively lunatic. Republicans have filled their committee hearings and their bills with white nationalist attacks on racial diversity and immigrants, attempts to ban abortion and to expand access to the sort of guns used in mass shootings, incessant harassment of LGBTQ Americans, and even routine potshots at the U.S. military. They insulted each other’s private parts, accused each other of sexual and financial crimes, and scuffled with each other in the Capitol basement. They screamed “Bullshit!” at President Joe Biden during the State of the Union address. They stood up for the Confederacy and used their official powers to spread conspiracy theories about the “Deep State.” Some even lent credence to the idea that there has been a century-old Deep State coverup of space aliens, with possible involvement by Mussolini and the Vatican.

I understand the ancient Roman Senate was fairly wacky in its later days, also. This is not encouraging.