“Insanity”: House in Total Chaos After Shutdown

Bedlam has consumed the House of Representatives since the end of the government shutdown.

Lawmakers don’t seem to remember how to get along with one another after a whopping 54-day recess. Instead, they’re practically at each other’s throats, with several major intra- and interparty clashes taking center stage in the lower chamber.

On Tuesday, Democratic Representative Marie Gluesenkamp Perez’s resolution to rebuke her liberal colleague Representative Chuy Garcia passed the House, formally reprimanding the Chicago-area politico for attempting to handpick his successor.

Hours later, the House deliberated on censuring Virgin Islands Delegate Stacey Plaskett. Documents released from the Epstein estate revealed Plaskett had texted with Jeffrey Epstein during a 2019 Oversight Committee hearing, using his answers to craft questions for the president’s former fixer Michael Cohen.

After that vote failed, Representative Lauren Boebert—a member of the conservative coalition that penned the censure—practically exploded at her fellow Republicans, torching them for failing to act while they hold majorities in both chambers of Congress.

“It was multiple F-bombs,” one Republican who witnessed the tirade told NBC News. “At least one of them that I heard clearly was, ‘What the f--- am I doing here?’”

But wait, there’s more! Representative Nancy Mace moved Wednesday to force a vote on censuring embattled Florida Representative Cory Mills. The effort would strip Mills from his committee appointments, potentially removing him from the Armed Services and Foreign Affairs committees.

Last month, a judge granted a restraining order against Mills after his ex-girlfriend accused him of “harassment, threatening to release sexual videos, and to harm future boyfriends.” It’s hard to imagine that didn’t catch Mace’s attention, since she has spent the better part of the year working to introduce legislation to curb revenge porn.

The House Ethics Committee announced Wednesday that it would open an investigation into Mills, but Mace’s attempt to censure him before that investigation has even begun rubbed one of her fellow Republicans the wrong way.

“It’s insanity. They want to convict and sentence people, and then send it to Ethics for investigation. Ass backwards,” one lawmaker told NBC.

House Speaker Mike Johnson thinks it’s “wildly inappropriate” for Democrats to tell troops to obey the U.S. Constitution, but he wasn’t the slightest bit concerned about President Donald Trump’s threat to execute Democratic lawmakers.

Speaking to the press Thursday, Johnson was asked to respond to Trump’s claim that a group of Democratic lawmakers had committed “seditious behavior punishable by death” by posting a video reminding members of the military and intelligence community not to obey illegal orders.

Johnson fumed about the message these lawmakers were sending to impressionable “young troops,” but he did not address the president’s own violent rhetoric. “I mean think of what the threat that is to our national security and what it means to our institutions,” the speaker said. 

“We have got to raise the bar in Congress, this is out of control, and it is wildly inappropriate. And for a senator like Mark Kelly or any member of Congress in the House or Senate to be engaged in that kind of talk is to me just so beyond the pale,” Johnson said. 

What was beyond the pale was Trump’s fury at lawmakers reminding troops and intelligence officials  that they’d sworn an oath to defend and obey the U.S. Constitution—not the president or his administration. 

Senator Marsha Blackburn also defended Trump’s outrageous response during an appearance on Newsmax Thursday, claiming that members of the military were simply “there to carry out their orders.”

Both Johnson and Blackburn seem to think that diminishing the agency and intelligence of servicemembers is the best way to justify the president’s outrageous response. 

While the lawmakers didn’t get specific about what orders were unconstitutional, there have been major legal concerns about a number of the president’s actions. A recent report revealed that the top military lawyer for the command overseeing Trump’s strikes on alleged “drug boats” thought they were illegal—but the Pentagon ignored him. Additionally, the Trump administration’s federal law enforcement takeover of American cities has also been challenged in courts around the country.

Federal prosecutors are seeking to dismiss charges against a woman shot by Border Patrol last month.

Marimar Martinez and her co-defendant, Anthony Ruiz, were charged with impeding a federal officer with a deadly weapon when her car collided with a Border Patrol vehicle in Chicago’s Brighton Park neighborhood on October 4. But Martinez has argued the opposite: Border Patrol agent Charles Exum crashed into her car, and then shot her.

On Thursday, prosecutors moved to dismiss the charges just before a new hearing in federal court, where Martinez and Ruiz’s attorneys were going to reveal new text messages from Exum that have not yet been made public. Exum has already gotten in trouble for Signal texts bragging about the shooting to his fellow agents, saying, “I fired 5 rounds and she had 7 holes. Put that in your book boys.” Exum also sent a news article to another recipient saying, “Read it. 5 shots, 7 holes.”

The move to dismiss charges suggests damaging material was going to be revealed in the new texts. Already, the facts in the case reflected poorly on Exum, as he quickly drove his government-issued Chevrolet Tahoe to a Border Patrol mechanic in Maine for repairs before any investigation could examine the damage. Also, video from the incident allegedly shows Exum saying, “Do something, bitch,” before getting out of his car and shooting Martinez.

President Trump’s “Operation Midway Blitz,” ostensibly to enforce immigration law, has resulted in brutality against protesters and multiple court rulings against Border Patrol and Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Border Patrol chief Gregory Bovino left Chicago after being rebuked by a federal judge for using tear gas and other riot-prevention methods against protesters.

Martinez was a victim of this half-baked operation, along with countless immigrants in Chicago. But the White House is doing the same thing in other cities across the U.S., such as Charlotte, North Carolina. How will the government be held accountable?

President Trump is so devoted to protecting the artificial intelligence industry that he is preparing to sign an executive order attacking states’ rights to regulate it.

The order would direct the Justice Department to sue states that pass AI regulation laws. It would also have Attorney General Pam Bondi create an “AI Litigation Task Force” to “challenge state AI laws, including on grounds that such laws unconstitutionally regulate interstate commerce, are preempted by existing federal regulations, or are otherwise unlawful.” The order would also have the Commerce Department withholding federal funding from states that didn’t fall in line with Trump on AI.

Trump could issue the executive order as soon as Friday, according to reports.

This summer, the Senate voted overwhelmingly against an effort to restrict AI regulation on the state level. Many of Trump’s own party members disagreed with the legislation on the grounds that it would protect an industry that may cut jobs, hurt children, and drive up utility prices. Those same issues—along with the erosion of states’ rights at the center of the effort—are still prevalent.

“There should not be a moratorium on states rights for AI,” MAGA Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene wrote on X Thursday. “States must retain the right to regulate and make laws on AI and anything else for the benefit of their state. Federalism must be preserved.”

MTG is unfortunately correct here. States should play a large role in determining the extent to which they want AI active within their borders. Trump using an executive order with the Justice and Commerce departments to prioritize AI companies over real people feels like a shrewd, neoliberal move—not very small government or antifederalist for a Republican president.

“Preemption is a question for Congress, which they have considered and rejected, and should continue to reject,” Center for Democracy and Technology director Travis Hall told The Washington Post. “This proposal is shocking in its disregard for the democratic processes of state governments in their work to address the real and documented harms arising from AI tools.”

Even the top military lawyer for the command overseeing President Donald Trump’s strikes on alleged “drug boats” thought they were illegal—but the Pentagon ignored him.

Senior government officials reportedly dismissed legal concerns raised by the senior judge advocate general at the U.S. Southern Command in Miami, who warned against the Trump administration’s plan to bomb foreign vessels the government claims are transporting drugs. He warned that the strikes could be considered extrajudicial killings, according to two senior U.S. officials, two senior congressional aides, and two former senior U.S. officials who spoke with NBC News.

Among those senior officials were members of the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel, the six sources said.

Three people familiar with the matter identified the senior judge advocate general as Marine Col. Paul Meagher, who is the top lawyer overseeing command for military operations in the Caribbean.

In a statement to NBC News, chief Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell denied that anyone had “raised concerns to any attorneys in the chain of command regarding the legality of the strikes conducted thus far.”

Historically, the U.S. would use intelligence to stop vessels that could be involved in drug trafficking, and then board and search them. But starting in September, Trump has opted to just blow them up, killing dozens of crew members, violating international law, and costing the U.S. valuable intelligence allies.

The Trump administration has claimed that its military strikes on these foreign vessels have targeted “unlawful combatants” engaged in an “armed conflict.” But a closer look at some of the men killed in these strikes revealed that they were not so-called “narco-terrorists” or members of criminal gangs or cartels. Crucially, they weren’t all smuggling drugs. Those that were were smuggling cocaine, not synthetic opioids responsible for killing tens of thousands of Americans every year.