Conservatives on Wednesday tanked a procedural rule vote in revolt against House Speaker Mike Johnson’s top-line spending deal brokered with Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, effectively leaving the House at a standstill nine days ahead of a government shutdown deadline. 

“We’re making a statement that what the deal . . . that doesn’t secure the border, and that doesn’t cut our spending — and it’s going to be passed, apparently, under suspension of the rules by predominantly Democrat votes — is unacceptable,” said Freedom Caucus Chair Bob Good, R-Va.

The failed rule vote effectively leaves the House at a standstill as GOP leadership is blocked from bringing any legislation to the floor unless it has already been noticed on the suspension calendar. Read Full Story

• The Hill: McConnell Steps Up Personal Effort to Win Ukraine, Border Deal 
• The Washington Times: Sen. Ron Johnson: Border Talks With Democrats Like Asking Arsonist to Put Out Fire
• The Daily Caller: Hunter Biden Flees Committee Hearing
• The Federalist: Joe Biden Loves ‘Democracy’ as Long as His Enemies Sit Behind Bars
• American Greatness: Biden ‘Saves’ Democracy by Destroying It

Democrats won’t concede a defeat in the 2024 election.

President Joe Biden’s Jan. 5 address at Valley Forge, Pennsylvania, heralded the Democrats’ much-predicted decision to switch the focus of the president’s reelection campaign from “Bidenomics” to the one theme that has been a winner for them in the last two years: Democrats helped stave off disaster in the 2022 midterms (they lost the House but held the Senate) by declaring that the only way to save American “democracy” was to defeat former President Donald Trump and Republicans.

The speech was a predictable example of Biden’s hyperbole and bluster. He waved the proverbial “bloody shirt” of Jan. 6, 2021, and invoked the specter of a president and party that supported a so-called insurrection. He linked Trump not just to the Capitol rioters but to Russian President Vladimir Putin (a not-so-subtle invocation of the Russian-collusion conspiracy theory) and also to King George III. And he dropped George Washington’s name so often it seemed as if Biden was saying the choice was not so much between himself and Trump but between the 45th president and the first.

But one didn’t have to read between the lines of Biden’s speech to understand that — whatever one might think of Trump’s own brand of bluster and hyperbole — much of this argument was not just hypocritical but pure projection. As has been apparent ever since Democrats immediately began rebranding the Capitol riot as an “insurrection,” this is all a cover for their plans to ensure they can’t lose the 2024 election. It is also laying the groundwork for an insurrection — which they’d depict as a defense of “democracy” rather than an example of Jan. 6-like “treason” — if they do lose. Read Full Story

• American Thinker: Rep. Clay Higgins: FBI Lured Americans Into Jan. 6 Trap
• Washington Examiner: Rep. Roy Doesn’t Rule Out Ousting Speaker Mike Johnson
• The Hill: 5 things to Know About Speaker Johnson’s Spending Deal With Democrats
• Townhall: House Republican to Introduce Articles of Impeachment Against Austin
• PJ Media: Bombshell About Jan. 6 Might Make You Rethink Everything

House Republicans are beginning a crucial election year with a heightened focus on border issues, as negotiations in the Senate on asylum policy changes drag on and the conference prepares to bring impeachment proceedings against Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas. 

House Republicans are planning a trip to the border on Wednesday, with 60 members expected to join Speaker Mike Johnson on the visit to Eagle Pass, Texas. 

Republicans have long made migration issues central to their messaging efforts, even passing a sweeping package last year, the H.R. 2 Secure the Border bill, that includes limits on asylum eligibility and restarts border wall construction. Read Full Story

• PJ Media: There Was a Time When Governments Tried to Make Their People Better
• Washington Examiner: Thomas Massie: House Will Have Final Say Over Trump 2024 Election Ballots
• American Greatness: The Utter Insanity of Joe Biden’s Open Border
• American Thinker: America’s New Arrivals Now Stage ‘Bogus Robberies’ to Cheat System
• The Daily Caller: Dates to Know for Jam-Packed Election Year in 2024