Category: Uncategorized

Cline backs his friend and donor Gaetz for AG

Ben Cline and his pal Matt Gaetz at a CPAC conference in 2021

Despite being credibly accused of having sex with at least one underaged girl and being an all-around scumbag, President-elect Trump’s nominee for Attorney General, Matt Gaetz, has received the support of his pal Congressman Cline.

“He is a warrior against the weaponization of the Justice Department and the lawfare that’s been waged by the Biden administration,” Cline argued. “So, he knows exactly what has to happen to the Justice Department to fix it.”

Although Cline has expressed support for some of Trump’s appointments on his X account, he hasn’t said a word on his social media about the nomination of the utterly unqualified Gaetz. So I am pleased to help him get this information to his Sixth District constituents, whether he likes it or not.

As previously reported here, Cline received a generous $2,000 donation for his 2020 election campaign from his buddy.

Cline loses an election

Axios reports:

Rep. August Pfluger (R-Texas) was elected to serve as the next chairman of the Republican Study Committee on Friday, edging out Rep. Ben Cline (R-Va.) in an 80-57 vote.

Why it matters: The position has served as a springboard to bigger roles for numerous House Republicans, including Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.), Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-La.), former Vice President Mike Pence (R-Ind.) and Sen.-elect Jim Banks (R-Ind.).

May this be a precedent for the 2026 election in the Sixth District of Virginia.

Cline’s budget-cutting fantasy

I’m pleased Congressman Cline got some attention for this:

Incoming Department of Government Efficiency head and world’s richest man Elon Musk has proposed cutting $2 trillion in government spending—more than Congress’s entire discretionary budget. But some of Donald Trump’s key allies don’t see anything wrong with that picture.

In an interview with Fox Business on Friday, Virginia Representative Ben Cline claimed that it “absolutely is” possible to slash that much cash from the budget.

“We can do it, and make sure that we focus funding toward the American people and not toward bureaucracy in Washington,” Cline said.

Just a reminder: Congress’s discretionary budget funds practically the entire executive branch, doling out funding for the military, national security, and federal agencies.

The key to this impossible feat, Cline suggests, is to cut “bureaucracy.”

“Give me one idea in terms of what’s significant that you think, ‘That’s got to go right away?’” asked Fox’s Maria Bartiromo. [Yes, her again.]

“Well let’s just look at the Department of Education and how billions of dollars stay in Washington, funding bureaucrats whose simple goal is to interfere in the decisions about educational choice at local and state levels,” Cline responded.

But that’s not an accurate picture of the DOE. The federal government provides 13.6 percent of funding for public K-12 education across the nation. In Virginia specifically, it spends $2,020 per pupil per year, providing approximately 12 percent of the state’s education funding, according to the Education Data Initiative.

How much of this is Cline prepared to cut from schools in the Sixth District? Or does he really believe that the bulk of federal spending on education goes to out-of-touch Washington bureaucrats?

This is one of many topics about which Cline needs to be asked, but somehow never is asked.

Cline boasts about project funded by law he opposed

Earlier this month Congressman Cline posted glowingly on Instagram about the new Melrose Plaza in Roanoke, scheduled to open soon.

It will include a grocery run by Goodwill Industries of the Valleys.

The Roanoke Times reported:

The project will cost $30 million. The city has set aside $10 million in federal pandemic relief money to make Melrose Plaza happen and Goodwill has pledged $8 million in in-kind contributions.

The $10 million in federal pandemic relief was provided through the American Rescue Plan Act. What Cline unsurprisingly didn’t mention is that when ARPA was up for a vote in Congress, he and every other Republican member voted NO.

In other words, if the vote on ARPA has gone Cline’s way, Melrose Plaza likely would never have happened.

(Hat tip: Abby Schweber)

Cline’s anti-abortion extremism endangered national security

Allison Gil became pregnant as a result of a violent rape while serving in the US military. She was able to get an abortion in Florida. But since the Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision, the Biden administration has adopted a policy enabling servicewomen who are stationed in states that outlaw or severely restrict abortion to travel to other states that allow the procedure.

Congressman Cline is one of Donald Trump’s “Republican lapdogs in Congress” to which Ms. Gil refers.

Last year Cline endangered national security by joining an effort to overturn the Biden administration rule– and prevent servicewomen from obtaining abortion care even under the most horrible circumstances.

Read about it here.