A Record Setting Do Nothing Congress
A plurality of Iowa Republican caucus-goers ... say, ‘More please, I like this Hitler language’
The graph (Via Axios) of bills passed leading into this post says a lot about today’s Republican congress. You’d almost think this inaction was intentional until, upon further reflection, it dawns on you that not doing anything was the plan.
Now that the GOP has a narrow majority in the House, proposed legislation generally contains poison pills if it would advance a Democratic agenda.
Twenty-two bills were passed, with eight being vetoed for a net 13 pieces of legislation. These numbers are different depending on who’s writing about them; I went with the Washington Post.
Limits on abortion and roadblocks to rights for LGBTQ+ humans are the venom favored for must-pass legislation. Hometown media tells the story of the brave battles these obstructionists are fighting, and Congresscritters go home to raise money.
There were two narrow escapes from a government shutdown, with no actual federal budget considered. Chances are the closer we get to November the more likely we’ll see a shutdown, with the Republicans hoping to figure out a way to blame President Biden.
The House did have 19 votes for Speaker, with Democrat Hakeem Jefferies getting the highest cumulative total votes. A pasty-faced Mike Johnson eventually prevailed, largely because he had a low profile and was good at masking his connections to dominionist christofascists.
All this inaction could have been bad news for the House GOP, except that they spiced things up with fruitless investigations, hints of internecine violence, and a vote to open an inquiry into President Biden. And who could forget the photos of Hunter Biden’s penis displayed on the floor of the House?
Asked about what crime the impeachment inquiry was being undertaken to investigate, Rep. Guy Reschenthaler (R-Pa.) said, “Once I get time, I will explain what we’re looking at.”
Alexandra Petri at the Washington Post has a semi-satirical rundown of the things done and not done in the House of Representatives. Her conclusion:
Look, you were busy this year lurching from crisis to crisis. It’s understandable you didn’t get to everything! Not every year can be a year in which you serve your constituents or pass legislation. Some years, you have to ignore a lot. According to a group of Capitol Hill interns and fellows, you received 693,170 voice mails, letters and calls demanding a cease-fire in Gaza! Here are just a few of the other things you ignored:
PEPFAR (Emergency Aids Relief)
Child tax credit
Aid for Ukraine
Regular appropriations
Farm bill
Maybe next year!
The tail –aka the base– is wagging the dog. A billionaire-inspired part of the electorate has given up on democracy, doing their bit to denigrate its institutions, and is anxiously awaiting the coming of an authoritarian figure to rule the country.
Given the public’s short-term memory when it comes to news and politics, a do-nothing Congress is just what the Dear Leader and his acolytes need to portray the current administration as not doing anything to “save” America.
The party largely doesn't see the need to mask their intent anymore. The enemy has been defined as vermin who are poisoning the blood of the country.
From HuffPo:
Jake Tapper reacted to Iowa Republicans rolling with Donald Trump’s “Hitler language” after the former president’s anti-immigrant “poisoning the blood” remarks sparked condemnation that he was echoing the Nazi leader.
The CNN anchor on Wednesday cited a “shocking” Des Moines Register/NBC News/Mediacom poll that shows 42% of the state’s likely Republican caucusgoers saying the GOP presidential front-runner’s comment makes them “more likely” to support him, whereas 28% said they were less likely, and 29% said it doesn’t matter.
“So, a plurality of Republican caucusgoers ... say, ‘More please, I like this Hitler language,’” he noted.
At the bottom of all this right-wing nihilism are racism and patriarchy, two ways of life designed to protect those (or who think they should be) at the top of the economic heap.
Our current downward spiral –politically speaking– started with the election of President Obama. The gritty, shitty troops of the right waved their Gadsden flags and spread their fear-based messages throughout the country. Sen Mitch McConnell showed how this could be done on Capitol Hill by denying the administration the right to appoint Supreme Court Justices.
Politico, of all places, has a deep dive into moments in time where the Republican Party decided to buy into hate –aka the Southern Strategy–even though the process started in a Detroit suburb. Read the entirety of In 1967, a Black Man and a White Woman Bought a Home. American Politics Would Never Be the Same.
When Trump suggested in 2020 that Biden wants to “abolish suburbs” — its racial implications clear to anyone paying attention — it was hard not to hear the echoes of the very people George Romney denounced in the 1960s and ’70s. “The Suburban Housewives of America must read this article,” Trump tweeted in July 2020, linking to a New York Post op-ed. “Biden will destroy your neighborhood and your American Dream.” The polemic he linked to was an evisceration of HUD’s policy called Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing, a holdover from the Obama administration that required suburbs to “do more than simply not discriminate,” and expand the amount of affordable housing in those communities. (It is literally a policy that George Romney advocated when he led HUD.)
In other words: The same fight George Romney had with Warren goes on today, in national politics, with Romney’s granddaughter leading a party whose standard-bearer in 2016, 2020 and, in all likelihood, 2024, has made opposition to Romney-style suburban desegregation central to his campaign’s appeal.
Every Republican accusation is actually an admission.
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Friday News Clips
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Police have recovered second Ziegler sex video, sources say Via the Florida Center for Government Accountability
A second video has been recovered by police showing Bridget Ziegler, a cofounder of the conservative Moms for Liberty, engaging in sexual relations with a woman, sources said. It is not known if the woman in the video is the same woman who has alleged she was sexually assaulted by Christian Ziegler. Neither Christian nor Bridget Ziegler have responded to requests for comment from the Trident.
It was on October 2 that, according to the police affidavit, a tryst was planned with both Zieglers and the woman. The woman canceled the planned encounter after learning Bridget Ziegler was no longer available to attend. “Sorry I was mostly in for her,” the woman wrote in a message.
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A Second Taped Call Imperils Trump Via the Status Kuo
The Detroit News reported on Thursday evening that then-president Trump made yet another phone call—besides the infamous “find 11,780 votes” call to Georgia’s Secretary of State—to pressure two local canvassers, Monica Palmer and William Hartmann, to throw a big wrench into Michigan’s certification of its electoral count. Specifically, Trump directly urged them, in violation of their duties on the Board of Canvassers, not to sign the certification of results from Wayne County, home to Detroit, even though they had voted to certify it.
The call was captured in a series of four audio recordings that were reviewed by the Detroit News.
Also on the call was the national GOP Party Chair Ronna McDaniel. An unnamed person, who was present with both Palmer and Hartmann in a vehicle where they took the call together, made the four audio recordings.
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US Desperate for Post-Gaza Palestinian Partners Via Spy Talk
NOTHING GLIMMERED SO BRIGHTLY for Washington during the long twilight years of the Cold War than the prospect of finding “third force” democratic alternatives to Soviet-backed revolutionary movements in post-colonial Asia, Africa and the Middle East. In Israel today, the Biden administration is pursuing a similar Hail Mary strategy, urging the Netanyahu regime to allow a kind of third force of democracy-minded Palestinians to supplant Hamas in postwar Gaza and the occupied West Bank.
It’s been a nonstarter for any number of reasons over the past several decades, but not for want of trying. Indeed, the U.S. has been down this road many times before. Few would be surprised if it turned out the CIA was scouring the globe for right-minded, so to speak, Palestinians. Good luck with that.
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