Cliffnotes of the Zeitgeist, 56th Edition. Timing

February 5, 2024

I have low interest in the Grammy's, but I was passing by the television when Long Suffering Spouse was watching it.  It was just as the Album of the Year was announced, which went to Taylor Swift.

Swift, as we all know, has been the subject of an insane far right conspiracy theory that GOP pundits right now try to nervously laugh off (if you haven't heard it, listen to last weekend's This Week in which the pundit calls it crazy and then realizes that he's pretty much called the entire GOP crazy, tries to laugh it off, and then goes into a tirade about how all football fans are voting for Trump.  Um, crazy much?

Anyhow, Swift, with perfect timing, lingers in her very brief acceptance speech to state she's going to give an announcement that she was going to wait until April to give.  Oh my, what could it be?  A wedding announcement or. . . the much feared Biden endorsement?

Nope, her new album is being released.

Nicely played.

Swift contrasts nicely with Myley Cyrus, who won her first award.

Not so nicely played are the machinations of one Mike Johnson, who it is now clear is nothing more than a puppet of Trump's.  He went on Meet the Press to defend himself, was slammed on that show, and on all the rest of them.

And JD Vance is now pretty much an outright fascist.  Perhaps more so than Trump is claimed to be, although he's paving the way for a violent rejection of the United States Supreme Court.  Vance is pretty desperately campaigning with Donald for the VP slot.

Last prior edition:

Cliffnotes of the Zeitgeist, 55th Edition. Uncle Mike has the floor: Class Is In Session

The 118th Congress. Part II

October 25, 2023

Mike Johnson, who supported Trump's bogus claim to have won the election, has been elected Speaker of the House of Representatives

Other than that he's a Republican from Louisiana, and some kind of lawyer (he claims to be the mysterious category of "Constitutional Lawyer", whatever that is, about all I know about him is that he's very conservative, and an evangelical Christian (of the young earth variety).

A "Constitutional Lawyer" (whatever that is) ought to know that the claims Trump won the election were devoid of legal merit.  A couple of other lawyers involved in such claims have recently plead guilty to crimes associated with that.  Presumably Johnson is immune from such charges, but the fact that he supported sedition under cover of law is distressing.

Harriet Hageman posted his agenda for Congress a couple of days ago.

October 26, 2023

More is becoming known about Johnson.

He's a hardcore conservative, very much of the Republican right.  Any issue that you can think of, on which he's expressed an opinion, is uniformly extremely conservative.

That doesn't mean he's a populist per se, but he did work on a brief that sought to support one of President Trump's Squirrel Ball efforts to overturn the last election. That puts him squarely in league with the those who attempted to use the courts to support sedition, quite a few of whom in the main of that are now pleading guilty to crimes.

He's been an opponent to aid to Ukraine.

He's a serious Evangelical Protestant (which being from Louisiana, he might not have been) who believes in the young earth theory.

He's a denier of man made climate change.

What this will ultimately mean isn't known, but at least it's reasonable to suppose that at this point the GOP in the House is being lead, and is, far right and Protestant Christian Nationalist in view.

Gaetz really won in this, as did Trump.  Gaetz took McCarthy down, and now the very hard right has installed one of their own.  It's really remarkable, to say the least.

October 28, 2023

The House of Representatives is going to pass a bill which funds aid to Israel alone, omitting Ukraine, and which funds the $14B by slashing the same amount from the entity that finds money for the government, the IRS.

That latter part is just plain stupid.

And so the dysfunction shall return. This will go nowhere.

The irrational hatred of the IRS in populist circles is flat out bizarre.  It's almost as if they're encouraging people to cheat on their taxes and preventing that from being discovered, or the rich completely control them.  Neither are true, so what it seems to amount to is the whole scale adoption of a really stupid set of beliefs about taxation.

November 3, 2023

Ted Lieu

@tedlieu

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7h

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Under new Republican leadership, we are voting late at night on … stupid stuff. We are about to vote on: -Reducing salary of EPA Administrator to $1 -Reducing salary of Director of Bureau of Land Management to $1 -Reducing salary of Secretary of the Interior to $1

Congresswoman Chellie Pingree  

@chelliepingree

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9h

I just had to explain to my Republican colleague from Georgia that Robert E. Lee was not a founding father. It’s been a very long day on the House floor.

November 8, 2023

November 8, 2023

Hamas v. Israel War

U.S. Rep Rashida Tlaib was censured for her "river to the sea" comment.  Tlaib is of Palestinian extraction and has a vocal critic of Israel.

U.S. Rep. Harriet Hageman claimed n a television interview that Palestinian protests in the US were due to Palestinian infiltration of the U.S. government.

November 14, 2023

Eight Republicans voted with Democrats against a resolution to impeach Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas over the border crisis.  The vote was 209 to 201, showing how extreme the GOP is, but also that the far right lacks complete control over the Republican members.

November 15, 2023

The House passed a stop gap spending resolution yesterday to avoid a government shutdown, but the GOP was forced to rely upon Democratic votes in order to pass it.  That should be normal, of course, but with the current Republican makeup it is not.

Johnson is proving not to be a slave to his far right, which in turn will either result in his being removed liked McCarthy or perhaps start off a return to more normal behavior.

November 16, 2023

The Senate also passed the spending bill.

December 1, 2023

George Santos has been expelled from Congress.

December 2, 2023

Following up on this, the expulsion of Santos is real progress as by doing in the GOP is potentially cutting into its three vote margin in the House, and did it anyway.  It shows, at long last, that there are some standards which cannot be breached.

December 6, 2023

Getting a jump on behaving like a Soviet court in the early USSR, House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan and a subcommittee chairman on the House Administration Committee announced Tuesday that they would be investigating any "cooperation" between Fulton County, Georgia, District Attorney Fani Willis and the former House Jan. 6 committee.  

Because, after all, it would be awful if the Dear Leader's behavior were to have come fully to light, as that would demonstrate independence of thought and loyalty to the truth.  We can't have that.

Cont:

Kevin McCarthy, who was complicit in Trump's recovery from his brief fall from Republican grace, and who rode Trump's favor into a brief Speakership, shall resign from Congress at the end of this month.  In so doing, he stated: “I have decided to depart the House at the end of this year to serve America in new ways". This will reduce the GOP majority in the House down to a single seat, at least temporarily.

December 14, 2023

The House is going to have a totally pointless impeachment inquiry regarding Joe Biden based on his son Hunter's conduct and baseless allegations that Hunter's business dealings involve his father.

Some assert that this is revenge dictated by "one day dictator" hopeful Donald Trump, whose own children certainly were active under his name during his presidency. Trading on a famous parent's name certainly isn't illegal, and is frankly nearly inevitable.  Congressional Medal of Honor Winner Theodore Roosevelt Jr certainly didn't become well known independently.  Of course, the baseless allegations here are that Biden was somehow involved in Hunter Biden's activities.

Whether Donald Trump ordered this or not, the level of delusion in the GOP side of the House of Representatives is sufficient to have likely brought this about independently.  Ironically, it's now come to light that the individual who will head this sorry affair, James Comer, has a complicated set of financial arrangements not unlike that of Hunter Biden, although he's not being accused of illegal activities.

At any rate, there are not enough votes right now to impeach Biden, and this is yet another example of the House of Representatives, under GOP control, doing something political that will do nothing whatsoever other than to distract.

All the Republicans voted for the measure, all the Democrats voted against it.

The long ago days under Kevin McCarthy already look better.

Last edition:

The 118th Congress.

Mike Johnson and the Sinai?

The Speaker of the House?  No, that's Oliver Cromwell, not Mike Johnson. . . yet.

Recently, I published this:

Lex Anteinternet: A Protestant Country. It's history, and what it me...: Puritans on their way to church. One of the blogs that's linked into the right on this site recently had this item: The Declaration of I...

In that thread, I addressed the New Apostolic Reformation movement which sees itself as having a mission to make restore a (Protestant) Christian culture to the nation, some by any means possible.

Some have wondered about Speaker of the House Johnson's connection with this.

Well, listen to this:  Johnson giving keynote speech to National Association of Christian Lawmakers.

As Rolling Stone summarized it:

The Lord began to wake me up, through this three-week process, in the middle of night to speak to me,” Johnson insisted. “Now at the time,” he continued, “I assumed the Lord is going to choose a new Moses.” But because of his own lesser rank among the GOP’s leadership, Johnson said, he believed the heavenly message to be: “You’re gonna allow me to be Aaron to Moses,” citing the role of the Old Testament prophet’s brother and biblical sidekick.

But then Johnson watched as candidate after candidate failed to generate the necessary Republican support to win the Speakership. “Ultimately 13 people ran for the post. And the Lord kept telling me to, ‘Wait, wait, wait,’” Johnson recalled. “So I waited, I waited. And then at the end … the Lord said, ‘Now step forward.’” Johnson regaled the audience with his surprise to be tapped as the Moses figure: “Me?” Johnson said. “I’m supposed to be Aaron.” But that was not the message, Johnson insisted, recalling: “‘No,’ the Lord said, ‘Step forward.’

Now, if you are Catholic, like me, this is the sort of thing that causes you to peek outside early in the morning to see if Oliver Cromwell and the New Model Army have shown up yet.

Make no mistake about this, there's something going on here that is far beyond the normal American association of politics with religion.  A person's politics should be informed by their religion.

But people who see themselves in the role of prophets, let alone one of the most significant prophets of all time . . .?

Johnson clearly sees himself as shepherding the People of God somewhere.

Lame. Cliffnotes of the Zeitgeist, 52nd Edition.

That being the responses of university heads from Harvard, M.I.T. and the University of Pennsylvania to easy questions, or really even a question, from Representative Elise Stefanik, Republican of New York, somebody who, when she appears here, normally appears here for selling her soul for Donald Trump.

Here, Stefanik, who asked the presidents of the three major universities  if calling for the genocide of Jews violated the code of conduct at their schools.  All three couldn't do it without massive qualification, which basically amounted to saying that calling for mass murder is okay, as long as you don't actually attempt it.

Liz Magill of Penn State had a particularly difficult time. As the New York Times has summarized it:

Much of the criticism landed heavily on Ms. Magill because of an extended back-and-forth with Representative Stefanik.

Ms. Stefanik said that in campus protests, students had chanted support for intifada, an Arabic word that means uprising and that many Jews hear as a call for violence against them.

Ms. Stefanik asked Ms. Magill, “Does calling for the genocide of Jews violate Penn’s rules or code of conduct, yes or no?”

Ms. Magill replied, “If the speech turns into conduct, it can be harassment.”

Ms. Stefanik pressed the issue: “I am asking, specifically: Calling for the genocide of Jews, does that constitute bullying or harassment?”

Ms. Magill, a lawyer who joined Penn last year with a pledge to promote campus free speech, replied, “If it is directed and severe, pervasive, it is harassment.”

Ms. Stefanik responded: “So the answer is yes.”

Ms. Magill said, “It is a context-dependent decision, congresswoman.”

Ms. Stefanik exclaimed: “That’s your testimony today? Calling for the genocide of Jews is depending upon the context?”

Let's be clear, it's only "context-dependent" if you have allowed your status as a lawyer to completely rot your brain, but then, a lot of lawyers have done just that.  The easy answer to this is this:

Does calling for the genocide of Jews violate Penn’s rules or code of conduct, yes or no?”

Well if it doesn't, it sure ought to, there's no room for that sort of thing whatsoever and anyone calling for genocide of anyone ought to be expelled from higher education and run out of town on a rail.

It's just this sort of left wing muddy mindedness that has led us to the situation where a lot of Americans now feel it'd be better to appoint a Caudillo than elect a President. If the nation's academic, and mostly left wing, elite can't figure out that murdering Jews is bad, there's an existential problem in the American intellectual left.   This is exactly the sort of thing that makes some people think that Mike Johnson declaring himself to be a latter-day Moses might not be so bad.

Last Prior Edition:

Why specific movements on the left always end up being disregarded. Sense and Solidarity. Cliffnotes of the Zeitgeist, 51st edition.