With as many entries as this was getting that were off-topic, it clearly deserved its own trailing thread.
The 118th Congress. A fairly sad state of affairs.
September 29, 2023
California Senator Dianne Feinstein has died at 90 years of age, having served beyond that period of time during which a simple appreciate of nature and statistics should have led her to step down. Her replacement will now have to be chosen by the Governor of California.
While Feinstein will be widely lauded, there are those who have a less charitable view of her, including myself. Whatever a person's overall views are, however, she served in the Senate passed the point at which she should have yielded to a younger person and now choosing her replacement, and now it will come at a highly politically charged point in our recent political history.
Subsidiarity Economics. The Shutdown edition.
Kevin McCarthy should hang his head in shame.
What all will close, assuming that the House doesn't get its act together today, isn't clear. Some things will, but "vital" things apparently will not. Some Federal employees will be asked to work without pay, which is interesting, as working without pay is involuntary servitude, and was banned by a post Civil War constitutional amendment.
Congress, oddly, will get paid.
The mail will continue to be delivered, as the U.S. Post Office funds itself.
Arizona and Utah have voted to spend state funds to keep their National Parks open. Senator John Barrasso asked the Secretary of the Interior to use park entry fees to do the same.
Fat Bear Week is off due to the dysfunctional House of Representatives having been taken hostage by populists.
Government contracts and modifications to contracts will not be issued.
Medicaid will continue to be paid. Medicare will continue on.
The FHA will have limited staff and loans it processes will be delayed.
The SBA will shut down.
The ATF might not process background checks, which may lead to a complete halt on the sale of firearms by licensed firearm's dealers.
The latter is the thing that Wyomingites are likely to complain about right away. People in industries supported by tourism are likely to notice the closure of the parks rapidly.
All of this, of course, is because this will be a managed shut down, which is really a limited shutdown or a slow-down. If things continue for some time, and this time they might, a real shutdown may creep in, which Wyomingites, in spite of apparently disdaining the Federal Government, would really feel. A closure of the airports, for example, could be expected at some point, And a cessation of petroleum production on Federal lands due to a lack of Federal oversight. Perhaps a cessation of grazing on the Federal domain for the same reason. And a lack of highway funds.
None of that will happen rapidly, of course. Or maybe at all.
September 30, 2023.
We’re likely to avert a shutdown, but the clown show continues
Let the grousing now being.
Not from Reich, with whom I obviously have a love/hate relationship, but from the MAGA far right out in the hinterlands, who will be outraged, outraged I tell you, and they'll tell you on their way from the television to the refirgerator for a Coors Lite (can't touch that Bud, of course) who would, they'll say, have enjoyed the shutdown. . .right up until they didn't, and then somehow, it would have been the Democrats fault.Congress passed a 45-day stopgap spending bill yesterday. In doing so, Speaker McCarthy noted:
We’re going to be adults in the room. And we’re going to keep government open.
Tonight, bipartisan majorities in the House and Senate voted to keep the government open, preventing an unnecessary crisis that would have inflicted needless pain on millions of hardworking Americans. This bill ensures that active-duty troops will continue to get paid, travelers will be spared airport delays, millions of women and children will continue to have access to vital nutrition assistance, and so much more. This is good news for the American people.But I want to be clear: we should never have been in this position in the first place. Just a few months ago, Speaker McCarthy and I reached a budget agreement to avoid precisely this type of manufactured crisis. For weeks, extreme House Republicans tried to walk away from that deal by demanding drastic cuts that would have been devastating for millions of Americans. They failed.While the Speaker and the overwhelming majority of Congress have been steadfast in their support for Ukraine, there is no new funding in this agreement to continue that support. We cannot under any circumstances allow American support for Ukraine to be interrupted. I fully expect the Speaker will keep his commitment to the people of Ukraine and secure passage of the support needed to help Ukraine at this critical moment.
McCarthy had to rely on Democrats to pass the bill, and will now surely face an effort aimed at his removal by his hard right.
October 2, 2023
Florida Congressman Matt Gaetz, who was instrumental in defeating a Republican bill to keep the budget rolling that included many of the things populist are demanding, is going to try to remove McCarthy as Speaker of the House.
cont:
Gaetz filed a motion to vacate, which would replace McCarthy as Speaker of the House.
To survive, McCarthy now needs the cooperation of Democrats, maybe.
Meanwhile, there is a long brewing effort to remove Gaetz from Congress due to ethics concerns.
October 3, 2023
California Gov. Gavin Newsom selected Laphonza Butler, a Democratic strategist and adviser to Kamala Harris’ 2020 presidential campaign, to fill the late Dianne Feinstein's U.S. Senate seat.
I know nothing about Butler, and she may be supremely qualified, but its hard not to assume there's a fair amount of box checking going on in the selection, something that Democratic politicians are particularly likely to do. Butler is black, fulfilling a Newsom promise, and she's gay, making her the first black openly gay U.S. Senator. Should that matter? No, but its statistically improbable while also fulfilling promises to one major Democratic demographic and also satisfying, maybe, the desires of another.
cont:
As the Democrats would not step in, a debate is now going on to remove Kevin McCarthy as Speaker of the House, even though the GOP has nobody lined up to replace him.
cont:
And now the vote is in and McCarthy has been removed, although it's not impossible he may be put back in the position.
Assuming that does not occur, McCarthy deserves his fate by trying to give too much to too many on the Republican right, a task that ultimately proved to be unworkable. He's a figure in Donald Trump's revival, and therefore deserves the disrespect given to him by Democrats in this recent drama. Who replaces him, however, is an open question. Things could go from bad to worse.
In any event, the U.S. House of Representatives now looks about as bad as it ever has.
cont:
Only 8 Republicans voted to remove McCarthy. The rest were Democrats. So, ironically, the hard right populists had to depend on the votes of the Democrats to remove him.
cont:
McCarthy has indicated he won't run for Speaker again.
And so his fate was sealed by Donald Trump, whom he kissed up to post Insurrection. He deserves his fate, and his place in history will not be a comfortable one.
It'll be interesting to see if his district in Bakersfield reelects him.
And it will be interesting to see if the Republicans retain the House next fall.
October 4, 2023, cont:
Jim Jordan is running for Speaker of the House.
As is Steve Scalise.
October 7, 2023
A vague draft Trump movement exists, although it appears that Trump himself has chosen not to support it. He's supporting Jim Jordan. Of course, he had supported McCarthy.
Liz Cheney gave a speech decrying the nomination of Jordan yesterday in Missoula.
October 8, 2023
Forty-five Republicans have signed a letter labeling the removal of McCarthy as "shameful".
October 12, 2023
Steve Scalise received the nomination of the GOP yesterday and has dropped out of contention today, showing just what a mess the GOP is.
October 13, 2023
Now Jim Jordan has been nominated, although as of yet, he does not have the votes to secure the position.
October 18, 2023
Cynthia Lummis' support for the SAFER banking bill is causing some in Wyoming o think she's a closet supporter of legalizing marijuana, which shows just how odd the times really are.
There's no way she's a supporter of legalizing marijuana.
Banking for marijuana entities, in those states where there are no prohibitions, is very difficult as it still remains against Federal law, even if the Federal government doesn't enforce the law. As a result, it's heavily a cash only business in which the Sinaloa Cartel has stepped into to launder the money. Given that, buyers of buds who think they're just supporting some innocent business, its health concern aside, are most likely financing organized crime. Hence the link.
As an aside, Sinaloa has ordered its fentanyl producers to stop making it under penalty of death in order to avoid increasing U.S. law enforcement.
cont:
Jim Jordan lost his second vote for speaker, with one more Congressman opposing him than previously.
October 19, 2023
Republicans in Congress, waking up like a dedicated drunk in a strange hotel room in a strange city, has looked at Jim Jordan and said "eh. . . how did we get here?".
Jordan, jilted by his date, has now pulled out of the Speaker race, and the republic is the better for it.
It looks like Speaker Pro Tempore Patrick McHenry is going to retain that role, until they just give the job to him.
cont:
Well, as the GOP has rejected the interim plan in favor of fully demonstrating its complete and total dysfunction, Jim Jordan sadly remains on the agenda and there will be a third vote on his canidacy to lead a body which he previously sought to undermine by supporting sedition.
If only ol' Jeff Davis had lived to see these days. . . ugh.
October 20, 2023
And Jordan, having lost a third vote, is back out.
The Freedom Caucus is taking a pounding in this drama and may very well lose some of its power as a result.
October 24, 2023
Tom Emmer of Minnesota, who voted to certify the election and who Trump has let it be known opposes, has the Republican nomination for Speaker.
This is interesting. I don't know much about Emmer, but this would appear to be a drift back towards reality.
Trump has already posted against him, setting this up for a test of his power over Congressional Republicans.
cont:
And Trump wins. Emmer must have decided he could not get to 217 votes so he pulled his name out of consideration.
This is now beyond dysfunctional, it's absurd. An out of office former President who is highly likely to end up in prison is able to control enough of the House to keep anyone from being chosen who doesn't bend to his will.
October 25, 2023
Continuing a Trump win, now is Mike Johnson of Louisiana, a lawyer by trade whose understanding of the constitution, his purported speciality, didn't prevent him from supporting sedition.
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