US Politics: the McCarthy Trials

[Phylum of Alexandria]

27 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

I actually think the opposite. Spirituality is more open ended hence why people will give you wildly different definitions how they describe it for themselves.

The definition is not important. The meat of what I was saying is that the majority of people who use the term will use it to mean supernatural. Ie., no matter what terms we are using--whether it's religion, spiritual, or whatever--most humans even now in our hypermodern society, believe in spirit, or some other immaterial force, or providence, or fate, or whatever. It's like being right handed. I myself am left-handed, but right-handedness is overwhelmingly a thing for humans.

[Spockydog]

All my spiritual experiences involved music, sex, and drugs. Usually at the same time.

[Zorral]

Saw this lots of places, almost immediately --Acting Speaker McHenry did not have authority to evict Pelosi: top Democrat

Quote

U.S. Rep. Patrick McHenry (R-NC), Kevin McCarthy’s hand-picked temporary successor and acting Speaker, operated outside of carefully crafted House rules when he evicted Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi and U.S. Rep. Steny Hoyer, the former Democratic Majority Leader, from their Capitol Hill offices just hours after Republicans ousted McCarthy as Speaker.

 

That’s according to the top Democrat on the powerful House Rules Committee, Ranking Member Jim McGovern (D-MA), who previously served as the Chair of the Rules Committee. He says the “Speaker pro tempore” has one job only: help elect a new Speaker of the House.

“I want to clear up some confusion,” McGovern wrote late Wednesday afternoon.

“As an unelected acting Speaker pro tempore, @PatrickMcHenry’s job is to guide the House toward the election of a new Speaker. That’s it.”

“His power is constrained by the plain text of Rule 1, Clause 8 of the Rules of the House,” said McGovern.

Rep. McGovern said he is “alarmed” by McHenry’s order evicting Pelosi and Hoyer.

“Given the plain text of the rule, I don’t think he has that power,” McGovern added.

McGovern further explained, “The rule says he can only exercise as much authority as is ‘necessary and appropriate’ towards the end of electing a Speaker. The Rules Committee narrowly described this rule in 2004: an acting Speaker pro tempore serves ‘for the sole purpose of electing a new Speaker.' ....

 

 

[The Anti-Targ]

Abuse of power beyond what the law/rules allow. That's never happened before.

[Phylum of Alexandria]

12 hours ago, Spockydog said:

All my spiritual experiences involved music, sex, and drugs. Usually at the same time.

Sex on acid was pretty fucking amazing. I have an amateur interest in kabbalah, and during my "ascension," my wife to had to hear me ranting about Chokmah joining with Binah, but at that moment it was a vivid manifestation of the idea.

It was certainly a lot more enjoyable than watching this scene in Samsara:

 

[A Horse Named Stranger]

Not sure whether this belong here or in the best of internet thread.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/F7sEwKoXwAAQbZN?format=jpg&name=medium

[IheartIheartTesla]

20 hours ago, Larry of the Lawn said:

The fact that a right wing nut job like Steve Scalise is the most reasonable person on a list of three to be speaker... when God gives you lemons, find a new god.  

Some have floated Kevin Hern as a potential candidate, but I know little about GoP Reps to determine if he is looney tunes or merely outrageously wrong.

[A Horse Named Stranger]

So Kevin's staffers are campaigning for...

...Gym.

 

And you lot considered Kevin unfit...

[Tywin et al.]

14 minutes ago, A Horse Named Stranger said:

So Kevin's staffers are campaigning for...

...Gym.

 

And you lot considered Kevin unfit...

Sparky would be a gift to Dems.

[Gorn]

Pressured by Eric Adams and Illinois Gov. Pritzger, Biden administration continues the construction of wall on the border with Mexico
 

Quote

 

McALLEN, Texas (AP) — The Biden administration announced they waived 26 federal laws in South Texas to allow border wall construction on Wednesday, marking the administration’s first use of sweeping executive power to pave the way for building more border barriers — a tactic used often during the Trump presidency.

The Department of Homeland Security posted the announcement on the U.S. Federal Registry with few details outlining the construction in Starr County, Texas, which is part of a busy Border Patrol sector seeing “high illegal entry.” According to government data, about 245,000 illegal entries have been recorded in this region during the current fiscal year.

“There is presently an acute and immediate need to construct physical barriers and roads in the vicinity of the border of the United States in order to prevent unlawful entries into the United States in the project areas,” Alejandro Mayorkas, the DHS secretary, stated in the notice.

 

 

Edited October 5, 2023 by Gorn

[timmett]

2 hours ago, IheartIheartTesla said:

Some have floated Kevin Hern as a potential candidate, but I know little about GoP Reps to determine if he is looney tunes or merely outrageously wrong.

Elise Stefanik? Former moderate who now speaks fluent Wingnut. Or is Our Lady of Upstate just smart enuf to NOPE this poisoned chalice?

[Jaxom 1974]

At work tonight...there was a fundraiser for small donors for the Wisconsin Assemblyman for this area. Republican of course. About 35 people. Pretty much everything you'd expect. A greatest hits of "anti-woke" agenda...though Indidnt hear much from a National level being discussed. A saving grace was that, except for a couple attendees the average age was somewhere in the low 70s.  

[LongRider]

And in other news:

Trump allegedly discussed US nuclear subs with foreign national after leaving White House: Sources

Months after leaving the White House, former President Donald Trump allegedly discussed potentially sensitive information about U.S. nuclear submarines with a member of his Mar-a-Lago Club -- an Australian billionaire who then allegedly shared the information with scores of others, including more than a dozen foreign officials, several of his own employees, and a handful of journalists, according to sources familiar with the matter.

The potential disclosure was reported to special counsel Jack Smith's team as they investigated Trump's alleged hoarding of classified documents at Mar-a-Lago, the sources told ABC News. The information could shed further light on Trump's handling of sensitive government secrets.

Trump allegedly discussed US nuclear subs with foreign national after leaving White House: Sources - ABC News (go.com)

Remember kids, if they do it to the former guy, they could do it to you.  So please, don't expose the country's secrets to cocktail waitresses and billionaires from other countries.         

[mcbigski]

On 10/4/2023 at 12:16 PM, Tywin et al. said:

How is being grounded in fiction the solution? 

>90% of Republicans in the House would welcome the destruction of the government and authoritarianism with open arms, including McCarthy, if they thought it would benefit them. 

The media is totally establishment owned.  Ingrained bias.

Unfortunately, only about 10% or less of the House Republicans are actually for the median person.  Most of them are Vichy squishies.

On 10/4/2023 at 7:01 PM, ThinkerX said:

Given how slender the republican house majority is, and how many republican politicians are in severe legal jeopardy, I wonder more and more if the house might not change hands through default (attrition).

Or is this where republican house members cast votes from prison cells?

 

I'm sure grandma Garland will only allow the fair application of justice.

[Tywin et al.]

1 hour ago, mcbigski said:

The media is totally establishment owned.  Ingrained bias.

Who do you think actually owns them? 

[Fragile Bird]

8 hours ago, LongRider said:

And in other news:

Trump allegedly discussed US nuclear subs with foreign national after leaving White House: Sources

Months after leaving the White House, former President Donald Trump allegedly discussed potentially sensitive information about U.S. nuclear submarines with a member of his Mar-a-Lago Club -- an Australian billionaire who then allegedly shared the information with scores of others, including more than a dozen foreign officials, several of his own employees, and a handful of journalists, according to sources familiar with the matter.

The potential disclosure was reported to special counsel Jack Smith's team as they investigated Trump's alleged hoarding of classified documents at Mar-a-Lago, the sources told ABC News. The information could shed further light on Trump's handling of sensitive government secrets.

Trump allegedly discussed US nuclear subs with foreign national after leaving White House: Sources - ABC News (go.com)

Remember kids, if they do it to the former guy, they could do it to you.  So please, don't expose the country's secrets to cocktail waitresses and billionaires from other countries.         

Well, hell’s bells, don’t we all just want to gossip about the salacious bits from our last job? It’s only human, right?

[Phylum of Alexandria]

5 hours ago, Tywin et al. said:

Who do you think actually owns them? 

The Jews. It always comes back to the Jews for the anti-establishment right.

 

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

40 minutes ago, Phylum of Alexandria said:

The Jews. It always comes back to the Jews for the anti-establishment right.

 

I got into a semi interesting Twitter exchange a couple of weeks back.  The person claimed I was being feed by the mass media.  I pointed out that I was fairly well read and that his assumption about the “superiority” of the West was demonstrated to be luck and timing by authors such as Jared Diamond in Guns, Germs, and Steel.  

He then accused me of only liking what he called “leftist intelligencia”.  I pointed out that wasn’t the case and that I had recently finished The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity  by David Graeber and David Wengrow that from what I would call a rightist position attacked the very idea of the inevitable of the State that they suggested pervades the academy.

He then took an interesting tack… he asked me “what tribe” all the authors I was reading belonged to?  I asked him what he ment.  He repeated his question… then when I pressed explaining I didn’t know what he ment by “tribe”… he blocked me.  He didn’t want to say “Jewish”… did he?

The rise of renewed anti-Semitism from the right (and a few on the left) is incredibly disturbing to me.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

7 hours ago, mcbigski said:

The media is totally establishment owned.  Ingrained bias.

Unfortunately, only about 10% or less of the House Republicans are actually for the median person.  Most of them are Vichy squishies.

I'm sure grandma Garland will only allow the fair application of justice.

Can you please engage in genuine discussion instead of jumping in to fling poo?

What is “establishment” please be specific.  What is a “Vichy squish”?  There is no evidence that Garland is doing anything but a tough job in difficult politically schismatic times.

Edited October 6, 2023 by Ser Scot A Ellison

[Phylum of Alexandria]

18 minutes ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

The rise of renewed anti-Semitism from the right (and a few on the left) is incredibly disturbing to me.

It is depressing that all the garbage hiding out in the fringes, shadows, and fever swamps of our culture have all risen to outsize prominence, ever since social media gave them a nuclear-grade amplifier. But the culture of demogoguery and hucksterism that have existed on the right for decades now are also huge factors. The wealthy elites had been juicing up Frankenstein's monster for far too long, and now are surprised that it's banging at their doors.

Edited October 6, 2023 by Phylum of Alexandria