US Politics: Shutdown Showdown

[The Anti-Targ]

10 hours ago, maarsen said:

We had a blowhard ultra conservative type guy up here in Canada, Patrick Brazeau, who was always spouting off about how tough he was and that he was a special forces soldier before getting into politics and that he would like to punch out Justin Trudeau. Well a charity match was arranged and Justin well and truly cleaned Patrick's clock. Brazeau managed to become a complete nonentity now.

Yes, but the Oklahoma guy says biting is his signature move, which is not allowed in charity boxing matches, regular boxing matches or MMA/UFC. And in WWE it's only the villain characters who are allowed to [appear to] do it. Not sure what the after school fight etiquette is, is biting yay or nay?

[ThinkerX]

Senate passed the continuing resolution bill. Can we get another come January?

Senate Passes Stopgap Bill to Avert Government Shutdown (msn.com)

[Zorral]

O no!  Really?  Who'd a thought?

Ethics panel finds ‘substantial evidence’ that Rep. Santos violated federal laws

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/11/16/george-santos-ethics-committee-report/

But-but -but what about Hunter's penis pics? Why can't we see those?

While Santos or whatever his name is keeps dragging a baby around.  He had one again while in chambers, either yesterday or the day before.  ???????  Well, we know babies are supposed to be the best PR propaganda for whatever the cause.

 

Edited November 16, 2023 by Zorral

[Altherion]

Congressional Democrats (including the leadership) had to be evacuated from DNC headquarters due to violent pro-Palestinian protesters:

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“Tonight 6 officers were treated for injuries – ranging from minor cuts to being pepper sprayed to being punched. One person has been arrested for assault on an officer. We appreciate our officers who kept these illegal & violent protesters back & protected everyone in the area,” US Capitol Police, who responded with DC Metropolitan Police, said

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According to a person familiar with the matter, the Democratic leaders — House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, House Minority Whip Katherine Clark and Pete Aguilar, the No. 3 Democrat — were inside as the clash between protesters and police erupted.

 

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California Rep. Brad Sherman told CNN’s Abby Philip on “NewsNight” that he was among the members evacuated to the Capitol and slammed protesters for “their willingness to attack police.”

“The one point I want to make is, yesterday, there were 200,000 pro-Israel demonstrators, with a permit, entirely peaceful,” Sherman said. “And, here, you have a demonstration, less than 1000th as large, that’s also getting publicity and it’s getting publicity because their willingness to attack police – as they did with pepper spray – is a force multiplier.”

 

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

It seems George (if that is his name) Santos has decided not to seek re-election.  But he isn’t resigning…

https://x.com/mrsantosny/status/1725182414769512783?s=46

[A Horse Named Stranger]

I for one think it's a good thing, that a mother, like George Santos, can take her baby to congress to breast feed it, when necessary. It's perfectly natural and nothing to be ashamed of.

[Zorral]

From the same CCN story:

https://us.cnn.com/2023/11/15/politics/dnc-headquarters-violent-protest-democrats-evacuated/index.html

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.... An earlier march at Freedom Plaza in Washington to support Palestinian civilians and demand a ceasefire saw no major disturbances.

Calls for ceasefire
Earlier Wednesday, a group organized by Jewish Voice for Peace Action, IfNotNow Movement, and Democratic Socialists of America held a candlelight vigil near Capitol Hill, asking Congress to call for ceasefire.

Beth Miller, political director of Jewish Voice for Peace Action, said in a statement Wednesday night that “hundreds of peaceful anti-war activists came to the DNC to call for an end to bombs and violence in order to save Palestinian and Israeli lives.”

“They were met with brutal assaults by the police,” Miller continued. “The Democrats need to decide: will they stand on the side of peace and justice, or will they continue to support war and genocide?”

Eva Borgwardt, IfNotNow’s national spokesperson, said in a statement, “Instead of heeding our call for a ceasefire, police violently attacked nonviolent protesters with pepper spray.”

 

So why did the later one go pear shaped?  This story isn't written clearly for who what when and where.

 

[TrackerNeil]

And of course who can forget the many COVID vaccines that Santos developed? 

[Martell Spy]

Yep, De Satan loses again.

Supreme Court says Florida can’t enforce anti-drag law

https://www.cnn.com/2023/11/16/politics/supreme-court-rules-against-florida-anti-drag-law

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The challenge to the law continues at lower courts, and Steve Vladeck, CNN Supreme Court analyst and professor at the University of Texas School of Law, cautioned against drawing broader implications from Thursday’s order.

“Given the focus on procedural issues in the separate statement from Justices Kavanaugh and Barrett, it’s hard to read any broader implications for anti-drag laws out of the Court’s refusal to un-block Florida’s,” Vladeck said.

“The only thing that seems clear is that three justices are already sympathetic to such laws. Whether there are two more votes to uphold them very much remains to be seen,” he added.

 

 

[The Anti-Targ]

10 hours ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

It seems George (if that is his name) Santos has decided not to seek re-election.  But he isn’t resigning…

https://x.com/mrsantosny/status/1725182414769512783?s=46

I doubt the Rs want him to resign regardless of how bad he is, since it would possibly lead to an even narrower house majority. Though I have no clue about his district or how red / purple it is.

[kissdbyfire]

Young women at grave danger! If they keep listening to the likes of Pink and Taylor Swift they may not be able to find a good man to marry.

 

[LongRider]

3 minutes ago, kissdbyfire said:

Young women at grave danger! If they keep listening to the likes of Pink and Taylor Swift they may not be able to find a good man to marry.

Not only that but she gets them to register to vote too.   Oh, the shame! 

[kissdbyfire]

8 minutes ago, LongRider said:

Not only that but she gets them to register to vote too.   Oh, the shame! 

Yes, these nasty nasty women! 

[Zorral]

The world just hasn't been right since women got allowed to make their own money and their own decisions and refused to marry incels.  This must be fixed immediately with forced marriage and birth (though not forced support).  Then the world will be right again.  God sez so.

[Zorral]

Latino backlash grows over Donald Trump’s friendly Univision interview
Members of Congress plan to ask for a meeting with a company executive as a famous actor, a Univision founder and Latino rights advocacy groups speak out

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/11/17/trump-latino-univision-backlash/

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The nation’s largest Spanish-language media company, Univision, faced growing backlash Friday for its handling of a recent interview with former president Donald Trump, as major Latino advocacy groups delivered a letter of protest to the network’s executives and the Congressional Hispanic Caucus prepared to request a meeting with the network.

Actor and comedian John Leguizamo, who recently took a turn as host of Comedy Central’s “The Daily Show,” also posted a video on Instagram on Thursday night calling for a boycott of the network until it stopped its rejection of Biden ads, some of which were canceled just before the Trump interview aired.

“I am asking all my brothers and sisters who are actors, artists, politicians, activists to not go on Univision,” he said in a message in English and Spanish. ....

 

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.... The pushback comes after a Nov. 7 interview with Trump at his Mar-a-Lago Club in Florida that was arranged with the help of Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner and attended by a trio of senior executives at Univision’s parent company. The interview was notable for its gracious tone, lack of follow-up questions and Trump’s assertion in the first minutes about owners of the network.

“They like me,” Trump said.

It’s a sharp contrast to the long history of tension between Trump and Univision — a fact that alarmed both Democrats and journalists inside Univision.

The network, which has said it has also requested an interview with President Biden, announced a new policy of preventing opposition advertising during single-candidate interviews shortly before the Trump interview aired. The network also canceled a booking with a Biden spokeswoman to respond to the interview on a subsequent news broadcast.
A top anchor at Univision in Miami, León Krauze, who helmed the late-night newscast, announced he had abruptly separated from the network Wednesday, less than a week after the interview aired. Neither Krauze nor the network offered a reason for the separation in their statements about the split, ....

 

 

Edited November 18, 2023 by Zorral

[Zorral]

This changeover of Univision, bought by a coalition of 'neoconservatives, was if not THE media story this last year, it's right up there.  But of course the MSM etc. in the US didn't even notice, coz, you know.  Noticed elsewhere though.

https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2012/2/17/univision-goes-neoconservative

 

 

 

Edited November 18, 2023 by Zorral

[Zorral]

George Santos Is More Dangerous Than You Know

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/18/opinion/george-santos-republican-party.html

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... the fact that he remains in Congress highlights something crucial about the people’s House. It’s a Congress that this week featured a former speaker being accused of playing a sharp-elbowed bully and a senator getting ready for Mortal Kombat with the Teamsters president. Even in that company, Mr. Santos stands out by exposing just how much craziness the Republican Party is willing to tolerate in pursuit of narrow partisan gains.

The biographical lies and widely reported small-time hustles that boosted Mr. Santos pale in comparison with his penchant for “just throwing ideas.”

I’m borrowing that phrase directly from Mr. Santos, who said it in a Spaces conversation on X, formerly Twitter, in October, shortly after Hamas’s terrorist attack on Israel. After saying that the ambush made him worried about “the kind of danger that we’re in on a national security front,” he started freestyling ways for the United States not to get “caught sleeping,” as happened before Sept. 11. Maybe we should take a close look at people who waved Palestinian flags at a protest — he thought there was “probable cause” to check them out. Or perhaps federal agents should be vetting people more broadly: “I think every inch of this country at this point should be mapped out again and completely checked,” he said, without getting into specifics. “I don’t care if we go into a police state for a couple of months.”

Here was an elected official pulling a police state out of his hat that would make the Patriot Act look timid. And yet it went all but unnoticed, much less bemoaned than his volleyball fibs or Sephora shopping.

Mr. Santos’s history in this radical, shocking register was apparent for much of the time I was covering him for Newsday during his two House campaigns. Though he would lose his first run for Congress, in 2020, by more than 12 percentage points, he embraced Donald Trump’s “stop the steal” rhetoric and tossed out theories about how it applied to him. “Ballots just keep pouring in,” he said in a Facebook video three days after Election Day, adding, “this just smells rotten,” though the rules in New York gave postmarked absentee ballots a week to arrive. He talked of never confirmed “irregularities” and kept returning to the subject, in interviews and on Jan. 5, 2021, at a rally the day before the chaos at the Capitol.

Mr. Santos’s spitballing takes on a contrarian, just-asking-questions aura, so that misinformation comes across as just another idea in the air — like his half-baked early-pandemic musing on a March 2020 podcast about a possible “cordon” dropping on New York, preventing escape. ....

 

Quite a few have known how dangerous this lying, thieving craven pos criminal is.

[Tywin et al.]

On 11/16/2023 at 12:36 PM, TrackerNeil said:

And of course who can forget the many COVID vaccines that Santos developed? 

Look, it's easy to forget these things when we're talking about the man who first stepped foot on Mars. 

[The Anti-Targ]

George Santos will never get close enough to real power to do any damage. Worry about the people who actually could create a police state.

Of course Santos will be a member of Congress for the rest of his life, whether or not he stands for election. Though he will eventually have declare himself to be senator for New York since being a simple rep of a mere district does not properly recognise his true worth.

[TrackerNeil]

I'm going to say, in a non-lawyerly way, that this is ridiculous.

 

The Fourteenth Amendment says: 

 

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No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice-President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof.

ANY office. Any. Single. One. Apparently, according to some, the presidency is not an office, which makes me wonder just what the hell it is. An entitlement? A sinecure? 

Sure, I wish the folks who wrote the Fourteenth had specified "president", but it's hard for me to imagine that they intended that rebels be barred from any government job *except* the top one. That's just weird.

 

To be honest, I never thought the Constitution was going to keep Trump off the ballot--no state Trump might actually win would go along with it--but I wish judges weren't engaging in this kind of make-believe.

Edited November 19, 2023 by TrackerNeil