[ Posted Monday, January 9th, 2023 – 17:51 UTC ]
After an excruciatingly-long battle, newly-anointed Speaker Kevin McCarthy began business in the Republican House of Representatives today. He's already reportedly having problems with the first order of business -- voting for a package of rules the House will operate under for the next two years. Some (especially on the left) are making bets on how long McCarthy will even be able to keep his gavel, since one of the new rules will allow any one House member to call what is essentially a "no confidence" vote to oust McCarthy at any time. Or to sum all of this up, the rollercoaster ride we all went through last week doesn't look like it's about to end any time soon.
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[ Posted Friday, January 6th, 2023 – 19:40 UTC ]
Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez summed up the week better than anyone else, we thought, with her remark: "In chaos, anything is possible, especially in this era."
This is where we find ourselves on the fourth solid day of watching C-SPAN broadcasting what is normally a pretty sleepy affair: the vote to elect a new speaker of the House of Representatives. Normally, that is singular: "vote." We haven't had more than one vote in 100 years, in fact. But this week, we are already up to 13 votes, with the 14th scheduled (possibly, they could just adjourn again) for 10:00 Eastern time tonight. And nobody's sure if there is even an end in sight.
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[ Posted Thursday, January 5th, 2023 – 16:47 UTC ]
To sum up today's proceedings in the House of Representatives, we turn to the esteemed and well-respected political thinkers Monty Python's Flying Circus:
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[ Posted Wednesday, January 4th, 2023 – 17:01 UTC ]
As the sun sinks slowly in the west... as the stormclouds continue to gather... welcome to another episode of As The House Turns....
Sorry if I'm a little loopy, but watching six consecutive roll-call votes in the House of Representatives has done that to me. The clown parade continues, with no real end in sight, although the Republicans have now introduced a twist to the story by only agreeing to adjourn the chamber for a few hours. They will reconvene at 8:00 tonight, which is odd -- I mean, do they really want this to be on primetime television? For what possible purpose? Self-flagellation? Straight-up masochism? But then trying to figure out Republican motivations at this point is no more than a fool's game, so we'll just have to see what happens.
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[ Posted Tuesday, January 3rd, 2023 – 15:58 UTC ]
I knew that Kevin McCarthy would be weak, but I have to admit I didn't expect he'd prove to be this weak, this soon. As I write this, the third vote for speaker is in progress [note: while editing this, the House adjourned until noon tomorrow...]. McCarthy will lose this one, just like he lost the first two. So far, the votes have been functionally identical: 212 votes for Hakeem Jeffries (the Democratic leader), 203 votes for McCarthy, and 19 votes for other Republicans. On the first vote the "other" was split, but in the second round and (so far) the third, the GOP opposition has lined up behind Jim Jordan. Who actually voted for McCarthy. In other words, the three-ring GOP House of Representatives has opened with a clown parade.
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[ Posted Friday, December 23rd, 2022 – 19:51 UTC ]
Welcome back to the second of our year-end awards columns! And if you missed it last Friday, go check out [Part 1] as well.
As always, this is long. Horrendously long. Insanely long. It takes a lot of stamina to read all the way to the end. You have been duly warned! But because it is so long, we certainly don't want to add any more here at the start, so let's just dive in, shall we?
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[ Posted Tuesday, December 20th, 2022 – 18:06 UTC ]
As I write this, the news is just coming in from the House Ways and Means Committee -- Donald Trump's tax returns will be sent to the full House, meaning they will become public record.
I've been waiting all day to hear the outcome, and reading arguments both for and against this release in the media. And I have to say, the arguments for keeping Trump's tax returns private don't seem very convincing.
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[ Posted Monday, December 19th, 2022 – 17:19 UTC ]
Today Donald Trump was publicly accused of four serious crimes by a unanimous vote of the House Select Committee on January 6th. The committee made referrals to the Department of Justice, and the committee will release both their final report and voluminous amounts of evidence in two days. For now, they released their "executive summary" of what the final report is going to say. This is unprecedented territory, but then so much of Trump's political career would also fit that description, so it's hardly unusual for him.
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[ Posted Friday, December 16th, 2022 – 18:45 UTC ]
Welcome to the first installment of our year-end awards!
As always, we must begin with a stern warning: this is an incredibly long article. So long you likely won't make it to the end, at least not in one sitting. It is, as it always is, a marathon not a sprint.
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[ Posted Tuesday, December 13th, 2022 – 16:03 UTC ]
President Joe Biden signed the Respect For Marriage Act at the White House today, which closes an ugly chapter in American federal law that began with the Defense Of Marriage Act (which was signed in 1996 by President Bill Clinton). But while it may close that chapter, it should not be seen as the end of the story. Because Americans still don't have a federal right to marry the person they love no matter what. At least, not one written into law.
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