Chaos in Congress

[N.E. Brigand]

If so, the Democrats will have the majority on January 6, 2025, when the results of 2024 election is certified, and Hakeem Jeffries (who already has gotten more votes for Speaker than any person in U.S. History) will finally be Speaker, since this Congress ends on January 3, 2025, and the new Speaker will be elected by the incoming Congress that day.

That's a fun (and true if ultimately meaningless) statistic!

I believe the theory about the plans of Trump, Gaetz, et al. is that they intend for no one to have a majority of electoral votes on Jan. 6, 2025. This result is to be obtained by (1) running third-party candidates, (2) having swing-state statehouses award electoral votes to Trump even where Biden has won a majority of the popular vote, (3) a second insurrectionist attack on the Capitol, and (4) certification objections to every swing state ballot that supports Biden.

Following this, the House will vote by state rather than by individual. And even if Jeffries is Speaker, Republicans are likelier to control more state delegations. They will elect Trump to be president. (Meanwhile if Democrats control the Senate, they will re-elect Harris as vice president.)

There are numerous ways this plan could go wrong. As a second-last measure, I think Kamala Harris will reluctantly exercise the power that Republicans claim Mike Pence had in 2021. But as I've said before, even if she doesn't and the scheme succeeds so far as described above, the Trumpers haven't thought through what will happen next. It will be awful, but it won't be what they want. (Galadriel (J.B.) will take the Ring, alas. Our best hope then is that she cast herself and the Ring into the fires of Mount Doom, as Tolkien wrote that Frodo or Gollum might do.)

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Freshman NY Republicans, perhaps as a way to make up for agreeing to make Mike Johnson Speaker, have filed a Resolution for the Expulsion of George Santos, which will require a 2/3 majority of the House.



Meanwhile, Democratic Representative Becca Balint of Vermont has moved to censure Marjorie Taylor Greene. I don't how long she went on after this video cuts off, but even what is there is quite a list.

[N.E. Brigand]

This seems wrong to me, but perhaps I do not have all the facts.

Rep. Bowman charged with pulling fire alarm in House office building when there wasn’t an emergency

Rep. Jamaal Bowman has entered a guilty plea to this misdemeanor. Apparently there's a deal in which he'll pay a fine and the charge will later be expunged or dismissed or something. He says the investigation found that he did not pull the alarm with the intent of disrupting the House vote.

This video of Bowman's actions, in my view, does not support a narrative favorable to him. If he thought pulling the fire alarm would open the door, why did he walk away before it opened? If anything, it looks like he pulled it out of frustration that a door he was used to going through wouldn't open. But it's all so fast.

[RoseMorninStar]

(Speaker Johnson used to be (eight years ago) the lawyer for the Creationism Museum, whose ridiculous claims he still seems to believe.)

Oh lord.. those people are nuts. And relentless. Zealots. From my experiences, they do not believe in Democracy. It is definitely a turn to authoritarianism.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

[N.E. Brigand]

If so, the Democrats will have the majority on January 6, 2025, when the results of 2024 election is certified, and Hakeem Jeffries (who already has gotten more votes for Speaker than any person in U.S. History) will finally be Speaker, since this Congress ends on January 3, 2025, and the new Speaker will be elected by the incoming Congress that day.

That is a fun (and true if ultimately meaningless) statistic!

I believe the theory about the plans of Trump, Gaetz, et al. is that they intend for no one to have a majority of electoral votes on Jan. 6, 2025. This result is to be obtained by (1) running third-party candidates, (2) having swing-state statehouses award electoral votes to Trump even where Biden has won a majority of the popular vote, (3) a second insurrectionist attack on the Capitol, and (4) certification objections to every swing state ballot that supports Biden.

Following this, the House will vote by state rather than by individual. And even if Jeffries is Speaker, Republicans are likelier to control more state delegations. They will elect Trump to be president. (Meanwhile if Democrats control the Senate, they will re-elect Harris as vice president.)

There are numerous ways this plan could go wrong. As a second-last measure, I think Kamala Harris will reluctantly exercise the power that Republicans claim Mike Pence had in 2021. But as I've said before, even if she doesn't and the scheme succeeds so far as described above, the Trumpers haven't thought through what will happen next. It will be awful, but it won't be what they want. (Galadriel (J.B.) will take the Ring, alas. Our best hope then is that she cast herself and the Ring into the fires of Mount Doom, as Tolkien wrote that Frodo or Gollum might do.)

To that end, as previously noted in the 2024 election thread, independent and nominally leftist presidential candidate Cornel West has the financial support of Clarence Thomas's conservative sugar daddy, Harlan Crow.

And today we learn that Crow is also backing the campaign of Dean Philllips, the Democratic congressman from Minnesota who has filed to challenge Joe Biden in the New Hampshire primary. Phillips will win that primary because Biden won't be participating: the national Democratic Party decided that New Hampshire would no longer be first on the schedule, but local Democrats didn't go along with that.

[N.E. Brigand]

Josh Marshall tries to clear up one point of confusion regarding House Speaker Mike Johnson's family.

[Frelga]

When you think the Santos story can't get any more ridiculous but then it turns out that he has a sister who is also shady.

George Santos’ sister facing eviction for unpaid rent while donating to her brother’s campaign

[Voronwë the Faithful]

That story is from January 6, 2023.

[Frelga]

I am aware but this is the first I saw it.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

[N.E. Brigand]

The motion brought by some New York Republican members of the House from New York to expel their fellow New York Republican, Rep. George Santos, failed overwhelmingly: 179 in favor vs. 213 against. A two-thirds majority, which is 288 votes, would have been needed for the motion to pass. A significant number of Democrats voted "no" or "present," as did almost all Republicans. Many members cited due process concerns. Rep. Nancy Mace, Republican of South Carolina, who previously had called for Santos to resign, said she voted against expulsion today because of the five previous expulsions, three were of Southern representatives during the Civil War and the other two -- most recently of Ohio's Jim Traficant in 2002 -- had been of members convicted of crimes who had been recommended for expulsion by the House ethics committee.

Santos himself tonight said the result of the vote was a victory for due process.

You know what else is a victory for due process? When guilty people admit their crimes and accept the consequences. A point I will return to after Santos pleads or is convicted.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Even George Santos is entitled to a presumption of innocence. That's due process. What you are talking about is something else altogether.

[N.E. Brigand]

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, Republican of Georgia, is upset that her Republican colleague, "vaping, groping" Rep. Lauren Boebert of Colorado (those are Greene's words), has been allowed to remain the far right "Freedom Caucus."

[Voronwë the Faithful]

This is rich from the great Rep. Raskin.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

There is something very strange about our new Speaker (okay, more than one thing, but this is very strange).

[RoseMorninStar]

He has a lumpy mattress? (Pays everything in cash from the money he keeps at home?)

As I said earlier, I have neighbors who are of this same .. cult. They do some very unusual things like take over local public institutions (schools, libraries, local governments, etc..) all the while they do not use these institutions because they are 'evil' and then they siphon off money to their own unregistered home-schools and such in an attempt to dismantle said institutions for lack of funds.

[N.E. Brigand]

Der alte Sturm, die alte Muh:

[Voronwë the Faithful]

This is beyond chaos and into some other level.

[N.E. Brigand]

With another government shutdown deadline looming, the House of Representatives, led by new Republican Speaker Mike Johnson, just passed a stopgap bill that funds the government until January. The Senate is expected to pass that bill this week and send it for President Biden to sign.

It passed the House 336-95, but the twist is that more Democrats than Republicans supported this Republican bill:
>>Democrats -- 209 yes, 2 no, 2 not voting
>>Republicans -- 127 yes, 93 no, 1 not voting