US Politics, April 2024: "Are You Better Off Today Than You Were <Checks Notes> Four Years Ago?"

Not sure I buy this. I’d guess that MAGA ppl want Trump to rise to power and all their political bad guys to be vanquished and pwned. That’s not the same thing as chaos.
― tobo73,

It's not zero-sum; it can be both. We can go back to 2010 where the NYT and other publications interviewed voters who wanted legislators to gum up the works.

xp - The constitution leaves it to the congress to devise the rules under which it operates, so it depends on what rules have been adopted. They can change.

fyi, usually at the start of each new congress the proposed rules are brought to the floor as the first order of business after electing a house speaker and a senate majority leader. The rules were drawn up by the Rules committees of each chamber and whichever party controls each chamber controls that committee and gets to tailor them to suit themselves.

So even if there were, say, 20 members of congress left, they could change the rules to say that 20 members of congress is all that is needed to pass laws?

The rules are always going to define a quorum, so (theoretically) if the membership of congress somehow fell to the point where a quorum was no longer possible, then voting on legislation would (theoretically) be suspended until a quorum was achieved. But I doubt this problem will ever arise outside of imagining it.

So if a congress, for example, constantly churned through speakers and barely participated in its constitutional duties, while wasting time on bullshit and theater, there's no remedy or way around it until the next election?

bingo!

I nominate myself for speaker

lmao

Biden says if Trump's Truth Social stock 'drops any lower he might do better under my tax plan than his'

— Danny Kemp (@dannyctkemp) April 16, 2024

oh snap

Relatedly, this is amazing.

"Spooning dogs" is exactly how I imagine Trump's sex life.

Not sure I buy this. I’d guess that MAGA ppl want Trump to rise to power and all their political bad guys to be vanquished and pwned. That’s not the same thing as chaos.

Not 'chaos' but an ineffectual federal government because the feds in their view only obstruct their goals. If you're the local car lot magnate, in your view the damn regulatin' feds can only stand in your way (and lock up your dear leader and possibly you if you didn't wear a mask on a certain day in January).

Up to 2016 Republican politicians could walk the line of capitalism needing structure and a functional state and their hooting masses of primary voters who played tapes of Reagan saying "I'm from the government and I'm here to help" to help them sleep but the hooting reactionaries got too much power.

xpost This probably explains that image:

And she said, Truth, Lord: yet the dogs eat of the crumbs which fall from their masters' table.
--Matthew 15:27

"Jesus Fed My Designer Dog"

Up the Irish:

The foreperson who was just selected — that’s juror one, the de facto leader of the group who will likely help steer deliberations — works in sales and enjoys the outdoors. He is originally from Ireland, but will help decide the former American president’s fate.

there's enough detail about that guy that his name will be published before end of day

My first thought was 'AI-generated comedy image'. But then I looked at the hands and must conclude that it was lovingly painted by a true believer.

yeah why are they publishing so much info

treating it like a game show

"Works in sales and enjoys the outdoors"
Swipes right

I read that New York law is not like other states in terms of juror privacy, so it can vary.

I was listening to a former AUSA who basically said all these jurors will be known to the public (if you look for it) within the next few days.

Quite a media diet:

The first six jurors have been selected for Trump's hush money trial.

The foreperson is a man originally from Ireland who now lives in West Harlem and works in sales. He gets his news from The New York Times, the Daily Mail, Fox News and MSNBC.

— Zach Schonfeld (@ZachASchonfeld) April 16, 2024

That sounds suspiciously like someone who wants to be on that jury.

"Good information on both sides ..."

Mr. Bothsides

Now I’m falling asleep
And I’m going to trial

Looks like they’ve got Matt Drudge on the jury

The amount of info provided re: each juror just to goose the engagement that poster gets is a great way to set up invalidating the entire trial to those in the losing side to bang on about

wtf kind of irish gets his news from the daily mail

kingfish otm, this is gonna be a mistrial and the fascist takeover will continue as intended

trump will be made speaker of the house and mike johnson's head will be put on the end of a stick and trump will declare all trials officially phony and very bad. end of movie.

If the Tarzan Yell Freedom!!!! Caucus bozos keep up their hijinks all through this election year they might manage to get themselves so widely hated by the nation at large that the Republicans lose control of the House.

it only takes, what, three seats lost? we can do it!

Thomas Massie is such a total ding dong. Between him and James Comer, they must have to use a bunch of sippy cups at House Ky GOP meetings.

Dems massively outraising Republicans. even in Texas (!) it's close. is this because a bunch of R donations are getting gobbled up by the Trump campaign or are they just not getting donors?

https://i.imgur.com/QE7Ovf8.jpeg

whoa @ Sherrod Brown's figures

Rick Perlstein was interviewed for a new PBS documentary on William F. Buckley, and he's not happy with the final product. (Surprising footnote: he's apparently a Henry Rollins fan!)

Great piece.

Made me want to know more about Willis Carto, who is only familiar to me as a reference (William Gibson named a character in Neuromancer after him).

Re: donations: you can’t get blood from a stone. https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/04/01/trump-republican-small-donations-problems/

That Rick Perlstein post is nice, and matches up with Danny Bessner says in this conversation on “Time to Say Goodbye” last week, that American liberalism from the post-war onwards has to continually prop up respective reactionary types because it can’t function without some position or some cohort to be _against_.

"We need a functioning Republican Party."

we need a Republican Party and its convention needs to be held on NY Subway train tracks

all kinds of hilarity in the House Oversight committee today

Wow Raskin and Comer are going at it pic.twitter.com/JalLGlLiF4

— Acyn (@Acyn) April 17, 2024

Comer is like smooth(er) brained Newt

there's a bunch of other clips out there that are equally entertaining

it's wild, they're acting like 4th graders. but Raskin is right! they have nothing!

I recall a time when even the biggest fools in Congress knew enough not to act like three-year-olds throwing mashed potatoes at the dinner table.

re: fundraising...are actblue and the DNC doing a good job raising out of state funds for these contests? I've removed myself from every single dem mailing list so now I don't know how much they are pestering people.