Loren Bobert is Dumber Than a Bag of Rocks

Handsy thinks nuclear weapons aren't real and the Moon landing didn't happen.

She is evidence that two of Colorado's congtressional districts have brain-damaged voters.

Republicans Hate Democracy

Amidst a flood of concerned constituents descending on Republican town halls, U.S. Rep. Bill Huizenga (R-MI) told a local news station that he would prefer it if people stopped calling his office.

One would conclude that he would be happy if the system could change his title from "Representative" to something more in tune with his party's ideological bent, such as "Hauptsturmführer".

Or maybe he's asking his constituents not to call him anymore because he doesn't think there'll be any more elections.

Political Courage in the Age of MAGA

Speaker of the House Mike Johnson and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell went agains the MAGA fascists in pushing aid to Ukraine to President Biden's desk.

Before The Dead Radio Fascist and Newtie the Terrorist changed things, bipartisanship was normal. It was fairly rate to have a supermajority in the Senate, so if anything was to be done, it took working across the aisle to do it. Legislators from both parties would, from time to time, get together socially. Their families were friends and neighbors with each other. But that ended whtn those two assholes elected to engage in a decades'-long demonization of those who disagreed with them.

A majority of Republicans in both bodies bought into Russian and MAGA propaganda about the Russo-Ukrainian War. Some of the loonier onew, such as Moscow Marjorie Traitor Greene, did little more than repeat and push Russian propaganda. The rest of those low-wattage boobs were content to throw away Republican hawkishness on Russia (and the USSR) and turn their backs on Putin's push to rebuild the Soviet Union. They were happy to repeat the pro-Nazi mistake of the America First jerkoffs in 1940 and 1941, bury their heads in the dirt and wait until the war came to our shores.

McConnell knew the danger early on and has been outspoken in the need to help Ukraine beat back the Ruscist Katsaps. Johnson, on the other hand, took some persuasion. Maybe it was the lesson of history. Maybe it was the fact that his son will be in the Naval Academy this summer and, if we get into a war with Russia, his kid may be one of those who gets shot at.

But either way, those two leaders stood up to the MAGA morons in their caucus and they deserve to be honored for it.

Mike Johnson May Have Decided Which Side of History He's On

And he may have chosen the side of not appeasing either the Russians or the Batshit-Putin Caucus in the House.

With rare bipartisan momentum, the House pushed ahead Friday on a foreign aid package of $95 billion for Ukraine, Israel, Taiwan and humanitarian support as a robust coalition of lawmakers helped it clear a procedural hurdle to reach final votes this weekend. Friday’s vote produced a seldom-seen outcome in the typically hyper-partisan House, with Democrats helping Republican Speaker Mike Johnson’s plan advance overwhelmingly 316-94. Final House approval could come this weekend, when the package would be sent to the Senate.
...
“Ukrainians desperately need lethal aid right now. ... We cannot allow Vladimir Putin to roll through another country and take it,” Johnson told the conservative host of The Mark Levin Show about the Russian president’s invasion of Ukraine. “These are very serious matters with global implications.”

That, of course, does not make Moscow Marjorie Traitor Greene and the rest of her Putinite Useful Idiots in the Caucus of Appeasers happy. So they'll try to kick Johnson out of the Speaker's chair, which may fail as Democrats could help him out. What that'll do to his re-election chances are a different question. But Johnson may have decided that some things are more important that political survival. If so, then he's a rare breed in the job.

But we shall see.

To: George Santos, aka Anthony DeVolder, aka Kitara Ravache: Signals! Alpha! Mike! Foxtrot!

The House voted on Friday to expel Republican Rep. George Santos of New York after a critical ethics report on his conduct that accused him of converting campaign donations for his own use.

Mourning time will be set aside for late-night talk-show hosts and other political comedians.

It's worth noting that a slight majority of Republicans voted to keep him inside the GOP Congressional Clown Car.

The Pedo Congressional Terrorist Strikes Back

Speaker Kevin McCarthy is facing an extraordinary referendum on his leadership of the House after a conservative member of his own Republican majority, a longtime critic, moved to launch a vote to oust him from the helm.

Late Monday, Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., rose in the chamber as the House was almost done for the day to file the motion — a resolution that would set a snap vote in coming days that even Gaetz acknowledged may not have enough support to remove the speaker from the job.

The MAGA terrorists in Congress believe that they have the linchpin to the entire Federal government and everyone else be damned. So, with all of the issues before the country, we're going to go though another prolonged battle over who is the Speaker because Pedo Matt and the rest of his pack of spoiled children didn't get their way all of the time.

Meanwhile, some alleged criminal billionaire and adjudicated fraudster keeps persuading the rubes to chip in to pay his legal feels. Nothing new there, his supporters have broken records for gullibility.

McCarthy Insinuated That the "Freedom Caucus" is a Pack of Children

After chaotic days of turmoil in the House, Speaker Kevin McCarthy abruptly abandoned demands for steep spending cuts from his right flank and instead relied on Democrats to pass the bill, at risk to his own job. The Senate followed with final passage closing a whirlwind day at the Capitol.
...
“We’re going to do our job,” McCarthy, R-Calif., said before the House vote. “We’re going to be adults in the room. And we’re going to keep government open.”

OK, no shutdown...good.

A fork in the eyes of the Freedom Caucus... good. Don't be surprised if McCarthy also cut a deal with the Democrats to protect his speakership, in excange for not kowtowing anymore to the priorities of Pedo Gaetz, Gym Jordan and the rest of the MAGA terrorists in Congress.

No aid to Ukraine... bad. That only gives aid and comfort to Putin and I can't see how any rational adult in the Congress thought that was a good signal to send.

ETA: Pedo Gaetz says that he's going to try to oust McCarthy. McCarthy is saying he has no more fucks to give about Gaetz and his Band of Children.

Death in Politics

First, actual:

U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California, a centrist Democrat who was elected to the Senate in 1992 in the “Year of the Woman” and broke gender barriers throughout her long career in local and national politics, has died. She was 90.

Three people familiar with the situation confirmed her death to The Associated Press on Friday.

Feinstein, the oldest sitting U.S. senator, was a passionate advocate for liberal priorities important to her state -- including environmental protection, reproductive rights and gun control -- but was also known as a pragmatic lawmaker who reached out to Republicans and sought middle ground.

My biggest quibble with Feinstein is that, in my opinion, she was too devoted to the maintaining the national security state, including expanding the reach of the NSA as much as technically possible. She was forever trying to expand the powers of government that would be useful to a fascist or authoritarian regime, while always trying to limit the ability of citizens to do something about that. On the other hand, she did oppose the use of torture by the CIA, which, when the history of the early part of this century is written decades from now, will be one of the deepest stains on the legacy of those those who were running things at the time, and on the nation as a whole.

Beyond that, I see no glory in staying so long on the job that one dies in harness.

Now, shifting gears to political death, the political obits are already being drafted for Kevin the Gutless.

A contingent of far-right House Republicans are plotting an attempt to remove Kevin McCarthy as House speaker as early as next week, a move that would throw the chamber into further disarray in the middle of a potential government shutdown, according to four people familiar with the effort who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss private talks.

Some members of the far-right faction of the party are coalescing around nominating a member of McCarthy’s leadership team, Rep. Tom Emmer (Minn.), to be the next speaker if they can successfully oust McCarthy, according to those people. The members think Emmer is more attuned to their concerns and will better deliver conservative results.

McCarthy has been engaging in full-blown appeasement since he got the job and, as he should have learned from history, appeasement ends with the bullies eating your lunch. Whores eventually get beaten and/or murdered, both on the street and in politics.

At this point, he ought to bring the Senate's bill up for a vote to keep the government open. Might as well go out in a blaze of glory.

Whoever the Fascist Caucus eventually gets in as Speaker, the outcome will be even more deadlock and bullshit evidence-free "investigations" from the likes of Gym Jordan.

Well, Randy apparently won't have to eat his MAGA hat.

Look for Cuts in Veterans Benefits

Two congressmen are once again urging Americans to express support for troops and veterans by saying "thank you for our freedom" instead of "thank you for your service."

Republican Rep. Jack Bergman of Michigan, a retired Marine lieutenant general, and Rep. Lou Correa, a Democrat from California, first introduced the measure last fall as a way to "renew and affirm" Americans' commitment to troops. But it failed to pass.

Yes, I am cynical in this regard. There's a local hospital that, on the one hand, has big banners up on the parking garage lauding its staff as "health care heros" while, at the same time, trying to pay much of its staff poverty wages and providing really shitty medical insurance to them.

This bill to encourage people to thank people for serving is cringeworthy. It's the short of no-cost, feel-good measure that one might reasonably expect from a bunch of politicians who are looking to be able to say that they did something for the troops.

"Peace in Our Time", or The Republicans Are Not the Only Appeasers in Congress

A group of 30 House liberals is urging President Biden to dramatically shift his strategy on the Ukraine war and pursue direct negotiations with Russia, the first time prominent members of his own party have pushed him to change his approach to Ukraine.

The kindest thing I can say about them is that they are useful idiots for Putin. Anyone who believes that Putin has lost his ambitions to rebuild the Imperial Russian Empire has mush for brains. These fools only give Putin reason to hope that if he doubles down on his war, and escalates it further, the West will fold like a house of cards. Those halfwits speak of "support[ing] Ukraine to reacy a peaceful settlement", but we all know, Gentle Readers, that what those appeasers truly want is to see a fait accompli presented to Ukraine with the implied threat of an arms embargo.

The nations of Eastern Europe (less one Putinite) well know the nature and quality of Russia under Putin. They know his ambitions. They have been warning the western European nations of the threat posed by Putin for many years. We should have listened to them, then. It's not for nothing that the Finns and the Swedes are joining NATO. They can read the writing on the wall. These thirty cowards cannot, or will not.

The last time that European major powers tried to prevent a continent-wide war by negotiating away the territory of a smaller nation, it not only did not end well, but it covered those who did the negotiating with shame that has lasted to this day.

That was a mistake that is not worth repeating. Putin will use any ceasefire, any negotiated end short of a full withdrawl from Ukrainian territory as a welcome break in the fighting, which he will diligently use to rebuild his army, and then he will strike again. Anyone who believes otherwise, in my humble opinion, is either a Putinist fellow-traveler or is anacephalic.

Let's Tell the Truth: Manchin is not a "Moderate"

He is somewhere between a conservative and a megalomaniac.

What goes around, comes around. After next year's elections, nobody in the Senate will give a fuck about Manchin. And there will be over forty senators who may make it their business to ensure that what Manchin wants, he doesn't get.

What Assholes Voted Against H.R. 3237?

The bill was to provide emergency founding for the Capitol Hill cops and to fund the settlement of Afghani interpreters and their families in the U.S.

The bill passed 98-0 in the Senate.

In the House, eleven congressmen voted against it:

Bowman                 Democratic     New York
Bush                       Democratic     Missouri
Good (VA)              Republican     Virginia
Massie                    Republican     Kentucky
McClintock            Republican     California
Norman                  Republican     South Carolina
Ocasio-Cortez        Democratic     New York
Omar                      Democratic     Minnesota
Pressley                  Democratic     Massachusetts
Roy                         Republican     Texas
Tlaib                       Democratic     Michigan

I don't know what their varying beefs were. But Crimus, even the three QAnon nutjobs voted for the bill, and if anyone would have been expected to have opposed a bill to bring Muslims into the country, one might expect them to be among the naysayers.

Pandemic Profiteers: Bankster Ed.

As millions of Americans get thrown out of work during the pandemic, one group stand ready to make a killing: The Banksters.

This is why: When it comes time to making decisions on buying stuff during this crisis, more and more people are going to turn to their credit cards. The landlord isn't going to take plastic, but the grocery stores and the pharmacies will. Millions, if not tens of millions of people who would routinely pay off their credit card each month are now going to, out of necessity, run balances on them, The banks stand ready to reap massive profits from the pandemic.

Credit card rates are averaging 17-20%, with some cards into the mid-30s. During a time of crisis, this is nothing short of usury and profiteering.

I am not against the banks making a profit. but I am opposed to them making a killing on the backs of people during a global pandemic and its ensuing economic crisis.

So please, Gentle Readers, sit down at your keyboards and send off emails to your Senators and Congressmen. Ask them, for the love of Your Dear and Fluffy Lord, to step up and do something.

(Feel free to repost.)

The Leaders of the Congress Can Go Eat a Bag of Dicks.

They'll let Billy Graham lie in state in the Capitol Rotunda.

Which is an honor that they denied the the last American veteran of the First World War.

Congressional Republicans and Democrats Say "Fuck You" to the Disabled

HR 620 prohibits anyone from suing a business or other public accommodation unless the person so aggrieved has notified the entity that said entity is not complying with the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990.

That's right:Nineteen Fucking Ninety!

Because twenty-seven years just isn't enough time for people to figure out what the fuck they are supposed to do to comply with the ADA and then do it.

Some horrible excuse for a sentient being named "Ted Poe" introduced the bill. Not surprisingly, he's from Texas. You know, the state that was just hit by a hurricane that brought epic flooding, a state where the congressional delegation almost unanimously said "fuck you" to other states that had similar catastrophes.

This shameful piece of legislative trash has 40 Republican and 11 Democrats co-sponsoring it. Every one of them is obviously lacking in some element of humanity.

Every one of them should be confined to a wheelchair for a year and required to, without any aides or other assistants, tour a goodly sample of cities and towns in their districts, including visiting town halls and courthouses. And they should have to make at least half of the trips by public transportation.

This miserable excuse for legislating means that 27 years after the ADA was passed, businesses and governments will have zero incentive to actually comply with the act unless somebody gives them written notice.

I'm surprised that Ted Poe, a political whore if there ever was one, hasn't introduced similar bills to gut the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

There should be a law that requires his face to be painted into toilet bowls and urinals in all public bathrooms in the the Capitol and in every VA and military hospital.

The Dreamers Are Truly Screwed

Paul Ryan says 'Dreamers' should 'rest easy' over expiring Daca policy.

Right. Ryan is telling the Dreamers that he can deliver something that he damn well knows that he cannot. If Ryan was honest about helping the Dreamers, he'd deliver a "clean" bill, one that only handles the issue. But he can't do that. His caucus will insist on adding in amendments and other poison-pill shit that the Democrats will never go for. They'll add in provisions for building habitats for poisonous snakes into The Great Wall of Trump, or provisions that people who are worth $4 billion and whose primary residence is in Manhattan not only pay no taxes, but they get free ponies.

Or Ryan can try to get something through the House by working with the Democrats and a handful of Republicans. That'll eventually end up with Ryan getting deposed, like Boehner was.

That's how things work, these days. Dysfunction is baked into the process.

Senatorial Oddity & Backhand to Trump

The Senate moved unanimously to block President Trump from making appointments during the August break Thursday evening.

I gather that it's a little bit unusual for the majority party to so willingly agree to this when their guy is the one who can make appointments.

So it would seem that a signal has been sent, albeit to a president who is about as tone-deaf as the average lamppost.

Bag of Hammers; Dumber Than a

Dana Rohrbacher

This clown is on the House Science, Space and Technology subcommittee. Evidently, he knows nothing about any of those areas.

Maybe he was going to follow up on this bullshit.

This post, from four years ago, still stands. If anything, it's getting worse.

Hippocrates; Gun Control Ed.

After the nation’s worst mass shootings, in Newtown, Conn.; Aurora, Colo.; Orlando, Fla.; and Columbine High School in Colorado, gun control advocates rose to demand more rigorous laws: stricter background checks, limits on magazine capacities, bans on assault weapons and tougher controls on gun shows and online firearms markets — almost always to no avail.

But in the weeks after the June 14 shooting of Republicans at a congressional baseball practice, the response has had a twist: Conservative lawmakers, some of whom were nearly the victims of gun violence, have pressed to loosen gun controls.
...
[Representative Eleanor Holmes Norton, a Democrat and the District’s nonvoting House member] said she objected not only to the attempt to bypass the city’s strict gun laws, but also to the timing of the push.

“It says everything about my colleagues that they would use the occasion of a tragedy on one of our members to come forward the day after with one of these bills,” Ms. Holmes Norton said.

But it's OK to "use the occasion of a tragedy" to push forward her own agenda, I gather, so long as it's about gun control. I'll bet that you can search long and hard for a statement from her after other shootings, in which she said that Congress shouldn't act in haste, and I bet that you'll find nothing. Probably quite the opposite.

Ms. Holmes-Norton can suck it.

This Isn't Memorial Day

A continuing objection. I've been on this since the first Memorial Day after I began blogging.

We honor all veterans on what was originally Armistice Day, November 11th and, if that day falls in the middle of the week, so it goes. It bugs me that we cannot accord the same degree of respect to our dead, but no, it's now just another excuse for a three-day weekend and for greedy-as-fuck retailers to lure the dweebs into their stores.

So, to all of those congressmen and senators who voted for the Uniform Monday Holiday Act in 1968, and to LBJ, who signed the bill into law, damn you all. And to those retailers running "Memorial Day Sales", go fuck yourselves and your horses.

(By the way, there is no such federal holiday as "President's Day". It is still, officially, Washington's Birthday. Look it up.)