I don’t think that it’s right for the leadership, especially Republican leadership, that prides itself on being pro-family, to be so anti-family,

It’s “he’s not hurting the right people”, all over again.

"Will"? We got Sen. Fetterman the other say saying that we should be thinking about Greenland like we do the Louisiana Purchase.

The Orange Turd isn't even in office and everyone in DC is already lost their goddamn mind.

Indeed. A modern Nissan Leaf with a 62 kWh battery can charge in a little over 11 minutes if you have a 2kV 160 amp line to toss into it. Because you know, it's completely safe and cool to deal with those kinds of values for the average consumer.

Someone tell her that those bribes go into Musk's bank account, not Twitter's bank account.

But it's cute Yaccarino thinks Musk gives a damn about how successful Twitter is at this point. Musk is already saying he's cool with the hit Tesla will take with the EV credits ending. Elon is done with the notion of "winning" anything, he just wants to make sure everyone he hates loses.

All that money Yaccarino is seeing, that's not for her. She doesn't get to have any of the bribes. She's not in the club, she's just the patsy.

Florida district court Judge Aileen Cannon’s latest comically pro-Trump ruling, her order Tuesday that temporarily blocks the public release of Smith’s report on his two criminal investigations of Trump, remains a big deal.

Cannon's ruling isn't some sudden motion here. The core argument for tossing out the entire case is predicated on Jack Smith not being appointed per 28 USC § 515. Cannon agreed with the motion that Jack Smith wasn't appointed correctly. Obviously the DOJ disagreed. So the whole thing went to appeals.

All Cannon is doing is indicating that the Government can not release a report that a person who wasn't correctly appointed created. This was absolutely something everyone knew was coming. This is just the logical follow up of what she already ruled on. I'm not saying she's correct in her determination, just saying that this was absolutely expected to happen like way back when the case was originally tossed out.

Why would the vice president need to approve the President's message?

I think we aren't really enjoying the true flavor of this vote. Allow me to enlighten.

McCarthy had added new rules to the budget process under Rule XXI related to the budget. It creates a "cut-as-you-go" system as opposed to the old "pay-as-you-go" system. This new rule change makes it fifty times more difficult to get an actual budget passed, I won't go into details as it's a lot to cover.

Now we arrive to H.Res. 10515, Trump's amended American Relief Act. Now no part of this bill follows House Rule X or XXI on the budget except Division C (via H.Res. 8774), Division F (via H.Res. 8752), Division G (via H.Res. 8998), Division J (via H.Res. 8580), and Division K (via H.Res. 8771).

Side note for those wondering, the US budget has 12 regular appropriations (because the original theory was that you could pass one per month as opposed to a 1,500 page omnibus bill. I'm sure we can all see how wonderful that theory is working out) that are required that are labeled Division A, Division B, ... Division L. Sometimes budgets include Division M and more letters past that like Division AA, BB, CC and so on, those are called "supplemental appropriations". But the A through L are (in alphabetic order):

A - Agriculture, rural development, FDA, and related agencies
B - Commerce, justice, science, and related agencies
C - The Department of Defense
D - Energy and water development of the United States and related agencies
E - Financial services and general government appropriations
F - The Department Of Homeland Security
G - The Department of the Interior, environment, and related agencies
H - The Department of Labor, HHS, and Education, and related agencies
I - The Legislative Branch Appropriations
J - Military construction, VA, and related agencies
K - The Department of State, Foreign operations, and related agencies
L - Transportation, HUD, and related agencies

SO. Here's the really tasty part. Because of McCarthy's strange ass rules on the budget. The House has to "suspend the rules" in order to approve this bill (because the other seven divisions that haven't follow the rules). That means it's not just a simple majority, but a ⅔ majority is required. Even if every Republican did vote "yea", they still needed 63 Democrats to sign on and they got only two. And they had to do this because McCarthy fucked them over with the rule change that the House Freedom Caucus asked for.

Had the House Freedom Caucus not asked for this "cut-as-you-go" system, Republicans wouldn't have needed the Democrats in the vote. That's what I think is amazing.

And the thing is, what was different between the Trump amendment and the original is, I detail in my comment here..

Literally this failure is so much on the Republicans for getting played at their own fucking game here. Maybe on January 3rd, they'll adopt better rules. But who knows, there might be another fight over Speaker again. I would find it hilarious if the Democrats forward a continuation of the rules of the House just to keep McCarthy's strange ass shit in there out of spite.

For those not in the know, the US House makes new rules every two years (which is when a new session of Congress starts, the next session is the 119th session for those wondering). Most times they just forward the standing rules of the previous session, but every so often a speaker of the house gets "Creative" and it's always a fun show watching unintended consequences. McCarthy's rule changes have not yet disappointed.

Roll call vote 516.

• Yeas
  • Republican - 172
  • Democrats - 2
  • Total - 174
• Nays
  • Republican - 38
  • Democrats - 197
  • Total - 235
• Present
  • Democrat - 1
  • Total - 1
• Not voting
  • Republican - 9
  • Democrat - 11
  • Total - 20

It's very disappointing to us that all but two Democrats voted against aid to farmers and ranchers, against disaster relief, against all these bipartisan measures that had already been negotiated and decided upon

Division A didn't change from the original and the amended version. So the two were the same. Democrats were on board with Div. A in the original, what changed was Democrats denying Trump the suspension of the debt ceiling. And the reality is Republicans have the House Freedom Caucus to blame for this failure.

Republicans spent the 117th blocking everything they could from Democrats. Why Republicans thought Democrats were going to play ball in the upcoming 119th is likely the dumbest thing for them to bank on. Yeap, Democrats denied the gimmie for Trump because Trump doesn't get to rug pull bills when he's being pissy. That's how that works. Trump wants to suspend the debt ceiling? Democrats had to swallow a ton of bitter pills to get a suspension in the Fiscal Responsibility Act of 2023. Republicans made bank in favors for giving Democrats that one favor.

Democrats are just looking for the exact same treatment. Want to suspend the debt ceiling? There's going to need to be a lot of bitter pills for Republicans to swallow. So Democrats are of the mindset, Republicans take it up the ass for that request like the Democrats did, or they are going to have to crack that whip on the Freedom Caucus which has in it some of the loudest members of the House who have everything to prove.

Like Republicans clearly forgot, you don't ask for the golden goose free of charge. Trump wanted an unlimited credit card for all his plans, and Democrats are going to want a lot for that privilege. Unlimited credit card didn't come cheap for Biden, it sure shit ain't coming cheap for Trump.

Republicans don't want to be stuck in this budget loop for the next two years? Agree to the original stop-gap and you all can come back in March to talk about a full budget. But oh no, Democrats aren't doing this "pray I don't alter the deal" 30 fucking hours before the Government shuts down. Republicans can play blame games all day long, but short end of the deal is, Republicans control the House. Republicans can get their house in order or start appeasing Democrats, but either way if Trump wants the Deluxe Package, he's going to have to pay out the ass for it. Democrats had to, and they suffered a ton of backlash to those bitter pills. Or maybe Republicans don't have the back bone to do the hard things in Congress.

The continuing resolution would suspend the U.S. debt ceiling for two years

Hi there! I'm going to cover a lot hopefully quickly to give some insight on all of this.

First I'll go to Public Law 118-5 This is the Fiscal Responsibility Act of 2023. You don't need to read the whole text, just jump on down to Sec. 401. It's on page 40 of that PDF that's linked. Note what (a) indicates.

IN GENERAL.—Section 3101(b) of title 31, United States Code, shall not apply for the period beginning on the date of the enactment of this Act and ending on January 1, 2025.

If anyone is wondering what 31 USC § 3101(b) says.

The face amount of obligations issued under this chapter and the face amount of obligations whose principal and interest are guaranteed by the United States Government (except guaranteed obligations held by the Secretary of the Treasury) may not be more than $14,294,000,000,000, outstanding at one time ... blah blah blah blah blah

This is the Debt Ceiling codified in law. So what PubL. 118-5 § 401 is stating is that the Debt Ceiling was suspended for two years and that expires on Jan. 1, 2025. President Musk Er, President Trump says it's not fair that President Biden got to suspended it for two years, but he won't.

BUT! Republicans weren't exactly wild about the idea of doing so back then. The House Roll Call for HR 3746 was roll call 243 of the 1st Session of the 118th Congress. You can see 78 Republicans are no in that. In Roll call 516 of the 2nd Session of the 118th Congress, you can see 38 Republicans sticking to their guns on the debt ceiling. The big shift here is Democrats denying the win for Trump.

I say all of this as foreshadowing. The 119th Session looks like we're going to have 220(R) to 215(D), I think we're safe to assume that the Democrats are just going to say NO to every budget the House tries to cook. That means a shift of 6 Republicans can toss any budget Musk Trump pitches into disarray. We already saw 7.5x more than that already balk at Trump's first pitch.

Increasing the debt ceiling is wildly unpopular with Republicans. It was wildly unpopular when the Democrats did it in the 118th. McCarthy saw an upheaval in his own party form the Freedom Caucus. They began to protest bills and Democrats were absolutely elated to join in with them. Eventually McCarthy was able to reign them in but when McCarthy slipped again with Democrats it costed him his Speakership.

Summary, this ain't good for Musk er Trump. Trump is already livid saying that the 38 who voted nay should be primaried next election. But I think this is just a taste of what's to come. I don't think King Trump has got a hold on this situation, sort of how like the Freedom Caucus became a thorn in his side the first year in in Trump's first term. Trump has got a lot of ambitious plans to reform the Government and Trump getting stuck in budgetary process is going to slow him down fast.

This wasn't a good test run for the President-elect. If anything it showed that the Freedom Caucus has the cachet to demand things from the President-elect. And neither Trump nor Musk are very good at compromise. Going to be absolutely interesting to say the very least.

GOP already doing damage control. Seems their skin is a bit thinner this second go round.

I remember my sophomore year in High School a friend walked up to me and we got to talking and then they ask "so are you planning anything for homecoming?". I just replied "nah. I'm not really into football and I think I have to work that night anyway." And they were like "Okay well cool."

Fast forward 35 years, I tell this story to a friend and they said "so did they ask you out anyway?" And I was like "No, I... WAIT! Is that what they were getting at? It actually flew over my head? Holy shit!" And it took a whole 35 years before I finally realized it.

In all fairness though, I had a lot going on at that point in my life. My mother two years earlier had passed away from a three year battle with cancer and my father had left us orphan about three weeks later. I was still processing shit with the whole foster care and nobody else in my god forsaken family wanting to take me or my siblings in.

Oh and I never got with the person because like maybe four months later I had to move to another foster family (which side note: I eventually had to leave that other family too because the parents were that weird religious abusive kind and I got pulled during a welfare check to go elsewhere) which meant a change in schools (had to change schools yet again after that second family). Something, something the foster care dad got arrested with a DUI, something something, you can't keep kids in your house. But you know looking back maybe it was for the best because it would have sucked to have to move after developing emotions for someone.

To note, the US has not sent an ambassador to the Bahamas since 2011. Nicole Avant, the last US ambassador, left the position to work with then President Obama's reelection efforts in 2012. Since then we've largely left the role to the Chargé d'Affaires in the Bahamas. Nothing big happened, Avant's tenure as ambassador wasn't some ordeal or anything. It's just been a long stream of weirdness and dysfunction that's left the position open this long.

• Obama's purposed replacement died of leukemia before confirmation.
• Trump kept trying to pitch Manchester whose nomination just kept getting stalled out. Didn't help that he thought the Bahamas was a US protectorate and not, as it actually is, an independent country. But yeah, he was so ignorant of anything about the Bahamas that even the Republicans in the Senate couldn't get him through.
• Biden's pick of Smyre just never made it to committee. Like it's literally on their agenda as a To-Do. Oopsie, guess the forgot to get around to it.

The fact that Walker is being picked is hilarious because the guy likely has zero ideas about anything related to foreign relations. It's not some big secret that being Ambassador to the Bahamas carries with it the key to a really nice house in Nassau. And the embassy itself is quite nice though quaint. The real question is, will Walker be ambassador once the new facility gets done? Because the new embassy is supposed to be super fancy.

Here's the entire report.

Even going off the final assertions by this report and let's just toss them a bone and say 100% of what they present is EXACTLY as they say it is presented. None of this rises to criminal liability. None of it is a level that the FBI could really do anything about. Violation of House rules by House members is up to the House to vote on punishment. Violation of the standing rules of the Senate is up to the Senate is also up to the Senate to vote on how to punish. There's zero ways anyone in the judicial branch would want to take up any of this.

Even Trump diehard justices wouldn't touch this because doing so would open up ANY rule breaking in the House to prosecution, which is literally something nobody in Congress would want.

But again, that's just ignoring all the stretch allegations made. Like for example, they've indicated that Cheney reached out to Hutchinson and then apply their definition of "it went too far" when that's exactly how they've conducted several of their investigations into Hunter Biden which is exactly why we wanted a hearing in front of cameras as opposed to off-record and then on-record statements.

All of this is just Gentleman's agreements on how testimony is entered into record, there's not some "gold standard" to how committees go about this whole affair. And literally every time something like this goes down, once the power dynamic changes, it's "this is where the other team didn't do what we believe to be reasonable™".

I mean, I get it. It looks like they wanted a stronger narrative than they had, but at the same time a lot of people within the office who were loyal to Trump didn't want to testify. There was a ton of pushback from former members of Trump's team to the investigation. Remember all those subpoenas that they ignored from the House? So okay, the linkage to Trump and the J6 rioters isn't strong, but that's no surprise. I don't think anyone thought for ten seconds that the House could make a case for incitement, that's just a massive bar to clear. And the J6 Committee did indeed stop short of calling it an orchestrated coup officially. NOW that didn't stop them from making that statement in front of cameras, but at no time did the House officially call it a coup. Just "strongly hinted at it".

Now, that might sound like I'm splitting hairs here. But that's exactly what Republicans did with the whole Burisma thing. They didn't outright officially say squat. But goddamn didn't they strongly hint at it.

All of this gets really old because they are fighting over rules that they themselves skirt at nearly every chance. But none of this reaches "breaking laws" sort of how like "insider trading in Congress isn't TECHNICALLY breaking any laws." It's all silly nonsense because this song and dance is all bad-faith arguments from both sides.

I would love to see what kind of argument the FBI tries to cobble together for conspiracy for former Senator Cheney. Because boy do Congress critters really rely on that Article I Section 6 part of the Constitution that indicates.

and for any Speech or Debate in either House, they shall not be questioned in any other Place

Like that's a very core, boy do we have thousands of cases to draw precedent on, right of Congress. And gosh, this is starting to look like the 119th session is going to be doing a whole lot of the 118th missteps.

Freezing investment into the country and nuclear grade austerity will always bring inflation to an almost stand still. You're literally tossing liquid nitrogen on your economy, it's absolutely going to freeze.

The IMF does not expect the Argentine economy to grow this year, but rather to decline by 3.5%, while it should start growing next year.

And this is the key aspect that usually makes people who consider this pause for a second. Because freezing your economy might solve the right now problem, it also has the ability to ice economic activity completely, triggering an economic depression. This is the "balance" so to say. The harder your freeze, the more you'll need to rewarm the markets to get your economy going again.

President Milei and the government hope that the new laws, which offer investors decades of tax and customs relief, will quickly attract capital and curb the recession.

This has always been the super tricky part of the weapons grade austerity. The what comes after part. So Milei has done it, he's cooled the markets and supply has nearly cratered in the country. The next steps is to get production back and start pesos in the country to start flowing again.

I've always been a bit irresolute about Milei's approach on the economy. I'm not against it, it's just a strategy that's playing with fire in a gun powder factory. First and foremost, I hope that the people in Argentina find economic stability, because boy do they deserve it. So to that end I hope WHOEVER succeeds in getting that done. And second, I really hope this is something that can be long lasting. Hyper austerity has a history of bad boomerang effects. It can work, it's just takes a ton of work, more than most governments are willing to invest. And so there's a big chance that we could start to see some positive only to then watch it completely crumble once again.

If I was a leader, this isn't exactly a strategy I would pick. There's just a ton of places where it can go all wrong. But I hope the guy gets it fixed once and for all. But dang, I don't know how dude is smiling in that photo because if I was going down this road I wouldn't be able to sleep properly.

The 118th Session? Yeah, we don't even have a parallel in all of the history of the US to mark how unproductive this session has been. Like not even during the Civil War was Congress this underwhelming. The 118th Session has set a new low water mark for "things gotten done".

The biggest issue was that the House spent something like ~60% of their time in Committee doing "investigations" that ultimately led nowhere. Like, I'll throw Congress a bone here, if they actually impeached someone with all those investigations, I'd give it to them. But that literally nobody was impeached all those investigations basically go into the "wasted time" column.

And they can't impeach any of them come the 119th session because... New President, new people. So all that time they invested goes to waste. Hell, even Hunter I can't give it to them, because in the end, he got a pardon. And as soon as Trump gives the J6 folks a pardon, all that work the Democrats did becomes wasted as well.

But the 118th spent the vast majority of their time in investigations, so they got so little actually done and passed.

For those looking for a quick summary, the first line in the story is the big point.

The Supreme Court yesterday rejected the broadband industry's challenge to a New York law that requires Internet providers to offer $15- or $20-per-month service to people with low incomes.

The bigger take away hearkens us to Ajit Pai days of the FCC. Pai had led the FCC to remove the rules related to 47 USC § 254. This was part of his bigger "no net neutrality" stance or as he'd put it "free market internet". As literally everyone indicated, once the FCC stated that they weren't going to put into place rules for 47 USC § 254, that opened it up for States to regulate.

Which gets us to the ISP argument that they lost on:

Second, the ABA is not conflict-preempted by the Federal Communications Commission's 2018 order classifying broadband as an information service. That order stripped the agency of its authority to regulate the rates charged for broadband Internet, and a federal agency cannot exclude states from regulating in an area where the agency itself lacks regulatory authority. Accordingly, we REVERSE the judgment of the district court and VACATE the permanent injunction.

— Second Circuit's original ruling

Yes, you read that correctly. The ISPs were making the argument that the law 47 USC § 254 was still in place and thus preempted any State law. To which the Courts indicated that the Federal government literally indicated that they were no longer enforcing that law so it would be up to the States to enforce it. The ISP's central argument was that State could only regulate if the FCC removed the rule. Which if you've been following, in 2002 SAME TRADE GROUP made the argument that State's couldn't regulate as the Internet is an Interstate issue that can only be handled by Congress.

Literally the ISPs and their trade group are trying to get into a legal catch-22 here.

The biggest thing ISPs are trying to avoid is this universal service rate, because this is usually how things start before they become utility. And ISPs are seeing this as "if we don't stop this now, we're going down a road of utility Internet". Which they would not like.

All I have to say is that, it's good SCOTUS dropped this because the trade group has been double talking this issue to death. This hardly ends the case, it just means the ISPs will need to look for a new avenue for blocking, which given the Trump administration coming in, they'll have plenty of new legal in-roads built for them.

So this is FAR from the last we're hearing about this issue.

Gerry Connolly, born in 1950, regularly inside trades on his information, is from the affluent Fairfax County, voted down the AHCAA so we got the watered down ACA.

And on top of all of that. Dude announced in November of this year he had advanced esophageal cancer, which prognosis for it is already really fucking poor. But no, on all of that he was like, "Nah FUCK AOC, I'm putting my hat in once more." Dude represents everything that is broken with the Democratic party to a tee.

Some have suggested that the Deep State is already seeking to undermine Trump’s second presidency by plotting a civil war or scheming ways to prevent him from entering the White House

Because they are, and this is the really important part, FUCKING IDIOTS WHO SAY DUMB SHIT.

This is the shit that gets me upset. Back in the early 90s there was this group online, had an IRC chat room and everything, that would wax prophetic about pyramids, exotic matter, the Kennedy's, and the Pentagon. NO ONE FUCKING WROTE ARTICLES ABOUT THEIR DUMB ASSES. Because they were idiots.

"Some have suggested" WHO?! Name and shame or shut the fuck up about it. Articles like this just fucking make idiots look bonafide. This isn't an us vs them situation. This is like eight people who are detached from reality saying crazy ass shit and some outlet reporting it on a slow news day.

I swear one day, I hope, media will see how fucking twisted they themselves have made this god-forsaken planet. What they draw from it, I know not what, but hopefully a bit of "damn maybe we should chill a bit" is in the cards.

Faith.

Same reason I don't cite poor farmers giving to Trump's presidency.

Faith in an idea is a powerful motive. The poorer you are the more you rely on faith rather ability and/or resources. Literally take a political science 101 class. Belief that something is right or true is like 99% of how organized humanity works.