Friday Open Thread

10 thoughts on “Friday Open Thread”

1. Every gun made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. This is not a way of life at all. Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron.

   Dwight D Eisenhower

   Commander in Chief all American Armed Forces 1953-1961

    

   Log in to Reply

2. The dysfunction is intentional. Josh Marshall at TPM.

   There’s an aspect of the Jim Jordan Speaker Drama that hasn’t gotten enough attention. It’s really the central element of the story. Over the years I’ve argued that the post-2010 GOP caucus operates by a consistent set of informal rules. What looks like drama and dysfunction is actually in its own way a very stable and functional system.

   The congressional party is controlled and run by the hard right minority variously called the Tea Party or Freedom Caucus. But they are a bit too hot for national public consumption. They also rely on the idea that their far right policy agenda has broad public support but is held back by a corrupt/bureaucratic establishment. For both of these reasons a system was developed in which this far right group runs the caucus, but from the background, while it is nominally run by a mainstreamish Republican leader. Under John Boehner, Paul Ryan or Kevin McCarthy this basic dynamic remained more or less the same. It works for everybody because the Freedom Party calls the shots while the party maintains broad electoral viability via figureheadish leadership.

   Meanwhile the stresses created by the gap between party goals and electoral viability is played out in psychodrama between a cluster of self-styled rebels and the beleaguered leader of the moment. This feature is more important than it looks. The big Freedom Caucus beef with McCarthy was that he couldn’t take the far right legislation they jammed through the House and magically force the Senate to pass it and Biden to sign it. The true believers are thus in a perpetual state of being betrayed by a menagerie of RINOs and other softies who make up the ever-shifting definition of ‘the establishment,’ a fact that keeps the conservative media fundraising water wheel chugging forward.

   If the Freedom Caucus took over caucus management directly they would quickly come face to face with not being able to pass their favored bills. If they did they would get shut down in the Senate or by the President. They would face directly that their favored legislation is simply not very popular. The system I described above may look like chaos. And from the perspective of effective government it is. But from a political perspective it serves every player’s needs in an effective and stable way.

   By trying for the Speakership, Jordan was breaking with this model.

   Log in to Reply

   1. Seems very accurate. But it's not a sustainable model for the GOP or for the country. What will it take?! . . . 

      Log in to Reply

3. Kenneth Chesebro is pleading guilty right now.  So there will be no trial, and, at least for now, no preview of the prosecution case for trump.  Two lawyers now have admitted guilt and will be able to (required to) testify against trump. 

   Log in to Reply

   1. And he didn’t escape having to cop to a felony good for 1 to 5 years.  The deals the prosecution offer never get sweeter if you are the last in line.

      Log in to Reply

      1. Indeed.  I suspect some of the other defendants are talking with their lawyers now, if they're smart, and begging for plea offers

         Log in to Reply

4. I received a mailer with a Greenwood Village return address and an emblem reading “State of Colorado,” without any information that it was from another entity, emblazoned with red graphics that said “URGENT PROPERTY TAX INFORMATION.” 

   I kind of figured what was going to be inside, and sure enough it was from  Rep. Frizell and the No on HH campaign, filled with all manner of exaggerations and truth-bending claims about the future of TABOR, etc. 

    It had the campaign stamp telling you whose work it was, but had it been accurately labelled on the outside, I never would have even opened it before tossing it in the recycling bin. 
    
   Rep. Frizell (may) speak for her district, but certainly not for the State of Colorado. 
    
   Does this violate any campaign laws or house ethics guidelines?

    

   Log in to Reply

   1. I got the same propaganda piece today, DP. Straight to the recycling bin it went.

       

      Log in to Reply

   2. Short version — no.

      "Political speech" is considered core First Amendment territory, and Representatives do no swear an oath to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.

      Log in to Reply

5. Trump Fined $5,000 for Breaking Gag Order by Leaving Abusive Post Online

   As a shot across the bow, it may only be chump change, but it could get very expensive very quickly for The Man Who Just Can't Shut Up.

   Log in to Reply