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October 12, 2023 11:49 PM UTC

Friday Open Thread

  • 20 Comments
  • by: Colorado Pols

“It is the spirit and not the form of law that keeps justice alive.”

–Earl Warren

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20 thoughts on “Friday Open Thread”

  1. "My prediction:  they don't bring this to the floor until that have 217 for Scalise, and they don't get 217 for Scalise until the end of October."

    That was my comment yesterday. I stand corrected. No one will get 217 until the end of October at the earliest, and more likely, not until sometime in November.

    Fear and loathing grips the House GOP – POLITICO

    Question:  If 11/17 arrives and there is no speaker, do the House members get furloughed as non-essential government employees? (That was a joke.)

     

  3. The Deeper Meaning of Scalise’s One Day Speakership (No Really…) Josh Marshal – insightful as always.

    It’s binding. It’s over. And yet it was treated as basically a given, in the GOP caucus and in the press coverage, that Scalise, having won the vote, then had to build from the 113 he got in the caucus vote to 217.

    You’re probably saying: We know this Josh. They’re a mess. But we know this.

    But I think that’s only a measure of how much this has been normalized when it’s actually completely abnormal. The literal definition of a caucus in American political usage is a defined group that collectively decides on actions by majority vote and then acts in unison in a parliamentary context.

    From one perspective this is no more than a replay of what happened in January. A group of holdouts refused to vote for the caucus’s candidate. But there’s something a bit different. That was the rump of the ‘Freedom Caucus’, an at least somewhat ideologically coherent trouble-making group that, as I’ve explained in a few posts, has been playing this game going back more than a decade. But the holdouts for Scalise were more various – right, left, a heavy load of attention-seekers who didn’t bother to put forward any kind of reason that made any sense. It’s like the virus had escaped the lab. It wasn’t just Freedom Caucus weirdos anymore. It’s now treated as a given that caucus elections are purely advisory or essentially meaningless.

    Couldn’t happen to a nicer caucus of course. But we should note that there’s a clear thread connecting this to 2020 rigged electionism and, perhaps more tightly, the dramas of debt ceiling hostage taking and government shutdowns. The premise of all those dramas is that they’re what you do when you don’t have the votes to do what you want. If you’ve got the votes in the Congress and a President who will sign your bills, you just do it. Threatening to shut down the government is what you do when you don’t. Do what I say even though I don’t have the votes or I start breaking things. That’s the bottom line behind every one of these gambits.

    1. Might as well quote the rest of it.

      It’s all cut from the same cloth.

      The best and perhaps only path for Scalise was to force the matter. What do you mean: Do I have the votes? The election already happened. I won. It’s over. If you weren’t going to honor the results you shouldn’t have shown up to vote. If people don’t want to honor the commitment they made then lets put everyone on the record. That is kind of what McCarthy did. Of course, he also negotiated. Clearly Scalise didn’t think that was possible. As I said, couldn’t happen to a nicer caucus. The pathogen they developed to break the republic ended up infecting them too. It’s of a piece with election denialism and parliamentary terrorism. All fruit of the same poison tree.

    1. I don't understand…

      The Republican Party in the House collapses into chaos, and that is sort of like Rashida Tlaib being criticized by and criticizing a fellow Democratic congressman.

      2. The schism in the Democratic Socialists of America with her colleague from Detroit bailing on the movement along with Ritchie Torres who got off the crazy train a few days ago.

        Both the hard left and the hard right are making too many unacceptable demands on their members.

          1. Apparently, Shri Thanedar (MI-13) and Torres had issues with the anti-Israel position of the louder members of the Squad so they quit the club.

      3. It's a logical fallacy.

        10. The Middle Ground Fallacy

        This fallacy assumes that a compromise between two extreme conflicting points is always true. Arguments of this style ignore the possibility that one or both of the extremes could be completely true or false — rendering any form of compromise between the two invalid as well.

        Example:

        Lola thinks the best way to improve conversions is to redesign the entire company website, but John is firmly against making any changes to the website. Therefore, the best approach is to redesign some portions of the website.

  5. Job Opening. H/T Rachel Bitecofer:

    RNC Releases Help Wanted Ad:

    ISO Weak caucus looking for a strong leader.

    Must be willing to negotiate all power away and spend each day licking Matt Gaetz’s balls.

    Willingness to complete insurrection a MUST HAVE.

  6. Austin Scott GA-08 is latest "moderate" (wtf?!) Candidate for GOP House Speaker.

    Look! Our resident Republican can get behind him: He's in favor of wildlife conservation, just like Richard Nixon!

    "Very anti-choice, anti-sensible gun legislation, against most LGBTQ+ issues. I remember him because of his vote against VAWA. As a tiny positive sign, spoke out against January 6th violence and is big into wildlife conservation. Pretty standard conservative GOPer, not moderate."

  7. Colorado cannot bar Fat Donnie from the ballot in Colorado.

    Presidential Oath: "I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my Ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States."

    14th Amendment: No person shall …hold any office, civil or military, under the United States… as an officer of the United States… to support the Constitution of the United States

    The obese one claims he never said he would support the Constitution.

    1. My read on Colorado election law is that, provided he meets Article II requirements — which he does — and qualifies for a line on the ballot (which he will, at least for the primary), then he meets the legal requirements. CO ballot access says nothing about the 14th Amendment.

      Whether he can actually *serve* is another question that is not yet ripe. It would be a mess if he were to win the General Election and then be deemed ineligible under the 14th Amendment before being sworn in. If it happened before the Electoral College "met", then the EC would be responsible for nominating a replacement. Or Congress could waive the 14th Amendment restriction.

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