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

Well, we're the only nerds following this shit.

didn't realize the trial was gonna be around 6 weeks long and that Trump is required to stay for all of it...even if nothing comes of this that's pretty significant and is gonna turn him into more of a whiny bitch than he already is

and it allows the Biden campaign to keep attacking him

I don't even want to link it directly, but cool to see a sitting senator (Tom Cotton) openly advocating for vehicular manslaughter against protestors on X.

The coward went back and edited the tweet.

He's such a dick. Road rage by proxy. (Not that they needed the prompting, getting stuck in gridlock traffic and missing flights tends to raise the temperature even more than usual.)

lmao they're really gonna try to do this again

https://i.imgur.com/wUTjKAV.png

Maybe this time they will elect Trump Speaker, just so he has an excuse not to show up in court.

he'll be the Sleeper of the House

Serious question: is there any other point to removing another speaker besides a few members of congress drawing attention to themselves? It doesn’t seem like it’s helping anyone’s cause aside from that.

The point is these people dont want government to work at all, so anything they can do to make that happen is good

^^ otm

When they don't have power, the entire point is for them to grind things to a halt so they can screech to their base about the failed and ineffective Dems in power.

That's been the strategy since at least Dubya.

was it ken buck that recently said something like 'Give me one thing I can take to my voters, one thing that we've actually done?' and everybody just looked at their fingernails

The voters want the chaos too; it's why they elected these moron nihilists.

Republicans are as miserable as leftists and centrists are, their lives suck just as bad, they just have convinced themselves that these problems they have are caused by liberalism and not the policies they themselves voted for.

like the idiots who say things like "if you didn't have to pay Social Security/Medicare taxes, the money you saved would allow you to retire more comfortably and you'd be able to afford healthcare without insurance"

The voters want the chaos too; it's why they elected these moron nihilists.

.@RepThomasMassie promises there are MORE GOP votes to remove Mike Johnson now than there were with McCarthy.

And if Dems save him? “He goes further in the hole with Republicans. He becomes toxic to the conference. For every Democrat who comes to his aid he’ll lose 2-3 more Rs.”

— Sahil Kapur (@sahilkapur) April 16, 2024

Rep. Massie says he won’t trigger the motion to vacate but he’ll vote for it when it comes up. He’s “pretty certain” more Rs will vote to oust Johnson than McCarthy. “This will get called and he will lose the vote.”

“There’s no sustainable solution where Democrats save him.”

— Sahil Kapur (@sahilkapur) April 16, 2024

And why would they?

Hmm, what would happen, constitutionally, if half of congress just quit or died? Would nothing get done until they refilled their ranks?

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