What kind of vetting went on to allow T.rump to get this far? I'll be 54 next month. I knew T.rump was trash when I was about 16.
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Joe Biden is now POTUS
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What kind of vetting went on to allow T.rump to get this far? I'll be 54 next month. I knew T.rump was trash when I was about 16.
Romney tells Republican colleagues 'this is what you've gotten' as Senate shelters in breached Capitol
Jeva Lange
Wed, January 6, 2021, 3:16 PM EST
Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) put the blame for the chaos unfolding in the Capitol on Wednesday firmly on the shoulders of his Republican colleagues: "This is what you've gotten, guys," Romney was heard yelling as "mayhem unfolded in the Senate chamber, apparently addressing his colleagues who were leading the charge to press Mr. Trump's false claims of a stolen election," The New York Times reports.
Protesters breached the Capitol on Wednesday afternoon, flooding the building and breaking into both chambers of Congress, sending lawmakers into terrified lockdowns. Sheltering with some members of the press, Romney reportedly called over Jonathan Martin of the Times to make it known, "This is what the president has caused today, this insurrection."
Yeah.....he finna do sumtin
Live Updates: Congress Reconvenes Hours After Mob Storms Capitol as Pence Says, ‘Let’s Get Back to Work’
Lawmakers resumed counting votes on Wednesday, after the Capitol building was cleared from a mob. Senators and members of the House had evacuated when Trump supporters disrupted Congress’s debate of President-elect Joe Biden’s victory.
RIGHT NOW
A few Republicans, including Kelly Loeffler, reverse course to support the election results after mayhem at the Capitol.
Congress reconvened for a joint session to record the votes of the Electoral College and confirm the victory of President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr. after a mob supporting President Trump broke into the Capitol, disrupting the earlier vote.CreditCredit...Erin Schaff/The New York Times
Here’s what you need to know:
- Resuming electoral counting, McConnell condemns the mob assault on the Capitol as a ‘failed insurrection.’
- ‘I thought we’d have to fight our way out’: Scenes of mayhem from the Capitol.
- Woman who was shot in the Capitol has died.
- Trump openly condones supporters who violently stormed the Capitol, prompting Twitter to lock his account.
- Jim Mattis, Trump’s former defense secretary, calls out president for fomenting ‘mob rule.’
- Calls for Trump’s removal grow after storming of Capitol.
- Watch live: House reconvenes to debate challenges of Biden’s victory.
- Biden calls on Trump to go on national television and ‘demand an end to this siege.’
- Army deploys D.C. National Guard to Capitol, and F.B.I. mobilizes agents.
- Jon Ossoff wins in Georgia, ensuring Democrats will control the Senate.
- No, there is no evidence that antifa activists stormed the Capitol.
- Republicans across the government denounce the violence, and in some cases, Trump for encouraging it.
- A West Virginia state lawmaker was among those who stormed the Capitol.
Hes gonna lay in bed and eat cheeseburgers
Can we leave the Breakout arguments between Tito jackson and other's about why he's a republican to the footnotes if so?
that is a DAMN good read. thanks.
Kamala Harris is about to become the most powerful vice president in nearly a century
As we await final confirmation of Georgia's Senate runoff results, one thing is already known. The Senate, evenly split 50-50 between Democrats and Republicans, will have a new leader on Jan. 20—Vice President Kamala Harris.Harris should exercise her constitutionally-guaranteed role as the...www.rawstory.com
D.C. Police Lose Control Of Rioting Trump Supporters After Hundreds Of Officers Called Away To Deal With Black Jaywalker
This is the thing. Humans will disease and poison anywhere we go. Mars/Jupiter etc doesn’t change that. Fuck up one planet to move to the next and tucked that up to. It’s our nature!
The problem is I worry for these folks. I mean Secret Service agents had to be swapped out of Biden's security detail. That shit is at the highest level of security. Plus local cops supplement the President's security.
Deep-seated, not deep-seeded, is the correct term. Deep-seated means "firmly established," as in "deep-seated resentment," but it also has an earlier literal meaning of "situated far below the surface," as in "a deep-seated inflammation."
juss fuckin witcha mayne.
Damn I was right... Blackburn & Hagerty did back down ...... I'm fucking tripping..... fucking Blackburn... She was all in just yesterday.
Tell that brother to get a room.Deep-seated, not deep-seeded, is the correct term. Deep-seated means "firmly established," as in "deep-seated resentment," but it also has an earlier literal meaning of "situated far below the surface," as in "a deep-seated inflammation."
but can you cook?
Kamala Harris is about to become the most powerful vice president in nearly a centuryKamala Harris is about to become the most powerful vice president in nearly a century
As we await final confirmation of Georgia's Senate runoff results, one thing is already known. The Senate, evenly split 50-50 between Democrats and Republicans, will have a new leader on Jan. 20—Vice President Kamala Harris.Harris should exercise her constitutionally-guaranteed role as the...
January 06, 2021
Lisa Kerr
US Vice President-elect and Senator (D-CA) Kamala Harris cast a key vote that blocked a controversial appointment to the Federal Reserve (AFP)
As we await final confirmation of Georgia's Senate runoff results, one thing is already known. The Senate, evenly split 50-50 between Democrats and Republicans, will have a new leader on Jan. 20—Vice President Kamala Harris.
Harris should exercise her constitutionally-guaranteed role as the Senate's president, and preside over the Senate as vice presidents routinely did until 1937. If the Democrats fail to take back the Senate majority, this role will be crucial to the nation's survival. But even if both Democrats Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock formally win and take their seats, the excess power afforded by tradition–not law or rule–to the majority leader is irrevocably contaminated by Kentucky Republican Mitch McConnell's abuse and must be reclaimed on behalf of the American people.
McConnell's abuse of delegated presiding power has amputated the Senate from Article I of the Constitution. He has used that mutilation to erase the House's power, as well. In truth, America has had no functioning legislature. That must change. The Constitution both contemplates and demands it.
Gridlock is a relatively new crisis. The Senate used to work better, and was designed to work better. Once seated as the Senate's constitutional presiding officer, Vice President Kamala Harris can exercise power far beyond merely breaking tie votes. She can break gridlock by recognizing any senator to bring any House-passed bill to the floor. She can do that without altering a single Senate rule with a procedural vote. And she should.
Moving Bills to the Senate Floor
Vice President Harris will become president of the Senate (automatically) under Article I, Section 3, which also recognizes that the Senate can "chuse [sic] their other officers," including majority and minority leaders. But Article I, Section 3 does not give such "other officers" the vice president's power to preside, which includes the power of "priority recognition"—that is, allowing a senator to speak on the Senate floor, and thus to move a bill into debate.
Until the mid-20th-century, the vice president used the presiding officer's power of priority recognition to develop the Senate into the world's greatest deliberative body, cultivating a forum for open debate and compromise that transcended partisan lines. When the House passed a bill, any Senator recognized by the vice president (acting as presiding officer) could move it to the floor, be seconded by another senator and proceed into debate and a vote.
The standing rules of the Senate give its presiding officer abundant power. But they do not require the majority leader to be that presiding officer. Delegation of priority recognition from the vice president to the majority leader is not required by any written rule of the Senate or by any of its standing orders.
McConnell's 'Informal Practice'
As vice presidents took on greater executive duties, they simply began delegating the chair to chosen senators. The Senate's official history acknowledges that this "informal practice" crystallized into the ongoing delegation to the majority leader in 1937, thus creating an emperor without clothes. A delegated power can be un-delegated.
Since 1937, the routine delegation of the VP's presiding power to the majority leader has become a habit that none question—like cigarette smoking in the 60s. But the malignant cancer of delegation to Mitch McConnell is not required by the Constitution. And when delegation is chronically abused to block bills from the Senate floor, it is the duty of the Vice President to reclaim her presiding power. Obstructing is not presiding. It is stifling the air from our legislative lungs.
You may ask: "Wouldn't reclamation of the vice president's constitutional presiding power require a change in the rules of the Senate? And doesn't that need a two-thirds majority vote—which we won't have, even if Warnock and Ossoff both win their Georgia runoffs?"
No. Delegation of the vice president's constitutional presiding power is found nowhere in the Senate's Rules. Rule XXIII, "Privilege of the Floor," only determines who can be recognized by the presiding officer, not who can act as that presiding officer.
Power to Recognize Speakers
Vice President Harris, in her capacity as presiding officer, can recognize a senator to move House-passed bills—efforts McConnell has repeatedly stifled, most notably with the much-needed $3 trillion COVID-19 relief bill that the House passed in May but McConnell never brought to the Senate floor.
Harris recognizing Schumer, or any other senator, could allow such bills to come before the Senate while posing no conflict with Rule XXIII. Nor would it conflict with any other standing rule, because the majority and minority leaders would retain their non-presiding powers. And any spurious points of order blocking such action could be rejected by the vice president herself—as the presiding officer.
Constitution Trumps Senate Rules
If a bare Republican Senate majority purported to override that rejection, VP Harris would have standing to challenge in court. Any Senate rule that purported to bar her from presiding would fail under the Constitution's Supremacy Clause.
The Constitution is superior to the Senate rule–not the other way around. Some may contend, "Didn't the early Senate successfully rebel against the VP's presiding powers?" But that argument overlooks Marbury v. Madison, which didn't exist in America's early years. That case instituted the judicial branch's power to review legislative actions and void them if unconstitutional.
Accordingly, we need to look at Senate rules that might be deployed to restrict the presiding power. Like any other government rulemaking, it must be within the scope of its statutory authorization (or, here, constitutional authorization). The Constitution endows the Senate with power to "chuse its other officers" but not to "chuse" the presiding officer, specified to be the vice president. To the extent a GOP majority attempted to suspend or amend its rules to block or defang Harris, it would violate Art. 1, Sec. 3 and be voidable by judicial process.
We must not forget that the majority leader's presiding power is derivative from and delegated by the VP. A glass cannot be smaller than the water poured from it. If the Senate limited the presiding officer's powers, those limitations must apply to the majority leader and the VP equally, or conversely, are an unconstitutional limitation of the VP's presiding power. We have ample precedent in the executive agency context to analyze whether a rulemaking exceeds its statutory authorization. The Constitution being the supreme statute under the Supremacy Clause, a rulemaking that made the derivative majority leader power larger than its originating source in the Vice President's power would violate that body of well-settled precedent.
Let's clarify the above with a hypothetical. If the VP took presiding power and used it to give priority to a senator, for purposes of moving a House-passed bill to the floor, and the Senate purported to override that action by 1) self-recognizing the majority to do something different, and then 2) sustaining a point of order limiting the VP's presiding power, how would that play out?
A floor fight on this topic could generate a Supreme Court petition, and in this hypothetical, Vice President Harris would have standing to petition for it. I believe the court would hear it and resolve it in her favor.
Would that take more than a minute? Sure. Is it worth teeing up and doing? Good God, there are hundreds of blocked House-passed bills that would save and improve American lives. Many have wide popular support and would peel off enough GOP votes to pass the Senate, or cause the rejecting senators to lose their seats if their votes were on record. If the GOP retains a bare majority after today, then of course it's worth doing. It is imperative and demanded, not just by law, but by basic human decency.
Stopping Abuse
Reclaiming of presiding power would not require the vice president to attend every session, or strip her of executive duties. She would remain free to delegate on an individual basis to a senator chosen to move a specific bill forward. She could even restore presiding power to the majority leader, on condition that it not be further abused. Original Senate bills could still move through committee for preliminary analysis, pursuant to existing Senate rules. Motions to proceed and for cloture would still be governed by Senate Manual Section 74 (standing order). Amendments to such House bills would still proceed in conference under Cleaves' Manual of the Law, by precedents incorporated in Senate Manual Sec. 200, et seq.
How would Americans benefit if our nationally-elected vice president followed my suggestion to break gridlock and House-passed bills (and others) to come to the floor? It would not guarantee every bill's passage, especially if the Republicans retains a bare majority or if a Democrat such as West Virginia's Sen. Joe Manchin votes with the Republicans. But it would make compromise more likely, through markup and reconciliation.
The number of opposing votes may change when those votes must be cast on record, after robust open debate. Public disdain and electoral consequences may deter public blocking of a bill senators are willing to block behind closed doors. And open floor votes and debate would eliminate the travesty of a single man elected by a single state's voters blocking legislation that the vast majority of Americans demand.
Obama's Missed Opportunity
Imagine, for example, how different our Supreme Court might look if Merrick Garland's nomination had been moved to the floor and debated. Many Republicans supported him in the past, and the seat would have been his, if the presiding power had been reclaimed by then-Vice President Joe Biden.
Imagine how glowing our national picture might have been if bills with genuine bipartisan support, like immigration reform and election protection, had passed both chambers during the Obama administration through a robust process of debate, amendment and markup, presided over by a nationally-elected vice president—rather than dying on the bleak desk of a man who proudly declares himself America's "Grim Reaper."
One may ask: "if this is indeed possible, why didn't Biden do this when Obama was president?" My primary answer is, "Perhaps they just didn't think of it." But also, for all of his many assets, President Obama governed as an incremental compromiser who didn't rock the boat much. Perhaps this resulted from the burden of being the nation's first Black president. But Obama also demonstrated a genuine affection for bipartisanship and regular order that I'm not sure Biden will share after Jan. 20. We have been shown over and over that bipartisanship and regular order are one-way shackles–the GOP does not consider itself bound. I do not believe that the co-ticket of Biden and Harris could have materialized if Biden did not commit to transcend the limitations that Obama accepted. Biden was more progressive and pugnacious than Obama on LGBT rights and other issues. We have no basis to assume that he would block his VP from a crucial role in saving the nation.
To sum up, the Senate's historic role as "world's greatest deliberative body" requires that open deliberation take place as described in the Constitution—not behind closed doors, and certainly not inside the head of one man elected by 1.2 million voters in the 26th most populous state in the Union.
For the past decade, the American people's entire Article I legislative power has been usurped by Mitch McConnell—contrary to the Constitution's organizing principle of self-government.
Our vice president has a duty to take back presiding power on behalf of the American people. In a pandemic where 3,000 lives per day hang in the balance, that duty is clear. Once seated, she should exercise or delegate her constitutional presiding power only in a manner that allows American policy to move forward.
Until the mid-20th-century, the vice president used the presiding officer's power of priority recognition to develop the Senate into the world's greatest deliberative body, cultivating a forum for open debate and compromise that transcended partisan lines. When the House passed a bill, any Senator recognized by the vice president (acting as presiding officer) could move it to the floor, be seconded by another senator and proceed into debate and a vote.
The standing rules of the Senate give its presiding officer abundant power. But they do not require the majority leader to be that presiding officer. Delegation of priority recognition from the vice president to the majority leader is not required by any written rule of the Senate or by any of its standing orders.
McConnell's 'Informal Practice'
As vice presidents took on greater executive duties, they simply began delegating the chair to chosen senators. The Senate's official history acknowledges that this "informal practice" crystallized into the ongoing delegation to the majority leader in 1937, thus creating an emperor without clothes. A delegated power can be un-delegated.
Since 1937, the routine delegation of the VP's presiding power to the majority leader has become a habit that none question—like cigarette smoking in the 60s. But the malignant cancer of delegation to Mitch McConnell is not required by the Constitution. And when delegation is chronically abused to block bills from the Senate floor, it is the duty of the Vice President to reclaim her presiding power. Obstructing is not presiding. It is stifling the air from our legislative lungs.
You may ask: "Wouldn't reclamation of the vice president's constitutional presiding power require a change in the rules of the Senate? And doesn't that need a two-thirds majority vote—which we won't have, even if Warnock and Ossoff both win their Georgia runoffs?"
No. Delegation of the vice president's constitutional presiding power is found nowhere in the Senate's Rules. Rule XXIII, "Privilege of the Floor," only determines who can be recognized by the presiding officer, not who can act as that presiding officer.
Power to Recognize Speakers
Vice President Harris, in her capacity as presiding officer, can recognize a senator to move House-passed bills—efforts McConnell has repeatedly stifled, most notably with the much-needed $3 trillion COVID-19 relief bill that the House passed in May but McConnell never brought to the Senate floor.
Harris recognizing Schumer, or any other senator, could allow such bills to come before the Senate while posing no conflict with Rule XXIII. Nor would it conflict with any other standing rule, because the majority and minority leaders would retain their non-presiding powers. And any spurious points of order blocking such action could be rejected by the vice president herself—as the presiding officer.
Constitution Trumps Senate Rules
If a bare Republican Senate majority purported to override that rejection, VP Harris would have standing to challenge in court. Any Senate rule that purported to bar her from presiding would fail under the Constitution's Supremacy Clause.
The Constitution is superior to the Senate rule–not the other way around. Some may contend, "Didn't the early Senate successfully rebel against the VP's presiding powers?" But that argument overlooks Marbury v. Madison, which didn't exist in America's early years. That case instituted the judicial branch's power to review legislative actions and void them if unconstitutional.
Accordingly, we need to look at Senate rules that might be deployed to restrict the presiding power. Like any other government rulemaking, it must be within the scope of its statutory authorization (or, here, constitutional authorization). The Constitution endows the Senate with power to "chuse its other officers" but not to "chuse" the presiding officer, specified to be the vice president. To the extent a GOP majority attempted to suspend or amend its rules to block or defang Harris, it would violate Art. 1, Sec. 3 and be voidable by judicial process.
We must not forget that the majority leader's presiding power is derivative from and delegated by the VP. A glass cannot be smaller than the water poured from it. If the Senate limited the presiding officer's powers, those limitations must apply to the majority leader and the VP equally, or conversely, are an unconstitutional limitation of the VP's presiding power. We have ample precedent in the executive agency context to analyze whether a rulemaking exceeds its statutory authorization. The Constitution being the supreme statute under the Supremacy Clause, a rulemaking that made the derivative majority leader power larger than its originating source in the Vice President's power would violate that body of well-settled precedent.
Let's clarify the above with a hypothetical. If the VP took presiding power and used it to give priority to a senator, for purposes of moving a House-passed bill to the floor, and the Senate purported to override that action by 1) self-recognizing the majority to do something different, and then 2) sustaining a point of order limiting the VP's presiding power, how would that play out?
A floor fight on this topic could generate a Supreme Court petition, and in this hypothetical, Vice President Harris would have standing to petition for it. I believe the court would hear it and resolve it in her favor.
Would that take more than a minute? Sure. Is it worth teeing up and doing? Good God, there are hundreds of blocked House-passed bills that would save and improve American lives. Many have wide popular support and would peel off enough GOP votes to pass the Senate, or cause the rejecting senators to lose their seats if their votes were on record. If the GOP retains a bare majority after today, then of course it's worth doing. It is imperative and demanded, not just by law, but by basic human decency.
Stopping Abuse
Reclaiming of presiding power would not require the vice president to attend every session, or strip her of executive duties. She would remain free to delegate on an individual basis to a senator chosen to move a specific bill forward. She could even restore presiding power to the majority leader, on condition that it not be further abused. Original Senate bills could still move through committee for preliminary analysis, pursuant to existing Senate rules. Motions to proceed and for cloture would still be governed by Senate Manual Section 74 (standing order). Amendments to such House bills would still proceed in conference under Cleaves' Manual of the Law, by precedents incorporated in Senate Manual Sec. 200, et seq.
How would Americans benefit if our nationally-elected vice president followed my suggestion to break gridlock and House-passed bills (and others) to come to the floor? It would not guarantee every bill's passage, especially if the Republicans retains a bare majority or if a Democrat such as West Virginia's Sen. Joe Manchin votes with the Republicans. But it would make compromise more likely, through markup and reconciliation.
The number of opposing votes may change when those votes must be cast on record, after robust open debate. Public disdain and electoral consequences may deter public blocking of a bill senators are willing to block behind closed doors. And open floor votes and debate would eliminate the travesty of a single man elected by a single state's voters blocking legislation that the vast majority of Americans demand.
Obama's Missed Opportunity
Imagine, for example, how different our Supreme Court might look if Merrick Garland's nomination had been moved to the floor and debated. Many Republicans supported him in the past, and the seat would have been his, if the presiding power had been reclaimed by then-Vice President Joe Biden.
Imagine how glowing our national picture might have been if bills with genuine bipartisan support, like immigration reform and election protection, had passed both chambers during the Obama administration through a robust process of debate, amendment and markup, presided over by a nationally-elected vice president—rather than dying on the bleak desk of a man who proudly declares himself America's "Grim Reaper."
One may ask: "if this is indeed possible, why didn't Biden do this when Obama was president?" My primary answer is, "Perhaps they just didn't think of it." But also, for all of his many assets, President Obama governed as an incremental compromiser who didn't rock the boat much. Perhaps this resulted from the burden of being the nation's first Black president. But Obama also demonstrated a genuine affection for bipartisanship and regular order that I'm not sure Biden will share after Jan. 20. We have been shown over and over that bipartisanship and regular order are one-way shackles–the GOP does not consider itself bound. I do not believe that the co-ticket of Biden and Harris could have materialized if Biden did not commit to transcend the limitations that Obama accepted. Biden was more progressive and pugnacious than Obama on LGBT rights and other issues. We have no basis to assume that he would block his VP from a crucial role in saving the nation.
To sum up, the Senate's historic role as "world's greatest deliberative body" requires that open deliberation take place as described in the Constitution—not behind closed doors, and certainly not inside the head of one man elected by 1.2 million voters in the 26th most populous state in the Union.
For the past decade, the American people's entire Article I legislative power has been usurped by Mitch McConnell—contrary to the Constitution's organizing principle of self-government.
Our vice president has a duty to take back presiding power on behalf of the American people. In a pandemic where 3,000 lives per day hang in the balance, that duty is clear. Once seated, she should exercise or delegate her constitutional presiding power only in a manner that allows American policy to move forward.
Now It’s Whoopi’s Turn to Shut Down Meghan McCain on The View
By Rebecca Alter@ralter
Poor Meghan McCain. After a long day of public tantrum-having, she probably went to bed last night at a sensible 8:45 p.m. after chugging a glass of hot milk, dreaming of waking up to a world where Mitch McConnell could continue to block stimulus checks, and human rights like maternity leave are only considered a priority after Republicans experience it firsthand and deem the masses worthy. We can imagine her surprise when she put on her widest, most voluminous sleeves and flat-ironed her much-less-voluminous hair and showed up on The View, only to see the joy on the faces of her co-hosts to speak to newly-elected Democrat Georgia senator Reverand Raphael Warnock. You could see the anger on her face.
But McCain’s co-hosts had a show to run, and the first Black Georgia senator to celebrate. So when McCain tried to needle Warnock at the end of what was rightfully a softball appearance (this is daytime TV, after all), it was Whoopi Goldberg’s turn to shut her down. When McCain wouldn’t stop talking at the end of his segment, saying she was “just trying to ask him a question,” Goldberg tried and failed to politely cut her off before putting on her stern third grade teacher voice and clapping, “Hey! Listen! We are going to say thanks to the Senator-elect Reverend Raphael Warnock.” As they cut to commercial, you could see Goldberg shake her head, exasperated. Same, Whoopi.
They all need to go
Now It’s Whoopi’s Turn to Shut Down Meghan McCain on The View
By Rebecca Alter@ralter
Poor Meghan McCain. After a long day of public tantrum-having, she probably went to bed last night at a sensible 8:45 p.m. after chugging a glass of hot milk, dreaming of waking up to a world where Mitch McConnell could continue to block stimulus checks, and human rights like maternity leave are only considered a priority after Republicans experience it firsthand and deem the masses worthy. We can imagine her surprise when she put on her widest, most voluminous sleeves and flat-ironed her much-less-voluminous hair and showed up on The View, only to see the joy on the faces of her co-hosts to speak to newly-elected Democrat Georgia senator Reverand Raphael Warnock. You could see the anger on her face.
But McCain’s co-hosts had a show to run, and the first Black Georgia senator to celebrate. So when McCain tried to needle Warnock at the end of what was rightfully a softball appearance (this is daytime TV, after all), it was Whoopi Goldberg’s turn to shut her down. When McCain wouldn’t stop talking at the end of his segment, saying she was “just trying to ask him a question,” Goldberg tried and failed to politely cut her off before putting on her stern third grade teacher voice and clapping, “Hey! Listen! We are going to say thanks to the Senator-elect Reverend Raphael Warnock.” As they cut to commercial, you could see Goldberg shake her head, exasperated. Same, Whoopi.
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