Wait. Did the Republicans cheer because they thought 216 was a majority of 432? That really happened?

Rogers was really drunk. His colleague saved him.

Me neither. It's like Manchin all over again only the shoe is on the other foot, and much worse given how hard it was to get a horrible Speaker elected. It's a near-even split in a polarized political environment. That means nothing even remotely divisive gets passed, and these days almost everything is divisive. It's not about whether that's a good idea or not, it's just political reality.

I mean, I never said independents didn't vote for Democrats overall which is what your links show, so now we're essentially moving the goalposts to a much different discussion. My point was that we don't have any good reason to say they did so because of the hearings.

This what I expect the Debt Ceiling Debate to be like:

"The Freedom Caucus wants 10 percent of all non-miltary spending cut, abolishing the IRS and the Department of Education, and a brown pony."
"Is there any room for negotiation?"
"We may also accept a grey pony if Biden resigns."

So, four days of normal behavior (the House gets nothing done, though there was almost a fistfight, which would have at least provided some entertainment). No one seems happy with the changes, but there was a group of 220 people who could have, at any moment, shut down the "Freedom Caucus" in an instant by directing 20 of them to vote for McCarthy.

From this I have to conclude that the spectacle of four days of nothing, spun as some sort of sign that chaos is going on, was far more important to them than the rule changes.

And people wonder why Congress currently has a 62%-27% disapproval rate in polling (RCP average over the last couple of months), and approval has actually polled in single digits at times over the last few years. They are incapable of understanding the absolute bipartisan hatred of how they conduct themselves.

The House will never be worth a damn as long as state legislatures continue to gerrymander districts to create safe seats. Aside from Boebert's absolutely legendary display of incompetence in nearly losing a seat that was impossible to lose, this is the process that creates the collection of extremists and useless political lifers that populates the House. Ultimately, state politics is to blame everywhere - this process protects corruption and cronyism and provides stability for those who crave power. Every two years, you look at row after row after row of landslides for these House seats - even in purple states. That is by design and is in direction opposition from the interests of the public.

If the Republicans would like to piss away the next two years "investigating" whatever it is they think should be part of this tit-for-tat festival of preening before the cameras, the only things I'm certain about are that nothing of any importance will be done in Congress and that approval rating will remain far, far below even Trump's abysmal approval rating.

Okay, if your ask is specifically show/prove me some polls that Independents swung Dem in mid-terms because they were influenced by Jan 6 hearings, I'll say I cannot show that specific connection because I've not been able to find any polls that asked/surveyed Independents this specifically. (And in reverse, you cannot show there wasn't a connection either)

If you are okay with surveys showing that Independents swung Dem because of X, Y, Z and "anti-Trump, anti-MAGA, anti-extremism" or equivalent, then I can dig up some stuff.

That's actually not what I was thinking. I was thinking more like:

Drama Queen Gaetz - I don't care if 90% of Rep is okay with this Immigration Bill, I don't like X

Comeback Kid McCarthy - Well tough, 90% of Rep are okay with this and the Dems will go along

Drama Queen Gaetz - I'm going to vacate your ass

Comeback Kid McCarthy - (goes to Hakeem) Hey Hakeem buddy, I have a situation here. Can you back me up if I need you to? Otherwise, your Immigration Bill will be in trouble

Jeffries - (hmmm, which Rep could replace McCarthy? Boebert, no. Gaetz, no. Scalise, maybe. Probably better to have McCarthy's back)

Jeffries - okay Comeback Kid, the Dems will have your back but we need this one small concession

But yeah, I prefaced my original statement with "arguably". With Trump seemingly closing the deal for McCarthy last night, the odds are less now.

I am only going to address 3 and 4. Let start by going to your quote as I think that is where the divide starts.


I assume that you are using a company as a metaphor for the country and specifically the report as a "single source of truth" for this event. If that is the case, who agreed upon the report as being the single source of truth in the case? Are you aware that the House Republicans also released a report about what happened on January 6th with its own findings and recommendations?

https://banks.house.gov/uploadedfile...ation_real.pdf

So we have one report led by D's and one report led by R's. Official government reports about the events of January 6th. Which one is the single source of truth? Which one is the source for those history books? Now you may choose to go with the first version. I may choose to go with the first version. But if 35-40% of the country choose to go with the second version and X number don't actually read either report, there is a good chance that a large number of those history books won't mention the existence of the first report as we have seen many other things in history. In an actual company someone (Owner, CEO, President, department heads etc) would establish that the House report was the single source of truth and any use and/or creation of any other "sources of truth" would result in some discipline. I don't expect to see that any time soon.


In those other three investigations, we were actually trying to fix actual issues with the systems in the government that had failed. The vast majority of the country agreed with the basic tenets and facts of the investigation. People were actually waiting an average of 115 days to see a provider and dying as a result. Katrina was a failure of initiative. 9/11 was a security and intelligence failure. We could have strong recommendations in those cases because it benefited both sides to get those systems fixed. We still have not figured out what to call the events of January 6th because the terminology may be too harsh or too soft depending on one's political POV. How the hell are the recommendation going to be strong? To paraphrase from your quote, some of us are too invested in creating confusion, spreading untimely & inaccurate reports which are just a waste of money for their own political benefits. TBH, I don't think we could get the 9/11 report accomplished today given where we are in this political environment.

But that is absolutely not what is going to happen, because it won't be just one drama queen. It will be the whole freedom caucus, and every moderate that is afraid of getting primaried. McCarthy will not go against those numbers in his party, and the Democrats are not going to save him from himself. Especially after the full scorched-earth investigations they are going to be performing.

Yes. Country = Company, Jan 6 Report = single source of truth

I actually did know but didn't pay it much attention. I expect much the same for the Dems and Independents. For the Reps, they'll be too busy attacking the final report instead of proclaiming Banks version as accurate. Either way, the emphasis, the attention, the news, the social media ... mostly on the final report, not on Banks one-off.



I'm pretty sure the first one will be reported in the history books. Now, there may be a couple paragraphs about the GOP dissenting opinions and that's okay. The final report does have (limited) bi-partisan support so that provides more credibility I can't prove that'll happen so maybe in 10 years time we'll see.

Can you think of a minority/dissenting opinion/report in any congressional investigations that have superseded the final report or even come close to superseding? I honestly can't think of one

I don't dispute this could happen in some areas but in my area of expertise, you basically have the true data. You can "fudge" with different assumptions or definitions (e.g. we have 50K employees + 5K contractors, but these 20 are special and I don't want them counted), but there is transparency across the organization and the exceptions are known.

So in this analogy. The facts are known, documented etc. by the bi-partisanship Jan 6 committee. There is some "fudge" as some GOP disagree with different facts. That's okay, it's out in the open with full transparency and documents, archives open to everyone.

The only scenario I can see with the Jan 6 report being superseded by another version is per my earlier note.

Quote:

The victors write the history books and unless MAGA takes over Congress and writes something that supersedes the Jan 6 report, these findings & recommendations are here to stay.

If we were attacked externally on the scale of 9/11, I am confident we will be able to create an equivalent report. However, to your point, with a couple rungs down in importance, I am not sure we can get a bipartisan Afghanistan pull-out report.

Re: comparison with the other 3 reports. I would agree those reports resulted in more "fixing" and the Jan 6 report was more allocating blame than "fixing". However, we got Electoral Count Reform Act out of it also, which although separate, was a result of seriousness of Jan 6.

Looked it up, the Freedom caucus ranged from 36 to 53. Doesn't the McCarthy drama show that the Freedom caucus is not as united as you may think? I haven't compared members to "the 20" but it indicates many can be reasoned with (or bribed).

Yes, I agree the upcoming investigations, McCarthy will (and probably want) to go with the program.

But yes, tough political days ahead. I am hopeful Biden can make a couple more bipartisanship deals like Immigration & Ukraine, but very unlikely with the 20K student debt freebie or another big spending bill.

I like Immigration Reform being a top 3 top priority. Let's try for a big reform compromise where we'll be set for the next 20 years (until there's sufficient buildup and cries for another reform package). Start early

Don't really know if repeal the funding for 87K IRS agents is really a good idea. But after my horrendous audit experience with the IRS, the emotional side of me says sure, payback is a bitch. Seems like a low hanging fruit and relatively easy to do.

The "woke indoctrination" should be entertaining political theatre. My guess is follow the FL type model but it may be more.

https://www.cnbc.com/2023/01/07/us-h...s-funding.html

I guess it's good he didn't call out Ukraine funding (that's all set for 2023 already right?). Nice if there was something about China also. Nothing about rolling back or attacking Obamacare.

There should not be a minority/dissenting opinion report in any congressional investigation. It is not supposed to be based on opinions. Remember agreed upon truths. We don't have a report based on a congressional investigation. We have reports based on political persuasion.


So in this company, would those GOPers not have to abide by the agreed upon facts in the single source of truth and be allowed to implement systems based on their own facts? Also, Bi-partisanship" is doing a lot of heavy lifting in this one. 7 Democrats and 2 Republicans. All were appointed by Nancy Pelosi. That information alone would be enough to prevent a not so small percentage of the country to not open one page of the report.

Congress has some oversight over FBI activities. There is no doubt that the House will hold hearings over the Hunter Biden laptop affair. At this point, that is enough.

My understanding is that the IRS thing is not 87K agents. It was enough money that if they used 100% of the money on hiring agents, they could fund 87K positions. From what I've read, it was intended to make up for a lack of funding, or a lack of increased funding, that didn't allow the IRS to do its job to keep up with everything it needed to do (such as the inability to attempt to collect billions in unpaid taxes). The 87K agent thing is a GOP scare tactic, although certainly it would hit some of their donors if they were cheating or refusing to pay their taxes.

A lot of the hires are for IT and phone center staff. Everybody bitches about the shitty customer service at IRS, so part of the fixes are aimed at making that better. Of course, the GOP wants to keep the IRS at a staffing level where people continuously complain about poor service.

The 87k agents accounts for hiring some new agents (to counter a 17% reduction in their workforce since 2010), but also covers the 50k+ employees that are expected to retire in the near future (~5 years).

The number didn't come from Dems, the white house, or the IRS. It's been cherrypicked by the GOP from a report by the Department of Treasury in 2021 that outlined how to modernize the IRS and how increased funding for the agency could pay for itself.

fuck kyle rittenhouse

Read up more on the 87,000

The IRS is set to get billions for audit enforcement. Here's what it means for taxpayers | CNN Politics
I would like to know their definition of "wealthy". I am obviously biased based on my own negative audit experience, but less audits for people like me would be great. No problem with medium & large corporate, they obviously have the resources (unlike me who had to call on my congresswoman).

Start with answering the damn phones and providing email for back-and-forth dialog, instead of keeping regular people in limbo for months with no communication.

So the target is to net $124B over 10 years. Sounds good to me.

Of course there'll always be some minority/dissenting opinions. Even with "one source of truth" there'll always "fudge" (different assumptions, definitions and like). What's important is its transparent so people know. Like in my previous example, the 20 are "special" (e.g. I've had board members stored in the system to track, not for $ but for special benefits)

Quote:

... but in my area of expertise, you basically have the true data. You can "fudge" with different assumptions or definitions (e.g. we have 50K employees + 5K contractors, but these 20 are special and I don't want them counted), but there is transparency across the organization and the exceptions are known.

Your below statement sounds absolute. I can give you 20% is political persuasion, arguable 30%. But IMO we do have a report based on congressional investigation and some political persuasion.
See above. Basically, the source of truth is established but there is transparency on the fudge. Using my example, I create a report to upper management (aka country) and say we have 50K employees, 5K contractors and an asterisk footnote that says 20 board members are in the system but not counted.

Nevertheless, I still contend the below. I can't think of a precedence where the dissenting opinion superseded the primary report. If there is one, let me know and I'll reconsider my position.

Quote:

I'm pretty sure the first one will be reported in the history books. Now, there may be a couple paragraphs about the GOP dissenting opinions and that's okay. The final report does have (limited) bi-partisan support so that provides more credibility I can't prove that'll happen so maybe in 10 years time we'll see. Can you think of a minority/dissenting opinion/report in any congressional investigations that have superseded the final report or even come close to superseding? I honestly can't think of one

I'm sure Hunter laptop will happen. Afghanistan pull-out is another one. And Covid origins, response etc. another.


Question to you: I think I understand your position on Jan 6. Brian was questioning worth of any congressional investigation. Are you also questioning the worth of any congressional investigations?

In theory, congressional investigation should play an important role in the governing of the country. Going back to that list you provided, I think the circumstances where a congressional investigation is appropriate are pretty clear to me. We have already discussed 9/11, Katrina, and the VA scandal. Let's look at Watergate as an example that seen more as political in nature. An actual crime took place and people were arrested for it. The FBI did an investigation. Connections linking the White House to the crime were suggested. The FBI and other agencies confirmed the links. The Senate voted 77-0 (Dems had a 56-42 majority) to create the committee for the investigation. Howard Baker, the ranking Republican and friend of President Nixon, made the suggestion to sue Nixon to get the secret tapes and documents. It was not successful but there is no chance of that happening in 2023.

This is from the Senate page on Watergate.


If a congressional investigation can produce that, I support it. If we could not get that for an attack, attempted coup, insurrection, peaceful protest or whatever happened on January 6th, we are not getting it anytime soon. Without that, congressional investigations are worthless.

Bolsonaro supporters have stormed the Brazilian congress.

Just a reminder that the same people behind 1/6 have been working with Bolsonaro's people in Brazil.

I was just going to post this. This one seems even more chaotic with everything being taken out. Not only Congress, the Presidential palace and the Supreme Court.

Why did we give him a Visa?

I saw an interesting question about whether anyone has checked to make sure George Santos (or really, anyone) meets the Constitutional qualifications for office, and it's basically no one's responsibility and all the different offices/organizations you might think would check are pointing to each other. I don't know if there's any question whether he meets the 7 year citizenship requirement, but do we really know anything about the guy?

@pilotman

It’s practice to get polished for the correct way in off of the flank eventually here.

I’m not kidding when I say that this is a long play and it’s literally their idea of war


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This Vanilla Ice shot of Gaetz is award-winning stuff.

Even though the House GOP Speakership vote drama is now all over and done with, soon to be forgotten, it is extremely important that we never forget this image, this glorious One Perfect Shot. pic.twitter.com/DrLEOdy5az

— Jeff B. is *BOX OFFICE POISON* (@EsotericCD) January 8, 2023

Top That!



https://youtu.be/oxxBXpnn2Jw

Hands down the best bad movie scene in cinematic history.

The last paragraph!

The letter to Marjorie Taylor Greene from attorneys representing Dr. Dre did not disappoint.��

Do you think Dre had to pay extra from the last part? �� pic.twitter.com/A6dmdG4ArZ

— Ryan Pinesworth™️ (@RyanPinesworth) January 9, 2023

I think GD meant to post about this here, not in the shooting thread.

The classified includes TS//SCI, which can only be handled or stored in a SCIF. This is very not good.

You can forget about DoJ indicting Trump over mishandling classified, including TS//SCI, at Mar-A-Lago now. https://t.co/lawg3l91ck

— John Schindler (@20committee) January 9, 2023

Actually, it was supposed to be in the Biden thread. Either way, oops.

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I guess that should be followed by immediate pardons for anyone currently in jail or whatever punishment they've been given for the same thing. Only fair, now that it's not a big deal.

I'm sure those on the right will be completely rational about this and fully realize the two situations are totally different.

I have read exactly zero on this. What's the cliffs notes version?

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/biden-c...ied-documents/

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Apparently Diamond died and it appears COVID related?

as in diamond and silk?

Yes

Hate to see it

#donttreadonmygasstove

The whole thing is starting to get . . . boring? Done too much? I'm not sure of the right term. But it always plays out like this:

A scientific consensus emerges that something is much better for us than we thought or that something is much worse for us than we thought.

Governmental officials make suggestions along the lines of "maybe we should take collective action to encourage use of the good thing and/or discourage use of the harmful thing."

And MAGA media jumps on it as a symbol of oppression and everyone dresses up in their literal or figurative Thomas Jefferson costume and loses their shit about it.

Boring.

I am really over it. Unfollowed a bunch of political accounts on twitter yesterday because it just became too much nonsense. The right has zero interest in governing for the good of their country. Their only goal is to latch on to whatever the next opportunity to gaslight their base to keep the never ending river of outrage flowing.

At least it isn't as stupid as advocating for smoking inside public buildings.

I know several foodies that would rather die of starvation rather than cook on electric.

Personally I don't have gas hookups in my house so electric is my only option. I also don't understand why people generally prefer cooking with gas over electric. Can anyone enlighten me?

(Wo)man are just naturally attracted to fire. I could (and have) sat in front of a fire pit watching the flames for hours

And the natural gas, when you first turn it on, smells so good :)

My experience it is far easier to get an even distribution of heat with gas. Whenever we are in an airbnb etc with an electric range I find the burner either gets to hot or not hot enough. I guess you can call me goldilocks.

Gas typically gives you much more and finer control over temperature than electric. Thus, it's preferred for cooktop cooking. Imagine wanting to saute at high heat to get some browning and then immediately back off to a simmer. A basic technique that is easy to do with gas but difficult to do with electric due mainly to the residual heat it holds.

Conversely, electric is far more efficient than gas for the oven itself, and is preferred there (where you're looking to hold a particular temperature, and just that temperature, for a longer time).

This is why you can get ranges (cooktop + oven) with gas for the cooktop & electric for the oven ("dual-fuel").

Having said all that, when we looked to upgrade the electric cooktop that came with the house, we found that we couldn't go with gas because of the weird size of the location for the cooktop, which meant that the existing electric cooktop was actually one designed for an RV or boat, not a house, which: :banghead:

Anyway, we found that a standard induction cooktop would fit, however, and decided to give it a whirl, having had good things (and absolutely hating the existing electric cooktop).

It's been great, and I cook a lot and never thought I'd move on from gas. It has all the close control of gas, plus it can hold a low, low heat a lot better than gas ever could, and when necessary it can push out way more heat than gas can (think: boiling water). Plus, it's cool to the touch about a minute or two after being turned off unless you've been using the "power boil" setting, but even that's cool after about 5 minutes. So, you can, say, make some eggs, plate them, and then put the pan back on the cooktop while you eat and not have to worry about coming back to a blackened and smoking mess.

Total convert here, never going back. Did have to switch out some aluminum and copper-bottomed pans for stainless steel, though our cast iron and cast iron + enamel made the transition just fine.

Tom Colicchio says induction is better than gas.