I’ve stopped covering the usual bullshit budget impasses in Congress for the most part. The topic is utterly meaningless now and has been for years. And, there’s the fact that much of the available coverage is completely worthless, the fakest of hoax news. Like this load:
WASHINGTON — Senior lawmakers were working Sunday to finalize legislation on coronavirus relief after they reached a compromise late Saturday on a major hurdle holding up the expected $900 billion package.
A roadblock emerged Friday as Democrats accused Republicans, namely Sen. Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania, of trying to encumber the Biden administration by cutting off the Federal Reserve’s emergency lending abilities under the CARES Act to protect the battered economy. Lawmakers came to an agreement on the issue late Saturday, sources said.
“Now that Democrats have agreed to a version of Sen. Toomey’s important language, we can begin closing out the rest of the package to deliver much-needed relief to families, workers and businesses,” a spokesman for Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said late Saturday.
The only part that’s true is the “Washington” location. It’s not a shutdown, it’s a shitdown.
Remember how you were prohibited from going to church and bending a knee before God for months? Yeah, so now, the morons in DC have no problem kneeling to their god of dysfunctional diversity hoaxism.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer were joined by two dozen lawmakers in Congress’ Emancipation Hall — named in honor of the slaves who helped erect the US Capitol in the 18th century.
They knelt for eight minutes and 46 seconds to mark the length of time a white police officer pinned his knee on the neck of the 46-year-old Floyd, whose death in Minneapolis May 25 unleashed mass protests against racial injustice.
Instead of meddling and shilling with the JPA, maybe they could just kneel for 117 years, without food or water, to mark how long their money masters have had their knees on all of our necks.
In related news, the US is (surprise, surprise!) officially in a recession.
Remember Snowden? The “traitor” who endangered all those whatevers by blowing the whistle on the rampant abuse of civil liberties by the government? A bill is floating to reign in some of the abuse.
A bipartisan cadre of lawmakers in the House and Senate have introduced legislation that would reform the 9/11-era authorities used by the intelligence community to access Americans’ phone records and other domestic communications.
The Safeguarding Americans’ Private Records Act would narrow Section 215 of the Patriot Act, which provided the National Security Agency and sister intelligence agencies sweeping information-gathering authorities following the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. According to lawmakers, the bill would end the phone surveillance program that would ensnare Americans’ phone records and prohibit the warrantless collection of location data. The bill would reform the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, adding transparency to secretive court processes that decide whether to surveil individuals.
While previous presidential administrations and Congresses have continually renewed the authorities, privacy advocates have voiced increasing opposition to the authorities, which allow for records and data to be vacuumed up without a warrant. The program was first exposed by former intelligence contractor Edward Snowden.
In a statement, Sen. Ron Wyden, D, Ore., said the bill “preserves authorities the government uses against criminals and terrorists, while putting Americans’ constitutional rights front and center.” A companion bill has been introduced in the House, led by Reps. Zoe Lofgren, D-Calif., Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash., and Warren Davidson, R-Ohio.
9/11 and the “PATRIOT” Act were scams. Time to take it back. It would be better to abolish the NSA and the CIA (and the whole FedGov), but this is a start.
Not a bad idea. Therefore, the Dems probably won’t go for it.
Censure would allow the Democrats to move on: Obviously, the Speaker wants to send a strong message to her base that she hears their concerns and is acting on them. But every day that Democrats are not talking about health care is a day that they are slowly but steadily losing the election. The media has a limited attention span, and right now impeachment is king. While impeachment might excite the partisan bases on both sides of the aisle, to the vast middle that isn’t paying attention to the latest revelations that are dripping forth on the front pages of The New York Times, this is time not well spent making the case for their reelections.
Censure would be better for the country than impeachment: What the president did with his Ukrainian call is clearly not impeachable. But it wasn’t a perfect call either. We all know that partisan Democrats have wanted Trump removed from office since the very day he entered it and have come up with a variety of theories as to why he should be thrown out, from invoking the 25th Amendment to the current impeachment imbroglio.
But the American people, in their collective wisdom, through a process designed by the Constitution, put him there, and they have the right to have their voices heard to replace him, should they decide that is the correct path to pursue. Short-circuiting the people is a very bad precedent and would needlessly divide the country for generations.
In 1998, some congressional Republicans and Democrats floated censure as a possible alternative to impeachment and when I worked for the House GOP Leadership, I thought that would have been a more prudent approach.
Part of the challenge with censure is it’s not outlined in the Constitution as a way to punish the president for actions that fall short of high crimes and misdemeanors. And indeed, the only president to be clearly censured by the Congress was Trump’s hero, Andrew Jackson. He was censured by the Senate because he defunded the Second Bank of the United States. That censure was later expunged from the record by Jackson’s Whig allies late in his second term in office.
I would vote against censure of this president, if I were in either the House or the Senate, because I think this has been a partisan exercise not worthy of the Congress. But if I were a congressional Democrat, I would prefer censure to impeachment. Impeachment would be bad for the country but probably good for the president. Censure wouldn’t be nearly as bad for the country nor nearly as good for the president.
But, they no more want to move on than the people have that collective wisdom. This all assumes, of course, that the House goes ahead with the impeachment charade – it’s already losing steam. And, again, it won’t help them with 2020.
Nothing like charging straight ahead when you know you have a case. The Dems prepare to take a vote to set up rules for more votes and hearings about a vote to vote the hearing…
The House will vote this week on a resolution to formalize the next steps of the impeachment inquiry into President Donald Trump.
The resolution — which “establishes the procedure for hearings,” according to a statement by Speaker Nancy Pelosi — will mark the first floor vote on impeachment since Democrats formally launched their inquiry a month ago.
This week, the gang at TPC is on vacation – a summer tradition and well earned. However, National Affairs never stop, relent, nor sleep. Ergo, this week the C.F. Floyd National Affairs Column slums here at my little old blog. Welcome! Getting right down to it,
Last week, on “Juneteenth” – a holy day among the tribes of the central Congo, I believe – a very special committee hearing convened in Mordor. Specifically, the House Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution (yeah, one wonders if they have another subcommittee on powdered wigs or dinosaurs…) held forth on H.R. 40 (2019), the brainchild (if that’s even possible) of Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-La-La land).
This is the first Bill addressed in Congress proposing formal … well, let’s let Mrs. Jackson Lee’s work speak for itself:
A BILL
To address the fundamental injustice, cruelty, brutality, and inhumanity of slavery in the United States and the 13 American colonies between 1619 and 1865 and to establish a commission to study and consider a national apology and proposal for reparations for the institution of slavery, its subsequent de jure and de facto racial and economic discrimination against African-Americans, and the impact of these forces on living African-Americans, to make recommendations to the Congress on appropriate remedies, and for other purposes.
…
This Act may be cited as the “Commission to Study and Develop Reparation Proposals for African-Americans Act”.
Knowing that it does not get any better than the above, feel free to waste time reading THE WHOLE BILL.
Before we discuss the … merits… of H.R. 40 … okay, there are no merits, but uh, let’s have a little history anyway. I’ll spin it in a way to support the reparations racket (which I do in fact support). Did you know that,
Black Africans used to build spaceship pyramids? They did before they were enslaved in America in 1619. All true.
Black Africans are (were) the “real” Egyptians, real Hebrews, real Muslims, and even the real Black Africans.
There was no slavery in Africa, prior to the arrival of those wicked men from “Roots.” Africans, Arabs, and other Semitic peoples had absolutely nothing to do with slavery. Just whites. Time to pay!
The very first registered slave-owner in America was certainly NOT a black man… No.
No whites were ever held in slavery in America or anywhere else. Do not let the damned Irish and Slavs try to deceive you.
Blacks in America are almost all slaves today and have been since 1619 (maybe since 619!).
Blacks in America are almost entirely treated as chattel property, without autonomy or the right to own property, vote, or hold office. (This makes Sheila Jackson Lee’s existence as an elected official all the more remarkable).
No Civil War, Presidential Proclamation, law, or Constitutional Amendment was ever even considered to ameliorate this terrible injustice.
Blacks in America, if they are allowed schooling, are schooled in segregated institutions.
No-one named Rosa Parks, Martin Luther King, Jr., Malcolm X, Jesse Jackson, or Maynard Jackson ever lived.
There were no civil rights movement and attendant laws in the middle of the 20th Century.
Except for the extremely odd case of Sheila Jackson Lee (and a few very other strange cases), there are no Black elected officials in America.
Out of … a whole lot of white guys … no Black American has ever served as President. Ever. Certainly not as recently as three years ago.
And – I’ll just throw this in for fantasy measure – there are no other races or ethnic divisions in America. It’s just oppressive whites and oppressed blacks. We also have no demographic, societal, educational, economic, political, or other troubles to worry about.
So, one can plainly see that reparations for something no-one alive today ever had anything to do with, is the right thing to do. That’s not just the accelerationist in me talking. Okay, honestly it is…
Whatever you do, please pay no heed to right-wing, white supremacist, Nazi extremists like Coleman Hughes, who testified at the hearing on behalf of the Ku Klux Klan:
He and his “justice for the dead at the price of justice for the living” crap are just pure hate. Instead, all those of you still working and singing on the Political Plantation, listen to the great wisdom of the Chairman, Mas’ (((Cohen))). “Chill!” like the man ordered. Don’t be “presumptive,” as he condescended. Know your place and your rank on the totem pole. If scraps come your way, then be grateful.
Looking beyond certain failure in the current Senate or on Trump’s desk, the fact the hearing was held and taken with any degree of seriousness, tells you something about AmericaThe United States This Place Between Mexico and Canada. If this passes, and some form of it may in time, then it will be just another heap of dirt in the grave of civilization on these shores. Bluntly, anyone who supports this scheme, at face value and for the “reasons” listed in the Bill, proves himself not necessarily African, but most certainly not American. Take the loot and then go home?
Note: Other big doin’s around the Nation include Bernie Sanders’s surprisingly good idea to cancel ALL student loan debt. We have “strong” sanctions on Iran (again, still). And, we have no Southern border whatsoever. This, that, maybe more, maybe something else, when TPC resumes on Sunday, the 30th. I may participate in the looming SUPER POST! Stay tuned. Please remember to tip your server as you exit perrinlovett[dot]me…
Here. We. Go. This is what could be my most controversial issue yet, especially if you’re not into facts. I’m proud MB published this one, even with a disclaimer (not the first time). But, this TPC column (and this blog post) does represent the first time I’ve ever used (((ECHOES))), that Alt-Right touch of rhetoric. It’s probably not going to be a usual thing here or in the CFF annals but, this time, it fit in well.
I make some observations herein. I observe some text and history. I make some predictions and I give my opinions. If you think I’m wrong, then, by all means, point out where and how. Be specific. Maybe I’ve missed some other version of the Constitution, some other Roll Call votes, some other Bills and Resolutions, and some other political statements.
*****
*ed.note – as is always the case, just a quick reminder that the views expressed by author P. Lovett do not necessarily represent or reflect the views of The Piedmont Chronicles, nor its staff or Editor, M.McCart. This piece is…heavy, and could very well be construed by some to come across a certain way; however, as a fierce, fierce defender of the 1st amendment, I never had any doubt I wouldn’t publish it. Or, if you will, I may not agree with what you say, “but I’ll defend to the death your right to say it.” As always, we appreciate you reading The Chronicles. – MBM
The Most Special Resolution in the World:
House Resolution 183 (2019), The Craven Admission of Total Failure Act
Not too long ago, freshman Congress Critter Ilhan Omar (D-Somalia) tweeted something about “AIPAC,” or the American Israel Public Affairs Committee. It was something about the inordinate amount of influence the group and its constituents wield in the United States Empire. The lovely little lady from Mogadishu (really) has since deleted the tweet, but not before it caused a considerable stir amongst the perpetually perturbed – a stir replete with 10,001 cries of “anti-Semitism.” You might have heard something about all of this.
What better way to refute claims that Jews in America hold too much power and influence than to have the entire American House of Representatives [SIC] vote to condemn one woman for daring to suggest that Jews in America hold too much power and influence.
That’s just what they did. Find ye HERE the Roll Call vote, number 108, 407 – 23 in favor of House Res. 183, the waaaay-too-long-entitled Condemning anti-Semitism as hateful expressions of intolerance that are contradictory to the values and aspirations that define the people of the United States and condemning anti-Muslim discrimination and bigotry against minorities as hateful expressions of intolerance that are contrary to the values and aspirations of the United States [Act].
The 23 rodents who voted against the Resolution did so because they felt the measure should have concentrated solely upon “anti-Semitism,” rather than on the laundry list of grievance groups actually included. The 407 rodents who voted in favor – including Omar (to her credit?) – did so only after adding a laundry list of offended minority groups. (More on that in a moment).
Not to suggest, in any way, that Jews really do wield ridiculously outsized power in America, this is the second time, this year, Congress has entertained legislation to affirm Jewish supremacy. The first was S. 1 (2019), which passed the Senate 77-23 which, should it become law, could conceivably outlaw columns like this one. (Your author quakes with fear). Yes, as the numbering insinuates, this was the first Bill brought in the Senate this year – a Bill dedicated to the authority, the supremacy of a foreign power. America first?
Now, for the laundry list:
Whereas the first amendment to the Constitution established the United States as a country committed to the principles of tolerance and religious freedom, and the 14th amendment to the Constitution established equal protection of the laws as the heart of justice in the United States; Whereas adherence to these principles is vital to the progress of the American people and the diverse communities and religious groups of the United States; Whereas whether from the political right, center, or left, bigotry, discrimination, oppression, racism, and imputations of dual loyalty threaten American democracy and have no place in American political discourse; Whereas white supremacists in the United States have exploited and continue to exploit bigotry and weaponize hate for political gain, targeting traditionally persecuted peoples, including African Americans, Latinos, Native Americans, Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders and other people of color, Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Sikhs, the LGBTQ community, immigrants, and others with verbal attacks, incitement, and violence;
… blah, blah, blah, more bullshit …
Resolved, That the House of Representatives— (1) rejects the perpetuation of anti-Semitic stereotypes in the United States and around the world, including the pernicious myth of dual loyalty and foreign allegiance, especially in the context of support for the United States-Israel alliance;
…
Tolerance and the heart of justice. Principles vital to the progress of the American people and the diverse communities and religious groups of the United States. African Americans, Latinos, Native Americans, Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders and other people of color, Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Sikhs, the LGBTQ community, immigrants, and others. Hmmm. White supremacist exploitation the culprit behind black Muslim Tweets.
Before one comes to the Fourteenth Amendment or even the First Amendment, one necessarily reads the Preamble of the Constitution, which tells one exactly who these “Americans” are. They are the POSTERITY of the Founders. This is confirmed by Preamble, The Declaration of Independence, the unanimous composition of the Founders, and by the original Naturalization Act of 1790. “Americans” are – or were – white Christian Europeans of good character, of English origin if at all possible.
The one group not included in that laundry list of sorrows is the very same group who constitute the actual, intended citizenry of this Nation. Interesting, and an admission. Despite Omar’s words, were We really the target? Are we the “white supremacists” they mentioned? Projection much?
