But seriously, this is an easily foreseeable consequence of a system that assigns power based on seniority. The U.S. Senate has five members over eighty and three others who will be over eighty by the time the 119th Congress is gavelled into session. Of those eight seats, four are up for re-election in 2024. Two have announced that they're retiring (Dianne Feinstein and Ben Cardin), one has announce that he's running again (Angus King), and one has not made an announcement either way (Bernie Sanders).
Just today on Morning Edition (National Public Radio program), there was a feature about Pres. Biden (& other PsOTUS) taking the "short" stairs into Air Force One. Listen here.
For me the creepiest part of the McConnell video comes at 22 seconds in, when McConnell's aide gives the press a little wink as she says "I'm sorry y'all, we're gonna need a minute".
Leaving the wink aside, it's telling how quickly McConnell's aides stepped in and their apparent lack of panic. This implies that this happens frequently enough in private settings that a routine has been established. Part of the problem is that Senators with enough seniority (meaning tenure and power in the Senate, not necessarily age, though the former usually requires the latter) have built up a retinue of staff and advisors who can somewhat insulate them from the consequences of any mental or physical deterioration that may have taken place. More significantly, this retinue depends on the Senator continuing to be a Senator for their own continued employment so they're highly incentivized to conceal and minimize any health concerns for as long as possible.
Congress is back in session. Top Priority, pass a continuing resolution by the end of the month to allow the government to run if for a few more weeks. Great way to run a government. There is a bipartisan proposal that both sides in the Senate will support, but all spending bills have to start in the House. But wait, the Freedom Caucus is saying they will not vote for any continuing resolution until the House takes up the impeachment of President Biden and defund the American support of Ukraine.
McCarthy has a choice: to kowtow to the Freedom Caucus people, or go the bipartisan route. If he takes the second choice, he will likely lose the Speakership.
I can imagine McCarthy has a bad set of ulcers.
Margory Taylor Green is not necessarily a part of the Freedom Caucus at this point, but she echoes the same demands of the Freedom Caucus.
Well the Freedom Caucus said "Jump!" And McCarthy jumped. Before the break McCarthy was saying there was not enough votes to impeach Biden over an alleged pay for play involving Hunter Biden. Hunter received moneys from both Ukraine and China while dad was in the US Senate.
Today, McCarthy said he is calling for an impeachment investigation on Biden.
Talking heads claim he cannot do that without a vote to authorize the investigation.
Several Republicans themselves have said nothing is there.
Someone is going to come out with egg on his face.
My take is that this is solely about muddying the waters to take the heat off Trump and push a "both sides" narrative. Actually impeaching Biden would be a dog-catches-car scenario.
Sure, irrelevant for the reality-based community. I'm just wondering if Greene and her ilk have thought about what would happen if they did actually catch the car and remove Biden from office.
Sure, irrelevant for the reality-based community. I'm just wondering if Greene and her ilk have thought about what would happen if they did actually catch the car and remove Biden from office.
They think they can beat Harris. Besides, this is a tit for tat scenario. The Democrats impeached Trump twice. The Republicans want to show they can do it to Biden too.
Interesting complication from this Trump-era memo [PDF] from the Office of Legal Counsel. According to the OLC impeachment inquiries are not valid unless voted upon by the House of Representatives as a whole.
There are a few caveats here. The OLC is not a judicial body, it's a section of the Justice Department that provides legal advice to the president and executive branch agencies. As such its opinions are not binding until upheld by some court. Still, I'd like to hear various Republican House members weigh in on this.
For the record, the full House of Representatives voted in favor of impeachment inquiries in both of Trump's impeachments.
Looks like we are headed for a government shutdown. All because McCarthy has no balls to stand up to the Freedom Caucus.
Republican speakers have long said they would not bring anything up to the floor if they did not have the Republican votes to pass it.
McCarthy could pass it if he reached across the aisle to the Democrats for a bipartisan vote; but, if he did, the radicals would vote him out of office.
So, millions of people will suffer all because of McCarthy.
Republicans have never learned every time they shut the government down, ultimately they lose.
McCarthy could pass it if he reached across the aisle to the Democrats for a bipartisan vote; but, if he did, the radicals would vote him out of office.
So, millions of people will suffer all because of McCarthy.
Republicans have never learned every time they shut the government down, ultimately they lose.
But they always hurt many people doing it.
For reference, the last government shutdown started when Trump was in the White House and both houses of Congress had Republican majorities. The Republican party seems programmed to shut down the federal government, even when they're running it. So while McCarthy is, as predicted, very deficient as Speaker of the House, the pending shutdown isn't "all because of McCarthy".
So while McCarthy is, as predicted, very deficient as Speaker of the House, the pending shutdown isn't "all because of McCarthy".
That is not what I said. I said we are staring at a government shutdown all because McCarthy does not have the balls to stand up to the Freedom Caucus. You seemed to overlook the last clause of my sentence. It is the Freedom Caucus that wants the shutdown. McCarthy is enabling their behavior, though.
McCarthy could pass it if he reached across the aisle to the Democrats for a bipartisan vote; but, if he did, the radicals would vote him out of office.
That is assuming the Democrats were inclined to help McCarthy out of the whole he and the rest of the House Republicans have dug for themselves. I don’t know that that’s a safe assumption.
McCarthy could pass it if he reached across the aisle to the Democrats for a bipartisan vote; but, if he did, the radicals would vote him out of office.
That is assuming the Democrats were inclined to help McCarthy out of the whole he and the rest of the House Republicans have dug for themselves. I don’t know that that’s a safe assumption.
Biden and McCarthy actually shook hands on an a agreement; then McCarthy reneged. The Dems want McCarthy to honor his agreement with Biden.
McCarthy could pass it if he reached across the aisle to the Democrats for a bipartisan vote; but, if he did, the radicals would vote him out of office.
That is assuming the Democrats were inclined to help McCarthy out of the whole he and the rest of the House Republicans have dug for themselves. I don’t know that that’s a safe assumption.
Biden and McCarthy actually shook hands on an a agreement; then McCarthy reneged. The Dems want McCarthy to honor his agreement with Biden.
Sure, as do the Senate Republicans. And had McCarthy never reneged, the House Dems might be willing to play ball. But as McCarthy has made his bed, the House Dems seem content to let him sleep in it, and to let Republicans demonstrate their inability to govern.
Dianne Feinstein has died. She had already announced that she was not seeking reelection and several prominent California Democrats had already announced their intention to run for her seat in 2024. Governor Newsom will doubtless appoint another Democrat to fill out the remainder of her term, but the Democrats being down a Senator 38 hours before an expected government shutdown seems inconvenient.
This may seem like a cold-blooded analysis, but it's probably one being made by anyone who isn't among Feinstein's circle of family and friends.
Dianne Feinstein has died. She had already announced that she was not seeking reelection and several prominent California Democrats had already announced their intention to run for her seat in 2024. Governor Newsom will doubtless appoint another Democrat to fill out the remainder of her term, but the Democrats being down a Senator 38 hours before an expected government shutdown seems inconvenient.
This may seem like a cold-blooded analysis, but it's probably one being made by anyone who isn't among Feinstein's circle of family and friends.
Diane was the first female Senator, I believe. She gained her seat during the Gerald Ford presidency. At the time, she was very influential in American politics, especially for women's rights. She represented California's interests very well.
However, it the last few years she was failing. Many times she would fall asleep while in committee hearings. I would say she is one reason why I want to see elderly congresspeople, and presidents, for that matter to retire, say around 80.
No, I do not think either Biden or Trump should be running again at their age.
Diane was the first female Senator, I believe. She gained her seat during the Gerald Ford presidency. At the time, she was very influential in American politics, especially for women's rights. She represented California's interests very well.
Diane was the first female Senator, I believe. She gained her seat during the Gerald Ford presidency. At the time, she was very influential in American politics, especially for women's rights. She represented California's interests very well.
And Feinstein was elected to the Senate in 1992, during the presidency of George H. W. Bush, and in the election where Bill Clinton defeated Bush, not during the Ford presidency.
Technically that was Rebecca Felton, who was appointed and served a single day in 1922. The first woman elected to the U.S. Senate was Hattie Caraway, who was appointed to replace her dead husband in the Senate in 1932 and went on to win election in her own right later that year and was re-elected in 1938.
Still, when Feinstein entered the Senate Barbara Mikulski was the only other female U.S. Senator serving at the time.
She gained her seat during the Gerald Ford presidency.
She won a special election to the Senate in 1992, the same year Bill Clinton won the presidency. During the Ford administration Feinstein was a member of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors. That was her first elected office.
Dianne Feinstein has died. She had already announced that she was not seeking reelection and several prominent California Democrats had already announced their intention to run for her seat in 2024. Governor Newsom will doubtless appoint another Democrat to fill out the remainder of her term, but the Democrats being down a Senator 38 hours before an expected government shutdown seems inconvenient.
This may seem like a cold-blooded analysis, but it's probably one being made by anyone who isn't among Feinstein's circle of family and friends.
I would be astonished if Newsome didn't have someone cued up already for the spot. But I have no idea what formalities need to be gone through to make the appointment, nor how long they will take.
Governor Newsom has said he fill first honor Feinstein's memory, then appoint a caretaker to finish out her term, who will not be someone running for the position in next year's election.
The laws vary greatly by state as to whether the governor can fill it by appointment or if it has to go to a special election (which may depend on the timing). But it seems like this case can be handled fairly expeditiously.
I would be astonished if Newsome didn't have someone cued up already for the spot. But I have no idea what formalities need to be gone through to make the appointment, nor how long they will take.
It's more difficult than it appears because Feinstein had already announced she wasn't going to seek reelection so a lot of the people you'd expect Newsom to appoint to fill the vacancy have already declared their candidacy for this office (Adam Schiff, Katie Porter, Barbara Lee). This leaves Newsom the problem of either appointing one of them, giving them a leg up as an incumbent in 2024 and thus disrupting his party's nomination process, or to nominate an unambitious "placeholder" Senator who would be willing to step aside in a year.
The interesting question is what will be done with Feinstein's committee assignments. She sat on the Senate Judiciary, Intelligence, Appropriations, and Rules committees, some of the most important in the Senate as one would expect of a Senator with her seniority. Earlier this year when it was speculated Feinstein would resign Republicans threatened to block those committee seats being filled. (Apparently Senate rules permit this kind of obstructionism.) I'm wondering what they'll do in the face her death. It seems like a precedent they wouldn't want to set, but you never know with today's Republicans.
I would hope Feinsteins replacement can temporarily hold her committee assignments, though as a freshman Senator.
That’s not usually the way committee assignments work. For example, when Al Franken resigned his Senate seat was filled by Tina Smith but his seat on the Judiciary Committee was filled by Kamala Harris.
I would be astonished if Newsome didn't have someone cued up already for the spot. But I have no idea what formalities need to be gone through to make the appointment, nor how long they will take.
It's more difficult than it appears because Feinstein had already announced she wasn't going to seek reelection so a lot of the people you'd expect Newsom to appoint to fill the vacancy have already declared their candidacy for this office (Adam Schiff, Katie Porter, Barbara Lee). This leaves Newsom the problem of either appointing one of them, giving them a leg up as an incumbent in 2024 and thus disrupting his party's nomination process, or to nominate an unambitious "placeholder" Senator who would be willing to step aside in a year.
Newsom said a while ago that if the seat were to come open he would appoint a caretaker, not someone who wanted to run in 2024, and he's said he'd appoint a Black woman. I'm sure he doesn't want to choose sides in the primary in an obvious way by choosing one of the candidates. It's not a party nomination - we have open primaries in California. Schiff and Porter will probably run first and second in the primary and duke it out in the general election. Lee and her supporters are pretty bugged that he's not going to appoint her - she's a Black woman, so she'd check the boxes he's already committed to and get a huge lift, which she really needs, as she's way behind in fundraising. But he needs to not piss off even more powerful Democrats between now and his probable run for president.
One of the people who has been floated as a possible appointee, Shirley Weber, the CA Secretary of State, told the NY Times that no one has talked to her about it, and that she wouldn't want to do it because it's a temporary gig. I think Newsom has painted himself into a corner - he needs to find a high-powered Black woman who'd be willing to give up whatever she's currently doing to take a job that will only last about a year.
To the best of my knowledge Michelle Obama has never lived in California, nor has she expressed any desire to do so that I'm aware of. In other words, she fails the Constitution's requirement that Senators "be an Inhabitant of that State for which he shall be chosen" (Art. I, § 3, cl. 3). Still, she'd be a kick-ass Senator.
To the best of my knowledge Michelle Obama has never lived in California, nor has she expressed any desire to do so that I'm aware of. In other words, she fails the Constitution's requirement that Senators "be an Inhabitant of that State for which he shall be chosen" (Art. I, § 3, cl. 3). Still, she'd be a kick-ass Senator.
If push came to shove I doubt it would be hard for her to establish residency. It appears the younger Obamas live in LA.
If you're running for Senate in California, you have to already be a resident. If you're appointed, you have to move here before you're sworn in. Based on what I've read in the past, Michele Obama has zero interest in holding office. And that's the thing -- what person who would be good at the job wants to be a Senator for just one year?
I was thinking she is intelligent, politically well informed - doesn’t want to be a senator, therefore might be willing to hold the post short term for the sake of the country. But as people have said, doesn’t meet the residency criteria.
For a single year, I'm in favour of whoever will cause the outraged explosion of as many GOP heads as possible. Angela Davis as a Black lesbian marxist ought to be reasonably effective.
I was thinking she is intelligent, politically well informed - doesn’t want to be a senator, therefore might be willing to hold the post short term for the sake of the country. But as people have said, doesn’t meet the residency criteria.
Any US citizen could move to California today and be appointed tomorrow. But if I had to bet, I'd say Michelle Obama feels like she's made enough sacrifices for the country. She gave up what she wanted to do so her husband could run for president and then govern, close to 10 years of her life. Not to mention the hate, abuse, death threats -- she still deals with those things, but they would skyrocket if she became a senator.
For a single year, I'm in favour of whoever will cause the outraged explosion of as many GOP heads as possible. Angela Davis as a Black lesbian marxist ought to be reasonably effective.
Newsom wouldn't torpedo his career like this, but oh -- it would be so delicious. Or maybe Kimberlé Crenshaw would be willing to take a year off from academia.
More realistically: here's a Los Angeles Times article discussing potential appointees (I wish they'd let subscribers give gift links, sorry). It names Angela Glover Blackwell, PolicyLink founder; Lateefah Simon, Bay Area Rapid Transit board member; London Breed, San Francisco mayor; Shirley Weber, California secretary of state; Laphonza Butler, EMILY’s List president; Malia Cohen, California state controller; and Leondra Kruger, California Supreme Court justice. The NY Times says Weber and Breed have already said they're not interested.
I am extremely disappointed in the Continuing Resolution passed by Congress. Yes, it avoids a government shutdown for another 45 days. Yes, it had extra money for for disaster relief. But why did the majority have to kow tow to six freedom caucus members and not pass funding for Ukraine?
Now, I know there will be an attempt to pass a special funding bill for Ukraine, or there could be other ways of funding them--like using some of the confiscated moneys of the Russian Oligarchs.
McCarthy finally broke down and asked the Democrats to vote for his bill. In so doing, he lost 97 Republican votes.
Comments
Leaving the wink aside, it's telling how quickly McConnell's aides stepped in and their apparent lack of panic. This implies that this happens frequently enough in private settings that a routine has been established. Part of the problem is that Senators with enough seniority (meaning tenure and power in the Senate, not necessarily age, though the former usually requires the latter) have built up a retinue of staff and advisors who can somewhat insulate them from the consequences of any mental or physical deterioration that may have taken place. More significantly, this retinue depends on the Senator continuing to be a Senator for their own continued employment so they're highly incentivized to conceal and minimize any health concerns for as long as possible.
McCarthy has a choice: to kowtow to the Freedom Caucus people, or go the bipartisan route. If he takes the second choice, he will likely lose the Speakership.
I can imagine McCarthy has a bad set of ulcers.
Margory Taylor Green is not necessarily a part of the Freedom Caucus at this point, but she echoes the same demands of the Freedom Caucus.
Today, McCarthy said he is calling for an impeachment investigation on Biden.
Talking heads claim he cannot do that without a vote to authorize the investigation.
Several Republicans themselves have said nothing is there.
Someone is going to come out with egg on his face.
Irrelevant. There aren't 67 Senators willing to convict on an impeachment. In fact, given that McCarthy flip flopped on whether a impeachment inquiry would require a vote of the full House it's unlikely he could get 218 votes in the House to impeach Biden.
They think they can beat Harris. Besides, this is a tit for tat scenario. The Democrats impeached Trump twice. The Republicans want to show they can do it to Biden too.
There are a few caveats here. The OLC is not a judicial body, it's a section of the Justice Department that provides legal advice to the president and executive branch agencies. As such its opinions are not binding until upheld by some court. Still, I'd like to hear various Republican House members weigh in on this.
For the record, the full House of Representatives voted in favor of impeachment inquiries in both of Trump's impeachments.
Republican speakers have long said they would not bring anything up to the floor if they did not have the Republican votes to pass it.
McCarthy could pass it if he reached across the aisle to the Democrats for a bipartisan vote; but, if he did, the radicals would vote him out of office.
So, millions of people will suffer all because of McCarthy.
Republicans have never learned every time they shut the government down, ultimately they lose.
But they always hurt many people doing it.
This is known as the Hastert Rule, named after former Speaker of the House and convicted sex abuser Dennis Hastert 47991-424.
The other "Hastert Rule" is apparently "always withdraw hush money payments from the bank in amounts below the federal reporting threshold".
For reference, the last government shutdown started when Trump was in the White House and both houses of Congress had Republican majorities. The Republican party seems programmed to shut down the federal government, even when they're running it. So while McCarthy is, as predicted, very deficient as Speaker of the House, the pending shutdown isn't "all because of McCarthy".
That is not what I said. I said we are staring at a government shutdown all because McCarthy does not have the balls to stand up to the Freedom Caucus. You seemed to overlook the last clause of my sentence. It is the Freedom Caucus that wants the shutdown. McCarthy is enabling their behavior, though.
Ahem.
Okay, in that case, yes, they will suffer because McCarthy will not stand up to the Freedom Caucus
Biden and McCarthy actually shook hands on an a agreement; then McCarthy reneged. The Dems want McCarthy to honor his agreement with Biden.
This may seem like a cold-blooded analysis, but it's probably one being made by anyone who isn't among Feinstein's circle of family and friends.
Diane was the first female Senator, I believe. She gained her seat during the Gerald Ford presidency. At the time, she was very influential in American politics, especially for women's rights. She represented California's interests very well.
However, it the last few years she was failing. Many times she would fall asleep while in committee hearings. I would say she is one reason why I want to see elderly congresspeople, and presidents, for that matter to retire, say around 80.
No, I do not think either Biden or Trump should be running again at their age.
Not quite, perhaps California's first female US Senator...
https://www.senate.gov/artandhistory/history/common/briefing/women_senators.htm
Technically that was Rebecca Felton, who was appointed and served a single day in 1922. The first woman elected to the U.S. Senate was Hattie Caraway, who was appointed to replace her dead husband in the Senate in 1932 and went on to win election in her own right later that year and was re-elected in 1938.
Still, when Feinstein entered the Senate Barbara Mikulski was the only other female U.S. Senator serving at the time.
She won a special election to the Senate in 1992, the same year Bill Clinton won the presidency. During the Ford administration Feinstein was a member of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors. That was her first elected office.
I would be astonished if Newsome didn't have someone cued up already for the spot. But I have no idea what formalities need to be gone through to make the appointment, nor how long they will take.
The laws vary greatly by state as to whether the governor can fill it by appointment or if it has to go to a special election (which may depend on the timing). But it seems like this case can be handled fairly expeditiously.
It's more difficult than it appears because Feinstein had already announced she wasn't going to seek reelection so a lot of the people you'd expect Newsom to appoint to fill the vacancy have already declared their candidacy for this office (Adam Schiff, Katie Porter, Barbara Lee). This leaves Newsom the problem of either appointing one of them, giving them a leg up as an incumbent in 2024 and thus disrupting his party's nomination process, or to nominate an unambitious "placeholder" Senator who would be willing to step aside in a year.
Thank you for the corrections, guys. I had quickly glanced at an MSN obituary an saw her with Ford.
Are you talking about our Congress, or the trials and tribulations of a certain former president? That's a different thread.
That’s not usually the way committee assignments work. For example, when Al Franken resigned his Senate seat was filled by Tina Smith but his seat on the Judiciary Committee was filled by Kamala Harris.
Newsom said a while ago that if the seat were to come open he would appoint a caretaker, not someone who wanted to run in 2024, and he's said he'd appoint a Black woman. I'm sure he doesn't want to choose sides in the primary in an obvious way by choosing one of the candidates. It's not a party nomination - we have open primaries in California. Schiff and Porter will probably run first and second in the primary and duke it out in the general election. Lee and her supporters are pretty bugged that he's not going to appoint her - she's a Black woman, so she'd check the boxes he's already committed to and get a huge lift, which she really needs, as she's way behind in fundraising. But he needs to not piss off even more powerful Democrats between now and his probable run for president.
One of the people who has been floated as a possible appointee, Shirley Weber, the CA Secretary of State, told the NY Times that no one has talked to her about it, and that she wouldn't want to do it because it's a temporary gig. I think Newsom has painted himself into a corner - he needs to find a high-powered Black woman who'd be willing to give up whatever she's currently doing to take a job that will only last about a year.
To the best of my knowledge Michelle Obama has never lived in California, nor has she expressed any desire to do so that I'm aware of. In other words, she fails the Constitution's requirement that Senators "be an Inhabitant of that State for which he shall be chosen" (Art. I, § 3, cl. 3). Still, she'd be a kick-ass Senator.
If push came to shove I doubt it would be hard for her to establish residency. It appears the younger Obamas live in LA.
(tangent: I just learned from her Wiki entry that her dad was an Episcopal priest!)
Any US citizen could move to California today and be appointed tomorrow. But if I had to bet, I'd say Michelle Obama feels like she's made enough sacrifices for the country. She gave up what she wanted to do so her husband could run for president and then govern, close to 10 years of her life. Not to mention the hate, abuse, death threats -- she still deals with those things, but they would skyrocket if she became a senator.
Newsom wouldn't torpedo his career like this, but oh -- it would be so delicious. Or maybe Kimberlé Crenshaw would be willing to take a year off from academia.
Now, I know there will be an attempt to pass a special funding bill for Ukraine, or there could be other ways of funding them--like using some of the confiscated moneys of the Russian Oligarchs.
McCarthy finally broke down and asked the Democrats to vote for his bill. In so doing, he lost 97 Republican votes.
He should start packing his books in his office..
But yes, I'm wondering the same about a great many congress critters.