We saw several examples of it in the Regan and Clinton era where in a divided government an opposition party controlling congress presented ideological related bills to a president in an attempt to back that president into a corner and sign into law something that hurt their broader agenda. But in the Obama era once the Tea Party became a relevant faction in congress it really rose in salience because they used it as a threat in pretty much everything. It’s interesting in retrospect that we ended up with only 1 shut down in the Obama era when the threat of it hung over us so heavily and constantly through the last 6 years of his Presidency.
One of the fucked up things Congress did though in recognition to how much of our political energy it had started taking up was not to put in place common sense budgeting laws that take the threat of shut downs off the table - budgets continue at present funding indefinitely unless new appropriations bills are signed. Instead they put in place laws to protect federal workers to make a LOT more of government actually stay open even during a shut down. Now the pain of a shut down is much less than it was when Clinton shut it down so they’ve incentivized it to be used as a political tactic more often.
We make the wrong decision about how to do government at pretty much every opportunity
This is astonishing - Senate GOP mixed up in January 6 could get $500k per subpoena instance since 2020 as part of a late amendment they slipped into the bill
The financial payback is obviously shockingly self-serving, but it is the ongoing dismissal of one of the most disgraceful episodes in our political history that should really offend people here. Like I said the other day, the rehabilitation that has been done on what was a shocking widespread effort to subvert the election results is arguably more disgraceful than the initial episode because it has involved loads of people who were rightfully outraged at what was happening in real time. Now it’s just seen as a standard partisan political issue
A furious campaign is underway right now to strongarm Boebert and Mace. Trump’s been on the blower to both of them today and Boebert is getting the full shakedown treatment from Bondi and Patel , in the Situation Room no less. (NYT)
Yeah it wasnt clear the context. Normally I would think with that phrase they were commenting on Trump speaking out. But in the context, talking about one of the girls being with Trump for hours, it seems like they are commenting on Trump’s name being kept out of the scandal (at that point), which seemingly surprised them given his involvement in the shit.
Either way though it is a pretty damning statement of his involvement.
Presumably a reference to the Sherlock Holmes story where the dog not barking was the key clue as to who had actually done it - the dog kept quiet it because it knew the perpetrator
Hence the huge pressure on Boebert right now to switch her intention and not vote to release the files. By the time that vote comes around in December, it wouldn’t surprise me at all if the Republicans have turned enough people to keep the files suppressed.
I hope for the old adage, the truth will out.
In years to come this iteration of the Republican Party will go down as the group who protected a paedophile monster.
I dont like trying to put meat on bones of conspiracy theories, but I think the conventional CT I would be most inclined to think there is some there there is the international espionage angle. And it be Israel related.
Epstein himself has multiple connections with top Israel officials in ways that dont make a lot of sense. It even extends to a personal relationships with Barak, who is heavily implicated in this shit. Robert Maxwell has his own connections, and is that how his daughter became connected and intertwined in this all? And that all jives with the weird situation of comments being attributed Alex Acosta when being vetted by Bannon for a role in Trump’s first cabinet that when he was the DA on the original Epstein case in Florida he was leaned on by intelligence to back off. He has always denied that he made those comments, but no one has ever got an actual explanation for why Acosta legit broke the law in giving Epstein such a sweetheart deal. You also have the issue that the comments came out at a time when no one knew who Acosta was or that he had been on the case and when the Epstein issue was not really very salient. So its one of those of why would anyone make up that he said it?
