The Everything 118th Congress Thread

[Cooked Crack]

Wrong thread

Edited March 22, 2023 by Cooked Crack

[China]

On 3/20/2023 at 3:03 PM, China said:

US House Republicans launch investigation of Manhattan DA in Trump probe

 

U.S. House of Representatives Republicans went on the offensive on Monday against a possible criminal indictment against Donald Trump, launching an investigation into the New York City prosecutor who is probing allegations that the former president paid hush money to a porn star ahead of the 2016 election.

 

Three Republican committee chairmen sent a letter to Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg seeking communications, documents and testimony from him related to his investigation of a $130,000 payment by Trump's former lawyer to adult film actress Stormy Daniels to buy her silence over a 2006 sexual encounter she said she had with Trump.

Trump has denied any such relationship and any wrongdoing.

 

His fellow Republicans including House Speaker Kevin McCarthy have accused Bragg, a Democrat, of abuse of power and using his office to pursue a political agenda. McCarthy had also said he would direct House committees to determine whether federal funds have been used in the district attorney's probe.

 

Click on the link for the full article

 

Highlighted part shows they are doing exactly what they are accusing other of doing.

 

 

[China]

 

[China]

‘Embarrassingly stupid’: Internet explodes over Republican’s ‘technologically illiterate’ questions at TikTok hearing

 

TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew testified before the House Energy and Commerce Committee this Thursday, with the hearing focusing on members' concerns that the app has data privacy issues, potential harms for children, and connections to the Chinese government.

 

Some of the questions posed to Chew from lawmakers were slammed on social media as being technologically ignorant, one of which came from Rep. Richard Hudson (R-NC).

 

"Mr, Chew, does TikTok access the home wifi network?" Hudson asked.

 

"Only if the user turns on the wifi," Chew replied. "I'm sorry, I may not understand the question."

 

"So if I have the TikTok app on my phone and my phone is on my home wifi network, does TikTok access that network?" Hudson clarified.

 

"It would have to -- to access the network to get connections to the internet, if that's the question," Chew replied, seeming somewhat confused.

 

Hudson then asked if it's possible that TikTok could "access other devices on that home wifi network," to which Chew replied that the app doesn't do anything "that is beyond industry norms."

 

The line of questioning sparked a wave of mockery on Twitter, with some marveling at how baffling it is that "someone so technologically illiterate can be on a committee like this."

 

"Elected officials are the worst group of people to be conducting these because they don't have a clue, but every time this is how it works," tweeted @bschaeffer12. "It's such a circus."

 

Click on the link for the full article

Edited March 24, 2023 by China

[China]

McCarthy and the House GOP members are a legislative clown car.

 

House GOP infighting is threatening their ability to get bills out the door

 

Speaker Kevin McCarthy vowed to open up the House floor to more freewheeling debate. Now he’s finding out how hard it is to keep that promise.

 

As the GOP prepares to bring up a pair of marquee bills on energy and education, McCarthy and his leadership team are knee-deep in proposed amendments from their own party that — if adopted — could tank both pieces of legislation outright.

 

“That’s the advantage, or disadvantage, of having open amendments. We’ll see how it rolls out. This would be the first true test,” Rep. Dave Joyce (R-Ohio) said. He called it a stark turnaround from past years, when members complained they lacked “buy-in” on key votes.

 

Senior Republicans say they ultimately have the votes to pass both the energy and education bills on the floor. But that’s only after an aggressive whip operation by McCarthy’s leadership team, including Majority Whip Tom Emmer (R-Minn.), to assuage concerns about the flood of amendments.

 

That kind of last-minute scrambling to lock down votes is likely to be the norm for Republican leadership over the next two years, as the party fights to tether its disparate wings together on broad promises the GOP focused on in its push to reclaim the House majority. And none of it will be easy, given that the party has just four votes to spare on any measure coming to the floor — not to mention a Democratic caucus eager to exploit the fissures across the aisle.

 

Republicans’ worries are particularly acute when it comes to the education measure they have dubbed the “parents’ bill of rights.” A bloc of House moderates, for example, privately raised alarms about a proposed amendment to the education bill from Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) that would effectively gut the Department of Education, banning it from handling “any office or program related to elementary or secondary education.”

 

But just before the bill came to the floor on Thursday, Massie’s amendment got tweaked to mollify those moderates’ concerns.

 

The GOP’s balancing act doesn’t apply only to amendments. House Republicans are facing headwinds on another major priority: how to frame their underlying bill designed to address boosting security at the U.S.-Mexico border.

 

On one side, there’s Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas), a member of the conservative House Freedom Caucus who’s pushing a bill to severely restrict migration into the U.S. But on the other side are Reps. Tony Gonzales (R-Texas), Mario Diaz Balart (R-Fla.) and their allies — who are more moderate on the issue and fear Roy’s bill could ultimately bar asylum claims.

 

Click on the link for the full article

[Larry]

I feel really sad about the GOP struggling to pass bills, while steadfastly bound to never ever propose any bill that a single Democrat will vote for.  

 

 

[China]

House GOP Targets Ad Group Over Efforts to Curb Misinformation

 

House Republicans are accusing an industry group of violating antitrust laws with its efforts to fight online misinformation.

In a letter Wednesday, GOP House Judiciary Chair Jim Jordan of Ohio raised concerns that the Global Alliance for Responsible Media — created by trade association World Federation of Advertisers and backed by the World Economic Forum — was violating US antitrust laws. The group’s more than 100 members include advertisers such as Procter & Gamble Co. and Unilever Plc, alongside tech companies such as Meta Platforms Inc., Alphabet Inc.’s YouTube and ByteDance Ltd.’s TikTok.

“GARM works with its members to demonetize and eliminate disfavored content online,” Jordan wrote, noting that the group created categories such as “debated sensitive social issues” where social media companies may want to restrict advertising. “This collusive conduct reduces consumer choice and cuts off access to diverse coverage on matters of national interest.”

That coordination may violate US antitrust law that bars agreements restricting trade, Jordan said. He asked the group and the World Federation of Advertisers to provide documents and information on its work to the panel by April 5.

While US antitrust law bars companies from getting together to reach agreements, there are some exceptions, such as when they band together to advocate for government action like legislation or rulemaking or when they join together to develop standards.

Launched in 2019, the Global Alliance for Responsible Media says it aims to create brand safety standards for social media advertising. In its 2022 annual report, the group said it had helped establish common definitions, metrics and tools to aid brands and their advertising partners in ensuring their ads don’t appear alongside content they may find problematic.

 

Republicans including Jordan and former President Donald Trump have decried social media platforms for allegedly censoring conservatives by directly removing posts or “demonetizing” them so they cannot receive the proceeds from online advertising that normally appears alongside popular content.  

 

Click here for more

[China]

'Felony offenses': House Oversight chairman's remarks in 2015 email leak spark calls for investigation

 

A Kentucky congressman is facing calls for an inquiry over comments he made in a New York Times interview suggesting he may have been involved in a law firm’s leaked emails during his 2015 gubernatorial bid, The Louisville Courier Journal reports.

 

James Comer, a Republican who chairs the House Oversight Committee, implied in the interview that he was behind leaked emails that were used in a Lexington Herald-Leader article “showing an attorney married to a rival candidate's running mate had been in contract with a blogger who was making allegations that Comer had abused a former girlfriend,” the Courier Journal reports.

 

TheCongressional Integrity Project in a letter to Fayette County Commonwealth Attorney Kimberly Baird earlier this week asked that Comer's involvement in unlawfully obtaining stolen emails from the law firm’s server be investigated.

 

"No one should be above the law, and information revealed yesterday in an article published in the New York Times provides strong reason to believe that Representative Comer committed at least one, and perhaps multiple, felony offenses during his failed attempt to secure the Republican nomination for governor in 2015," the group’s executive director Kyle Herrig said in the letter, according to the report.

 

Click on the link for the full article

[China]

Prosecutors accept deal with George Santos in Brazilian fraud case

 

Prosecutors in Brazil have agreed to a deal with Rep. George Santos in a case in which he is accused of defrauding a Rio de Janeiro area clerk of $1,300 over clothes and shoes in 2008, documents obtained by CNN show.

 

A petition from Santos’ attorney requesting a deal says Santos would agree to formally confess to the crime and pay damages to the victim, a Rio de Janeiro area clerk, as is required under Brazilian law.

 

A memo from prosecutors agreeing to the deal last week asked the defense for assurances they have the ability to contact the victim to repay him before the deal is finalized.

 

In a statement to CNN, the prosecutors’ office acknowledged the memo but stressed that the deal is not final until all conditions are met.

 

The petition from Santos’ attorney, filed in January, requests a non-prosecutorial agreement in lieu of a trial for his client, arguing that Santos is now gainfully employed and “re-socialized.” The petition also requested permission for Santos to be contacted by the court via email or phone, and participate in the proceedings via videoconference.

 

Agreements can be reached in non-violent cases where the sentencing minimum is under four years.

 

Click on the link for the full article

[China]

On 2/25/2023 at 11:38 AM, The Evil Genius said:

Worth noting that US life expectancy is now the shortest it has been in two decades and I don't see a major change occurring anytime soon with how sick and unhealthy this country is.

 

 

 

'Live free and die'? The sad state of U.S. life expectancy

 

Just before Christmas, federal health officials confirmed life expectancy in America had dropped for a nearly unprecedented second year in a row – down to 76 years. While countries all over the world saw life expectancy rebound during the second year of the pandemic after the arrival of vaccines, the U.S. did not.

 

Then, last week, more bad news: Maternal mortality in the U.S. reached a high in 2021. Also, a paper in the Journal of the American Medical Association found rising mortality rates among U.S. children and adolescents.

 

"This is the first time in my career that I've ever seen [an increase in pediatric mortality] – it's always been declining in the United States for as long as I can remember," says the JAMA paper's lead author Steven Woolf, director emeritus of the Center on Society and Health at Virginia Commonwealth University. "Now, it's increasing at a magnitude that has not occurred at least for half a century."

 

Across the lifespan, and across every demographic group, Americans die at younger ages than their counterparts in other wealthy nations.

 

How could this happen? In a country that prides itself on scientific excellence and innovation, and spends an incredible amount of money on health care, the population keeps dying at younger and younger ages.

 

Click on the link for the full article

 

Dying younger to try and save Social Security?

[Renegade7]

On 3/23/2023 at 10:26 PM, China said:

‘Embarrassingly stupid’: Internet explodes over Republican’s ‘technologically illiterate’ questions at TikTok hearing

 

TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew testified before the House Energy and Commerce Committee this Thursday, with the hearing focusing on members' concerns that the app has data privacy issues, potential harms for children, and connections to the Chinese government.

 

Some of the questions posed to Chew from lawmakers were slammed on social media as being technologically ignorant, one of which came from Rep. Richard Hudson (R-NC).

 

"Mr, Chew, does TikTok access the home wifi network?" Hudson asked.

 

"Only if the user turns on the wifi," Chew replied. "I'm sorry, I may not understand the question."

 

This should be terrifying in the context of the cyber treat China poses to us.

 

How can you possibly prepare for a threat you do not understand?

 

I don't expect them to be SMEs, but does this look like they are even being listened to?

 

The amount of "positive" Tik Tok ads at Union Station, blocks from the Capitol building, is not a coincidence...

[Larry]

Wonder if guns might be a factor in that.  

 

Oh , wait.  Not allowed to even study whether that might be a factor.  The answer might offend the guns.  

 

[China]

On 3/23/2023 at 12:03 PM, China said:

 

 

 

 

[Fergasun]

@China

I know people will not read the article.

 

Jordan basically argues you are not allowed to prosecute the President.  

[China]

17 minutes ago, Fergasun said:

@China

I know people will not read the article.

 

Jordan basically argues you are not allowed to prosecute the President.  

 

Fun fact:  Trump is not the President.  

[Larry]

43 minutes ago, Fergasun said:

@China

I know people will not read the article.

 

Jordan basically argues you are not allowed to prosecute the President.  

 

Well, it's more a case of not being allowed to prosecute a Republican, when Republicans control one half of Congress.  

 

Because Congress might, someday, consider changing a law.  

 

And because he claims that a federal prosecutor once declined to prosecute a similar case.  (He even provided a reference for that claim.  The reference is a quote from a book that a right wing activist wrote, about why Trump should not be prosecuted, ever.)  

[TheGreatBuzz]

8 hours ago, Larry said:

 

Well, it's more a case of not being allowed to prosecute a Republican, when Republicans control one half of Congress.  

 

Because Congress might, someday, consider changing a law.  

 

And because he claims that a federal prosecutor once declined to prosecute a similar case.  (He even provided a reference for that claim.  The reference is a quote from a book that a right wing activist wrote, about why Trump should not be prosecuted, ever.)  

 

Don't forget referring to a NYTimes article in the letter.  Sheesh.

[China]

18 hours ago, China said:

 

 

 

 

[China]

The House GOP’s investigations are flopping

 

Even before they had taken control of the House, House Republicans were promising payback.

 

Using the powers of the various congressional committees that they would soon take over, ultraconservative House Freedom Caucus members, led by Reps. James Comer of Kentucky and Jim Jordan of Ohio, were pledging investigations of everything: the Biden family’s business practices, Hunter Biden’s laptop, the origins of the coronavirus pandemic, alleged government bias against conservatives, and the Biden administration’s border policies.

 

But so far, these investigations seem to be flopping. They don’t seem to be sticking in the public consciousness. They haven’t uncovered page one news about Hunter Biden’s laptop, or about the origins of Covid-19, or about a supposed government conspiracy to silence conservatives on Twitter. A bit more than two months into Republican control of the House, plenty of these investigations are well underway. Hearings have been held, letters sent, witnesses summoned, and hours spent appearing on Fox News.

 

The House GOP investigations also aren’t making the president’s reelection campaign untenable — many Democratic operatives suspected that was their goal — and they don’t seem to be damaging the president as many Republicans had hoped.

 

Of course, it’s still early, and in the more than year and a half before the 2024 presidential election, Republicans could still weaponize their committee investigations into better political cudgels. A handful of additional hearings are on the calendar, but more remain unscheduled.

 

Click on the link for the full article

[LadySkinsFan]

27 minutes ago, China said:

The House GOP’s investigations are flopping

 

Even before they had taken control of the House, House Republicans were promising payback.

 

Using the powers of the various congressional committees that they would soon take over, ultraconservative House Freedom Caucus members, led by Reps. James Comer of Kentucky and Jim Jordan of Ohio, were pledging investigations of everything: the Biden family’s business practices, Hunter Biden’s laptop, the origins of the coronavirus pandemic, alleged government bias against conservatives, and the Biden administration’s border policies.

 

But so far, these investigations seem to be flopping. They don’t seem to be sticking in the public consciousness. They haven’t uncovered page one news about Hunter Biden’s laptop, or about the origins of Covid-19, or about a supposed government conspiracy to silence conservatives on Twitter. A bit more than two months into Republican control of the House, plenty of these investigations are well underway. Hearings have been held, letters sent, witnesses summoned, and hours spent appearing on Fox News.

 

The House GOP investigations also aren’t making the president’s reelection campaign untenable — many Democratic operatives suspected that was their goal — and they don’t seem to be damaging the president as many Republicans had hoped.

 

Of course, it’s still early, and in the more than year and a half before the 2024 presidential election, Republicans could still weaponize their committee investigations into better political cudgels. A handful of additional hearings are on the calendar, but more remain unscheduled.

 

Click on the link for the full article

 

That's because most of We the People know that the Republicans aren't doing anything to advance our nation and that they are only interested in revenge crap. Republicans don't govern People, they only give out our National Treasure to the wealthy and corporations. That's their sole purpose, well they also want to turn our nation into a theocratic authoritarian government. 

[TradeTheBeal!]

Odd.

 

 

[Captain Wiggles]

Nothing wrong with doing a few rails on the house floor. Wait...🤪

 

 

[China]

He's just prepping for the Cocaine Sex Orgy later.  You know, one of the ones Madison Cawthorn was invited to.

 

[Cooked Crack]

 

 

[LadySkinsFan]

But, what about the Free Market? she asked not so innocently.