The Snakes Are Coming From Inside the Plane

 

David Kurtz acknowledges he doesn't entirely know what's going on in the House of Representatives,

I’m not going to sit here and pretend I have a grasp on what is happening in the House. I don’t think anyone really does.

which may make him effectively the most reliable guide, and one of the things he does think he understands is that it's much less important who succeeds to the speakership than whether they manage to scrap the Gaetz-devised rule allowing any member to force a vote on whether the Speaker should stay in office:

if the hair-trigger motion to vacate under the current rules is kept in place, then no speaker will have the authority to lead. It would be a phantom majority. Kevin McCarthy stumbled through nine months of that before it all collapsed.

No one wants the job under those circumstances, nor should they.

The rule delivers absolute power in the House to Gaetz, or some replacement for Gaetz as madman-in-chief (not Jordan, I don't suppose, or Taylor Greene, both of whom parked their loyalty with Kevin McCarthy even while maintaining close ties to Trump, and seem to have developed aspirations to "legitimacy", but more of a pure nihilist like Biggs or Rosendale), and it they can't get rid of it, the next Speaker will be just as impotent as McCarthy was.

I'm a Congressman

With acknowledgments to Monty Python's Flying Circus 

I'm a congressman and I'm okay
I like to work and I like to play

He's a congressman and he's okay
He likes to work and he likes to play

I punch up trees, I drive fast cars,
I work in Washington.
And when I take an airplane
I always pack my gun.

He punches trees, he drives fast cars,
He works in Washington.
And when he takes an airplane
He always packs his gun.

And Then the Critics

Image via The Clyde Fitch Report.

The way I received it, listening to the Judiciary hearing on the radio (unlike Chuck Todd, I don't get to criticize the "optics", and I didn't listen to the Intelligence hearing at all, though I've got the transcript in an open tab and I'm working on it), Mueller had a pedagogical task I thought he was living up to pretty well, with the intense cooperation of the Democrats on the committee. Namely, he wasn't going to read us the Report ("Hey kids, it's story time!"). He was going to make us read it, or the committee members on our behalf, because that's what you need to do in this class: if the professor spoonfeeds you the material, you're not going to get it, you have to master it for yourself.

And Mueller really wants us to read the Report. "The Report speaks for itself," he keeps saying, like Dorothy insisting she just wants to go back to Kansas. He's aware, I think, that nobody has read it, but he's put so much into it that he doesn't have much left for himself.

So he wouldn't give them a lecture, he gave them a "recitation", or what's called a tutorial in UK, in which the congresscritters read it to him, and he signaled to what extent he thought they were getting it right:

My Unpopular Opinion: In favor of Paygo from the left

It looks as if the new House of Representatives is going to adopt what is known as a "Paygo" rule for legislation, short for "pay as you go", which reminds us all of deficit-busting hysteria from 1990 through 1997 and the worse that came after, and is going to cause a lot of howling out here in the peanut gallery, and I've been reading around a little bit about it, and I'm afraid I'm going to ask folks to calm down a little bit—not that congresscritters who have promised constituents to vote against it should go back on their word (if only because I'm sure Speaker-to-be Pelosi knows who she can spare in the vote), though Progressive Caucus chairs Mark Pocan and Pramila Jayapal will in fact be voting in favor

In good sign for Pelosi/Dem leadership, Congressional Progressive Chairs Reps. Mark Pocan and Pramila Jayapal will vote for the rules package despite including PAYGO

Makes path to 18 much more difficult for Khanna and AOC

Read @mikedebonis https://t.co/BG8l7d3dkl https://t.co/JZUPgWP3Sd

— Jeff Stein (@JStein_WaPo) January 2, 2019

—but that persons of progressive views in general need to understand that there are a lot of serious misconceptions going around about what Paygo is and what it isn't: and that it is not a neoliberal conspiracy to privatize Social Security, as I've been learning from a piece from early December by Robert Greenstein for Dean Baker's Center on Budget and Policy Priorities suggesting that "Paygo" is a tool that can further progressive goals, especially if you're among those of us who believe the reduction of economic inequality entails taking away wealth from those who have too much, in the very stern terms laid down by Anand Ghiridaradas:

For the Record: Devin Nunes and the Chamber of Secrets

Supposedly right near the bathroom where Jason Chaffetz caught the mountain troll. Next thing you know Chaffetz dropped out of school! Coincidence? Image via Pottermore.

Or is it Devin Nunes and the Poisoner of Azkaban? It's Mysterygate, the scandal so devastating we're not allowed to know what it is! Locked in a room in the Capitol that only House members can penetrate, a magical memo composed by Devin Nunes, the plucky young wizard and outlaw head of the House Permanent Select Intelligence Committee who's been running Trumplebore's Secret Army in the halls of Congress, detailing the FBI's campaign to spy on those simple citizens Paul Manafort and Michael Flynn and catch them in their totally innocent activities! Or maybe, as Congressman Schiff said on January 18,

Does the House tax bill subject all Donald Trump's income to a 25% marginal tax rate?

Via. May I play through?

How much of a tax cut is Donald J. Trump hoping to give himself in this week's House bill?

I think the correct answer is it's not clear yet, but there's certainly a good chance that it's meant to get him down to a top marginal rate of 25%, and a likelihood that that's what it's intended for, him and people like him.

The crucial question is that of the taxation of what is called pass-through income, or income a person receives purely by virtue of owning a business.

According to the conservative economic orthodoxy, making money this way is more virtuous—more beneficial to society—than mere working, because when you invest your money, or one of your ancestors does it for you, you are taking the heroic risk on which capital itself depends, whereas if you're just putting goods and services together you're just selling your labor. Investors are makers, workers are takers, as Willard Mitt Romney put it, or was it Paul Ryan, and this is why investment income should be taxed at a lower rate than labor income, as we do with capital gains (when you cash in the profits on a previous investment).

Bleaker Speaker

Fujiwara Michinaga (966-1027). Michinaga was so powerful that he never even needed to assume the highest positions in the government hierarchy. As the head of the Fujiwara clan, it was simply understood that he was the most powerful person in the government. Michinaga first came to power in 995, thanks to the efforts of his sister, the retired empress Akiko, who was perhaps the most powerful women in the Heian era, able to force the emperor to appoint her brother to a position of power. (Via Pennsylvania State University)

So the Congresscritters are trooping back into Washington, no doubt refreshed by their Indigenous Peoples Day holiday and the delightful crispness of the autumn weather and Senator Ted Cruz appearing on the Mr. Chuck Todd Show to inform the public that he declines to say whether Representative Ryan is a True Scotsman Conservative or not:

CHUCK TODD:

Alright. I wanna do two more things about this Washington. Is Paul Ryan a true conservative?

SEN. TED CRUZ:

Oh, listen. I-- I-- I like Paul Ryan. He's a friend of mine. This is obviously a question that is wrapped up in the Speaker of the House-- deliberations. I have said consistently I'm gonna stay outta that....

So at a rally in Iowa last week (flanked by Charles Grassley and Steve King) Senator Cruz consistently demonstrated his intention of staying out of that by naming his own preferred candidate:

I triple dare you

Bob Bergdahl. MANDEL NGAN/AFP/Getty Images.

God damn, I cannot even begin to say how much I hope the House Republican Caucus decides to impeach President Obama for defying the law that says he must notify Congress 30 days before releasing detainees (unconstitutionally held, by the way) from Guantánamo, in order to liberate a captive American solder, Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl.

I don't have any words for how much I look forward to hearing John Boehner explain how Sgt. Bergdahl should have continued to languish in Waziristan in order to show [jump]

Grand bargaining

Image from U. of Iowa.

Dear American Express,

I've just spent quite a few hundreds of billions of dollars on some stuff I don't really want, though everybody says I have to have it, so I'd like to spend more on weapons and warships and on the medical catastrophes that will occur if I refuse to pay my health insurance premiums.

What I'd like you to do is lower my credit limit so I won't have to pay for all this. Can you explain how that will work? Better still, just take care of it. I don't see why I should get bogged down in the details.

Sincerely,

U.S. House of Representatives

Also, I'd like a new bike. And an Obamaphone. Via.

Scots, wha hae wi' Reagan bled,

Scots*, wham Newt has aften led,
Welcome to your gory bed,
Or to Victorie!

Now's the day, and now's the hour;
See the front o' battle lour;
See approach Obama's power--
Chains and Slaverie!

*I wanted it to be Belgians, but it just didn't fit the meter.

Meanwhile back in Washington, it's getting hilarious: