The Seinfeld Effect 🌻 🌻 🌻

Stopgap: Good news, planes are still being guided by paid air controllers as the government closing about nothing hasn’t happened, as least so far.  After 21 members of the chaos caucus, including usual nihilists Matt Gaetz, Margie Q, Lauren Boebert, Paul Gosar, Matt Rosendale, and Nancy Mace, who occasionally pretends to be normal, voted against a Republican continuing funding resolution (CR) that included drastic cuts, mostly targeting social services, health care and education programs as well as the usual anti-woke signaling, Speaker McCarthy reached across the aisle to Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries to enlist his help in passing a 45 day stopgap funding alternative that doesn’t include any of those cuts or the anti-woke stuff but also doesn’t provide Ukraine funding.  To be clear, the crazies who voted against the Republican plan liked the funding cuts but said they were offended by the process, code for Trump told them to vote no. All but one of Leader Jeffries’ Democrats voted for the “compromise” CR after extracting a promise from McCarthy that Ukraine funding will be brought up for a House vote shortly. Though a number of Republicans will vote against funding Ukraine, the majority in both the House and Senate are actually in support of Ukraine so the challenge is getting Kevin to honor his promise, assuming that he doesn’t get ousted before he can. Illinois’ Mike Quigley was the one Democratic outlier to vote against the CR only because he doesn’t trust that McCarthy will follow through on funding Ukraine. Ninety House Republicans, the usual nihilists plus a bunch more voted against the “bipartisan” CR which was subsequently passed by the Senate with only nine Republican Senators, Marsha Blackburn, Mike Braun, Ted Cruz, Bill Haggerty, Roger Marshall, Mike Lee, Rand Paul, Eric Schmitt and JD Vance voting against it. President Biden signed the CR so for now, the government remains open but absent the passage of any budget, the whole “will they or won’t they” close down exercise will be repeated right before Thanksgiving.

Winning? The consensus is that the passage of the CR was a win for Democrats and proof that Hakeem Jeffries was paying attention when Nancy Pelosi was the Democratic leader.  That said, there was one wrinkle. For a variety of reasons, including a lack of trust in McCarthy, Democrats stalled the vote while their staffs read through the text of the CR that McCarthy gave them at the last minute. Part of that stall involved Jeffries delivering a lengthy floor speech but unfortunately it also included NY Rep. Jamaal Bowman’s intentional or accidental pulling of a fire alarm.  Not good, but a “crime” that pales in comparison to Trump’s 90 plus indictments and George of many names Santos crime spree but just because they can, a number of Republicans, including the reliably awful third in command Elise Stefanik and her mentor Trump are calling for Bowman to be tossed from the House.  For his part Bowman has apologized and is cooperating with an investigation into his misdeed. Now, back to Republican intrigue, Panhandle Putz Matt Gaetz hit the Sunday morning talk show circuit where he promised to file a motion to vacate to oust Speaker McCarthy this week.  Gaetz acknowledges that he doesn’t have a viable Republican alternative but doesn’t seem to care because disruption is his brand. Many believe that Gaetz is just positioning himself for a run for Governor once DeSantis terms out and/or trying to land a right-wing cable news hosting gig. A number of House Republicans are now threatening to oust Gaetz from Congress to stop him from ousting McCarthy so that cable news slot could happen sooner rather than later.  Should Gaetz move forward with the motion to vacate, McCarthy’s survival might hinge on Democrat Hakeem Jeffries providing him with “survival” votes, something Jeffries will only do if he gets something bigly in exchange. Some possibilities include a power sharing arrangement, ending the Biden impeachment inquiry, and ousting Santos. Ousting Santos would be easy, the others not so much but these are unusual times.      

RIP Dianne Feinstein: Democratic Senator Dianne Feinstein passed away early Friday morning. The 90-year-old Feinstein was a trailblazer in so many ways.  She was committed to environmental protection, reproductive rights and gun control and was known to be an effective legislator particularly adept at reaching across the aisle to get things done. She was also on the Senate Judiciary Committee, one of the reasons that despite her obvious frailty she stuck it out until the end as Republican leader Mitch McConnell had made it clear that he wouldn’t allow Democrats to appoint anyone to the Committee if she resigned early, something that would have impeded Biden’s judicial confirmations. Republicans now say that they will “allow” Democrats to fill her committee slot. As to Feinstein’s Senate seat, California Governor Gavin Newsom, who after one time California Senator Kamala Harris became VP, promised to appoint a Black woman to replace Feinstein when she departed, will stand by his promise.  He is expected to appoint Laphonza Butler, the President of Emily’s List, to serve out DiFi’s term. Butler’s appointment allows Newsom to avoid weighing in on the competitive battle between Adam Schiff, Barbara Lee, and Katie Porter, the three Democratic members of Congress seeking the seat.  May Feinstein’s memory be for a blessing.  

 

Trump Court:  For better or really for worse, Trump is still among us.  He’ll be taking a brief break from sh-t posting threatening messages on Truth Social to appear in a New York Court this week.  It’s not clear that he’ll actually be called to testify, but he does plan to attend the opening of his civil fraud trial.  Though presiding Judge Arthur Engoron has already ruled that Trump committed business fraud by grossly overvaluing his assets, several charges remain outstanding as does the determination of penalties.  In other legal news, on Friday Trump agreed to stop trying to move his Fulton County case to federal court which means that his trial will be held in Fulton County where it will be televised as will the trial of former DOJ official Jeffrey Clark’s, as he along with three of the fake electors lost their bids to have their trial moved to federal court. Also on Friday, District Attorney Fani Willis achieved her first victory after Scott Hall, one of the 19 defendants in her election interference RICO case became the first defendant to reach a plea deal.  Hall’s deal requires him to be a cooperating witness, which could be a real problem for some of the other co-defendants particularly his phone buddy kraken lawyer Sidney Powell whose trial is scheduled to begin this month.  Shifting to Special Counsel Jack Smith’s turf, Judge Tanya Chutkan will be hearing arguments on the request to curb Trump’s continuing “pattern of incendiary and intimidating statements” on October 26.  

 

Mad, Mad World:   RFJ Jr, who according to a recent Vanity Fair article written by Joe Hagan and entitled RFK Jr’s Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World takes what the scion/nepo-baby calls “natural steroid supplements” to pump up his body and maybe also fuel his noted demons, is planning to leave the Democratic party to run for president as an independent. That’s not all that surprising given that RFK’s backers include the likes of Steve Bannon and Trump super PAC donor Timothy Mellon. It’s not clear who RFK would take more votes from, Trump or Biden.  Weird how someone who opposes vaccines has no problem ingesting questionable, unregulated supplements.  As to some of the vaccines that RFK Jr opposes, this morning the Nobel Prize in medicine was awarded to Katalin Kariko and Drew Weissman for their work on mRNA COVID-19 vaccines.  Though there’s no indication that NJ’s Democratic Senator Robert Menendez takes steroids, maybe he should start because that would give him something to blame his irrational risk-taking, law-breaking behavior on.  Though more than half of his Democratic colleagues have called for him to step down, Menendez appears determined to stay put, well at least until he strikes a deal with prosecutors.  And lastly, though he’s doesn’t belong among this cohort, it looks like Senator John Fetterman will have to start wearing suits on the Senate floor as his colleagues have voted to reimpose dressing standards because when you can’t accomplish much else go for ties.  Fetterman, whose sense of humor appears to have fully returned tweeted out a picture of himself looking dapper in a suit while saying he can live with that.