House Speaker

Open Thread

Mark Noonan51 Comments

The same government which is sending grandma to jail for 5 years over J6 says they lack the ability to arrest all known gangsters and seal the border. Bluntly: your government approves of criminality. It is probably bribed by the gangs.

Think about it – they know who the gangsters are. They know where the gangsters live. It is almost an existential certainty that any gang member, if he’s not already wanted on a warrant, has evidence on or around him proving criminal activity. We could, like El Salvador, sweep these people up. Sure, we’re a much larger nation with many more people…but you gotta know we can get 90% of them if we picked a day and then just did it. But we don’t. And if we ask, we’re given 10,000 excuses.

And, sure, defense lawyers would be all over such an action. But, why? Because they would be paid to be all over them. Meanwhile, the government can RICO all your assets away from you without trial…but we somehow can’t confiscate the gang money which would be used to pay for gang lawyers. And the same appellate system which is refusing to help out the J6 defendants would be releasing gangsters on ridiculous technicalities in a heartbeat. We are crime-ridden because at least enough of our government is well paid to make it so.

Now, think of all the people coming across – especially those caught and released. The government knows precisely how many of them have terrorist affiliations…and yet they are allowed to come in.

I bring this up because it is why Israel suffered 10/7. The Israeli government knew that Hamas was raising up a generation of psychotic killers and training them in methods of massacre. It was an open secret that “aid” shipments to Gaza were stuffed to the gills with military material. That Hamas had entire manufacturing facilities for rockets and other weapons of war. While I am confident they just totally missed this attack, the fact that there was going to be a major attack simply could not have been missed. But the Israeli government – like our government and all Western governments – isn’t paid to protect the people. There’s no upside for expending that effort and taking that political risk. Israel has been engaged in an absurd fight over whether or not judges should have some control outside the judiciary…which is obviously something needed but they went and had a fight about it while Hamas put the final touches on massacre.

The only reason we don’t have an endless series of these attacks is not lack of power and opportunity, but simple gumption. Hamas did what all terrorist groups want but heretofore have simply lacked the will to carry out. That will now exists. No matter what Israel does to Gaza, the maestros of massacre now see what can be done and how overall weak the response is. Israel is allowing aid into Gaza; they are feeding their enemies. They are still providing advance warnings of attacks. It was a good joke for the IDF to respond to UN complains of lack of fuel in Gaza to point out (with pictures) that Hamas has a huge fuel storage facility. But why hasn’t it been blown up? And at least Israel is fighting back! With a couple score Americans confirmed dead and maybe a dozen held captive, we’re still urging restraint and talking up a two-State solution at the UN. European governments are even more craven.

I think we might be in for a bad time.

We at least have a new Speaker and to the shock of everyone, he’s not an Establishment creature. Mike Johnson is mostly an unknown quantity but he’s been a Trump supporter in the past and seems pretty America-first; he’s been given a grade of F by something called “Republicans for Ukraine”. When Gaetz threw his hand-grenade I think we all expected some sort of disaster…but in the end, the guy we got seems to be loved by MAGA and at least respected by RINO. We could have some good things. One of the things he’s promised – and he’ll be under MASSIVE pressure to break this promise – is no more Continuing Resolutions. Budgeting will be done via the budget process with each agency budget getting its up or down vote. This might seem small but it is crucial…it brings accountability and control. It makes the agencies justify their budgets. It means a lot of Leftwing wish-list stuff will end up on the cutting room floor.

Speaker of Open Threads

Mark Noonan67 Comments

Who gets to be the Speaker? The world holds its breath.

Or goes, ‘meh’ and watches some hockey.

Your mileage may vary.

But the battle is important. So far, the rebels have not put forward a solid set of demands upon which they will come back into the fold. That is a strategic error. But Chip Roy and a few others have hit the nail on the head: it is about making the House a legislative body. This might seem small – changes to the rules to make amendment and debate possible, but it is what has been missing. Since 2016, there has been no such thing…and for a couple decades before that, it was highly attenuated. It is why we just passed a 4,000 page, $1.7 trillion Democrat Christmas list. It was an up or down vote.

But if Representatives have the power to propose amendments and force debate, you can’t do that. That is, you can’t have a bill written by lobbyists and staffers, agreed to by a few leaders and then just handed off to the House for an up or down vote. Representatives would have to do their jobs…and go on record with votes on amendments. This is how you stop our remorseless slide into tyranny and bankruptcy…because, rely on it, most of the stuff in these huge bills would not survive a recorded vote…the Michelle Obama Trail doesn’t have a constituency.

In practical terms, as Churchill pointed out about a century ago, no potentate on Earth has more power than the President of the United States with one limitation – and it is massive. That is the Power of the Purse. The President can’t spend a nickle on a piece of gum unless Congress appropriates the money. This Power has largely atrophied as both parties have preferred to just give the President a blank check in return for various pork goodies. But if Congress actually asserts it’s power, the President will find that he can’t buy a pen or phone to issue an Executive Order. We must get back to that – no more rubber stamp. Make the House matter again – make the Executive come, hat in hand, to beg for money…and extract legislative benefits for our policies in return for funds. Like this: if Pudding Brain’s people want to provide money for diversity training in Zimbabwe, then we get something in return…like, say, a border wall. That is how it is supposed to work. And that is how it must work or the Republic will die.

You already know that science is twisted by propagandists to support the Left’s Narratives. Now you have proof.

The climate alarmists may revive nuclear power – it is, after all, clean and efficient. Of course, most Greens despise it, mostly because most Greens are morons (the believe your barbecue is heating up the planet, after all): but the bottom line is that business needs reliable power and wind and solar just don’t cut it, so some money bags are investing in nuclear. I don’t care how we get it, but that we get it is good – by this year, almost all electricity in the USA should have been provided by nuclear power. We should have so many nuke plants that I could run my AC at 50 degrees all day in July here in Vegas for $5.