Chaos in Congress

[N.E. Brigand]

[Tweet by Manu Raju: "New margin in House: 217-213, meaning Johnson can only lose one GOP vote on any party-line vote for the time being."]

As that article notes, the margin will shift back to Republicans following three upcoming special elections in red districts, including that of former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy. This particular New York district was currently vacant but previously held by a Democrat who resigned to take a position leading a non-profit organization. And once again, Democrats over-performed in a special election: according to this analysis, the very blue district normally goes for Democrats by 24 points but last night was won by 37 points. We have seen this trend time and again over the past few years, in districts and states both red and blue, and yet all the national and swing-state polls have President Biden at best tied with Donald Trump, who is a worse candidate that most of the Republicans who have been losing or at least underperforming in these special elections.

[N.E. Brigand]

This could go in any number of threads, but since he's a sitting Senator, I give you J.D. Vance stepping on a rake:

[N.E. Brigand]

Rep. Henry Cuellar, Democrat of Texas, is expected to be indicted. Apparently something to do with business deals in Azerbaijan?

It's bad news for Democrats' chances of retaking the House. If he resigns, any would-be Democratic successor would need to run as a write-in candidate, I think.

Edited with an update: both Henry Cueller and his wife Imedla were charged in a $600,000 bribery scheme.

[N.E. Brigand]

I'm not sure how I feel about statutes of limitation. It seems to me that a criminal who cleverly hides his wrongdoing can exploit them to evade the law. And yet, if you're charged with a crime you didn't commit, and it's been a very long time, the government is surely in a better position than the charged party to win the argument.

On the one hand, I don't want to give federal prosecutors too much power. On the other hand, I don't think criminals should benefit from being clever. And also on the other hand, an alternative to having longer (or no) statutes of limitations is a more pervasive police state, constantly monitoring and investigating more of our lives so that crimes are identified sooner. And who wants that?

I note all this in light of the fact that most of the alleged Azerbaijani and Mexican bribes to the Cuellars happened more than five years ago and the few that didn't happened just shy of that cut-off (in June 2019). It appears they "would have gotten away with it," as they say on Scooby-Doo, if only the Dept. of Justice had been tied up for six more weeks.

To put it another way: dumb criminals deserve the same protections as smart criminals.

[RoseMorninStar]

You have many hands, N.E.

Screen Shot 2024-05-04 at 11.52.34 AM.png (140.52 KiB) Viewed 184 times

[Voronwë the Faithful]

The rationale for statutes of limitations is pretty clear. It is a corollary to the truism "absolute power corrupts absolutely."

Meanwhile, this is an apt observation about the Cueller charges.

[N.E. Brigand]

Good question here: is Rep. Chip Roy (Republican of Texas) calling for Barron Trump,* Ivanka Trump, Eric Trump, and Donald Trump Jr., all of them the anchor-baby children of foreign-born American residents, to be deported? Tiffany's plot to seize power lives on!



*And in Barron's case, the child of an American resident who very possibly broke immigration laws.

[N.E. Brigand]

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene's effort to oust House Speaker Mike Johnson has failed, 359-43. Voting to block this move were 196 Republicans and 163 Democrats. You may remember that Democrats did not vote to help Speaker Kevin McCarthy when a similar move was made against him several months ago. Only 10 Republicans joined Greene today.