11 votes

Weekly US politics news and updates thread - week of January 2

Automatically posted
Tags: usa, politics, recurring.weekly

This thread is posted weekly - please try to post all relevant US political content in here, such as news, updates, opinion articles, etc. Extremely significant events may warrant a separate topic, but almost all should be posted in here.

This is an inherently political thread; please try to avoid antagonistic arguments and bickering matches. Comment threads that devolve into unproductive arguments may be removed so that the overall topic is able to continue.

4 comments

  1. [3]
    AugustusFerdinand
    Link
    McCarthy Proposes Gutting Office of Congressional Ethics in Bid for Speaker

    McCarthy Proposes Gutting Office of Congressional Ethics in Bid for Speaker

    House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy spent the first two days of the new year trying to shore up GOP support for his bid to be Speaker by releasing a series of proposals aimed at winning over hard-right detractors who stand to torpedo his ascension.

    The part of his proposed changes to House rules that drew the most attention was allowing just five House members to call for a vote at any time on ousting the Speaker; that would render McCarthy beholden to the most extreme members of his caucus, should he get on their wrong side. But buried in the text was another provision that could be highly consequential for the new Congress being sworn in on Tuesday: language that would effectively gut the Office of Congressional Ethics (OCE), as the independent panel faces pressure to investigate lawmakers who participated in the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol.

    9 votes
    1. [3]
      Comment deleted by author
      Link Parent
      1. [2]
        moocow1452
        Link Parent
        If he gets to be speaker and he gets Damocles'd a week in, he gets to wash his hands of it and live forever as a Fox News head or lobbyist and gets to bellyache about what the Republican party...

        If he gets to be speaker and he gets Damocles'd a week in, he gets to wash his hands of it and live forever as a Fox News head or lobbyist and gets to bellyache about what the Republican party used to be. He can do that as a congressperson, but he won't have Former House Speaker next to his name.

        2 votes
        1. NaraVara
          Link Parent
          Now he'll get to have "Failed Pretender to the House Speakership" next to his name. I suppose it's better than "Disgraced House Speaker" but even Dennis Hastert doesn't get that so we'll see what...

          Former House Speaker

          Now he'll get to have "Failed Pretender to the House Speakership" next to his name.

          I suppose it's better than "Disgraced House Speaker" but even Dennis Hastert doesn't get that so we'll see what depths one of these neo-reactionary lunatics vying for the job instead will plumb before elite media will ever acknowledge someone in power was a bad person.

  2. skybrian
    Link
    White contractors wouldn’t remove Confederate statues. So a Black man did it. (Washington Post) [...] [...]

    White contractors wouldn’t remove Confederate statues. So a Black man did it. (Washington Post)

    Over the next few weeks, Henry and his team moved on to dismantle more than a dozen other monuments around Richmond under a $1.8 million umbrella contract. Though Henry initially concealed his company behind a shell called NAH LLC — as in, “nah, these statues need to come down,” he said — local observers soon caught on. A political rival on the City Council accused Stoney of improperly awarding the contract because Henry had donated $4,000 to the mayor’s campaign several years before. Investigators found no evidence of wrongdoing.

    [...]

    Fielding threats became routine, from racial slurs shouted by passing vehicles to menacing voice mails. Henry referred all those to the police, who had eventually become close partners. Someone called the crane company and warned that they’d never get back to Connecticut. Callers tried to get the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration to shut down the work sites. Others tried to get the labor union to step in.

    [...]

    There was, of course, one more Richmond statue to come down. The A.P. Hill monument was different because the general’s remains were buried beneath it. Court proceedings for moving a grave delayed the project, giving Henry and the city time to plan.

    In the meantime, Henry said, his business boomed. If some potential clients avoided him because of the statues, more sought him out. “We’re busier than we’ve ever been,” he said; Team Henry has grown to 200 employees after starting out 15 years ago with just four.

    8 votes