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2023, the year House Republicans played stupid games and won stupid prizes (thehill.com)

submitted 11 months ago by stopthatgirl7@kbin.social to c/politics@lemmy.world

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For all the drama, House Republicans have passed only 22 bills into law this session. One established a commemorative coin, and two renamed medical centers.

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[-] Viking_Hippie@lemmy.world 48 points 11 months ago

the “trio of Democrats censured by the House this year marked a milestone not seen in more than 150 years, raising questions over whether the historically rare form of punishment is becoming weaponized in the lower chamber.”

If you for even a moment pretend there's any doubt about it, you're an idiot, a cowardly journalist or both.

One was for competently chairing a committee, another for speaking truth to power about Palestinians not being disposable sub-humans and the third for pulling a childish prank that was still more professional than 99% of what any of the Republicans have done this year.

[-] themeatbridge@lemmy.world 26 points 11 months ago

The guy who pulled the alarm deserved a censure. You don't fuck with fire alarms. I'll agree, Republicans do some stupid, unprofessional shit, and more than a few deserve a censure, but let's not defend the guy who made the building less safe because he was late to a vote.

[-] HubertManne@kbin.social 2 points 11 months ago

it was one of those door alarms which is the most commone to accidentally activate. im unsure on if it was purposeful.

[-] themeatbridge@lemmy.world 8 points 11 months ago

It was a regular fire alarm. He approached the fire door, accidentally knocked a sign down, and pulled the alarm. I buy his story that he thought it would open the doors. I just think that's still an exceptionally stupid thing to do.

See photo here

[-] HubertManne@kbin.social 2 points 11 months ago

ok I thought it was a bar type alarm.

[-] themeatbridge@lemmy.world 3 points 11 months ago

Understandable, because you see him push on the bar, but you can't see the alarm switch on the wall from that camera angle.

[-] Viking_Hippie@lemmy.world -3 points 11 months ago

The guy who pulled the alarm deserved a censure.

I disagree. Since they can't fine each other, censure is the strongest condemnation short of being stripped of committee assignments. While what he did wasn't great, it was nowhere near serious enough to warrant censure.

You don't fuck with fire alarms

Yeah you do. Schoolkids do it all the time.

but let's not defend the guy who made the building less safe because he was late to a vote.

I'm not saying it wasn't a bad thing to do but he didn't make the building less safe. That's a ridiculous hypothetical based on assuming likelihood of an extremely unlikely confluence of events.

You need to relax with the learned alarmism, pun intended.

[-] themeatbridge@lemmy.world 9 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

He did plead guilty and paid a fine, because pulling the alarm is a crime. I'm not being alarmist, activating the fire alarm costs real money, draws the attention of fire fighters, wastes the time of everyone in the building that must evacuate, and reduces the likelihood that anyone will take the next alarm seriously. It's not a felony, but it's not harmless.

It's a crime when kids do it, too, but usually they don't prosecute it. However, this is a Congressional Representative. Whether we do or not, we should expect more from our elected officials than we expect of school children.

I also think you're putting too much weight into a censure. It has all the teeth of a strongly worded email sent to an unmonitored inbox. You're correct that it is the strongest form of condemnation, and I do think the GOP is abusing the censure, but I don't have a problem with Congress formally disapproving of an adult member of Congress pulling the fire alarm. It wasn't an aide or a teenager on a school trip or a confused septuagenarian Senator.

The other censures are pure theater, and the more censures they hand out, the less anyone will care.

[-] Toribor@corndog.social 6 points 11 months ago

Journalists don't seem to know how to report on politics when people are not acting in good faith. Why assume that Republicans stated motivations are genuine at this point? Republicans know that they will always be given the benefit of the doubt by the media and that their radical messages will be transmitted directly to their supporters and then sanitized and normalized when repeated by other media outlets.

[-] Viking_Hippie@lemmy.world 2 points 11 months ago

Journalists don't seem to know how to report on politics when people are not acting in good faith

This is exactly it. They either don't know how to react to it or they simply refuse to acknowledge it out of fear of jeopardizing their disingenuous absolute neutrality facade.

Why assume that Republicans stated motivations are genuine at this point?

Literally no good reason.

Republicans know that they will always be given the benefit of the doubt by the media and that their radical messages will be transmitted directly to their supporters and then sanitized and normalized when repeated by other media outlets.

Yup!

Sartre described their bad faith perfectly when he talked about antisemites:

"Never believe that anti-Semites are completely unaware of the absurdity of their replies. They know that their remarks are frivolous, open to challenge. But they are amusing themselves, for it is their adversary who is obliged to use words responsibly, since he believes in words. The anti-Semites have the right to play. They even like to play with discourse for, by giving ridiculous reasons, they discredit the seriousness of their interlocutors. They delight in acting in bad faith, since they seek not to persuade by sound argument but to intimidate and disconcert. If you press them too closely, they will abruptly fall silent, loftily indicating by some phrase that the time for argument is past."

[-] Potatos_are_not_friends@lemmy.world 44 points 11 months ago

Don't stop kicking them out.

Abortion is still a hot button issue.

Book banning is still happening.

We went five steps back, but only two steps forward.

Keep up the pressure.

[-] Gradually_Adjusting@lemmy.world 25 points 11 months ago

Somewhere there's a CIA sabotage field manual with a golden corral menu as a bookmark

[-] Binthinkin@kbin.social 22 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

They got hammered in 2022 midterms. That was the canary. Half our country is going to shit. They will try to take us with them. Tossing Mike Dbag as the speaker was a dog whistle to evangelicals that didn’t work except for the most radical of their cult.

Nobody wants conservatives around anymore because they are con-artists and liars who are only interested stealing tax dollars and ruining our democracy.

Democrats have long used the cons as their bullies to push get certain things done (and push a liar war in Iraq and Afghanistan) but that linear setup has been weaponized into destroying each other by foreign and domestic terrorists.

[-] Lophostemon@aussie.zone 20 points 11 months ago

All that sweet Russian and Chinese money is paying off for them.

[-] osarusan@kbin.social 15 points 11 months ago

Unfortunately it's the American public that is paying the price for the stupid prizes.

[-] CADmonkey@lemmy.world 12 points 11 months ago

I don't care, I'm going to keep voting against them.

[-] autotldr 4 points 11 months ago

This is the best summary I could come up with:

A damning House Ethics report found Rep. George Santos (R-N.Y.) used campaign funds to buy Botox, and designer clothing, and to pay for access to the pornographic website OnlyFans.

Jamaal Bowman (D-N.Y.) became the 27th member in history to be censured…following earlier reprimands for his colleagues Reps. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) and Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.),” Mondeaux wrote.

The biggest impact of Republican breakdown came when they ousted Speaker Kevin McCarthy, (R-Calif.), who has announced he is immediately retiring from this clown show.

These repeated episodes of Republican self-sabotage prompted Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) to write on X, formerly Twitter, that her GOP colleagues risk destroying one of the great institutions of democracy — the U.S. House of Representatives.

His complete control of the party is evident in the loud criticism of Ronna Romney McDaniel, chair of the Republican National Committee, for being insufficiently pro-Trump.

And according to a Reuters-Ipsos poll released last week: “In the seven states where the election was closest in 2020 — Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Arizona, Georgia, Nevada, North Carolina and Michigan — Biden had a four-point lead among Americans who said they were sure to vote.”

The original article contains 853 words, the summary contains 179 words. Saved 79%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!

[-] Feathercrown@lemmy.world 4 points 11 months ago

Love the article, hate the phrase

[-] JeeBaiChow@lemmy.world 4 points 11 months ago

2016-2020: am I a joke to you?

[-] EmpathicVagrant@lemmy.world 3 points 11 months ago

Remember when they incited rioting, and smeared human feces on the walls less than a week after the quoted range?

[-] FlyingSquid@lemmy.world 3 points 11 months ago

House Republicans have passed only 22 bills into law this session.

It's fine. It's been a slow news decade.

this post was submitted on 19 Dec 2023

238 points (97.2% liked)

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