More HR1
Why wasn’t more attention paid during the 2020 election to the looming prospect of HR1? I was aware that this was high on the Democrats’ agenda – why wasn’t everyone made aware? It could have been used to argue against Democrats being elected to Congress. Perhaps it would even have mattered, although I don’t know. So few people seem to be aware of it even now.
Here are a few links to some articles about what’s in HR1:
From J. Christian Adams.
HR1 is a threat to American democracy.
I wonder if any Democrats at all will oppose this in the Senate. I doubt it. That’s how radical the party has become, even the few so-called moderates. I would be pleasantly surprised to be wrong.
And of course, will all the Republicans in the Senate oppose it? I think that HR1 is huge enough and awful enough that they might, even Republicans like Romney and Collins. But I’m not sure.
And no, the fact that 20 GOP members voted to approve of Merrick Garland isn’t in the same category of offense. He was going to be confirmed without them (only a majority necessary), and if they hadn’t approved him his replacement would probably have been both further to the left and sharper mentally. That’s not an attempt by me to excuse those 20 votes, but I’m focusing on bigger issues.
According to Mike Lee (not always sound on certain issues), the bill seems “as though it was written in hell by the devil himself”, and he added, amusingly, that it was “rotten to the core.” It may not, in fact, survive in the Senate, but the very fact of its being seriously considered is more than worrisome enough, and, of course, opposition to this blatant attempt to subvert our electoral process is being castigated by the left as “racist.”
It’s institutionalized vote fraud, of course. Street-level Democrats are very adept at persuading themselves it’s something else.
“He was going to be confirmed without them (only a majority necessary), and if they hadn’t approved him his replacement would probably have been both further to the left and sharper mentally.”
You’re missing the point. He was going to be confirmed anyway. This was a free vote that had only symbolic value. What kind of message did those 20 GOP Senators send?
By comparison, a grand total of ONE Democrat voted for fellow Senator Jeff Sessions to confirm him as Attorney General. Somehow the fact that Sessions was going to be confirmed no matter what didn’t mean the same thing to the Democrats.
And c’mon, Neo, you know exactly why HR1 wasn’t mentioned during the campaign. Doing so would have implicitly endorsed the complaints of Trump supporters about vote fraud.
Mike
The late Maha Rushie discussed it, a few times:
Before the election
And after the election
It is hard to get a bigger megaphone than that, besides the famous Trump Meme, “They’re not after me, they are after you”.
Personally, this is the outcome of the dilemma we faced with the Georgia runoffs. This should have been the number 1 issue. It was to a few, but the GOPe didn’t care at all as witnessed by their total disinterest in discussing how the election was interfered. Forget stolen; Senate leaders wouldn’t even discuss the problems mail in ballots caused. The Senate candidates in Georgia didn’t say much either. So they lost, and at that point, HR1 was inevitable. Everything else since then is to provide Congress the protection to both pass HR1 and enact it without anybody being able to build opposition to it.
Try and have a march in DC to demand the Senate filibuster it. Try and protest weak Dems to vote against it.
And we know when it will pass and when it will be signed. Look at the date the Dems promised Biden’s first press conference, the end of the month. He’ll sign HR 1. Call it his greatest accomplishment. And then probably announce his retirement, assuming his cabinet has completed their confirmations.
Clue:
The Democrats aren’t the same as the GOP. Various GOP senators have to be elected in their own states and choose to fight battles as they decide is best for them. Unlike Democrats, Republicans do not have the national media to back them. Funny how it is in the real world.
Assuming to know what Neo thinks when she hasn’t said it? Interesting.
@MBunge:What kind of message did those 20 GOP Senators send?
“I’m on Team Swamp and here to play ball.”
@om:The Democrats aren’t the same as the GOP.
The bullet isn’t the same as the gun barrel. The knife blade isn’t the same as the hilt. The syringe isn’t the same as the heroin. The weed isn’t the same as the bong.
Yeah, yeah, we know. But one of these things enables the other to do what it does, more efficiently than it could alone.
“Various GOP senators have to be elected in their own states and choose to fight battles as they decide is best for them.”
Christmas, you are not bright. The “yes” votes for Garland included Joni Ernst and Chuck Grassley, both senators from Iowa…A STATE THAT VOTED FOR TRUMP IN THE 2020 ELECTION. What could either of them possibly have had to fear from casting a purely symbolic vote?
Mike
@neo:the fact that 20 GOP members voted to approve of Merrick Garland isn’t in the same category of offense.
How about the 16 who voted to approve Marcia Fudge?
Why wasn’t this one a 51-50 vote?
In April 2020, she claimed the COVID-19 pandemic proved that America is systemically racist, and accused the Trump administration of opening up businesses targetting lower-income America to get black people to spending their COVID relief checks. She also justified the riots and looting. “George Floyd’s murder just brought to the surface generations of pain,” she said last June. “We have to make sure we strike when the iron is hot.”
There’s no price to be paid with Republican constituencies to opposing someone who talks this way. But there is a price to be paid in pork deliveries.
These guys are enabling the far Left and we need come to grips with it, not excuse it.
I’ll announce being on the side of RINOs Delenda Est.
We just can’t afford their weakness anymore.
The readers of minds have spoken.
Oxycontyn when used as prescribed isn’t the same as Oxycontyn when used by an addict? Ok, genius.
I thought this was about HR1, but there seems to be some ADD at play; or shiney object to chase, or “Squirrel (GOPextinct is root of all evil).” Carry on as you will.
@om:Oxycontyn when used as prescribed isn’t the same as Oxycontyn when used by an addict?
How about someone who has a prescription, and fills it, and then sells it to an addict?
Squirrel (GOPextinct is root of all evil).
No one is saying this. What is instead being said is that these people holding national office holding themselves out as being on our side are not actually on our side, according to what is revealed by their behavior.
I’m not sure why you mischaracterize what people write: it’s up there for everyone to see.
Back in the day in North Dakota I had a young driller (probablly in his early 20s, much younger than me) who had a prescription for Oxycontyn (for his rheumatoid arthritis) offer to sell me the stuff while up on the rig floor. His medical status allowed him to beat the mandatory drug test positives.
His use pattern was not legal but it didn’t change the Oxycontyn. BTW I didn’t take his offer. The job was difficult enough at the time without additional cognitive impairment beyond chronic sleep deprivation. Caffine was the drug of choice it isn’t always your friend.
I find it interesting how others define what a “side” is and who is the real threat right now. Yeah it’s up for everyone to see. Look, “Squirrel.”
Can’t see how they pass HR 1 without nuking the filibuster. There’s no way that 10 Republicans will vote for it. The pressure will be on Manchin and Sinema, though. I’m going to start worrying if there are signs of them cracking.
I also have a hard time getting exercised about Republican Senators voting to confirm Garland. He’s bad, but he’s also marginally better than anyone else Biden is likely to nominate. Also, it will be a terrible day for the country when a president’s party has to hold the Senate in order to get cabinet appointees confirmed. Democrats would probably love it, though. The only time that the executive branch is not functionally controlled by partisan Democrats is when a Republican president has appointees in place. Senate Rs won’t get credit for voting to confirm Garland, but doing so denies Ds a talking point when they try to block the nominees of the next Republican president. That’s not nothing.
Got a burr under you bonnett Bunge? Your mindreading skilz are a tad fawlty (spelz for your level of understanding) but you persist in your delusion for some reason. If I want to read nonsense, you posts are the pyrite standard.
Who’s side are you on again, oh army of one? And who is the real threat, leftist Democrats, or who precisely? Thrash out your argument, be bold and original, insightful, prescient, you can do it.
“Keep on the sunny side …..” Cheers.
To save the Bunge from having to learn something:
Pyrite
The mineral pyrite, or iron pyrite, also known as fool’s gold, is an iron sulfide with the chemical formula FeS2. Pyrite is the most abundant sulfide mineral. Pyrite’s metallic luster and pale brass-yellow hue give it a superficial resemblance to gold, hence the well-known nickname of fool’s gold.
Wikipedia
Category:
Sulfide mineral
Always read to help the afflicted? Well, sometimes. Cheers.
Frederick: “ @om:The Democrats aren’t the same as the GOP.
The bullet isn’t the same as the gun barrel. The knife blade isn’t the same as the hilt. The syringe isn’t the same as the heroin. The weed isn’t the same as the bong.
Yeah, yeah, we know. But one of these things enables the other to do what it does, more efficiently than it could alone.”
Because the only Justice we have to counter the corrupt-o-crat Rule by Force is kinetic Justice.
That remains the only course left, when honest ballot counting is gone. And Neo succours the dishonesty and denial of the GOPe RepubloCRATS.
(There. Someone has to say it. That’s where we are when HR1 passes into…”law.”)
Two of three who talk on line about violent political solutions are said to be alphabet agency plants. TJ, any more news from Italy by the way? That was a fine story to push.
TJ:
Classy, insulting our hostess, someone had to say it. You have such a way with words. 🙂
@TJ:That remains the only course left, when honest ballot counting is gone.
Not a bit. There’s passive resistance and various forms of non-violent civil disobedience. They are not actually using force yet, they are using the skin-suits of the institutions they’ve hollowed out (ht Dave Burge) which people are used to respecting. They don’t have enough loyal soldiers to compel obedience. They have as much power as we choose to give them, and their enablers who pretend to represent our interests.
Non-violence only works when the oppressor has scruples, of course. Things have not come to that pass yet and hopefully never will. These guys are not competent. They are parasitic on competence. I think things will change mostly peacefully.
In case anyone thinks these kind of discussions are counter productive, check out the comments to this story.
https://www.westernjournal.com/dems-manage-sneak-60-billion-tax-hikes-covid-economic-relief-bill/?utm_source=Facebook&utm_medium=PostBottomSharingButtons&utm_campaign=websitesharingbuttons&fbclid=IwAR3VpY7-USQTKd7zTou69LcyaVDa3lHXimYsOulc1C2OzC2jJ41BnTdqy6A
It’s a story about the tax increases Democrats snuck into the COVID relief bill. The story explicitly makes clear that the tax increases are almost exclusively on very rich people and very big corporations…and the comments are full of idiots OUTRAGED on behalf of those rich people and big corporations.
Sure, rich people and big corporations have been supporting and promoting Democrats and Leftists for years and a great many if not most of them wanted Biden as President over Trump, but none of that matters to those idiots. They just KNOW it’s their duty to defend the wealthy and powerful, no matter how many times they get screwed over by them.
Mike
Face it friends. WE are their enemy. For example, take Pressley Stutts, a 30 year Navy Chaplin (Ret.) from SC, now a grass roots activist. He led a group to Cap Hill on January 6th for the rally to support PDJT and then to the subsequent protest.
Afterwards, he was encouraged by a Congressman and radio talk show host and attempted to give evidence to authorities that contradicted the Received Narrative.
He did so by giving an FBI statement on the Antifa/BLM/ anarchists violently invading the Cap Hill building, which is what he witnessed.
And then the interview turned hostile. “Am I under investigation?” No answer from the FIB.
But subsequently, TSA, or Homeland Sec, treats him as a possible terrorist (10 to 20m), as he does routine travel in the SE.
REPEATED “Random checks” are not at all random but invasive and targeted at him and his friends.
The SS or Gestopo are being sicced upon dissenters who just might possibly be a threat to the Fascist Democrat Ruling Oligarchs. The FIB tells them so, one surmises.
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2021/03/retired-30-yr-navy-chaplain-volunteered-speak-fbi-protest-capitol-jan-6th-happened-next-terrifying-video/
This is our present.
What are you prepared to do about it? Nothing. So get used to getting you face stomped on by the giant boot that Orwell described.
“We are becoming a banana Republic, after the election was stolen,” says Presley Stutts. Future think is the witch-hunts continue and get expanded into a full time preoccupation by the usurped US state.
If ballot security cannot be restored, then conflict is inevitable. There is no other path forward.
“They will have to lock us up,” says Stutts. Because I’m fighting. “We feel asleep at the wheel” generationally, Stutts says.
“We are losing our freedoms, we are losing our rights…so now we will be governed by our inferiors (As Plato said).”
Our own 2/3s. One wonders. Any QAnon to share? Gone full on Godwin’s law, skipping over the SA, TJ?
Frederick,
“Non-violence only works when the oppressor has scruples, of course. Things have not come to that pass yet and hopefully never will. These guys are not competent. They are parasitic on competence. I think things will change mostly peacefully.”
I hope you’re right but am doubtful. Hope is a prayer not a strategy. How exactly have the left achieved such institutional dominance if they’re so incompetent? Given that the left sees scruples as an obsolete, white racist paradigm, exactly which peaceful, non-violent means do you see that will affect the needed changes?
When I think of competence the Federal government is right up there, and Hollywood with their never ending original culturally enriching art, or Facebook and Twitter who have to actively collude to keep half of their customers from leaving. Yep that’s competence. 🙂
Again, why the 17th Amendment was a horrible thing. If senators still represented their states, they could debate the interested of their states. I have no idea what the hell those idiots think they’re doing there.
So instead of senators representing their actual states, the states have to find some way to get there concerns heard and addressed in Washington. Because Romney only represents Romney, and Doctorate only represent Democrats.
Romney would be gone. Georgia would have two Republican Senators. Arizona would have two Republican senators. So would New Hampshire…
(Republicans have full control of the legislative and executive branch in 24 states. Which is pretty good: Democrats have full control of the legislative and executive branch in only 15 states.
Republicans have full control of the legislative branch in 31 states.
Democrats have full control of the legislative branch in only 18 states.
But there are 50 Republican senators. They should be 62.)
Bauxite said:
Senate Rs won’t get credit for voting to confirm Garland, but doing so denies Ds a talking point when they try to block the nominees of the next Republican president. That’s not nothing.
Oh, but it is. They say anything they want anytime they want and never* pay a price. Prove me wrong, demonstrate where this has worked out well.
* never-ish, I suppose, but like I said, show me.
@Geoffrey Britain:
Given that the left sees scruples as an obsolete, white racist paradigm,
That’s easy to say now, but you haven’t seen them act with no scruple at all yet. That looks like Tiananmen Square and when something like that happens it’s a very different situation from what we are seeing now.
exactly which peaceful, non-violent means do you see that will affect the needed changes?
Huge numbers of people cheating on their Federal taxes, refusing to file at all, working for and paying people in cash off the books. State officials refusing to allow Federal laws to be enforced within their states (like with marijuana, we didn’t have Fort Sumter II in Washington and California). That sort of thing.
There’s also the Constitutional options, Article V conventions and such, but nothing like that has been done since colonial times and we’re not the people we were then.
But the Federal apparatus cannot operate without the consent and cooperation of a couple hundred million people. If enough of us withdraw it, it won’t be able to function. We are mostly an orderly people who think the rules usually make sense and that it’s better to follow them than not. The stupider the rules get, the less they are applied fairly, then we’ll stop going along with them; the rules are not really enforceable and won’t survive massive numbers of people ignoring them.
The states are alternative governments that are much closer to the people, they have their own power base to draw on and the normal human motives to defend it. If some large states decide that Federal writ does not run in their borders, that their citizens and businesses do not need to pay Federal taxes and that the state will do without Federal money (because where does it come from? the people in the states), then what is the Federal government going to do about it? In theory, they could attack those states, and with a Napoleon at the helm they might, but in reality I think they’ll just huff and puff and then try to pretend it isn’t happening, the way China pretends that Taiwan is a province granted special autonomy.
Lee Also,
I agree the XVII Amendment is a major catalyst that got us into this mess. It removed a key check and balance the Founders intentionally built into the system. The XVI also did tremendous damage. Congress no longer has to fund its activities through consumption taxes, which are much more difficult to enact than simply deciding what percentage of Americans’ personal income they wish to appropriate.
Let’s get rid of them both.
@Bauxite:doing so denies Ds a talking point when they try to block the nominees of the next Republican president
Didn’t stop them before and never will stop them. The “norms” only work one way.
And “talking points” forsooth. The media will gladly invent them in any convenient quantity. They will gladly pretend that history started 5 minutes ago, or that a precedent from 1823 in abeyance since then is a hallowed tradition essential to democracy, and they’ll do both within a day of each other.
We’ve seen this. Remember the Logan Act? A law passed in 1799, no one ever convicted under it and the last indictment brought in 1852. All through the Bush Administration Democrat Congressmen and Senators violated it at will but after Trump’s election it became the basis for spying on his incoming administration and the media was full of how super-serial this law was. They forgot all about the Congressmen who went to speak before Saddam Hussein’s fake parliament in the run up to the war in Iraq, or John Kerry’s whole career.
Or they just lie. They have lied over and over about why McConnell said Merrick didn’t get a vote when he was nominated for the Supreme Court. They have lied over and over about what was said in Charlottesville.
I don’t know maybe you recently immigrated from some other country and just aren’t up to speed yet.
Good thread and good comments. You want to see a fighter? You want to see what a true threat to the deep state is afraid of? Put whatever you heard about Marjorie Taylor Green to the side and listen to this embedded clip. Now you know why they stripped her of her committee assignments. She is there to work and not enrich herself.
The rest of the article puts the clip into context. Sundance has spoken about this before and it is relevant.
https://theconservativetreehouse.com/2021/03/11/nails-it-representative-marjorie-taylor-greene-discusses-the-uniparty-process-in-washington-dc-as-an-economic-system/
It was interesting on what she says about how the media spins a narrative and presents it as fact. We all saw it with the Trump Russian collusion. In the past two weeks Mark Judge was picked and targeted in an attempt to take down Mark Kavanaugh. He writes on the Christian Website “The Stream”. I really recommend you read these posts to see how it is done and how to respond.
https://stream.org/i-knew-the-name-of-the-dragon/
https://stream.org/when-dr-death-came-for-me-the-black-art-of-political-opposition-research/
https://stream.org/they-were-relentless-how-i-learned-respect-for-our-communist-media/
Ultimately we are going to have to revisit the Sullivan Doctrine that allows them to do this kind of stuff. It was refreshing to see Tucker Carlson call out and not back down with the Megan Markle/Taylor Lorenz comments.
This is their high water mark. Change is coming. Get ready for it and be prepared to participate.
“Or they just lie…”
Indeed.
Here’s Andrea Widburg on “Biden’s” performance yesterday, which she characterizes in the title as “scary, boring and bizarre”.
https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2021/03/bidens_scary_boring_and_bizarre_address_to_the_nation.html
She noted that he continually referred to the need to always tell the truth, and that he would would always do so. (Rhetorically, things do generally come in threes; but she probably should have added a fourth adjective to the title…)
Key graf, though obvious:
“Do you know who says things like that? Someone who’s lying.”
Read the whole thing.
Good comments, I agree. The real crisis will be the election next year. If the Republicans can take back the House and maybe the Senate, a lot of damage can be avoided. The problem is that the GOP, after the 1994 election, then reverted to “business as usual,” which was largely the fault of Gingrich. He decided to get rich on his book deal and got outmaneuvered by Clinton. That must not happen again.
If the Democrats have perfected vote fraud, then a revolution is coming. I hope not.
This thread and the prior HR1 thread started with a comment that HR1 didn’t matter it was the GOPe that mattered. Well, a contentious back and forth ensued. Now things have calmed down a bit and talk of Article V Convention of States has come up.
Yay team!
Seriously, that process has been promoted by Mark Levin for more than 8 years (?) now. And brought up on this site many times. Article V is not without risks but then who said taking up arms was the preferred or only option (TJ)?
Non-shiney objects aren’t as much fun to some.
Regarding the 17th Amendment, another gift of the progressives, I dimly recall that there may have been a problem with enormously wealthy business interests (railroads, oil, steel millionaires) having bought off state legislatures and influenced selection of senators. Corruption in politics is not a new thing it appears? Anyway our situation is much better; railroad, oil, and steel monopolies have been broken up and (cough, cough) we have free access to information and the marketplace and are free to associate (cough, cough CCP virus). Where is that laser pointer? I need a shiney object to chase! 🙂
Art Deco and others with a better take on the 17th Amendment are encouraged to correct any and all of my errors in the above.
“This thread and the prior HR1 thread started with a comment that HR1 didn’t matter it was the GOPe that mattered.”
No. That’s not how it started.
What really matters, on both the Right and the Left, is the large number of people who reason like children. They just know what they know and nothing else matters. om is a great example of this problem.
The subject of the 20 GOP Senators who voted for Garland is brought up. om chimes in with…
“Various GOP senators have to be elected in their own states and choose to fight battles as they decide is best for them.”
I point out that two of the GOP Senators who voted for Garland came from a state that voted for Trump in 2020. It’s also a fact that another three of the GOP Senators who voted for Garland have announced they won’t run for re-election. That means at least 25% of the GOP Senators who voted for Garland DID NOT do so for the sort of political considerations om offered up as an excuse.
How did om respond to this clear and factual challenge to his assertion? He didn’t. He just started going off in another direction.
HR1 is not the greatest danger to our democracy. It’s people unwilling to argue in good faith.
Mike