The Daily Parker

Politics, Weather, Photography, and the Dog

The Republican Clown Car isn't the only thing in the news

Other things actually happened recently:

  • Slate's Sarah Lipton-Lubet explains how the US 5th Circuit Court of Appeals and the US Supreme Court keep allowing straw plaintiffs to raise bullshit cases so they can overturn laws they don't like.
  • Julia Ioffe, who has a new podcast explaining how Russian dictator Vladimir Putin's upbringing as a street thug informs his foreign policy today, doesn't think the West or Ukraine really need to worry about Robert Fico's election win in Slovakia.
  • Chicago Transit Authority president Dorval Carter Jr. has a $376,000 salary and apparently no accountability, which may explain why we have some transit, uh, challenges in the city.
  • The Bluewalker 3 satellite is the now 10th brightest thing in the sky, frustrating astronomers every time it passes overhead.
  • An Arkansas couple plan to open an "indoor dog park with a bar" that has a daily or monthly fee and requires the dogs to be leashed, which makes very little sense to me. The location they've chosen is 900 meters from a dog park and about that distance from a dog-friendly brewery.
  • Conde Nast Traveler has declared Chicago the Best Big City in the US.

Finally, as I write this, the temperature outside is 28°C, making today the fourth day in a row of July-like temperatures in October. Some parts of the area hit 32°C yesterday, though a cold front marching through the western part of the state promises to get us to more autumnal weather tomorrow. And this is before El Niño gets into full swing. Should be a weird winter...

This is the opposition party now

The reactions to yesterday's defenestration of former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) share a particular theme I can't quite put my finger on:

  • Aaron Blake foresees more chaos, particularly for McCarthy's successor.
  • Dana Milbank foresees more chaos, particularly for the Republican Party.
  • Josh Marshall foresees more chaos, particularly for the so-called Problem-Solvers Caucus.
  • The Economist foresees more chaos, particularly around funding for Ukraine.
  • Ronald Brownstein foresees more chaos, particularly because of a half-century of Republicans simply unable to countenance even the slightest whiff of bipartisan governance.
  • Alex Shephard foresees more chaos, but McCarthy particularly deserved to go.
  • Grace Seeger foresees more chaos, but not particularly for big winner House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY).
  • John Scalzi foresees more chaos, but the "spineless, self-hobbled wretch at the mercy of the worst elements of the House GOP" brought it on himself, particularly. ("Modern conservatives can’t govern; they can only signal. That’s the only thing they know how to do any more.")

Have you noticed that every time the Republican Party does something unprecedented, it creates more chaos? They have proved, once more, that they deserve a time-out until they learn how to play with others, just like the 3rd-graders they have become.

I don't have enough popcorn in the house for this

US Representative and certified-fresh moistly-steaming dingleberry Matt Gaetz (R-FL) succeeded in catching his speeding car:

On Tuesday, allies of Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) tried to table the motion, which would have stopped the resolution in its tracks. The motion to table failed by a simple-majority vote. Lawmakers then moved on to a vote to vacate the speakership. With 216 members voting for his removal, McCarthy was ousted Tuesday afternoon.

Of course all of my guys voted to remove him. And now, per the post-9/11 continuity of government rules, Rep. Patrick McHenry (R-NC) has taken over as Speaker Pro Tempore—an office that appears nowhere in the Constitution nor in the Presidential Succession Act of 1947. Senate President Pro Tempore Patty Murray (D-WA) is now 3rd in line to the Presidency.

Former House Speaker Newt Fucking Gingrich (R-GA) has already published an op-ed in the Washington Post (the Post!) arguing that the Republican Party should expel Gaetz for being (checks notes) so dumb you can hear the ocean when you stand next to him:

Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) is an anti-Republican who has become actively destructive to the conservative movement.

Gaetz obviously hates House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) — and that’s fine. If Gaetz were simply a loudmouthed junior member who attacked McCarthy every day, that would be fine, too. He would just be isolated with a small group of lawmakers who can’t figure out how to get things done. They’d huddle together seeking warmth and reassurance from their fellow incompetents.

Gaetz’s motion to remove McCarthy should have been swiftly defeated, but it wasn’t; he should still be expelled from the House Republican Conference. House Republicans have far more important things to do than entertain one member’s ego.

My god, that's rich coming from Gingrich. Someone tell that poor schmuck that he's the reason Gaetz ever got on the ballot. Gingrich spent all four years as Speaker trying to convince ordinary Americans that the US Government wasn't capable of helping them, mainly by smashing bits of it with a hammer and wasting Congress's time with impeaching President Clinton. But hey, as the old joke goes, there are some things not even a Gingrich will do.

And! I almost forgot this:

The New York judge presiding over Donald J. Trump’s civil fraud trial ordered the former president Tuesday not to attack or even comment on court staff after Mr. Trump posted a message to social media targeting the judge’s law clerk.

Mr. Trump has spent much of the first two days of the trial attacking Justice Engoron, Ms. Greenfield and Letitia James, the New York attorney general. Ms. James filed the lawsuit that led to the trial that began Monday. She accused Mr. Trump of “staggering fraud” in the way he inflated the values of his assets, as a way to gain favorable treatment from banks and insurance companies. Ms. James and Justice Engoron are both Democrats.

As Napoleon said, “when the enemy is making a false movement we must take good care not to interrupt him.” Godspeed, House Republicans! You have 43 days to solve this before the government budget lapses again.

The GOP Clown Caucus lights the tent on fire

House speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) lost the first procedural vote to prevent a second vote aimed at kicking him out of the Speaker's chair, which will probably result in him getting re-elected in a few days. The Republicans in Congress simply have no one else who can get 218 votes for Speaker. Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) would get 214, but no Republican would ever vote for him. And my party's caucus have absolutely no interest in helping the Romper Room side of the aisle get its own house in order.

Fun times, fun times.

In other news:

  • Former US Representative Bob Inglis (R-SC) wants his party to grow up. Of course, he's (a) writing in (b) the New York Times, so there's little danger of the children currently running his party to read it.
  • The US Supreme Court has the opportunity this term to undo a century of regulation, thrusting us back into the early Industrial Age and making life miserable for everyone in the country who doesn't have billionaire friends.
  • Live attendance at performing arts events in Chicago has dropped 59% from pre-pandemic levels, which we in the Apollo Chorus have noted and do not like one bit.
  • The Federal Emergency Management Agency will test the national alert system starting at 2:20 pm EDT tomorrow, most likely scaring the bejezus out of a sizeable portion of the Boomer generation.
  • Chivas Bros. announced a plan to build a new distillery on Islay, which would be the 12th operating on the small island in the Western Hebrides. Seriously: the island is almost exactly the same size as the city of Chicago (620 km²) but with almost exactly 1,000th the population (3,000), and it will have twelve distilleries by 2026.
  • A bar three blocks from my house bet everyone's drinks bill that the Chicago Bears would win their game against Kansas City on Sunday. They lost. In fact, the Bears are now the only major-league sports team in the United States that hasn't won since Elon Musk took over Twitter.

Finally, next week the western hemisphere will see an annular solar eclipse, so named because the moon won't completely cover it, leaving a ring (or annulus) of fire around it. Chicago will get to about 45% coverage, with maximum darkness around noon. Next April, however, we get a total solar eclipse, with the path of totality passing just a couple hundred kilometers south of us.

Someone call lunch

I haven't had the most productive morning ever, but I should get back into coding after I take Cassie on her lunchtime walk. Meanwhile:

Finally, just look at this wonderful creature who got a bath yesterday. She actually climbed into the tub on her own, and seems to have figured out that getting a vigorous whole-body massage with warm water, followed by an equally-vigorous toweling off, actually feels pretty good.

McCarthy calls their bluff

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) surprised the Crazy Caucus by moving a 45-day spending bill to keep the government open that Democrats could support:

The legislation, which the Senate then passed with broad bipartisan support, marked a stunning reversal after many in Washington expected the government to close at midnight following several failed attempts by House Republicans to agree on spending legislation over the past week.

Ultimately, House Democrats supported McCarthy’s eleventh-hour proposal for a 45-day “continuing resolution” including disaster relief funds, an extension of a federal flood insurance program and reauthorization of the Federal Aviation Administration. All but one Democrat voted to support the legislation while 90 Republicans voted against it, resulting in a vote of 335-91.

Oddly, the "lone Democrat" happens to be my Representative, Mike Quigley (D-IL), because the bill temporarily halted aid to Ukraine.

Josh Marshall explains that all McCarthy did, really, was to shoot the hostage. Of course, McCarthy's the hostage, so...

At every point this was about the House Republican caucus’s demand to get some new goodies in exchange for not shutting down the government. The only slight ambiguity there is that for some House hardliners the shutdown itself clearly was the goodie. For the House hardliners it was goodies or a shutdown. There was no getting out of that binary choice because Kevin McCarthy refused any solution that relied on Democratic votes.

Then sometime today he decided to allow a vote on a clean resolution relying on Democratic votes. It passed and that was it. That change was really all that happened.

We’ve been on this course of escalating drama for weeks or months, with all the purported big matters of principle, all the tough talk about never backing down. And then they backed down and agreed to get nothing. So it all ended with a resounding “Never Mind.” But not before holding the hold federal government and much of the economy on tenterhooks for weeks or months.

So, good news, the government will keep going. The Supreme Court can start removing more of our rights based on bullshit theories proposed, one suspects, by billionaires, and the rest of us can keep getting on.

Too nice to do computer things

Happy fin de Septembre, the last day of the 3rd quarter and possibly the last really summer-like weekend of 2023. At the moment it's a perfectly sunny 21.4°C at Inner Drive WHQ with a perfect forecast of 24°C.

The plan today: walk 4 km to a friend's house because her kids want to see Cassie, then walk 3 km to the Horner Park DFA, then another 5 km to Spiteful Brewing's Oktoberfest, then walk the last kilometer home and plotz. I am confident both Cassie and I will succeed in all aspects of this plan.

Enjoy the last few hours of September 2023. See you in October, after the Republican Party once again shuts down the US Government, something the USSR could never accomplish.

With 33 hours to go in the 3rd Quarter...

Somehow, it's already the end of September. I realize this happens with some predictability right around this time of year, but it still seems odd to me.

Of course, most of the world seems odd these days:

Finally, just look at this happy dog and all his new human friends playing a fun game of keep-away...during a professional football game in Mexico. I've watched it about five times now. The goodest boi was having such a great time. I hope one of the players or refs adopted him.

In other news of the day...

It's only Wednesday? Sheesh...

  • The Writers Guild of America got nearly everything they wanted from the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (i.e., the Astroturf organization set up by the big studios and streamers to negotiate with the Guilds), especially for young writers and for hit shows, but consumers should expect more bundling and higher monthly fees for shows in the future.
  • Josh Marshall suspects that the two competing storylines about the XPOTUS (that he's about to return to power, but he's also losing every legal battle he fights) are actually just one: his "current posture of bravado and menace – while real enough as a threat – is simply his latest con, concealing a weaker and more terrified reality."
  • Jamie Bouie marvels that Justice Clarence Thomas (R$) wins the trifecta: "We have had partisan justices; we have had ideological justices; we have had justices who favored, for venal reasons, one interest over another. But it is difficult to think of another justice, in the history of the Supreme Court, who has been as partisan and as ideological and as venal as Thomas...."
  • Melissa Gira Grant profiles US District Court Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk (R-NDTX), a Christian nationalist who rose through the Federalist Society pipeline to a lifetime appointment where he will push his Victorian-era views on the people of Texas for the next 30 years or so.
  • North Korea vomited up US Army Private 2nd Class Travis King, having used him for the little he was worth after the soon-to-be-dishonorably-discharged soldier illegally entered the kingdom in July.
  • Kelli María Korducki worries that "in the age of AI, computer science is no longer the safe major," not realizing, perhaps, that the most effective programmers are and have always been liberal arts majors.

Finally, yet another fact that will make everyone I know feel old: today is Google's 25th birthday. And yes, the Daily Parker has been around longer trillion-dollar search company. We just haven't had our IPO yet.

Busy work day

Other than getting a little rained on this morning, I've had a pretty good day. But that didn't leave a lot of time to catch up on any of these before I started a deployment just now:

  • Heather Cox Richardson examines US history through the lens of a never-ending conflict between "two Americas, one based in religious zeal, mythology, and inequality; and one grounded in rule of the people and the pursuit of equality."
  • Josh Marshall ponders the difficulty of covering the XPOTUS's increasingly ghastly behavior in the "both-sides" journalism world we inhabit.
  • James Fallows zooms out to look at the framing decisions that journalists and their publishers make that inhibit our understanding of the world. Like, for example, looking at the soon-to-be 4th time Republicans in Congress have shut down the Federal government and blaming all of Washington.
  • Fallows also called attention to Amna Nawaz's recent interview with authoritarian Turkish president Recep Erdogan in which she kept her cool and her focus and he...didn't.
  • Speaking of the impending Republican torching of the US Government (again), Krugman looks at the two clown shows in the party, but wonders why "everyone says that with the rise of MAGA, the G.O.P. has been taken over by populists. So why is the Republican Party’s economic ideology so elitist and antipopulist?"
  • The Supreme Court has once again told the Alabama legislature that it can't draw legislative maps that disenfranchise most of its black citizens. Which, given the state's history, just seems so unlike them.
  • The Federal Trade Commission and 17 US States have sued Amazon for a host of antitrust violations. “A single company, Amazon, has seized control over much of the online retail economy,” said the lawsuit.
  • Monica Hesse dredges all the sympathy and understanding she can muster for XPOTUS attorney Cassidy Hutchinson's memoir. NB: Hutchinson is 27, which means I am way overdue for starting my own memoir.
  • Chicago Sun-Times columnist David Roeder complains that the CTA's planned Red Line extension to 130th Street doesn't take advantage of the existing commuter rail lines that already serve the far south side, but forgets (even as he acknowledges) that Metra and the CTA have entirely different missions and serve different communities. Of course we need new regional transport policies; but that doesn't mean the 130th St extension is bad.
  • Software producer Signal, who make the Signal private messaging app, have said they will leave the UK if the Government passes a "safety" bill that gives GCHQ a back door into the app.
  • Molly White shakes her head as the mainstream press comes to terms with something she's been saying for years now: NFTs have always been worthless. Oh, and crypto scored two $200-million thefts this week alone, which could be a new record, though this year has already seen $7.1 trillion of crypto thefts, hacks, scams, and other disasters.
  • After almost 20 years and a the removal of much of an abandoned hospital in my neighboorhood, the city will finally build the park it promised in 2017.

Finally, I rarely read classical music reviews as scathing as Lawrence Johnson's evisceration of the Lyric Opera's Flying Dutchman opening night last Friday. Yikes.