It’s all party politics, and favors going back and forth. Right now, for better or worse, there is no bigger symbol of the Democratic Establishment than Chuck Schumer. He may owe enough favors to other Establishment people that he has to back the Next One Up.
Schumer himself hasn’t said whether he will run for re-election in 2028, so the deal might be to get Chuck to finally retire already and then AOC can be the only candidate…
And, AOC wouldnt run for President and Senate at the same time. I think NY allows that, but most candidates who try and pull that off are incumbent Senators or Congresspeople who are running for the same job while also running for President. It would be very unusual to run for a Senate job for the first time that you might have to give up 20 days into your term.
I still think there’s already been a deal made to clear the field for AOC to take over Chuck’s seat in exchange for her to help clear the field for Gavin (because he is the Next One Up…).
They just all have to pretend that the deal isnt a thing, because no deal is official until it happens, and everyone wants to keep their options open in case it falls apart.
The normal split in the Senate is 53R / 47D. With Mitch out of order, it’s down to 52/47. So three R’s voting the for it would have been enough to make the measure pass, if all D’s voted as well. But the vote got Fettermaned, and failed 49-50.
The President is only accountable to half the US House and 1/3 of US Senators. As long as 218 House members back him, he won’t get impeached. And even failing that, as long as 34 Senators back him, he won’t get punished.
It turns out he has enough support within Congress to keep grifting. Is he giving them a cut?
I am reminded of the situation around Dianne Feinstein in 2023, who held on to her seat until her death, even though rumors were swirling that she had dementia that was only getting worse. She actually gave power of attorney over her personal affairs to her daughter a few months before her death, while still serving as Senator.
(But, even through all that she still had lucid moments, and actually voted to prevent a government shutdown just before she died, which is more than Mitch has done recently.)
We really need some way to get these people to step aside when the time comes.
Mentally unstable and untrustworthy? That basically narrows it down to any Republican.
The Senate literally makes it’s own rules, and chooses how to organize itself. The rules are so convoluted that the Senate established its own office, the Parliamentarian, to advise on those rules. This is a non-partisan office that serves the Senate as a whole. They get no actual vote, but their decisions affects how work in the Senate progresses. (In particular, they are the ones who make decisions on these “reconciliation” bills that provide a way around the filibuster.
Trump can’t fire her, because she works for the Senate Leadership. The Majority Leader can fire her, but won’t (at least so far), because once the rules start breaking down, it’s impossible to get anything done in the Senate. Republicans could just dispense with the rules to give the majority more power, but they are terrified of what Democrats would do with that power if they ever gained the majority afterwards.
So, if we ever do get to the point that Republicans fire the Parliamentarian, or further restrict the filibuster, it will be because Republicans are counting on never having to give up control of the Senate again.
The parliamentarian simply advises the Majority Leader, all of their rulings only constrain the Senate because the Leader lets it happen. Trent Lott fired the Parliamentarian in 2001 because Lott was angry about his rulings (although Lott didn’t go as far as to ignore those rulings…)
This notion of corporate personhood is purely for our own convenience, so corporations can enter into contracts, have bank accounts, and so on. In no universe did the folks who wrote that “all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights” mean to include corporations on that. After all, corporations were not created by the same Creator as people, were they*?
I would be 100% in favor of an amendment that clearly spells out that the rights enumerated in the Constitution are limited to actual humans, and any corporation or other group of people are not entitled to any more inherent rights than the humans who make up the corporation are entitled to collectively. You don’t get more rights simply by paying a filing fee to Delaware!
This does not remove all of the privileges that we have granted corporations to make it easier to organize, but does mean that corporations have no inherent “right” to anything. Humans have those!
Edited to add: someone has proposed it already! https://www.movetoamend.org/amendment
* = Yes, this is Lemmy, so some snarky person will come along and say “of course they are! We made up both corporations and God!”. But, the founders were deists and believed in a Creator, so let’s try to look at it from their point of view, because that’s what our backwards Supreme Court does…
It would be a fitting end to his political career if he is fillibustering his own obituary.
For the love of all that is holy, I hope that headline is a metaphor.
Hah, you think those ICE officers give a shit about what experts say?
No,you don’t get it. The mere fact that he is talking about it now is a good indication that he’s already done all the analysis, and knows he can’t take any action. So, by coming out and saying he’s “examining” it, he continues to keep the issue in the news and gain popularity on it in spite of knowing the law is not on his side.
He has made the political determination, though, that even New York City, which by some estimations has over 1M Jewish people living in it, is fed up with Netanyahu. Which is pretty remarkable.
I guess Oregon just doesn’t get to vote, then? They’ve been mail-only for years
Those 2 independants caucus with Democrats and would vote for their candidate for Leader, so the current margin once Mitch departs is 52/47 (or, 2 1/2 seats).
The real problem for Fetterman “flipping” is after the election. While there’s every possibility the Democrats will snatch defeat from the jaws of victory, if they claw back a few Senate seats then the balance may end up 50/50 (or even 51D/49R). That’s when Republicans will put on a huge pre$$ure campaign to get someone to defect and promise them all sorts of shit to bail them out of election consequences.
I’m waiting for this Administration to argue that only US citizens are guaranteed “human rights”…
He seems to be obsessed with the purity of bodily fluids, just like Jack D. Ripper. Even looks a little like him.
I bet there are congressional staffers whose only job is to come up with clever, marketable acronyms for bills
I knew that just from the nypost url