Congress


2024 Congressional Schedule

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The new year has begun and so has the countdown to 24/7 election talk. Not here, though. Getting it out early while we’re all shaking off holiday hangovers and/or the latest covid surge.

I won’t keep harping on Mike Johnson and Republicans actively wanting to do a coup, that’s a well-known fact. But Schumer (and Biden) have wasted the past three years on the mixed-messaging of praising bipartisanship and working with Republicans while simultaneously claiming they’re an imminent threat to democracy. Gotta sharpen up the contrasts for the low-information dum-dums who have all our fates in their simple, fickle hands.

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Meet Mike Johnson

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After three weeks of chaos, the House Republicans finally settled on their generic right-wing freak. Like everyone else, I never heard of Mike Johnson until this week. He’s a full-blown coup-thusiast, white supremacist, and evangelical anti-abortion authoritarian.

Who knows how long Johnson will keep the job, but his successor will be even more fascist if the Republicans get to pick it. This all could’ve been avoided if the insurrectionist members of Congress were expelled as the Constitution explicitly calls for. Now we’re stuck with them and if the House majority isn’t flipped by a sizable margin in 2024, they’re going to install themselves permanently.

Having fascist goons as your opponent may help increase voter turnout, but that only works if the fascists honor election results; which they’ve already shown they won’t.

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Speaker of the House Auditions

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Nine months after he barely squeaked into the speakership, Kevin McCarthy was ousted by the Ding-Dong Caucus. I was pleasantly surprised the Democrats didn’t bail him out for the sake of “norms, bipartisanship” or some other bullshit. McCarthy refused to make any concessions to earn that kind of unprecedented act and deserves to be the historical footnote he is.

More shutdowns and parliamentary brinkmanship are sure to ensue, but they were already going to under McCarthy. Best to make the Republicans flail around and demonstrate just how unfit for office they’ve always been.

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Kevin McCarthy’s Inquiries

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This week McCarthy announced the House’s Biden impeachment inquiry that the Ding Dong Caucus demanded to get their support for his speakership. It’s going to be real dumb and full of garbage that the media will dutifully cover as straight news to appear to be objective observers of the two parties.

In good news, no actual legislation except some stopgap thing to avert a shutdown will get through Congress this session, then nothing is going to happen legislatively until after the 2024 election. So hopefully I won’t have to draw this guy again for a while.

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Aliens Address Congress!

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House Republicans took a little break from obsessing over Hunter Biden to have a hearing about UFOs, or UAP (Unidentified Aerial Phenomena) as the cool kids are saying these days. While I enjoy reading about cryptid and UFO lore, anything that hasn’t been clearly caught on a smartphone or dashcam by now is probably a coyote with mange or a some classified Pentagon toy.

Mathematically, alien life is sure to exist. Intelligent life, in proximity to us in both time and space, however, is less likely. And life smart enough to travel faster than light has no reason to visit this shithole.

I used TOS Spock even though I enjoy Ethan Peck’s version in Strange New Worlds, and the series in general. The show feels like a novelty if only because they haven’t used CGI/AI to reanimate Nimoy’s corpse … yet.

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A.I. for Government and Business

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I know there was an actual Trump indictment and arraignment this week, but I have to get ahead for some real-life stuff and did an evergreen comic.

AI’s always invoked to replace labor, never management or any job that wields actual power. I’m decades away from the last time I wrote a computer program, but I guarantee you it’s easier to automate the work of the guys who turn spreadsheets into human misery than anyone doing anything useful for society.

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House Programming Guide

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This Congress is barely a month old and already beyond parody. I suppose I’ll continue mocking them until the last checks on their power are gone and our country completes its final spin down the toilet bowl.

I didn’t watch the State of the Union, since that’s always old news by the end of the week it happens. All the genius pundits say it’s the unofficial start of the 2024 campaign, so say goodbye to any meaningful legislation getting passed through this bunch.

I watched The Menu instead. Highly recommended and not just because of the shoutout to my hometown of Brockton, MA.

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Janet Yellen’s Weird Tricks to Get Out of Debt

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We did this already.

Republicans will use the debt ceiling to hold the global economy hostage whenever they can because Democrats let them. If we weren’t so used to this charade, it would sound sillier than a Trillion Dollar Coin or flat out ignoring the ceiling because it’s unconstitutional under the 4th clause of the 14th Amendment.

This crop of House Republicans is even more deranged than the last time we did this default brinkmanship, so get ready to barter for those eggs you can’t afford if you aren’t already.

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