Welcome to The Now

  Via Newsweek : The House of Representatives has voted to block an effort by Republican Representative Nancy Mace to make public all congressional sexual misconduct and harassment reports, effectively killing the proposal. In a 357-65 vote on Wednesday, the House moved to refer Mace's resolution to the House Ethics Committee—a procedural step that halted the measure. A spokeswoman for Mace directed Newsweek toward the congresswoman's public statement and posts on X when approached for comment. In her statement, Mace said: "The victims deserved better. The American people deserved better. Every member who voted to keep these records buried voted to protect power over people. We won't let it go and neither should you."

 

 I t's the equivalent of Disney releasing a live-action version of one of their animated movies : The House Oversight Committee on Tuesday publicly posted the files it has received from the Justice Department on the sex trafficking investigations into Jeffrey Epstein and his former girlfriend Ghislaine Maxwell, responding to mounting pressure in Congress to force more disclosure in the case. Still, the files mostly contain information that was already publicly known or available . The folders — posted on Google Drive — contained hundreds of image files of years-old court filings related to Epstein, who died in a New York jail cell in 2019 as he faced charges for sexually abusing teenage girls, and Maxwell, who is serving a lengthy prison sentence for assisting him. The files also included video appearing to be body cam footage from police searches as well as recordings and summaries of law enforcement interviews with victims detailing the abuse they said they suffered. [SNIP] Most,...

 Not much that will help the non-rich: Here's one indication of how problematic the bill is: Marjorie Taylor Greene, a MAGA member and proud Trump supporter, is now against the bill, after realizing what's in it (yes; that means that she didn't read it all before voting for it). 

 According to Black Agenda Report's Margaret Kimberley, not exactly: The recent passing of former Congressman Charles B. Rangel at the age of 94 does not mark the end of a political era. The era which defined Black politics – that is to say, a politics which consciously and purposefully made demands on behalf of Black people – ended long ago. Rangel’s 44-year tenure spanned the founding of the Congressional Black Caucus, which became known as the “conscience of the congress,” until the Democratic Party’s takeover by corporate and neoliberal interests killed off any vestiges of Black and progressive politics. There's more about the Congressional Black Congress (CBC) and how the Democratic Leadership Conference (DLC) brought the CBC, Rangel and other Black Democrats to heel . 

 The US House of Representatives, has passed (among other things) a bill to use $1.6 billion to fund five years of anti-China messaging (i.e., propaganda). Like the video states, expect  some updated "incubator baby" stories.

 So thank to this (the story, not Hard Lens Media): We can now be distracting by enjoy these:

 After realizing that sending boatloads of money and weapons to one of the world's most corrupt nations isn't helping to win a proxy war with Russia isn't panning out as planned, the West (US, NATO) are threatening direct action. That's not a good idea:

 

 A Democrat who keeps forgetting to report his stock trades  won over a former member of the IDF  turned Republican in a race for a seat recently held by someone you wouldn't buy a timeshare from. 

 Looks like Mike Johnson is slipping into his role quite nicely (for the military-industrial complex):

 Now that the US House of Representatives has elected a Speaker who just happens to believe that Donald Trump should still be president, CNN's Zachary B. Wolf wants to put to rest the "uniparty myth," namely that the daylight between Republicans and Democrats is negligible: Republicans’ House speaker morass continued Tuesday with a little help from former President Donald Trump. Yet another lawmaker with support from most House Republicans – Rep. Tom Emmer of Minnesota, who was picked as their party’s nominee – failed to get the support of nearly all Republicans. He dropped out of the running Tuesday afternoon, leaving Republicans again back at square one. Late Tuesday, the GOP conference selected a fourth nominee, Rep. Mike Johnson, who faces a floor vote Wednesday. Emmer, who supports military aid to Ukraine and who voted to certify the 2020 election, saw his chances fade in the most bizarre possible way hours after being picked. Trump lobbied against Emmer with a soci...

  People are either too infirm, too ill or too "seasoned" to perform daily duties , which means they can't do the people's business. And instead if actually calling for election reform or term limits, elected officials ask us to keep them in office until they literally cannot function. In any other occupation, employees would be either given extensive leave or be asked to resign.

 Reps. Adam Schiff, Eric Swalwell and Ilhan Omar apparently aren't going to be serving on any committees in the new GOP-controlled House of Representatives , and they aren't happy about it. Instead of holding press conferences to complain, they should use their positions of power to make the GOP regret making that decision.

 The time is took McCarthy to secure the bag is not that significant historically: What's interesting is that in comparison, other Speakers have been rubber-stamped so quickly without much debate.

 A phrase that has been run into the ground way more than others and used as the opening argument for why Democrats are preferable to Republicans (of course this argument is being made by Democrats and their allies) served it's purpose until 2024. So now that the GOP will control the House of Representatives, what have Democrats to say about the state of things? Well: Yep. After "the most important election of our lifetime" has passed and the Democrats lost the House, House Dems mock the fact that the GOP is taking the leadership position seriously enough to not rubber-stamp their choice for Speaker of the House. After weeks and months of scaring voters, now they're all smiles. (See, to Democrats, such spats are signs of disarray. But notice that every time the GOP goes through one of these "growing pains," they come back strong enough to put someone in the White House; i.e., Reagan, GW Bush, and Trump?)

 It's up to the Senate now to either pass it, kill it, or send it back to be modified.

 AOC is basically a liberal, like Nancy Pelosi before her:

 In other words: they are both complicit and incompetent.

 So there's not one but two stories about how Representative Cori Bush (and then Senator Bernie Sanders ) are reviving Medicare for All legislatively.  While the usual response to this would be, "Why now, instead of when Force The Vote would have put the issue in the national spotlight?" I can't help but notice that C-SPAN doesn't seem to have any videos or clips of the hearing at all. According to them, there are only five clips/videos of note involving Cori Bush for March 2022 (3/2, 3/8, 3/11 and two on 3/18). The hearing was presumably on 3/29/22.  It's almost like they're fighting for something a majority of Americans want at a time when people are barely paying attention, with the knowledge that the leaders of their own party have dismissed implementing even the smallest of significant changes.