Congress

With the make-up of Congress still taking shape after the midterms, perhaps the last thing anyone expected was any kind of bipartisanship. Yet despite a contentious campaign where rising crime featured prominently in attack ads, the first order of business in both the House and the Senate was a provocative move on marijuana. In the House, Democratic congressman Jamie Raskin and Republican congresswoman Nancy Mace cohosted a hearing on how state cannabis laws have developed and what reforms the federal government might yet undertake. The hearing was surprisingly friendly, save for an outburst from Texas congressman Pete Sessions who in a rambling monologue compared legalizing pot to profiting from slavery.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced today that in the wake of Republicans taking the House, she's doing exactly what the octogenarian leadership class in this era of American decline does every time voters invite them to gracefully leave the stage: hold onto power. The decision by Pelosi to not seek election as leader of the Democratic minority, choosing instead to stay on as a kind of speaker emeritus, means she will be effectively looking over the shoulder of her successor, be that Hakeem Jeffries or another unfortunate soul. She's Democratic Speaker for Life in all but name. She will be feted by a sycophantic media, which will glorify her and build her up, even as she overshadows the people actually tasked with running Congress. But then, that's mostly just the media anyway.

In a move that he's been telegraphing for some time, Florida senator Rick Scott is challenging Mitch McConnell to be leader of the Senate GOP. Scott and McConnell have openly feuded about the Senate candidates this cycle, with Scott embracing a big tent approach even as McConnell spent more according to who he thought would back his stance for leadership than out of interest in achieving a GOP majority. His expenditures in Alabama, Alaska and New Hampshire are now examples deployed by those who blame McConnell and his attendant groups for the failures of the cycle. Whether this blame is deserved is dependent on who you're asking — but there certainly is some blame directed at Mitch and the choices his allies made.

Tabloid conservatism is the felicitous phrase that Sam Tanenhaus, one of our most astute analysts of the modern right, gave to the approach that Donald Trump, who faces various possible indictments, and Steve Bannon, who has just been sentenced to four months in prison and a measly $6,500 fine for failing to testify before Congress’s January 6 Committee, concocted as an alternative to the stuffy establishment mode that had prevailed in the GOP. A self-proclaimed populist, Bannon turned the website Breitbart.com into a juggernaut on the right and propelled the Trump campaign to victory. Absent his hard-edged approach, which included bringing various former Bill Clinton inamoratas to a debate with Hillary, it seems doubtful that Trump would have won in 2016.

Fancy a touch of wokeness on your lunch break? If you work in the United States Senate, you might be in luck. One of Cockburn's many Capitol Hill spies snapped a photo today that gave him quite the chuckle. The Senate cafeteria is hosting a "Latinx brunch" in celebration of "Hispanic & Latinx Heritage Month," which apparently runs from September 15 to October 15. [caption id="attachment_40221" align="aligncenter" width="768"] Senate cafeteria hosts ‘Latinx’ brunch (Photo credit: The Spectator)[/caption] The brunch, located in the Dirksen cafe, features classic Latin meats and dishes such as chorizo, fried plantains, Salvadoran beans and rice, and black beans. The menu also includes something called "Pirujo Frances", but a Google search didn't return a useful translation.

Cockburn on Thursday headed over to Nationals Park in Washington to watch members of Congress play a friendly game of baseball. The friendly game soon turned into a brutal slaying when the Republican team beat the Democrats 10-0 in the seventh inning. The air was alight with excitement. Crowds bustled into the stadium, though not without some trouble. Outside the park was a small crowd of people wearing red — a protest that included a band with a very ecstatic tuba player. It turns out these people were from the Ikiya Collective, an activist “news” organization that focuses on protests, and were advertising for NowOrNever.earth, a climate activist group. Some particularly observant readers may ask what this had to do with baseball. Absolutely nothing, as it turned out.

Cockburn can't help but chuckle. Last night, the January 6 committee showed video of Senator Josh Hawley running from Capitol rioters, mere hours after he'd infamously given them the thumbs-up. Twitter, in its comedic wisdom, pounced all over the footage, and here's the best of of what one particularly resourceful user, @The_Mal_Gallery, came up with. https://twitter.com/The_Mal_Gallery/status/1550290085882564608?s=20&t=YlAB-XpczT1TiCzbDPmAOQ  https://twitter.com/The_Mal_Gallery/status/1550297459943002112 https://twitter.

Cockburn doesn’t leave the swampy bounds of the District too often, but he has now and then been tempted by a trip to Colorado’s Western Slope, where, until last Sunday, Representative Lauren Boebert ran a restaurant in the town of Rifle. Every waitress who worked there open-carried a gun. Cockburn learned of this Second Amendment-themed eatery through a video his colleague Teresa Mull produced back when Boebert was just a gun and burger-slinging small business owner. Now, eight years later, Shooters Grill has closed. According to the Glenwood Springs Post Independent, Boebert was shocked to learn that her new landlord would not be renewing her restaurant’s lease: Boebert said the letter came as a shock.

Over the last four months, the Biden administration has assured us that it is only sending “defensive weapons” to Ukraine. It's a claim that's become more difficult to believe as more sophisticated systems are announced seemingly every week that do not require further congressional approval. Take the most recent example. The White House announced a fresh $1 billion last week for 18 more Howitzers, more long-range missiles for the HIMARS rocket systems announced earlier this month, and a new weapon, Harpoon anti-ship missiles. These are systems that can strike at the more than 20 Russian naval vessels accused of blockading Ukraine’s eastern ports.

Cockburn has done his fair share of jail time, mostly on overblown bootlegging charges. Yet after paying his dues to society, he decided to venture to a recent press conference on the situation of those imprisoned after the January 6 riot. The Patriot Freedom Project helps aid the families of the January 6 prisoners with legal costs and living expenses. Now, the organization is advocating for a review of the prison conditions of the inmates. One inmate’s mother said, “The conditions at the DC jail are horrendous. His rations often smelled like cleaning fluid. There were pubic hairs included in the small portions of his food. The drinking water, visibly dirty. Mold was visible in cells, and roaches lived amongst [the prisoners].

Although the public has other things to worry about — like runaway inflation and a collapsing stock market — there has been a lot of static about the January 6 show trials that opened last Thursday on location in Washington, DC. I’ve contributed to the cacophony myself, though not without misgivings. As rumors swirl about important changes in the cast next year — Liz Cheney, for example, is said to be returning to her real constituency in Georgetown — a friend writes to remind me that the entire show may be eclipsed by a new kid on the block: the June 8 House Select Committee to investigate the plot to assassinate Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh at his home in a partially disclosed, insecure location.