Tag archive: House

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Aster-Obit:  Dick Cheney

On the evening of 3 November 2025, former US Vice President Richard “Dick” Cheney passed away at his home in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, of complications related to pneumonia and vascular disease.  He was attended by Lynne, his wife of 61 years, their daughters Mary and Liz, and other family members.

Cheney’s career in politics spanned decades, from his early work in the late 1960s as an aide to Donald Rumsfeld, later Defense Secretary, to his stint as Chief-of-Staff for President Gerald Ford; U.S Representative for Wyoming; Defense Secretary for President George H. W. Bush; and Vice President for his son, George W. Bush.  He made a brief foray into the private sector as CEO of Halliburton, a Fortune 500 company, during the Clinton administration.

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Barbarians at the Gaetz

Donald Trump’s post-electoral Retribution Tour hit a snag on November 21st, when Attorney General nominee Matt Gaetz suddenly withdrew from consideration in the wake of some GOP-generated heat in defiance of his candidacy.  Withdrawal is something Gaetz knows a bit about, with the primary scandal in which he’s embroiled involving his attendance at drug-fueled sex parties with underage partners.

Trump nominated Gaetz, himself a subject of a years-long federal criminal investigation and a House Ethics Committee report, on November 13th, along with a spate of controversial nominees, such as Fox & Friends weekend anchor Pete Hegseth for Defense; Bashar Al-Assad and Vladimir Putin apologist Tulsi Gabbard as Director of National Intelligence; and vaccine skeptic and conspiracy theorist extraordinaire Robert F. Kennedy Jr to head Health and Human Services.  If these choices seem “out-of-the-box,” consider that asteroid Troemper 2813 at 11 Leo (our celestial referent for The Donald) is currently travelling arm-in-arm with asteroid Pandora 55 at 10 Leo, noted mythically as the hapless naif who, against good advice, opened a box containing all the evils of the world, thus releasing them.  Archetypally, there are no cosmic accidents.

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The New York 3 Special Election: Another One Bites the Dust

On Tuesday, 13 February 2024, New York’s Third Congressional District held a special election to fill the seat vacated by serial fabulist George Santos, ousted from the US House of Representatives last December.  The election in the swing district was viewed by many as a bellwether, an omen of things to come in the general election come November.  Though polling showed a tight race, Democrat Tom Suozzi trounced Republican Mazi Pilip, 54%-46%.  The victory shifts yet another House seat from R to D, giving GOP House Speaker Mike Johnson just a two-vote majority.

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AAA Profile: MAGA Mike (AKA Speaker Johnson)

Only today’s GOP could take a bad situation and make it worse.  After weeks of wrangling following the ouster of House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, with multiple abortive attempts to install at least four nominees, the Republican caucus unanimously chose Mike Johnson (R-LA) as their new Speaker on October 25th.  Johnson is a MAGA diehard, one of the architects of the attempt to override the 2020 election results; his elevation is a clear signal that the Party has no desire to reform its ways, and is intent more on obstructionism and culture war posing than true governance. 

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Crossing Jordan: The House Speaker Debacle

If the implications of the situation weren’t so dire, and the dysfunction of the Republican House caucus so manifest for the world to behold, I’d love to have the popcorn concession for what’s playing out now on Capitol Hill.  It’s certainly must-see political theater, as Republicans continue to set records for ineptitude and incompetence, becoming the poster children for inability to govern, even themselves, let alone the country.

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Trump’s Noose Tightens

Well, he’s done it again – Trump continues to break records, right and left.  He’s now the first former US President to be referred for criminal charges.  On Monday, 19 December 2022, the House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol gave Americans an early Christmas gift, when it voted unanimously to send four criminal referrals for Donald J. Trump to the Justice Department, based on his actions that day and in the preceding months since the 2020 election.  The House doesn’t have the power to file charges on its own behalf, but can recommend legal action to the DOJ, known to be deep into its own investigation of the insurrection planned, prompted and encouraged by the disgraced 45th President.

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