Clark Rockefeller has returned and got elected to Congress under the alias “George Santos.”

We thought that Clark Rockefeller was safely under lock and key at
San Quentin State Prison but he had us fooled. For the last few years he’s been gallivanting around Queens and Nassau County doing who-knows-what. But in 2020, he ran for Congress under his George Santos moniker, losing to incumbent Tom Suozzi. Two years later, Santos knocked off  Democratic candidate Robert Zimmerman by a healthy 54.1% to 45.9% margin.

Here at BiteMe, we predict great things for freshman Congressman Rockefeller in the Republican-majority 118th Congress. Go get ’em, Clark!

Source: Republican Rep.-Elect George Santos May Have Falsified His Employment, Educational, Philanthropic History, Report Finds

The Supreme Court Will Consider A ‘Dangerous’ Theory That Could Break American Democracy

Moore v. Harper involves a bizarre legal gambit known as the independent state legislature theory. It argues that the Elections Clause of the U.S. Constitution provides state legislatures the sole authority to set the “time, place, and manner” of federal elections.

Its adoption would place legislatures outside of the purview of state constitutions, effectively ending state court judicial review of election laws or congressional district maps.

. . .

The case comes before the court following more than a decade of attempts by North Carolina Republicans to draw hyper-partisan congressional maps following the decennial census in both 2010 and 2020.

. . .

The [independent state legislature ] theory arose in the controversial 2000 Bush v. Gore case when then-Chief Justice William Rehnquist endorsed it in a concurrence joined by then-Justice Antonin Scalia and current Justice Clarence Thomas. It reemerged in force in the fall of 2020 when Republicans in North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin used it to argue for the Supreme Court to block election law changes adopted during the COVID-19 pandemic. The court declined to do so, but Justices Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Thomas all showed an interest in either accepting the theory or hearing a case on it. North Carolina’s challenge presented that opportunity and these four justices took up the case, even though the North Carolina legislature specifically authorized the state supreme court to adjudicate gerrymandering disputes in exactly the manner they now wish to invalidate.

Ha! The Bitemaster heartily supports North Carolina in this case. If the Supreme Court agrees, states like New York would be able to produce congressional maps that more fairly represent the feelings of its citizens and award all the state’s 26 congressional seats to deserving Democrats. It would be a great victory, indeed.

Source: The Supreme Court Will Consider A ‘Dangerous’ Theory That Could Break American Democracy | HuffPost Latest News

House Dems on GOP’s thin majority: Welcome to hell

. . . [T]he House GOP will have to steer legislation through with as few as four votes to spare while its leaders deal with an emboldened Freedom Caucus, internal finger-pointing over a disappointing midterm cycle, and a looming brawl over a 2024 presidential primary that features Donald Trump back in the mix.

“I don’t lie awake at night worrying about the bad legislation they are going to pass. Because I don’t think they’re going to pass it,” said Rep. Don Beyer (D-Va.).

Awaiting the outcome of just one true toss-up race, Republicans will have a majority of either four or five — giving McCarthy the sparest of margins of any other Congress at the start of its term since 1931. Not to mention that he’s already vowed to do away with Pelosi-era proxy voting, making every potential absence a new challenge.

Do away with proxy voting? His view on that is sure to “evolve.”

As Democrats prepare their retreat into the minority, many are less-than-fondly recalling their own two years of vote-wrangling and floor delays while wishing their GOP colleagues luck.

“It was wonderful,” quipped Rep. Dan Kildee (D-Mich.), a member of Pelosi’s whip team who remembered countless after-midnight phone calls this Congress to lock down votes for many of his party’s huge bills. “That was a regular routine, as a matter of fact.”

Source: House Dems on GOP’s thin majority: Welcome to hell – POLITICO

Congress pivots on spending bills

Last year, it was all they would talk about.

If Congress is broken, as some critics and lawmakers believe, a major problem is that lawmakers no longer pass regular appropriations bills.

Instead, Republicans and Democrats fiddle around with a few spending bills until the process breaks down enough so that they can wash their hands of it and give up on putting controversial measures on the floor. This way, they can duck tough votes on issues like abortion and eventually negotiate a year-end deal that essentially continues current funding for everything.

Source: GOP Leaders Seem Less Interested In Regular Spending Bills Now Trump Is President | The Huffington Post

“TRAITORS” New York Daily News dares to call out Senators

B_sydpOWQAAAWStWhen he heard that forty seven Republican Senators had sent a letter telling the Iranian leadership that President Obama’s negotiations could not be relied on, your Bitemaster went apoplectic.

He saw this as another Republican attempt to undermine the President they had sworn to defeat. It was, the Bitemaster thought, an act of treason, though he could not bring himself to say so in public.

Now the Daily News has done it for him, calling the Republican Senators “traitors” for their attempt to usurp the constitutionally-mandated foreign policy authority of the President.

Seeing the headline was a satisfying moment for the Bitemaster. At least until he read this in the Washington Post:

Administration officials insisted that the president doesn’t need congressional approval to make a deal with Iran and that Congress wouldn’t be able to alter the terms of a deal.

Just a moment. If the President were trying to unilaterally make a treaty, shouldn’t the Senate push back?

New York Daily News blasts Cotton, Cruz, McConnell, and Paul over Iran letter: ‘TRAITORS’.

On the other hand, Iranian Foreign Minister, Dr. Javad Zarif, responded that “in our view, this letter has no legal value and is mostly a propaganda ploy.”

Is Donald Rumsfeld an alien lizard who eats Mexican babies?

Apparently Wikipedia administrators recently blocked computers at the U.S. House of Representatives from editing the cybercyclopedia because House employees were engaging in “disruptive editing.”

For example, someone changed the biography of former U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld to describe him as an “alien lizard who eats Mexican babies.” What part is not accurate? That he’s an alien? That he’s a lizard? Or that he eats Mexican babies?

Inquiring minds want to know.

via Wikipedia Blocks U.S. House Computers Over ‘Disruptive Editing’.

Why is the VA broken? Follow the money.

Your Bitemaster is usually skeptical about claims that Congress is in the pocket of big-money interests. But reporter Ryan Grim has laid out the opposite argument: since there are no deep-pocketed lobbyists looking to lavish campaign cash on members of the Veterans Affairs committees, the committees have become the dumping ground for the youngest and least-effective members of Congress.

Grim’s article, replete with facts and figures, proves:

  • no one wants to get on the VA committees
  • those that get stuck there have little incentive to do any work
  • those few members of the committees who might care to get something done are too junior or marginal to have any clout.

Here’s The Simple Reason Congress Hasn’t Fixed The VA.

Members of Congress send millions to groups connected to their relatives

All kinds of self-dealing is permitted by lax Congressional ethics rules (which are set by the Congressmembers themselves), permitting them to send millions to groups connected to their relatives.

Craig Holman of Public Citizen, a nonprofit government watchdog group, says “The executive branch can’t steer contracts or work to businesses where family members work. They can’t even own stock in industries that they oversee, unlike Congress. It’s complete hypocrisy.”