"The three members of TMZ’s new Washington, D.C., bureau arrived at Capitol Hill last Monday...."

"The celebrity-gossip outlet’s Washington operation had started off with a bang. The partial government shutdown had enraged TMZ founder Harvey Levin, who thought he might shame Congress back into session by publicizing how lawmakers were spending their recess while federal workers went without pay. The photos did not disappoint. There was a khaki-clad Lindsey Graham at Disney World, holding a bubble wand and boarding Space Mountain. There was Ted Cruz scrolling in his Economy Plus seat. There were members of Congress touring Edinburgh Castle while on a trip to Scotland. 'The reaction in D.C. was, "Oh, that’s just a codel,"' said Washington communications veteran Nu Wexler, referring to a congressional delegation. It wasn’t clear TMZ understood the distinction or if it cared...." 

From "Washington Enters Its TMZ Era" (Intelligencer).

"Veterans are greeting the arrival of TMZ’s aggressively tabloid approach with a mix of curiosity and wariness. 'If they can expose scumbags who rape and abuse women, that would be a great public service,' said Axios CEO Jim VandeHei. 'If they just make a mockery of a widely mocked institution, that would be a shame. Let’s see the road they choose.'"

"The problem is less a 'boys will be boys' tolerance than a sense of resignation among politicians, staff and other members of official Washington that powerful, ambitious men are built differently."

Writes Michelle Cottle, in "How Many People Heard About Swalwell and Did Nothing?" (NYT).

Cottle does not delve into this "built differently" hypothesis or the reasons why people believe it and choose to condone bad behavior. She seems to hope to light a fire under these weaker people and motivate them to oppose the "powerful, ambitious men" who — supposedly — are fueled by sexual desire. 

Maybe she doesn't delve into the hypothesis because she thinks it's true and self-evident. Maybe she's too puritanical to open up the subject. "Built differently." Say it clearly and explicitly. When I was a child, circa 1960, I asked my mother how babies were born. That was long ago, but I remember her answer verbatim: "Well, you know how men and women are built differently."

Can we please grow up and say it bluntly? There's no reason to be polite here. Powerful, ambitious men are built differently... the idea is if we want truly great men in our positions of power, we need to accept the component of their psyche that is a drive for sex — a lot of sex, with young, beautiful women. We're diminishing ourselves if we filter out the men who have it. Look at JFK. Look at Trump. And by the way, it's also the reason why none of the women are truly great political leaders.

That's not my personal belief. That's the hypothesis Cottle gestures at, and I'm just putting it bluntly. Maybe you can put it more bluntly, so I'll turn the conversation over to you.

"We want a full house cleaning. Get the garbage out of here. These jerks are destroying Congress, for the American people and for all of us who came here to do good work."

Said an unnamed House Democrat, quoted in "Swalwell scandal threatens cascade of House expulsion votes" (Axios).

But: "Many rank-and-file House members are territorial about their prerogatives and terrified of the precedent it would set to expel someone on the basis of allegations that haven't been fully adjudicated — even when they are highly unsavory."

"Some folks might decry this practice as 'rent-free living.' However, if it maximizes Congress’s productivity..."

"... and camaraderie while respecting professional boundaries with staff, then it is a step worth taking."

Writes Buddy Carter, a Republican representing Georgia’s 1st Congressional District, in "I sleep in my office. The rest of Congress should, too. The House would be more bipartisan if lawmakers made the Hill their home away from home" (WaPo)(free-access link so you can see the photographs).

A commenter over there says: "More performative bullsh*t from the party that harbors felons, rapists and pedophiles. Spare me." Another commenter: "I agree this is performative behavior. The writer also doesn’t tell us that he is pocketing his taxpayer-funded cost-of-living reimbursements while staying in DC." 

"Is it embarrassing that Santos was elected in the first place? Yes. But that’s democracy. Sometimes voters make mistakes."

"The role of members of Congress is to represent their constituents, not to overturn the will of the voters just because they believe those voters have acted unwisely."

Writes Adam Serwer, in "Expelling George Santos Was a Mistake/Forcing the New York representative out of the House after a conviction would have been justified; pushing him out beforehand is not" (The Atlantic).

I agree. The man was elected by the people of a small geographic area who have a chance every 2 years to pick some human being to represent them. If they picked a big clown, that's democracy for you. Deal with it. Hope that the other clowns are lesser clowns and can balance things out. Santos wasn't important, and fussing over him was always, as I see it, distraction. Distraction, too, is democracy. I get that.

"Republicans narrowly win House, ending full Democratic control of Congress."

 WaPo reports. 

The slim GOP majority to come has forced many GOP members, aides, and strategists come to grips with the prospect that their agenda might never come to fruition.... 

But:

Republicans this term have said they will focus in the majority on investigating the Biden administration and they have signaled an intent to use their powers to block Biden’s agenda. Potential investigation targets include the Biden administration’s coronavirus response and border policies, the business dealings of Biden’s son Hunter Biden, and the FBI. Without proof, Republicans have accused the FBI of probing Trump’s handling of classified documents for political reasons.

"GOP lawmaker calls witness ‘boo’ at hearing, prompts Ocasio-Cortez apology."

WaPo reports. 

Here, watch for yourself, in case you, like me, found it hard to believe:

"The House’s Jan. 6 committee is going prime-time.... But will Americans watch? Or care?"

That's from the written introduction to "Will Prime Time Undermine or Elevate the Jan. 6 Hearings?/Our panelists discuss how televising the House committee sessions could shape the long-haul defense of democracy" — the new episode of the NYT podcast "Sway."

Panelists, we're told, "talk about what key moments and witnesses to watch for in the hearings and whether any revelations will, as one committee member, Jamie Raskin of Maryland, suggested, 'blow the roof off the House.'"

Will Americans watch? I won't. If there's anything that blows the roof off the House — funny to use the metaphor of an explosion in the Capitol building — I'll read about it in the news. I'm not interested in pyrotechnics. I don't put up with committee hearings anymore. I'm sure the highlights will be unavoidable clips, and I'll play those when the time comes. But I won't sit still for the politicians' presentation.  

Will Americans care? I care about something, but I won't care in advance and place myself in the hands of partisan Congresspeople who want to push me around until I care about it their way.

ADDED: I will try to listen to this podcast... at least until I can't stand it anymore. Quite aside from the content, the sound quality is very poor, at a level that the most small-time podcaster would want to avoid. Why is the NYT putting out such low quality audio? 

AND: Kara Swisher (the host) asks: "Is it good or bad that it's being produced like a TV special?"

ALSO: It's a 41-minute podcast. I almost made it to 9 minutes. That's it for me.

"It is almost as if President Franklin D. Roosevelt had stuffed his entire New Deal into one piece of legislation, or if President Lyndon B. Johnson had done the same with his Great Society, instead of pushing through individual components over several years."

Writes Jim Tankersley in "Biden’s Entire Presidential Agenda Rests on Expansive Spending Bill/A plan for the economy, education, immigration, climate and more binds disparate Democratic lawmakers, but the proposal risks sinking under its own weight" (NYT). 

If Mr. Biden’s party cannot find consensus on those issues and the bill dies, the president will have little immediate recourse to advance almost any of those priorities.... Republicans say the breadth of the bill shows that Democrats are trying to drastically shift national policy without full debate on individual proposals.... 

Ted Kaufman, a longtime aide to Mr. Biden who helped lead his presidential transition team, said the core of the bill went back much further: to a set of newsprint brochures that campaign volunteers delivered across Delaware in 1972, when Mr. Biden won an upset victory for a Senate seat.... 

Margie Omero, a principal at the Democratic polling firm GBAO, which has polled on the bill for progressive groups, said the ambition of the package was a selling point that Democrats should press as a contrast with Republicans in midterm elections. “People feel like the country is going through a lot of crises, and that we need to take action,” she said....

You know the old saying: Do something, everything. Including whatever was in those 1972 Delaware newsprint brochures. Come on, man! Biden's waited half a century to do whatever it was he claimed he wanted to do when he was 30. We've got to just do it in one fell swoop or none of it will ever get done. It's all or nothing. Take it or leave it. Don't you love it when your options are presented to you so clearly?

“This is our moment to prove to the American people that their government works for them, not just for the big corporations and those at the very top,” Mr. Biden said on Thursday. He added, “This is an opportunity to be the nation we know we can be.”

I'll accept his assurances if he'll explain what's in the bill and proves that he knows what he's talking about. And what is "the nation we know we can be"? Other than the one that is governed by people who support what they don't even begin to understand, because why not just combine everything into one inscrutable package? Actually, I do know we can be that, and it scares me.

By the way, it was only last April that I blogged a NYT article with this passage:

Invoking the legacy of Franklin D. Roosevelt, Mr. Biden unveiled a $1.8 trillion social spending plan to accompany previous proposals to build roads and bridges, expand other social programs and combat climate change, representing a fundamental reorientation of the role of government not seen since the days of Lyndon B. Johnson’s Great Society and Roosevelt’s New Deal.

The Times used the same comparison to LBJ and FDR and it was only $1.8 trillion. It's $3.5 trillion now! Who knew you could equal the Great Society or the New Deal spending a mere half of what they're proposing now? This new thing is like the Great Society PLUS the New Deal. 

"The Clyburn-led veterans [of the Congressional Black Caucus] have hugged close to Ms. Pelosi to rise through the ranks, and believe younger members should follow their example."

"They have taken a zero-tolerance stance toward primary challengers to Democratic incumbents. They have recently pushed for a pared-down approach to voting rights legislation, attacking proposals for public financing of campaigns and independent redistricting committees, which have support from many Democrats in Congress but could change the makeup of some Black members’ congressional districts. And when younger members of Congress press Ms. Pelosi to elevate new blood and overlook seniority, this more traditional group points to Representatives Maxine Waters of California and Bennie Thompson of Mississippi — committee chairs who waited years for their gavels.... Mr. Clyburn makes no secret of his disdain for progressive activists who support defunding the police. In the interview, he likened the idea to 'Burn, baby, burn,' the slogan associated with the 1965 Watts riots in California. '"Burn, baby, burn" destroyed the movement John Lewis and I helped found back in 1960,' he said. 'Now we have defunding the police.' [Rep. Gregory] Meeks, the political point man for the caucus, said he expected its endorsements to go where they have always gone: to Black incumbents and their allies."

From "The Congressional Black Caucus: Powerful, Diverse and Newly Complicated/The group, which includes most Black members of Congress, remains publicly united. But in private, an influx of new members who think differently about its purpose are making a play for the future" (NYT).

"Climb aboard the Almost Heaven, which is somewhere between a trawler and a yacht, big and boxy."

"Step inside the cabin and marvel at the creature comforts: a semicircular, plush-leather couch with a matching ottoman, glass cabinets trimmed with dark wood, a marble dining-room table with thick white candles... Below deck, the master bedroom is cozy but well-appointed.... There's a guest room.... Up on the party deck, amid the wrought-iron chairs and tables with umbrellas, you might see Trump-allied Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.), just months removed from objecting to President Biden’s election, talking college football with Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg. 'Pete’s from Notre Dame,' said Tuberville.... On one evening cruise, some years back, Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) was so moved by the picturesque Washington skyline that she began singing 'God Bless America.'....  Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.), an Almost Heaven regular, has regaled fellow passengers with 'American Pie.'... 'All I’m saying is I don’t think our Founding Fathers anticipated the survival of this democratic experiment to rest in the hands of a man who lives in a house boat,' Jenna Valle-Riestra, a press secretary for the Senate Judiciary Committee wrote in a now-deleted tweet...  [The boat is] a place where deals can be floated and bills can get watered down. Where trust can live, if fleetingly, among people whose constituents don’t trust each other at all.... For some that sounds like Almost Heaven. For other’s that’s just a nice way to describe living in limbo."

 From "Washington’s hottest club is Joe Manchin’s houseboat" (WaPo).

The name of the boat is the first 2 words of John Denver's beloved song about Joe Manchin's state. 

Does Manchin actually live on the boat? Yes, it is his residence when he is in Washington, The Washingtonian reported back in February: "Manchin lives on a boat because he doesn’t like living here." Republicans attacked him for owning an expensive boat, but it was cheap compared to the price of land-based housing in Washington.  

And John Denver didn't write that song, and the song wasn't really written about West Virginia! It's about Gaithersburg, Maryland or maybe Massachusetts:

"The amendment tacked onto the Endless Frontier Act authorizes NASA to spend the money over the next five years on its lunar lander program on the condition that..."

"... the space agency awards a contract to build a second spacecraft — a deal that would likely go to Bezos’ Blue Origin space flight company. In April, NASA awarded a $2.9 billion contract to Elon Musk’s SpaceX to develop a lander as part of its effort to return astronauts to the moon by 2024. Blue Origin accused NASA of a 'flawed acquisition' that 'endangers America’s return to the moon' and filed a protest with the Government Accountability Office. If the Endless Frontier Act becomes law, the amendment... would give Blue Origin a second chance at snagging a NASA contract..."

From "Sanders, Hawley blast potential $10B carveout for Bezos in Senate bill" (NY Post).

ADDED: Wince emails this amazingly apt clip from the movie "Contact" with the line: "First rule in government spending: why build one when you can have two at twice the price?"

I have a thing about headlines that begin with the word "how."

You may remember my post from last December, "How the word "how" has become the most deceptive word in the history of headlines": "I'm sure some 'how' headlines sit atop articles that really explain how to do something, but I must cry out against the infestation of 'how' in headlines." 

Since it is my self-imposed task to be on the alert for "how" headlines, I must bring you this from today's Washington Post: "How the forces inside the GOP that pushed out John Boehner led to Matt Gaetz." 

I doubt that this piece (by Paul Kane) is really going to tell me how these "forces" led somewhere. I expect to find only an assertion that the moderates who used to have the GOP under control have lost their grip. But I'll give Kane a chance. Show me the forces and show me how they "led to Matt Gaetz" (whatever that means).

Reading, I see Kane is reviewing Boehner's memoir, which, Kane admits up front, hasn't got one word about Matt Gaetz. 

Boehner writes about his distaste for immoderate politicos within both parties: They are self-promoters who "claim to be true believers and purists, like the right-wing Freedom Caucus or the left-wing Squad, but really they are just political terrorists." There were always people like that in Congress, and Boehner supposedly wanted to tame them.

Kane writes: 

"Alarming revelations of threats to the Capitol and members of Congress prompted House Democratic leaders to wrap up their legislative work for the week on Wednesday night...."

"The immediate threat is intelligence related to a possible plot by a militia group to attack the Capitol on Thursday. Followers of the QAnon conspiracy theory believe former President Trump will be reinaugurated on March 4, a traditional date for presidential inaugurations until 1933...."  

MSN News reports.

How much evidence of a possible attack was there? Is vacating the building the right response to whatever this was? I presume it was something more than just people spinning theories that focused on a date that happens to have historical significance, but only the House is abandoning its workplace, not the Senate.

"A female passenger in an evening gown ran from the car, climbed the stone parapet along the Tidal Basin and... leaped headfirst into the frigid, inky water. Her splashdown would ripple into one of the capital’s most infamous sex scandals."

From "Fanne Foxe, ‘Argentine Firecracker’ at center of D.C. sex scandal, dies at 84" (WaPo). 

Standing near the car — drunk and bleeding — was her paramour, 65-year-old Wilbur Mills, the gravelly voiced chairman of the tax-writing U.S. House Ways and Means Committee and a man esteemed as a pillar of Bible Belt rectitude and respectability. The Arkansas Democrat, an ascetic grind who shepherded Medicare and other influential legislation through Congress, was also widely regarded as the most powerful man in government after the president. “I never vote against God, motherhood or Wilbur Mills,” a Democratic colleague once told a reporter.

But on that October morning, Ms. Battistella’s eyes were bruised. Mills’s Coke-bottle glasses were smashed, and his nose was badly scratched. He reeked of alcohol. And his 16-year hold on the federal purse strings was suddenly imperiled....

ADDED: "Ms. Battistella" = Annabel Battistella AKA Fanne Foxe. 

"The Capitol complex is a place where Americans can go to watch their representatives, to speak with those representatives, to petition for the redress of grievances."

"The building and its grounds also are part of the fabric of the city. Streams of bikers pass through on morning and evening commutes. Tourists gather for concerts on the lawn. When it snows, the front face of Capitol Hill becomes a popular sledding spot, with neighborhood children sometimes transforming discarded protest signs into makeshift sleds. This is not just an amenity for neighbors and visitors. It is the tangible manifestation of the idea that the government is a part of American life, rather than something separate and apart." 

From "The Capitol Attack Was a Failure of Policing, Not Architecture/Building a permanent fence around the Capitol is not the right approach" by the Editorial Board of the NYT. 

They're reacting to the statement by the acting chief of the Capitol Police, Yogananda Pittman: "In light of recent events, I can unequivocally say that vast improvements to the physical security infrastructure must be made to include permanent fencing...." 

The NYT description of the Capitol grounds makes me think of our state capitol grounds here in Madison. Such an important gathering spot. To lose it to fencing would sacrifice a lot and send a terrible message about the accessibility of government and the ineffectuality of the police. It feels like giving up.

But, you know, you used to be able to walk around on the White House lawn. From a 2014 WaPo article:

"Disappointed Democrats headed Wednesday toward renewing their control of the House... with a potentially shrunken majority as they lost at least seven incumbents without ousting a single Republican lawmaker."

"By Wednesday afternoon, Democrats’ only gains were two North Carolina seats vacated by GOP incumbents after a court-ordered remapping made the districts more Democratic.... 'They were all wrong,' House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., told reporters about Democrats’ assumptions of adding to their House numbers. Repeating a campaign theme Republicans used repeatedly against Democrats, he said, 'The rejection that we saw last night from the Democrats, was that America does not want to be a socialist nation... The Republican coalition is bigger, more diverse and more energetic than ever before'....  Democrats lost a majority Hispanic district in West Texas they expected to win after the GOP incumbent retired. And they lost a series of what seemed coin-flip races, failing to defeat GOP incumbents in Cincinnati, rural Illinois, central Virginia and the suburbs of St. Louis and several districts in Texas.... Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York and the three other members of the so-called squad of young progressive women of color were easily reelected."

AP reports.

Moderate Democrats lost, so the new majority is not only smaller, but more intensely left-wing. I expect to hear more of the argument that Democrats lose when they skew moderate. Biden, if he ekes out a win, will be attacked from the left. Why didn't he accomplish a big win? Where was the landslide we were promised? Must be that he was too bland, too weak, too barely there. Trump will be gone. There will be no more monster to fight — just a relic of the old Democratic Party, which dragged him over the finish line to edge out that terrible President who had to go and almost didn't.

House Democrats stunned that they didn't oust a single GOP incumbent.

Politico reports. 

[B]y Wednesday morning, party officials and the rank and file were in panic mode as they awaited the results of nearly 20 members of the Democrats’ historic freshman class that handed the party control of the House just two years ago. And already they were saying goodbye to at least a half-dozen of their centrist Democratic colleagues, who were stunned by GOP challengers on Tuesday, including Abby Finkenauer in Iowa and Donna Shalala in Florida....

“It’s a dumpster fire,” said one lawmaker, who declined to be named.... Democrats were already engaging in rapid-fire finger-pointing... Several centrist Democrats blamed their more progressive colleagues, saying moderates in Trump-leaning districts couldn’t escape their “socialist” shadow.... 

"Why is Tara Reade’s official complaint against former Vice President Joe Biden so hard to find?"

"Possibly because the system for lodging it was opaque and challenging for accusers. Reade, a onetime Biden staffer, says she filed a complaint against him in 1993 when he was in his fourth term in the Senate representing Delaware. The process would have subjected her to a system that did little to protect Capitol Hill staffers from retribution and offered little recourse if they were not satisfied with the outcome. It would take a 1995 overhaul of congressional personnel laws to bring Congress in line with federal labor and anti-discrimination laws. Even almost 30 years later, the alleged complaint — the secretary of the Senate won’t even confirm or deny whether there is one — may never be released because of strict disclosure rules.... Four in 10 women who responded to a 2016 CQ Roll Call survey of congressional staff said they believed sexual harassment was a problem on Capitol Hill, while one in six said they personally had been victimized. 'Unfortunately, due to the system that Congress created to protect itself from being exposed, there has been no accountability,' [said Rep. Jackie Speier, D-Calif.]. Between 1997 and 2014, the U.S. Treasury paid $15.2 million in taxpayer dollars toward 235 awards and settlements for Capitol Hill workplace violations...."

From "The opaqueness of Congress’ workplace rules hangs over the Tara Reade allegations about Biden/Secretary of the Senate says law prohibits disclosure of any complaint" (Roll Call).

"Congress gave final approval on Friday to the largest economic stimulus package in modern American history, a $2 trillion measure...

"... designed to respond to the coronavirus pandemic and deliver direct payments and jobless benefits for individuals, money for states and a huge bailout fund for businesses battered by the crisis. The House approved the measure by voice vote... It now heads to President Trump’s desk, where he is expected to sign it. The legislation would send direct payments of $1,200 to millions of Americans, including those earning up to $75,000, and an additional $500 per child. It would substantially expand jobless aid, providing an additional 13 weeks and a four-month enhancement of benefits, and for the first time would extend the payments to freelancers and gig workers. The measure would also offer $377 billion in federally guaranteed loans to small businesses and establish a $500 billion government lending program for distressed companies reeling from the crisis, including allowing the administration the ability to take equity stakes in airlines that received aid to help compensate taxpayers. It would also send $100 billion to hospitals on the front lines of the pandemic."

The NYT reports.