House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy of California.

AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, File

• Members of Congress are speaking out about the myriad issues caused by the House speaker vote.
• Some members have said that they cannot access classified information and intel briefings.
• Following Rep. McCarthy’s sixth failed bid on Wednesday, there are zero sworn members of Congress.

Members of congress are speaking out about national security concerns amid a seemingly-unending attempt by Rep. Kevin McCarthy to secure the votes necessary to become speaker of the House of Representatives.

There are currently no members of the Congress, as swearing-in ceremonies have been delayed while the quest to elect a House speaker has dragged on. And on Wednesday, several members of Congress said that the procedural hold-up and GOP infighting have restricted their access to classified information and key national security intel.

McCarthy needs 218 votes to secure the leadership bid, and by the sixth round of voting Wednesday night, the number of Republicans voting against him had increased from 19 members on Tuesday, to 21 members. Many of the members of the America First caucus, including Reps. Matt Gaetz, Chip Roy, and Lauren Boebert, voted against McCarthy. 

The voting process has exposed deep rifts in the party and left McCarthy with apparent dwindling support from Donald Trump, who spoke up and encouraged GOP members to elect McCarthy on Wednesday, instead of emerging challenger Rep. Byron Donalds.

By Wednesday evening, McCarthy had failed in six consecutive bids to become House speaker.

In a press conference on Wednesday, one of McCarthy’s allies, Rep. Mike Gallagher, said that he and his colleagues were unable to receive intelligence briefings from the sensitive compartmented information facility (SCIF) because they have not received the clearance associated with being sworn members of Congress, according to NBC News.

“I’m informed by House Security that, technically, I don’t have a clearance,” Gallagher said in the press conference on Wednesday. “I’m a member of the Intel Committee, I’m on the Armed Services Committee, and I can’t meet in the SCIF to conduct essential business.”

Gallagher added that he was due to meet with Joint Chiefs Chairman Mark Milley on Wednesday. Rep. Brad Wenstrup claimed in the same press conference that members of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence “don’t have access to anything,” according to Politico.

“The secure facility that we work in every day when we’re here, we can’t go in there right now,” Wenstrup said. “We’re in there all the time. And right now, we can’t be in there at all.”

The House Armed Services Committee Democrats also tweeted about the lapse in clearance, saying that McCarthy and the GOP’s quagmire has ” hampered the ability of Congress to function in its oversight role, presenting a clear threat to national security.”

—House Armed Services Democrats (@HASCDemocrats) January 4, 2023

 

“Members of Congress can’t receive classified information until the Members are sworn in, leaving us in the dark on sensitive developments worldwide and unable to perform the oversight duties that the American people elected us to perform,” the account tweeted.

With voting set to resume tomorrow, Democratic lawmakers are being asked to stay in DC until a speaker is elected.

Hundreds of white nationalists, neo-Nazis and members of the ‘alt-right’ march down East Market Street toward Emancipation Park during the United the Right rally August 12, 2017 in Charlottesville, Virginia.

(Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

• Political scientist Barbara Walter said unregulated social media is increasing the threat of a civil war.
• “Let people put whatever they want on social media,” Walter said in an interview on Wednesday.
• “But don’t allow the tech companies… to push the most extreme material into people’s hands,” she added.

In a liberal democracy, people have the right to voice opinions that are wrong, ugly, and sometimes evil — and they often do. But that does not mean that corporations have a right to exploit those views for profit, and in the process contribute to the fracturing of societies and damage the rule of law, a leading political scientist argued Wednesday.

In her 2022 book, “How Civil Wars Start: And How to Stop Them,” Barbara F. Walter, a professor at the University of California San Diego, described contemporary social media as a boon to the “ethnic entrepreneur”: those who stoke resentment among a dominant group that fears its power is slipping away in the face of demographic and political change.

In Malaysia, for example, Facebook was used by such demagogues to help incite genocide against the country’s Rohingya minority, who were depicted as murderers and rapists in content that went viral.

Speaking to journalist Farai Chideya in an interview aired by The 92nd Street Y, a Jewish community center in New York, Walter said that in the United States, hateful speech is generally protected by the First Amendment. But she argued that tech companies have not been acting as simple, neutral stewards of the digital public square.

She takes issue with the way social media acts to recommend content to users and keep them engaged for longer and what she says is their role in amplifying incendiary comments.

She argues in her book and explained in a 2021 interview that “people tend to ‘like’ information that taps into their emotions, and that tends to be stuff that makes them angry, outraged, resentful. And what the recommendation engines do is not just recommend more material like that, but more material that’s even more extreme.”

Addressing that, she said, is a necessity.

“People ask me: ‘What’s the single easiest thing that the United States could do to reduce our risk of civil war?’ And my answer is always the same: regulate social media,” Walter said.

In the US, democracy is slightly stronger than it was this time two years ago, Walter said — not because any of its institutions are stronger, but simply because the White House is not inhabited by someone who disregards the result of a democratic election. But it is “very vulnerable to backsliding if somebody like [former President Donald Trump] were to be elected again,” she said.

Trump famously used social media to not just gain power, including with nativist incitement against Mexican immigrants and racially-tinged demands to see former President Barack Obama’s birth certificate, but to try to hold onto power once he was on the verge of losing it. Russia’s Vladimir Putin, through his intelligence services and state-run media properties, has also used social media to pursue his own anti-democratic agenda.

“If Putin wanted to somehow weaken France, German, the UK, the United States — he could not do this in any other way except the backdoor way through social media,” Walter argued. “And as long as social media is unregulated, he has easy access to try to divide these countries and to undercut support for democracy there.”

Walter continued: “We also know that the rise of ethnic factions, of hate crimes, of political violence, have all tracked to the rise not only of the internet and social media as a main news source, but it’s tracked with the algorithms that the major tech companies have developed.”

The answer is not censorship, she argued.

“Let people put whatever they want on social media,” Walter said. “But don’t allow tech companies, in an attempt to keep people engaged on their devices as long as possible, to push the most extreme material into people’s hands.”

(L) Officer Michael Fanone (R) House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy

CNN / Evelyn Hockstein/Reuters

• A former DC police officer who suffered major injuries on January 6 took a jab at Rep. Kevin McCarthy.
• McCarthy has unsuccessfully sought the majority vote for House Speaker six times in two days.
• The ex-officer, Michael Fanone, a McCarthy critic, was at the Capitol Wednesday “to rub it in.” 

A former DC police officer that was interviewed by the House January 6 committee hung out outside of the House Speaker’s office on Wednesday as Rep. Kevin McCarthy struggles to earn the majority vote for the top job in the House.

Michael Fanone has been a staunch critic of McCarthy and other GOP politicians who he’s chastised for downplaying the impact of the January 6, 2021 insurrection. 

Fanone was seriously injured during the insurrection — suffering from a heart attack and brain injury after being dragged into the crowd by an insurrectionist — nearly two years ago.

“I heard he was having some trouble…I just came here to rub it in,” Fanone said, per Washington Times reporter
Mica Zellner, who tweeted about Fanone’s appearance.

—Mica Soellner (@MicaSoellnerDC) January 4, 2023

 

ABC News reporter Gabe Ferris also tweeted about Fanone, adding that he said, “Maybe the fourth time’s the charm” and gestured towards the blank nameplate area near the office.

—Gabe Ferris (@GabeFerris) January 4, 2023

 

McCarthy lost his sixth ballot for House Speaker in two days meaning the chamber does not currently have any sworn-in members and can’t pass any legislation, Insider reported.

He needs 218 votes to take on the role. The GOP in the House has a slim majority and far-right GOP holdouts have voted for other candidates. On Wednesday evening, the House adjourned until noon on Thursday.

One of the GOP holdouts Rep. Matt Gaetz has accused McCarthy of “squatting” in the House Speaker’s office without having been voted in, Insider reported.

Eight people including five minors were found dead of gunshot wounds on Wednesday at a home in Enoch, Utah, city officials said in a press release.

Police summoned to the home for a welfare check found the bodies of three adults and five minors, the statement said.

“Each appeared to have sustained gunshot wounds. At this time, we do not believe there is a threat to the public or that there are any suspects at large,” the statement said.

“This investigation is still active and more information will be provided at a later time.”

Enoch, with a population of about 8,000, is in southwestern Utah, about 250 miles (400 km) south of Salt Lake City.

A North Korean drone entered the northern end of a no-fly zone surrounding South Korea’s presidential office in Seoul when it intruded into the South’s airspace last week, the South’s military said on Thursday.

The drone was among five North Korean drones that crossed into the South on Dec. 26, prompting South Korea’s military to scramble fighter jets and attack helicopters. The military was unable to bring down the drones, which flew over the South for hours.

South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) had denied that one of the drones intruded into a no-fly zone near the presidential office, but on Thursday reversed its stance and confirmed it had violated the northern end of the area.

A JCS spokesperson said there was a change in its analysis after an inspection of the military’s readiness posture over the latest intrusion.

The military said the North’s unmanned aircraft did not fly directly over the Yongsan area, where the office of President Yoon Suk-yeol is located.

The border crossing has sparked criticism over South Korea’s air defences at a time of the North’s growing nuclear and missile threats.

Yoon has warned he would consider suspending a 2018 inter-Korean military pact if the North violates its airspace again.

“Vehicular vendetta.” Those were the words from the New York Post in a piece they did about the Vendetta king, Texas Governor Greg Abbott. Abbott has reportedly begun to brag about his evil little stunts, like bussing migrants to cities like New York and DC. Our Texas psychopath seems mighty proud.

The Governor tweeted proudly that 16,300 migrants had been bussed to other cities. Abbott apparently thinks this is something to brag about. And Abbott names President Biden’s “open border” policies as the problem, saying he (Abbott) had no choice but to do this.

Right. He had to kidnap migrants in brutally cold weather and bus them illegally to other states. And brag about doing so. I do believe this man would be better served by fixing the Texas power grids. You know — actually lifting one finger and DOING something for his constituents.

But that appears to be asking too much. Abbott has made the quality of life in Texas progressively worse since he became Governor. And I’d like to address a question I see asked all the time.

Why, then, do Texans vote for him? It is simply because he has an R next to his name. Texas will still turn blue someday. I believe that. But it will take time. It is the biggest state in the country, next to Alaska. It has hundreds upon hundreds of rural towns with people living there who have been lifelong republicans.

There is old Texas money, where much of it is spent on seating — and keeping seated — Republican candidates. The gun culture is huge in Texas. Many consider the right to carry the most important issue — bar none.

To illustrate this, allow me to tell you about Uvalde county. Uvalde County is where Uvalde Texas sits. That is where the horrible school shooting happened. Uvalde county voted for Governor Greg Abbott.

The post Texas Governor Greg Abbott doubles down on his evil appeared first on Palmer Report.

A North Korean drone entered the northern end of a no-fly zone surrounding South Korea’s presidential office in Seoul when it intruded into the South’s airspace last week, the South’s military said on Thursday.

The drone was among five North Korean drones that crossed into the South on Dec. 26, prompting South Korea’s military to scramble fighter jets and attack helicopters. The military was unable to bring down the drones, which flew over the South for hours.

South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) had denied that one of the drones intruded into a no-fly zone near the presidential office, but on Thursday reversed its stance and confirmed it had violated the northern end of the area.

A JCS spokesperson said there was a change in its analysis after an inspection of the military’s readiness posture over the latest intrusion.

The military said the North’s unmanned aircraft did not fly directly over the Yongsan area, where the office of President Yoon Suk-yeol is located.

The border crossing has sparked criticism over South Korea’s air defences at a time of the North’s growing nuclear and missile threats.

Yoon has warned he would consider suspending a 2018 inter-Korean military pact if the North violates its airspace again.

Emergency crews braced for the latest bout of high winds and torrential rains sweeping California on Wednesday, renewing the threat of power outages and deadly flooding that gripped parts of San Francisco Bay and Sacramento over New Year’s weekend.

The “atmospheric river” – an airborne current of dense moisture flowing from the ocean – was expected to drench much of California ahead of a storm front bringing additional showers to low-lying areas and more snow to the Sierra Nevada Mountains through Thursday.

The incoming blast of extreme winter weather – the next in a succession of storms expected to wash over California in the coming weeks – originated from a sprawling, hurricane-force low pressure system churning over the eastern Pacific, forecasters said.

The National Weather Service (NWS) predicted widespread rainfall totals of 3 to 6 inches, with up to 3 feet of fresh snow in Sierras.

Authorities warned the heavy downpours would likely unleash flash flooding and mudslides, especially in areas where the ground remains saturated from rains that soaked northern California days earlier. Fire-ravaged hill slopes are also particularly vulnerable to slides.

High-wind warnings were posted along the central California coast north through the Bay area and into extreme northern California and Oregon. The National Weather Service (NWS) said gale-force gusts were expected to uproot trees, shear off limbs and knock down power lines, disrupting electricity service in many areas.

San Francisco’s transit agency halted its famed cable car service through Thursday due to inclement weather, and scores of commercial flights were canceled at San Francisco International Airport.

Stormy weather was blamed for at least one traffic death in the north Bay city of Fairfield, where pooled water on a roadway sent a car crashing into a utility pole, killing the driver, the San Francisco Chronicle reported.

Voluntary evacuation notices were issued for homes along three roads in a flood-prone area of Alameda County, across the bay from San Francisco, citing threats posed by “the impending storms, saturated soils and current runoff.”

Governor Gavin Newsom declared a state of emergency on Wednesday to support the state’s winter weather hazards response, and activated California’s flood operations center.

The governor’s Office of Emergency Services said it had staged crews in several northern counties likely to be hardest hit by flooding, and where previous wildfires have stripped hillsides of vegetation, leaving them at high risk of mudslides.

State Natural Resources Secretary Wade Crowfoot urged residents in such areas to stay indoors unless ordered to evacuate, and to prepare for power outages by charging electrical devices and having flashlights and candles handy.

Sacramento County crews were still out on Wednesday repairing levee breaches along the Cosumnes River, near Sacramento, where flooding last weekend closed Highway 99, Crowfoot said at a news briefing in the state capital.

At least three deaths have been attributed to last weekend’s storm. Two bodies were recovered from Cosumnes River flood zone, and a 72-year-old man was found dead under a fallen tree in Santa Cruz, authorities said.

The latest round of extreme weather was the second in a series of potentially damaging storms expected to hit the state over the next seven to 10 days, Nancy Ward, director of emergency services, told reporters. The state operations center had been placed at its highest level, she said.

“We anticipate that this may be one of the most challenging and impactful series of storms to touch down in California in the last five years,” she said.

Fallen trees, already weakened by prolonged drought and now left poorly anchored in rain-soaked soil, were likely to pose a significant hazard in the upcoming storms, said Karla Nemeth, director of the state Department of Water Resources.

She said coastal areas from Los Angeles north to Crescent City near the Oregon border faced the greatest flood potential, especially, especially in Mendocino County along the Russian and Navarro rivers.

Nemeth said the increasing frequency and intensity of episodic floods punctuating California’s multi-year droughts are symptomatic of extreme swings between wet and dry wrought by climate change.

The good news was that recent storms have left the Sierra snowpack, a major source of California’s water supplies, at well above average for this time of year, though far more will need to accumulate through winter to end the drought, experts say.

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A child sleeps in the House Chambers during the opening day of the 118th Congress on Tuesday, January 3, 2023, at the US Capitol in Washington DC.

Photo by Matt McClain/The Washington Post via Getty Images

• Several children were present on the House floor on Tuesday as the 118th Congress kicked off.
• But those hoping to see their parents sworn in were let down as GOP disarray stretched through two days.
• Yawns abounded as bored kids were forced to endure the political chaos. 

The first day of each new Congress is supposed to be a celebratory affair: Lawmakers come to the Capitol dressed in their very best, oftentimes with their entire families in tow, little kids strung along in tiny suits and dresses to observe the historic event.

But the scores of young children unlucky enough to find themselves on the House floor on the first day of the 118th Congress on Tuesday looked less than thrilled to bear witness to the chaos unfolding in the Republican Party as the GOP failed to elect a House speaker before adjourning.

The children hoping to watch their parents sworn into Congress were let down first on Tuesday and again on Wednesday as Rep. Kevin McCarthy lost six consecutive ballots for the leadership position. With an ultra-conservative faction of the Republican party stonewalling McCarthy’s bid, the speaker position remained empty as of Wednesday night when the House adjourned until noon on Thursday.

Members of Congress can’t be sworn in until a speaker is elected, so these children were waiting for a ceremony that never came.

These girls had expressions of sheer boredom.

—Howard Mortman (@HowardMortman) January 3, 2023

Some had long given up trying to stay awake.

—Howard Mortman (@HowardMortman) January 3, 2023

Yawns abounded among the young.

—This Side Op 📦 (@ThisSideOp) January 3, 2023

This toddler (and father) seemed absolutely over it.

Incoming U.S. Rep. Robert Menendez Jr. (D-NJ) holds his son Robert as his daughter Olivia sits near by, during the first day of the 118th Congress in the House Chamber of the U.S. Capitol Building on January 03, 2023 in Washington, DC.

Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images

Some kids had no choice but to wade into the thick of the disarray.

—Johnny Kunza (@johnkunza) January 3, 2023

McCarthy chatted with some children in between his repeated losses.

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) talks to a young child during a break as Representatives casts their votes for Speaker of the House, on the first day of the 118th Congress at the U.S. Capitol Building on January 03, 2023 in Washington, DC.

Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images

—Howard Mortman (@HowardMortman) January 3, 2023

Here’s hoping any youngsters dragged back for a third day get the resolution the rest of the country also awaits.