… blazing through lots of news articles this AM, reading a few of them… not being sure why any of them were written… is this information i really need to know?…

… ok, this Bulwark article is a good summary of what 45 is definitely guilty of and could be convicted of should the DOJ decide to prosecute, the decision hinging on whether they can indict, try and convict before a new president is elected in 2024… from my point of view, he must be prosecuted… not prosecuting will be as bad for the faith of the people and another four years would be with him as president… failing to do the former might indeed clear the way for the latter… the man should go to jail and demonstrate that no one is above the law…

… this article, also in Bulwark, talks about how the rules of the budget process in Congress are exacerbating a winner takes all attitude…

Instead of seeing the rules as facilitating approval of a fiscal blueprint that allows for orderly decisions (its original purpose), Congress now assumes that passing a budget only makes sense if it helps the party in control advance its agenda without having to compromise with the other side. Recent history confirms this logic, and the parties now plan accordingly.

… i think this may be a chicken or egg sort of question… did partisan acrimony use the rules to deepen the divisions or did the rules lead to deepening partisan acrimony… i rather think it the former than the later… but then i read more and discover that the current budgeting process came into being in the 1970’s to make congress more efficient and adress a perceived power imbalance in the budgeting process between the executive branch and Congress… reconciliation seems to be the main culprit…

The reconciliation process also was used to pass significant bipartisan budget deals in 1987, 1990, and 1997.

However, during the latter part of this era, the political climate was beginning to shift. In 1993, the Clinton administration, with Democrats controlling both the House and Senate, successfully pushed through a budget reconciliation measure that passed without any Republican support. In 1995, after Republicans took over Congress, reconciliation was used again to pass an entirely one-sided budget plan, which President Clinton vetoed. Then, in 2001, the George W. Bush administration secured tax cuts via the reconciliation process, with only a small percentage of Democrats voting in favor.

… the problem stems from the limit to 20 hours of debate on a budget moving through Congress under the reconciliation process… no filibuster is possible… the minority party cannot force compromise… one does wonder if anything could get done if the filibuster was available…

The stripping away from the congressional budget process of all purposes other than advancement of one party’s schemes has transformed political calculations. In general terms, the parties’ ideological ambitions are now soaring because they both believe they are one election away from epoch-defining victories.

The norm now is to use the budget process for strictly partisan ends.

… and it appears that the reconciliation process is being used to pass “shell” budgets…

Their only purpose was to authorize approval of expedited reconciliation procedures. As such there was no effort to lay out more comprehensive budget plans, or to specify, even in broad terms, the tax and spending changes they were designed to set in motion.

… while one party celebrates, the other is planning how to reverse what the one party has done and send the trend in the other direction, which is a kind of wobble back and forth, one way then the next… not so good for long term stable governing…

Eve Arnold’s Photographs Capture the Vulnerabilithy of Marilyn Monroe

… with Blonde, a whole bunch of renewed interest in Marilyn Monroe… i almost skipped past this article as more in the chain of exploitation, but it is interesting and did add some depth to my knowledge of MM…

One of the few photographers who captured Monroe in the months leading up to this crisis was Eve Arnold (1912–2012) – the first female member of Magnum Photographs and arguably one of the most successful photographers of the 20th century.

… and this…

Unlike other photographers (especially male ones), Arnold prioritised a compassionate approach, reflecting the real intimacy between the two women.

… and this…

Although Arnold’s career continually focused on women and overlapped with the Women’s Liberation Movement of the 1960s and 1970s, she resisted the ‘feminist’ label. “She was reluctant to even describe herself as a female photographer,” Michael says. “She found the need to distinguish _male_ and _female_ photographers quite artificial and frustrating, even though she certainly experienced some of the challenges of being one of the few women in her field.”