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[Dostoevsky]

It's not all out in the open yet (the official rules package is just now out, but that's only part of the story), but there is some reporting surrounding it.

Any member can call for a motion to vacate the speaker’s chair
McCarthy’s leadership PAC won’t play in open primaries in safe districts
Hold votes on key conservative bills, including balanced budget amendment, congressional term limits, border security
A debt ceiling hike must be paired with spending cuts
Move 12 appropriations bill individually
More Freedom Caucus representation on committees, including the House Rules Committee
Cap discretionary spending at fiscal 2022 levels, which would amount to lower levels for defense and domestic programs
Allow for 72 hours to review bills before they come to floor
Give members ability to offer more amendments on the House floor
Create an investigative committee to probe the “weaponization” of the federal government
Restore the Holman rule which can be used to reduce the salary of government officials

Just a note on that last one - while it can be used to persecute individuals, historically it's been a bit of a dud in practice.

[martinuzz]

So Speaker House politics until the next elections will look like '100 motions per day to vacate the speakers chair, taking up all the time that could have been used for actual policy making?

[anewaname]

The holman rule..., as described by the National Federation of Federal Employees, who seem a bit biased against it...

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Dating back to the late 1800s, the Holman Rule is a poorly crafted piece of legislation that provides individual House members with wide latitude to amend appropriations bills on the floor of the House.  The rule also expands what can be amended on the floor, including changes to a specific agency, office, program, or salary of a single position or of the whole agency.  After decades of dormancy, the Holman Rule was recently resurfaced by Virginia Representative Morgan Griffith (VA-9).  This rule is the choice vehicle for ethically corrupt members of congress who seek to purge the operational funding of agencies and programs that run counter to their outside political interests (such as law or regulatory enforcement agencies that keep industry captains and the most powerful people in check).

[bloop_bleep]

The independent bureaucracy is incredibly important. It's merit-based and shielded from political tides, helping ensure steady operation of essential government tasks and regulations. I am highly suspicious of this.

[Rolan7]

Following the OK bill targeting children up to 26yo:

Virginia is also considering a bill that would force people to detransition, though unlike Oklahoma they went with a cutoff age of 21.  Thread
It's almost like the OK bill was a ploy to sell this one as more reasonable.  Because joining the military is one thing, but taking a hormone that's *already in every human body* goes against God.

Oh, sorry to bring up religion, but they specify that religious "counseling" for such people cannot be prohibited/penalized/acted against by the state.  As usual I'm thankful for the followers of Abrahamic faiths here who actually read your holy books- I wish our politicians did the same.

Full bill here: https://t.co/XRunEObPfs
States seeking to increase youth suicide to protect the children: Virginia
Texas
New Hampshire
Worst Carolina
Kansas
And, of course, Oklahoma protecting those 25-year-old children.

Maybe it's just fodder for their base, right?  Like reproductive rights.  Surely they wouldn't pass something *unpopular*!  And the Supreme Court would surely (eventually) reverse it anyway! /bitter

I just really want people to grow up with options I didn't have.  Hormones blockers were safe for cis kids, why not gender-non-conforming kids?  Personally I'm not concerned about their FERTILITY until they're adults.  And once they're adults, what sense is there in policing their hormone balances!? 
It's government overreach run amok, from Republicans that can't even pick a Speaker right.

Oh yeah I almost forgot:  Like always, they want to force teachers to REPORT "gender nonconformity" to parents.  By law.  Insert 1984 meme to defray the sheer horror of that.  Whatever you think about this issue, THAT will get kids beaten and "counseled" into permanent psychological damage.  Just as permanent as their hips growing a centimeter or two wider or shorter, or their face being a little closer to the way they want it.

Fucking vile shit.

[Dostoevsky]

The holman rule..., as described by the National Federation of Federal Employees, who seem a bit biased against it...

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Dating back to the late 1800s, the Holman Rule is a poorly crafted piece of legislation that provides individual House members with wide latitude to amend appropriations bills on the floor of the House.  The rule also expands what can be amended on the floor, including changes to a specific agency, office, program, or salary of a single position or of the whole agency.  After decades of dormancy, the Holman Rule was recently resurfaced by Virginia Representative Morgan Griffith (VA-9).  This rule is the choice vehicle for ethically corrupt members of congress who seek to purge the operational funding of agencies and programs that run counter to their outside political interests (such as law or regulatory enforcement agencies that keep industry captains and the most powerful people in check).

I'd agree with them that it's bad, but the last time it made its way back into Rules (during the 2017-2018 congress, the last time Rs held the House) it was rarely invoked and never successful.

[voliol]

Re: the fashification of the United States and the targeting of LGBTIA+ people, does anyone here have any recommendations for charities/organizations to give to? Ones lobbying against it or just helping people get of of there.

Something about this clicked with my sensibilities, perhaps because I repeatedly find myself in spaces with many Americans, queer people, and queer American people. Yet, finding reliable organizations that are not of the scale of Doctors Without Borders is not too easy from an across-the-ocean perspective. Basically, why I'm asking here, I don't take you for grifters.

[Dostoevsky]

So Speaker House politics until the next elections will look like '100 motions per day to vacate the speakers chair, taking up all the time that could have been used for actual policy making?

Predictions about the House for the next 2 years are going to be unreliable at best, but I don't think it'll be like that - at least at first. Assuming the rules package passes and the committee distributions are accepted by all involved (which is a bit shaky but less so than the last week), the House will settle into relative normalcy. And relative normalcy for the House floor is voting on legislation that can easily unify the majority party and 'show action', despite pretty much all of it having no chance of passing the Senate (even if both chambers have the same majority). So the House will be passing stuff like 'build the wall', 'fire IRS agents', 'cut spending', etc. etc. So they'll be doing "actual policy making" - depending on how you define that, hah, as the policies they vote on may move the needle over time but have no chance of becoming law in the short term.

(And just to be clear, this isn't just a House Republican thing, it's a House thing overall.)

It's only when the House gets wrapped up in passing legislation that actually requires becoming full law where things get tricky, especially with the majority he has. This year that includes the debt ceiling in the summer, appropriations and the farm bill in the fall, and appropriations (again, because they always kick the can in the fall) and the National Defense Authorization Act in the winter. And probably a few other bits and bobs that emerge from changing events. Of those, the debt ceiling is by far the highest stakes in the event of failing to get a law passed, though the others have their own major costs (e.g. lack of a farm bill could lead to food stamps getting cut off for millions of people).

In recent history the Republicans have needed Democratic support to pass most of the must-pass bills, because the far right's demands for them (be it banning abortion, building the wall, massive spending cuts, or something else) are no-go for the Senate (since the Senate's 60 vote threshold requires a certain level of bipartisanship) and/or the President. This always causes drama amongst the House Republican far right, and now they have enough votes to oust the speaker relatively easily assuming Dems vote alongside them to do so.

Re: the fashification of the United States and the targeting of LGBTIA+ people, does anyone here have any recommendations for charities/organizations to give to? Ones lobbying against it or just helping people get of of there.

Not something I can help with, sorry. I have heard that several of the prominent national ones are kind of iffy in their management and so local/regional can be better, but nothing specific enough to make actual accusations or recommendations.

[Random_Dragon]

So clearly what we need is to lock them in the building when they start pulling obstruction shit until they come to a descision. :v

[Vector]

I do small direct donations of like $20 - $50 to people who are Black or indigenous and trans or Two-Spirit, you can usually find go-fund-mes online on trans twitter. I also give to organizations like Audre Lorde Place. Another good thing to do is to give money to rebuilding funds for our community spaces that get burnt down, memorial/funeral funds, or to help victims of eg the Club Q shooting. I also buy books and games by queer or anti-colonial and anti-racist authors at full price, and make sure to talk about and share information about them in public spaces. You should also give to anti-fash or anarchist groups like Food Not Bombs. Give to the commissary funds of incarcerated transgender people. Give to groups that help those who were recently incarcerated. Write letters to people in prison. If you're in the US, attend school board meetings in your district regularly, and get others to come with you.

You might think that this is just putting a small bandaid on the situation but in my experience:

1. the groups that people consider to be reliable from the outside are not as queer inside -- the reason why people find queerness shocking or dangerous is that it destroys, subverts, and bends hierarchy and power. So you want groups that are queer, not just gay, because virulent anti-trans sentiment is coming from the LGB community, too. At the present time, don't give to groups that are afraid to make radical demands.

2. The trans people who are most on the margins are the people who are most likely to fight back in ways that undermine and disrupt the power structure that's killing us, which is precisely why the structure is mutating in a way that is going to keep people constantly scrabbling for stability and full of fear. Community care will help to keep the boldest and brightest of us safe. So: look for places where we are directly helping each other, and fund it. Ignore the lobbyists.

3. A lot of this problem is a problem with whiteness. I don't mean white individuals. All trans people are going to suffer in this period. What I mean is colonialist structures and thinking; the presence of two-spirit people in the Americas, who were fully accepted by their communities, was used as explicit pretext for the church-backed wars and killing that happened here. This genocidal choice we see today is not primarily or only about transgender people or queers as such. It is for the purpose of colonial and antisemitic violence as well, because often the presence of white LGBTQ+ people is blamed on ... of course, The Jews.

Give primarily to people of color and to their organizations. Protecting them will help to protect all of us. And give in small amounts and regularly, what can be given consistently and spread, because that is what will help to stabilize people and give us a foothold as the situation develops. It is going to keep developing.


(Last, spread the word: Genspect is a pro-genocide organization, and Gender Exploratory Therapy is conversion therapy with a twist. Nobody should be citing or promoting these concepts without being fully aware of what they are talking about. We need to make sure that others know that the "reasonableness" these groups exude is their aesthetic choice, but their political position is elimination)

[EuchreJack]

Following the OK bill targeting children up to 26yo:

Virginia is also considering a bill that would force people to detransition, though unlike Oklahoma they went with a cutoff age of 21.  Thread
It's almost like the OK bill was a ploy to sell this one as more reasonable.  Because joining the military is one thing, but taking a hormone that's *already in every human body* goes against God.

Oh, sorry to bring up religion, but they specify that religious "counseling" for such people cannot be prohibited/penalized/acted against by the state.  As usual I'm thankful for the followers of Abrahamic faiths here who actually read your holy books- I wish our politicians did the same.

Full bill here: https://t.co/XRunEObPfs
States seeking to increase youth suicide to protect the children: Virginia
Texas
New Hampshire
Worst Carolina
Kansas
And, of course, Oklahoma protecting those 25-year-old children.

Maybe it's just fodder for their base, right?  Like reproductive rights.  Surely they wouldn't pass something *unpopular*!  And the Supreme Court would surely (eventually) reverse it anyway! /bitter

I just really want people to grow up with options I didn't have.  Hormones blockers were safe for cis kids, why not gender-non-conforming kids?  Personally I'm not concerned about their FERTILITY until they're adults.  And once they're adults, what sense is there in policing their hormone balances!? 
It's government overreach run amok, from Republicans that can't even pick a Speaker right.

Oh yeah I almost forgot:  Like always, they want to force teachers to REPORT "gender nonconformity" to parents.  By law.  Insert 1984 meme to defray the sheer horror of that.  Whatever you think about this issue, THAT will get kids beaten and "counseled" into permanent psychological damage.  Just as permanent as their hips growing a centimeter or two wider or shorter, or their face being a little closer to the way they want it.

Fucking vile shit.

I have no idea how any law claiming to regulate children up to 26 is legal.  Children is defined in the law as 16/17/18/21 (depends on the law).
They might as well have said 85, as it would have been equally legal.

Unfortunately, I know why "26" was picked. It's the age that children leave their parent's health insurance...

[EuchreJack]

I know that this is going to be an unpopular option, but hey, AmeriPol thread.

So, I sorta think that transitioning should wait until the person is 18.  Puberty really fucks with a person's hormones.
I mean, how can a person be sure of their gender identity before they turn 18? They're not even sure of their own body until puberty subsides!

To put this in a way that you might here Conservatives speak: "How can a person know they want to be the opposite gender, when they haven't even finished experiencing their own yet?"

I'll end with the following criticism of the currently proposed laws: Some kids in puberty might NEED that hormone trainwreck to be lessened, and it may be they NEED hormonal balancing before 18. So they're overbroad.

[Frumple]

I mean, that'd be an unpopular opinion because it's pretty much literal torture for someone with gender dysphoria, yeah. It also makes the process of transitioning notably more miserable, for little to no gain. Folks can be pretty damn sure of some things well before they're 18, puberty or not.

To put this in a way that you might here Conservatives speak: "How can a person know they want to be the opposite gender, when they haven't even finished experiencing their own yet?"

The fucked up thing is I've heard that one more than once from absolute vile sacks of shit that were recommending LGBT folks be raped into cis conformity. Not metaphorically raped, either, but an explicit "you have to be this actually fucked to have experienced your gender, consent be damned" type of deal. It's not a line of thought you'd find particularly sympathetic, I don't think.

[Micro102]

I know that this is going to be an unpopular option, but hey, AmeriPol thread.

So, I sorta think that transitioning should wait until the person is 18.  Puberty really fucks with a person's hormones.
I mean, how can a person be sure of their gender identity before they turn 18? They're not even sure of their own body until puberty subsides!

To put this in a way that you might here Conservatives speak: "How can a person know they want to be the opposite gender, when they haven't even finished experiencing their own yet?"

I'll end with the following criticism of the currently proposed laws: Some kids in puberty might NEED that hormone trainwreck to be lessened, and it may be they NEED hormonal balancing before 18. So they're overbroad.

Well I can say that I was comfortable with my gender identity as a kid. Had no problems being a boy. But some people don't feel that way and state as such. Kids clearly show preferences for things that we sort into gender at least as soon as they can start forming sentences. They can also identify gender roles before going through puberty, so we know they don't need to go through puberty to identify what they like. We also have puberty blockers to prevent irreversible changes from happening until later and has given people time to decide, leading to significantly less dysphoria/dysmorphia.

And these feelings are thoroughly diagnosed by doctors and psychiatrists, who know a hell of a lot more about the mental state of children than any of us. We have also seen from studies that transitioning has caused a drop in suicidal thought (preemptive callout of a research paper conservatives all keep citing where they count things like "not following up on on a doctor's visit" as regret of transitioning).

So we have reason to think that children can identify comfort with their gender before puberty, experts who can double check these feelings, and results that show less suicide.

The fucked up thing is I've heard that one more than once from absolute vile sacks of shit that were recommending LGBT folks be raped into cis conformity. Not metaphorically raped, either, but an explicit "you have to be this actually fucked to have experienced your gender, consent be damned" type of deal. It's not a line of thought you'd find particularly sympathetic, I don't think.

Well yeah, history repeats itself. Same thing back when people were trying to ban homosexuality. "That lesbian just needs to be fucked straight" led to a lot of rape, because people would just declare homosexuality bad and the rape an attempt to get rid of it. It at the very least softened society's anger against the crime; Gave some homophobic judge an excuse to look the other way.

[Vector]

I mean, how can a person be sure of their gender identity before they turn 18?

Because usually trans kids start transing up the narrative at age 3 (the same age at which cis kids start to express gender), and we know that gender identity usually stabilizes in a more permanent kind of way by age 7. And if we're real, a lot of times parents are aware that their children are not conforming at around the same time.

The thing that is not understood here is that often, even usually, trans children will exhibit trans behavior despite having no reference for transness as a concept, much as how cisgender children will be cis despite no one telling them what "cis" is. I think people imagine that trans children would not be trans if they were never exposed to a transgender adult, book, concept, discussion. But this isn't correct. Trans children will spontaneously demand not to be called by their given names, spontaneously identify with characters of the wrong gender, spontaneously be drawn to accounts of cross dressing or gender fluidity of any kind. Trans boys will expect to go through male puberty and be confused by what happens to their bodies when they go through the other one (this literally happened to someone I know. He used to bind his chest with a belt). Puberty blockers let those kids have more time to think before they are potentially forced through the wrong puberty and then need hormones + more surgical intervention to get the same results.

So in order to play out the other part of this argument, that children are too fragile to decide, too pure to be exposed to trans gender identity and to trans people because they then might exclaim before the "correct time" that they are trans and play out the seemingly inevitable cycle of self-harm, involuntary psychiatric hospitalization, and attempted suicide that we're all familiar with, requires the banning of transgender adults from public spaces, from teaching, and from talking to children who are like them, the banning of Greek and Norse and indigenous myths and any stories about shapeshifters such as, say, Animorphs, the banning of teaching about people like Joan of Arc or any person who has taken an opposite gender role in history, censorship of the internet and the public agreement of total silence.

But you cannot in fact kill an idea, and even removing all explicit or near-references to transness and gender nonconformity that we know transgender children hang onto for their life, such as refusing to teach children about snails and earthworms, or refusing to teach children the Chinese language, which doesn't have gendered pronouns, will not prevent trans children from writing stories about trans people, nor from communicating trans ideas. I know this because I was one once and I grew up with other trans children who liked to write. And all of us wrote about trans people even before we knew what the word "trans" was, because that was what was inside us.

So what then?