Chris Nehls

Master of the House: The Pelosi Paradox How the Strongest Speaker Made Congress Weak

I chart how 60s' liberals' frustration with House minority rule in their own party led us to a different kind of minority rule now, unintentionally accelerated by Pelosi's iron grip as Speaker. Johnson's turned the strong speaker model into a WH appendage, so we need a new one

take a break from raging about the health care part (which was never gonna work) and read this entire thread on the end of the shutdown

Speaker Nancy Pelosi: A Master of the House This article analyzes the record of Nancy Pelosi’s four terms as Speaker of the House of Representatives. It evaluates her performance through three main lenses: as a party leader, institutional leade...

if you're interested in how Pelosi centralized control of the House like no other Speaker, I recommend Josh Huder's essay www.degruyterbrill.com/document/doi...

Master of the House: The Pelosi Paradox How the Strongest Speaker Made Congress Weak

I chart how 60s' liberals' frustration with House minority rule in their own party led us to a different kind of minority rule now, unintentionally accelerated by Pelosi's iron grip as Speaker. Johnson's turned the strong speaker model into a WH appendage, so we need a new one

We know this because he told us.

The reality is the government was shut down the first day Trump entered office. We just didn't talk about it that way.

The only real leverage Dems had is on appropriations. Schumer screwed that up in February/March for FY 26. It imperiled his political support.

Leaders don't have this kind of power. They do not direct senators' votes. They can pressure or persuade but this notion Schumer can block senators from breaking ranks is pure myth.

What's in the CR Deal for Congress? With a vote as early as tonight, we quickly ran the numbers

open.substack.com/pub/firstbra...

40 years ago we’d have congressional hearings falsely accusing metal bands of putting backwards messages in their songs that told kids to kill themselves & now we have a planet-killing chatbot that’s all like “bet you won’t commit suicide chickenshit bitch” & the government is like here’s $5 billion

Sounds better than Whole Foods, where the employees are all other shoppers filling instacart orders.

Watching a game on this floor. Spotted a guy wearing a John Wall Rockets jersey. Very disoriented

We should all ask ourselves: what are we willing to sacrifice to uphold the rule of law and ensure Congress's constitutional power of the purse is upheld? For me, some flight cancellations is not too high a price to pay. (If we were in France, we'd have had general strikes far earlier.)

Honestly, constituent service should mostly be centralized

I think you guys crashed Pluribus

this friggin guy

Republicans Should Consider Electoral Reform Proportional representation is a smart way to ensure that conservatives in blue states are heard.

Been thinking since Tues about anti-incumbent swings G Elliot Morris pegged in his newsletter and how non-MAGA House GOP reps. are gonna get wiped out in '26 and need to do something like this to survive www.city-journal.org/article/repu...

Mamdani has won more votes than there are people in South Dakota.

I WANT TO BE A PART OF IT

If you follow American politics closely--and let's be honest, if you follow me on here it's either for that or the Stubbs pics--then you really should subscribe to Elliott's site. He's doing fantastic work, and a lot of it. It'd be a bargain at twice the price!

Yamamoto’s only 27

Honestly can’t remember who the Dodgers’ closer was at this point

Love these “this is stressful, glad I’m not a fan” comments — you people wouldn’t last 15 minutes of being a Mets fan.

America deserves Ron Darling in the World Series broadcast

When was the last time you heard a crowd chant, “Whoop, there it is?”

Don’t miss Gimenez’s slow bat

When did they call him up from the minors?

We had a rule in my college-era fantasy league that you had to take him with the last pick in the draft.

Favorite Canadian baseball player who’s not Larry Walker: I’ll go first - Rheal Cormier

Never gonna regret thinking the Mets should have beaten the Dodgers offer by 100 mil

To anyone not into baseball I’m sorry but also get into baseball