There was a little confusion as the New Year finally came out of the blocks. This morning we are grounding aircraft and the first articles of impeachment have been filed already. It was delayed a bit with the election of Speaker McCarthy to take the gavel most recently handled by Madam Pelosi. The Secretary of Homeland Security has been identified as the first of the Swamp Dwellers to come up for targeted removal for malfeasance. That may include the unidentified Administration figures who put things in locked closets even if some of the papers are emblazoned with classification markers.

Details? There is confusion over Committee assignments and other matters as the new Congress comes out of the blocks with energy. Pat Fallon (R-TX) has introduced articles against Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas. The impeachment charges allege violations of law and assorted misconduct. All of which appear to be official Administration policy. Will they succeed? Of course not. The process did not work against a recent former President for the same procedural reason. The Constitution’s Article 1, Section 2 stipulates that the House of Representatives “shall have the sole Power of Impeachment,” and “the Senate shall have the sole Power to try all Impeachments … [but] no person shall be convicted without the Concurrence of two-thirds of the Members present.”

You can see that is not going to happen, but it will be colorful until we get bored with nonsensical partisan ramblings. We talked about it under the brilliant gibbous but waning moon. We dislike days that start with a trip to the dictionary. “Gibbous” is one of those technical terms under discussion this morning.  It is normally used to describe a lunar orb that is more than halfway full. Splash suggested we could call the Gibbous House.

The other one is “NOTAM.” That was a little more surprising. We recall it as having a meaning referring to Notices to Airmen and Mariners, though this morning they have dropped the seafaring folks out of it, since it refers only to all aircraft being grounded until 0900 this morning. The claim is that a computer problem made it too hard to conduct normal operations.

It is the first time we have heard of that sort of mass grounding since 9/11. That example had a lot of emotion associated with it. This one has less of that. It appears to reflect a similar problem that grounded Southwest Airlines during the recent cold snap. It now has some seemingly universal impact. The White House suggested reporters ask their questions of the Department of Transportation for additional information. Forgive us, but that Department and its leadership has often been cited as having other priorities than aircraft and supply chains.

It will take a while to work out what the new House is going to attempt against the opposition of the Senate and Executive branch. We suspect not much, but are willing to tune in for a while.
We are just pleased we are no longer associated with the air travel system. We got the Moderna vaccination not so much to protect against dread Covid virus, but against the Transportation Security Folks who threatened to impose vaccination status as a prerequisite for boarding airplanes. We had family reasons to travel and we got the shot. Now we are with everyone else wondering exactly what we did to ourselves.

We are fairly certain this whole deal may have had some irregularities compared with normal life. We considered raising local impeachment charges against someone, since that appears to be a process designed to provoke discussion rather than actual removal. But the jets are expected to start moving around, and the system may reach gibbous status, waxing, before lunch. We are just pleased not to be traveling today under a gibbous Congress.

Views expressed in this article are the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Socotra House Publishing.

Copyright 2023 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com