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A House committee displays its partisan pettiness for all the world to see

This is just a bit of trivia, but Bob Somerby mentioned something odd today about the House committee that the odious Elise Stefanik sits on. Here's what their website looks like:

All the Republicans get nice color photos. The Democrats get crammed into a tiny space with just their names.

Seriously? Unless there's some obscure explanation for this, the pettiness on display is sort of jaw dropping.

24 thoughts on “A House committee displays its partisan pettiness for all the world to see

    1. rick_jones

      And, on that note, it would seem the link itself is https://edworkforce.house.gov/committee/fullcommittee.htm and from 2012 https://web.archive.org/web/20120415061307/http://edworkforce.house.gov/Committee/FullCommittee.htm through 2018 https://web.archive.org/web/20181108075632/http://edworkforce.house.gov/Committee/FullCommittee.htm not only were there no pictures of anyone, there was no political affiliation listed for any of the members. Then there is a hiatus of archive copies in archive dot org which persists until 2023, at which point it is pictures for the Republicans and text only for the Democrats: https://web.archive.org/web/20230113130858/http://edworkforce.house.gov/Committee/FullCommittee.htm

      1. Jerry O'Brien

        That's interesting, thanks for digging. Now we need a congressional correspondent to find out who's behind the website changes.

  1. lower-case

    just saw this netflix spreadsheet showing popularity by hours watched

    in the article there's a link to an 18000 row xlsx file (just above the embedded video toward the bottom of the page)

    https://about.netflix.com/en/news/what-we-watched-a-netflix-engagement-report

    first few rows:

    The Night Agent: Season 1 Yes 2023-03-23 812,100,000
    Ginny & Georgia: Season 2 Yes 2023-01-05 665,100,000
    The Glory: Season 1 // 더 글로리: 시즌 1 Yes 2022-12-30 622,800,000
    Wednesday: Season 1 Yes 2022-11-23 507,700,000
    Queen Charlotte: A Bridgerton Story Yes 2023-05-04 503,000,000
    You: Season 4 Yes 2023-02-09 440,600,000
    La Reina del Sur: Season 3 No 2022-12-30 429,600,000
    Outer Banks: Season 3 Yes 2023-02-23 402,500,000
    Ginny & Georgia: Season 1 Yes 2021-02-24 302,100,000
    FUBAR: Season 1 Yes 2023-05-25 266,200,000

      1. lower-case

        with ~60 million netflix subscribers in the US, odds are someone here might be interested in seeing a full-ish listing of their library (which changes over time of course)

  2. bw

    if i looked one-tenth as ugly as virginia foxx i'd think twice before deciding that americans would like nothing better than to see a photo of me

    lol and glenn thompson looks like Champ Kind, just 25 years older and with an extra 10 pounds of crisco in his jowls

    1. J. Frank Parnell

      Who is responsible? The committee staff. And who is responsible for the committee staff? The committee majority members.

  3. KawSunflower

    Maybe they don't want the Democrats to be shown in front of the flag . For whatever reason, they're being crass, as usual.

    Comer appears in need of an updated shot.

    1. rick_jones

      They seem to have been willing to let Sempolinski be shown sans flag. And, gasp, two of the men to be shown wearing .. blue ties! Eghads!-)

    2. TheMelancholyDonkey

      Comer appears in need of an updated shot.

      Are you implying that he is going to get vaccinated? That's a vicious rumor to start spreading.

  4. cephalopod

    Checked in the Wayback machine. Having any pictures is relatively new (last few years), and it's definitely just the Republicans.

    I'll go with petty. That seems the most likely reason.

  5. Dana Decker

    For what little it's worth, Virginia Foxx was chairwoman in 2018 (as she is now in 2023).
    Wayback machine from 2018 shows a text list of all members like the one for this Congress' Democrats (name in orange, state in black)
    https://web.archive.org/web/20181108075632/https://edworkforce.house.gov/committee/fullcommittee.htm

    No pages were saved from 2021, 2022 when Democrats controlled the committee.

    Foxx is back as chair and for some reason Republicans get their pictures on top.

    Subcommittees only have lists:
    SUBCOMMITTEE ON HIGHER EDUCATION AND WORKFORCE DEVELOPMENT
    https://edworkforce.house.gov/committee/hewd.htm
    SUBCOMMITTEE ON EARLY CHILDHOOD, ELEMENTARY, AND SECONDARY EDUCATION
    https://edworkforce.house.gov/committee/ecese.htm

    Website design for this committee and its subcommittees is inconsistent and peculiar. I think the GOP had a hand in the "pictures for me, list for you" situation, but also that Congressional website maintenance is sub-par (by who?)

  6. bgsmith

    Looking at the house.gov web site, I gather that, like the party that controls the white house, the house.gov web site is a product of the majority. It also appears that how committee member information is displayed is a function of the committee. Some committees show all members, for example. Others do not. Some committees have a parallel minority web site, others do not.

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