Forget Ringling Brothers, Barnum, AND Bailey. They have absolutely nothing on the current Republican Party and the three-ring-circus they’ve been staging in their botched selection of a new US Speaker of the House.
Politics :
They said “Hand us the House and we’ll show you how to lead.” Too bad their razor-thin majority to lead the US House of Representatives has yet to work out even a little bit.
Unless you’ve been living on the dark side of the moon, you’re aware that not a single new member of the House has been sworn in. That’s because Republicans have spent 2 days delaying the 118th Congress by infighting over who should be the next House Speaker.
GOP Rep. Kevin McCarthy of California wants the job more than he wants air. After all, he’s spent years auditioning for the position by never having a backbone or opinion of his own — all the while twisting his spine into knots in order to appease anyone who could hand him the prize he has long coveted.
And, therein lies the problem.
A small contingent of Republicans (led by Rep.Matt Gaetz of Florida and Rep. Lauren Boebert of Colorado) simply do not like the spineless McCarthy and have been hell-bent on convincing their party to deny him his dream job.
It takes 218 votes to become Speaker of the House. So far, McCarthy has repeatedly come up about 20 votes short.
On Wednesday and after 6 failed vote attempts, Congress delivered an unmistakable message to McCarthy: “We’re just not that into you” which was code for “You’ll NEVER be Speaker!”
The standstill means that the House is currently incomplete and without sworn members. Or, in other words, it’s unable to perform oversight, pass bills, set up constituent services, or conduct the business of America they were elected to do.
So, what exactly is behind the anti-McCarthy for House Speaker sentiment? The answer is simple: ego and personal vendettas.
The GOP screwed up royally when they allowed QAnon/MAGA ReTRUMPlican crazies into their party — and crowned Donald Trump as their sovereign king. Now, these crazies are not only hungry for individual power and importance, but they’ve turned on their own members and want to burn Congress and its system of rules to the ground.
They also have an absolute distaste of and distrust for Kevin McCarthy.
Believing that he’d magically be named Speaker at the 11th hour, McCarthy counted his chickens before they hatched and moved all of his belongings into Nancy Pelosi’s former office before a single vote for Speaker had been cast.
However, Rep. Gaetz took that premature move as an opportunity to report his fellow Republican to the Capitol Architect as a “squatter.”
“I write to inform you that the Speaker of the House Office located in the US Capitol Building is currently occupied by Rep. Kevin McCarthy. As of this morning, the 117th Congress adjourned sine die, and a Speaker from the 118th Congress has not been elected. After three undeciding votes, no member can lay claim to this office,” Gaetz wrote.
“What is the basis in law, House rule, or precedent to allow someone who has placed second in three successive speaker elections to occupy the Speaker of the House Office? How long will he remain there before he is considered a squatter?”
Ouch!
Interestingly, as Republicans threw daggers at each other, Democrats remained silent, nominated Rep. Hakeem Jeffries of New York on each vote as their choice to be the next House Speaker, repeatedly cast all of their 212 votes for him, then calmly watched Republicans jump through hoops and act out their three-ring-circus while silently thinking ‘told ya so.’ After all, the GOP is single-handily creating the perfect Democratic commercial for 2024 right before our very eyes.
Congress is set to resume its clown-fest today at noon. Some members have mentioned the possibility of entering into a power share agreement with Democrats in order to convince them to join in selecting a moderate Republican as Speaker that (almost) everybody might love. However, only time will tell since this charade could go on for days or possibly weeks.
Oh, Republicans. This is the first time in 100 years that the vote for Speaker of the House has been so unnecessarily contested. And this is your idea of leadership?
OK WASSUP! discusses Politics:
House Speaker vote is a joke!
The Daily Beast:
The idea has been circulating around the U.S. Capitol this week like a hopelessly lost tour group: If Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) fails to win enough Republican votes to become speaker, Democrats could bail him out—or help elect a compromise candidate to the post.
Both Republicans and Democrats have dismissed the proposal as either an Aaron Sorkin-esque fantasy or a deliberate ploy from pro-McCarthy forces to scare the GOP holdouts into getting behind the California Republican.
But with the speakership still in limbo after six roll call votes in two days, the House still paralyzed, and McCarthy’s path to the gavel still very much in doubt, the once far-fetched idea is starting to sound downright reasonable.
Within the Democratic ranks, lawmakers and aides are quietly gaming out how and when they might help break the GOP impasse—or if they would do so at all.
“I mean, anything is possible, right?” said Rep. Jim McGovern (D-MA), formerly the chairman of the powerful House Rules Committee. “If they want to work with us, I mean, I think we want to do what’s right for the institution and what’s right for the country. But I’ll tell you this: I’m not a cheap date.”
While Rep. Don Beyer (D-VA) said “it’s hard to see how it happens,” it was clear he had thought about what it might mean for Democrats to not be a “cheap date.”
Beyer listed three demands he thought Democrats should have for any talks on a compromise with the GOP: commitments to raise the debt limit cleanly, fund the federal government, and more power on committees.
That sentiment was amplified by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY). “If there is any potential of a kind of coalition candidate or, you know, Democrats bailing out Republicans, I think it would have to result in a much deeper and a much more profound negotiation of the structure of the House,” she told The Daily Beast.
The Daily Beast:
Both Republicans and Democrats have dismissed the proposal as either an Aaron Sorkin-esque fantasy or a deliberate ploy from pro-McCarthy forces to scare the GOP holdouts into getting behind the California Republican. […] – H/t: Wil
Yeaaah…NO! This is never going to happen…Lol
But I do believe this chatter was deliberately put out there by pro-McCarthy forces “to scare the GOP holdouts” into caving and getting behind McCarthy.
I don’t think such threats will work. But we shall see.
Hey Truth this could happen. All Dems need is six Repubs to agree and they could pick a speaker. Dems would get the budget and all that they are hoping for and all this silliness would be over with.
BD, any Repubs who throws his/her vote to the Dems to elect the next Speaker will, politically speaking, be a dead man/woman walking and Repubs know this!
NOT gonna happen my friend.
But we shall see.
The irony in ALL of this Repub madness is that there’s literally NO difference between what the two warring factions want. They (19 or 20 House insurrectionists) want and same thing the vast majority of rest of House Repubs want.
The only real difference being that the smaller group of right-wing extremist DON’T want McCarthy to be the next Speaker, while the majority of right-wing extremists want him. That’s it.
Setting aside THAT “difference” you have a political party made up of a collection of dangerous, ignorant and hateful, gun-totting, clowns who don’t give a fig about Our country and Our democracy.
They have Zero interest in actually governing, nor the intellect to do so.
Both groups are craven, without shame and just want Power. That’s it.
As I’ve already expressed, neither side has any interested in actually governing.
Nor do they have the intellect to do so.
I heard McCarthy agreed to more concessions today just to get the job. He needs to give it up because at this point he would just be speaker in name only and the MAGA people would be running him. All this fighting right now is only the beginning. He would be a weak speaker they could run out anytime they want.
Yes, and he just lost his 7th vote.
Which I think begs the question – with ALL the concessions he keeps making even AFTER assuring his supporters that he won’t negotiate with his opponents AND despite his supporters begging him NOT to negotiate away everything…isn’t McCarthy proving his opponents right?
That you can’t trust him?
Not a word he says!
Plus he is proving he stands for nothing. He will bend into anything people tell him to just to get this job. That is sad.
Uh-huh. And that’s the truth!
I finally got lunch break and just found out they voted no on him for a seventh time. This is the definition of insanity now doing the same thing over and over thinking there is going to be a different result.
Forgive me BD for repeating myself……
But both groups are craven, without shame and just want Power.
That’s it.
He lost the 8th round so it’s now on to the 9th round.
But no reason to believe he won’t lose that round too…smh!
You can’t make this stuff up!
Raw Story:
Rep. Katherine Clark (D-MA) took the floor to nominate Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) for the eighth time on the House floor to be the Speaker. This time, however, the Democrat nominating him took the opportunity to rebuke the Republican Party.
“The historic dysfunction that we are seeing, in the intra-party fight, that the American people have been drawn into, is imperiling our national security, it will imperil the ability of this government to deliver basic services,” Clark warned. “It is imperiling our jobs and our responsibility to serve our constituents.”
“The House is at a stand-still, so there are members that can’t provide constituent services to those in their states back home. So, if for example, a veteran needs help navigating his or her benefits and the complexities of the VA, they’re left in the dark. For anyone trying to get someone to help them with a misfiled tax return and for a widow lost in how to navigate Social Security, there is no one in to help.
“But it is also entirely predictable. They’re failing to convene congress today, but for years, they have failed to deliver the votes for the American people,” she said to applause
“When small businesses needed to reopen, and the American people wanted vaccines, they said no,” Clark began with a list of things Republicans opposed. “When we capped insulin costs for seniors, at $35 a month, they said no. When we lowered health care costs and premiums for working families, they said no. When we defended the civil rights of LGBTQ+ Americans, they said no. When we protected lives from senseless gun violence, especially in the wake of the horrors of Buffalo and Uvalde, they said no. When we stood up for women and reproductive freedom, they said no. When we brought manufacturing back to America, they said no. When we answered the urgent call to protect our planet and invest in clean energy, and create tens of millions of good-paying jobs, they said no.
“When we defended our democracy, two years ago tomorrow, from a tyrannical president, following the Jan. 6th insurrection, they said no,” Clark said. “House Democrats will stand together. We will stand for the American people. It is our job and our responsibility to elect a speaker who stands with them and with great pride, I nominate Hakeem Jeffries.”