not *just* because it would be the funniest possible outcome, but because this is the kind of hubris that puts people who are on the fence firmly on the opposite side of you
— GOLIKEHELLMACHINE (@golikehellmachi) January 2, 2023
Odds are, in the end, Kevin McCarthy gets his dream job because all potential challengers are either too smart to try, or too disorganized to win, at taking him down. But for us Democrats, it’s great fun to watch the sausage being made! Gift (un-paywalled) link to the Washington Post‘s excellent, exhaustive story:
House Republican leader Kevin McCarthy and his allies have spent the holiday weekend working the phones and meeting with members, trying to salvage his career goal of becoming speaker on Tuesday as Republicans continue to argue over whether he deserves the top spot.
While an overwhelming majority of Republicans want to elect McCarthy (Calif.) as speaker, roughly 15 have put the outcome in serious doubt. McCarthy can afford to lose only four Republicans in Tuesday’s floor vote, and the razor-thin margin has emboldened staunch conservatives within the House Freedom Caucus, who have made specific demands in exchange for their votes…
Five Republicans have remained firm in their opposition to McCarthy, or are leaning toward no, since the midterms. They include Rep. Andy Biggs (Ariz.), who lost to McCarthy in a conference vote behind closed doors in November but will challenge him publicly on the floor Tuesday.
McCarthy met with key lawmakers across the ideological spectrum Monday evening to walk through what to expect Tuesday. No breakthrough occurred, as the holdouts emerged reiterating to reporters that they were still against his candidacy.
While McCarthy has made numerous concessions in an effort to win the holdouts’ votes, including changes to a provision that could limit his time as speaker, nine additional Republicans signed a letter late Sunday calling McCarthy’s proposal “insufficient,” further signaling that his ascent remains unassured…
Privately, McCarthy remains defiant, keeping some final tactics available as he intends to stay on the floor Tuesday as long as it may take to get elected, according to several lawmakers who, like others for this story, spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss private and ongoing deliberations.
“To use his words, if they’re playing a game of chicken, he’s ripped the steering wheel out of the dashboard and he’s got his foot to the floor,” one Republican lawmaker said, paraphrasing a recent quip by McCarthy…
[McCarthy’s sweaty-fingered grasp on the English language remains… sweaty.]
McCarthy’s potential failure to clinch the necessary 218 votes to become speaker could derail the 16-year congressional career that he has paved to reach this moment. Although he is known for his ability to trade favors in hopes of gaining trust, his quest could be for naught if he is unable to overcome the demands by some who seek to weaken the power of the speakership.
McCarthy, who entered the rungs of leadership just two years after he was first elected, in 2007, had a front-row seat to how the Freedom Caucus influenced the demise of the speakerships of John A. Boehner (Ohio) and Paul D. Ryan (Wis.). Seeing how both men tried to ostracize the Freedom Caucus from the mainstream Republican Party, McCarthy instead embraced the group, even after Rep. Jim Jordan (Ohio) in 2015 led the group in opposition to McCarthy succeeding Boehner as the chamber’s top Republican.
“[McCarthy is] a very strong relationship guy,” said Frank Luntz, a GOP pollster who is close friends with McCarthy. “Most congressional leaders, the higher they climb, the less they listen. Kevin’s been exactly the opposite, and that’s been the secret of his success.”…
An endorsement from Frank Luntz — just what McCarthy needed in his time of trouble!
Also, the recent kerfuffle in the GOP septic tank has surfaced some memories of the last time, back in 2015, that McCarthy failed to attain his dream job: Whatever Happened to the Scandal That Derailed Kevin McCarthy’s Last Bid for Speaker?
NEW: Just caught up w @GOPLeader Kevin McCarthy in the Capitol.
He said he's feeling "actually really good" as he entered the speaker of the House suite on the second floor of the Capitol.
I asked him if he'd set motion to vacate at one, and he smiled and walked in the office
— Jake Sherman (@JakeSherman) January 2, 2023
FWIW — House Democrats tell me they will be at full attendance tomorrow. If that's the case, and if all Republicans show up, the House will be at 434 and McCarthy needs 218 to win.
— Jake Sherman (@JakeSherman) January 2, 2023
In order to secure enough votes to become speaker, he will have to make a bargain with more than one devil. https://t.co/jTYpk040k0
— Charles P. Pierce (@CharlesPPierce) December 31, 2022
… Remember Richard Harris in the egregious 1970 movie, A Man Called Horse, in which Harris is a British nobleman who joins the Sioux, but not before he completes initiation rites that include being hung up by the thorax with pins? Next week, McCarthy will undergo something similar—except, unlike Harris’ John Morgan, McCarthy also will have to listen to Marjorie Taylor Greene. The arrangement is blatantly unconstitutional as a violation of the Eighth Amendment. It’s cruel and she’s unusual.
You see, McCarthy wants to be speaker of the House of Representatives. Nero didn’t want to be emperor as much as McCarthy wants to be speaker. Poisoning his rivals being unavailable as a campaign strategy, McCarthy has determined instead to further poison the political culture. He has already promised endless snipe hunts into everything from the administration’s COVID and border policies to Hunter Biden’s laptop, soon to replace “But Her Emails” as shorthand for pointless wastes of time, money, and political energy, all of which would be better spent on actual problems…
Only McCarthy’s vestigial conscience can tell him if the gavel is worth his coming humiliation. At the moment, for all his truckling and groveling, he still might not have the votes. Largely through the efforts of the people he’s currently placating and the former president* to whom they remain enthralled, the new Republican majority in the House is a slim 10 votes, which means that—assuming no Democrats vote for him, and god help any who do—with six new members already on record as refusing to vote for him, McCarthy is two votes short of what he needs. Since the establishment of the Constitution, only 14 elections for speaker have gone to multiple ballots; the last of them occurred in 1923, the only time it’s happened in the years since the Civil War…
Two years? It may only be two days. https://t.co/WBKQHoKyB5
— Dana Houle (@DanaHoule) January 2, 2023
Backup backup plan for the "Only Kevin" caucus should be to find another guy named Kevin. See if Costner is available
— your himbo boyfriend (@swolecialism) January 1, 2023
Republicans could theoretically vote for a speaker who is not in the house but who reflects their values, like say Dennis Hastert.
— Jean-Michel Connard (@torriangray) January 2, 2023
(Yep, you’re not the only one who thought Denny was dead. As my people say: Heaven won’t have him, and Hell doesn’t want him.)
David ⛄ 🎅The Establishment🎄 🦌 🕎 Koch
A calamity has occurred on Monday Night Football.
A 24 year old player was hit in the forehead and collapsed on the field. EMT administered CPR. He’s being transferred to an ER.
Teammates and players are in tears.
NFL has ordered them to “take a break” and continue the game. The Invisible Hand is something else.
moops
The obvious conclusion is that Kevin wants the job and then wants to be kicked out of the job in favor of the lunatics’ next choice. The deals he’s made can only result in the shortest Speakership in history. He is dumb, but his aides are *that* dumb and will have explained to him how this is going to work. The conclusion has to be he honestly wants a short reign as Speaker.
Then what?
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Somebody on the Maddow program was talking about an unvetted candidate winding up in the Speaker’s office, and I immediately thought of Tom Delay’s meat-puppet.
kindness
At what point does the vote for Speaker go to a majority in the House? Wouldn’t it be funny if a Democrat won because Republicans, while good at memes, are bad at governmenting.
Miss Bianca
Where’s Mnemosyne when we need her? Isn’t there some line from Hamilton about “you don’t have the votes, ah ha ha HA”?
Ah ha ha HA!
Ken
Is that where they beat one another with canes, or is that only for use with Senators?
Alison Rose
Don’t kink-shame.
Honestly, even if he does somehow pull this off, this is still so pathetic. I really want whoever runs Pelosi’s Twitter to tweet at his account “Sup, Kev?” with a pic of her in sunglasses.
Alison Rose
@Miss Bianca: The laugh is the best part.
lgerard
John Boehner is orange, rested and ready!
Lord Fartdaddy (Formerly, Mumphrey, Smedley Darlington Mingobat, et al.)
I had two classes in college that Frank Luntz taught. The classes were good, and I learned a lot, but even then everybody could tell he was a sleaze.
dmsilev
@moops: Then he retires and becomes a lobbyist like John Boehner? While it won’t help the GOP much, it would help McCarthy’s bank account, and, well, priorities.
Snarki, child of Loki
“Backup backup plan for the “Only Kevin” caucus should be to find another guy named Kevin. ”
Look, would it be all right if we just called you ‘Kevin’. Just to avoid confusion?
I may have to name a head of lettuce “Kevin”, just because.
dmsilev
@lgerard: I read that as ‘orange, zested, and ready’.
oldster
How does Santos (R, Fantasyland) fit into all of this? Presumably he is one of the R votes that KMac currently thinks he can count on?
So, if he is off in handcuffs somewhere, KMac will have an even harder time getting to 218?
More fun times.
They’ll never say it in public, but eventually the tapes will leak of the R leadership saying, with a mixture of desperation, puzzlement, and fury, “How was Nancy so *good* at this?”
Anne Laurie
Oranj Jawn, consummate professional, got the fvck out while the gettin’ was good.
Kevvy & the ‘Young Guns’ were the bane of Boehner’s speakership. I suspect he’s watching the current sh*tshow, cigar in one hand & bourbon in the other, and chuckling to himself.
(Or maybe DMing rude notes to every one of his former colleagues!)
bbleh
Nobody who has any ambitions beyond being Speaker wants to be Speaker with a margin this narrow and a caucus this crazy. It’s a recipe for constant headache and embarrassment.
All the Republicans with any smarts will be happy to let someone — maybe Kevin, maybe someone else — stand in the spotlights and deal with all the questions about the coming madness, all the while jerking his/her strings.
Fantastic job, Republicans! You built this!
Nicole
I’m so sad that we have seen the end of Nancy Pelosi’s Speakership, because she is truly one of the great Speakers in the history of this fine nation, but I will allow myself to enjoy the McCarthy shitshow of the next few days. He’s the bad sequel after the blockbuster.
Geminid
Craven McCarthy.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Anne Laurie:
“Young Guns” lmao. All of those guys were like 40 then
Jim, Foolish Literalist
I can’t remember where we were with all the Senate gangs (god I hate that usage), but I think if Boehner had bit the bullet and passed some kind of immigration reform before he zippity-doo-dah’d his way to open day-drinking and lobbying for legal pot, we might be in a very different country today
Another Scott
LOLGOP on Mastodon.social:
Good advice. Beware the press trying to make these monsters reasonable.
Cheers,
Scott.
HumboldtBlue
@David ⛄ 🎅The Establishment🎄 🦌 🕎 Koch:
The game has been suspended, it was expected.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Another Scott: as I recall, Scalise says he has no memory of saying that, which suggests to me he’s not sure it wasn’t recorded by someone, somewhere, or at the very least some credible witnesses might decide to stop covering for him.
also, too, just about eight years ago
Miss Bianca
@Snarki, child of Loki: “Do you mind if I call you ‘Kevvie Baby’?”
ETA: For all you Monty Python fans out there…
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@HumboldtBlue:
Good. I couldn’t imagine making those players go back on the field tonight after that.
ESPN reports that Hamlin is in critical condition.
Only 24 years old and his mother was there at the game
Geminid
@bbleh: This is an inauspicious start for the Republican Majority even if they can elect a Speaker tomorrow.. For the first few weekly press conferences the Speaker will hail the important changes he and his colleagues are bringing to Congress.
Then he’ll invite reporters’ questions and the first one is gonna be, “Do you think George Santos should resign?”
OverTwistWillie
McCarthy is more akin to Jack Black in Tropic Thunder.
Get it over here, buddy. Let’s do this.
Cheryl from Maryland
@HumboldtBlue: The right call. I hope the Buffalo safety survives and is not paralyzed. Unlike the game announcers, I remember seeing Jack Tatum hit Darryl Stingley.
coin operated
Buying stock in companies that manufacture ball gags and lube.
Ol’ Kevin will be buying in bulk…
Betsy
Popcorn time! Golly but we earned this.
eclare
@Anne Laurie: I have the same mental image of Boehner, but with a heavy pour of merlot. Maybe humming zip a dee doo dah….
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Geminid:
That will be fun to watch.
“Mr. Speaker, is ‘George Santos’ even his real name?”
Suzanne
How about Liz Truss? I’m sure she’s available. She killed the Queen, I’m sure she’d love to get out of Britain.
Aussie Sheila
I’m looking forward to seeing Hakeem Jeffries’ chops over the next two years. He strikes me as being a very good ‘pol’ in the traditional sense, whilst having pretty good rhetorical flair.
I hope and expect less of ‘we need a sane/good republican party’ and more balls to the wall opposition, in the traditional parliamentary sense. Pelosi was peerless as a traditional Speaker-strong, smart and tactically astute. However Jeffries strikes me as being more partisan ( a good thing imo), and more in tune with where the median democratic activist is on both issues and procedure.
I look forward to seeing how McCarthy handles his humiliation tomorrow, regardless of the actual outcome, and very much look forward to Jeffries’ speech in reply, if such a thing exists after the actual vote.
Rooting for injuries on the ‘government’ benches.😎
cckids
@David ⛄ 🎅The Establishment🎄 🦌 🕎 Koch: I believe the hit was to the chest; ie, blunt force chest trauma. Seriously bad news.
RinaX
Personally, I think Mccarthy will be elected fairly quickly. None of these situations ever result in ay real shake-up for the GOP. Mccarthy seems more spineless and desperate for power than Boehner or Paul Ryan. He’ll fold easily to any of THE GQP’s demands as long as he gets to keep the speaker title.
James E Powell
They’re backup plan is Fred “No Longer a Congressperson” Upton?
RaflW
He’s lusting after a job no one else wants (Biggs is a no one, and certainly won’t get it). And he may still fail. Deeeelish!
MomSense
@David ⛄ 🎅The Establishment🎄 🦌 🕎 Koch:
I just read that he has been intubated. He has a pulse but is not breathing on his own. He’s so young. This is tragic.
Another Scott
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Made me look.
SPLCenter (from 2014):
The RollCall story seems closest. Maybe someone created the “quote” in question, but it seems to capture the reporting pretty well. Dunno.
Obviously, I wasn’t there. But I remember growing up in suburban Atlanta and all kinds of racist talk being framed in language that was superficially against racism. But was actually coded language against changing the system to be fair to non-whites. “No special rights! No quotas! Neighborhood schools!” Etc. Scalise’s comments and comments by his supporters back then seem to fit that mode.
FWIW.
Cheers,
Scott.
CaseyL
@cckids: JFC. Jeremy Renner (actor; Hawkeye in The Avengers) is also in the hospital, also in critical condition, with the same kind of injuries – but from a snow plow he was running.
Awful as I feel for Hamlin, I am sparing some thought for the player who he tackled, god knows what’s going through his mind.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
strange, small world, but maybe not so strange given the politics of the NFL owners
(for those unfamiliar, part of this guy’s schtick is sometimes posting as Ron Ziegler, Nixon’s flack)
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Another Scott:
“All lives matter!”
Some things never change
RaflW
Also, too, I had no idea the, ahem, Problem Solvers Caucus still existed. Probably because the GOP hasn’t had any interest in solving any problems for a solid 14 years now.
piratedan
this 2 year renewal of MST3K Political Edition is going to be lit!….
tbh I have no idea on how this will unfold, after all, the majority of these GOP folks are familiar with the No button on votes, why it’s almost pavlovian and these guys are incredibly adept at dealing each other dirty at the drop of a hat… they’ve already shown that they have no quarrel with people who lie and misrepresent any and every issue, as they’ve shown themselves to be two-bit machiavellis or complete cowards devoid of any moral baseline.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@RaflW:
God, 2009 was 14 years ago. I feel old
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
Oh, and apparently, idiots are blaming COVID vaccines for Hamlin’s collapse 🙄
Alison Rose
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): The Lee Atwater Style Guide
Delk
Lauren Underwood has Hastert’s old seat and doing an amazing job.
JMG
@Cheryl from Maryland: Sadly what happened to Hamlin is worse, the collision to his chest stopped his heart. He got up and walked for a step or two before collapsing. It’s a horrible freak result of a typical football collision.
SiubhanDuinne
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
“Mr. Speaker, is ‘George Santos’ even his real name?”
There was an article in the WaPo a couple of days ago that indicated that in fact, no, he doesn’t always go by George Santos:
HumboldtBlue
@Cheryl from Maryland:
Definitely the right call. I remember the Stingley hit as well, and it was a fucking preseason game.
HumboldtBlue
@CaseyL:
He’s struggling.
Mallard Filmore
Is a replacement part of the requirement to boot a Speaker? What happens between the time Kevin is given the boot and the next Speaker is selected? Nothing?
Chetan Murthy
@Mallard Filmore: Once the terms of office of the current Congress expire, the new Congressmen are the ones in office: so at that point, they didn’t elect (the current) Speaker Pelosi. Or at least, that’s what I think is how it works. I mean, how could Pelosi be Speaker tomorrow, if tomorrow’s membership didn’t elect her?
prostratedragon
@Mallard Filmore: Just learned it thanks to Lawrence O’Donnell: the Clerk of the House presides until there is a new Speaker. Right now, that would be Cheryl Johnson.
Honus
@Cheryl from Maryland: I remember Chuck Bednarik hitting Frank Gifford. Gifford was completely still and taken to the locker room and remained unconscious for the rest of the game. A number of his Giants teammates saw him lying there after the game and thought he was dead.
Betsy
@Chetan Murthy: My understanding is the “new members” can’t be sworn in until the speaker exists, so they’re not even members until after a speaker is elected and a swearing-in can be conducted.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
This is the gang of clowns that Manchin and Sinema decided should have a say in the potentially disastrous absurdity of the debt ceiling
I think we’re all gonna have to study up on discharge petitions, which I believe is the only way to get a bill to a floor vote without the support of the ruling party’s leaders
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@HumboldtBlue:
Higgins has apparently had a very rough year. His father passed away last year too. I feel for him
@SiubhanDuinne:
That’s incredible. Practically his entire life has been a lie
@Alison Rose:
“A conservative is someone who stands athwart history, yelling stop” -Lee Atwater
Yeah, that checks out.
Mallard Filmore
@Chetan Murthy:
OK, but I was thinking more along the lines of what happens after McCarthy has been Speaker for a few days.
prostratedragon
Only such thing I recall seeing in a football game, live on tv, was a UMich-PSU game where a couple of players collided and at least one of the two of them never played again. That was bad enough. I also saw on tv the last fight of Beethaeven Scottland. I remember Kellerman’s increasing concern, and also that the opponent, George Khalid Jones, had to be made several times by the ref to resume fighting. Jones knew that Bee was badly hurt and just stood there several times.
Alison Rose
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): I was thinking more of his n-word alternatives.
hilts
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
This should be a BJ tag.
stacib
@Snarki, child of Loki: I have a bag of shredded lettuce. I’m willing to sacrifice that and call it Kevin. I’m thinking it may actually be more appropriate as KM will be totally shredded before this is done. LOL
Princess
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): this is hitting me especially hard tonight. I just learned that my militantly unvaxxed brother in law has caught Covid, threatening him and his whole unvaxxed family. No time for these ghouls.
randy khan
If I were forced to bet, I’d bet that McCarthy somehow gets the job, but the idea that it’s 11:00 p.m. the night before Congress convenes and there’s still significant doubt about whether he can get to 218 is just remarkable.
Or it would be if I wasn’t familiar with the Republican caucus and what it did to Boehner and Ryan. This is just the logical extension of those years.
The Upton idea is the most interesting one I’ve seen in a while. Upton was fairly well known for working with Dems when he chaired the House Energy and Commerce Committee, but also was well-respected among Republicans. And his niece is married to new Met Jason Verlander (formerly a Detroit Tiger). He might actually be able to get Dem votes.
HumboldtBlue
Alison Rose
@HumboldtBlue: The NFL looked at FIFA and was like, let’s be like them, but worse.
Ken
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
“A conservative is someone who stands athwart history, yelling
stopwhere’s my cut” — Lee Atwater, if he’d lived to 2023(Surprised to see he died at age 40.)
Jim, Foolish Literalist
well, this was inevitable
Achrachno
@prostratedragon: This is encouraging. Does anyone know if an “acting speaker” has the same powers as a regular one? I imagine not.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@randy khan: I posted this about Matt Gaetz et al earlier, and there are few other tweets from Costa. My guess is they’ll put on a show vote and make some speeches in the first round, then vote for him at some point in the day. I don’t think the Upton plan is possible given that he voted to impeach trump. He’d probably get more D votes than R, and still not make it to 2018
that’s Kate Upton, the model, isn’t it? and all that Whirlpool money
HumboldtBlue
@Alison Rose:
To be fair, it was a no-brainer and the league allows the players and coaches, those literally with skin in the game, to make the call is good PR.
And I’m not being cynical. The incident was different from any we’ve seen before from the off. When the words CPR and nine minutes were uttered by Joe Buck, it changed the feeling from will they continue, to this is gotta be suspended.
craigie
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
Close but no cigar.
mvr
@Nicole: FWIW, the only one with the talent to be speaker with this R majority would be Nancy Pelosi. And I don’t think she’s available.
Barbara
@Ken: William F. Buckley made that particular quip but Lee Atwater definitely could have edited it that way.
Nettoyeur
@Anne Laurie: The Orange Ex Speaker favors merlot
dww44
@Ken: brain tumor as I recollect without going googling to check. Also very repentant at the end for his political dirty tricks
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@craigie:
@Barbara:
Whoops 😳
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Damar Hamlin runs an annual toy drive for kids in his hometown
It’s actually close to a million, maybe over since I clicked on it
geg6
@Cheryl from Maryland:
This is very sad. I really hope he comes out of this okay. He’s a local guy who went to Pitt. He’s from one of the poorest towns just outside of Pittsburgh proper, McKees Rocks. He does a lot for the kids in the community there. Damn.
Barbara
@dww44: Yep, brain tumor.
Barbara
@Cheryl from Maryland: Ryan Shazier was hit in Cincinnati on a Monday night game. It was ghastly and he is lucky to have healed as well as he did.
moops
So, who is Speaker after Kevin?
Newt Gingrich?
Paul Manafort?
Trump?
Marjorie?
prostratedragon
@Achrachno: Yeah, I think not too. But everything I can find is wonderously elliptical on what would happen should a Speaker not be elected at the start of a new session. The Clerk “certifies” the new members, but not clear whether that means they’re effectively sworn in. Among other things.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@HumboldtBlue:
You’re right, it was a no-brainer choice by the NFL. I felt pretty bad for Booger and the others on ESPN having to commentate. They were pretty shook up
James E Powell
@moops:
I put my dollar down on Stefanik.
Mike in NC
McCarthy would be better off if he went back to selling frozen bait or whatever his claim to fame was in shitty Bakersfield.
geg6
@James E Powell:
That’s what I think, too. She’s a real piece of work, that one. She fancies herself as the GQP fun house mirror Nancy.
CaseyL
There are a lot of people with ambition, and nothing else inside them. Defined, consumed, and composed of ambition. Stefanik is one; McCarthy could well be another.
I paid no attention to him whatsoever Before Trump, so I don’t know if he ever had principles, or delivered for his constituents, or anything. (The first time I heard his name, I thought of the actor by the same name, and for a very long time had trouble remembering what Republican McCarthy even looked like.)
I only know him as a complete licker of Trump’s boots – that turnaround he did after January 6, in less than 24 hours, gave Lindsey Graham a run for the money as Most Repellent Sycophant.
McCarthy has, apparently, one ambition in this whole world, and that is to occupy the Speaker’s Chair (and office which, per the news, he’s already moved into). He’ll do whatever he needs, whatever the Insane Clown Caucus and Insane Traitor Caucus require of him. Just to get the title, Chair, and office.
I know there are people like that. I just can’t imagine what it’s like inside their heads.
HumboldtBlue
I missed the original play and having seen the replays the hit to the chest, whether from the Bengal receiver or the fall to the ground, certainly make sense for a serious blow to the chest and heart as a possible reason for the trauma.
Chetan Murthy
@geg6: Stupid-as-a-post, that one. Couldn’t get into a single one of her law school picks, even with a Harvard BA. Not one. Not one.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@HumboldtBlue:
Good news:
Enhanced Voting Techniques
Stalwell was tweeting he thinks McCarthy will promise the Freedom Caucus anything to get their votes for him as Speakers and simply forget all those promises afterwards.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@CaseyL:
They’re incredibly self-important people obsessed with power, even with the mere appearance of it in some cases like McCarthy
Achrachno
@prostratedragon: We’re breaking new ground then. My fingers are crossed that a good path can be found. But, I fear that even if she’s able to apply full powers, that’ll just motivate the Rs to unify behind someone. They will not be able to tolerate another female Democrat leading the house for more than a day or two, especially not a Black woman.
randy khan
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Indeed it is. But as a Mets fan, I had to run with the Verlander bit. (And I have a suspicion she will be happier to be in New York than Houston, although with the amount of money each of them has made over the years, she probably doesn’t need to live where he plays.)
(If you’re not already familiar with it, it’s worth looking up her tweet after Verlander didn’t win the Cy Young Award in 2015. It’s a hoot, although NSFW.)
Redshift
@Anne Laurie:
Remember, Boehner’s recent response when asked to comment on McCarthy’s situation was “you can’t get in trouble for things you don’t say!”
Glidwrith
@prostratedragon: If I were running a seditious party, this is the scenario I would run: don’t allow a Speaker to be elected. No Speaker means no legislation, especially no lifting of the debt ceiling. Alternatively, set it up so McCarthy is elected to fulfill the swearing in, then toss him out with no new Speaker. Still have no legislation, but now they have authority to run as many star chamber hearings as their little black hearts desire.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@CaseyL: McCarthy has a history of telling inconvenient truths, or he did up until a couple years ago, he’s the guy who was caught on tape telling Paul Ryan and a couple others that he thought trump was on the take from Putin
He also said out loud that the Benghazi hearings were a political ploy against Hillary Clinton.
Achrachno
@Chetan Murthy: Well, to be fair, not too many posts manage to get a BA from anywhere. Still, your general point stands.
Frankensteinbeck
Take a step back and look at this from another direction. Blithering incompetent McCarthy is the best the GOP has. No one else is competing with him that has enough support to be noticeable. The only other name that has even come up is Scalise, and we don’t know if he could get the job or how incompetent he might be because he says he doesn’t want it. This is it. McCarthy is the cream of the House GOP leadership crop. Isn’t that… sad?
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
We’re not going to default on the debt ceiling. McCarthy doesn’t have enough control over his caucus. If it comes down to it, enough GOPers will defect to join the Democrats to get it done. They’re really, really hoping that’s not necessary, though, and it probably isn’t. McCarthy is a spineless schmuck.
@craigie:
Why does anyone think this sounds like a good thing???
Redshift
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: That actually seems fair, since he keeps giving in to their demands and they respond by saying they still won’t support him.
Since he apparently wants to postpone announcing committee chairs until after the Speaker vote, I’ve read activations that he’s promised the same chairmanship to multiple people in return for support.
mrmoshpotato
Flawless disarray!
Glidwrith
@Redshift: They don’t think he will keep his word, hence the demand that they can throw him out at the drop of the elephant dung.
mrmoshpotato
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Was that Kevin McCarthy, Trey Howdy, or both?
CaseyL
@Redshift:
GQP Thunderdome: Two Committee Chairs enter… only one leaves.
Put that on PPV, and pay off a nice portion of the National Debt!
Ken
“Here come the scores… 6.0… 6.0… 6.0… 5.8 from the Russian judge… 6.0… 6.0…”
Redshift
@Frankensteinbeck:
Boehner was smart enough to see the GOP House had become ungovernable and quit. Paul Ryan accepted the post because he wasn’t smart enough to grasp that, and now the primary qualification for the job is being too stupid to avoid it. (Okay, that doesn’t narrow it down much; I guess it’s now being too stupid to avoid it and not so obnoxious that you can’t get minimal support.)
Ken
@CaseyL: Plus, after four matches the Republicans lose their majority. Three, if Santos gets extradited to Brazil.
Martin
@CaseyL: Ken Block also died today in a snowmachine accident. Rough sports day.
Captain C
@Frankensteinbeck:
If nothing else, there are probably still a dozen or so sane enough Republicans to realize that a Republican-caused default, even if temporary, would cause pretty much the entire business community (outside of a few ideological fanatics) to at least reconsider the entire notion of whether Republicans are the better party for business.
Martin
@Ken: If Santos is out, I’m guessing that district elects Zimmerman. Not like MTG getting run out where they’d find some other GOP idiot – the GOP loses NY-03.
HumboldtBlue
@Ken:
Hahaha
Captain C
@CaseyL: And if we get enough of them to take out each other, we may have at least a temporary Democratic majority after all.
ETA: Ken beat me to it and also noted the “George Santos” extradition possibility.
West of the Rockies
Yesterday NY Giant Thibodaux was doing a pretend snow angel inches from a player he just put into convulsions. I hope he feels like an A-hole.
mrmoshpotato
@mrmoshpotato: *Gowdy
Brachiator
Oh please, oh please, oh please….
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Martin:
Looked him up:
Goes to show death can happen at any time. Very sad
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@HumboldtBlue:
I have to ask: did I say anything wrong?
HumboldtBlue
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
Huh?
What have I missed?
eclare
Wow…I don’t know where Damar’s charity GoFundMe started, but it’s at $2.2M. The original goal was $2,500 for toys for underprivileged kids.
prostratedragon
I hsd the same problem with actor Kevin McCarthy, one of those people who wad in everything. Too bad he’s no longer around for the parody movie. Oddly enough, he was a relative of Sen. Eugene.
@Achrachno: I was thinking that might motivate them.
moops
Kevin in the bast the house has to offer. A leader of low quality and none suitable to step up.
Because the GOP no longer selects for leaders, or skills, or the ability to legislate, or caring about caring or leading. Now, it is racism and empty Republican shibboleths about their old platitudes. You can’t win a primary now if you have a brain in your skull and care about anything real.
The next Speaker when Kevin is dumped in a month will be worse. Then it will keep running down the gutter.
Mallard Filmore
@Glidwrith:
I have to wonder if any “sane” Republicans would choke on this and vote with the Democrats for a Speaker.
Hoppie
@mrmoshpotato: Oh. I thought that was deliberate….
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@HumboldtBlue:
Nothing, at all. I just wasn’t sure if I had said something wrong since you hadn’t answered me
Chetan Murthy
@moops:
You know your Party is in a parlous state when Marge Three Toes is trying to be the voice of sanity.
Aussie Sheila
@Chetan Murthy:
Not sanity. Power. I hope the Dems in the House pummel them over the next two years. I also hope that any attempt to refuse dealing with the debt limit meets with unyielding opposition from both the WH and the congressional Dem caucus.
No horse trading, no sops to deficit fetishism, no social security or Medicare deals-just nothing, until they do their legislative duty.
Let the electorate see clearly who and what they are, for once.
Chetan Murthy
@Aussie Sheila: I have bad news for you from the American electorate: they have *never* been able to properly assign blame. They assign it to the party in the White House. Part of the reason the Dems have to cave on the debt ceiling, on funding the government, is that shutdowns get blamed on the party in power, which is the Dems right now.
I don’t have to like it, but …. our electorate is pretty goddamn stupid.
NotMax
Lielander: The Sickening.
Steve in the ATL
@NotMax: in the end, there can be only one!
Amir Khalid
@CaseyL:
To become Speaker, he will happily bargain away the powers of the Speaker — that is, his ability to function as Speaker. Which leads me to conclude that, like TFG with the Presidency, he wants the Speaker’s title and privileges, and to hell with the actual job.
Aussie Sheila
@Chetan Murthy:
In the past I think you are right. The much vaunted ‘Madisonian Democracy’ does a good job of shielding political power from electoral accountability in the US.
However I think things have changed, not just in the Dem base, but also in the electorate at large. Of course a lot depends on how it is played by the Dem leadership. I have a lot of confidence in Biden, and I think Hakeem Jeffries will prove pretty wily.
HumboldtBlue
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
I think we’ve crossed wires (it’s OK, busy night here), because I’m now chuckling at how much fun one can have with the latest term I encountered — Thesbian.
There is a lot of word play there.
frosty
@Chetan Murthy: There’s always the Constitutional play – the debt of the United States will not be questioned and the Executive just blows off the Legislative bullshit. Or the trillion dollar coin. Whatever.
mrmoshpotato
@Hoppie: Just autoincorrect being funny.
Glidwrith
@Mallard Filmore: What constitutes sanity for these people? Their supporters have shown they would rather overthrow the government to maintain their delusion of supremacy. They kill themselves with Covid, rather than wear a mask. In their context, just five of them is enough to derail almost all federal governance.
I would start looking at the parliamentarian rules to determine how power of the House works when the Clerk is in charge or if a Speaker is chronically unavailable.
Martin
@Mallard Filmore: I think Adam Schiff suggested that wasn’t entirely out of the question. I wonder if they could get someone like Brian Fitzpatrick. It’d need to be an R, but an R that recognized that GOP only legislation was likely not possible if they couldn’t find consensus on a speaker within the party. Guessing the GOP would have to fail a lot for it to come to that.
different-church-lady
Idiot: you do not touch The Cup unless you have won The Cup.
Chetan Murthy
@Martin: I’m not sure why the GrOPers would find inability to pass legislation to be a problem. Anything they really need done, they can get their “super-legislature of six” to pass up at SCOTUS. And for the rest …. gridlock and dysfunction plays to their wheelhouse as the party of “government is bad and we will eliiminate it”. Look at how little they got done during TFG’s reign under Ryan.
I mean, *sure* it’ll look a little embarrassing. But for their Base and for their funders, it’s catnip. Why would they want to elect a Speaker with Dem support and end up passing legislation, when they can cavort in chaos and *not* pass legislation ? The *only* reason I can see for them to want to elect a Speaker, is that they cannot pass House rules, which means assigning committee members, until they elect a Speaker. And they need to do that, in order to start all those damn investigations, IIUC.
Steve in the ATL
@different-church-lady: same lesson for Ohio State and USC!
Geminid
@randy khan: Fred Upton is one of the 10 House Republican Impeachers. He would be anathema to the Republican caucus. I’m not sure Nebraska’s Don Bacon named Upton as his potential Speaker candidate. Other retired Congressmen like Tom Reed (NY) or Charlie Dent (PA) seem more suitable for the purpose.
Bacon may be floating this possibility as part of the public bargaining process, saying that his faction can nominate their own guy if McCarthy is not voted in and that Scalise would not have clear sailing on a second ballot.
That faction would be the purple district members who would be the most endangered if the Freedom Caucus holds the whip hand in the larger caucus.
Bacon himself barely hung on to his Omaha-based seat the last 3 cycles. He retired once already as an Air Force general and may not be planning on running again.
Geminid
@Martin: There might be a primary. A young, up-and-coming NY State Assemblyman is being mentioned as a potential Democratic candidate also. It being a special election, he would only have to give up his seat if he won the general election.
Betty
@Cheryl from Maryland: It was a heart attack. He is still in critical condition.
AM in NC
@Chetan Murthy: That was the thing that stood out to me in that WAPO (or was it NYT) article on her slide from “moderate, fun Havahd undergrad” to “former friends surprised by fascist”.
How do you not get into a single law school with a Harvard degree? Her LSATs must have been absolutely abysmal, and her writing ability must be high school level.
Plus, maybe the stench of fascism and ambitious greed-head may have put some admissions officers off their feed.
RAM
The philosophy Kevin has firmly embraced as he desperately strives to grasp the Speaker’s gavel: “Those are my principles, and if you don’t like them… well, I have others.” Groucho Marx.