Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Since when do we limit our critiques to things we could do better ourselves?

The GOP couldn’t organize an orgy in a whorehouse with a fist full of 50s.

Pessimism assures that nothing of any importance will change.

My years-long effort to drive family and friends away has really paid off this year.

Peak wingnut was a lie.

Reality always lies in wait for … Democrats.

Republicans in disarray!

Jesus, Mary, & Joseph how is that election even close?

Schmidt just says fuck it, opens a tea shop.

The words do not have to be perfect.

We cannot abandon the truth and remain a free nation.

It’s always darkest before the other shoe drops.

Insiders who complain to politico: please report to the white house office of shut the fuck up.

When your entire life is steeped in white supremacy, equality feels like discrimination.

A Senator Walker would also be an insult to reason, rationality, and decency.

… pundit janitors mopping up after the GOP

Something needs to be done about our bogus SCOTUS.

In my day, never was longer.

Some judge needs to shut this circus down soon.

Let me eat cake. The rest of you could stand to lose some weight, frankly.

When I decide to be condescending, you won’t have to dream up a fantasy about it.

Take hopelessness and turn it into resilience.

You don’t get rid of your umbrella while it’s still raining.

Let’s delete this post and never speak of this again.

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Open Thread: Us and Them

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Democratic Leadership Team

It’s 2023.  Can you guys find the white guy in this photo array of the new Democratic Leadership team in the House?

In Search of the White Male Leaders 3In Search of the White Male Leaders 1

In Search of the White Male Leaders 2In Search of the White Male Leaders

I didn’t think so. :-)

To paraphrase, with a bit of editorial license,  “Where the white women men at?

*This is a terrible photo of Hakeem Jeffries.  Who gets to choose the official photos?

Open thread.

 

Reader Interactions

205Comments

  2. 2.

    TaMara

    I was going to post about the Congressional Dems and their popcorn, but there are already a few posts waiting in the wings. So enjoy this thread of pictures of all the Dems bringing popcorn to the vote:

  6. 6.

    bbleh

    Is that an official official photo, or just some montage from like a news org?  Looks almost like they deliberately picked UNflattering photos, which makes me wonder.

    That said, they could have bloodshot eyes and dripping fangs and they STILL wouldn’t look as bad as the Republicans do right now.

  7. 7.

    PaulB

    From the last thread:

    And that’s it. McCarthy: 202; Jeffries: 212; Jordan: 20.

    The only change was Byron Donalds switching his vote from McCarthy to Jordan.

    Adding: Donalds, via his official Twitter account:

    “The reality is Rep. Kevin McCarthy doesn’t have the votes. I committed my support to him publicly and for two votes on the House Floor. 218 is the number, and currently, no one is there. Our conference needs to recess and huddle and find someone or work out the next steps…”

  13. 13.

    dmsilev

    @PaulB: If McCarthy truly does get turfed out, I think I’ll overdose on schadenfreude. Especially since, unlike Pelosi, I can’t see him serving as an an ordinary rank-and-file member for the rest of his term; he’ll probably slink away and resign his seat.

  18. 18.

    PaulB

    From dmsilev, in the prior thread, a comment too good to not repeat here:

    Math: over the course of three ballots, Gym has picked up one vote from Kevin. To reach 218 from his current 19, it will therefore take 597 additional ballots.

    Suck it, 1856 with your mere 133 ballots.

  19. 19.

    Redshift

    @dmsilev: I dunno, he might be deluded enough to think that if things go badly enough, they’ll beg him to take the job. I mean, he’s deluded enough to want to be the one marching at the head of this parade of clown cars…

  21. 21.

    WaterGirl

    If I were a sane Republican (oxymoron) on the next ballot I would vote for Hakeem as a message that everybody needs to cut the bullshit and get this done.  For someone.

  22. 22.

    Ken

    @PaulB: If repeats are allowed (and if this does run for months, we may need to repeat material), my response to dmsilev was:

    Ah, but consider the sequence.

    Ballot 1: McCarthy LOSES, 19 votes go to about five other names.

    Ballot 2: McCarthy LOSES, the same 19 votes coalesce around Jordan.

    Ballot 3: McCarthy LOSES, Jordan keeps the 19 and picks up one other.

    Clearly this is a fairly ham-fisted “Jordan as white knight riding to the rescue” narrative structure. Not that I would accuse anyone of having planned this in advance, though if that were the case, I would expect a bunch more switches to Jordan on the next ballot.

  23. 23.

    PaulB

    Honestly, would there really be that much difference between McCarthy and Jordan as Speaker?

    Repeating what I wrote below: Where this gets interesting, once this is all over, will be in the votes to raise the debt ceiling and to fund the government. Everything else, any Republican Speaker will go along with, no matter how crazy it is.

    Votes to ban CRT? To ban abortion? To ban transgender support of any kind? To ban children at drag shows? All good. Votes to impeach Biden and various members of his administration? Check. Votes to investigate the January 6th Committee? To investigate Hunter Biden? To investigate every aspect of the Biden administration? A-OK.

    But a vote to raise the debt ceiling? That’s a different story. The few sane Republicans left know just how much harm a default will cause, even if the crazy ones don’t know and don’t care.

    If a Republican Speaker allows an unconditional vote to raise the debt ceiling, the crazy caucus will go nuts and will trigger the doomsday clause to try to oust that Speaker. They will insist on blood before they will raise the debt ceiling, no matter how much harm a default will cause, both domestically and abroad. How that plays out, and whether Republicans will allow a few dozen people to send the country into default, I don’t think anyone can predict.

  24. 24.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    there are also no white men in the top offices of the MI state gov’t, too, but I wasn’t aware of this:

    uumichvoter @umichvoter

    Michigan Dems now run state government. Their state house caucus is 59% women and their state senate caucus is 65% women For the first time ever, a majority women caucus will control the agenda in both chambers

  26. 26.

    Mai Naem mobile

    I am going to have to make another trip to Costco for another case of microwave popcorn. I apparently  overestimated McCarthy.

  29. 29.

    FelonyGovt

    @PaulB: Reminds me of Monty Python: “218 is the number, and the number is 218…”

    ETA love that photo of my Congressman Ted Lieu with his popcorn!

  30. 30.

    CaseyL

    It would take a miracle on the order of loaves and fishes bags of popcorn on the Floor for Jeffries to get the Speakership… but if it did happen, the Democrats could have some real fun.  They’d be the de facto majority party: nothing could get done without their votes…

    -…or maybe not; there would have to be a Rule for that, for the minority-party-in-fact to act like the majority party.

    So, never mind.  But it was a fun fantasy!

  31. 31.

    dmsilev

    @PaulB: I feel I should add a cautionary note on the dangers of extrapolating, courtesy of Mark Twain:

    In the space of one hundred and seventy six years the Lower Mississippi has shortened itself two hundred and forty-two miles. That is an average of a trifle over a mile and a third per year. Therefore, any calm person, who is not blind or idiotic, can see that in the Old Oölitic Silurian Period, just a million years ago next November, the Lower Mississippi was upwards of one million three hundred thousand miles long, and stuck out over the Gulf of Mexico like a fishing-pole. And by the same token any person can see that seven hundred and forty-two years from now the Lower Mississippi will be only a mile and three-quarters long, and Cairo [Illinois] and New Orleans will have joined their streets together and be plodding comfortably along under a single mayor and a mutual board of aldermen. There is something fascinating about science. One gets such wholesale returns of conjecture out of such a trifling investment of fact.

  33. 33.

    WaterGirl

    @Suzanne: Not showing up would actually help Hakeem win.  But one vote for him?  That would be a threat to make clear that they are playing with fire.

    That’s my reasoning, anyway.

  34. 34.

    PaulB

    @Redshift: I dunno, he might be deluded enough to think that if things go badly enough, they’ll beg him to take the job.

    You beat me to it. I was just about to say the same thing.

    At this point, I can’t help thinking that no matter how insane we think it will be over the next two years, the reality will be insaner.

  36. 36.

    James E Powell

    @PaulB:

    Honestly, would there really be that much difference between McCarthy and Jordan as Speaker?

    Hard to know which one is more awful than the other. I wonder which one would work harder to undermine the other.

  37. 37.

    PaulB

    Apparently, there will be an attempt to adjourn until tomorrow, giving Republicans a chance to confer privately.

    Edited to add: And the motion passes with near unanimity. There was a loud “No”, but I don’t know who that was.

  38. 38.

    Tony Jay

    What kind of Party leader goes into a vote like this without a plan to win it? Without even the bare bones of a strategy?

    At the very barest minimum McCarthy should have let it be known that he’d give the Freedom Party Stalwarts who make up the GOP’s lunatic ‘fringe’ one single solitary chance to get with the program before he took himself off to stream wrestling documentaries in the Speaker’s Office and wait out however many further rounds of voting it took for the majority of his caucus to get the message across to the crazies that he was going to be elected Speaker.

    But that would have taken confidence, ability and strength of character, all of which Craven Kevin lacks in abundance, so instead this shitshow of shame is all he’s capable of orchestrating.

    What a terribly weak man.

  41. 41.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @James E Powell: I’m not an objective observer but to me Jordan radiates angry insanity. If you were Rip Van Winkle and woke up not knowing anything about politics for the last twenty years and you turned on cable news (as I think one would) Kevin McCarthy might make you think, “Well, he seems less crazy than bug-fuck Tom DeLay”. You’d look at Jordan for 90 seconds and think, “That boy ain’t right”

  44. 44.

    PaulB

    @Tony Jay: Without even the bare bones of a strategy?

    Oh, he had a strategy: grovel and cave and give them everything they want in order to get their votes. Strange that it didn’t work. Yet.

    And the House is now adjourned until noon tomorrow.

  45. 45.

    Jeffro

    I just CANNOT imagine being a member of a party whose leaders include trumpov, McCarthy, McConnell, Jordan, and the rest.  It would drive me right out of following politics for years and possibly forever.

    Thank the FSM for our inspiring leadership on the D side!  Nobody’s perfect, but whew, they’re awfully good (and they look godlike in comparison with the Rs.)

  46. 46.

    Bill Arnold

    Two charged with attacks on four Pierce County power substations (DoJ, January 3, 2023)
    That’s in Washington (State). From the DoJ release, looks like it was basic OPSEC failures by these (white) guys, who apparently did not realize that they were carrying tracking devices. (bold mine)

    According to the criminal complaint filed with the court late Saturday, December 31, 2022, and unsealed today, the two men were identified as possible suspects through the analysis of cell phone records. At one of the substations, Tacoma Power captured images of one suspect and the image of a pick-up truck that appeared to be connected with the attack. A similar pick-up truck was connected to the defendants.

  47. 47.

    Matt McIrvin

    @PaulB: The thing about a clean vote to raise the debt ceiling is that the Democrats get a vote too, and all the Democrats will be for it. So the Republicans’ crazy caucus doesn’t matter; all that matters is whether a few individual Republicans will defect and support that. They wouldn’t do it to elect Jeffries as speaker, but avoiding default? Sure. Well, maybe.

    The only thing that kills it is if the Republicans try to strongarm the Democrats into voting for some bill that has a conservative poison pill in it.

  48. 48.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @David ⛄ 🎅The Establishment🎄 🦌 🕎 Koch:

    Jake Sherman @JakeSherman 1m
    TOM COLE has moved to adjourn until NOON WEDNESDAY

    THE MOTION has been adopted without a roll call vote

    I’m a little surprised it happened this early. I guess a lot of them had small kids and older parents there for the ceremony (that did not happen?

    ETA: I also thought Tom Cole had retired.

  49. 49.

    Brachiator

    @WaterGirl:

    If I were a sane Republican (oxymoron) on the next ballot I would vote for Hakeem as a message that everybody needs to cut the bullshit and get this done.  For someone.

    I was just reading a NYT op-ed piece noting that the Constitution does not say that the Speaker must be a current member of Congress, and which goes on to suggest that a Republican who is not a current member be voted on, and that the Founders wanted to try to reduce partisan politics by permitting an option.

    But if Congress voted for an outsider, why should the choices be limited to Republicans?

    In the UK, the speaker resigns from the party they belong to, to be neutral. There could still be bias.

    Congress could vote for a Democrat. How about Obama? Yeah, it will never happen. But the GOP could do worse.

  53. 53.

    PAM Dirac

    @PaulB:

    How that plays out, and whether Republicans will allow a few dozen people to send the country into default, I don’t think anyone can predict.

    I predict that there will be a bill to prevent default. First, that bill will come up in 5-6 months and I think the R position will be much worse then than it is now. Right now nobody is talking about how drumpf supported McCarthy and McCarthy’s failure is a drumpf failure as well. The power of the crazies will only diminish. Second, I think there is a lot big money people that will be quite persuasive to purple district reps that a default will be not tolerated. I don’t think the crazies will have much they can threaten them with and they will stand a much better chance of re-election with big money and no crazies, then no big money and the crazies support. Now I think this would be a one off, maybe a discharge petition, and not necessarily carry over to anything else, but I think it will get done.

  56. 56.

    Kayla Rudbek

    I’ve been trying to work this afternoon, but y’all are much more funnier than the current messes I’m trying to unsnarl and that I was putting off until this new quarter. And I live in a company town where the company is national politics, so I do need to keep up with current events…

  57. 57.

    piratedan

    something that comes to mind in regards to the usual GOP mindset… I sit back and think about all of the Reps, new and old, that brought their families to the Capitol today in order to see the rewards of Mom or Dad holding office and taking pride in their efforts and sacrifices and what do they get?

    GOP Clown Show and everyone is elect and no one is official… isn’t that special?

  58. 58.

    different-church-lady

    @Brachiator: ​
     

    the Constitution does not say that the Speaker must be a current member of Congress, and which goes on to suggest that a Republican who is not a current member be voted on

    Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome the next Speaker of the House, Alex Jones!

  61. 61.

    Tony Jay

    @PaulB:

    Yeah, but the grovelling and the caving is supposed to come before the floor vote, not during it.

    And now I can’t unsee McCarthy as that weirdo creep in Speedos explaining to the camera crew why he loves coming to Club Hedonism.

    “The grovelling and the caving, baby, the grovelling and the caving”  growls Speedo Kevin as he dry-humps the chamber floor and maintains eye contact while flicking his tongue between two moistened fingers. (shudder)

  62. 62.

    p.a.

    The plot is convoluted, the acting amateurish, the characters unlikable, but it is coming back for another day!  Set design is a plus: very realistic.

  63. 63.

    Suzanne

    @WaterGirl: Yeah, but a “warning” vote for Hakeem, if you’re in the GOP, would be an albatross on you forever. A career destroyer. But being strategically absent signals that they have to get their shit together, without the actual personal risk of the vote.

  64. 64.

    Edmund Dantes

    This was a misplay by the Dems. Should have applied maximum pressure until about midnight. Then let gop adjourn so they have to stay up all night strategizing or yelling at each other till they came back at noon.

  66. 66.

    David ⛄ 🎅The Establishment🎄 🦌 🕎 Koch

    Former Republican congress critter David Jolly is on MSNBC saying Kevin will throw in the towel either tonight or tomorrow morning.

  67. 67.

    sdhays

    @Tony Jay: I don’t see how the people on the less-batshit-insane wing don’t get angry at Kevin for being so spineless. At some point, you’d expect some of them to do something to show that they have a vote here too.

  74. 74.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Brachiator: First, this isn’t the UK.  We are going to get a neutral Speaker when hell freezes over. Second, no to Obama.

  75. 75.

    Tony Jay

    @sdhays:

    At the end of the day, even the least-crazy elements of the GOP House caucus are members of the 2023-era Republican Party and all have Primaries to worry about in two years.

    Meaning these are not the best people. They might be furious, but all they’re realistically going to do to express it is bail on Speedo Kevin and obediently vote for whoever gets coughed up by their fucked up Gauntlet of a nomination process.

  78. 78.

    FelonyGovt

    This is great: Nancy Pelosi was quoted as saying that she had hoped Republicans would unite since they are in the majority, but “that’s their problem”.

    😀😀😀

  79. 79.

    Roger Moore

    @dmsilev:

    Especially since, unlike Pelosi, I can’t see him serving as an an ordinary rank-and-file member for the rest of his term; he’ll probably slink away and resign his seat.

    There’s a big difference between retiring from your leadership position on your own terms and being rejected by your caucus.

  80. 80.

    Cameron

    I’m glad they adjourned.  All it took was those three votes, and I had “99 Bottles of Beer on the Wall” starting to run through my head.

  81. 81.

    Tony Jay

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    To be honest we don’t have a neutral Speaker in the UK either. We have a cowardly custard tartlet who may have once been a Labour ‘moderate’ but is now little more than a pearl-clutching yes-man overtly doing whatever he has to do to ‘earn’ the seat in the House of Lords his mouthy predecessor was denied.

  83. 83.

    PAM Dirac

    @Brachiator:

    Congress could vote for a Democrat. How about Obama? Yeah, it will never happen. But the GOP could do worse.

    I think the vote for the Speaker is kind of irrelevant for now. There is no governing majority no matter what kind of tricks are played to get a Speaker in place. Whoever gets in could be gone within days. That’s why I think the Ds should just ignore the situation for now. There is no point in grabbing a few Rs to elect a D Speaker or at least a D acceptable Speaker if that Speaker can’t do anything or gets overruled and/or booted out for trying to do anything. You have get enough Rs to really commit to some sort of agenda. If the only thing they will agree to is a clean debt ceiling bill, just do that by discharge petition and let the clowns beclown themselves on everything else. If there is enough agreement for a limited, but real agenda, then work it out ahead of time and get the votes lined up for more than just Speaker before you dive in. That point most likely will never come, but if it does, it will only happen after enough purple reps are sick enough of the clowns to make a substantial commitment to working with the Ds and I can’t see any possibility of that happening with out a lot more R humiliation. For now there is time to let that happen.

  84. 84.

    Brachiator

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    First, this isn’t the UK.  We are going to get a neutral Speaker when hell freezes over. Second, no to Obama.

    I am just having fun watching the GOP jump through hoops to vote for a Speaker.

    And if not Obama, how about Hillary?

  85. 85.

    sdhays

    @Tony Jay: I just wonder if they have enough self-respect to extract concessions from Gym Jordan the way Gaetz et al have.

    Actually, I don’t wonder.

  86. 86.

    mrmoshpotato

    @Cameron:

    I’m glad they adjourned. All it took was those three votes, and I had “99 Bottles of Beer on the Wall” starting to run through my head. 

    🎶Take one down, shitshow all around…🎶

  87. 87.

    Geminid

    The Caucus Chairman, Representative Aguilar, could be called “the other Mayor Pete.” He was Mayor of Redlands, California before he flipped a Republican seat in 2014. Pete Aguilar is only 43 years old, so he must have been a fairly young mayor.

    Redlands is in interior Southern California, near San Bernardino.

  88. 88.

    Matt McIrvin

    @PAM Dirac: Remember, the bill to prevent default doesn’t have to get a unanimous vote of Republicans, just a majority of the House. If it’s not odious to Democrats they will vote for it. Now, if the bill is, like Kevin McCarthy, odious to both Democrats and the craziest 9 or 10 Republicans, then we have a problem. But there are options for the Congress to get to something passing. Here, Democrats have no incentive to help them.

  90. 90.

    Another Scott

    Norm!:

    Norman Ornstein @NormOrnstein

    Just a few observations on the House. Most important, what “analysis” i have heard on cable is shallow. The exception is

    @DavidJollyFL

    who understands the motive of most of McCarthy’s opponents. It is not policy or concessions. He is an untrustworthy opportunist.
    5:17 PM · Jan 3, 2023

    Opponents know whatever McCarthy promises today he will snatch away tomorrow if he gets a better deal. They saw him condemn Trump on the House floor after January 6 and then go down to Mar-A-Lago to kiss his tush. He is weak and shallow. Not new—it played out this way in 2015.

    But if not Qevin, who?? Their burn it all down and teach Qevin a lesson tactic doesn’t get them anything if there is no Speaker and they can’t take office…

    Scalise must be boxing up his stuff and getting ready for the move to the big office… Unless the knives come out for him too…

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  91. 91.

    lowtechcyclist

    @TooManyJens: ​
     

    IJS, if I were Biden, I’d have someone low-key looking into minting The Coin.

    Also having the Solicitor General prepare a legal argument that, if push comes to shove, Section 4 of the Fourteenth Amendment (“The validity of the public debt of the United States…shall not be questioned”) takes precedence over the debt limit.

  93. 93.

    Scout211

    So think about California jackals tomorrow . . . Link

    The National Weather Service’s Bay Area office issued a frank and dire warning to citizens in a statement, saying the storm, which is currently forecast to begin peaking Tuesday night and Wednesday morning, could bring about flooding and the loss of life.

    “To put it simply, this will likely be one of the most impactful systems on a widespread scale that this meteorologist has seen in a long while,” the warning read. “The impacts will include widespread flooding, roads washing out, hillside collapsing, trees down (potentially full groves), widespread power outages, immediate disruption to commerce, and the worst of all, likely loss of human life. This is truly a brutal system that we are looking at and needs to be taken seriously.”

    A flood watch has been issued for the entire Bay Area from 4 a.m. Wednesday through 4 p.m. Thursday, with some areas expected to get up to 10 inches of rain. Wind gusts are expected to hit 50 mph, equivalent to a moderate tropical storm. Those are expected to peak between Wednesday afternoon and midnight.

  94. 94.

    lowtechcyclist

    @Cameron:

    I’m glad they adjourned. All it took was those three votes, and I had “99 Bottles of Beer on the Wall” starting to run through my head.

    At least with “99 Bottles of Beer,” each verse doesn’t take an hour and a half to sing.

  96. 96.

    Ken

    @Matt McIrvin: Here, Democrats have no incentive to help them.

    So it appears, but I’m sure that any number of Serious Media People are even now putting together hard-hitting pieces on the Fundamental Importance of a functional Congress, and the need for Democrats to reach across the aisle and work with Republicans to elect a Speaker.

    And when they read those pieces, the Democrats will laugh and make more popcorn.

  97. 97.

    WaterGirl

    One could almost say that Donald J. Trump is either the Pandora’s box or the albatross hung around Republican necks.

    Either way, they made this bed and we all have to live in it.

  98. 98.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    many phone calls, dozens and hundreds of phone calls, big strong phone calls like you’ve never seen before with tears in their eyes, saying, “Sir…”

    Garrett Haake @GarrettHaake

    EXCLUSIVE: Former President Trump declined to say if he’s sticking by his endorsement of Kevin McCarthy for speaker tonight, telling me in a brief phone interview he’s had calls all day asking for support, and “We’ll see what happens. We’ll see how it all works out.”

  102. 102.

    Yutsano

    @Brachiator: ​

    In the UK, the speaker resigns from the party they belong to, to be neutral. There could still be bias.

    Stop making me miss Bercow dammit! Better yet…how would his family feel about a couple years in the Colonies?

  103. 103.

    TS

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    First, this isn’t the UK.  We are going to get a neutral Speaker when hell freezes over

    My limited knowledge of US political structures is that the US Speaker of the House is more like  the Westminster system Prime Minister than their Speaker. In the latter systems the PM is the leader of the majority party in the Commons (lower house with other names in different countries). The Speaker in a Westminster system has no political power, he/she simply controls the members in the house, the PM decides on legislation brought to the floor.

    In the US the Speaker is the leader of the majority party in the House of Reps & controls both the process and the content of what is debated.

    Of course some of the powers of a PM are also undertaken by the US President, the two systems use many of the same terms but are very different in operation.

  104. 104.

    James E Powell

    Somehow we need people on the news saying, “No disrespect to American voters, but it was a big mistake to vote for these people.”

  107. 107.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Ken: One nice side effect of jumping from Twitter to Mastodon is that it provides an opportunity to reexamine how I decide who to follow there. One person I just followed expressed surprise that the Democrats weren’t caving preemptively in the name of bipartisanship or comity and said it was nice to see them, “for once, not being spineless dinks.”

    Sorry, that’s an unfollow. But if it’s getting through even to performative anti-Democrat leftists that the Democrats are united, I guess progress is happening.

  108. 108.

    TooManyJens

    @WaterGirl:

    It’s nice to be back!

    After more or less bailing on Twitter, I finally went and shook the dust off of my RSS reader (and made a mastodon account). I missed the blogosphere, damn it.

  113. 113.

    Matt McIrvin

    @TS: Right, the US has a separation between the legislative and executive branches that does not exist in a Westminster system–our President is the head of government. But in terms of the legislature alone, the Speaker of the House is more like the PM in the sense of being the majority party leader in the lower house.

    …Another difference is that our Senate is far more powerful than the House of Lords as I understand it, and also popularly elected. The Speaker has no role in the Senate. There, the Vice-President is theoretically President of the Senate, though in practice her role is more a formality in day-to-day work unless her tie-breaking vote is needed, as it has been very frequently of late. And there is a separate Senate Majority Leader.

  119. 119.

    stinger

    @Dorothy A. Winsor: It wouldn’t surprise me at all to learn that he’d been molested as a child. It would explain his angry energy, his looking the other way as a coach, his constant shouting to get  attention no matter how negative, etc.

  121. 121.

    Feathers

    @SiubhanDuinne: It is true that the terms “cheese” and “caramel” can cover a fairly wide varieties of flavor profiles.

    It’s like poutine, tasty, because it’s neither the cheese nor the gravy you are imagining.

  122. 122.

    MisterForkbeard

    @zhena gogolia: Stefanik makes sense, actually. Remember when we elected Obama and they made a black guy RNC chair just so they could pretend they weren’t racist and clap back at Dems?

    Pelosi leaves. They might get a lot of jollies out of ‘identity politics’ of pwning libs by electing a female speaker. And Stefanik is both establishment AND crazy, because everyone knows she has no morals or principles. I could see it.

  125. 125.

    zhena gogolia

    @MisterForkbeard: I know it makes sense for them, because she is one of the most loathsome people who ever lived. But I was reacting for myself. The less of Stefanik I see, the better. McCarthy looks like an angel next to her.

    She’s worse than Greene or Boebert because she most certainly knows better.

  126. 126.

    Feathers

    Forgot to post what I came here for! Catherine Clark is my Congresswoman and I am so happy and proud for her! She is awesome.

  127. 127.

    MagdaInBlack

    I spent the day in bed, down comforter, sweat pants and sweatshirt, chills and my skin hurts ( neg to covid.)  I still think I had a way better day than Kevin McCarthy. Jeezuz these people are useless.

  128. 128.

    Righteous Hazard

    The GOP base runs off of two things: a Daddy, and his targets of humiliation. Isn’t hard to guess which category McCarthy falls into.

    An ideal betting market for predicting the  behavior of the GOP caucus for the next two years should be based not on votes, but on who gets to play daddy (did you get a load of Chip Roy’s burlesque?), and how much humiliation can any given vote dole out to RINOs and Dems who foolishly attempt to do the work of government.

  132. 132.

    Wapiti

    @PaulB: would there really be that much difference between McCarthy and Jordan as Speaker?

    Jordan as Speaker means he doesn’t get to chair the Hunter’s penis investigation.

  133. 133.

    karen marie

    @zhena gogolia: If I had to put money on any of them, it would be her.  She doesn’t have the obvious baggage that plagues the rest of the so-called leaders.

  134. 134.

    Another Scott

    Warning – TheHill:

    The opposition — and the embarrassing scene it created on the House floor on Tuesday — infuriated McCarthy’s supporters, who accused the detractors of empowering Biden and the Democrats on the very day Republicans were taking control of the lower chamber.

    Rep. Daniel Crenshaw, a third-term Texas Republican, called McCarthy’s opponents “political terrorists” who had put Republicans on a “path to suicide and getting Biden reelected in ’24.”

    Other McCarthy allies accused the detractors of being obstructionists without offering any concrete ideas — or putting forward a viable Speaker candidate — of their own.

    “When asked point blank what they wanted, they had no answer,” said an angry Rep. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.).

    [ womp, womp ]

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  139. 139.

    MisterForkbeard

    @zhena gogolia: True, but the upside from all this is that Stefanik is… just noticeably awful. Boebert and Greene are nasty people and insane, for example. Stefanik is elitist, condescending, but not quick witted and just comes across as a deceptive ass every time I listen to her.

    Probably better for the country if she got it than Kevin. She’ll make them look even worse but govern exactly the same.

  140. 140.

    different-church-lady

    @Another Scott: ​

    Rep. Daniel Crenshaw, a third-term Texas Republican, called McCarthy’s opponents “political terrorists”

    Dan, have you not been paying attention the past few years?​
     

    “When asked point blank what they wanted, they had no answer,” said an angry Rep. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.).

    Like Johnny Rotten said: “All we’re trying to do is destroy everything.”

  141. 141.

    Tony Jay

    @Frank Wilhoit:

    Buskers? Sure they have plans. Turn up, play the popular tunes, hope nice people like them enough to hang around with them and…. ahhhhhhh, I see what you mean.

  142. 142.

    BR

    @Matt McIrvin: ​

    Yeah, Mastodon has really good mute and filter features too. There’s no algorithm pushing nonsense to me, and I can follow who I want, filter among the things they post to filter out things that are tiresome and/or mute individual users for specific durations. (Like if someone is live reporting sports that I’m not interested in, or some political event, or whatever.)

  145. 145.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    Every once in a while I like Jake Tapper

    Peter Sagal @petersagal 23m

    A while ago, on CNN: Analyst: You remember that after Newt Gingrich resigned, Republicans managed to find a consensus candidate to be Speaker.

    @jaketapper: Yes, a child molester.

  152. 152.

    eachother

    “The reality is Rep. Kevin McCarthy doesn’t have the votes. I committed my support to him publicly and for two votes on the House Floor. 218 is the number, and currently, no one is there. Our conference needs to recess and huddle and find someone or work out the next steps…”

    I do not believe Cheat-o wrote the above.  Too coherent.

  154. 154.

    CaseyL

    @cain: ​
     

    Yes, but no. Andrew McCarthy is a relatively recent actor. There was indeed a Kevin McCarthy, chiefly famous for the original “Invasion of the Body Snatchers” (and who played a tiny cameo in the 1978 remake).

  156. 156.

    cain

    The title is clearly a reference to the Pink Floyd song – “Us and Them”

    The follow up song is should be:

    Bon Jovi – “You Give Love a Bad Name”

    “Shot through the heart, and you’re too blame, darlin Lauren Boebert gave y’alls a bad name”

  157. 157.

    PaulB

    @eachother: That was Donalds, as in Florida Representative Byron Donalds, explaining why he switched his vote to Jordan on the third ballot. That wasn’t Trump.

  160. 160.

    Alison Rose

    All the popcorn talk and pics made me nostalgic for the old-school one we had when I was a kid. I Googled “old school orange popcorn maker” and lo and behold, this was it! It was great because you’d flip it over and the orange top doubled as a server. I loved watching as the popcorn slowly filled it up.

  161. 161.

    TS

    @MagdaInBlack:

     Jeezuz these people are useless

    Given they can’t elect a speaker, useless is the polite way to describe what is now called the GOP. They care not one wit about the US, the people, or anything else. They thrive on the negative, on making sure if they aren’t getting it all, no-one has anything.

    From the outside, it is quite devastating to see what trump & his allies have done to the US.  I did not expect this in my lifetime. The amazing thing is that it may not be terminal – and for that Biden & Pelosi can take the credit

  163. 163.

    James E Powell

    @MisterForkbeard:

    True, but the upside from all this is that Stefanik is… just noticeably awful.

    I think we have to prepare ourselves for a massive campaign, led by the FTFNYT, to make her seem like American’s Best Congressperson. She will take the gavel away from McCarthy, sadly, but for the good of the nation.

  164. 164.

    Brachiator

    @Matt McIrvin:

    Right, the US has a separation between the legislative and executive branches that does not exist in a Westminster system–our President is the head of government. But in terms of the legislature alone, the Speaker of the House is more like the PM in the sense of being the majority party leader in the lower house.

    You are correct here, but I don’t know that the Founders originally wanted the Congress to devolve into factions or parties. This happened almost immediately, but the Speaker, I think, was supposed to manage the entire Congress, not just the majority party.

    I think this just kinda quietly happened without anyone making any noise about it.

  165. 165.

    eachother

    @PaulB:

    Too articulate for Cheat-o.

    Today is living history day.  Tomorrow, I hope the clowns wear clown clothes for easier identification.

    In addition to popcorn, bring peanuts in shells to the House floor.  Elephants in the house.

  166. 166.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @James E Powell:

    True, but the upside from all this is that Stefanik is… just noticeably awful.

    I think we have to prepare ourselves for a massive campaign, led by the FTFNYT, to make her seem like American’s Best Congressperson.

    The New York Times ran this article on Stefanik about 48 hours ago. It is not flattering.

    The Invention of Elise Stefanik
    To rise through the Trump-era G.O.P., a young congresswoman gave up her friends, her mentors and her ideals. Will it be enough?

  167. 167.

    jnfr

    When all the Dems stood up to applaud Jeffries, without even thinking I stood up here at my desk and applauded with them. I think Dems are doing us proud right now, all giggles on the House side and the Senate moving like a well-oiled machine.

  168. 168.

    James E Powell

    @WaterGirl:

    Except she’s kind of attractive in a traditional sense, and I think that gets her 10 extra points with males.

    I try to avoid talking about female politicians’ looks because it’s sexist and, after all, it’s in the eye, etc., but I don’t think Stefanik is attractive to men generally in any way. Kind of generic, kind of “Karen.” No points.

  169. 169.

    Ken

    Until our nightly Musk schadenfreude thread goes up, I’ll just leave this here:  Tesla stock dropped 15 points today, and if it does that again tomorrow it will go below 100, which some have speculated would be a margin-call trigger.

    Also if you’re quick, and do a Google search for “tesla stock”, their price graph has a weird spike in the after-hours trading. It looks like at 5:10 someone bought shares at $160, more than $50 over the price.  Glitch, or the sort of silly games that earn a call from the SEC?

  170. 170.

    Feathers

    @Geminid: Now you’ve got me curious about where the nearby cranberry farms might be. All the ones I know of are on the Cape or the south shore.

  173. 173.

    MisterForkbeard

    @Ken: And if it does it for a week more, it’ll be $0!

    Glad to see it’s going down to a more reasonable amount, and I hope it keeps sliding. But past performance is no predictor, etc :/

  174. 174.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Ken:

    It looks like at 5:10 someone bought shares at $160, more than $50 over the price.  Glitch, or the sort of silly games that earn a call from the SEC?

    or some kind of option ploy gone very wrong? it would have to be a big position to register on that kind of graph, wouldn’t it?

  175. 175.

    David ⛄ 🎅The Establishment🎄 🦌 🕎 Koch

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: ​
     

    3..2..1.. “I don’t know Kevin McCarthy. I’ve never met him. I wouldn’t know what he looked like if he was standing next to me.”

  176. 176.

    Captain C

    @Ken:

    So it appears, but I’m sure that any number of Serious Media People are even now putting together hard-hitting pieces on the Fundamental Importance of a functional Congress, and the need for Democrats to reach across the aisle and work with Republicans to elect a Speaker.

    I imagine these have substantial overlap with the Serious Media People who are calling for Ukraine to allow itself to be exterminated by Russia in the name of peace.

  178. 178.

    StringOnAStick

    @Ken: Some of that could be short covering.  As I recall, Telsa had a lot of shorts (shares borrowed to sell, betting you’d be able to buy them back cheaper at a later date), so the short side has been pretty crowded for a long time; it could be some of those shorts taking some profits on the trade.  After hours trades are notoriously thin, so the price action can be wild.

    It was all the shorting of Tesla stock that had that twit in a tizzy many times, frantic to hit them back because shorting “his” stock was an insult to his amazingness.  Now with each round of short covering, the price recovers a little, then resumes it’s slide down to reality.  Elmo hates that.  Plus, he will be getting more margin calls to put up $ to cover his loans, which will also pressure the stock as he sells to cover his loan principle.  The shine is way, way off that rose now; too bad, so sad.

  179. 179.

    Miss Bianca

    @Another Scott:

    “When asked point blank what they wanted, they had no answer,” said an angry Rep. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.).

    Whoa…sounds like even *Republicans* are starting to get it about Republicans!

  181. 181.

    Geminid

    @TS: Trump may not have succeeded in wrecking our nation, but he’s done a good job so far wrecking the Republican Party!

  183. 183.

    David ⛄ 🎅The Establishment🎄 🦌 🕎 Koch

    McCarthy is so desperate that he's about to call Brad Raffensperger asking him to find him 15 more votes.
    — Elie Mystal (@ElieNYC) January 3, 2023

    😂

  185. 185.

    Geminid

    @WaterGirl: I think you are right here. At least, one of the reasons I think Tulsi Gabbard could be a good 3rd-party presidential candidate is that she’s a looker.

  187. 187.

    David ⛄ 🎅The Establishment🎄 🦌 🕎 Koch

    Tesla stock continued to crash falling a further down by (12.24%)– TODAY

    Share price has plummeted (71.79%) in the past year.

  188. 188.

    Geminid

    @Geminid: Not Rice, dammit! Katherine Clark is in the Cranberry Caucus.

    Sometimes I think I should fire my proofreader. But he’s family.

  190. 190.

    danielx

    At what point does TFG start referring to “My Kevin” as a loser whom he barely knows?​
     Oops beaten to it at #98

  191. 191.

    lowtechcyclist

    @Ken: ​
     

    I fudged a bit, because I didn’t know when they’d be holding this vote in 2025 — the 3rd will be a Friday, so maybe it will move to the 6th?

    The beginning of a Congress at noon on January 3rd is set by Section 1 of the 20th Amendment, and Section 2 says they will meet that day unless they pass a law setting a different date.

    I think they’ve legislated that if the 3rd falls on a Sunday, they move it to the following day, but that would be about the extent of it.

  192. 192.

    Anyway

    @Geminid:

    Ah, that’s great. I kinda expected that but they sometimes make idiosyncratic votes when the outcome is not in doubt,

  195. 195.

    Baud

    Watching MSNBC.  I wouldn’t mind it if that black lady who announced the votes ran the House if the Republicans can’t elect a Speaker.

  196. 196.

    Ken

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: @StringOnAStick: That makes sense, and of course we have to remember that this trade went very right for whoever sold the shares.

    A year ago Tesla was close to 400, so an option to sell shares at 160 would have been pretty cheap. Or, this might have been a case where person A said it would surely fall, person B said put your money where your mouth is, and they struck a deal which, I’m sure, B at the time thought was pure profit.

    Be funnier if B turned out to be Musk.

  198. 198.

    Ken

    @Geminid: Trump may not have succeeded in wrecking our nation, but he’s done a good job so far wrecking the Republican Party!

    “And that, class, is why although he died in prison after his conviction for treason, some historians view his political career as a success.”

  200. 200.

    David ⛄ 🎅The Establishment🎄 🦌 🕎 Koch

    Rep. Kevin McCarthy told his fellow Republicans “I earned this job” during a heated conference meeting Tuesday morning

    “I can handle things I’m smart — not like everyone says — dumb. I’m smart and I want respect!”

  205. 205.

    J R in WV

    @Anyway:

    Did The Squad vote for Jeffries?

    Yes, the Democratic party was unanimous yesterday. For all the good that did us !

    Last?

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