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Home » Speaker squeaker: on the battle behind and the battle ahead

Speaker squeaker: on the battle behind and the battle ahead

The New Neo Posted on by

One thing I can say about last night is that it certainly was dramatic.

Another thing is that nearly every article I read points out that McCarthy is now weakened. He’s certainly weakened by the rule change that allows a single GOP member of Congress to call for what amounts to a vote on whether to remove him (motion to vacate), but prior to that change the rule apparently was that five people could do it, and he had more than five who greatly opposed him already anyway.

But as far as “weak” goes otherwise – I think that the tiny GOP majority in this session would have made any GOP Speaker somewhat weak, because the party is so divided and a few members of either wing can bolt and hold up the works. It remains to be seen how weak or strong he really will be, but I think some weakness was already inherent because of the small size of the GOP margin.

I also think that in a little while these beginnings won’t matter; what will matter is what actually happens when Congress is in session. And because the Senate and presidency are in Democrat hands, the power of the House is mostly to say “no” to things the Democrats would otherwise be doing, as well as to investigate a lot of events and machinations that have cried out for investigation.

From Tucker Carlson, with whom I agree on this (stated on Thursday night, before the final votes):

If you want to be the guy who’s second in line from the presidency in America, you’ve got to work for it. And Kevin McCarthy certainly has worked for it this week, whatever you think of him. You get the feeling McCarthy would crawl naked through a sewer to get this gig. And that’s not necessarily an insult, by the way. It’s what it takes, obviously. Maybe it’s what it should take.

So if you take a deep breath and you think about it for a second, nothing we have seen in Washington recently, the supposedly apocalyptic world-ending drama of politicians arguing with each other, none of it qualifies as especially unusual or even bad.

In the comments today, commenter “MBunge” had this to say:

So, the guy no one can actually explain WHY he should be third in line for the White House becomes Speaker after several days of public embarrassment by making “concessions,” most of which should have been no-brainer things for a Republican-led House to do in the first place. Do I have that right?

No, I don’t think he has that right.

First of all, no one campaigns for Speaker or justifies a candidate for Speaker by saying why that person should be third (or second, if you leave out the president, so it depends where you start the count) in line for the White House. Although every Speaker is second/third in line, it’s not ordinarily the reason that person is elected, and few of them would qualify to be president or even be a desirable president.

However, plenty of people have explained why McCarthy would be a good Speaker, which is the real issue. You may not care for their reasoning or for them, but they’ve certainly explained it. It’s instructive to look at articles that attempt to explain it, such as this Federalist piece on the subject from October of 2022. One of the people promoting McCarthy for Speaker was Jordan.

Lastly, I think it’s good to put “concessions” in scare quotes. The reason I think it belongs there is that there is a frequent assumption that all the things in those rules were concessions that McCarthy would not otherwise have agreed to without the extreme pressure. I submit that some of them were just that (the vacate rule that diminished his power, for example, making it easier to have a vote to get rid of him), and some were things he would have done anyway. Which were which? We don’t know for sure, although I think there are clues in that Federalist article I linked.

You may say that was just hot air, and that without the recent fracas McCarthy wouldn’t have done a thing except appease the left, and that may end up happening all too frequently anyway. I say what I often say: wait and see. But don’t expect him to have the power to pass conservative legislation that the Senate will approve and Biden will sign.

Comments

Speaker squeaker: on the battle behind and the battle ahead — 54 Comments

  1. But don’t expect him to have the power to pass conservative legislation that the Senate will approve and Biden will sign.

    I don’t. But it’s not what I worry about. What I worry about is his allowing the Left to get what they want in exchange for GOPe pork. If they were willing to do without the pork, they could block any bad thing coming down the pike, except a Justice or a treaty. Yeah, the media will blame them for any consequences of obstruction and what is else is new. Every Republican in the news is Hitler for 15 minutes.

    The lengths the Dems were willing to go to pass Obamacare, that’s kind of hardball I’d expect a genuine opposition party to play against Biden and the Senate in stopping the Left for two years. I’m prepared to see them not do it. I’m happy to be proven wrong, but I don’t predict I will be.

  2. Y’know, it seems to me that, had last fall’s red ripple been a red wave, no concessions to Kevin McCarthy would have been necessary, since McCarthy would have garnered more than sufficient votes without the right-rebels’ stubborn stand. So far, so good.

    Now . . . were those concessions substantive, or mere words? Stay tuned, folks.

  3. The “vacate rule” is merely another anti-conservative manuever, the GOP shooting itself in both feet.
    The House GOP need to link itself arm to arm and fight the Democrats, which a few GOPers will not do, to the harm of all non-socialist Americans. The GOP would rather fight its own than the enemy.
    The battle is between Democratic Goliaths and some, not all, GOP Davids.
    The American future remains bleak, IMO. The House’s sole major power is that all financial bills must originate therein. I am not optimistic the GOP House will put Biden on a fiscal starvation diet.

  4. The “vacate rule” is merely another anti-conservative manuever, the GOP shooting itself in both feet.
    The House GOP need to link itself arm to arm and fight the Democrats, which a few GOPers will not do, to the harm of all non-socialist Americans.
    The battle is between Democratic Goliaths and some, not all, GOP Davids.
    The American future remains bleak, IMO. The House’s sole major power is that all financial bills must originate therein. I am not optimistic the GOP House will put Biden on a fiscal starvation diet.

  5. McCarthy certainly wouldn’t be my first choice for Speaker (or 2nd or 100th) but I agree that the drama surrounding his election will fade in comparison to the job that he does. If we actually see meaningful investigations into the corruption of the alphabet agencies, then much will be forgiven.

    As to the somewhat messy process, I found it to be refreshing to actually see disagreements being voiced and resolved in real time and out in the open. I think the process revealed something in the character of the participants that we don’t often see.

    I also think that there are a fair number of Democrats who are a little jealous and wish their party was a bit more tolerant of dissenting voices.

  6. and few of them would qualify to be president or even be a desirable president.

    All of them qualify. That’s one reason they’re in the Presidential Succession Law. It is true that few of them would be desirable presidents. The reason for that is that they tend to have a circumscribed work history outside of electoral politics and no executive experience at all. (Joseph Martin and John Boehner are exceptions on that last point, and I doubt either one had that many people working under them). The President pro tem of the Senate has been in the statutory succession for over a century, even though the position has long been a ceremonial bauble for the dean of the majority caucus. You’ve had nonagenarians in the position, but Congress has never bothered to remove the official from the law. (I suspect they’re in the law because members of Congress value status over function). You’ll recall it took Congress 50 years to delineate a procedure to address the contingency of a disabled president, and when they did they dreamed up a scheme that works only if the president is willing to acknowledge he is disabled, which Woodrow Wilson and his doctor were not. They just suck at everything they do.

  8. Art Deco:

    I think it’s pretty obvious I was not using the word “qualify” in the narrow legal constitutional sense of being the right age and a natural-born citizen and that sort of thing – although technically, a person actually could be Speaker without qualifying in that sense.

    I was speaking of having the sort of broader appeal that woud allow them to qualify in enough people’s perceptions to make them seen as viable potential major party nominees for election as president.

  9. Art Deco-
    I am surprised at your overlooking the 25th Amendment for removal of a disabled president from office. Section IV of the Amendment allows a majority vote of the Veep and the sitting Cabinet to remove POTUS from office. Of course, since the Cabinet was appointed by said POTUS and has a certain loyalty to him, this is a dubious option.

  10. Art Deco:

    By the way, as illustration, I’ll add that – at least to the best of my knowledge – the only Congressional leader in my lifetime who became president by being elected (although he had not been Speaker but rather Senate Majority Leader) was LBJ. And he only got to that point because first JFK chose him as VP for “balance,” then JFK was assassinated, and the 1964 election for president which LBJ won occurred only a year later plus his opponent was the rather unpopular Goldwater. LBJ didn’t run in 1968, although he could have.

  11. I am surprised at your overlooking the 25th Amendment for removal of a disabled president from office. Section IV of the Amendment allows a majority vote of the Veep and the sitting Cabinet to remove POTUS from office. Of course, since the Cabinet was appointed by said POTUS and has a certain loyalty to him, this is a dubious option.

    I’m not overlooking at it at all and called attention to it. It’s not workable today because Ron Klain and Jill Biden would have to roll over or you’d need the entire congressional leadership on board to line up a two-thirds majority to depose the President. The problem back in 1919 is that Woodrow Wilson, his wife, and his doctor would not acknowledge he was impaired.

    The only time the 25th Amendment was ever invoked was in 1985 when Ronald Reagan sent a formal letter to Tip O’Neill and Robert Byrd informing him he would be under anesthesia for cancer surgery and VP Bush was empowered to act in his stead. Curiously, he followed the Amendment’s procedures while denying in the text that that he was invoking the Amendment. George Bush lollygagged around the house all day.

  12. And he only got to that point because first JFK chose him as VP for “balance,”

    He was the runner up at the 1960 Democratic convention. John Nance Garner was a competitor at the 1932 convention ‘ere FDR tapped him for the VP slot. He had been Speaker of the House ‘ere that. It is fairly unusual. Different patterns of ambition, I think, different skill sets.

    Newt Gingrich later ran for President and has forensic skills that most Republican pols lack. Interestingly, he was never a lawyer.

  13. Let’s see — it has been about 20 hours since McCarthy got the majority he needed to be the speaker. In that time I have received one fundraising email from McCarthy and four (plus two texts) from Gaetz. I asked to be removed from Gaetz’ mailing list and replied “stop” to the texts.

    Does anyone wonder if fundraising was part of Gaetz’ motivation for this temper tantrum?

  14. F:

    Rick Moran at pjmedia.com noticed Mat Gaetz’s fundraising pitch in Rick’s article yesterday. That was posted early in the day.

    Politics, politicians, and sausage making.

  17. Banned Lizard:

    Yes, Trump is often a practical guy. But if blog comments (not necessarily here, but many elsewhere) I’ve seen are any guide, a lot of his most previously stalwart followers are quite angry at him for his support of McCarthy. It seems they’d rather he pursue probably-impossible absolutes and never compromise.

  19. Mccarthy threw trump and marjorie greene to the wolves i wouldnt trust farther than i could throw him. Past is sadly prologue we shall see if he abides by the rules changes and they arent revoked

  20. Art,
    Section 3 of the 25th has been invoked three other times. Twice by George W. Bush and once by Biden in November 2021.

  21. For an evenhanded assessment recorded last Wednesday on the House circus listen to Friday’s Hillsdale Dialog. Discussion was with Hugh Hewitt and Larry Arne. Hewitt is an establishment Republican, but both are conservatives. Of note Armed felt that the “demands” or restoration of pre Pelosi House rules were necessary and good. Both Hewitt and Arne did not disparge McCarthy or Roy. Both hoped that it would be sorted out by Friday (yesterday), but Hewitt was concerned that it would take longer. Both noted that political parties can fracture from such disputes and that they had expected the Dems to fracture not the Republicans.

    I would note that ambitious politicians sometimes see such a fracture as a means to advance themselves. But I really don’t know enought about Gaetz, for example.

  22. McCarthy’s opponents got serious and important concessions from him in return for their vote, or “present” vote. By way of their minority within the majority status they also retained their power to oppose/veto anything his leadership puts forth for a vote in the House. Rather like Manchin & Sinema in the Senate.

    I’m not bothered by this at all, it is simply working the way it was designed.

  23. Art-
    You (studiously?) ignore Art. IV of the 25th and I do not understand why. It is the shortest, cleanest way to remove an incapable POTUS, though the Cabinet, appointed by said POTUS, will be hampered by loyalty to the prez that appointed them.

  24. Miguel:

    You might note that M. T. Green supported McCarthy. Some wolves, are you sure it wasn’t Golden Retrievers that she was thrown to?

    You might remember that Boebert and Green have had a falling out recently, no longer BFFs?

    Politics and politicians; Hollywood for the unattractive.

  25. You (studiously?) ignore Art. IV of the 25th and I do not understand why. It is the shortest, cleanest way to remove an incapable POTUS, though the Cabinet, appointed by said POTUS, will be hampered by loyalty to the prez that appointed them.

    I did not ignore it. It only works if he accedes to it.

  26. Art-
    That’s not how I read it.The incapable POTUS cannot be depended upon to remove himself from office. Look at stroked-out Woodrow. what if that were today?
    A 2/3 vote of both bodies? That seems a celestial exercise.

  28. @ steve walsh > “McCarthy’s opponents got serious and important concessions from him in return for their vote, or “present” vote.”

    I agree they were important; whether all of them will be useful remains to be seen.

    https://www.thenewneo.com/2023/01/06/hating-republicans-why-not-look-it-up/#comment-2660896

    Mike K on January 7, 2023 at 11:53 am said:
    I spent years involved with California politics as a member, and later a consultant, with the legislation commission of the state Medical Association. That experience made me very cynical but lately I find I am not nearly cynical enough.
    …
    Many Republican candidates lie about their intentions, especially if they have been in Congress for a while. I wholeheartedly supported the “Freedom Caucus” in their battle with McCarthy. They negotiated with him for months but, until he faced losing the Speakership, they got nowhere. Maybe, just maybe, we will see some progress now.

  29. Art Deco:

    “All of them qualify.”

    Nope. Charles Crisp, the 33rd Speaker (1891-1895), was not qualified to be President, since he was born in England.

  30. @ Miguel – Diana West doesn’t pull any punches, does she?

    Looking at the embedded screencap listing McCarthy’s votes supporting Democrat priorities indicates why The Twenty (or at least The Six) refused to vote for him until they had something in writing, and they still didn’t get much compensation for what the GOP has already given away.

    Reading the Flash from the Past about Boehner and McConnell in 2014 — well, let’s just say they understood why Trump got elected two years later, but still had no intention of enacting the voters’ preferences — and mostly didn’t.

    I’m totally not surprised that attempts to reverse the 2016 election “fortification” in advance of 2020 were not the top priority of the GOP, even if some Republicans tried (and generally failed).

    A topical excerpt from Diana’s 2014 post embedded at the current link from Miguel:

    …

    According to “multiple GOP sources,” the National Journal reports, a new Republican proposal circulating in the House sets forth that “any Republican who votes on the House floor in January against the conference’s nominee for House speaker — that is, the candidate chosen by a majority of the House GOP during the closed-door leadership elections in November — would be severely punished. Specially, sources say, any dissenters would be “stripped of all committee assignments for that Congress.”

    “Severely punished”? “Dissenters” will be “stripped”? This sounds less like a U.S. Congress than an old Soviet Politburo with a hint of gulag. Which means the fight isn’t over. Victory at the polls can and will be stolen unless you tell your new Republican representative two things to get off to a good term: Stop amnesty and the GOP establishment both.

    I can only imagine what is in store for our “dissenters” today.

    We’ll have to see if McCarthy really meant all the fine rhetoric in his victory speech.
    https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/paula-bolyard/2023/01/07/breaking-kevin-mccarthy-elected-55th-speaker-of-the-house-heres-how-it-went-down-n1659495

    “My responsibility, our responsibility is to our country,” McCarthy said upon taking the gavel. “You voted for a new direction for our country. You embraced our Commitment to America. And now we’re going to keep our commitment to you.”</b

    “Our system is built on checks and balances. It’s time for us to be a check and provide some balance to the president’s policies,” he declared.
    …
    “I make this promise: I will never give up on you, the American people. And I will never give up on our Commitment to America. Our nation is worth fighting for. Our rights are worth fighting for. Our dreams are worth fighting for. Our future is worth fighting for.”

    https://www.thenewneo.com/2023/01/06/tonights-vote-for-speaker/#comment-2660874

    Eeyore on January 7, 2023 at 9:55 am said:
    Concessions reportedly include:

    A single member can move to “vacate the chair”
    A hard line on the debt limit
    Votes on term limits and border security
    McCarthy’s leadership PAC will stay out of open primaries
    “Open rules” on spending measures, and the ability to bring up stand-alone appropriation bills
    Discretionary spending cap
    A commitment to set up a committee on the “weaponization” of the government.
    ___________

    The fact that these were concessions tells me all I need to know about why I distrust McCarthy.

  31. Banned Lizard posted a report from NBC on the open thread that’s worth reading.
    https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congress/how-kevin-mccarthy-got-votes-speaker-haunt-rcna64720

    It starts as an op-ed masquerading as straight news, but contains some details I haven’t yet seen elsewhere, with allowance for the left-spin and the anonymous sources.

    The mutiny was led by members of the far-right House Freedom Caucus, which is known for wielding raw power and having a high tolerance for chaos to force House GOP leaders to bend to their wishes.
    … [yee-hah!] …
    Perry, the Freedom Caucus chairman, said Friday he decided to vote for McCarthy after that framework was put on the table. But he also made clear his support for McCarthy was conditional on the terms of the deal holding up.

    “If the framework blows up, I’m out,” he told reporters.
    …[see the post by Diana West]…

    Perry and Roy declined to divulge details, but two sources with knowledge of the situation told NBC News that the Freedom Caucus was demanding three seats on the powerful Rules Committee, which controls the bills that make it to the House floor.

    “It’s critically important that the Rules Committee reflect the body and reflect the will of the people. And that is a part of this framework,” Roy told reporters Friday. “What we’ve agreed to in framework will need to have accountability. We need to be able to continue to trust that we’re going to be able to execute on what we’ve agreed to in framework.”

    While former President Donald Trump’s attempts to pressure GOP holdouts to support McCarthy earlier in the week fell flat, he was working the phones Friday and arranged three-party calls with McCarthy. He targeted two specific members: Rep. Matt Rosendale of Montana, a possible Senate candidate, and Rep. Eli Crane of Arizona, a Trump adviser said. Both voted present on the final ballot.
    …[would like to see some leaks about those calls]…

    The deal is poised to enhance the power of far-right Republicans at the expense of moderates who want to advance legislation that can win the approval of a Democratic-controlled Senate and President Joe Biden. It could make McCarthy’s task of passing must-do bills like funding the government and lifting the debt ceiling much harder under a slim majority if a group of five Republicans can effectively force him out at any time.
    …[the talking-points memo looks familiar]…

    Still, the more moderate or mainstream Republicans put up little resistance to the pact that party leaders agreed to, with some accepting it as the cost of doing business under narrow margins.
    …
    Democrats say the reported concessions will make the House ungovernable and cause crises.

    “What we’re seeing is the incredibly shrinking speakership,” former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said in an interview Friday. “It is not a good thing for the House of Representatives. We are the people’s house. We have to negotiate with the Senate. We have to negotiate with the White House. And instead, we are diminishing the leadership role of the House.”

    Can’t argue that Queen Nancy didn’t get most of what she negotiated for, and it is good to have a central negotiator, BUT the Republican leader needs to be negotiating for Republican Party priorities, and that should prioritize what the voters want — because it is the people’s house, not the leaders’.

  33. @ Neo > ” It’s instructive to look at articles that attempt to explain it, such as this Federalist piece on the subject from October of 2022. One of the people promoting McCarthy for Speaker was Jordan.”

    That post raises some questions as well as providing some answers.

    Foremost is why didn’t McCarthy nail down his “concessions” to the Freedom Caucus in private before the speakership election?

    Several people in this forum have noted that he really didn’t think he would have to, and I think the post confirms that assessment.

    Second is how many concessions to members of his stalwart support group did he make going in?

    https://thefederalist.com/2022/10/20/mccarthy-in-the-middle-how-the-last-young-gun-sought-to-rebuild-conservative-trust-as-pelosi-went-scorched-earth/

    Jordan, who ran against McCarthy for the job back in 2018, is thrown around as a potential challenger this time around, too. But he’s eager to praise McCarthy heading into a potential Republican Congress.

    A senior Freedom Caucus staffer describes their warm relationship as “very much a quid pro quo,” arguing McCarthy “will make Jordan chairman of Judiciary in exchange for him blunting right-wing opposition to McCarthy’s speakership.”

    There’s those anonymous sources again.

    When McCarthy bested Jordan in the minority leader race four years ago, he remembers sticking his neck out to bring Jordan on as Oversight chair. He did this against the wishes of the committee, which McCarthy says “erupted” on him after Jordan presented.
    …
    To the skeptical committee, McCarthy says he insisted, “If this doesn’t work out, it’s my fault. But you just elected me leader. Let me lead.”

    Jordan, for his part, says, “What the Freedom Caucus appreciates is the way Kevin has been able to keep us together,” along with “the conservative positions he’s taken.”

    Third is that there are also all those non-conservative positions that have been exhibited during the punditry and commentary this week.

    Without prompting, Jordan highlights a pivotal test of McCarthy’s mettle.

    “I always point to back in 2019, going into that first impeachment, the conventional wisdom was every Democrat was going to vote to impeach President Trump, and a bunch of Republicans were going to join in,” remembers Jordan. “And after a four-month ordeal, where we just really, really worked together as a team, every Republican voted not to impeach. Some Democrats joined us, and one Democrat switched parties and became a Republican. So that just doesn’t happen unless you’re working together as you should as the Republican team.”

    Fourth question: I’m all for good team-work, but why did it take four months to get all the Republicans to vote against a faked-up impeachment charge?
    And they lost members on the second one.

    McCarthy also counts the first impeachment as a critical leadership moment for him and the GOP caucus.
    …
    McCarthy says it became clear to House Republicans that what Democrats were doing to oppose Trump was destructive in ways that went far beyond ordinary political concerns. “They’re coming after everybody. It’s not just us, they’re coming after the voters. They’re coming after anyone who thinks differently than them,” he says. “They no longer respect a difference of opinion. This is a scary moment in America, and it’s only gotten worse.”

    Sounded to me this week like a lot of McCarthy’s supporters in the House and the press are of the same ilk.

    Rachel Bovard of the Conservative Partnership Institute (she also writes a tech column for The Federalist) describes changes to precedent set during Pelosi’s latest speakership as “titanic.”

    “With regard to House rules, Democrats neutered the motion to recommit, which was a hugely massive change and basically stripped the one remaining procedural right of the House minority that had any teeth,” she says. “They also gutted the motion to vacate so no one could do to Pelosi what the Freedom Caucus did to Boehner.”
    …
    Pushed on how he might use subpoena power in hypothetical investigations of Hunter Biden or the Department of Justice, given Democrats’ decision to press for Republicans’ phone records, McCarthy responds, “Our role is oversight, and we’re not going to sit back and not do it.”
    …
    Is that enough for McCarthy to sail through to the speakership without meaningful opposition? Bovard says that while she doesn’t think the House Freedom Caucus “right now has the capacity” to launch a challenge to McCarthy, they could “refuse him their votes if he didn’t give them what they wanted,” listing off potential issues such as bringing back the motion to vacate.

    Fifth question: So why didn’t McCarthy, before the speakership election, promise to reverse Pelosi’s changes and to extend oversight to the flagrant abuses revealed in the Twitter Files, instead of making the FC force it on him?

    Look at the list of “concessions” again:
    A single member can move to “vacate the chair”
    A hard line on the debt limit
    Votes on term limits and border security
    McCarthy’s leadership PAC will stay out of open primaries
    “Open rules” on spending measures, and the ability to bring up stand-alone appropriation bills
    Discretionary spending cap
    A commitment to set up a committee on the “weaponization” of the government

    “To get the Freedom Caucus,” though, “he’s going to have to give them certain things,” Bovard cautions.

    “Even the old institutional guys are like, ‘We’ve never been here before,’” she explains. “I don’t think people realize how much Democrats have burned the place down. It’s just unrecognizable.”

    “We’re in no man’s land, so McCarthy’s got to be willing to wield that power back at them or it’s never going to stop,” says Bovard.

    On the right, skepticism remains about whether McCarthy and the GOP leadership are up to the task. “These guys just don’t seem to have the fighting spirit to take on the left,” laments the Freedom Caucus source.

    As has often been remarked: if the GOPe fought the Democrats as hard as they did the conservative Republicans, we wouldn’t be having these problems.

    If Republicans win in November, they’ll select a speaker with a voice vote upon convening the new Congress in early January. That person will inherit the power Pelosi amassed.

    A Politico report in September suggested the Freedom Caucus is already prepared to vote with establishment Republicans and elect McCarthy as speaker. This may reflect attitudes now but there’s time for those to change. The senior House Freedom Caucus source says McCarthy has “played his cards well,” but adds, “I don’t think anybody thinks Trump is in love with Kevin.

    How short-lived are political predictions! That was four fails in five sentences.

    But standing in the wreckage of Pelosi’s tenure in Congress and her party’s reaction to Trump, McCarthy isn’t worried about potential challengers. “I’ve had people push and do different things,” he says. “But if you’re able to be running for speaker, that means all you’ve ever done is win. And I don’t think you change the coach then.”

    Question: How did McCarthy manage to screw this up so badly?
    Answer: He believed his own PR.

  35. How did the six fail to notice in 15 votes that none of the 200 flipped? They believed their own spin?

  36. The aftermath?
    “Panic Setting In Over Republicans’ Planned ‘Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government’;
    “Harvard Law Prof. and MSNBC Trump Collusion Star Laurence Tribe, who never met an investigation of Republicans he didn’t love, is apoplectic, calling it a plan “to hound — er, investigate — the investigators (including those investigating the coup/insurrection leading to Jan 6)”—
    https://legalinsurrection.com/2023/01/panic-setting-in-over-republicans-planned-select-subcommittee-on-the-weaponization-of-the-federal-government/
    The only possible Tribe-alist conclusion:
    Since the Democratic Party is the Party of VIRTUE, any attempt to investigate it demonstrates the height of contempt for Democracy and is the epitome of immorality (especially since the GOP is the Party of THE DEVIL).
    QED.
    All joking aside, though, anything that makes Laurence Tribe so postal has GOT to be good.

  38. Let us hope Mccarthy is not the new Paul Ryan, who was an obscenity as a GOP Speaker and has now retreated to his wall-surrounded manse in WI.

  39. The crux of the whole issue:
    Business as usual?
    Or change?
    A question of Trumpian proportions.
    (And yet, Trump—early on—threw his weight behind McCarthy.)
    “Interesting times”….
    https://instapundit.com/562951/
    “Roger Kimball: The New McCarthysim”…

  40. Sadly there was no alternative to mccarthy we are back to the bob michel era but the shackles will hopefully stay on

  41. The real lesson of the McCarthy mess is that the bulk of the GOP in the House (and probably elected and party operatives nationwide) are still Chamber of Commerce butt-kissers who want to cut taxes and really nothing else. That’s why they get buffaloed by the Democrats, the media, and big money donors because they genuinely don’t give a damn about much of anything, or at least don’t have enough common convictions to provide any group backbone.

    Frankly, the Democrats being so egregious in openly violating institutional norms and spewing eliminationst rhetoric is probably the main thing holding the GOP together right now.

    As for McCarthy himself, he’ll probably be a better GOP leader than McConnell or Paul Ryan…but that bar is so low a snake couldn’t crawl under it.

    Mike

  42. Let us hope Mccarthy is not the new Paul Ryan, who was an obscenity as a GOP Speaker and has now retreated to his wall-surrounded manse in WI.

    If only. He buckraking. He supposedly has a pair of board seats and a contract position at the Teneo firm, an influence-peddling, information ops, and money-laundering operation founded by Clinton family retainers. Its HQ is in NYC.

  44. Art-
    Teneo — “which combines C-suite consulting, reputation management and financial restructuring — has 1,500 employees in 40+ offices around the world.” From Axios.
    A great vehicle for influence peddling and corruption. Ryan should fit right in.

  46. Potentially, how earthshaking might revelations from the new Church Committee be?

    Trey Gowdy, please pick up the white courtesy phone.

  48. FWIW they’re still lying. Regularly. (not that anyone has been expecting otherwise)….
    “Washington Post issues correction after activist Rufo slams paper’s ‘inaccuracies and flat-out lies’;
    “The D.C.-based paper had to issue a clarification last year on another piece that targeted Rufo’s work fighting Critical Race Theory.”—
    https://justthenews.com/accountability/media/washington-post-issues-correction-after-chris-rufo-slams-papers-inaccuracies

    But really now, why should they stop??
    In fact, they’ve been competing with the NYT for some time now to see who can publish the biggest and most fantabulous whoppers.
    (It’s been neck and neck for years.)

    File under: All the sewage that’s fit to print.

  50. It’s clear to me he is more fit to be potus than the current potus and vpotus.

    And much more fit than Pelosi.

    Not that any of that is a high bar.

  51. Mike rogers kicked off steering mark green fc replaces dan crenshaw at homeland

  53. A “single(made by ONE) motion” or by five members to vacate the Speakership still requires a majority vote of the full House to be effective.
    Let us stop being Chicken Littles.

    Let us also stop wondering what “deals” McCarthy made to gain the Speakership. Speculation is not fact, and gets one nowhere.

    And for heaven’s sake, ignore any comment from M.Bunge, whose basic motive is destructive, as if he were a member of Antifa.

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