Are you liking Kevin McCarthy any better now?
Take a look. You may like what you see:
So @SpeakerMcCarthy, now that he is speaker, is just destroying these media members and their questions. I love it. Watch this: pic.twitter.com/Yy4bM7Et34
— Clay Travis (@ClayTravis) January 25, 2023
This was excellent. I hope he keeps it up!
What a pleasant surprise! My decades-long skepticism of Republicans is largely based on their indifference to the mis- or malfeasance of governance by Democrats, and their disinterest in engaging it head-on. But McCarthy actually did so. The hope-indicator just came off the zero peg and wobbled into positive territory.
Now if this incident would just move off C-Span and into public notice…
I think his actions still tend toward the pandering, but the fight for speakership probably infused his spine with some steel.
This one is easy, though. I’ll wait until the inevitable “compromise” immigration bill and see where we stand then.
But yes, this is encouraging, at least.
Was it Schiff or Swalwell that threatened McCarthy? Not a smooth move, but the Dem Leader says nothing. Figures. Now Schiff is going to run for Senator.
McCarthy is still not high on my trusted list but he may come to like being strong. I was reading an article about “false memories” this morning and two examples provided were Paul Ryan and Mitt Romney, both of whom had a history of imaginary accomplishments. Sort of like Joe Biden, and Hillary of course.
Sayin’ stuff is a start. Let’s see what actually happens with appropriations and legislation.
Seems to confirm Friedman’s rule about getting the wrong people to do the right thing because it’s in their interest. I really doubt he’d be coming on this strong without the battle with the crazies.
But so long as he keeps it up, I’m good with it.
That was outstanding, but it was also something done when McCarthy had an almost 100% unimpeachable position. There’s really no credible counter-argument to be made on Schiff and Swalwell.
McCarthy is clearly NOT McConnell, but everybody on the Right should expect a lot more than that.
Mike
Yes, definitely doing OK by my book so far.
I opposed his campaign. I am very pleased that so far he’s making me look foolish for doing so.
I like what he’s saying at the moment, but we don’t need another Lindsey Graham in the House, which is what the skeptic in me is expecting in the end.
That is great; but, this is the MSM – they will see it as him having scolded them instead of him speaking up for the truth.
They will make him pay for being so audacious!
He spoke with conviction, facts and forcefully. All good, but, the old saying “actions speak louder than words” applies here. Time will tell.
Talking the talking and to some extent walking the walk. Like others I am hopeful this continues.
A pleasant surprise, but we will see.
The example of Lyndsay Graham is on target. His recent Ukrainian Vacation Video was amazing, including who he went with.
Credit were credit is due but his actions will tell the tale.
Mike K —
Off topic a bit, but I was struck recently by how “real” false memories can be.
When I was 3 or 4, the family took a picnic up to Thunderbird Falls about 20 miles north of Anchorage, where there’s a trail in to a scenic overlook. We were at the overlook platform with five or six other people, when I slipped beneath the steel tube railing and started to slide down the cliff. My dad did one of those “dad saves” you see on Youtube and grabbed my shirt and pulled me to safety, and my mom had conniptions and we hurried away.
But when I visited the falls last year when I was in Anchorage taking care of my dad (and had a lot of free time so I drove around a lot), I discovered that not only was the viewing platform in a different place and of a different construction than I remembered, it could not have ever been where I remembered, and therefore there was no possible way that my memory could be true.
This has been one of those standout memories from my early childhood for my entire life that I’ve told many times, so I was rather shocked. I’m a little more willing to credit that false memories, especially from childhood or adolescence, are sincerely held, although now I have clear and convincing evidence that they can be totally confabulated out of nothing.
Except Joe Biden. He’s clearly just making s*** up.
He’s doing good. Still don’t have any problems with the resistance against him being speaker. It was three days of unpleasantness well spent.
Re: False memories
Bryan Lovely:
I kept rather detailed journals through the 70s to the late 90s. After the dotcom bubble burst and I had some time on my hands, I went back and reread those journals.
I was surprised how many key events in my life, particularly for relationships, were different in my journals from my current memories.
Since then I don’t trust anyone’s memories, particularly my own.
Bryan L: I also have two or three childhood memories that I have begun to question in the last few years. They could very well be simply dreams, or maybe misremembrances of real events. They tend to be incapsulated in time, but I don’t recall what preceded them or what followed. And selected aspects do not make logical sense or violate some reasonable questions.
Perhaps a topic for a future posting and thread.
@ huxley > “Since then I don’t trust anyone’s memories, particularly my own.”
AesopSpouse had one law professor who insisted that the worst possible evidence in a trial was eyewitness testimony.
I’m going from memory here (lol), but Isaac Asimov either wrote, or said in an interview, something that showed he had learned personally about the false memory problem.
He observed that he had for many years regaled friends and acquaintances with the amusing story of how he had met his first wife. Eventually, when writing his memoirs (or one volume of them!), he decided that he would make sure of the details before he put that story in print.
Upon consulting his journals (which he apparently kept for many years), he learned to his shock and dismay that the real story was nothing like the one he had been telling!
Thanks Neo for this clip of McCarthy.
Deeply cynical on Congress but noting Housespeaker Kevin speaks well.
Actions speak louder than words.
“What is going on between McCarthy and” MTG? A round up of facts and romantic speculation, via Zerohedge
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/what-going-between-kevin-mccarthy-and-marjorie-taylor-greene