Republicans in Charge, Day 2

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I understand the Congress critters are all assembled in the House chamber again and will begin a fourth vote soon. It’s not clear that anything has changed from yesterday.

Emily Cochrane wrote in the New York Times,

Nancy Pelosi of California, walking to the House floor, chided reporters for asking about whether Democrats would help pave the way for Kevin McCarthy: “This is a problem of their own making. This is called leadership. They should be able to work it out. Don’t put this at the Democrats’ doorstep.”

John Cassidy wrote in the New Yorker,

Over the past few decades, the G.O.P. has gone from being a ruthless and disciplined party of limited government and trickle-down economics to a party of anti-government protest to, now, a party of performative verbiage—in which the likes of Gaetz and Boebert (and, of course, Trump) are far more interested in boosting their follower count, raising money, and appearing on “The Sean Hannity Show” or Newsmax than they are in governance.

This gradual substitution of theatric self-promotion for serious politics has been ongoing ever since Newt Gingrich’s Contract with America, and Tuesday’s events merely represented its logical culmination: a newly elected House Republican majority reduced to a rabble incapable of performing the basic function of selecting a leader. 

Yeah, that pretty much sums it up.

After several hours of blustering and “we’ll see what happens,” Trump finally issued a statement calling for “all good Republicans” to get behind Kevin McCarthy. Matt Gaetz responded, “Sad!” Now the anti-McCarthy faction is preparing to vote for Byron Donalds of Florida.

And the fourth vote has begun.

Update: They’re in the Gs and Byron Donalds already has eleven votes.

Update: Annie Karni writes at the New York Times,

For those looking for a Trump-DeSantis proxy battle angle, our colleague Matt Flegenheimer just texted to remind me that Donalds is a DeSantis ally who may have helped set a campaign finance precedent for the governor to repurpose state re-election funds for a presidential race.

Update: They’re in the Ss, and Donalds has 20 Republican votes.

Update: Final tally, McCarthy 201, Donalds 20, Jeffries 212. One Republican who voted for McCarthy yesterday voted “present” today.

Update: I’m losing track. Fifth vote no change, and they’re about to start a sixth vote?

Update: Sixth vote, no change. The House is adjourned now, but not without protests. They are adjourned until 8 pm this evening.

23 thoughts on “Republicans in Charge, Day 2”

    • Or is it seven is the charm?

       I heard one of the Repugs say that they are prepared to go until the 4th of July if they have to. One thing is for sure, Gaetz and Boebert are certainly giving McCarthy a good going over. McCarthy has lost that air of jubilance he had going  into the first round of votes.

  2. By repeating the same actions again and again, only to get essentially the same result over and over again, while oblivious to the fact they are accomplishing nothing, the republicans should now be well aware of their problem and adjourn to seek services from a qualified mental health professional.  They are driving me to a grammarian to fix my problem with run on sentences.  I bet my problem has a better chance of getting fixed.

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  3. One Republican who voted for McCarthy yesterday voted “present” today.

    What does that mean? Does it mean that by voting 'present' it keeps the number of votes needed for a majority same while denying McCarthy their vote without directly targeting McCarthy by name? I don't understand the strategy or logic behind that maneuver. Whose head is being played with?

    • As I understand it, the one rep. wanted to stop voting and work things out among the Republican caucus. But nobody went along with that, obviously.

      • I have zero knowledge of why Victoria Spartz voted 'Present' other than those votes were all with a black man as the FreeDumb Caucasians nominee.

        Victoria Spartz represents the white flight district immediately north of Indianapolis.

        First run and election she campaigned as "a refugee from Ukraine".  Second run and reelection she campaigned as "a refugee from Socialist Ukraine".  In reality she came to the USA as a "mail order bride from Ukraine".

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        • I have zero knowledge of why Victoria Spartz voted ‘Present’ other than those votes were all with a black man as the FreeDumb Caucasians nominee.

          I already explained this. Here is what I read.

          Rep. Victoria Spartz (R-Ind.) said she voted “present” in Wednesday’s Speaker votes to push Republicans to return to deliberations, as the party remains divided on Rep. Kevin McCarthy’s (R-Calif.) bid for the Speakership.

          “My concern is that … we didn’t come together yet,” Spartz told reporters. “So, we have to go back to the conference room, to HC-5, and deliberate as a body, as a group of people, and figure it out.”

          Let’s not poison the well any more than it’s already poisoned.

          • Victoria Spartz and I live less than 15 miles from each other.  She is a founding member of the Hamilton County (white flight north) Tea Party.

            Behind Mikey Pence and my congress-critter Andre Carson, I have more awareness of her among Indiana politicians.

            Spartz has been a known commodity in republican politics for a number of years in the Indianapolis metropolitan area.  She was in the state senate for 3 years (appointed – not elected) before receiving the republican nomination for a congressional seat vacated by Susan Brooks.  That is in a district where no democrat has been elected in more than 100 years so getting the nomination is tantamount to getting elected.

            Having been exposed to her political words and actions and advertising for about 10 years, you will have to excuse me for being skeptical that the words she gave to reporters are the truth.

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          • On Tuesday she was voting for McCarthy. If this were just about racism she could have just kept voting for McCarthy.

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  5. So, as far as I can see on the C-spans, looks like TFG (Very Special Snowflake, best ever, know what I mean?) got what he wanted: A daily affirmation that he is special-est by having an episode of The (Garbage-can-kid) Apprentice every day. Again, it looks like the insurrection for the TFG guy is happening again again, … hold Congress hostage to get TFG in again. Again. They should hold this show every day for the next 2 months because I do not see them committing ritual suicide slowly. That kabuki takes a while, I suspect. But it is happening again, I suspect.

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  6. I just learned that one does NOT have to be a US representative to be named 

    speaker of the House. Anyone on this site can become speaker if they get enough votes.

    Even Trumpster the Dumpster fire can become Speaker if he gets the necessary votes.

    Excuse me now, I must deal with this icy feeling down to my very soul.

    • Yeah, Trump supporters raised the idea of making him Speaker, but it was pretty obvious that Step 2 of this plan was to bump off Biden and Harris so he'd be "President" again.

      I think – I hope – that the Big Money wing of the GOP wouldn't go along with this, and they own enough Representatives to prevent it.

  7. Byron Donalds has the qualifications to become the GOP speaker of the house. Third in line for the presidency.

    In 1997, Donalds was arrested for marijuana distribution; the charges were dropped as part of a pre-trial diversion program. In 2000, he pleaded guilty to a felony bribery charge as part of a scheme to defraud a bank,[13] which was expunged after he entered the Florida House.

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  9. Look, everyone enjoys a good circus.

    But two days of clown shows get old real fast!

    Sadly, no other circus acts can start until these RepubliKKKLAN KKKlowns get their shite together (IMO: All that shite dumped in a lump will.look like TFG, tRUMP). 

    Lions have tamers, and tigers have tamers.

    But sadly, there are no c!own tamers.

    And now, because ALL of the RepubliKKKLANs are clowns, and there are no clown tamers in their KKKauKKKus, we're going to be afflicted with yet another clown show tomorrow. And maybe more than one! Sad.

    OY!

    I'm afraid of what this KKKlown KKKauKKKus will do when it comes time to raise the debt ceiling!

    Make that terrified instead of scared!!!

  10. I saw an interview of AOC last night. She's brilliant and composed as always, and kept saying "anything's possible", while mentioning "coalition government" several times. In other words a nominee could negotiate giving concessions to the Democrats (committee chairmanships, etc) in order to get some votes from the Ds to get past the needed total. It's how things work more or less in parliamentary systems. If Kevin hadn't totally prostituted himself to the extremists and if he could find enough reasonable Rs to go along with it, this is the card he could be playing.

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    • In a reasonable multi-party Democracy this would make sense, but that's not the reality of the US two-party system.  Theoretically, it could be important to "get back to normal", but no part of the GOP is "normal" these days, so for now, No Government is better than GOP Government.

      Settling the current GOP internal squabble won't lead to a feel-good era of bi-partisan legislation; the only question is how long the GOP will shut down the Federal Government when we run up against the Debt Ceiling. 

      I hope AOC is consulting with Dem leadership AND fellow Progressives on all this.  I really don't trust any part of the GOP, nor US political Media, and I fear AOC could get blamed for the crazy stuff that the GOP winds up doing if she helps them select a Speaker.

  11. Fascinating. Amusing. Frightening. 

    Between-the-lines what I see in comments by Gaetz and Boebert is that they do not trust McCarthy not to cave under pressure in a government shutdown.

    Trump being completely transactional is supporting 'My Kevin' because Trump has an ironclad commitment (from McCarthy, ironclad = tinfoil) to use the power of the House against the FBI, DOJ, and IRS. The BS proposed committee to investigate Biden 'weaponizing' the federal government has the stench of  Trump on it.

    The 199 who have been voting for Kevin are not inclined (I think) to bend a knee to the 19 insurrectionists.  Kevin may not be an option – we shall see – but I don't think any of the radicals will win the support of the majority. 

    The very hypothetical option of going outside the actual House members might break the logjam. But I don't know who. 

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  12. I don't really see a clear path for this dystopian fear of mine, so this is just conjecture; imagining the worst.  But… sometimes it is hard to see the forest for the trees.

    I'm not going to bet any money against the idea that our country is on a path to the same endpoint as Hungary. It's seems like fun to be smug that the jackals are biting each other.  But that doesn't change the fact that the vast majority of the R caucus in the House is anti-govt & anti-democracy. What's going on right now might just be kabuki to make the general public think that the R's who aren't in the never-Kevin group are "normies".  They aren't.  This current clown show just might be the hand waving a magician does to draw your eye away from the trick he is doing with the other hand. Later when they play out the script and actually elect a speaker, the destruction will begin.  In fact it has already begun in some of the rules changes that the R conference agrees on. 

    https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/9/13/17823488/hungary-democracy-authoritarianism-trump

     

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  13. I once thought  tRrump was nominated because the rubes were getting bored by no-drama-Obama's performing as president all day rather than being an entertainer-in-chief.  

    Then I decided that the raison d'etre of some people is to make other people as miserable as they are. Marinating in fear and hate creates a distasteful dish

    Now, their silly  burning down the House has got everybody's rapt attention.

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  14. At this point, it's more likely the Republicans would vote for Pelosi before they'd vote for McCarthy.

    I know this is holding up the government (Like the GQP is going to do anything useful, pfft.), but I am laughing my butt off at this escalating dumpster/tire fire.

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