US Politics: Speaking to Insanity

[Trebla]

And the hits just keep on coming for the GOP...

 

Didn't this kind of thing happen to Jonah on VEEP???

[Week]

Adding to the above because of the quote in the headline.

 

"Pummeled"???

[Zorral]

1 hour ago, DanteGabriel said:

The Clintons and their venality are amateurs compared to their historical predecessors.

  Their great brilliant meritocracy brains knew better then.  That's what you said.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

You always have to wonder what the most strident homophobes are masking...

[Jaxom 1974]

So if whatever deal Kev made last night still isn't enough to get him over the hump on the twelfth, TWELFTH!, time...the GOP has to float another name, right?

 

 

[A Horse Named Stranger]

26 minutes ago, Jaxom 1974 said:

So if whatever deal Kev made last night still isn't enough to get him over the hump on the twelfth, TWELFTH!, time...the GOP has to float another name, right?

 

 

The thing is, he offered quite a bit according to the Guardian.

Quote

 According to CNN, McCarthy has agreed to a chamber rule change allowing just one House member to call for a vote to remove the sitting speaker. McCarthy has also reportedly agreed to allow additional members of the hard-right House Freedom Caucus to serve on the influential rules committees, and he has promised votes on some of the detractors’ top legislative priorities.

In another major win for far-right House members, the McCarthy-aligned Pac Congressional Leadership Fund has reached an agreement with the organization Club for Growth to not invest in open-seat primaries in safe Republican districts. The two groups have previously clashed in primaries where the Club for Growth promoted candidates who were farther to the right than those endorsed by the CLF. The agreement could give hard-right candidates a better chance at a primary victory, clearing the way for them to join the House after winning relatively easy general elections.

Absolute madness if true. The first paragraph ensures that McCarthy will be absolutely powerless as speaker.

The second one more or less ensures, that the crazy clown caucus will increase in size over the next cycles. 

I am genuinely not sure what more he could offer following short of allowinng open carry in the chamber for Bobo. (Can he do that?!)

[Fez]

31 minutes ago, Jaxom 1974 said:

So if whatever deal Kev made last night still isn't enough to get him over the hump on the twelfth, TWELFTH!, time...the GOP has to float another name, right?

If he makes no progress today I suspect he's done, but if he does peel off a few votes I think he gets to keep going at least through the weekend. Even though there doesn't really appear to be a plan to appease the 8ish "Never Kevins" (e.g., Gaetz).

And the rumor last night was that there might be anywhere up to 4 McCarthy supporters who miss the votes today, which makes the math slightly harder still for McCarthy. It lowers the majority threshold by 2, but lowers his vote total by 4.

[Jaxom 1974]

And of course, anything Kevin gives away (literally everything at this point), if it's Scalise or someone else instead of him, they're almost beholden to those deals too, aren't they...?

 

[Zorral]

1 hour ago, Jaxom 1974 said:

they're almost beholden to those deals too, aren't they.

Which means They have exactly what They want.  What They will do with that means no governance, which is what They want.

They're getting close to the state of the French Revolution's Reign of Terror, which got ever more extreme, to the point the extremity meant turning on each other over and over -- killing each other! -- so they were finally killed themselves, making France safe for the forthcoming emperor not that far down the road.  France generally rather liked having an emperor -- as long as he kept winning, of course.

[Zorral]

Just now several They Sayers are saying it looks as though those They are close to a deal to vote in KM.

Well, it's clear even before all this began the former Speake's balls were enormous, while this one has none at all.  They'll shoot or hang him in the next armed insurrection.  He won't know what to do, who to call, or where to go.

[LongRider]

The GOP needs about 100 babysitters and few shock collars.  

Spanking is probably the wrong emoji for this crowd of miscreants. 

[Fez]

If this doesn't cause some of McCarthy's support to flip against him, I'm not sure anything will..

 

[Martell Spy]

39 minutes ago, Fez said:

If this doesn't cause some of McCarthy's support to flip against him, I'm not sure anything will..

 

Well, they already have Kevin's balls in a vice. Might as well start slaying sacred cows.

[JGP]

ruh roh

Lots of flips in this current vote. 7 so far, I think? 

 

edit: 9 now

[Jaxom 1974]

So if these 7 intractable ones hold the line after the 13th vote...and the 14th...what does that do for McCarthy...? 

 

 

[Fez]

1 minute ago, Jaxom 1974 said:

So if these 7 intractable ones hold the line after the 13th vote...and the 14th...what does that do for McCarthy...? 

Well, Ken Buck missed the vote today but will be back, so McCarthy's really at 215 now. That's close enough to keep trying and maybe sneak through if enough Dems or any of those 7 miss a vote (it seem 1 Dem did miss this last one). 

Also, if none of McCarthy's supporters abandoned him yet, despite giving away the farm to the HFC, I doubt they'll blink as he gives away enormous bribes to 3 of the 7 (e.g., key committee gavels). Some of them, like Harris, seem likely to accept that. I don't know if 5 of them are truly "never Kevin no matter what".

[Jaxom 1974]

Hmm...hasn't he already given those gavels away? 

 

And what's the over/under on how quickly he recalled, since it'll only take one now

 

 

Basically they're all terrible but it's even more galling that Kevin is still being rewarded...

[Fez]

3 minutes ago, Jaxom 1974 said:

Hmm...hasn't he already given those gavels away? 

As far as I know, no. He's given away committee spots to the HFC, including the all-important Rules Committee. But all reporting so far is that the gavels themselves will still be assigned by seniority.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

11 minutes ago, Fez said:

Well, Ken Buck missed the vote today but will be back, so McCarthy's really at 215 now. That's close enough to keep trying and maybe sneak through if enough Dems or any of those 7 miss a vote (it seem 1 Dem did miss this last one). 

Also, if none of McCarthy's supporters abandoned him yet, despite giving away the farm to the HFC, I doubt they'll blink as he gives away enormous bribes to 3 of the 7 (e.g., key committee gavels). Some of them, like Harris, seem likely to accept that. I don't know if 5 of them are truly "never Kevin no matter what".

Realistically what's going to happen to the couple of holdouts, assuming they don't all jump together? Will they be stripped of committee seats and financial backing? Can McCarthy even afford to do that given how weak of a Speaker he will be?

Le Big Mac test appears to be close to going into effect.

 

[Fez]

21 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

Realistically what's going to happen to the couple of holdouts, assuming they don't all jump together? Will they be stripped of committee seats and financial backing? Can McCarthy even afford to do that given how weak of a Speaker he will be?

I assume nothing. McCarthy won't always be able to ensure such high attendance of his conference and there will likely be plenty of times he doesn't have a numerical majority without the holdouts. If they get punished I could certainly ones like Gaetz voting with Democrats on procedural stuff (never actual bills of course) simply to fuck with him.