[ Posted Tuesday, October 17th, 2023 – 15:51 UTC ]
Today marked the start of the third straight week without a speaker of the House of Representatives. Republicans are still bitterly divided, with no end in sight to the standoff. The full House met today for the first time since Kevin McCarthy was deposed, in order to hold a vote on whether Jim Jordan would become the next speaker or not. Jordan failed in this effort, as 20 of his fellow Republicans voted for someone else. And the word now is that they won't be meeting for another vote until tomorrow morning, which means that Jordan has been unsuccessful in convincing the holdouts, at least for now.
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[ Posted Friday, October 13th, 2023 – 16:20 UTC ]
Personally, we could not think of a better day to elect the next speaker of the House, it being Friday the 13th and all. But the way things are going, that doesn't exactly seem like it's going to happen. As we all sit and watch the center ring of the Republican circus, just when you thought that tiny little clown car couldn't possibly have any more clowns in it... another one emerges!
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[ Posted Thursday, October 12th, 2023 – 15:00 UTC ]
I admit that I've been something of a monomaniac this week, but the struggle for control of the Republican conference in the House of Representatives is absolutely fascinating to me, since it exposes the wide rifts within the party right now. I realize there's a brutal war being fought in Israel, but I have long shied away from commenting on that particular situation (because I feel I really don't have much of anything to add on the subject). And in domestic politics here at home, there's really only one thing going on: utter chaos in the speakerless House.
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[ Posted Wednesday, October 11th, 2023 – 15:58 UTC ]
Representative and current Majority Leader Steve Scalise has won his party's nomination for the job of speaker of the House of Representatives. He won a secret ballot held within his own caucus by the not-very-impressive margin of 113-99. But instead of the entire House immediately convening to hold a vote for the speaker's chair, they instead immediately went into recess. Nobody knows when such a vote will be held, meaning the chaos will continue for the time being.
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[ Posted Tuesday, October 10th, 2023 – 15:29 UTC ]
Republicans in the House of Representatives remain in disarray. That's probably not too surprising to anyone, since dysfunction is kind of their "brand" these days. But after the past few days, this is a lot more concerning to a lot more people. We should know, within the next two days or so, whether this is going to be a major impediment to American government or just another bump in the GOP's rocky road.
What has made it all more real is a new war raging in Israel. All of a sudden the fact that one house of Congress is paralyzed isn't a matter of: "Oh, just don't visit the National Parks during the shutdown, everything else will be fine," but rather of not being able to provide American military aid when it is needed. The consequences are far more dire, obviously.
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[ Posted Friday, October 6th, 2023 – 18:07 UTC ]
We've finally gotten to the point where even the headline-writers in the mainstream media had to admit the reality -- which runs 180 degrees counter to their propensity to magnify every little squabble among Democrats -- and finally write a few: "Republicans In Disarray" headlines. Because this was the week it became unavoidable. The Republican civil war broke out into the open in a big way, as they made history by deposing a speaker of the House of Representatives for the first time ever. From this point forward, we will be referring to just Representative Kevin McCarthy, since that's all he now is. And maybe not even that, if the rumors he's thinking about stepping down entirely turn out to be true.
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[ Posted Wednesday, October 4th, 2023 – 15:27 UTC ]
Chaos still reigns in the House of Representatives, and will continue to do so for at least another week. After deposing their own speaker -- for the first time in American history -- the Republicans decided to celebrate by doing what they do best: go on vacation for a week. You couldn't make this stuff up if you tried, folks.
The speaker pro tempore (Latin for: "for the time being") who is attempting to lead the Republican Party through the chaos announced this, even though the clock is now ticking on the next impending government shutdown. But Republicans have never cared as much about actual governance as they do about whatever their next circus act is going to be.
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[ Posted Tuesday, October 3rd, 2023 – 15:20 UTC ]
We are now officially in uncharted waters. The speaker of the House of Representatives has been deposed. The Chaos Caucus of hardline rightwing Republicans won the day, with the help of the entire Democratic Party. Kevin McCarthy is speaker no more.
This is all unprecedented and, as a result, historic. Nobody's even entirely sure what the next steps will be. From the New York Times liveblog of the vote, immediately after McCarthy lost:
"Now what?" one Republican loudly asks. This has never happened in the House of Representatives before.
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[ Posted Monday, October 2nd, 2023 – 15:59 UTC ]
There are a lot of momentous things going on in the political world this week -- including Donald Trump sitting inside a courtroom facing a lawsuit -- but what is going on in the House of Representatives right now somehow seems more important than watching this particular episode of "The Trump Show." Because we may see a move this week that hasn't been made in over 110 years, and (win or lose) it is going to shift the power structure in the House from this point on in some way or another, even if nobody's got a clue which direction it will shift in.
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[ Posted Friday, September 29th, 2023 – 17:08 UTC ]
Welcome back once again to the Shutdown Follies! Today's entertainment will be provided by the House Republicans, who will all be driving clown cars in a demolition derby, for your enjoyment.
That's what it feels like, at any rate. Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Jellyfish) is caught in a vortex of political posturing, from which there is no apparent escape. No escape for the country, as we all get sucked into a completely pointless government shutdown in its wake, and no escape for Kevin McCarthy, whose only way out is to commit political hara-kiri (or, if you prefer, seppuku). The "Chaos Caucus" of MAGA lunatics is in full control of the House now, and they are content to head the ship of state at full speed directly into a gigantic (and eminently avoidable) iceberg. And there's nothing anyone can do but sit back and watch the disaster unfold, it seems.
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