For those of you reveling in CSPAN being able to put cameras on the House floor during the election of a speaker, there was a very special treat among many, many regular treats.

Mike Rogers, a Republican Congressman from Aladamnbama (begin cringe) is a McCarthy supporter with the worst toupee on God’s green earth. He confronted Matt Gaetz after Gaetz’s vote helped sink McCarthy’s 14th effort to be elected speaker.

This is television pic.twitter.com/wa0Zr4zdNZ

— philip lewis (@Phil_Lewis_) January 7, 2023

North Carolina Republican Richard Hudson pulled Rogers out of the confrontation – oh hell, let’s call it was it is – bayou brawl – after Rogers lunged at Gaetz.

Okay, but all that wasn’t enough for Republicans.

Oh no.

Tennessee Republican Tim Burchett opened his mouth.

“People shouldn’t be drinking, especially when you’re a redneck, on the House floor,” Rep. Burchett told CNN’s Kate Sullivan about the incident.

Juanita Rule: Rednecks should not be drinking period. Except maybe on the House floor. I mean, let’s be honest about this. Majorie Taylor Green is about two beers away from demanding they install neon lighting in the House and Chip Roy thinks every mechanical bull should be declared a national monument. We can’t have these people operating sober because they are dangerous.

But, Burchett wasn’t finished with his Redneck bedtime story. “I would drop him like a bag of dirt,” Burchett said about Rogers. “Nobody’s gonna put their hands on me. Nobody’s gonna threaten me.”

Burchett seems completely oblivious to the fact that nobody even wants to touch him.  And he, supposedly, was the sober one.

I have a tiny piece of advice for the Democrats. As I sit here, Kevin McCarthy has failed to gain the speakership after eleven ballots. The last time this happened (1923) the eventual speaker was elected after nine ballots. So, McCarthy has made history. Congratulations Kevin. Democrats have had their pictures taken with popcorn and thoroughly enjoying the whole spectacle. Tread lightly Democrats. The Republicans are disintegrating before our very eyes and you don’t want to be anywhere near them when they do.

No one likes a bully and no one likes someone that laughs at someone else’s misfortune. There is a time when the joke has gone on long enough and everyone wants to move on. The people see what is going on and the longer it goes on the less people need for anyone to spin it. The House of Representatives literally cannot govern until they elect a speaker and which each passing day the symbol becomes more and more emboldened.

Republicans are not interested in governing and they really can’t govern. Of course, one leads to the other, but I couldn’t tell you which one of those comes first. Think about Texas Republicans. They keep complaining about how liberals have ruined the state. They have been in power for 30 years. They’ve controlled the legislature, governor’s chair, and lieutenant governor’s chair every day this century. Yet, they blamed the power outage on renewable energy. It’s like the chef that goes to the market, buys the ingredients, preps the food, and then cooks the food blaming the meal on someone else.

They at least can seat leadership. The House can’t even do that. Democrats passed numerous bills over the past two years with narrow majorities in the House and an even Senate. During the Trump years they literally passed only one landmark piece of legislation in four years. So, just stay out of the way. Do not call any attention to yourselves. Don’t get caught enjoying the moment too much. The American people will learn a painful lesson before too long. Republicans are not serious actors and they won’t get any serious policy ideas from them. They are performance artists, carnival barkers, and frauds. The people will see it. You don’t have to break your arm pointing it out to them.

This is what happens when you put terrifying republican backbenchers on national television

pic.twitter.com/HBzc0ljqgn

— Molly Jong-Fast (@MollyJongFast) January 6, 2023

The person who can pick the time of a successful vote and the name of the next Speaker of the House will win … you know, like a prize or something.

So make your pick – the time and date of a successful vote and the name of the Mystery Speaker.  The winner will receive a genuine copy of my favorite and almost constant bedside book, A Patriot’s Handbook, delivered to your home by the United States Postal Workers.

Please feel free to add your justification for your wager or not. It’s up to you. I’d just like to know your thinking and I’m will to send you a book for it.

Hey, I’d send liquor and popcorn if I could.

I was having one of those discussions with my daughter. She is at the age where I’m trying to teach her some more complex concepts. A part of it is preparing her for a complex and sometimes frightening world. Another part is simply building her vocabulary. So, I had her look up “nihilism” on her phone. Nihilism is “the belief that all values are baseless and that nothing can be known or communicated.” So, in other words there is no objective truth. There really is nothing of value and there are no moral absolutes. Dealing with people that truly believe this is a lonely and frightening existence. Leadership based on this isn’t really leadership at all. Yet, this is where we are.

The new Congress is trying to elect the new Speaker of the House. Candidates have to have 218 votes in order to be Speaker. Technically speaking it doesn’t even have to be a member of Congress. I suppose it could be a member of the minority party, but that would be theoretical at this point. In simplest terms, you simply keep voting until you find one. Kevin McCarthy is supposed to be the new Speaker of the House. He has gotten as many as 201 votes in the elections from the past two days. As I write this, there have been four separate ballots and there is no speaker. This is the first time this has happened since 1923 when it took nine ballots to elect a new speaker.

Watching the modern Republican party is a real life lesson in governing philosophy. Traditional conservatives decried what became known as moral relativism. As best explained, that would be the concept that no one person’s moral compass would be superior to someone else’s. However, that is still far different than nihilism.McCarthy’s behavior over the last few years is a perfect example. He decried the January 6th attacks until he didn’t. He opposed extremism in his own party until he didn’t. He has tried to be all things for all people and is discovering that you really can’t. Someone that will stand for nothing will fall for everything. I’m quite certain that I read that somewhere.

Ultimately there is a difference between believing there is one objective truth and believing there is one objective truth for you. There is a difference between allowing new information and life experience to change your moral compass and never having one in the first place. There is a difference between engaging other people with a different moral compass than your own and engaging someone that believes nothing.I have said this before and I’ll say it again. This is why the Republican party is dying. Conservatism isn’t dying. Major philosophical planks can’t really die. Parties die when they have nothing at their core. Power is not a core belief. Attention is not a central tenet of any governing philosophy. Politics cannot be transactional for very long. If you stand for nothing you will fall for anything. Grab the remote and pop some popcorn. The death of a major political party is something to behold.

Baseball season is 4 months away, but we just saw Kevin Q. McCarthy strike out looking in a historic vote for his long-coveted position of Speaker of the House.

Historic because there were three sequential votes with no one attaining the 218 votes to clinch the gavel. That’s the first time a speaker wasn’t elected on the first ballot in a century.

In 1923 it took Frederick Huntington Gillette (R – Mass) 9 ballots to achieve what Nancy Pelosi did in 4 (on 4 separate occasions).

McCarthy never got more than 203 votes. The rest of the 19 and then 20 votes went to several other Rs, then to 2, then to 1 (who initially nominated McCarthy): Congressman Gym Jordan.

Congress adjourned after three votes, and the last thing that I heard was a Jordan supporter (Matt “say you’re 18” Gaetz) threaten to vote for Democrat Hakim Jeffries before he’d vote for McCarthy.

Not believable, but popcorn-worthy nevertheless.