A little piece of advice
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.
On this anniversary of the January 6th insurrection, it seems that these same Republicans are fomenting a second insurrection – I think if anyone has beer and popcorn at the ready it’s Putin and Xi.
1Was just reading where repugnanticans walked out on matt gaetz during his nominating speech for gym jordan. He was quoted shortly after as saying he’d vote for Jeffries before he’d vote for Qevin mccarthy. It’s now in the 12th and Jeffries still leads. I’m not bashing repugnanticans when they’re down, they are.
2It seems democrats can never win.
We get questioned by the media for not helping the lunatic party
out–even when a few of them were indeed behind trying to take out the former democratic speaker and laughed when her husband was almost murdered. Or we are having fingers wagged at us for giggling at the lunacy.
Doing nothing or laughing at the crazy won’t change the way the GOP is going to behave.
3Joe Biden better get ready to mint the trillion-dollar platinum coin, because the Republicans aren’t going to raise the debt ceiling. They have seen that if they throw a tantrum long enough, their opponents will give in – and that’s their plan for the next 2 years.
4Nick, agree with most of your points, but you are always too easy and accommodating towards the Rethugs.
Cut them no slack, give no quarter, –kick ’em when they’re down–, and harder every time. These people are your sworn enemies, every last one of them, they want you –dead–, reciprocate to the max.. If they succeed in acquiring power in the next few years you will be fighting for your very life, or passively going to your end.
.
“They have been in power for 30 years. They’ve controlled the legislature, governor’s chair, and lieutenant governor’s chair”
–Here you omitted mentioning the most important branch of government, the courts; the ultimate resort.
Far far too many Democrats keep doing this, overlooking the key factor in remaining a livable democracy. Controlling the courts has always been the Rethugs prime directive, and they never lose sight of that goal, and never miss a chance to vote in furtherance of that [for any office].
The same mindset costs us election after election; due to apathy, only chasing ‘charisma’, and lacking focus on an end goal, etc, [and being insufficiently ruthless].
“No one likes a bully and no one likes someone that laughs at someone else’s misfortune. … The people will see it.”
5–Completely wrong, 99.8% of Rethugs –love– these traits, and they make up such a significant portion of the population [especially in Texas], that they usually win a majority of elections, with candidates who are the very definition of your words.
Most of the people –will not– “see it” either, just the wrong ones in the majority will [in the red states anyway].
The 14th Speaker ballot will begin shortly, or they go for an adjournment…
Going for the adjournment to extract some more ‘deals’, we’re really F’ed…
McQlown made backroom deals with the qrazies and picked up 14 votes in the 13th ballot, needs 4 more to win.. These deals that Qevin has been cutting with the qrazies have tremendously bad effects for the future of the nation. Look for a future US Debt default, with the subsequent worldwide supercrash and total economic meltdowns.
And if you’re getting Social Security, Medicare, or you will in the future, you are going to be screwed to the max.
Right now the markets are about as bullish as they get, DJIA, etc. are way up [world’s too], crude oil is down. When these raving GQPers are done the economy will be a smoking ruin.
6Adjournment until 10pm. McQlown will grovel a bit more in the backroom and get his gavel, the qrazies will extract a few more juicy bites of the body politic, and we’re all F’ed for two years at least.
You can tell how dirty this whole mess has been just by watching the process.
7The absolute worst of the RWNJs will be in the catbird seat, McQlown has sold his, and our, souls in order to be Speaker.
I agree with you Nick. At this point we can stand back and watch the implosion. The Republicans have strapped a ton of TNT to the support beams in an ultimate act of self demolition that can’t be improved upon, even by adding another few sticks of dynamite.
I would recommend we all invest in ACME Industries stock, because the Wile E. Coyote arm of the Republican party is making some big purchases.
8My House District, TX-15, is a perfect example of how our Democratic ‘leadership’ has majorly F’ed up.
It had been a solidly Democratic seat –forever– [John Nance Garner…], a South Texas, majority Hispanic, ‘fajita strip’ district.
Due to little to NO support from the Democratic Party, the Rethugs just –FLIPPED– this district last election [to Monica De La Cruz, a real whackjob under the surface].
With this one, and just a couple of others around the country, the Democrats would still be in control of the House.
Used to be in Henry Cuellar’s district, lots of y’all like to rag on Cuellar, but he stays solid D [and I’ve held my nose and voted for him a number of times, was in other districts too, like Kika’s]. And even Cuellar is starting to squeak into winning after having massive majorities before.
The Democratic ‘leadership had better wake TF up, if they throw away the rest of Texas everybody will be screwed.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas%27s_15th_congressional_district
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas%27s_28th_congressional_district
9The last national Democrat that paid any attention to Texas was Howard Dean. For some reason he was not used in the Obama administration. Dean tried to have an organizer in every Texas congressional district.
10“The House of Representatives literally cannot govern until they elect a speaker and which each passing day the symbol becomes more and more emboldened.”
What does this mean? I understand the individual words but looking for a coherent sentence, all I see is word salad.
11As for the rest I concur with Sandridge @5 on his points of dissent.
No, Nick. Democrats try and try to be “Minnesota nice–” and it has not worked. It doesn’t matter what Dems do, they are screwed and expected to say thank you, ma’am…
I concur with Wally, Sandridge and Angela. Nice doesn’t pay in Washington and I don’t care how much they enjoy the tedious show being put on by people who can’t govern their way out of a paper bag. They can be as rude as possible to the horrible election-denier robots. I welcome it.
12Sandridge my friend, Texas has too many House districts while your poorer neighbors in Nevaduh have only 4. One of which is Jane and my NV-2 occupied by moron Mark Amodei. Meanwhile our state legislature could go toe to toe with the TX lege for crazy. The “math” just does not add. 70 million morons for tRump in a country of over 350 million. Loving much of what President Biden and VP Harris are doing, but dang they need to step up and pack SCROTUS with actual jurists.
13I’m sticking my neck out and making two predictions.
141. McCarthy will get the speakership, by one vote,
later tonight, having sold his soul
[What does it profit a man to gain the whole world if he loses his soul in the process?]
2. He won’t last past the middle of June, if that long.
I understand that the Lincoln Project has already put a head of lettuce on display next to McCarthy’s picture.
By the way, I’m sorry, but I do not find it funny to try to make a joke by misspelling someone’s name, even if he/she/it is my sworn enemy.
Oh no, my pleas to do nothing is not out of kindness. Think of the GOP as a drowning victim. You can do one of three things: you can help them, do nothing, or laugh while they struggle. I’m saying do nothing. Certainly don’t help them but if you laugh you may piss them off enough to jar them into swimming ashore. I’m not helping them and I sure wouldn’t give them any bulletin board material (which is what I meant Wally).
15Well, they got it done. Now we will have to see if his lifespan is greater than a mayfly’s.
16Jack, I am going to keep a calendar on how long McCarthy takes to resign and leaves The Hill forever.
17@ Nick Carraway: I disagree with your premise that “nobody likes a bully” – Republicans LOVE bullies and vote for them regularly. Thus, the Republican Party has become the Bully Party, where prestige and power go to whoever most outrageously beats up on Democrats.
This leaves Democrats with two options: be silent and accept the bullying, or fight back. We’ve been silent for too long – it’s time to fight back.
However, you’re correct that we should avoid giving the MAGA crazies sound bites to use to justify their bullying. To quote one of my favorite SF shows (Babylon 5) – we need to “Fight them, without becoming them.”
Joe Biden has shown us the most effective way of fighting back: reward bipartisanship while pointing out how it benefits the average citizen. This provides a carrot for people to get off the MAGA train. Hopefully it can work in time to save the country.
18Child rapist congresscritter got his moments of fame (and power). Theres something really creepy about how he and boobert sit so closely together with smiles only they can appreciate (and maybe trumpf). I was really hoping he and Qevin (and the other R critters) had come to actual fisticuffs. That would have been like a real cat fight and fun to watch.
19Ok, so now he’s the speaker and in control of a den of snakes (referring to his party). Very shortly they’ll be fighting over how quickly they can shut down the federal government, play around with Medicare and SS, let Vlad murder and pillage at will in Ukraine, crash the stock market and people’s retirement, and more damage than I have time to list. Then they’ll run for congress again. Good luck with that. Too bad for them the Senate is in the hands of Democrats (Manchin and Sinema??) but that won’t stop the absolute gridlock we’re in for.
If McCarthy has to resign, there is already a backup plan.
20https://claytoonz.files.wordpress.com/2023/01/cjonesrgb01092023.jpg
Performance artists? I think calling them ‘artists’ of any kind gives them way too much credit.
Then again, they have made an art out of defrauding the voters.
Sooo, never mind…
21Nick,
22What RepubAnon said.
But more.
One thing lots of bullies do is gaslighting. And especially groups of people that bully to gain advantage. Making anybody not them the others. It’s not just the other’s fault.
It changing reality for anybody in their sphere of influence to see things their way. ESPECIALLY THE OTHERS.
Well guess what. Repugnantcans’ sphere of influence is nationwide thanks to their willingness to embrace any right-wing fringe groups. Social Media’s got ’em all connected. So it’s gaslighting on the national level. Fox news has literally changed reality in the minds of millions of Americans.
And the others?
That’s us.
Brother Sandridge’s been on this for quite awhile.
Anybody hear about shootings at Democrats’ homes in New Mexico?
I won’t criticize anyone for keeping their heads down.
But advising folks to not piss off the biggest threat to our democracy since the Civil War?
I gotta call bullshit on that buddy.
Here’s who Qevin Mccarthy really is- praising the orange moron on the anniversary of the Jan 6 insurrection.
https://www.rawstory.com/harry-dunn-kevin-mccarthy/
Who he really is? He’s a coward.
23Charles Dimmick: You’re right, intentional mispellings of names is somewhat childish and immature. But we’re here to have fun as well as point out ridiculous or dangerous politics when it occurs. At least it’s a step above putting doggy dump in a paper bag and setting it on fire on McCarthy’s front porch.
While I don’t use that terminology professionally, it’s a good way to blow off steam and is far better than the email death threats that the Q-nauts love. And better than their violence, ranging from attempted insurrection down to shooting up the homes of Democrat politicians in the Southwest. If we can’t let our hair down in a beauty salon, where can we do so?
24Again, stepping back had nothing to do with being nice or trying to get along with anyone. They didn’t need any help from us to look bad and poor Kevin won’t get anything done because it will either be the Freedom Caucus or the “moderates” that get him in the end. The general hope is that the people will recognize that nothing is getting done and we will have ample opportunity to point that out to them in the 2024 election cycle. If the people see this as a self-inflicted wound it will be be much worse for them.
25Thank you professor. I don’t mean to offend anyone when I purposely call out some “repugnantican” politicians by misspelling their names or not capitalizing. It’s my little protest and steam venting. At least I’m not supporting an insurrection and assault on democracy (and my vote) that ended in death and serious and permanent injuries. A little payback for that and the names used by the “right” against Joe, Pelosi, Schiff and many more. Maybe it’s childish, but oh well. I mean to disrespect.
26Steve from Beaverton @26, I second your motion, unlimited payback any chance that comes up.
27