The conflict in the House continues
I hope it isn’t a case of he that troubleth his own house shall inherit the wind – the “he” there being the right, and the house being the GOP in the House.
Then again, the next line is and the fool shall be servant to the wise of heart, so that’s more hopeful.
At any rate, the fighting continues for Speaker of the House of Representatives. To clarify my own position, I don’t care if it’s McCarthy or someone else and I’d actually prefer someone else. I just don’t want the whole thing to end up benefiting the left, and it also would be nice to have a “someone else” on the right who can be elected to the job and perform it well in the ideological, organizational, and the fundraising sense (the latter also being quite important, as this comment by “eworth” explains; I recommend reading it). It’s all very well and good to think of Person A or Person B or C or D whom you’d prefer. But does that person have the necessary qualifications, including having enough support to win?
I believe that McCarthy has the support of some of the more conservative members of the house (such as Jordan) because they don’t see a better alternative. Meanwhile, the voting continues. I make no predictions except I doubt this will be resolved today; we may be in for the long haul.
According to the update over at Legal Insurrection, McCarthy lost the fifth round of voting at 2 p.m.
PA Cat:
That’s the same link that was already in my last paragraph.
I made my position clear yesterday, and I stand by it. After now four votes and no budging from the dissidents, McCarthy should stand aside. As I said yesterday, he didn’t have the votes seven years ago and seems to have done little to build bridges with the Freedom Caucus since then.
I do understand and respect the practical concerns regarding fundraising and building infrastructure and that there doesn’t seem to be a decent alternative who wants the position, as yet. But if McCarthy stands down, perhaps Scalise or Jordan will be prevailed upon to accept. I hope so.
In the meantime, the spectacle on the House floor is a breath of fresh air. Ignore the talking heads; the average voter is barely paying attention now, and will have long forgotten it within a couple weeks. But what we do see are a couple dozen principled conservative populists who are truly fed up with the GOP establishment and are drawing a hard line in the sand. That is commendable.
I also, am starting to side with the “rebels”. Especially after I see that McConnell is going to hobnob with Biden in KY today to tout the “infrastructure” boondoggle.
What PoS’s these GOPe politicians are. Time to clean house. I know that there are practical and compromising positions in politics that are necessary to get anything done. But, how much more of what the GOPe is doing are we supposed to take?
I agree with Ackler. Given that a fair majority of the country were unhappy with both the direction and speed the country was going in during the midterm election by every measure, that election should have been a landslide of tectonic proportion. Instead the R’s won a handful of House seats and actually lost one Senate seat.
I don’t know how or why they did so poorly, but the party leadership should have seen it coming and stopped it. But they didn’t.
McCarthy, McConnell and the RNC chair should all resign their leadership positions. With an apology.
Boondoggle it may be, but the Brent Spence bridge between Covington and Cincinnati has needed replacement for a generation.
House just adjourned (until 8pm tonight) after a sixth vote ending in the same count as the fifth. McC 201, Hak Jeff 212, Byron Donalds 20, present 1.
Here’s an article from Nov. 22, signaling that McCarthy didn’t have the votes to be elected Speaker.
“Meanwhile, five members, which include myself, Andy Biggs, Bob Good, Matt Rosendale, and now most recently Ralph Norman, have all come out and said that our ‘no’ vote on McCarthy is firm. It was not just a no vote within the Republican conference. It is a ‘no’ vote we intend to carry to the floor,” Gaetz added, listing the votes he believes will tank McCarthy.
“The reason that’s significant is because Republicans are expected to hold a four-seat majority. So five of us saying publicly we have no intention of voting for McCarthy—we are firm in our opposition to him—well, that ought to trigger a realization among Republicans that we need a consensus candidate,” Gaetz continued, adding:
“We need someone who is more broadly respected throughout the Republican conference, and we need someone who believes in a bottom-up, membership-empowered House of Representatives.”
Bannon then asked Gaetz to respond to moves from GOP House members, including McCarthy, vowing a slate of investigations into the Biden administration and Hunter Biden. Bannon specifically asked if McCarthy made “too late a conversion?”
“It’s interesting to see McCarthy going around talking about all the subpoenas he wants to issue, because when he was in the majority last, when he was the majority leader last, he did not utter one word in support of subpoenas that Jim Jordan and, at the time, Ron DeSantis and Mark Meadows and I were calling for on the House Judiciary Committee. So Kevin McCarthy will revert to his establishment mean the moment he gets power, and that’s why there are enough of us now, a critical mass, standing as a bulwark against his ascension to the speakership,” Gaetz replied.
https://www.mediaite.com/politics/matt-gaetz-lists-the-five-votes-he-claims-will-stop-kevin-mccarthy-from-becoming-speaker/
What I don’t understand is who their “consensus” candidate is. They ought to have chosen someone and worked to promote that candidacy. Just digging in their feet isn’t enough.
In a bit of irony, I got a fund-raising letter from the RNC today.
I am formulating a response. So far, I have considered, “not a dime for the clown show”, or “it will be a cold day in hell”.
Just as I think the country has gone as far down the “Banana Republic” path as it possibly can go, events prove me wrong.
I wonder if the country has always elected Buffoons and just had the strength and will to marginalize them. At least before the explosive growth of the bureaucratic state, buffoons had fewer tools with which to work their mischief.
DeSantis is being praised for his inauguration speech. I hope we can hold on until then he gets to the White House; but wonder if any one man can stop the stampede toward mediocrity, or worse.
Hard to believe that we once considered ourselves to be a meritocratic society. Seems long ago.
Speaking of mediocrity and Banana Republics, I have a total flail in progress over the delivery of a range/oven to divert my attention from the political sideshow. At least I have a voice in that mess; ineffective thought it may be. I could, but won’t within hearing, scream and curse.
Boondoggle it may be, but the Brent Spence bridge between Covington and Cincinnati has needed replacement for a generation.
Why can’t Ohio and Kentucky conclude an interstate compact to set up a bi-state authority to make that happen? Why does this have to be a federal project?
After the debacle in November, McConnell, McCarthy and McDaniel (Mitt Romney’s niece) should have been run out of town on a rail. Make ’em squirm as much as possible.
GOPe is celebrating with McConnell today for rubbing our faces in the Omnibus trillions they are stealing from us to fund their pet projects and Ukraine which McConnell claims is the Republicans priority. Embrace the suck. They are losers who cave to the left. Time for them to go. All of them. Talk about ENEMIES. (Crenshaw) Who needs enemies with friends like these?
“In addition to the motion to vacate, another group of conservatives has outlined a list of demands for significant changes to House rules, including better committee positions and chairmanships for hard-right lawmakers, spending restraints, a ban on leadership playing in primary elections, and a return to regular order.”
The motion to vacate rule was changed when the Democrats took control and there hasn’t been regular order since 2008.
I believe most of this is to wrest power away from the leadership and back to the committee chairs.
@ sdferr on January 4, 2023 at 4:36 pm said:
House just adjourned (until 8pm tonight) after a sixth vote ending in the same count as the fifth. McC 201, Hak Jeff 212, Byron Donalds 20, present 1.
Reminds me of the old back-room convention in-fighting, before the new rules of both parties made voting more “democratic,” for certain values of that word.
@ Kate on January 4, 2023 at 4:52 pm said:
What I don’t understand is who their “consensus” candidate is. They ought to have chosen someone and worked to promote that candidacy. Just digging in their feet isn’t enough.
From sdferr’s comment (I haven’t read any news posts), the consensus is moving to Byron Donalds — whoever he is — since Jordan apparently was adamant about not running if nominated and not serving if elected.
wendybar:
McConnell didn’t say Ukraine was the GOP’s top priority. That report was based on a truncated quote. I explain what he did say in about the last third of this previous post of mine.
@ Dwaz on January 4, 2023 at 4:32 pm said:
Boondoggle it may be, but the Brent Spence bridge between Covington and Cincinnati has needed replacement for a generation.
@ Art Deco on January 4, 2023 at 5:01 pm said:
Why can’t Ohio and Kentucky conclude an interstate compact to set up a bi-state authority to make that happen? Why does this have to be a federal project?
THIS.
Earmarks and trading favors and pork projects are the result of giving Congress carte blanche to spend the public’s money at several hands removed from both the payers and the recipients.
Always taking a cut for themselves as well.
Listening to Matt Schlap on Newsmax.
His take is a lot of the anger with McCarthy comes from his getting involved in primary contests and picking one candidate over another.
Plus fighting to control spending.
Less than ten minutes ago, before I even saw this article, I wrote my representative (Ron Estes) and asked him to cease his support for McCarthy. He doesn’t have the votes and the House doesn’t need more GOPe leadership.
Scalise or Jordan would be fine with me.
they explicitly dedicate funds to ukraine, and conversely made sure that funds could not actually go to border interdiction, can their priorities be any clearer if one tried,
also they took a little nip out of the fund for the 80,000 pirates hired at the irs,
AesopFan, Byron Donalds is a member from Florida. I’ve seen him several times on Fox Business. He’s intelligent and articulate, and seems very conservative. On another note, he’s black, which would give the Dems fits. Whether he’s ready to assume the Speakership is another question.
Rep. Cori Bush, D-MO, a radical leftist, has already been on Twitter to call Rep. Donalds a “prop” who would vote for “white supremacy.” Rep. Donalds’ skin tone is very similar to that of Justice Thomas. Bush is an idiot.
Chip Roy and Dan Bishop report “progress” in negotiations:
https://redstate.com/nick-arama/2023/01/04/chip-roy-and-dan-bishop-indicate-progress-on-coming-to-resolution-on-speaker-n683282
I don’t know much about the details of politics, but this article in The Federalist seems right to me.
https://thefederalist.com/2023/01/04/relax-the-gop-fight-over-house-speaker-doesnt-really-matter/
Still, my favorite idea is making Trump Speaker of the House. There are no rules against making any non-member of Congress Speaker, oddly. There would be two benefits to this. First, it would keep Trump from running for President (well, maybe), and secondly it would be a real poke in the eye for Pelosi. It would also be entertaining as hell.
I believe most of this is to wrest power away from the leadership and back to the committee chairs.
Here are some suggestions no one asked for:
1. Each member of the House is entitled to two regular seats on standing committees, no exceptions. When the ratio of the majority to the minority caucus is close, there will be ‘extra’ seats allocated to the majority caucus so that they can retain a majority on each committee, so a modest fraction of the majority caucus will have a third committee seat which is not a regular seat.
2. The number of majority caucus seats on each standing committee shall be x +/- 1 and the number of minority caucus seats shall be y +/- 1 and the majority caucus will be the larger on each committee. Each committee shall have a chairman drawn from the majority caucus and a titular vice chairman drawn from the minority caucus.
3. Each returning member has a qualified franchise to retain the regular seats he held in the previous Congress. There are three qualifications. (1) rotation in office rule: if a member has been on a committee for 11 of the last 12 years or will hit that wall in the coming Congress, he must relinquish the seat; (2) shifts in proportions – if the number of seats a party caucus is due on a committee fall due to electoral losses and the number of members who have a supposed franchise to retain their seat exceeds the number allocated the caucus, a lottery must be held to determine who cannot retain their seat; (3) disciplinary interdicts – if, by the vote of a majority of his caucus, a member has been interdicted, he loses the franchise to retain a committee seat he has.
4. Nothing requires a returning member to retain a seat he has held. He is free to relinquish the seat giving the caucus chairman proper notice.
5. At the beginning of each congress, there shall be many open seats on committees. These shall be distributed in lotteries held in meetings of the majority caucus and the minority caucus respectively, with a some exceptions noted below.
6. There shall be a pre-printed card with all the committees listed. For the drawing to be held, the cards shall be amended by the secretarial staff of the caucus. Each shall be marked with a member’s name and with the number of seats for which he is competing (1 or 2). The committees with no open seats for the caucus in question shall be crossed out. The committees the member in question is debarred from competing for (due to rotation in office rules) shall also be crossed out. The member shall fill out his prepared card by rank-ordering his preferences among the committees with open seats for which he is permitted to compete. The cards will be proofread by the secretarial staff and the member in question called in to correct any facial errors he has made.
7. The drawing is held in a meeting of the caucus with all in attendance. In round 1, each card is placed in a pile of the committee marked as the member’s 1st preference. The most over-subscribed committee is identified, that being the one where the difference between the number of cards and the number of open seats is the largest. If there’s a tie on this metric, you can flip a coin to start with one. The cards are place in a box, the box is shaken, and a blind drawing is held to fill the vacant seats. Each of the cards not drawn are then distributed to the pile indicated by the member’s 2d. choice. Note, some of the members chosen for the committee in question will be seeking a second seat, so their card will also be distributed to their 2d choice pile instead of removing it from the drawing.
8. The foregoing procedure is repeated until each member of the House competing has received his quota of regular seats. There may be up to 25 rounds to fill these seats as there are 25 standing committees (though not all will have open seats for the caucus in question).
9. The majority caucus shall have a 2d drawing to fill the ‘extra’ seats. The ‘extra’ seats cannot be retained from one caucus to the next and are always filled by lot. When the drawings for the regular seats are completed, empty seats to be allocated for the majority caucus shall be identified and pre-printed cards drawn up with each committee with an open seat listed, and an option for ‘none of the above’. Each member of the majority caucus can then rank-order his choices from among the available options. The cards for which ‘none-of-the-above’ is the first option can be laid aside for the time being. The other cards can be placed in the pile indicated by their 1st option and the procedure outlined in step 7 repeated. If there are seats left unfilled, you’ll have to locate a card among those left aside which lists the committee in question as the 2d choice after ‘none-of-the-above’ and proceed from there according to the procedure delineated in step 7.
10. one seat on the Rules committee shall be filled by the floor leader and one by the whip ex officio, with the floor leader serving as chairman or vice chairman as the case may be. One seat on the Budget committee shall be filled by a vote of the caucus, which member shall serve as chairman or vice chairman of the committee as the case may be. Ditto one seat on the Appropriations committee and one on the Ways and Means committee.
11. The residue of unfilled seats shall be distributed to members under a disciplinary interdict, who were debarred from competing. If more than one member is under an interdict, a drawing will have to be held to determine which of them gets which seats.
12. Every member of each caucus shall be ranked according to accumulated seniority. The following shall then be removed from the ranking: (1) members who are under a disciplinary interdict and (2) members who will reach the age of 80 during the coming Congress. Each member will be given a typed card which has the committees on which he has a regular seat listed and a ‘none-of-the-above’ option listed. The member is expected to fill out the card listing his ranked preferences among these three options. The member with the most seniority is given his 1st preference; the member next in line is given his first or 2d preference, and subsequent members are allocated their highest preference if has not yet been allocated to someone else. No member may serve as chairman (or vice chairman) of more than one standing committee. Again, the chairmanships of the Rules committee, the Budget committee, the Appropriations committee, and the Ways and Means committee and the vice chairmanships as well are filled by a vote of the respective caucuses. The distribution of seniority on the Republican side is such at this time that you should expect the committee chairmanships to be held by members elected prior to 2010, with a couple of oldsters compelled to retire.
13. The five positions to be elected by a vote of the caucus shall be subject to mandatory retirement and rotation-in-office rules. To wit, (1) members who will reach the age of 80 in the coming Congress must stand down and (2) members who have held an elected position for 11 of the last 12 years or who will hit that wall in the coming Congress are required to stand down. Any ballot for these positions shall be confidential and the options shall consist of the candidates nominated from the floor and ‘none-of-the-above’. If there are only two options, a 1st-past-the-post ballot is held. If there are more than two options, members must rank-order their choices and multiple rounds of tabulation held. Note, if, on any ballot, all the nominated candidates lose to ‘none of the above’, another ballot must be held with all candidate who lost to ‘none-of-the-above’ debarred from competing on any further ballots.
14. Officers of the chamber, including the Speaker, should be elected from outside the membership by the House as a whole, making use of the procedure delineated in step 13. The Speaker of the House and the President pro tem of the Senate are properly removed from the Presidential Succession Law.
Art Deco for Speaker!! 🙂
RINO Dan Crenshaw declares Chip Roy and the rest to be… “terrorists”.
https://therightscoop.com/dan-crenshaw-we-cannot-let-the-terrorists-win-audio/
As Kentucky owns most of the Ohio River along the border, Ohio considers the bridge replacement a Kentucky problem, and the state is not a wealthy one. That is why the feds have to pick up a big share of the expense.
Art Deco will never be Speaker because he thinks Congressmen are there to solve problems and get work done.
The bipartisan majority of Congressmen is there to appropriate our money on behalf of their friends, patrons, and clients.
The Contract With America blueprint was extremely successful and it took the GOP less than ten years to destroy every good thing the 1994 Congress accomplished. Earmarks are back, farm subsidies are back, you can still use food stamps to buy Coke…
Remember when Glenn Reynolds and most of the other right-bloggers had that little PorkBusters logo? Good times. Long gone.
The Washington Generals would like to remind you that if you don’t come to their games, the Harlem Globetrotters will get everything their own way. They’d also like to point out that the selection of their head coach is crucial for them winning their next game against the Globetrotters. Jesus Christ.
@Dwaz:That is why the feds have to pick up a big share of the expense.
You mean, people who live in Oregon, and New York?
Is there anything in those states you’d like to have your own pocket picked to pay for?
Of course you see the bridge built with Federal, i. e. my, money. What you do not see is what I would have built, maybe even a bridge, if I’d kept that money…
We can all get richer if we all tax each other… Jesus Christ.
What does this mean in the overall direction this country is heading? Not much I think. 200T in debt, the Intelligence agencies and FBI acting like the SS, etc., etc.
Richard Cook:
The reality is that even if the GOP had a great speaker elected on the first ballot, they couldn’t pass anything much anyway, with Democrats controlling the Senate and a Democrat as president.
The essential thing is that Nancy and the Dems don’t control the House. Passing anything that would get past the Dems in the Senate and past McTurtle isn’t in the cards.
As Kentucky owns most of the Ohio River along the border, Ohio considers the bridge replacement a Kentucky problem, and the state is not a wealthy one. That is why the feds have to pick up a big share of the expense.
For crying out loud. The state border runs down the middle of the river and the bridge connects one state to another along I-71. Kentucky has a gross domestic product of $193 bn, but for some reason cannot be expected to pay half the cost of a solitary bridge that will touch on no state bar Ohio and Kentucky. By the way, ‘not wealthy’ Kentucky has a gross domestic product per capita which exceeds that of Canada. This is just learned helplessness on the part of politicians in Kentucky and Ohio. That should not be rewarded.
We can all get richer if we all tax each other… Jesus Christ.
I wouldn’t mind an unrestricted grant distributed to the states and territories according to a formula which would favor the more impecunious states like Mississippi. The right way to do that, however, would be to pair it with the elimination of special purpose grants to state and local government. Special purpose grants distort preferences, soak up man-hours in Congress with matters properly devolved, tend to be distributed in response to political influence rather than economic or engineering priorities, act as tools for crook politicians to build patron-client relationships, and condition state and local politicians to lobby the feds and suck-up to them rather than set priorities.They’re also tools for Congress, federal agencies, and the federal courts to extort compliance from states that the states should not give. So, go ahead and cut Kentucky a check (of a sum calculated by a formula which has their per capital personal income and their resident population as arguments), but tell Kentucky to write it’s own bloody capital budget, to set its own priorities, and not come ’round asking for special favors.
As for local governments, providing them an unrestricted grant according to formula is the business of state and territorial legislatures, not the federal legislature, which should have only spare dealings with local government. Federal transfers to local government should be as follows: fees for services rendered (e.g. renting space to a federal agency in a local government building), payment in lieu of taxes on the real property of the federal government, adjudicated indemnities for capital expenditures made necessary by federal regulatory changes, and disaster relief. IOW, small and episodic transfers, nothing more.
Neo
I talk to many 30 something’s and, almost to a person they do not expect the country to survive. They seemed to be so checked out. I can’t say as I blame them.
Remember the ‘bridge to nowhere’? Someone (IIRC, Ted Stevens) wangled an earmark for a bridge to connect point A within the State of Alaska to point B within the State of Alaska. Point B in Alaska was an island with a two digit population. Alaska is also one of the more affluent states. They can pay for their own intramural public works.
I’m not sure we could have a better demonstration of the sclerotic nature of American politics. Mitch McConnell oversees the most disappointing GOP Senate elections in generations and is re-elected Majority Leader with barely any opposition. Kevin McCarthy appears to be an utterly unremarkable political operator with no real legislative, intellectual, or political achievements yet nevertheless is such a commanding figure that even the massive fail fest of the past two days stirs no real opposition to him from nearly all of the House GOP. Meanwhile, the Democrats and the media are flabbergasted at a small group of Republicans for having the unmitigated gall to not simply go along to get along.
Mike
“What does this mean in the overall direction this country is heading?”
We are thoroughly boned. I can’t predict what exactly will happen or when, because I’m not all that smart, but you don’t need a meteorology degree to know it’s raining. Whether it’s the incompetence embodied by Ukraine, where we’ve gone from expecting the Ukraine government to collapse in days to fighting a proxy war with Russia, or the detachment from reality embodied by the southern border, where a policy failure has become a real crisis and our political and media elite have just decided to pretend it’s not happening, we can’t keep going on like this without disaster.
Bunge:
” …I’m not all that smart, but you don’t need a meteorology degree to know it’s raining. Whether it’s the incompetence embodied by Ukraine, where we’ve gone from expecting the Ukraine government to collapse in days to fighting a proxy war with Russia ….”
Yep, I’ll agree that this little ramble doesn’t show much smarts.
Ukraine kicking Roosia out of Kiev, Kershon, Kharkhiv, stopping them in the Donbas, making them worry about loosing Crimea (Kerch Bridge), sinking the Moskva, stopping the Roosian grain embargo, and putting their strategic bomber bases at risk; yep that shows just a little bit of Ukranian competence. But to you it is a sign of incompetence?
Otay Bunge. Roosia wants?
The Babylon Bee is on the case as usual: “WASHINGTON, D.C. — In a shocking overnight vote held by the House of Representatives, the QAnon Shaman, aka ‘The Buffalo Guy’ has received the majority of votes required to become Speaker of the House. ‘I mean, at this point, why not?’ said Representative Chip Roy. ‘Maybe we need a guy like this to shake things up.'”
https://babylonbee.com/news/in-11-hour-vote-buffalo-guy-elected-speaker-of-the-house
@Art Deco:Remember the ‘bridge to nowhere’? Someone (IIRC, Ted Stevens) wangled an earmark for a bridge to connect point A within the State of Alaska to point B within the State of Alaska. Point B in Alaska was an island with a two digit population.
I’ve been to that “Point B” island. Besides the “two-digit population” it has the Ketchikan Airport, about 100,000 passengers annually. That’s what the bridge was there to connect. (What’s the population of O’Hare Airport, or Dulles? Doesn’t matter since you don’t connect them to benefit residents.)
Residents of Ketchikan must take a ferry to the airport. It was expensive because it bridges the Inside Passage and big ships had to be able to pass under it.
Like the lady who spilled “hot coffee” at McDonalds and “won” a lawsuit, the real story is considerably more nuanced and complex. The bridge doesn’t have my support, not at that price tag, and Alaska can find a way to afford it if it’s so damned important, but the “bridge to nowhere” narrative is very nearly a lie.
Sarah Palin canceled the project in 2007, saying “Ketchikan desires a better way to reach the airport, but the $398 million bridge is not the answer. Despite the work of our congressional delegation, we are about $329 million short of full funding for the bridge project, and it’s clear that Congress has little interest in spending any more money on a bridge between Ketchikan and Gravina Island. Much of the public’s attitude toward Alaska bridges is based on inaccurate portrayals of the projects here. But we need to focus on what we can do, rather than fight over what has happened.”
I tend not to follow the internecine battles on the Right. Not that those battles don’t deserve study and debate nor that I imagine myself above the fray, I’m just not booked and getting booked looks like a lot of work.
I did follow Mike Plaiss’s link to the Federalist and this quote:
_____________________
McCarthy has gone out of his way to placate the nuts in his party. Why any sane person would want the job of dealing with Paul Gosar or Marjorie Taylor Greene is beyond my comprehension.
https://thefederalist.com/2023/01/04/relax-the-gop-fight-over-house-speaker-doesnt-really-matter/
_____________________
I’ve not heard of Paul Gosar and I don’t know what to make of MTG. Is she as terrible as the Left and some on the Right say?
From there I started clicking links, trying to figure out what a “groyper” is, and I found myself at the Unz Review, reading a somewhat shocking address by Michelle Malkin to the America First PAC:
________________________
The Charge of the America First Brigade
Thank you. Thank you. Mommy’s in the house. When I said that Mom was proud of the boys the first time, it led to the immediate disavowal of me by the slimy crapweasels of Young America’s Foundation.
I say it even louder today. I could not be more ignited in my passion to fight for the same issues that we all, every one of us in this room, care about. The future, the preservation of America first. Not second, not third, not last. Not subordinate to Saudi Arabia, or China, or my ancestral land in the Philippines, or Israel, or anywhere.
–Michelle Malkin (Feb. 28, 2020)
https://www.unz.com/author/michelle-malkin//2020/03/01/afpac-speech-the-charge-of-the-america-first-brigade/
_____________________
Malkin has allied herself with Nick Fuentes (of that infamous Trump dinner in November we heard about) and America First. At an earlier address to the Young America’s Foundation (YAF), she said she would be proud to be the mom of America Firsters, hence the “Mommy’s in the house” remark.
I used to read Malkin. I even corresponded briefly with her on a story she was working on. I don’t know what to make of all this.
I’m still not clear on where “groyper” came from. Apparently it refers to a version of that big green frog mascot the Alt-Right latched onto.
I also ran into the term “entryism” which is the effort of the Alt-Right to penetrate other conservative groups and move them alt-right. It occurred to me that was part of what commenter Zaphod was up to last year.
@huxley:I also ran into the term “entryism” which is the effort of the Alt-Right to penetrate other conservative groups and move them alt-right.
In your reading, have you come across any terms to describe the efforts of the Left and the GOPe to tar everyone to their right with anti-Semitism and white supremacy?
Michelle Malkin is an odd candidate for white-supremacist fellow traveler, don’t you think? After all, not being white. And as for anti-Semitism, we should all have noticed from following recent news that it’s not white supremacists who are the garden-variety anti-Semite. Some of these numerically-significant anti-Semites are highly valued in the Democratic Party.
I used to read Malkin. I even corresponded briefly with her on a story she was working on. I don’t know what to make of all this.
If it doesn’t make sense, maybe it’s because you’re being sold a bill of goods. People have been lying about Malkin and trying to tar her as a bigot for as long as I’ve been reading her, which is about 20 years.
In your reading, have you come across any terms to describe the efforts of the Left and the GOPe to tar everyone to their right with anti-Semitism and white supremacy?
Frederick:
Counsel is leading the witness! 🙂
No, but there is much I haven’t read.
…maybe it’s because you’re being sold a bill of goods. People have been lying about Malkin and trying to tar her as a bigot for as long as I’ve been reading her, which is about 20 years.
True. It happens to the Right. But Fuentes does seem some kind of anti-Semite, straight-up. Likewise, Zaphod.
People are complicated.
Forget it, Jake. It’s the Planet of the Apes.
The Federalist post is by David Harsanyi, who generally publishes at National Review. He’s moderately centrist, not a rabid anti-Trumper IIRC, although he isn’t a pro-MAGA stalwart by any stretch. The remark huxley quoted is characteristic.
However, although I agree with much of what he said in regard to the GOP in-fighting, ultimately he gets the story wrong —
“…this particular fight, though largely senseless, is over the future of management, not about some big ideological schism.”
It most certainly isabout a schism.
It is most definitely about the new Trump wing (and its constituents) splitting from the elitist business-as-usual pretense of conservatism maybe getting the Republican party to actually vote for Republican values rather than their own pork and gravy train.
Management is downstream from principles.
Here’s a question:
If a significant majority of American Jews support an American administration that is allied to the Islamic Republic of Iran, does that make THEM anti-semites?
If a significant majority of American Jews support an American administration that supports a purported two-state solution that the Palestinian leadership (both/all factions) does NOT want BUT/AND/OR will acquiesce to in order to use said “state” as a stepping stone towards the destruction/disappearance/cancellation of Israel, does that make THEM anti-semites?
(To be sure, one could ask the same question WRT citizens of Israel who believe that the two-state solution is a legitimate and achievable goal at this stage of the I-P game.)
In short, so much depends on definitions. For example:
– The Democratic Party is gung-ho on America’s destruction yet defines itself as Patriotic; it is a criminal gang but defines itself as law-abiding and claims it supports the Constitution. (And what does this say about its supporters?)
– At the same time the Democratic Party declares its political opponents to be racists, white supremacists, insurrections and extreme dangers to the country… (And what does THIS say about its supporters?…)
Problem is, NOTHING can be believed. About anything. Covid? Elections? Inflation? Iran? Constitution? Education? Southern border? Biden? Ukraine? Israel? Crime? Antifa? BLM? Taxes/IRS? Climate? LE/IC agencies? Media/Infotech/Social Media? Supply chain? Travel?
Absolutely NOTHING.
And that’s THE WAY THEY WANT IT.
(It’s called “Transformation”.)
It’s called, “Keeping the ENEMY off balance”….(and who, in this case, is the enemy?…Right!)
Here’s merely one example of the Federal Guvmint at its “very best”:
“Health Care Workers Cry Foul On FDA Claiming It Didn’t Prohibit Ivermectin For COVID-19”—
https://www.zerohedge.com/covid-19/health-care-workers-cry-foul-fda-claiming-it-didnt-prohibit-ivermectin-covid-19
The guvmint says that it ONLY RECOMMENDED NOT USING IVERMECTIN…but several beg to differ—and these “several” are merely the tip of the iceberg:
Key grafs (RTWT):
‘…Jennifer Wright, a nurse practitioner and clinical director who practices in Florida, but can prescribe across state lines, told The Epoch Times she received a letter from the Office of the Attorney General of New York ordering her not to prescribe ivermectin.
‘ “You know, basically threatened me. If I don’t stop prescribing, then they’re going to fine me,” Wright said about the letter, which threatened legal action with fines of up to $5,000 per violation.
‘ The letter stated that the Food and Drug Administration only authorized ivermectin for use in humans when treating “parasitic worms and head lice and skin conditions like rosacea.”
‘ The citation in the letter appears to be from an FDA advisory issued in March 2021 titled “Why You Should Not Use Ivermectin to Treat or Prevent COVID-19.”….’
Etc., etc., etc.
To repeat: One cannot—SHOULD NOT—believe anything that emanates from the NIH, FDC, etc. (and yes, this is a ferocious problem, as it reduces the country to Iron Curtain status)—not the analyses, not the “recommendations”, not the statistics, not the warnings, not the “offers for assistance”. NOTHING.
(And this is ONLY one part of the entire picture.)
Meanwhile,
House Republicans Remove Nancy Pelosi’s Metal Detectors and Other Optics Intended to Support J6 Extremism Narrative
Nice touch, but with a cautionary note from Sundance: …against the backdrop of revelations from the Twitter Files where the intelligence apparatus, Dept of Homeland Security and FBI were part of the government operation to influence public opinion, the possibility of an FBI inspired and coordinated attack against the Capitol is now more likely than previous.
Finally!
In Overnight Vote, Buffalo Guy Elected Speaker Of The House
Born to lead
No credibility.
None at all.
(But then we know that already….)
Meanwhile the suckers who are paying for Pelosi’s stunt are still languishing in jail….
…As Adam Kinzinger lands a gig with—whom else?—CNN
https://justthenews.com/politics-policy/impeachment-republican-kinzinger-joins-cnn-commentator
“Ex-Capitol Police boss says politics hampered Jan. 6 security under Pelosi: ‘Recipe for disaster’;
“Ex-Chief Steven Sund compares Capitol security and intelligence lapses to 9/11, says he was “dumbfounded” by threat warnings that were kept from him.”—
https://justthenews.com/government/congress/ex-capitol-police-boss-says-politics-hampered-jan-6-security-under-pelosi
AND….
‘Ex-Chief Steven Sund compares Capitol security and intelligence lapses to 9/11, says he was “dumbfounded” by threat warnings that were kept from him.
‘ “It’s our belief, the Capitol would not have been breached had the global fence been up and law enforcement been prepared,” he continued. ‘—
https://justthenews.com/government/federal-agencies/two-years-after-jan-6-capitol-police-union-says-still-no-answers
“Dumbfounded”?
No, he should not be dumbfounded.
EVERYTHING played out the way it was MEANT TO play out.
(Just ask Ray Epps…and a few others…)
On the Brent Spence Bridge
For those howling ‘Why does this have to be a federal project? The states should form an interstate compact and get the job done themselves.:
Well:
a) interstate compacts have to be approved by Congress. Why should Congress give this chance for graft and payoffs to favored contractors to the states?
b) How are the states going to pay for the bridge> The Spence bridge connect Interstate 71 and 75. Under federal law 23 USC 129:
https://www.law.cornell.Edu/uscode/text/23/129
such connections cannot be paid for with tolls. That means the states must raise taxes to pay for the bridge.
Comment?
Why should Congress give this chance for graft and payoffs to favored contractors to the states?
I dunno. Maybe because Congress shouldn’t be in that business.
such connections cannot be paid for with tolls. That means the states must raise taxes to pay for the bridge.
1. Repeal the provision which debars the assessment of tolls.
2. Allocate the money from your general tax revenue.
The pols in Ohio and Kentucky aren’t the only ones addled by learned helplessness.
Malkin has allied herself with Nick Fuentes
Not precisely. She appeared on stage with him at an event and has refused demands to issue a denunciation of him for things he said on other occasions.
MM has announced her retirement from political journalism. No clue what she’ll be doing the rest of her work life. Her husband has been employed as her road manager for a number of years, so this implicates his work life as well.
Harsanyi IIRC is a libertarian who defends tech barons. I rather like MTG and Gosar better.
Residents of Ketchikan must take a ferry to the airport. It was expensive
You take that into account when you purchase a residence.
Minor point: Harsanyi has left NR and is now a senior editor at The Federalist.
The Ketchikan airport is on a nearby island because there’s no flat land in Ketchikan for planes of any significant size to land. Agreed that it’s an Alaskan problem, not a federal one.
Minor point: Harsanyi has left NR and is now a senior editor at The Federalist.
That’s nice. It would be agreeable if he refrained from smearing Marjorie Taylor Greene and Paul Gosar.
McCarthy should nominate an alternative for speaker. If that fails, then he can resume the fight for himself.
but the “bridge to nowhere” narrative is very nearly a lie.
Although the slogan was misleading, the salient point functionally was that Congress was making a special appropriation to build an intramural roadway in one of the more affluent states. Intramural roadways which transcend county boundaries are the business of state government, not the federal government.
huxley: Malkin has allied herself with Nick Fuentes
Art Deco: Not precisely. She appeared on stage with him at an event and has refused demands to issue a denunciation of him for things he said on other occasions.
Oh, a swing and a miss! PIty he didn’t actually read the link:
______________________________________
This weekend, the inaugural America First Political Action Conference was held in the D.C. area. I was honored to speak alongside Patrick Casey, Scott Greer, and Nick Fuentes. It was hands-down one of the most heartening–and FUN– events at which I’ve ever spoken.
These are serious young men who never take themselves too seriously in their shared mission to end mass migration, restore law and order, and conserve and uphold actual conservative values. I love the scrappy energy and profound intelligence that undergirds this burgeoning movement.
–MIchelle Malkin
https://www.unz.com/author/michelle-malkin//2020/03/01/afpac-speech-the-charge-of-the-america-first-brigade/
______________________________________
So Malkin shows up at the first America First convention launched by Fuentes, declares herself honored to do so, renews her proud declaration as “Mommy” of the movement Fuentes leads, and then calls their common enemy, the Young America’s Foundation “slimey crapweasels.”
But no, one can’t say Malkin is allied with Fuentes.
@Art Deco:Although the slogan was misleading
Not just the slogan. The narrative backed by carefully selected facts was designed to mislead. It clearly misled you–unless you too decided to carefully omit relevant facts, like the existence of an airport on the island you called “point B” with “double digit residents”, as though that was ever the purpose.
Congress was making a special appropriation to build an intramural roadway in one of the more affluent states
Congress does this all the time, of course. For the “bridge to nowhere”, they found it very easy in this one case to create a misleading narrative by carefully omitting relevant facts, and nobody cares if you piss off voters in Alaska, unlike Ohio which is often a swing state.
It wasn’t a bridge to “nowhere”, it was a bridge to an airport, and it was never intended for the benefit of the handful of people who live on that island. At any rate, Alaska could and would build it if it were that important.
It was expensive
The FERRY was not expensive. The BRIDGE was expensive, because it had to cross a shipping channel and be tall enough to allow large ships to pass.
You take that into account when you purchase a residence.
I’m not sure you’ve spent much time in Alaska? Gallon of milk was six bucks in Sitka when I was there in the 2000s. Everything is expensive everywhere in Alaska, because every place is like Ketchikan–hard to connect to anything else. (Sitka also had to build a bridge to its airport.) Your comment here reminds me of Marie Antoinette’s apocryphal “let them eat cake”–French peasants didn’t have cake as a viable alternative, and Ketchikan residents don’t have some cheaper alternative with better airport access, unless they leave Alaska entirely, and lots do. No matter where you reside in Alaska there is some analogous and expensive issue. It’s not a question of moving one town or county over. (Alaska does not have counties, incidentally.)
Guy I met in Washington was from Ketchikan, leaving Alaska for good. As he put it, “Alaska is where you go to make enough money to leave Alaska.” If you’re a tourist or wealthy or on an expense account or know how to live without money, Alaska’s great.
Reports are that concessions have been made, particularly on the question of the Congressional fund taking sides in primaries. Bret Baier suggested, on Fox Business this morning, that if McCarthy isn’t much closer after a couple of more ballots today, we may begin to see movement towards having Scalise be nominated. I think Scalise is better liked and more widely respected among Republican members than McCarthy.
Your comment here reminds me of Marie Antoinette’s apocryphal “let them eat cake”
Well, you’re bad at analogies. Everyone making a decision about where to live weighs costs and benefits. For the service catchment of that airport, one downside of living there is that you have to pay a toll on the ferry to get to the airport.
Congress does this all the time, of course.
And it should not do it at any time.
As he put it, “Alaska is where you go to make enough money to leave Alaska.” If you’re a tourist or wealthy or on an expense account or know how to live without money, Alaska’s great.
Alaska’s population growth rate over the period running from 1970 to 2020 exceeded the national mean by a factor of 1.82. There are about a half-dozen states which have been more demographically dynamic in that time, and that’s it. Real per capita personal income ranks 12th among the states and territories. The regional price parity in use by the Bureau of Economic Analysis in 2019 was 103, with 100 the national mean, so your quote on the price of milk in Sitka seems cherry-picked.
I understand why people don’t want McCarthy. Nothing in his career up to this point indicates that he is the right person for the job. The Republican party leadership has been a dismal failure in the past few years and I don’t see any reason why people should want more of the same. In almost every other walk of life people who fail can expect to be replaced.
I also understand why McCarthy is clinging so desperately to his ambition. He has wanted this for his entire career and is so close to that he can taste it. He can’t believe his ambition is being thwarted by the likes of tiny firebrand Lauren Boebert.
What I don’t understand is why people like Dan Crenshaw also seem so desperate to have McCarthy elected. So desperate that he calls fellow Republicans “terrorists”. Surely there are alternatives to McCarthy. If McCarthy really cares about the party and the country, he should step aside.
PIty he didn’t actually read the link:
I’ve seen the article before and it is consistent with what I said.
https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/stacey-lennox/2023/01/04/a-significant-majority-of-republican-voters-agree-with-the-gop-rebels-n1658511
I’m somewhat puzzled that so many street-level Republicans profess to have an opinion on these matters. If the numbers are true, there is a stunning level of discontent among Republican voters.
Stupid GOP.
7th vote taken, ends much as 6th: McC 201, Hak Jeff 212, Donalds 19, Other 1 (Gaetz for DJT), present 1
8th vote concluded: McC 201, Hak Jeff 212, Donalds 17, Others 3 (DJT 1, Kevin Hern 2), present 1
“I dunno. Maybe because Congress shouldn’t be in that business.” warbles Art.
Perhaps because the U.S. Const. Article I Section 10 mandates that Congress be in the business of approving compacts, viz:
“No state shall, without the consent of Congress, lay any duty of tonnage, keep troops, or ships of war in time of peace, enter into any agreement or compact with another state,
Repeal the tolls prohibition and every blue state in the country will slap tolls on the Interstates, “for infrastructure projects only of course”
As for paying out of general revenues, let’s see you lead the charge for higher taxes for infrastructure in Kentucky and Ohio.
See how far you get.
So McCarthy makes significant concessions and then loses two more ballots, with no votes flipping.
Do the 20 want something that McCarthy is still unwilling to give, or are the objections to McCarthy himself?
If it’s the latter, it’s pretty difficult to see this as anything other than a heckler’s veto after McCarthy won 85% of the vote for caucus leadership.
They don’t like McCarthy. A fair number of the people voting for him aren’t crazy about him either. Who else wants the job? Donalds isn’t running for it, not really. Does Scalise want it? Does anyone?
Congressman Bob Good: https://mobile.twitter.com/RepBobGood/status/1610714849583169536?cxt=HHwWgIDQveWntNosAAAA
and
https://mobile.twitter.com/RepBobGood/status/1610758752227168256?cxt=HHwWgMDQ1aGjyNosAAAA
Kate – The guy wouldn’t have won 85% of the caucus vote if nobody likes him.
Whoever is Speaker is going to have to cut deals with Schumer and the WH. Don’t these people realize how much worse those deals will be for the right if the Speaker can’t deliver 218 votes? Are these bomb throwers going to vote for the “crap sandwiches” sure to come if Scalise negotiates them instead of McCarthy? Are they assuming that someone other than McCarthy has super powers that will make Democrats forget the leverage they have from holding the Senate, the WH, and the press?
Call me cynical, but I think many of them do realize that and would rather have a scapegoat than a better deal.
Bauxite:
Agreed.
My most recent post on this can be found here.
Well, I didn’t say “nobody likes him.” But a fair number of Republicans aren’t crazy about him, and that’s been for years.
the problem they have cut too many deals with schumer, like the omnibus, which really was an exercise in humiliation, or the gun bill, not effectively refuted the j6 narrative, not pushed hard off against the russian fraud,
Whoever is Speaker is going to have to cut deals with Schumer and the WH. Don’t these people realize how much worse those deals will be for the right if the Speaker can’t deliver 218 votes?
There it is, the hostage taking, rarely made so explicit. Vote for people who will give the Democrats what they want because if you don’t the Democrats will get what they want?
The House GOP has an absolute veto on budgets and legislation–both need both Houses of Congress to pass. This is ridiculous. If they care about conservatism they know what they can do to stop anything the Dems want to do, except treaties and Supreme Court Justices. The majority of them simply don’t and are super eager to “cut deals” that just so happen to benefit their friends, patrons and clients using our tax money.
@ PA+Cat on January 4, 2023 at 11:44 pm said:
“The Babylon Bee is on the case as usual”
The Bee is on a roll today, in fact, beginning with the Shaman for Speaker post.
https://babylonbee.com/news/republican-approval-ratings-at-record-high-after-bringing-congress-to-grinding-halt
https://babylonbee.com/news/house-republicans-frantically-binge-old-schoolhouse-rock-episodes-to-figure-out-what-theyre-supposed-to-be-doing
(forgot to hit publish last night, but they are still good, and some new ones today)
Perhaps because the U.S. Const. Article I Section 10 mandates that Congress be in the business of approving compacts, viz:
An irrelevant point. The question posed to me was “Why should Congress give this chance for graft and payoffs to favored contractors to the states?”. Now come up with a legitimate justification for Congress denying an application from Kentucky and Ohio to set up a bi-state authority.
Repeal the tolls prohibition and every blue state in the country will slap tolls on the Interstates, “for infrastructure projects only of course”
The purpose of tolls is to finance road maintenance by assessing people in their capacity as motorists using the highway rather than in their capacity as general consumers, real property holders, or earners.
A fairly straightforward scheme would be for the federal government to institute tolls on all long-haul Interstates and distribute the proceeds to a dedicated fund in each of the 50 states. The purpose of the dedicated fund would be to finance maintenance on the long-haul interstates running through the state in question. The formula of distribution would be according to the acres of macadam in each state on these Interstates. The state legislature could top off the funds in question with discretionary appropriations and / or bond issues. Maintenance on the short hauls could be financed with tolls imposed and collected by state governments.
As for paying out of general revenues, let’s see you lead the charge for higher taxes for infrastructure in Kentucky and Ohio.
I’ve never lived in either state and see no reason why their public works should be cross-subsidized by the other states. You haven’t given a reason, either. All you do is sneer.