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dontmeantobepoliticalbut · 1 year

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A photo of Democratic Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez smiling as House Republicans struggled to elect a Speaker for the second day in a row during Wednesday's Congress meeting went viral on social media.

The image shot by photographer Anna Moneymaker and shared on Twitter in the aftermath of the 118th Congress' second meeting, shows Ocasio-Cortez laughing as Republican Congressman Matt Gaetz—who's among the 20 defectors who voted against Kevin McCarthy's bid to become House leader—makes an impassioned speech to his fellow Republicans opposing McCarthy.

"AOC smiling in the background of the ongoing GOP dumpster fire," commented a Twitter user, comparing the image to a well-known meme of a girl standing in front of a house on fire.

"There is so much to be said about the Old Masters-style composition of this photograph by ANNA MONEYMAKER for GETTY IMAGES," lawyer Mike Godwin tweeted.

"Living vicariously through @AOC right now," wrote Gen Z activist Olivia Julianna, who last year raised over $1.5 million for abortion funds after being body-shamed by Gaetz.

Between Tuesday and Wednesday, McCarthy lost six consecutive votes, failing to gather enough support to become the Speaker of the House—a historic defeat for the Republican representative.

The opposition to McCarthy of 20 House Republicans, most of whom are hardliners and members of the ultraconservative Freedom Caucus, has paralyzed Congress and thrown the GOP into turmoil.

Ocasio-Cortez and her fellow Democrats have been accused of reveling in the chaos unfolding within the Republican Party, with Republican Representative Kat Cammack accusing Democrats of getting drunk during voting.

"Diversity of thought is a good thing," Cammack said during a speech in Congress on Wednesday. "But they want us divided. They want us to fight each other. That much has been made clear by the popcorn and blankets and alcohol that has come in over there."

Ocasio-Cortez has fought back against the accusation, writing on Twitter: "If only! If Dems took a shot every time McCarthy lost a Republican, we'd all be unconscious by now."

Congress is set to reconvene at noon on Thursday to nominate a House Speaker.

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justinspoliticalcorner · 11 days

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Joan McCarter at Daily Kos:

After months of House Speaker Mike Johnson dragging his feet, the House finally voted 316 to 94 to advance the foreign aid bills for Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan. Democrats made that happen—again. In fact, Democrats have been responsible for passing every key funding bill during Johnson’s tenure, a fact that continues to enrage the far-right Freedom Caucus. That, in turn, makes Johnson even more reliant on Democrats to keep his gavel. The importance of this week’s success in the House is hard to overstate. For the first time in decades, the minority party bailed out the speaker in the Rules Committee—the most powerful committee in the House—to advance the aid bills to the floor. In fact, it’s called “The Speaker’s Committee” because it’s the vehicle the speaker uses to send their priorities—which are typically the priorities of the majority party—to the House floor. Three Republican extremists on the Rules Committee, the group former Speaker Kevin McCarthy installed in his negotiations to get the job last year, rebelled, leading all four Democrats on the committee—Reps. Jim McGovern, Mary Gay Scanlon, Joe Neguse, and Teresa Leger Fernández—to do the previously unthinkable and approve the package, sending it to the floor.

Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries told reporters that Democrats were united—this time—in helping Johnson. “Once we made that decision, it was clear that we would do what was necessary to make sure that national security legislation was considered by the entire House,” he said. They did just that, ensuring that the legislation moved forward Friday morning with Democrats in the majority—165 Democrats and 151 Republicans in favor. Which means that, at least for the purposes of this critical package, Johnson shared control of the floor with Democrats—a quasi-coalition government, for the time being. That will be cemented Saturday, when the House votes on final passage for the individual components of the package, and Democrats will undoubtedly hold the majority again.

House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA)'s job has been bailed out by the Democrats, infuriating the House Freedom Caucus nutters.

#Mike Johnson #Speaker Of The House #118th Congress #US House of Representatives #Motion To Vacate #House Freedom Caucus #Freedom Caucus

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tomorrowusa · 8 months

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The House of Representatives was under the control of far right Republicans in 1998 when Speaker Newt Gingrich decided to impeach Bill Clinton for getting a blow job in the room where Donald Trump in 2021 watched his supporters rampage through the US Capitol.

The move to impeach Clinton had the opposite political effect which Gingrich intended. In the 1998 midterms the Republicans lost ground and in 2000 Al Gore won the popular vote for president.

In 2023 out of touch House Republicans once again want to impeach a Democratic president on flimsy grounds. Some Democrats are having difficulty hiding their glee.

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy launched an impeachment inquiry into Joe Biden on Tuesday, and Pennsylvania Senator John Fetterman is calling it out for the deeply unserious move that it is. When asked for a response to the news, Fetterman feigned shock and distress. “Oh my God, really?” he asked, his voice squeaking upward in pitch as he grabbed his head in his hands. “Oh my gosh, you know, oh—it’s devastating!” Fetterman went on, before breaking into laughter. “OooOooo don’t do it! Please, don’t do it!” he moaned, clutching at his heart as his aide pulled him away. “Oh no, oh no!”

Sen. Fetterman may have been channeling Br'er Rabbit.

Kevin McCarthy is the weakest House Speaker in living memory. He needs constantly to placate the far right "Freedom Caucus" to hold on to his job. The impeachment inquiry is a way of tossing them a few crumbs. It is unlikely to sate their appetite.

The impeachment inquiry could also spell trouble for the 18 Republicans representing districts Biden won in 2020. When Fetterman was asked about McCarthy’s plans for the impeachment inquiry last week, he responded: “Go ahead. Do it, I dare you.” “It would just be a big circle jerk on the fringe right,” Fetterman added.

Kevin McCarthy is proof that trying to appease extremists is a fool's task.

BTW: For those who obsess over age – Kevin McCarthy was 57 when he (finally) became House Speaker and Nancy Pelosi was 82 when she left the position. Politics aside, who was the more effective Speaker? 🤔

#republicans #tone-deaf republicans #house freedom caucus #us house of representatives #impeachment #kevin mccarthy #weakest house speaker in modern history #john fetterman #br'er rabbit #election 2024 #christopher weyant

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gwydionmisha · 8 months

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Republicans continue to wage their war on the American Economy that started with Reagan.

#House Freedom Caucus #Government Shutdown #News #War on the Economy

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filosofablogger · 12 days

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Speaker Johnson Steps Up To The Plate

I am very surprised, but in a good sort of way, to see House Speaker Johnson putting his duty to the nation ahead of loyalty to his party or to the one ‘man’ who allegedly controls that party … not to mention ahead of self-preservation. It seems that the aid bills for Ukraine, Israel, and Indo-Pacific are on track to actually pass in the House despite the radical right-wingers’ attempts to kill…

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#Aid for Ukraine Israel and Indo-Pacific #Donald Trump&039;s ego #House Freedom Caucus #House Speaker Mike Johnson #motion to vacate #Natalie Harp #U.S. Congress

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nicklloydnow · 7 months

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“Boebert’s bellicosity reflects a deep strand of the modern congressional Republican self-image, stamped on the party three decades ago by then-Speaker Newt Gingrich. Gingrich brought House Republicans out of 40 years in the political wilderness and into the majority, and he did it by being a prophetic champion of confrontation. From his first congressional race in 1974 all the way through the end of his speakership in 1998, Gingrich was motivated by the belief that confrontation had the power to rescue Americans from their corrupted politics. There was an art, a choreography to this sort of redemptive combativeness, Gingrich thought: “When you give them confrontations, you get attention; when you get attention, you can educate.” If they could make their case to the American people, Republicans could stop taking breadcrumbs from the Democrats’ table and take over the banquet hall themselves—and run it better.

The GOP’s return to the majority came after the 1994 midterms. By now, Gingrich’s catechism of confrontation has become an embedded tradition among House Republicans. But as it has been passed down, it has become hollowed out and fetishized. Gingrich’s clashes were in service of a party and a positive program. His descendants often seem to want confrontation for its own sake, even as it is ripping their party asunder and pushing policy away from their preferences. If House Republicans want to find their way back to being a functional party—and that is not a given—they will have to master their urge to fight.

(…)

Jordan is the walking embodiment of conflict-mindedness. First elected to the House in 2006, just as Republicans returned to the minority, he made a name for himself as a critic of government spending and bailouts (not sparing President George W. Bush from his ire), pushing pro-life ideas and hammering several of Barack Obama’s Cabinet members. Jordan’s conception of a lawmaker’s role has never laid much emphasis on making laws. He relishes representation for its own sake; in 2011, he explained why he planned to remain in the House rather than challenge Sherrod Brown for a spot in the Senate: “I like that you are here to fight for things you told the voters you are going to fight for.” For Jordan, an accomplished wrestler as a young man, that means waging a relentless rhetorical struggle against the powers that be. The negative is far more important than the positive.

After the Republicans’ midterm wave in 2010, Jordan’s relentlessness helped get him elected as head of the Republican Study Committee, traditionally a bastion of conservatism in the House. Before long, however, Jordan and many of the most combative members of the GOP conference came to feel that the RSC was no longer conservative enough; specifically, it was too large to provide the cohesiveness needed to take a hard line in negotiations with Republican legislative leaders looking to compromise. To play that role, Jordan and like-minded colleagues including Mark Meadows, Mick Mulvaney, and Ron DeSantis founded the House Freedom Caucus (HFC) after the 2014 midterms. When Speaker John Boehner proved too willing to come to terms with Obama in September 2015, the HFC hounded him into retirement. (Meanwhile, following Jordan’s departure from the Study Committee, its next head was Scalise, who would go on to parlay that job into a successful run for minority whip after Majority Leader Eric Cantor was unexpectedly defeated by an outsider primary challenge in 2014.)

The HFC also learned to harmonize with Donald Trump, the outsider critic of the establishment then taking its party by storm. The legislators’ initial relationship with Trump was tense, because many preferred Senator Ted Cruz and suspected Trump of being a squish. But as the sharp-elbowed New Yorker gained momentum, HFC members switched horses with real agility. Trump rewarded them by making Mulvaney the head of the powerful Office of Management and Budget. The peak of HFC cooperativeness came in pursuit of tax reform in the fall of 2017.

(…)

When House Republicans have been in the minority, keeping their factions aligned has been a manageable task. All can turn their aggressive energies against Democrats, and those with more inclination toward cutting deals to keep government working can sign onto bipartisan agreements crafted by Democratic leaders. Activists may denounce these members as RINOs—Republicans in Name Only—but among members these tensions are manageable.

When Republicans have held the House majority in the post–Tea Party era, however, the tension between the confrontation-minded and the establishment has been radioactive—containable for a time, but ultimately giving rise to fissures. Leading the Republican House is a truly nightmarish job. Boehner lasted nearly five years, which now seems remarkable. Paul Ryan lasted three; Kevin McCarthy, just 270 days. As someone joked, the half-life of Republican Speakers may soon be measured in hours.

Gingrich’s own speakership gave foreshadowings of this revolution-eating-its-own-children dynamic. His conference in 1995, which included 73 mostly very enthusiastic freshmen, fed on his promises of transforming the federal government through dramatic showdowns. As they teed up an incredibly broad and ambitious slate of bills, Republican legislators sometimes talked as if the American people had elected Gingrich prime minister, with Bill Clinton’s presence in the White House regarded as a sort of unfortunate hitch caused by Ross Perot’s 1992 run. Republicans, and their speaker, soon learned how little Congress resembles a Westminster Parliament, though. They frequently misjudged what House Republicans were willing to vote for and were even more mystified by their Senate counterparts, who had not gotten the memo about the need for a thoroughgoing revolution. They poured much of their energy into a series of skirmishes over federal spending, expecting Congress’s power of the purse to carry the day. Clinton frustrated their ambitions at every turn, vetoing bills but still blaming two successive government shutdowns on congressional Republicans. The prophet of confrontations ironically ended up playing the role of conciliator, begging his own members to accept less than half a loaf in return for reopening the government.

Gingrich had taken his career-long pitch against the corrupt Washington establishment and transformed it into an agenda for cutting government. He had forced that transformation onto the congressional agenda and managed to push it through the House. But he showed little ability to bring along all the factions within his own party, let alone the Democratic president. His battles with the president gave him ample opportunity to “educate” the American people, but he lacked realistic endgame strategies for dealing with those who remained unpersuaded. His post-shutdown speakership saw him seek out more performative kinds of fights, including a bad bet on impeaching Clinton, while simultaneously securing some important policy victories that fell well short of his promise to roll back the Great Society.

Would Jordan, or one of his HFC colleagues, follow Gingrich’s trajectory if they ended up with the speakership? It is possible, but whereas Gingrich had an infectious vision of what America ought to be about and was bursting with ideas about how to fix up the government, his successors seem dour and unimaginative in their pugnacity. And whereas Gingrich was a committed Republican team builder, the HFC was in some sense created out of a sense that Republicans needed more internal strife. For Jordan, confrontation seems to be its own reward, and “small government” seems to be a slogan as much as a goal to be realized. The HFC’s strategy of intransigent resistance to compromise tends to move ultimate policy outcomes to the left by forcing other Republicans to seek terms with Democrats, most analysts agree. Speaker Gingrich would not have approved—and Gingrich as elder statesman has been unsparing in his criticism of the HFC’s tactics and unwillingness to rally behind McCarthy.

There remains, nevertheless, a grain of truth in the HFC’s blanket criticism of the establishment. A remarkable portion of legislation that has emerged from Congress in the 21st century has been the result of deals cut by leaders of both parties, with committees and rank-and-file membership both relegated to acting as eleventh-hour ratifiers rather than real collaborators in the legislative process. Allowing more disputes to play out in the political arena, as Representative Matt Gaetz called for when he led the charge against McCarthy, would indeed be healthy for our democracy. But if that path is to ever favor conservatives, they will need to change their approach to conflict. They need to realize that, rather than just “educating” the public and hoping to sweep all opposition before them, to make the most of their roles as legislators they must turn their sights to their fellow representatives. Confrontation must be in service of persuasion, and win-win conciliation must be an ever-present possibility.

The deep logic of Congress and its place in our constitutional system ought to call Republican lawmakers in this direction. All the drama in 2023 could represent a first step down the path. But the road ahead is long.”

“However, in the current narrow House Republican Majority, winning in the conference is only the beginning. You must acquire enough votes to win on the floor of the House as well. Since there are vacancies, it currently takes 217 votes to win the speakership on the floor.

Thus, 217 becomes the key number. If you have 217 or more, you are third in line to be President of the United States – and the only legislative officer named in the U.S. Constitution.

If you have fewer than 217 votes, you have nothing.

(…)

While Scalise defeated Jordan 113 to 99, consider that Kevin McCarthy initially defeated Congressman Andy Biggs by 188 to 31. It is also useful to remember that when the eight betrayers joined with the Democrats to fire Speaker McCarthy, he still held 96 percent of the House GOP conference. There were 24 Republican votes for McCarthy for each member of the destructive anti-McCarthy cabal.

(…)

McCarthy’s 15-ballot endurance run was far from the record. In 1856, it took two months and 133 ballots to finally pick a speaker.

Of course, in the 1850s, the political system was in chaos. The fight between slavery and abolition was tearing the traditional parties apart. The Whigs were collapsing under the weight of the slavery issue (President Abraham Lincoln had spent his entire political career as a Whig until the emerging Republican Party became a more effective vehicle for his values and ambition.) There was a brief flourish of a Know Nothing Party, which opposed immigrants and African Americans. It rose and fell with great rapidity. The dominant Democrat Party split into a Northern wing opposed to the expansion of slavery – but not in favor of abolition – and a Southern wing deeply devoted to sustaining and protecting slavery as an institution and way of life.

It was in the context of this political turmoil that the decaying political parties found it impossible to impose discipline. In the middle of the tension and anger, they found it hard to find an acceptable speaker. Nathaniel Banks, a Democrat-turned-Republican because of his abolitionist views, finally won after an exhausting bruising two-month battle.

Given the pressures of television, social media, the wars in Israel and Ukraine, we are unlikely to have a marathon on the scale of 1856. But we may be facing a process that could run longer than the January McCarthy saga.

(…)

There are huge differences in the makeup of American congressional districts. Deeply conservative members tend to come from Republican districts in which their bases want conflict, attacks against the left, and an all-out fight to control spending and the border. They also demand the impeachment of President Joe Biden. These members have no electoral incentive to move to the center or compromise.

However, there are 18 members who come from districts Joe Biden carried in 2020, and another 30 or so members who psychologically reflect a more moderate approach. These members find themselves under the exact opposite pressure than their more conservative colleagues. The people they were elected to represent want bipartisanship, pragmatism, and problem-solving.

This is the cause of the chaos you are seeing in the U.S. House. The vast difference in electoral pressures makes it extraordinarily challenging to bring together a majority coalition.

There is also an enormous shift underway in public opinion and party identification. The Democrat Party’s dramatic shift to a deeply leftwing, pro-transsexual, anti-white, and anti-Semitic ideology is a driving factor. The participation of “the squad” in pro-Hamas rallies is a symptom of this new pro-Palestinian, anti-Israel bias. The fact that 12 Democrat state legislators walked out of the North Carolina State House in protest of a resolution pledging support to Israel is another example.

As the national Democrats have grown more radical, their more moderate state and local members, such as the African American mayor of Dallas, Texas, have begun switching to the Republican Party.

The GOP is becoming the party of working Americans of all ethnic backgrounds. The Democrats have become the party of highly educated elites. This is an almost complete reversal of the governing coalition President Franklin Delano Roosevelt put together in the 1930s.

As President Donald Trump has emerged as the anti-left champion of working Americans, the old pre-Ronald Reagan Republicans have recoiled in horror. The tension between the always Trump and never Trump wings of the party is one of the tensions making it hard to have a stable speakership.

Finally, when you only have a five-seat majority, it only takes a handful of angry, media savvy, internet focused mavericks to make governing almost impossible. If you are willing to be noisy, combative, self-righteous, and attention-seeking enough, you can raise a lot of money from people across the country who hate the current Washington establishment and just want to have champions who fight. This puts a premium for some members on fighting and disrupting rather than building and achieving.

With Majority Leader Scalise’s departure, the potential speaker has a big mountain to climb to find 217 votes.

If no one can, all bets are off – and I have no idea who can put the GOP back together.”

#gingrich #newt gingrich #speaker of the house #congress #house of representatives #kevin mccarthy #jim jordan #gop #republican party #house freedom caucus #trump

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dontmeantobepoliticalbut · 11 days

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House Democrats made an extremely rare break with modern political norms on Thursday to rescue House Speaker Mike Johnson's (R-La.) foreign aid package.

WHY IT MATTERS: It's the starkest evidence to date that the GOP's fractured and tiny House majority has effectively yielded to something resembling a bipartisan coalition.

WHAT HAPPENED: The four Democrats on the House Rules Committee voted with five of the panel's establishment Republicans to advance the package of four bills to votes on the House floor.

• The crossover was needed after three right-wing hardliners on the panel — Reps. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.), Ralph Norman (R-S.C.) and Chip Roy (R-Texas) — voted against sending it to the floor.

• The right-wing rebellion was enough to kill the package if Democrats did not step in.

ZOOM IN: The Rules Committee typically consists of leadership loyalists who dutifully vote along party lines on advancing legislation to the floor.

• But former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) placed Massie, Norman and Roy on the panel last year to placate right-wing hardliners who rebelled against his bid for the gavel.

• That put power in the hands of Democrats, who overwhelmingly support the package and are desperate to send aid to Ukraine.

WHAT WE'RE HEARING: This kind of party crossover on the panel has not happened "in the time that I've been here," said Rep. Dan Kildee (D-Mich.), who has served in Congress for more than a decade.

• Kildee, a member of Democratic leadership, said the move is "unprecedented."

• "I think it's highly unusual ... I don't know that I've ever seen that happen," said Rep. Joe Morelle (D-N.Y.), a former member of the panel.

WHAT'S NEXT: The committee vote sets up a vote of the full House on Friday to pass what is known as the "rule," a procedural mechanism setting the terms of debate on legislation.

• Democrats will need to bail out the rule once again, with the House Freedom Caucus taking the rare step of endorsing a "no" vote.

• That likely won't be a big deal, however, now that Democrats have already rescued the rule once: "In for a penny, in for a pound," said Kildee.

#us politics #news #republicans #gop #house freedom caucus #2024 #us house of representatives #Democrats #rep. Mike Johnson #foreign aid package #House Rules Committee #rep. Thomas Massie #rep. Ralph Norman #rep. Chip Roy #rep. Kevin McCarthy #Rep. Dan Kildee #Rep. Joe Morelle #axios

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nosferdoc · 7 months

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“In a sense, the question at issue is: What do you get when you win a seat in Congress? The answer the Constitution suggests is that you get a seat at the table, and what happens at that table is negotiating, bargaining, and accommodation toward government action in response to public problems. You get to represent your voters in that process, and to negotiate on their behalf so that their interests are accounted for in the final outcome. That’s how representative democracy makes it possible for differences to be accommodated and addressed in our frequently divided society. Lots of people (especially on the left, but also on the right) have always been frustrated with that answer, and called for a system in which winning an election gives the majority party a mandate to act on its own. But our system doesn’t work that way; it prioritizes coalition building over policy efficiency, and rightly so.”

— Yuval Levin, Marching toward a Shutdown, National Review Online, September 21, 2023.

#quotes #politics #yuval levin #shut down #house freedom caucus #kevin mccarthy #congress

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tomorrowusa · 11 days

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Republicans are really a gas.

We've already learned that Donald Trump is apparently farting up a storm during his hush money trial. Perhaps he's hoping that his stench will make the judge declare a mistrial.

The far right House Freedom Caucus is onboard with Trump. They are calling a special unit they've formed the "Floor Action Response Team" or FART for short.

The far-right House Freedom Caucus has formed a crack team of conservative lawmakers to monitor the House floor lest Speaker Mike Johnson or other Republicans try to limit their power. Naturally, the band of rabble-rousers that loves generating headlines for its members has called the group the Floor Action Response Team or FART. Because, why not? According to Politico, this group will make sure that no other Republicans try to rush through changes that would make it harder for lawmakers to oust Johnson from power or that would strip three Freedom Caucus members of a powerful perch they all hold.

The Freedom Caucus intends to make a stink about any attempt to reduce their influence.

To secure the votes for becoming House Speaker in 2023, Kevin McCarthy agreed to a rule that any GOP House member could file a motion to vacate the chair – that is, remove the Speaker. Poor Kevin regretted that concession when that rule was used to get rid of him last autumn.

House members who are extremist even by GOP standards have used that rule to constipate most action in the House. Almost nothing is getting done other than DOA attempts to impeach administration officials.

Votes scheduled on Saturday for foreign military assistance could act as a purgative of sorts. We may finally see MAGA attempts to block aid to Ukraine go down the toilet.

#us house of representatives #118th congress #house freedom caucus #floor action response team #fart #republicans #the gop #maga #kevin mccarthy #“maga mike” johnson #house republican caucus #vacate the chair #donald trump #election 2024 #vote blue no matter who

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gwydionmisha · 10 months

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Marjorie Taylor Greene booted from House Freedom Caucus

#Marjorie Taylor Greene #House Freedom Caucus #Lauren Boebert #US Politics #News

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