the 2023 speaker of the house voting thread of implosion

[Pato del Muerto 52,342]

So could I call a rep office and offer them a campaign donation if they will nominate me for speaker?  Or the person of my choosing?

[Longhorn_Fan68 33,841]

 

 

[Aqua Buddha 14,504]

More votes, more losses.  It's like the Aggy football season.  Every week is delicious.

Can someone edit a video of the L's like they did with "Schiano Man."

[Bozo_Casanova 26,279]

15 minutes ago, pacman said:

Cucked Gaetz, on his knees, votes for Trump lulz

SAD!!!

[henrygandorf 29,174]

 

[henrygandorf 29,174]

11 minutes ago, Beau Vine said:

Nah.  When McCarthy eventually gets elected, Gaetz is going to get squashed like the tiny bug he is.

well first of all, i said "right now" for a reason.

second, i'm not sure that's true.  gop will have such a slim margin that gaetz can find 5 friends and pull this type of shit whenever he wants.

[tokamak 6,352]

NYT tracker has a couple of the hold outs not voting this time (Donalds and Perry). That helps McCarthy, right?

[The Dog 43,802]

1 minute ago, tokamak said:

NYT tracker has a couple of the hold outs not voting this time (Donalds and Perry). That helps McCarthy, right?

helps Jeffries actually. 

[Bozo_Casanova 26,279]

nvm

Edited January 5, 2023 by Bozo_Casanova

[tokamak 6,352]

Just now, Bozo_Casanova said:

where's #212 for Jeffries?

NYT currently showing him with 212

Only change from vote #6 (and 5, and 4) was Gaetz voting for Trump.

[ChiTownDoc 21,098]

4 hours ago, Judge Roybeanbag said:

Have you ever seen those pictures from Woodstock of people rolling around in their own muddy shit and claiming it was the greatest thing ever?  If so, these are those same people and this is a rerun.  

Well in defense of those people, they were high af on some top notch drugs and having a lot of great sex.  The only attempt at sex here is with underaged girls, they drink diet coke and eat burned steak.  The remake is always worse.  In this case, MUCH worse.  

[C-Man 27,050]

8 minutes ago, tokamak said:

NYT tracker has a couple of the hold outs not voting this time (Donalds and Perry). That helps McCarthy, right?

Donalds apparently voted for himself and Perry just lodged his vote for Donalds. Guess he was in the shitter during the P's.

[Beau Vine 53,999]

212-201-20-1

[pacman 7,328]

25 minutes ago, henrygandorf said:

gaetz is a schmuck of the highest order but there are not many congressmen in the room with more power right now.

That's not my read of the last 24 hours. Gatez tried to make a play for a chair position and it seems to have backfired tremendously. He's outside looking in now, from what I have gathered.

[Beau Vine 53,999]

Plurality!  Time to do it!

[tx 3 putt 76,350]

17 minutes ago, Bozo_Casanova said:

SAD!!!

trump only knows losing, he’ll be ok 

[Chuckie Finster 22,599]

This all kinda makes the "MCCARTHY HAS MOMENTUM!!!" headlines from last night seem a bit silly.

[Bozo_Casanova 26,279]

 

[Homercles 10,205]

I definitely need more pics of Santos L Halper looking like Mr Bean wandering into an OR while looking for the mens room in the hospital.  

[The Dog 43,802]

 

[Chooky 13,302]

35 minutes ago, Ted Lange said:

Kevin is gonna need divine intervention from the mages. 

Doesn't kevin have devout shoulders? Isn't he paladin? 

Yeah, but this will help him with more manna.

Sigh. Christ!

[Longhorn_Fan68 33,841]

1 hour ago, Bateshorn said:

Never gets old. Never stops being hilarious. Will always repost. 

 

I will never not watch this when it is posted, despite how many times I've seen it. this should go down as a top 5 all-time internet moment, staged or not

goddamn this is fun.

[Js1 85,104]

1 minute ago, The Dog said:

 

She's one of a handful that have said NO ONE in leadership already can get their vote.

They want someone they can easily manipulate and or stymie. 

[gmr548 16,503]

We’re basically not going to have a House of Representatives for two years

[Queen Bitch 1,692]

Except she's been voting for Donalds, so WTF is she blabbering on about?

[ChiTownDoc 21,098]

38 minutes ago, henrygandorf said:

so i realize this is just a technicality, but if mccarthy wins with the rules he's agreed to, what happens when there's a vote to vacate every other week?  do they have to vote someone new in, or are we back to square one (where we are now)?  i can't imagine they'll find a new person to rally around, so does mccarthy just retain the speakership or does it roll back to having no speaker?

and while that is going on, does he have to keep moving in and out of his office, because that is something i would like to see.

The rules he's having to agree to are so fucked up I actually hope he wins eventually, like on the 100th vote.  By then he will have agreed to attend sessions nude and dress up as a young girl for Gaetz, nightly.  And since it only takes one yay to put him back on the hot seat it will get worse weekly.  Luckily there's zero limits to what he'll do to keep the speakership.  If we're gonna go down, it might as well be entertaining.  By the time Rome burned it was a tragic comedy of epic proportions.  Here we come.  

[Ghost of LL 15,486]

2 minutes ago, Js1 said:

She's one of a handful that have said NO ONE in leadership already can get their vote.

They want someone they can easily manipulate and or stymie. 

But flipside on this--if they don't get on board with someone on the Republican side, they're going to lose all of the concessions McCarthy has given them.  They're not going to get any of their committee assignments; they're not going to get the ability to vacate the chair.  And most importantly, they're not going to get the CLF staying out of primaries.  On the contrary--they're going to get the CLF going harder than ever.

But these people are idiots, so they'll almost certainly do the dumb thing.

[Beau Vine 53,999]

1 minute ago, Queen Bitch said:

Except she's been voting for Donalds, so WTF is she blabbering on about?

By what metric is Donalds "current House leadership?"

[Satchel 6,908]

McCarthy should offer Dems an equal number of seats on Judiciary and put Gym Jordan into cardiac arrest.

[MC Fresh Breath 4,074]

Quote

 

McCarthy debacle comes with a lesson: There's a downside to being a party of fascist trolls

It's been entertaining, in a dark sort of way, watching the mainstream media try to explain what is fueling the conflict between Rep. Kevin McCarthy, the House Republicans' supposed leader, and the 20 or so members of his own caucus who are preventing him from becoming House speaker. The New York Times called the anti-McCarthy faction "ultraconservative" and the Washington Post noted that most are full-on election deniers. Not only are these euphemisms for what they actually are — a bunch of fascists — it also falsely implies that the disagreement is ideological. It's not. McCarthy is in full agreement with the anti-democratic views of this group. He was among the 147 House Republicans who voted to overturn the 2020 election in the immediate aftermath of the Capitol attack. While McCarthy was initially cranky about the violence of Jan. 6, 2021, he has done everything in his power to shield the powerful conspirators who incited it, including Donald Trump himself, from any accountability. 

 

Quote

Those are big words, and I apologize, but here's a simpler way to put it: Fascists are a bunch of trolls who are never satisfied. They must always prove their power by ganging up on someone who's been cast as an "outsider." As the Atlantic's Adam Serwer famously observed, "The cruelty is the point."

Quote

 For the dysfunctional Republicans, however, this anger is being refracted through their increasingly fascist worldview, which is paranoid, irrational and hostile to democracy. That's why the demands made by the anti-McCarthy faction are incomprehensible and seem to change by the hour. The mentality that "life is permanent warfare" leads to the party's desire to constantly purify itself of the enemy within, in this case the despised "RINOs." But as more and more RINOs get purged, the definition becomes more expansive and maintaining party purity becomes almost impossible. Eventually, craven sycophants like McCarthy are rechristened as RINOs and thrown overboard. There is no endpoint where the party has finally cleansed itself. 

Spoiler

McCarthy debacle comes with a lesson: There's a downside to being a party of fascist trolls

Calling Republican renegades "ultraconservative" doesn't cut it: This clown show is a symptom of the big F

It's been entertaining, in a dark sort of way, watching the mainstream media try to explain what is fueling the conflict between Rep. Kevin McCarthy, the House Republicans' supposed leader, and the 20 or so members of his own caucus who are preventing him from becoming House speaker. The New York Times called the anti-McCarthy faction "ultraconservative" and the Washington Post noted that most are full-on election deniers. Not only are these euphemisms for what they actually are — a bunch of fascists — it also falsely implies that the disagreement is ideological. It's not. McCarthy is in full agreement with the anti-democratic views of this group. He was among the 147 House Republicans who voted to overturn the 2020 election in the immediate aftermath of the Capitol attack. While McCarthy was initially cranky about the violence of Jan. 6, 2021, he has done everything in his power to shield the powerful conspirators who incited it, including Donald Trump himself, from any accountability. 

There's no real daylight between the foaming-at-the-mouth fascists and McCarthy, much less other GOP leaders like Rep. Elise Stefanik of New York, a shameless coup booster and reborn Trump loyalist, and Rep. Steve Scalise of Louisiana, who once described himself as "David Duke without the baggage." Recognizing this, some political observers have started describing the fight as "personal," as if the anti-Kevins just don't like the guy. But that's not plausible either, since the common factor uniting the 20 or 21 holdouts is not personality type but the fact that they come from safe seats in deep-red districts. These folks are far more worried about losing a primary to someone who runs on a more-fascist-than-thou platform than about losing to a Democrat. 

After McCarthy failed to win the speakership three times on Tuesday, the punishment continued on Wednesday. Those whom Team McCarthy dubbed the "Taliban 20" aligned with Democrats on the "let Kevin suffer" platform, allowing the voting to resume. After three more tedious roll-call votes in which absolutely nothing changed — except that the renegades are now voting for Rep. Byron Donalds of Florida, not Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio — the House adjourned again with no speaker, no assigned committees, no members actually sworn in. (Actually, it adjourned twice, after briefly reconvening on Wednesday night.) Presumably they'll try again on Thursday, and perhaps some kind of deal will be struck, although no one seems to have a viable theory of what that will be. 

So if this godawful mess is not personal or ideological, then what is it? Ultimately, it's not about Kevin McCarthy at all. It's about the Republican Party's self-conception in its exciting new fascist iteration (which was forged under Donald Trump but doesn't really have much to do with him either). Fascism needs to be understood less as an ideological movement and more as a movement devoted to the worship of power for its own sake, and also a dramatic aesthetic of constant warfare and performative purification of an ever-narrower conception of the body politic. 

Those are big words, and I apologize, but here's a simpler way to put it: Fascists are a bunch of trolls who are never satisfied. They must always prove their power by ganging up on someone who's been cast as an "outsider." As the Atlantic's Adam Serwer famously observed, "The cruelty is the point." Most of the time, the targets are racial and sexual minorities, liberals or immigrants. But sometimes, that restless need to constantly bully someone manifests in purification rituals, where a once-trusted or even beloved insider is deemed an outsider who must be ritually purged. It's just Kevin McCarthy's turn in the proverbial barrel, though he almost certainly hasn't helped his cause by constantly debasing himself before the hardliners. He's marked himself as a weenie, and that just makes his tormentors enjoy watching him suffer even more. 

The Trump era has, understandably, led to a nonstop and frustrating debate over what exactly "fascism" is. I favor the famous 1995 essay by Italian philosopher Umberto Eco, who argued that fascism is a movement of "rigid discombobulation, a structured confusion," replete with contradictions and incoherencies, and yet that "emotionally it was firmly fastened to some archetypal foundations."

In other words, fascism is about vibes more than fleshed-out ideas. Very, very authoritarian vibes. One big reason we can identify Republicans as fascist now is because while their appetite for power knows no end, their willingness to govern — that is, to use power to achieve substantive ends — has diminished to nothing. It's all vibes and no ideas, beyond an inchoate loathing of anyone they deem too dark-skinned, too queer or too literate to be truly American.

In his "Ur-Fascism" essay, Eco laid out 14 features of fascism, which add up not to a coherent political philosophy so much as a series of antisocial impulses. It's worth reading in its entirety, but the McCarthy debacle illustrates some of Eco's most important observations: Fascism is deliberately irrational. Indeed, it makes a fetish of irrationality. It's a "cult of action for action's sake" that believes thinking before acting "is a form of emasculation." The fascist believes that "life is permanent warfare" and therefore there must always be an enemy to struggle against. That's why fascists love conspiracy theories. Their "followers must feel besieged," and since they have no real oppressors to rail against, they make up imaginary ones. 

 

After Trump's coup failed and the red wave of the midterms didn't materialize, Republicans are turning on each other. Even healthy political parties tend to have periods of recrimination after suffering bitter defeats. For the dysfunctional Republicans, however, this anger is being refracted through their increasingly fascist worldview, which is paranoid, irrational and hostile to democracy. That's why the demands made by the anti-McCarthy faction are incomprehensible and seem to change by the hour. The mentality that "life is permanent warfare" leads to the party's desire to constantly purify itself of the enemy within, in this case the despised "RINOs." But as more and more RINOs get purged, the definition becomes more expansive and maintaining party purity becomes almost impossible. Eventually, craven sycophants like McCarthy are rechristened as RINOs and thrown overboard. There is no endpoint where the party has finally cleansed itself. 

Watching Republicans tear each other apart like this isn't just entertaining, but also useful. Fascists are always itching for a fight. Under Trump, that energy was directed outwardly at their perceived enemies: Democrats, liberal "elites," immigrants, LGBTQ people and eventually democracy itself. But as this House leadership fight has shown, fascists will also turn on each other like a bunch of weasels in a sack. With any luck, they tear themselves apart before they can tear democracy down. 
Nancy Pelosi may not be the House Democrats' leader anymore, but her party are responding to this clown show in a way that shows they retain the unity and clarity of purpose Pelosi typically brought to their caucus. They are resisting the centrist punditry that insists Democrats have a responsibility to swoop in and protect Republicans from their own worst elements, as if saving their most vicious opponents from their own mistakes were somehow the same thing as saving democracy. We saw this impulse most recently in the media reaction to Democratic campaign ads highlighting the MAGA bonafides of certain far-right candidates to GOP primary voters, believing those kinds of radicals would be easier to beat in a general election. Those media criticisms were based on the shaky assumption that fire-breathing fascists are a bigger threat to democracy than supposed "mainstream" Republicans like McCarthy, who share their anti-democratic views but can play moderate in front of the cameras. 

 

Well, the strategy of sowing internal discord among Republicans is working pretty well so far. A lot of the GOP's most egregious nuts lost their elections. Those who made it across the finish line are currently in the process of blowing their party up. Democrats are wise to continue refusing to bail Republicans out of their own mess. Even though Kevin McCarthy is the fascist crowd's newest piñata, that doesn't mean it's good for Democrats or democracy if he secures the speaker's gavel. He has no interest in governing. The plan, if we want to call it that, was to ignore legislation and appoint lots of House committees to spread conspiracy theories about Joe Biden and other political foes. McCarthy was also expected to use threats about the debt ceiling and a possible government shutdown in a pointless and destructive effort to force cuts in Social Security and Medicare. By far the best thing for democracy is if the Republicans simply implode and their nefarious schemes never come to fruition. 

Frankly, I think that's why Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell just did a friendly bipartisan event with Biden in Kentucky, highlighting the benefits of infrastructure spending. Not long ago, McConnell would have done everything in his power to keep a Democratic president from getting credit for a popular program. He may now be starting to see the downside to this nihilistic approach to politics, which threatens to consume his entire party.

It's more than likely, however, that the Kentucky event will only sow more intra-party discord, further enraging the burn-it-all-down types and turning them even more forcefully against GOP leadership. Republicans may control the House, but they can't control their own worst impulses. Meanwhile, Dark Brandon and the Democrats continue to flip the politics of fascist trolling back in the GOP's face. Democracy is still at risk, make no mistake. But it now seems possible that its enemies may tear their own house down before they get the chance to destroy ours.

By AMANDA MARCOTTE

https://www.salon.com/2023/01/05/mccarthy-debacle-comes-with-a-lesson-theres-a-downside-to-being-a-party-of-fascist/

Edited January 5, 2023 by MC Fresh Breath

[Jameslaw121 4,445]

2 minutes ago, Satchel said:

McCarthy should offer Dems an equal number of seats on Judiciary and put Gym Jordan into cardiac arrest.

Dems : removed everyone of these psychopaths' from any committee assignments, investigate Gaetz, Santos, and any others. Zero investigations into any of the Biden's.

 

 

[Sbbruin 21,723]

15 minutes ago, Longhorn_Fan68 said:

I will never not watch this when it is posted, despite how many times I've seen it. this should go down as a top 5 all-time internet moment, staged or not

goddamn this is fun.

“Goddammit LeRoy!”  Such greatness.

[Anastasis 23,394]

"When Crenshaw looks out at the world, he sees it differently."

Well yeah. 

[Sbbruin 21,723]

43 minutes ago, Bozo_Casanova said:

SAD!!!

Wait I may be late to the party, but is Trump really getting votes?  Don’t you have to be an actual member of Congress to actually be eligible?  Am I just stupid?

[Francisco 2.0 32,323]

1 minute ago, Sbbruin said:

Wait I may be late to the party, but is Trump really getting votes?  Don’t you have to be an actual member of Congress to actually be eligible?  Am I just stupid?

Yes.  No.  Speaker can be you, me, Jimbo Fisher, etc.

 

 

[Anastasis 23,394]

Just now, Sbbruin said:

Wait I may be late to the party, but is Trump really getting votes?  Don’t you have to be an actual member of Congress to actually be eligible?  Am I just stupid?

Not a Constitutional requirement that they be a member of the House.

[tx 3 putt 76,350]

5 minutes ago, Anastasis said:

"When Crenshaw looks out at the world, he sees it differently."

Well yeah. 

he doesn’t get the full picture 

[4th&Five 41,459]

 

[Jameslaw121 4,445]

3 minutes ago, Francisco 2.0 said:

Yes.  No.  Speaker can be you, me, Jimbo Fisher, etc.

 

 

Jimbo is about to have a better record than McCathry

[TexasEd 8,064]

3 minutes ago, Francisco 2.0 said:

Yes.  No.  Speaker can be you, me, Jimbo Fisher, etc.

 

 

 

[Incredulity 11,564]

2 minutes ago, tx 3 putt said:

he doesn’t get the full picture 

not a lot of depth.

[The Dog 43,802]

 

[Js1 85,104]

[The Dog 43,802]

 

[Al Bundy's Napoleon Hand 13,546]

22 minutes ago, Beau Vine said:

By what metric is Donalds "current House leadership?"

He has twice the super powers of the greatest president ever.

[C-Man 27,050]

7 minutes ago, Francisco 2.0 said:

Yes.  No.  Speaker can be you, me, Jimbo Fisher, etc.

 

 

Continuing in that vein since it's never happened -- or seemingly even been considered before the orange dipshit -- but what role would a non-Congressmember Speaker be? Would this person have a vote or simply handle assigning committees, introducing legislation, etc? (I understand there is immense power even if you don't have the single vote.)

[henrygandorf 29,174]

the hfc is doing exactly what the gop/media told us the squad/progressives would do for the past 4 years.

say what you want about the dems, the big tent, the in-fighting, circular firing squad, and so forth, but they rallied together to get biden elected, they fell in line when pelosi needed them, they saw the bigger picture, they didn't grandstand and make it about themselves in order to go on tv and fundraise while holding the party hostage, and they've pulled zero shenanigans on this vote so far - 212 all 7x.

meanwhile, the media all told us that mccarthy picked up momentum last night with his wheeling and dealing, and in the first ballot of the day, he gets (checks notes) exactly the same amount he got in the final couple votes yesterday.

he's basically negotiating with himself, and losing.

fuck 'em all, let them burn.

[Mo Horn 8,807]

Thank goodness the dems kept the senate, or Trump would have been an actual candidate. He gets elected, the house impeaches both Biden and Harris, senate removes them, and Trump becomes president.

[Pig Bellmont 8,691]

Just now, Mo Horn said:

Thank goodness the dems kept the senate, or Trump would have been an actual candidate. He gets elected, the house impeaches both Biden and Harris, senate removes them, and Trump becomes president.

Except it takes 2/3 of the senate to remove from office. The House will still surely impeach Biden over nothing though 

[DDD Dad 14,251]

3 minutes ago, Mo Horn said:

Thank goodness the dems kept the senate, or Trump would have been an actual candidate. He gets elected, the house impeaches both Biden and Harris, senate removes them, and Trump becomes president.

You know it takes a 2/3 vote of the Senate to remove following impeachment, right?

ETA: @Pig Bellmont beat me to it.

Edited January 5, 2023 by DDD Dad