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A Train Wreck Waiting to Happen?
The first two years of the Biden administration have been a train wreck. Now that Republicans have a majority in the House, there is a chance to, at the very least, slow down the Woke Express in the next two years of a Biden administration.
The infighting between Republicans over the Speaker of the House reminds me of a parliamentary government. More time is spent on coalition building and then coalition failures that lead to a parade of Prime Ministers. I would hope that Republican representatives come to their senses and realize that they have a chance to influence Senate legislation. They also have the ability to control Biden’s spending over the next two years.
The egos, and the intellect of those who are elected to the House are interesting and amusing. You get two years of short-term employment to try and stop the train, but as it speeds down the track you spend that time tossing each other off the train.
GK Chesterton:
Published in PoliticsThe whole modern world has divided itself into Conservatives and Progressives. The business of Progressives is to go on making mistakes. The business of Conservatives is to prevent mistakes from being corrected. Even when the revolutionist might himself repent of his revolution, the traditionalist is already defending it as part of his tradition. Thus we have two great types — the advanced person who rushes us into ruin, and the retrospective person who admires the ruins. He admires them especially by moonlight, not to say moonshine. Each new blunder of the progressive or prig becomes instantly a legend of immemorial antiquity for the snob. This is called the balance, or mutual check, in our Constitution. (Illustrated London News, 1924)
I like the comment overall, Bryan, but I have to disagree. The gist of the argument for McCarthy at this point is “let’s get to business (as usual) and then figure all this out.” Nothing is exactly what I’d expect from going along.
And what are we missing out on, investigations? Big whoop-dee-hoo. The information is all out there, and Matt Taibbi, Elon Musk, et. al. are putting actionable information out every week. But we’re promised “investigations” and that seems like doing something, but it isn’t.
This is the only opportunity to hold leadership accountable. Is McCarthy the one I think needs to pay the price for the utter lack of leadership? There really are only three you can point to. He’s the least objectionable of the three “Mc’s” but holds no great appeal either.
We have a party that doesn’t want to win elections and a leadership that has made no legislative promises. Why are we in a hurry to start the frustration? Let’s see what can be made to happen through this process which is a feature, not a bug, of the system.
Well, we can disagree.
That we can, and with a split Legislative Branch it’s unclear what can be done anyway. A Legislative Branch doing nothing sounds good in normal times.
But it seems like a majority of Republican House members are ultimately not going to accept a House that doesn’t do anything.
So, we might end up with a cross partisan coalition organizing the House with each committee split equally between the political parties.
If that happens, will the 19-20 Republicans who refused to support McCarthy decide that they made a mistake?
If that happens, it won’t matter: voters will abandon the Republican Party. All the stuff about “uniparty” will, in the eyes of many, be confirmed.
I doubt that because I think those who want the federal government to completely shut down are a minority even among Republicans.
Hah. Yeah, I read that spin too. The 9 House and 17 Senate members that voted for the omnibus are some sort of heroes because they avoided a “shutdown.” Weirdly similar headlines in media outlets throughout…well, throughout New York City.
Most people don’t care. Is Ukraine funding your “number one priority,” Heavy?
Outside the Beltway/Acela Corridor, most people seem to think a shut down federal government is a good thing.
Which is why during one of the Obama shutdowns, his administration did things specifically to hurt those outside the beltway, because nobody out here cared.
Yes. Ukraine funding is my number one priority.
OMG.
Don’t act surprised.
Not surprised. Repulsed.
During the Reagan presidency, I joined the Republican party when I was 18 years old because Reagan supported aid to the anti-communists in Nicaragua.
I still hold to the views that Reagan espoused back in the 1980s.
Hate to break it to you, but it’s not 1980 anymore.
But the values of freedom and resisting tyranny are just as important in 2023 as they were in the 1980s.
Except in 1980, those values abounded here. After 40 years of ignoring communism at home, of sticking our fingers in our ears and ignoring what universities were teaching our kids, and of ignoring porous borders where all manner of humanity’s cast offs could come here and given permission to influence our leaders to be just like those countries, the problems are HERE.
And we can’t help people while we are bleeding. There’s a reason airlines say to put on your mask before helping someone with theirs. A dead man helps no one.
When Reagan took the presidency in 1981, interest rates were at 21 percent and inflation was in double digits. Crime was higher than it is today.
But Reagan didn’t use domestic challenges as an excuse to kiss up to Russian dictators the way some so-called conservatives in 2023 are doing.
Oh please. Be more original than “You’re a Putin stooge.”
In terms of values, it’s a general statement and one I won’t disagree with, but to make the specific policy of aid to Ukraine a stated priority above all else…no, not even Alex P. Keaton (just a bit of levity, first thing I thought of when you mentioned your age, etc.).
To oppose tyranny we need our nation to be as strong as it can be. Republican leadership, such as it is, eschewed any such talk or any sort of improvement, or changes at all for that matter. I cannot be an advocate for or support those who refuse to lead then insist they be named leaders.
First time I’ve seen this. Stop! I can only get so enthused!
“Dingbat.” Ha. You’re too kind. Gaetz is reptilian. Florida voters, for heavens’ sake, take out the trash!
Transcript:
Gaetz: We offered Kevin McCarthy terms last evening that he rejected. We sought a vote in the first quarter of the 118th Congress on Term Limits. He refused. We wanted a budget from the Republican study committee that balances on the floor in the first quarter. He refused. We wanted the border plan that the Texas delegation put together on the floor. He refused. And it is true that we struggle with trust with Mr. McCarthy because time and again his viewpoints his positions they shift like sands underneath you. Even Kevin McCarthy’s own mentor recently said that the lies always change. And Mr. McCarthy is not only responsive to pressure from the right. Time and again he has failed to achieve the goals we seek on spending and on the fight. For months we have been asking Mr. McCarthy for his battle plan. How do we ensure that we stand up for folks in the military who feel like they’re being purged? How do we ensure that if there’s a passage of a farm bill includes things like work requirements. And all we got was a handful of ‘howdy’ and a mouthful of ‘much obliged.’
So we do not want to be here at this moment. We prefer to have a unity of purpose. But we will not continue to allow the Uniparty to run this town without a fight. There’s very little difference between Nancy Pelosi and her California Delegation Mate that seeks the gavel, and we want a change, because this town is broken, and this is a person who has acknowledged that this town is broken, and he has been a part of that process for many years as leadership.
[Question from reporter still wearing a muzzle]
Gaetz: We did not take this to the brink. For many months we have been presenting these ideas to Mr. McCarthy, and we have gotten strung along, and only on New Year’s Eve did we see changes to the rules. And what’s interesting about the meeting we just had is our colleagues broadly celebrated rules changes that many of us have been fighting for. To ensure that we had the opportunity to read the bills before voting on them, so that we don’t get log-rolled with multiple pieces of legislation put together that don’t have the same subject. So that we had germanity [?] rules so that the national defense authorization act wouldn’t be amended onto a water infrastructure bill. And we did not get timely responses from Mr. McCarthy, we did not get substantive responses from Mr. McCarthy, because I think he thought that just by going on your network and others that he would browbeat us into submission to the swamp. And we’re not gonna do that.
That you would put your own people who are suffering behind a foreign entanglement is appalling. And trusting that the malefactor(s) in power in our government will get it right? Anything but Reaganesque.
ha ha ha. That was a silly question.
I heard McCarthy in the negotiation about letting FC members on a key committees asked for specific names, then promptly leaked the names saying those people were demanding committee assignments. That is pretty hardcore, but if true explains why there is a lack of trust.
QUESTION: So just to be clear, none of what you heard in there from McCarthy was enough to get your support.
Gaetz: Everything I heard hardened my resolve that this town desperately needs change, and if it’s a few of us who have to stand in the breach to enforce it, we are willing to do so for as long as it takes.
If Gaetz is “reptilian” then seems like we need more reptiles in Congress.
ibid.