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McCarthy Elected Speaker of the House on 15th Vote
Following four days of voting, negotiations, and drama, Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) has been elected Speaker of the House on the 15th ballot.
McCarthy garnered 216 votes after several early holdouts voted in his favor. Six other GOP holdouts voted “present”: Reps. Andy Biggs (R–AZ), Lauren Boebert (R–CO), Eli Crane (R–AZ), Matt Gaetz (R–FL), Bob Good (R–VA), and Matt Rosendale (R–MT). This lowered the number of votes McCarthy needed to grant him the Speaker’s gavel.
Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D–NY) gained 212 votes. The vote was concluded shortly after midnight.
In the 14th round of voting, McCarthy confronted Rep. Matt Gaetz, whose vote on that ballot would have given McCarthy the win. A motion to adjourn failed, so the 15th ballot moved forward.
With the Speakership settled, the House can finally get back to the important business of borrowing several trillions of dollars for unnecessary projects.
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Ah, thanks.
I got the picture from @9thdistrictneighbor.
Just reporting…
But this impression is not rooted in reality – which was committee politics playing out as intended – but exists because deluded people take the narrative peddled by The Media as reflective of something other than establishment prejudices. The answer, therefore, is to destroy The Media and un-delude folks, not warp policies and the democratic process to comply with The Enemy’s (bizarre) hold on low information voters.
And the “clowns” were winning over voters like me and other MAGA/Tea Party populists. McCarthy (among many others) is why I left the Republican party.
Which is stuck in the open position.
The White House already began to take that approach weeks ago.
voting + central bank discretion = doom +theft by government
http://financialrepressionauthority.com/2017/07/26/the-roundtable-insight-george-bragues-on-how-the-financial-markets-are-influenced-by-politics/
i.e.
It’s no secret that we are a fractured party and movement at a very perilous time in our nation’s history. I supported “The Terrorists!” as I suspect that previous attempts to affect some reforms and placements on the various committees were brushed aside.
The reporting on all these machinations has been pretty non-existent. I don’t recall any reportage about these ‘in the weeds’ demands but again, suspect that the caucus formation that was developing was largly going to replicate what has been going on since the Boehner days and these 21 recognized that and leveraged their position to the hilt. I’d love to have McCarthy asked what he’d learned from Boehner and Ryan’s difficulties and how he (thought?) he was working to avoid that same outcome – I didn’t see much evidence he’d learned much.
I still think that our ‘Tea Party’ days were among our finest as a movement: patriotic, substantive, populist, grounded in our Founders & founding documents… Its dissapointing to see how that energy was squashed and dissapated. I’d expected that spirit to have more effect on congress but (again suspect) that ‘That Town’ just ground those people and their energy & idealism down. I’d read of disatisfaction that Tea Party members were frozen out of committees or diluted in ways that conservative/reform minded committee initiative were quashed. The Tea Party dissapated and morphed into The Freedom Caucus with some mild gains, some great soundbites but nothing that changed the course we’re on.
To me, MAGA movement overlapped a great deal of the Tea Party energy & substance but was Trump focused. Trump threw that Tea Party/Freedom Caucus more bones than GOP leadership ever did but he passed them over plenty in working with Paul Ryan & Mitch McConnell. I think that split you saw between Trump & MTG (support for McCarthy) vs. Gaetz & Boebert (Chip Roy and some of the other 21) was indicative of this.
We’ve got some (tentative) substantive reforms to business as usual, a squishy Moderate Speaker on the House on a short leash (with a stinging reminder that could start all over again), a ‘shot across the bow’ to current and future Senate & House Leadership – not bad!
Not a bad outcome at all.
I have been staying away from C-SPAN (I used to be a C-SPAN junkie) over most of this, but I did tune in last night for the first time since this all started after the 14th vote, and found that they were voting on a motion to adjourn, which failed, so they went to the 15th vote.
While they were voting on the failed adjournment, I did back up and watch some of the histrionics during the 14th vote.
There’s more histrionics to follow. At the beginning of each Congress, the House of Representatives passes the rules they operate under, and it’s usually pro-forma, done after the speaker is seated. Not this time. It’s been postponed until Monday at 5pm EST, and they still have to get the votes to pass that as well.
My understanding is that he said he would resign if a new speaker was elected with the support of some Democrats, freezing the Republican rebels out.
It didn’t happen that way, so he’s not breaking a promise.
You had me right up until here.
I’m deeply disappointed. Not surprised, but I think a win for McCarthy is a loss for America. Again.
That started when J. Edgar Hoover figured he could stay in charge of the FBI by keeping dossiers on politicians.
I get it, trying to ‘look on the bright side’ / ‘hope over experience’!
I thought he said he’d resign if McCarthy made a deal with Democrats to get the needed votes. Not if he prevailed.
Call me a cynical old bastard if you wish, but this sounds a lot like all those bills to repeal ACA that the repubs bragged about when there was a president who would save their sorry carcasses with a veto.
If the clip is still on youtube, you can see him respond to Ingraham’s comments/concerns about getting someone like Jeffries as speaker, or a compromise candidate. I believe that was her term. Gaetz assured her that would not happen, and said he was so certain that he would resign if it did.
Why would a Republican Speaker continue the unprecedented removal from committee assignments of a Republican member by the prior Democrat Speaker? That should have been automatic, not a matter of negotiation. And aren’t committee assignments re-shuffled with each incoming House, which always contains at least some new members?
To teach the Dems a well-deserved lesson, however, I profoundly hope McCarthy eliminates any committee assignments for Schiff, Ilhan Omar, and Swalwell, who are all demonstrable national security risks.
And exactly how would the RNC chair do that? I’d love to see it, but that’s a non-serious suggestion.
Speakership Battle Is Just More Bread and Circuses › American Greatness (amgreatness.com)
That was just democracy in action, not a clown show. There may have been a few clowns, but then it took that because of a leadership vacuum caused the problem. The real problem was powerful people and lobbyists writing large bills then dropping them in the House and demanding people just sign them without studying them. What is more representative government? Dems who vote lock step with their party or Repubs debating until they come to a consensus? MCCarthy moved into an office before he was confirmed because he felt he was entitled to it. They hopefully reduced his arrogance a notch or two.
As a provider I sure don’t get to see any of that
Which president are you referring to, Trump or Obama? No senior political figure had the guts to repeal Obamacare.
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/why-trump-abandoned-his-plan-to-replace-obamacare
How ridiculous. “Trump never admits when he’s wrong.” Unlike Biden and Obama, for example? Unlike any other president ever?? Trump triangulated after Republicans lost the House? You mean like Bill Clinton and every other president ever??
And now we’re supposed to conveniently forget that John McCain torpedoed the repeal out of Trump resentment/hatred? You think Trump wouldn’t have signed a repeal?
Stop attempting to gaslight us. This is revisionist nonsense brought about by TDS.
Obama.
Neither Trump nor the Republican Congress ever got serious on repealing Obamacare-there was plenty of blame to go around-but without a strong push by Trump it was never going to happen. At best it was a failure of leadership by Trump. Unfortunately, Trump was never committed to shrinking the government-and it is gaslight to maintain otherwise.
They had to help him. My God, they had seven years and three months to get ready. How many times did they vote to repeal it? Zero forethought. They could have waited a year if they didn’t know how to do it.
I understand this makes perfect sense to you but it doesn’t to me. The ACA is obviously forcing single payer.