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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.
Published in General
The democrats under Obama always said that if their version of health care were passed, the repubs would never repeal it. They were correct, but that didn’t keep a lot of repub frauds from telling their constituents about their votes to repeal when Obama was there to exercise a veto. I don’t know if Trump was serious, but you are correct in saying that most repub members of congress weren’t.
I’m talking about one topic. Repealing the ACA. They lied about it for seven years. Senate and house of representative Republicans. They didn’t think ahead about it for seven years.
They didn’t need Trump at all. No planning. No integrity. Etc.
Then you get people like Gary telling us that John McCain did the honorable and sensible thing by vetoing the repeal of the ACA.
Millions and millions thrown on Medicaid every single year.
Everything Moves Towards Communism All Of The Time™
If he doesn’t, we’ll know we have another go-along-get-along GOPe loser.
I suppose you’re just too young(?) to remember John McCain casting the vote to deny a repeal. It wasn’t a casual thing: He made it as dramatic a gesture as he could. Punk. I hate him.
One would think, but one of the powers of the Speaker and the leadership is to use committee and subcommittee assignments as ways to reward loyalty and punish those who are “disloyal”. Thus the HFC and the TEA Party representatives since 2010 have been kept off of the prime committee assignments and denied leadership positions. There are some exceptions like Jim Jordan who has had a number of plum assignments including Chair of the Republican Study Committee in 2010.
So, Speaker McCarthy will likely punish Matt Gaetz and Lauren Boebert and others who opposed his run for speaker even if he keeps his pledges to them. It’s one of the primary tools he has and there are plenty of members who want to see them punished.
I’ve said this repeatedly, but I will say it again. Nobody can explain in plain English how John McCain moved the ball forward for conservatives and libertarians.
He had narcissistic personality disorder and accordingly he had no principles or effectively no principles.
Back on November 15, 2022, the Republican House members voted on who they thought the Republicans should unite behind for Speaker of the House.
The vote was 188 for Kevin McCarthy and 31 for Andy Biggs.
That means that McCarthy received about 85 percent of the Republican House members back then and once they started voting on the House floor, McCarthy picked up nearly 90 percent of the Republican House members.
So, any Republicans trying to stop McCarthy from being Speaker probably should have put more work into the project before November 15, 2022.
I forget which thread I posted this on, but Michael Knowles was talking to Lauren Boebert. She said that they were trying to talk to him in good faith about this in the Summer. He wouldn’t do it because he thought they were going to win by a wide margin. Then it became a problem when they didn’t. It’s on YouTube, I think under daily wire or Michael Knowles. I trust Michael Knowles implicitly on everything. The meat of the interview is only nine minutes.
And if McCarthy was smart (he obviously isn’t very smart) he would have been talking to those 31 that voted for Biggs to ensure that they would be voting for him on Jan 3, 23. He did talk with them, but he didn’t listen to them. This entire affair is squarely on his shoulders and he is going to have to up his game if he is going to succeed as Speaker. I’m just hoping he isn’t as bad as Paul Ryan was.
In that video Lauren Boebert says that she and Gaetz had a meeting with McCarthy prior to Jan 3, after the election, and had a deal that got McCarthy 218 votes and he rejected it.
https://ricochet.com/1370853/knowles-intv-boebert-context-history-of-this-speaker-fight/
Thank you for posting that. I pay the price of ignorance for not being systematic about going through ricochet.
Also know as a R> junkie who wants more posts to read and respond to while watching my own posts languish with just under the recommendation limit *sigh*.
I’ve gotten over it, largely, but I really hate it that Michael Knowles doesn’t host the Ted Cruz podcast. If you want to understand something, those guys are the best.
You are in a small minority.
the entire GOP apparatus failed-i think with the destruction of the Tea Party movement (by the Dems & the press-but I repeat myself) the chance of reversing Obamacare was over. No significant politician was committed to overturning it-many paid lip service to the idea, but none committed.
I thought single payer would be here by the late 90s (in the late 80s, I told my newlywed wife I would have very few years of private practice). The Dems plan is to so bugger up medicine that only the feds could bail it out-it has just taken longer than I thought.
McCarthy won the battle for Speaker. Andy Biggs didn’t. That’s really all that matters. The rest is just filler between commercials on cable TV.
Disagree about unnecessary.
They are completely necessary, though not for good ends.
Lots of people have been using the term “clown show.” I don’t think that kind of name-calling helps.
Lauren Boebert was good there. Thanks for posting that.
As for Michael Knowles, if he is going to ask stupid questions, he should go into sports broadcasting. (I’ve never heard of him before.) It was good that he interviewed Boebert, because so much of the “news” and “commentary” in the news media has been rich in namecalling and invective, but devoid of actual communication with the holdouts. So he gets credit for that. But I switched it off when it started to sound like an interview with the coach at halftime.
Yeah, clowns don’t deserve that.
Overall my favorite episode, but here is the start of the part about clowns:
I said that? When did I say that?
Not to worry. Donald Trump didn’t say all the things he said, either.
Everything Moves Towards Communism All Of The Time™
#silver rounds
#ammo
#dehydrated food
If they had any forethought, they would need to have town halls explaining why they needed to wipe out employer-based insurance and go with universal coverage, not single payer, subsidized out of the US treasury by progressive taxation. Make it the same deal as what 50% get out of a good employer based plan.
Practically, and politically there was no other way to do it. The mistakes were made when they didn’t wipe out employer-based insurance and when LBJ started Medicare.
You didn’t like the parliamentary structure. It was too non-partisan or something as well. You 100% justified it. Feel free to explain your current opinion.
They passed it with a parliamentary trick and we should have shoved it right back down their throats.
JMO, this is another example of how you frequently make lawyer arguments instead of making ordinary Internet arguments.
McCarthy is just another politician — good teeth, good hair, and a smarmy smile.
I recently won re-election to the township board while having unattractive teeth, a bald head, and a smile that doesn’t show up on photographs.