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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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You are a unicorn, possibly another honest Abe, our least photogenic yet greatest president.
That is, mostly, true. I doubt that this will matter much historically. Few Speakers do actually matter. McCarthy has two years to show that he can be effective in keeping the HFC aligned with his agenda. My suspicion is that he won’t and instead will peel off Democratic votes to pass everything. That was hiw he operated as Minority Leader. Which is the base of the problem. It took 15 votes and concessions from McCarthy to win (with less than an outright majority). That doesn’t inspire confidence that the next big vote to come along will be smooth. Ryan struggled holding a coalition together and he had a larger majority. People can complain that Gaetz and Beobert have outsized support, but that is how coalitions work. McCarthy insulted them and ignored them and they made his look like a fool in repayment. They also didn’t vote for him in the end. How he treats them going forward will demonstrate his competence ad Speaker. I’m not holding my breath, but then again I’m rooting for the GOP to implode.
When it comes to raising the debt limit, it is certain that McCarthy will have to rely on the votes of Democrats and a handful of Republicans to get the legislation passed.
Similarly, when it comes to keeping the government running and avoiding a government shutdown, McCarthy will have to rely on Democrat votes in the House combined with a few Republican votes.
This, of course, assumes that McCarthy wants to raise the debt limit and wants to keep the government from shutting down, which I think is a reasonable assumption.
WE VOTE FOR SPENDING MORE THAN WE TAKE IN.
Thank God that we can print money when ever we need to.
This made me LOL. Democrats are the base of the Uniparty. They don’t “peel off” (except for Sinema and Manchin, but they’re in the Senate).
And I think we forget this too quickly. Remember Ryan, Cantor, and McCarthy were the “Young Guns” of the Republican party? They didn’t age well, did they.
To think that this kind of sausage making isn’t what’s going on 24/7/365 is naive. The difference is the transparency. I happen to think transparency is a good thing. If others want to call it a clown show, that’s OK. I just prefer transparent clowns.
Nah. Passing a bill often has this kind of behavior. This is the selection of a faction’s leader. It’s not much of a faction if they can’t get their act together before going public.
Just got a sleazy fundraising email from Gaetz. He is the face of the party because the gentlemen aren’t fighting but following.
All fundraising is sleazy. The only time I find it not so is if I’m getting something out of it. Half the time, I’m not.
Well, you had the advantage of incumbency, so that doesn’t count. Assuming you weren’t initiallly appointed to the position to fill a vacancy, I guess the question is, who were your opponents when you initially ran? Did you run against a handsome man?
Good point. I first ran as an anti-corruption candidate. In that case I could portray myself as a White Knight with my visor down and my lance at the ready.
Those of us who believe that all politicians are corrupt are likely to think that “anti-corruption candidate” is an oxymoron.
That is not the same thing as a politician running at the township level.
Furthermore, if you believe this, good for you, but I wouldn’t expect you to say something like this
There’s no reason an anti-corruption candidate can’t be corrupt. Some of them are corrupt from the start, and some of them will become corrupt as they go along. Hardly any will become less corrupt than they started out.
If the government doesn’t stick to actual public goods and the central bank doesn’t have a much “harder” monetary policy, you are going to get more corruption than need be in government and society. Conservatives can whine about it anyway they want, but that is what you are up against.
That’s why term limits are such a good idea. Before a guy can get corrupt, he has to leave office.
I want to make it clear that I’m not the final word on this. It didn’t work in California at all. The state got taken over by the bureaucrats, lobbyists, and the unions. I think people should be able to vote for whoever they want.
Kinda like Democrats claiming they are “anti-fascist.”
Better idea. Let people elect the person they want but don’t let the office have benefits any better than what the military gets. Give them a matching 401k and a travel allowance, enroll them in TRICARE, and let them have a basic term policy. They won’t stick around for an eternity. Also, trim back federal power.
I was watching Steve Hilton on Fox last night. He was talking about this. He was trying to say that the heads of committees shouldn’t be able to take money from the industries that those committees regulate. If you ask me this is just wrong. It’s free speech. You have to pay a lobbyist to take care of you in DC. Redress of grievances and all of that.
On the other hand, he made a great big deal about the 10th amendment stuff, which in my opinion is the same thing as saying the government should do only strictly defined “public goods”. I prefer saying it that way because it demonstrates the effect on society, but nobody ever puts it that way. In fact Democrats will say anything is a “public good” and the fire department is proof that Socialism works, blah blah blah. lol
We have lots of restrictions on who you can vote for, or rather on who can get elected and serve in a position. The problem with term limits proposals is that most of them are way too extreme, and that’s because people don’t understand the nature of corruption. Or, in other words, people don’t understand people.
I’m a big fan of term limits, but not those that are so extreme as to lead to the California situation. If we kick out the 20-40 year office holders, that will do a lot of good and is probably the most that we should go for.
Right. I’ve heard 18 years is the way to do it.
You don’t want to have a situation where the lobbyists, bureaucrats, and unions have too much knowledge and power connections over the legislature and executives. That’s the objective, no matter what.
Why should they get a pension at all?
One thing not mentioned in this particular thread on term limits is that the term limited look for other jobs. And those who vote a certain way, get good jobs when they leave office. There’s no one making blatant job offers for their votes, it just gets known after a few years.
And one thing you can’t do is tell someone you’re term limiting (or not) is that they can’t get another job after they leave office.
That aspect of widespread term limits is rarely discussed, and it’s a big reason why the term limits in California haven’t really worked.
If you say it loud enough often enough, it must be true.
Not one zoomer in 1000 can give you an operational definition of “fascist.”
The military pension plan requires 20 years of service and pay is 50% of base pay.
Term limits are an incentive for a corruptible official to grab all he can as quick as he can. The benefit might be that they are not as cagey about it.
Theoretically, government actuarial systems can save society a hell of a lot of money. Politically, it never works out like that. Just pay them more, and skip the pension.
That’s generically what I have learned from former congressman Jason Lewis and a Canadian guy that made a bunch of videos about how government pensions should work.
I’ve heard this too.
The easy way to do this is bomb the Eccles building and just follow the Constitution.
Any CPI or asset inflation created by the Federal Reserve is a constitutional taking. When the Fed creates this inflation it enables bigger government and you literally have to have the government manage the side effects of it somehow. It’s just a mess and we can’t manage it.
A step in the right direction: https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2023/01/payback_mccarthy_to_yank_omar_swalwell_and_schiff_from_their_house_committee_assignments.html
Swalwell off of the Intelligence Committee is a gimmie. He’s the poster boy for security risks.