Day 3 of Kevin McCarthy's humiliation by GOP renegades

In effect, as of noon, January 5, 2023, there has been no House of Representatives in the US Government since 12:00am January 3.  And counting.

Once McCarthy gives in to all the demands, all he'll have is the title "Speaker of the House". Perhaps that's all he really wants.

That he would agree to such an insane demand is reason enough to keep him out of the Speaker's seat.

As John Boehner wrote in his 2021 memoir, the end game now is chaos itself:

What they’re really interested in is chaos … They want to throw sand in the gears of the hated federal government until it fails and they’ve finally proved that it is beyond saving. Every time they vote down a bill, they get another invitation to go on Fox News or talk radio. It’s a narcissistic – and dangerous – feedback loop.

Governance is not the point, it’s the enemy.

  Dahlia Lithwick @ Slate

I will say this about John Boehner - his was the GOP iteration that thought it could subsume the Tea Party and make it work to their advantage. So, he has some responsibility in his own demise as Speaker and the chaos that exists to threaten democracy now.

In 2021, that was on display in what we could all recognize as violence and threats of bodily harm. In 2023, it’s being done with speeches and backroom negotiations [...]. None of it will lead to a better, healthier, more functional or stable government, even if the week doesn’t end with feces smeared on the walls.

It may yet.

In 2021, Donald Trump was demonstrably on the side of the insurrectionists. This week, Trump called for his followers to support Kevin McCarthy. This time, they ignored him. Because he’s irrelevant now, a vestige of the Crazypants era of lawlessness and nihilism. We’ve moved on to the next era, the post-Crazypants era, in which various unqualified gun nuts and racists vie for the empty throne, without either the purse or the limited vision of the reality show star who came before them. None of the disruptors care about much of anything at this juncture.

[...]

The hope right now is that January 2023 is the caboose on the Jan. 6 train, and not the café car, but if the thing these people trade on is attention, I don’t see any real reason for optimism.

The thing these people trade on IS attention.

To be elected speaker in this new Congress with just Republican votes, any Republican can only lose four votes. Because of how narrow Republicans' majority is after the midterm election results, a small cadre of intransigent members on the party's far right have a lot of leverage — and they're showing they're willing to use it.

What it boils down to for these members is three things:

•  wanting to see less government spending, 
•  more power to them and less power for the speaker, and
•  mistrust and personality differences

[...]

McCarthy backed the hard-right faction's proposal for a five-vote threshold to remove the speaker, but he wouldn't accept other demands, like putting more restrictions in place from members earmarking spending on unrelated bills for their own projects, or committing to bringing a bill to the floor to impose term limits.
  NPR

Give him time.

Most were endorsed by former President Donald Trump, and many are election deniers, but even Trump's influence is only going so far in this fight.

[...]

Rep. Dan Bishop, R-N.C. [...] was one of seven members to sign a "Dear Colleague" letter outlining concerns, like "increasingly centralized decision-making power" that result in "massive, multi-subject bills that are unable to be amended or fully read, all driven by supposedly must-pass defense and appropriations measures" that amass large debt.

(The other six to sign the letter were: Republican Reps. Scott Perry of Pennsylvania; Paul Gosar of Arizona, Andy Ogles of Tennessee, Chip Roy of Texas, Andrew Clyde of Georgia and Eli Crane of Arizona.)

I have to agree with them. This is absolutely true and absolutely a problem. It's just too bad that only the nuts are complaining about it.

Rep. Lauren Boebert, R-Colo. [...] narrowly won reelection by only hundreds of votes. She and others want a single member to be able to bring a motion to vacate the speaker.

And that's just as stupid as she is... 

OK.  Here we go.  It's fifteen minutes until noon.

Hahahahahahahahaha.  "Clarifications".  They won't "misuse" the motion to vacate.  Just using it will fuck up McCarthy.  He's just this desperate.  They have him by the balls whether he gets the votes or not.  Pathetic.

Hahahahahahahahaha. So sad.  

Also, two seats to 20 hardliners reflects the makeup of the GOP conference of 220+?  Are there 20+ seats on the Rules Committee?  Maybe with subcommittees included.  

One can only hope they're not.  

Aaaaaaaaaand...they're off.

Vote Number 7:  Looks like the Never Kevin bunch is nominating Byron Donalds again.  I guess they decided Jim Jordan wasn't going to get them any switched votes from the McCarthy faction.  

UPDATE:

And, once again, Hakeem Jeffries got more votes than McCarthy. Nothing is shaking loose. No matter what McCarthy concedes to the MAGA caucus.

Gaetz cast a vote for Trump.  Can't wait to see him and Marjorie TG fight over who will get on the GOP ticket with Trump.  

On to Vote #8.

From both parties!

Bishop (Republican, obviously) doesn't seem to recognize what they're chanting, as he urges them on!

UPDATE 12:45 Central:  Vote #8 underway.  

I wonder how they decide who gets to nominate McCarthy.  It's a different person each time, each giving their little speech.  What fame they'll be able to claim!

Lauren Boebert is giving a speech when called on for her vote.  All they want is the attention.

UPDATE:  8th vote down.  McCarthy still not picking up any votes, but still grinning and looking totally unconcerned.  Gaetz voted for Trump again.

Are they going to have three votes per day until somebody talks some sense into six Republicans who'll vote for Jeffries?

UPDATE 2:30pm:  The votes have no sooner been announced for the 8th vote than another idiot comes forward to nominate McCarthy again.  The Dems nominate Hakeem Jeffries for the ninth time, and the MAGA Republicans nominate Byron Donalds for the fifth Time.  No, you haven't heard of Donalds. He switched his vote from McCarthy on the third round to himself because he was nominated.  (I wonder if he'd switch back if they nominated someone else.) Donalds was elected to the House in 2020, making him an unlikely prospect for Speaker, but here we are.

Vote #9 underway.

The whole thing takes an hour and a half to get through.  Will they adjourn at the end of this ninth round (thirdtoday)? (UPDATE 4:00pm:  No they will not.)

The clown wars continue...

Lauren Boebert, perhaps the biggest attention hound of all, is now making a speech to nominate Kevin Hern.  "I voted for my friend Jim Jordan.  I voted for my friend Byron Donalds.  I am now voting for Kevin Hern."  JFC.  WTF?

"We have been accused of not having any plan.  We have presented many, many plans.  We are presenting two plans simultaneously right now for speaker of the people's house."  

What a freaking idiot.  

This should be playing in the background as they vote again...

Or maybe he got a call from Trump to stop showing Trump as loser over and over when they read out the votes, and his name comes last with "one vote."  Or from Tucker Carlson.

UPDATE:  Stuck on repeat.

UPDATE 3:50pm:  Here we go again.  Vote #10

UPDATE 5:15pm:  Christ, they've decided to be proud of it: "I rise in the spirit of 1923!"  Making America Great Again has found its way a full century into the past.  

Round #11 underway.  Gaetz is actually nominating Trump now.  Will Boebert drop Hern?  Will Byron Donalds' voters dump him?  Stay tuned.  

Boebert clapped four times for Gaetz' speech, in which he called McCarthy a squatter. She's the only one who clapped at all. She and Gaetz walked out of the hall together after the last vote. I guess they decided this would be the way to go. 

 Nutjobs. Chaos agents and clowns.

Bob Good (R-VA) is now shouting about the horrors of Democratic leadership in his nomination speech.  He hasn't yet said who he's nominating.  He did ask for applause after making some statement he thought merited it!  

UPDATE:  In the end, Good nominated Kevin Hern.  And Boebert voted for him after all.  Can't wait to see Trump's tally total.  The roll call is just through the Gs, and already McCarthy has failed again.  

Boebert and Gaetz keep flitting around the hall, and Santos keeps finding his way to Marjorie Taylor-Greene's side.*

UPDATE:

Trump got the one vote.

CSPAN is making noises about a deal being made.  Reporters have been talking about deals all day.  So far, no deal has made any difference.

I would truly love to see Hakeem Jeffries as both Speaker of the House and Opposition Leader.

Assume he posted this when Gaetz nominated him...

Will he now claim that, frankly, he DID win.

Motion to adjourn was made and shouted down by the Democrats.  An electronic device vote was called for, and Republicans won.

See you tomorrow.

They've been at it longer than that.

The Republican Party isn’t really a governing party anymore. It’s an incubator for right-wing celebrities.

~ Molly Jong-Fast

 ...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

UPDATE:

*UPDATE:

Laugh now, fool.  Your past is nipping at your heels. If the GOP won't hold you accountable, Brazil might.

UPDATE:

Jamie!  Two birds, one stone tweet.