Last night, after “winning” election to the position of Speaker of the House of Representatives - his life achievement goal for which he would do, say, or give away anything - Kevin McCarthy got up and gave an “acceptance speech” in which he declared war on the United States.
Why, oh why...haven't the Feds arrested or at the VERY least, prevented those Reps who were KNOWN to be seditionists--or deeply involved in the plotting-- to be seated in Congress?
Whatever happened to enforcement of Section 3 of the 14th Amendment???
Indeed. The Democratic majority of the House had the opportunity to lock them out...to eject them from office. But did not. The DOJ has had two years to arrest these traitors. But did not.
Very coincidentally, the inimitable Maria Popova today shared her discussion of John Steinbeck and the importance of hope. (If you don't know of her, please check out some of her other posts and consider subscribing; it's free unless you choose, as I do, to donate.)
I have been of the thought that the BlocHeadz and their perverted ideas of “fweedum” go down this debt ceiling road with a wrecking ball because they want to mortgage our country to Putin and every other dang autocracy they so dearly love. “Oh lookee…a dictator to help us.”
So stupid. Before they starve and make homeless the seniors and Medicaid families, there will be time enough for an uprising to give them a good whuppin’. The likes of which they’ve never experienced. They feel so protected by their “base”. They have no idea how the poverty culture(especially the family matriarchs) that are robbed of their social net will come after them with a force they know nothing of.
Racist, lawless lawmakers. The worst breed of traitors.
McCarthy sold his soul and we are stuck paying the price.
I stayed up last night to watch the 14th vote. That young punk Gaetz strutted around the House floor like a peacock, then set off a furious response to his 'present' vote, and nearly got punched out by an irate member of his own party. Then smirked and moved forward after cutting the final deal. How did he get to possess this much influence?? Why is this rat not behind bars yet for child molestation/statutory rape? Much of this could have been avoided if he had been removed from office for his crimes.
TC, I probably can’t count much better than Qwevin. Are there not enough sane moderate intelligent Republicans to join Democrats and block the insanity from the Republican terrorists.
There probably are. It would take a discharge petition signed by 218 members to get it out of the rules committee (dominated by three HFC seditionists). The problem is finding five willing to take the threat of being primaried by the seditionists in 2024. So you have to find five that are willing to put country ahead of party and personal interest. Not too many of them in the GOP.
I believe my HFC Rep could be one of the five ? I seriously don’t think he’ll run again (believe he has health issues). He has huge support among retirees and Veterans( we have an AF base) Perhaps he cares about his legacy…or not.
I feel your pain! Unfortunately my Rep is a HFC member so it’s easy to fall into using the acronym….or otherwise inserting my own inspired (colorful:)verbiage!
TC➡️“So you have to find five that are willing to put country ahead of party and personal interest.”
The stark difference in Hakeem Jeffries’ speech and Marionette McCarthy’s was striking. Jeffries’ was positive, inspiring and unifying. McCarthy’s was negative, divisive and bullying. I guess that pretty much sums up the goals of each. Jeffries’ to unite, build up, and support our democracy. Marionette’s to divide, demean and tear down our democracy.
"Our ancestors survived that. Are we really less than they were?"
We are certainly a more polarized nation, our opinions controlled by the digital dominatrix that most of us rely upon, with its disguised propaganda and disinformation breeding resentment and deep hatred in half of the country.
We are different actually just because our ancestors created the New Deal, the G.I. Bill, the success of the unions, the taxation ... all of the liberal agenda that brought the whole country, from the very wealthy to the poor, closer and closer together in a prosperity where us all came to rely on certain privileges and stability that have been gradually, subtly, taken away.
They did all that because they survived the Depression and World War 2. And back before WW2, it wasn't just the Germans and the Japanese who thought the kids who would become "the greatest generation" were likely unable to stand up to the test, being "soft jazz-loving layabouts," as their American elders termed them.
My parents lived their childhood in the Depression. They talked about their experiences during the Depression frequently. My dad was horrified to go into debt. He and my mother saw families lose homes and farms because they couldn't pay their bills. The wealthy bought up property and businesses for super discounted prices. They did not care about suffering families. They still don't. The wealthy, especially the morbidly wealthy, think they should not pay their fair share. Fair is when they get their way to cheat everyone else.
..and now we're a different kind of layabouts, ones who think we're involved because we spend so much time on our activism online. And when we need a national movement, there doesn't seem to be one available to do the job. No labor leader who could mobilize a nationwide general strike, no Martin Luther King, no Eugene Debs. The fascist party has what we need; the tools to breed fighters.
Anyone hear the echoes of former House Speaker Newt Gingrich during 14 failed votes to elect McCarthy the Speaker?
“They’re employing the old Gingrich argument that you don’t get any benefit from cooperation or compromise, only from confrontation,” said Representative Steny Hoyer of Maryland,
The antigovernment, right-wing extremist in the Republican Party now have the power. In McCarthy’s desperation to be Speaker, he gave away the House.
Along with remembering Gingrich, January 6th attempted Insurrection, the missing ‘Red-Wave’ (in last November’s, mid-term elections) the lack of indictments by DOJ for the leaders of the planned Insurrection, let us not forget that the same rebels who helped lead the effort in Congress to overturn the 2020 election, were also among the final holdouts working to block Mr. McCarthy’s ascent to the Speakership.
‘Make no mistake. The House Freedom Caucus is an enemy as relentless as were their Confederate traitor ancestors.’
‘Any suffering we as a country would undergo as a result of holding firm and faceing the seditionists is certainly far less than the people of Ukraine have faced in the past year, and they have held firm in the face of the terrorist threat.’
‘Let it happen. Hang the event around the neck of every Republican office holder in the country. Make it clear who the enemy is and what they have done. Come 2024 they won’t even stay in office in the red states.’ (TC)
Gingrich is the country’s drunk uncle who, unfortunately has a good grasp of the power of language and knows how to use it for evil. He’s a scheming, narcissistic bastard and I blame him for starting all this. And I will curse his name till the day I die.
All of this is just UFB! Seeing McCarthy with the gavel and smiling made me want to throw up. After losing 14 times he still did a victory lap. Disgusting, embarrassing, humiliating soulless shell of a man. We are so screwed.
I got kicked off of Twitter about a year ago because I was relentless in calling my state's politicians "WORTHLESS". ( I'm sure you will understand my Anger at Texans Politicians). Needless to say Cruz and my gerrymandered rep Bimbo do not like me. Today I so wanted to renew that damn Twitter account to tweet at McCarthy - I did not. I will be watching this debacle unfold the next two years.. AND I WILL NOT RENEW THAT SWAMPY TWITTER ACCOUNT
The truth of this has been obvious for a long time, to those not in a political coma. As the Dems were smirking over the humiliation of Kevin, I was hoping for a sane person to say what you just said. Nary a syllable. We don’t have to worry about external threats when the enemy is within. So many in the past have known that, why don’t we? Maybe Rupert will wake up and see that his billions are threatened. But sadly, likely too late for that…
Well, TC, so we have arrived at this place. For the moment, at least, pretty darned close to the end of the world. And already I hear the responses. Ever reluctant to even acknowledge the existence of the abyss, we soldier on in some other-worldly kingdom where good manners, good intentions, and a few hours on the phones at a local candidate's headquarters will haul us up and out. Where, in fact, those very things--or their equivalents--will relieve us of despair for another season. In the magnificent play, "A Man for All Seasons," Thomas More, trying to avoid having his head chopped off but unwilling to bend toward what he knows is wrong, says to his wife, "Anything that can be accomplished by smiling, you may rely on me to do." Like More, we have come to the point at which precisely nothing can be accomplished by smiling.
I do know that what I wade into as realism others read as pessimism, but I don't believe I'm pessimistic. I have a strong belief in the fundamentals of the spirit of this country. I also have never been able to look away fast enough to avoid seeing the dark underbelly of that spirit.
So where am I tonight? Primarily exhausted from struggling to breathe. That aside, I know it likely will not be as bad as our author here and I anticipate, but it will be bad. I hope it is bad enough this time that none of us can avoid seeing it. We will certainly survive, in one way or another, but I, at least am already profoundly changed by the last decade. And now we are entering what--final round or not--will transform us again. TC mentioned Ukraine and posed a question of comparison. My answer, I'm afraid, is that I don't think there are many among us who would last long in that place pounded on all sides by wounds, freezing cold, starvation, and constant terror. I will say I don't believe I would hold out more than a couple of days.
" hope it is bad enough this time that none of us can avoid seeing it." And that the many who voted to elect these cretins, and voted to elect the former president, will get the message at the very least in their own pocketbooks and those of their loved ones who may end up sick and homeless because of cuts to Social Security and Medicare.
How is not voting to increase the debt limit a direct violation of the U.S. Constitution? [...passage of the 14th Amendment, with its provision that “The public debt of the United States shall not be questioned.”"] What chance is there that an emergency appeal to the Constitutional Originalists of the U.S. Supreme Court could block that effort by the House Freedom Caucus?
I am confident that their are at least 10 ‘sane’ repubs in the House who will vote with the Dems to pass debt ceiling and budgetary bills!
So the party which once wore the mantle of fiscal responsibility will commence wasting 10’s of millions of dollars to pay for amongst other follies, bogus investigations into Hunter’s lap top!
Why, oh why...haven't the Feds arrested or at the VERY least, prevented those Reps who were KNOWN to be seditionists--or deeply involved in the plotting-- to be seated in Congress?
Whatever happened to enforcement of Section 3 of the 14th Amendment???
Indeed. The Democratic majority of the House had the opportunity to lock them out...to eject them from office. But did not. The DOJ has had two years to arrest these traitors. But did not.
I am appalled and disgusted.
Appalled and disgusted indeed. Add to that disappointed and discouraged.
Furious and frustrated.
Depressed yet hopeful.
Really, I have been but hope is being beaten by ignorance that has no bounds
I know, Jeri, but if we give up hope, we will quickly sink into despair and fear.
Very coincidentally, the inimitable Maria Popova today shared her discussion of John Steinbeck and the importance of hope. (If you don't know of her, please check out some of her other posts and consider subscribing; it's free unless you choose, as I do, to donate.)
https://mailchi.mp/themarginalian/john-steinbeck-richard-powers-lynn-margulis?e=5a4533c7fe
❗️ ❗️ ❗️
I have been of the thought that the BlocHeadz and their perverted ideas of “fweedum” go down this debt ceiling road with a wrecking ball because they want to mortgage our country to Putin and every other dang autocracy they so dearly love. “Oh lookee…a dictator to help us.”
So stupid. Before they starve and make homeless the seniors and Medicaid families, there will be time enough for an uprising to give them a good whuppin’. The likes of which they’ve never experienced. They feel so protected by their “base”. They have no idea how the poverty culture(especially the family matriarchs) that are robbed of their social net will come after them with a force they know nothing of.
Racist, lawless lawmakers. The worst breed of traitors.
Salud, TC!
🗽
McCarthy sold his soul and we are stuck paying the price.
I stayed up last night to watch the 14th vote. That young punk Gaetz strutted around the House floor like a peacock, then set off a furious response to his 'present' vote, and nearly got punched out by an irate member of his own party. Then smirked and moved forward after cutting the final deal. How did he get to possess this much influence?? Why is this rat not behind bars yet for child molestation/statutory rape? Much of this could have been avoided if he had been removed from office for his crimes.
TC, I probably can’t count much better than Qwevin. Are there not enough sane moderate intelligent Republicans to join Democrats and block the insanity from the Republican terrorists.
There probably are. It would take a discharge petition signed by 218 members to get it out of the rules committee (dominated by three HFC seditionists). The problem is finding five willing to take the threat of being primaried by the seditionists in 2024. So you have to find five that are willing to put country ahead of party and personal interest. Not too many of them in the GOP.
I believe my HFC Rep could be one of the five ? I seriously don’t think he’ll run again (believe he has health issues). He has huge support among retirees and Veterans( we have an AF base) Perhaps he cares about his legacy…or not.
Try and find a way to work on him.
Thanks for encouragement. Will do.
👋 👋 👋 👋 👋 👋 👋
Though there are those several just elected to districts that went for Biden. They may get the picture.
Isn’t it too late???
Not five sane repubs, would be funny but…
SORRY...HFC? After 3 strokes my brain does not keep up with acronyms?
I feel your pain! Unfortunately my Rep is a HFC member so it’s easy to fall into using the acronym….or otherwise inserting my own inspired (colorful:)verbiage!
TC➡️“So you have to find five that are willing to put country ahead of party and personal interest.”
5….we.can.do.this!
ah ha House Freedom Caucus: brain slow on the uptake
Don't feel bad I never figured it out until you wrote it 🙄
Thank you, Hale. You made me feel better.
Oh- I was thinking of another F word…
The stark difference in Hakeem Jeffries’ speech and Marionette McCarthy’s was striking. Jeffries’ was positive, inspiring and unifying. McCarthy’s was negative, divisive and bullying. I guess that pretty much sums up the goals of each. Jeffries’ to unite, build up, and support our democracy. Marionette’s to divide, demean and tear down our democracy.
Kinda reminded me of the Fat Man’s inaugural speech. The one he gave before the hugest crowd in history!
You must be referring to the “American Carnage” speech given to the biggest photoshopped crowd ever assembled!
Roger That!
"Our ancestors survived that. Are we really less than they were?"
We are certainly a more polarized nation, our opinions controlled by the digital dominatrix that most of us rely upon, with its disguised propaganda and disinformation breeding resentment and deep hatred in half of the country.
We are different actually just because our ancestors created the New Deal, the G.I. Bill, the success of the unions, the taxation ... all of the liberal agenda that brought the whole country, from the very wealthy to the poor, closer and closer together in a prosperity where us all came to rely on certain privileges and stability that have been gradually, subtly, taken away.
That deep resentment has been weaponized.
They did all that because they survived the Depression and World War 2. And back before WW2, it wasn't just the Germans and the Japanese who thought the kids who would become "the greatest generation" were likely unable to stand up to the test, being "soft jazz-loving layabouts," as their American elders termed them.
My parents lived their childhood in the Depression. They talked about their experiences during the Depression frequently. My dad was horrified to go into debt. He and my mother saw families lose homes and farms because they couldn't pay their bills. The wealthy bought up property and businesses for super discounted prices. They did not care about suffering families. They still don't. The wealthy, especially the morbidly wealthy, think they should not pay their fair share. Fair is when they get their way to cheat everyone else.
Wonderful term, morbidly wealthy.
Mine too, they suffered mightily
..and now we're a different kind of layabouts, ones who think we're involved because we spend so much time on our activism online. And when we need a national movement, there doesn't seem to be one available to do the job. No labor leader who could mobilize a nationwide general strike, no Martin Luther King, no Eugene Debs. The fascist party has what we need; the tools to breed fighters.
Anyone hear the echoes of former House Speaker Newt Gingrich during 14 failed votes to elect McCarthy the Speaker?
“They’re employing the old Gingrich argument that you don’t get any benefit from cooperation or compromise, only from confrontation,” said Representative Steny Hoyer of Maryland,
The antigovernment, right-wing extremist in the Republican Party now have the power. In McCarthy’s desperation to be Speaker, he gave away the House.
Along with remembering Gingrich, January 6th attempted Insurrection, the missing ‘Red-Wave’ (in last November’s, mid-term elections) the lack of indictments by DOJ for the leaders of the planned Insurrection, let us not forget that the same rebels who helped lead the effort in Congress to overturn the 2020 election, were also among the final holdouts working to block Mr. McCarthy’s ascent to the Speakership.
‘Make no mistake. The House Freedom Caucus is an enemy as relentless as were their Confederate traitor ancestors.’
‘Any suffering we as a country would undergo as a result of holding firm and faceing the seditionists is certainly far less than the people of Ukraine have faced in the past year, and they have held firm in the face of the terrorist threat.’
‘Let it happen. Hang the event around the neck of every Republican office holder in the country. Make it clear who the enemy is and what they have done. Come 2024 they won’t even stay in office in the red states.’ (TC)
We have a saying in our house that was originally directed at Newt but now there are so very many targets: “Keep On Talking, A**hole”. KOTA.
Gingrich is the country’s drunk uncle who, unfortunately has a good grasp of the power of language and knows how to use it for evil. He’s a scheming, narcissistic bastard and I blame him for starting all this. And I will curse his name till the day I die.
Go back a decade or two. Newt was obvious, some others were more sneaky
All of this is just UFB! Seeing McCarthy with the gavel and smiling made me want to throw up. After losing 14 times he still did a victory lap. Disgusting, embarrassing, humiliating soulless shell of a man. We are so screwed.
SOULLESS
I got kicked off of Twitter about a year ago because I was relentless in calling my state's politicians "WORTHLESS". ( I'm sure you will understand my Anger at Texans Politicians). Needless to say Cruz and my gerrymandered rep Bimbo do not like me. Today I so wanted to renew that damn Twitter account to tweet at McCarthy - I did not. I will be watching this debacle unfold the next two years.. AND I WILL NOT RENEW THAT SWAMPY TWITTER ACCOUNT
Well, there’s always Truth Social🤣🤣
The truth of this has been obvious for a long time, to those not in a political coma. As the Dems were smirking over the humiliation of Kevin, I was hoping for a sane person to say what you just said. Nary a syllable. We don’t have to worry about external threats when the enemy is within. So many in the past have known that, why don’t we? Maybe Rupert will wake up and see that his billions are threatened. But sadly, likely too late for that…
Well, TC, so we have arrived at this place. For the moment, at least, pretty darned close to the end of the world. And already I hear the responses. Ever reluctant to even acknowledge the existence of the abyss, we soldier on in some other-worldly kingdom where good manners, good intentions, and a few hours on the phones at a local candidate's headquarters will haul us up and out. Where, in fact, those very things--or their equivalents--will relieve us of despair for another season. In the magnificent play, "A Man for All Seasons," Thomas More, trying to avoid having his head chopped off but unwilling to bend toward what he knows is wrong, says to his wife, "Anything that can be accomplished by smiling, you may rely on me to do." Like More, we have come to the point at which precisely nothing can be accomplished by smiling.
I do know that what I wade into as realism others read as pessimism, but I don't believe I'm pessimistic. I have a strong belief in the fundamentals of the spirit of this country. I also have never been able to look away fast enough to avoid seeing the dark underbelly of that spirit.
So where am I tonight? Primarily exhausted from struggling to breathe. That aside, I know it likely will not be as bad as our author here and I anticipate, but it will be bad. I hope it is bad enough this time that none of us can avoid seeing it. We will certainly survive, in one way or another, but I, at least am already profoundly changed by the last decade. And now we are entering what--final round or not--will transform us again. TC mentioned Ukraine and posed a question of comparison. My answer, I'm afraid, is that I don't think there are many among us who would last long in that place pounded on all sides by wounds, freezing cold, starvation, and constant terror. I will say I don't believe I would hold out more than a couple of days.
" hope it is bad enough this time that none of us can avoid seeing it." And that the many who voted to elect these cretins, and voted to elect the former president, will get the message at the very least in their own pocketbooks and those of their loved ones who may end up sick and homeless because of cuts to Social Security and Medicare.
Will include a lot of MAGAts
Same here
How is not voting to increase the debt limit a direct violation of the U.S. Constitution? [...passage of the 14th Amendment, with its provision that “The public debt of the United States shall not be questioned.”"] What chance is there that an emergency appeal to the Constitutional Originalists of the U.S. Supreme Court could block that effort by the House Freedom Caucus?
Anyone with a brain knows that republicans have repeatedly violated Article III, Section 3 of the US Constitution, which discusses treason.
But let us turn to Article II, Section 3 of the U.S. Constitution. Biden may want to try out this one.
With the HFC seditionists arrested at the entrance to the House chamber.
😈
Well said, TC. Well said.
I am confident that their are at least 10 ‘sane’ repubs in the House who will vote with the Dems to pass debt ceiling and budgetary bills!
So the party which once wore the mantle of fiscal responsibility will commence wasting 10’s of millions of dollars to pay for amongst other follies, bogus investigations into Hunter’s lap top!
They might be sane, but are they willing to take expulsion from the party or being primaried for their actions?