Writes Michelle Cottle, in "Maybe Matt Gaetz Is Right" (NYT).
Hmm. Who's behind that stupid exposure of Boebert?
But they are not to blame for the chaos consuming the House. It is Mr. McCarthy who led them to believe he would champion their policies and priorities. And it is Mr. McCarthy who elevated their influence in the conference, empowering them to wreak even greater havoc. Of course they are going to make more and more outrageous demands....
What's "outrageous" about demanding that McCarthy keep the promises that won him the power he's trying to hang onto?
Some of what Mr. McCarthy committed to was beyond his power to deliver.... He pledged to try to cap discretionary spending at 2022 levels or lower. But with the Democrats in control of the Senate and the White House, that is a non-starter. Worse, Mr. McCarthy effectively gave the hard-liners license to play chicken with the debt ceiling....
Other McCarthy promises involved bits of partisan theater. Mr. Gaetz says the rebels were guaranteed a vote on term limits, something Mr. McCarthy presumably could have arranged time for in the past eight months. But he didn’t....
Mr. McCarthy created and unleashed this right-wing monster to serve his own ambitions. And yet somehow he seems flummoxed that it is now smashing up things and demanding its due....
Sometimes I imagine that MSM writers are trying to get me to blog them... like they know "flummox" is my favorite word. Anyway, we've already talked about this topic back on September 13th, in "Matt Gaetz lambastes McCarthy: "Mr. Speaker, you are out of compliance with the agreement that allowed you to assume this role."
But I thought this new Michelle Cottle column was worth blogging. I don't know. What do you think? It's click bait. A NYT columnist teasing "Maybe Matt Gaetz Is Right."
Posts
81 comments:
Maybe NYT is eager to sow discord among their political opponents.
As usual, there seems to be an ample amount of flummery in your linked account at the NYT.
Not flummoxed here. Might as well be amused.
Click bait for sure. But what I like about it is the strident tone and the rank smell of flop sweat. These people are desperate to get the Republicans fighting among themselves. They’ll do and say anything to change the subject from Biden and the Dems’ misrule in Congress.
...a bit of a twist in that it is guiding the NYT & coffee audience how to feel about this. If I were the Democrats I'd be scared because I think Gaetz is on to something*. This helps them get through their morning...
* Not that I'm confident it will amount to anything. I suspect Gaetz will be AOC'd and they will slowly pick off the others with 'scandals'...
Who exactly is Gaetz and company think will get the votes for the speaker? The Democrats have a better shot at electing McCarthy's successor than Gaetz and company.
The freedom caucus has shed a huge light on the last 40 years of Republican party. They much prefer to be in the minority, bitch a posture, than do the actual work of leading.
Unless Gaetz, etal have the votes to elect a replacement, the need to STFU
NYT doing their best to provide cover for the cornered rat, Dementia Joe Biden.
It is Mr. McCarthy who led them to believe he would champion their policies and priorities.
That, not who. It's a cleft sentence, not a relative clause.
It's all theatre. The GOP isn't an opposition political party in the United States. Many people, Goetz among them, have correctly deduced this based on the actions of the GOP.
For example: Would a real opposition political party arm its enemies? Of course not. Yet year after year, the GOP funds virtually all of the Democrat Party's priorities and initiatives and provides funding for all of their operatives. No real opposition political party would do that.
You'll note how blithly this author dismisses the ability of the GOP-controlled House to reign in federal government spending through appropriations or the debt ceiling - bills that can ONLY advance in the House thanks to GOP leadership. That's because she knows that can never happen, since the GOP isn't a true opposition political party, but merely the appearance of one to satisfy the rubes.
Our government is 100% controlled by the Democrat Party - including the GOP. And it is united in preventing anyone from taking its power even if that means subverting our laws and Constitution. There's only one way out of this mess and we all know what it is.
But I thought this new Michelle Cottle column was worth blogging. I don't know. What do you think?
By commenting that, no, the Michelle Cottle column was not worth blogging, have I played right into your blogger hands?
Cottle's column is low-effort attempt to undermine Speaker McCarthy and disparage conservative members of the House without much analysis or insight.
...to act out like unruly teens — or Lauren Boebert at “Beetlejuice.”
I'd go see "Beetlejuice" with Lauren Boebert. Looked like a good time. And she was rockin' that dress.
The Freedom Caucus is fighting the good fight. We should all be thankful for them.
I think everybody's doing fine. Just keep playing shows and don't break up the band.
I’m not sure what is going on with either Gaetz or Boebert, but I’m certain the NYT seems more worried about them and not how a drug addicted son of the President got paid $20 million dollars and needed multiple shell companies to spread that income.
Joe Biden: The Commander in Thief.
https://twitter.com/mattgaetz/status/1703984973575835937 Single subject bills
rhhardin, will you meet me on the sunrise post for a grammar question that's been flummoxing me?
Playing chicken with the debt ceiling! Keeping promises! Truly monstrous.
So, Cotton prefers members of congress to be ruled rather than "unruly"?
Always look at anything the democrat media publishes from the viewpoint that it will increase democrat power. You will never be wrong.
"As usual, there seems to be an ample amount of flummery in your linked account at the NYT. "
You know, I've already blogged about the flummox and flummery — here.
And I have a tag for flummery.
The problem is that Gaetz and company have no interest in governing. I would not be surprised if they preferred to be in the minority- that way there is no accountability.
Time to revisit the ol' Republicans are in chaos because of the backward extremists narrative.
If you follow lefty podcasts, there's a fair number pointing out that AOC and The Squad had this type of leverage over Pelosi but gave it away in exchange for nothing.
Gaetz, MTG, Boebert didn't make that mistake.
"...already blogged about the flummox and flummery..." Thanks for the link. As you noted in your early (2022) comment, "flummox" and "flummery" were separated before birth. Just a coincidence that they share the flum. Which does have a whiff of expectoration about it. Still, it's all part of the glory of our native tongue as it works to produce exactly the words we need as we project our meaning to our listeners.
The idea that "flummery" began as a bowl of porridge and became a kind of empty compliment -- wonderful transition, that.
"...like they know "flummox" is my favorite word."
After following this blog almost daily for more years than I care to count, I'm slightly flummoxed by the fact the despised MSM know the Althouse favorite word whilst I never suspected. Up to now, I was sure I knew the Althouse favorite peeve, i.e. mature men who dress like little boys at play, specifically men in shorts where said abbreviated pantaloons are customarily eschewed. For example, she has never lambasted soccer for its uniform of choice, or rugby, for that matter. As a former rugger who suffered near-permanently skinned knees, I would applaud a barrage of Althouse lambaste aimed at rugby. But I am flummoxed by her inattention to Senate Majority Leader Schumer's (imagine an elderly codger with half-frame lunettes perched habitually on his snout insisting to be known as Chuck) recent destruction of the dress code.
Speaking of flummox the word needs a tertiary meaning, a noun I think, something only narrowly applicably but perfect in the rare case, something evocative of confusion and disorder yet exploitive of that oddball ox ending suggesting bovine truculence. For example, a headline: Senate Majority Leader Caters to Notorious Flummox by Disgarding Dress Code.
PS
There is a just-so explanation for the wearing of shorts by soccer players that I'll relate here with no confidence in its reliabilty. The game more widely known as football originated early in the sixteenth century, first attested by an edict of Henry VIII banning the activity when it was discovered England's sturdy yeomen were neglecting their lawful duty to practice their archery on Sundays after divine worship in preference to kicking a ball on the village green. Male dress in that time called for well-fitted tights, known then as hose, topped with a pair of short breeches known as trunks or slops. Hose were expensive, so to avoid damaging the costly garment, young men doffed their hose to play the game in their trunks alone. So there, shorts-scoffers.
Buckwheathikes said...
"Our government is 100% controlled by the Democrat Party - including the GOP."
So, you are now claiming that Matt Gaetz, Marjorie Taylor Greene, and Lauren Boebert are "100% controlled by the Democrat Party"? What planet do you live on?
"Mr. Gaetz says the rebels were guaranteed a vote on term limits..."
"The rebels" this democrat party propagandist calls them. So I guess that now that a democrat party member is in the White House, the same anti-American scum that were proclaiming themselves "The Resistance" a few years ago have declared that opposition to the policies of the president's party is rebellion again. Democrat Party members are such hypocrite scum.
iowan2: "Unless Gaetz, etal have the votes to elect a replacement, the need to STFU"
On the contrary, when you have leverage to advance your policy positions or at least gain considerations, you use it. Thats sort of the whole point. And what Gaetz was pushing policy wise is precisely what his district supports.
Very interesting to note that on the democratical side the same promise was made in 2020 by "The Squad" members that they would use the small dem majority as leverage against dem leadership to #ForceTheVote on medicare for all and other left wing policies that the smaller subset of lefty marxists wanted.
Of course, in the end, as always since leftists always fall into Stalinist line like the good cannon fodder they are, they never did follow thru on their Bernie Sanders-like threats because they were bought off and told to shut up...just like Bernie...(though it should be noted the standard dem ppolicies are more policies are more than sufficient to destroy the Republic).
Even more interesting is how the Freedom Caucus example has openly exposed the fraud that is The Squad and their fake promises to the consistent and principled leftists...though admittedly that is a shrinking group.
Some might say the problem is that there is no real punishment for politicians being stupidly wrong.
Mitt Romney was his father's son in a way that George W. Bush was not his father's political heir but rather Reagan's heir, or at least the know-nothing side of Reagan's cowboy Republicanism. Mitt Romney was always a strong echo from a past that never was.
George Romney believed in a form of big business, midwestern country club Reoublicanism that was obsoleted by the rise of Richard Nixon's hardball politics and Southern strategy realignment in 1968. Neither George nor Mitt ever seemed to understand that they didn't fit in to the post-1968 Republican party (which saw its birth with Barry Goldwater in 1964 who vanquished the Rockefeller Republicans as easily as Trump vanquished the Bush Republicans). This was never a party that wanted to go back to responsible governance; it was a party that yearned to bust up the New Deal-created present and go back to Harding and Coolidge.
The Republican base is a mixture of small-town provincialism and a swirling melange of reactionary economics, racist and nativist identity politics, and regional and local myths that grow in the highly decentralized and fractured local political landscapes across a country that only has a patina of commonality through a homogenized commerical advertsing presence. A lot of "America" is a mass communication produced commonality while the politics is often a highly localized tangled wild weed. The late Speaker Tip O'Neill famously said, "All politics is local."
The Trump base thinks that maintaining the democratic alliance with the European and Far East democracies is a chump's game, that the US is doing all the paying and the other countries are doing all the benefitting. What is being voted on next year is not so much isolationism as it is the adoption of a stance of uber-provincialism, of playing transactionalism with America's oldest allies.
Romney seems to have learned some of this the hard way. He grasps that the Republican base neither understands the Constitution nor has any respect as to following it. He also understands that the large extreme wing is now very violent, that the next time they come to the Capitol they will bring their guns. The federal judges that sentenced the Oath Keepers and the Proud Boys seem to understand that too.
Maybe Romney is the first canary out of the coal mine
This is pretty standard, isn't it? "Let's eat popcorn and watch the GOP wrestle with its conservative/populist base."
You rarely see such voyeuristic behavior in the coverage of Democrats.
But, it's coming. The young, hard-left Democrats are getting impatient with the revolution. They're asserting themselves in city politics and ready to step up in national politics. They can always count on the media industry to use soft lighting in covering the conflict, but it's coming.
Buckwheathikes: "Our government is 100% controlled by the Democrat Party - including the GOP."
LLR lonejustice: "So, you are now claiming that Matt Gaetz, Marjorie Taylor Greene, and Lauren Boebert are "100% controlled by the Democrat Party"? What planet do you live on?"
Operationally speaking, despite some internal conservative/populist dissension within the GOP ranks, the GOPe led republican party is effectively 100% operationally aligned with LLR lonejustice's democratical allies.
This is why the policy ratchet increments only to the left in backroom deals and payoffs where the GOPe executes Failure Theater on a daily basis and delivers permanent structural wins for the dems and is why there is complete and uniform agreement between the GOPe/dems/neocons/Deep Staters/establishment (whatever you want to all them all) that the disruptive to the establishment America First policies and politicians must be thoroughly destroyed.
Trump's election and events have so thoroughly exposed the rot at the heart of our system I am not surprised that a failing junior member of the Althouse Fake LLR Brigade, lonejustice, would argue against what is manifestly the reality of the situation.
LLR lonejustice better up his game otherwise LLR Chuck is going to have to dial up a new LLR out of the bullpen to add to the Althouse Blog Fake LLR Brigade because LLR Rich is falling down on the job as well.
It really is true: good help is really hard to find.
I mean, not for Althouse and Meade. That arrangement ended up with clouds parting, rainbows shining, sunrays beaming, birds singing (insert rest of paradise scene sequence here).
A. "Our government is 100% controlled by the Democrat Party - including the GOP."
B. So, you are now claiming that Matt Gaetz, Marjorie Taylor Greene, and Lauren Boebert are "100% controlled by the Democrat Party"? What planet do you live on?
Classic. I don’t know which is funnier, that lonejustice misreads Buckwheat so cluelessly or that having completely skipped over the key word controlled he demands Buckwheat explain why his misreading doesn’t make sense. I’ll offer a clue. There are a handful of politicians in both parties who don’t fit in with either alleged party because they don’t hew to the Uniparty Line. Pull on that thread and see if it helps clarify Buckwheathikes’ cogent and pithy comments.
Quaestor: "After following this blog almost daily for more years than I care to count, I'm slightly flummoxed by the fact the despised MSM know the Althouse favorite word whilst I never suspected."
The MSM has been "ganering" that info on Althouse for quite some time.
Quaestor @ 8:47: What a tacky exhibition of verbosity. Or, to emulate your magniloquence, I should rummage in the scrum of our chthonic word-hoard and name you "show-off."
Cheers. And nice shots at Chucky the quasi-octogenarian...
The problem is that Gaetz and company have no interest in governing. I would not be surprised if they preferred to be in the minority- that way there is no accountability
-----
The problem with Mccarthy and the rest of the gope is that their only interest is in governing. They don't want to make any big changes to the system, merely be the ones in charge of the socialist superstate, get all the perks, and fiddle around at the edges.
Speaking of "Beetlejuice", I find it disheartening that many Americans, who are well-acquainted with the well-executed comedy film and the pointless musical spinoff, are flummoxed by Betelgeuse. Too many Americans know all the names of all so-called "stars" who rise to fame and descend to obscurity with the regularity of the tides but know nothing of the night sky's eternal islands and promontories. They know Star Trek and Star Wars but no stars, no distant suns at all. They know Michael Keaton's overblown character but they don't know the shoulder of Orion that may soon become brighter than the full Moon. They know Kirk and Picard -- but Alcor and Aldebaran? Most assume these are killer apps they must have if it means junking their iPhone 13s for Samsung Galaxies. How did Americans become so comically foolish? Was fluoridation really a Commie plot to transform this formerly can do arsenal of liberty into a steaming heap of crap? Or were we always the land of the freaks and the home of the bores?
The utterly corrupt Democrats love to harangue us about "threats to our democracy", especially now that it looks like they've sunk themselves with their lawfare torpedoes aimed at Donald Trump, but the real threat lies much closer to home, the Democrats themselves and their Hollywood lickspittals. The easiest way to turn a self-governing republic into an Orwellian oligarchy is to fill the public mind with bullshit.
flummox is your favorite word
lummox was my father in laws and he used it quite frequently
Even more interesting is how the Freedom Caucus example has openly exposed the fraud that is The Squad and their fake promises to the consistent and principled leftists...though admittedly that is a shrinking group.
I’ve come around to Dennis Prager’s position that other than seeking power leftists have no principles. Liberals and conservatives do, and in fact share a common belief in the Bill of Rights. Unfortunately the Leftists are in charge of the Democratic Party, and again quoting Prager, liberals don’t vote their principles. They vote for the (D) because historically the party supported the little guy the middle class and the working class. Classical liberals like Bill Maher or Musk occasionally break from the herd but they are herded back by cancel culture and the stranglehold leftists have on tech and advertising. E.G. Maher will not be continuing his show during the strike “unexpectedly.”
The Republicans in the House, to have any real effect at implementing the policies they ran their elections on in 2020 and 2022, need to send narrow appropriation bills to the Senate, and anything the Senate sends back that gets re-agglomerated needs to be divided up again and sent back to the Senate. Of course, such a strategy can only be implemented if the Republicans hold together as a majority. If they don't hold together as a majority, then the spending bills will be written by the majority Democrats in the Senate in cooperation with the White House.
This isn't rocket science- the Republicans either fight, really fight for what they ran on or they bend to the Democrats' preferred policies. The usual outcome is bending the knee to the Democrats. Gaetz to his credit wants to actually fight. What good is the Republican majority in the House if it still just funds whatever the White House demands, and doesn't fund what the White House doesn't want to fund? McCarthy, as I write this, is planning to simply continue Biden's ridiculous over-spending from 2021-2022 with a very healthy inflation adjusted raise and then some. We didn't a Republican House to get this- we could have just left Pelosi and the Democrats in charge.
Good energy on this thread.
Owen writes, "What a tacky exhibition of verbosity."
Sticky enough to hold your attention. Mission accomplished, I think.
Lonejackass wrote:
"So, you are now claiming that Matt Gaetz, Marjorie Taylor Greene, and Lauren Boebert are "100% controlled by the Democrat Party"? What planet do you live on?"
Wow- there are only two options here- LoneJackass is a complete moron for so badly misunderstanding the original comment or is simply mendacious. I admit, I am not smart enough to figure out which explanation hold here- I lean toward ascribing it to stupidity since it would fit with 99% of the rest of his commentary. In his defense, it could be food poisoning from eating moldy year-old bacon on which he thought he was getting a deal last week.
"The MSM has been "garnering" that info on Althouse for quite some time."
The old Stasi HQ in Berlin was seen to double in size every five or six years. It started as a tent thrown up by the NKVD in 1945, by the breaching of the Wall in 1989 it had grown to over 19 acres, mostly for file cabinets filled with wiretap transcripts. By the end, they knew every East German's favorite word. I hope our domestic spies are utterly flummoxed in their search for mine.
Yancy Ward:
Of course, such a strategy can only be implemented if the Republicans hold together as a majority.
THIS^^^^
Gaetz has a big mouth, but I have never seen him attempt to build a coalition to advance something. I came to the same revelation yesterday. Pass individual agency budgets.
Reality shows the Republicans have little interest in winning small battles. Easier to hold the nation hostage with omnibus bills. Hate on the Dems, at least they rally together to pass legislation. But they put the work in to build the coalitions inside their caucus.
Yancey and I have the same hunch.
I believe that anyone running for office makes promises to groups in exchange for support.
I’m of the opinion that this latest kerfuffle between Gaetz and the speaker is merely a continuation of the long running con with the media acting as the barker. All of this artful faux hostility is misdirection with the goal to take the US taxpayer further in debt. Not to single Rich out, but your writing shows that you fail to understand you are a stooge for so strongly supporting the democrats and disparaging the republicans. The same applies to our rabid defenders of the republicans.
The problem is that Gaetz and company have no interest in governing. I would not be surprised if they preferred to be in the minority- that way there is no accountability.
@AMDG, while it wouldn’t surprise me if that was part of what drives Gaetz, there are two additional motivations that are probably more important. The first is that Gaetz is an attention whore. He is a looonnnggg way from being alone in that! It’s axiomatic that the most dangerous place in DC is between Chuck Schumer and a TV camera, for example. An easy way for any Republican to get column inches in the New York Times or Washington Post is to criticize the GOP leadership.
But IMAO the most important motivation is that McCarthy is trying to build the Party and expand his majority in the House. Last time I looked McCarthy’s margin over the Democrats was 222 to 212 with one seat vacant. With a ten vote margin over the Democrats, the 45 members of the Freedom Caucus have a lot of clout. If the Republican margin was 50 votes he could tell the Freedom Caucus to go pound sand if they get too out of line. So is it in Gaetz’s interest for McCarthy to grow the Party? Or is it more in his interest to hamstring McCarthy?
Gaetz isn’t alone — I fault Trump for his failure to grow the Republican Party during his term in office. Grow his personal support, yes. Grow the Party, no he didn’t.
Drago
On the contrary, when you have leverage to advance your policy positions or at least gain considerations, you use it. Thats sort of the whole point. And what Gaetz was pushing policy wise is precisely what his district supports.
Talking to cameras will not gain the votes required. His time LOTS OF TIME, need to be spent convincing at the very least, other Republicans. But his time, and others, have alienated the rest of Party.
Mock Trump, but the 'Art of the Deal' is a real thing. In essence, it seeks to make both parties feel like they get the better part of the deal.
Mike (MJB Wolf): "I’ve come around to Dennis Prager’s position that other than seeking power leftists have no principles."
There are a dwindling few "principled leftists".
If "principled" is a bridge too far as a label, understandable, then go with "surprisingly consistent" and "willing to join with those on the populist right when there is, in a strange bedfellows sort of way, agreement on policy."
Topical case in point: weaponization of the national security state against US citizens.
Lots of overlap there between some consistent left wingers and the populist right even though fundamental disagreements elsewhere remain.
It really isnt left or right or dem/republican any longer. Its the state power authoritarians against anyone opposed and player dynamics change issue by issue.
The boys and girls who write for the NYT do love to prattle on, don't they?
Maybe NYT is eager to sow discord among their political opponents.
Maybe the NYT is wondering why so many Republican men think about the Roman Empire so much.
LLR Rich: "Maybe Romney is the first canary out of the coal mine"
Just yesterday Black Lives Matter supporting Mittens Romney literally pushed the "Trump said to drink clorox" debunked hoax!
Just. Yesterday!
That degree of purposeful LLR Rich level of lying says it all about Mitt and his family of pretty much all declared democraticals.
Another GOPe fake conservative serving the left.
No wonder LLR Rich wants to praise this consummate empty suit whose only lifelong poitical pursuit was the adoration of the far left and his actual democratical pals.
He leaves precisely the way he should: walking out of his empty DC home (no family members live there with him) and where no one seeks his counsel or "insight" and with Candy Crowley's high heel imprints still clearly visible on his face...which I am assuming he secretly enjoyed.
"I’ve come around to Dennis Prager’s position that other than seeking power leftists have no principles."
But they do. In fact, they adhere to their principles more consistently than most Republican officeholders who fall for the pragmatic argument more often than they defend their espoused principles that get little attention or loyalty other than in even-numbered years and after July. And that is the intolerable aspect of Donald Trump, his loyal observance of his principles.
The left has four principles, four fundamental assumptions and beliefs, that inform and circumscribe everything they say and do:
1) The Democratic Party is a collection of persons uniquely entitled to the deference and obedience of any and all lesser people, chiefly middle-class white wager-earns who are good for nothing but to be bled for revenue and as cannon fodder.
2) The Constitution is an impediment to the greater glory and power of the ruling class, and therefore must be nullified by any and all means.
3) Confusion and fear serve the Party and must be exploited, enhanced, or manufactured from whole cloth if need be.
4) Autonomy and diversity impede the Party and dilute its power, and must be replaced with dependence and conformity by any and all means.
When A points an accusing finger at B and says, B has no principles! it often means A hasn't given the accusation enough thought.
"Culture eats strategy for breakfast," Peter Drucker said famously about business. Successful businesses are built on this truth.
In politics, charisma (including its vulgar forms) eats competence for breakfast. This other truth is the root of much suffering at the hands of bad government.
"But I am flummoxed by her inattention to Senate Majority Leader Schumer's (imagine an elderly codger with half-frame lunettes perched habitually on his snout insisting to be known as Chuck) recent destruction of the dress code."
I had a post about Fetterman in the Senate in shorts.
You want another post about Schumer accommodating him?!
"Willy-nilly." Ain't it great when NYT mediaswine offer their carefully crafted, objective assessment of Republican behavior?
Maybe Michelle Cottle is wrong.
I listened to a Nancy Mace interview on Ruthless where she seemed a bit upset about her goal of some legislation for women not being taken seriously.
Also, Mace doesn't want a budget fight (shutdown) while also doing impeachment.
I think that makes sense.
And I think impeachment inquiry is the right courses:
1) its in the constitution and we should not ignore it
2) DOJ slow walking of finance crimes for Hunter mean you need to punish them for that.
In short, does she flummox flummery or garner it? Same question about the GOP, the GOPe, and the Freedom Caucus.
And why is the party of Dementia in Shorts so well able to flummox with their flummery and garner votes?
Hard cold pragmatism is impossibly shrouded and lost in mist and mystery as underground rivers surface into a chill uncertainty.
There was nothing "willy nilly" about the promises made, or about the negotiations gone through to make them, between the groups and people involved.
When the very first line of a linked piece is bullshit, why keep reading? YES, CLICKBAIT.
At some point, if the fiscal and unjust train wreck that is the US government is going to be reformed, it is going to require one party or the other to shut down the federal government for months to a year until it breaks the opposition to reforming the over-spending and over-borrowing and other predatory practices of the bureaucratic class.
What can't go on forever won't go on forever. We either fix it now or start over when it collapses in itself.
Say what you will about Nancy Pelosi’s idiotic natterings, behind the scenes she had the cunning and balls to keep her slim-margin coalition together through the most tumultuous of times. Kevin McCarthy, not so much.
iowan2: "Talking to cameras will not gain the votes required. His time LOTS OF TIME, need to be spent convincing at the very least, other Republicans. But his time, and others, have alienated the rest of Party."
Not talking to the cameras is not an option.
Lots of other republicans are not convinceable on these issues. They are locked in with the GOPe leadership and establishment allies.
Much of the elected republicans have alienated their own party base by quiet surrender.
Gaetz knows his ONLY real leverage is spreading the word publicly and having the base react and maybe, just maybe, squeeze out a real concession or 2.
Thats just the reality of it.
And most importantly, electorally, Gaetz is clearly mauevering aggressively to set himself apart for a likely run for Governor, potentially against Byron Donalds.
Earnest Prole: "Say what you will about Nancy Pelosi’s idiotic natterings, behind the scenes she had the cunning and balls to keep her slim-margin coalition together through the most tumultuous of times. Kevin McCarthy, not so much."
That's much more a function of the easy collapsibilty of the idiot so called lefty "resistors".
AOC, Pressley and Tlaib et al arent really capable of mounting any real pushback.
A deal is a deal. McCarthy made a deal. He has welshed on the deal. (My apologies to all Welshmen and Welshwomen for the slur, but it is the best description of what happened here).
The response to Gaetz seeking performance on the deal is a combination of "You fucked up, you trusted us" and "You need to take one for the team."
Which is what the GOPe has been telling all of us for a very long time.
How about McCarthy makes a gesture of good faith and immediately releases ALL of the Jan 6 footage. Costs him nothing except that the Dem/MSM alliance will go nuts.
"You want another post about Schumer accommodating him?!"
Yes, it would be interesting to read your take. (Jeez, why the ?! ? It's not like I asked for mayonnaise on my pastrami on rye.)
Fetterman wandering around the Capitol half-dressed in a brain-damaged fog is one thing (That Pennsylvania would choose him over Oz is Pennsylvania's anchor-chain necktie, not Fetterman's.) Schumer giving his slovenly style an imprimatur by way of trashing the dress code is quite another. Dressing appropriately expresses respect for the institution, which is why judges have been known to jail attorneys who show up in court looking like an Indiana tourist in Cancún. The INSURRECTION®️ narrative hinges in part on citizens disrespecting the Capitol. Seems to me Schumer has endorsed such disrespect.
The dress code exists partly to reduce the rancor to a dull roar. Imagine the atmosphere if senators were free to level accusations and heap ridicule on their fellows by way of teeshirt graphics that would be gavelled as out of order by the pro-tempore if spoken aloud. Anything salacious and outrageous can be rendered on a teeshirt these days. It won't be long before Senator X will shows up with a photoshop of Kirsten Gillibrand performing an oral sex act on Xi Jinping silkscreened on a hoodie. Who's to stop him? Not the Sergeant-at-arms.
As I remember, those promises extracted from McCarthy were like puling teeth, vote after vote after vote. But the NYT does what the NYT does, which is lie for the regime, when the regime needs it.
Quaestor @ 9:55: "...sticky enough..." Indeed.
I hope that you're not in a snit
Or even a little bit miffed
By my effort to riff
On your light-hearted wit
Compared to which mine is adrift
Just speaking here for myself, and not Michelle Cottle and certainly not anyone in Congress; but I think that the mode here is "taunting." We see Kevin McCarthy fighting with Matt Gaetz fighting with Byron Donalds fighting with Marjorie Taylor Greene fighting with Lauren Boebert fighting with Ken Buck fighting with Scott Perry.
They are all clowns, and we are laughing at all of them as they roll in the mud with each other.
If there is a written agreement between Gaetz's posse and McCarthy -- Gaetz says there is one -- let's see it! It is hilarious to watch Gaetz talk about the existence of that agreement and McCarthy fumble all around about it.
If McCarthy is committed to impeaching Biden to assuage Gaetz, I'm fine with that. I want to hammer that story in every swing/Republican Congressional district in the country. Out that story! It's a natural. Hammering the wedge between McCarthy and the TrumpWingers. I have no idea what the end of that story might be other than that it won't be good for McCarthy. The street-fight is fantastic.
The INSURRECTION®️ narrative hinges in part on citizens disrespecting the Capitol. Seems to me Schumer has endorsed such disrespect.
Maybe Gaetz should show up in buffalo horns and face paint.
@Owen
Snit? Me?
Maybe Romney is the first canary out of the coal mine
Canaries die in coal mines, Rich. They don't escape.
Before engaging in metaphor know something about it. Otherwise, your prose looks well and truly worthy of any San Fernando Valley middle school student newspaper.
Maybe Gaetz should show up in buffalo horns and face paint.
Maybe. But Gaetz is a member of the House, where they still must dress like they have more than a few neurons per Congress critter, whether they truly own them or not.
Blogger Mr Wibble said...
The problem is that Gaetz and company have no interest in governing. I would not be surprised if they preferred to be in the minority- that way there is no accountability
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The problem with Mccarthy and the rest of the gope is that their only interest is in governing. They don't want to make any big changes to the system, merely be the ones in charge of the socialist superstate, get all the perks, and fiddle around at the edges.
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When your only lever of power is a 4 seat majority in the House big changes can’t be made.
The best case is that the House majority pick a 70-30 issue (immigration for example) and use tat to get something done.
Once again, GOPe is determined not to let the Right have ANYTHING or fufill any of their promises. There's no reason why McCarthy can't release the J6 footage or give the people investigating Biden supenoa (sic) power or hold a vote on term limits.
McCarthy just wants to lose. Just like Ryan wanted to lose. Just like Mitch Mumbles McConnell wants to lose.
GOPe just wants money from the big donors. they don't care about anything else. You could give them a 40 vote majority, and they'd still be siding with the Democrats and stabbing MAGA in th back. -
Quaestor said...
"Maybe Romney is the first canary out of the coal mine
Canaries die in coal mines, Rich. They don't escape.
Before engaging in metaphor know something about it. Otherwise, your prose looks well and truly worthy of any San Fernando Valley middle school student newspaper."
Which would qualify him to be an ACE reporter for the Washingtopn Post! You may not realize it but the Washington Post is our nations," High School Newspaper of Record!". Jeff Bezos says so.
rcocean: "McCarthy just wants to lose. Just like Ryan wanted to lose. Just like Mitch Mumbles McConnell wants to lose."
I wouldn't say they want to lose.
I think they just want their team to win....and that team is the dems.
Rusty,
"Before engaging in metaphor know something about it."
Yeah, Rich really reminds me of his hero B. Obama: "Don't make me call my bluff!"
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