The congresswoman quipped that in attempting to avert a shutdown Republicans were “run[ning] around the House like a Roomba, until they found a door that House Democrats opened”
I can’t believe no one has enough dirt on Matt Gaetz (and MTG and the rest) to keep them in line. If nothing else, threaten to keep putting junior high schools within 500 ft of Gaetz’s house so he has to move every 3 months. You don’t whip votes with policy arguments.
They HAD dirt. Then it was exposed - and nothing came of it. Now they think they are invincible, even if people have dirt.
Speaking of which, remember this?
Whatever Happened to the Scandal That Derailed Kevin McCarthy’s Last Bid for Speaker?
I suspect that to rub elbows with the upper echelons of republican leadership, you have to give up some juicy dirt they can use to control or get rid of you. I mean that’s the only explanation of Madison Cawthorne. That guy was awful but once he let slip about orgies and shit he was gone quicker than you could say news cycle.
I think the problem is Matt is threatening scorched earth and they believe him. Use any dirt to keep him in line and he’ll spill all the beans and bring down the whole party. Because everyone knows these trumpets don’t give two shits about the republican party.
Didn’t he get busted blowing his cousin or something?
That was Cawthorne
Gaetz trafficked a 17 year old hooker.
That was Cawthorn, and he’s already gone.
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I think they’re just so shameless that no amount of dirt will stick to them
I mean, look at Beobert. A scandal that big, on video, would have resulted in an instant resignation 20 years ago. But she’s so vile that everyone just shrugs and moves on, because it’s not even surprising, just funny.
This is so true I didn’t even realize how fucking upside down the whole thing is until reading your comment. It didn’t even occur to me the idea of her resignation over Beetlegate because the idea of her doing so is just outside the realm of reality. It’s just “oh sorry, I let my morals lapse there for a bit, my bad!” and no one bats an eye.
This is fucking crazy! This is from the party of “gotta protect the kids”, just groping and fondling at a family event!
What the fuck.
Groping, fondling and vaping. Don’t forget the vaping.
And lying about all of it to her constituents
They’re all like the Teflon Don. It doesn’t matter how dirty you get em, it slides right off, into their supporters mouths. They swallow that filth, smile and come back for more.
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Imo, the threat of leaking dirt is coming from outside the country.
Not that their reputation can go any lower, but I would imagine it would have to be criminal.
If they don’t have dirt, then maybe someone has a bus.
I’m going to have to disagree with her. My Roomba is a lot more intelligent and composed than the House GOP seems to be.
She’s not totally off-base. They’re like a Roomba that found the dog poop during the night.
And smeared it all over the living room carpet
From experience, they need to make those things easier to clean
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I think I drunkenly suggested on a feedback form that my congressman yeet himself down the steps of the Capitol the other night. Here’s to hoping they’ll prove to be even more alike!
Well, u gotta sympathize with McCarthy here. Ur Roomba just has to suck in trash. McCarthy has to suck trash and make sure it orgasms.
Mine always gets lost and hides under the couch instead of returning. If only McCarthy would do the same
Pelosi told the caucus that McCarthy was not to be trusted before the vote. Kevin’s gonna regret breaking his deal with Biden while also making it impossible to stay in power without a decent number of democrats. Just let the cannibals eat each other, seems to be the attitude.
They guy thinks he’s much smarter than he actually is. He’s good at complaining about things but then it comes to actual leadership he falls flat on his face simply because he’s not smart enough to do the job effectively. People here hate Nancy Pelosi but she was unbelievably effective at keeping the party together when it came to important legislation that they wanted passed.
I know I’m stepping into murky waters here. I do believe McCarthy is a weak speaker because he can’t keep his party under thumb.
But I’m also struggling to reconcile that they came up with a bipartisan bill (granted, not a longterm one). No one gets everything they want. Isn’t that what we want balanced and working government to do?
But I’m also struggling to reconcile that they came up with a bipartisan bill (granted, not a longterm one). No one gets everything they want.
They only did it at the 11th hour, and probably only because their donors were leaning hard on them because a shutdown would fuck up their money, along with another possible credit rating downgrade
Isn’t that what we want balanced and working government to do?
Yes, but functional and working governments do so with reasonable deadlines and well ahead of the “fuck, we’re literally out of money” point. Problem is, the republicans thrive on dysfunction and are more than willing to burn things down to hurt people, go back on agreements, and explicitly state how they don’t want a functional government.
I’m of the opinion that waiting until the last possible moment is an intentional feature (in general) and NOT an accident or indicator of incompetence. Bare with me here, because I DO agree there’s a lot of incompetence, but also …
They are constantly testing the political winds, the media coverage, the social media reactions, and very much so, their donor’s reactions to all of the other reactions. So they float balloons, see what happens, adjust, rinse repeat.
Or said another way, the public and private outrages are a feature, not a bug. How else would they know how far they can push things. It fucking sucks, and is a horrible way to govern, and my take makes them even scummier.
feels like you have stockholm syndrome here… they managed to not shut down the government at the 11:59 mark by actually working together, and will now go back to bickering. yes, this is what people want, but in general, not only when they’re about to screw everything up.
Sounds like you’re trying to naively see bipartisanship in a situation where they only came together under the threat of massive economic disaster, instead of seeing a completely disfunctional government that threatens long term economic growth by fucking around until the last possible second to actually do their goddamned jobs.
Don’t pretend this circus is what the people want, because this circus is hurting people so political terrorists can do their thing and pretend ideology is more important than their constituents.
I’m also struggling to reconcile that they came up with a bipartisan bill
That’s because they didn’t. They decided to extend last year’s bill 45 more days.
Congress already passed the budget. This is just the party of “government doesn’t work” trying to prove it can’t work by breaking things.
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The problem is that McCarthy has already screwed Democrats over, big time. Biden made that deal with McCarthy, and then Matt Gaetz yanked the leash and Kevin came to heel, like a well trained dog.
If I were Biden, I would not trust any deal that Kevin makes. So why should Democrats bolster his position as Speaker, while they know Matt wil always hold his leash?
Unfortunately it sounds like he’s trusting exactly Kevin McCarthy 💀
President Joe Biden on Sunday urged House Republicans – particularly Speaker Kevin McCarthy – to keep their word on government funding and aid to Ukraine after he signed a bill that narrowly avoided a shutdown.
The President has to say they will work with whoever is in Congressional leadership, because he can’t introduce legislation on his own, he only approves what Congress sends him. So of course he has to state that publicly.
In fact, I’d argue that his very public “urging” of Kevin to stick to his word was done because he has zero confidence that Kevin will, and wants to make sure if there is a protracted leadership struggle people see it as Republican infighting, and not some sort of Denocratic scheme. If he trusted Kevin, he wouldn’t have had to say that.
Nobody trusts Kevin.
Shut downs and obstruction have a history of hurting the party behind the obstruction. She knows this and is letting the GOP hang themselves.
IMHO, this is the right play. Hell, it’s the same play that the old veterans are making as well.
Unfortunately, the current politics of the congress is such that the praise from democratic side is the surest way to get him removed.
Never know, we could be witnessing some real 4D chess.
I think they’re trying to finalize the GOP permanently splitting into two minority parties. The corporate GOP and the big lie Q crazies party.
If that happens the dems can run everything until enough of both parties can combine into a new oligarchy party.
That’s impossible with the way our system is set up (FPTP). They will never fracture hard enough to abstain from voting or actually come across the aisle. The crazier, more passionate viewpoints will take charge of party, and the rest will meekly follow with the justification of “they’re less crazy than the dems.” Maybe some individual voters will realize that the entire party is going nuts, but for every “independent” voter who finally gets the message, 5 ignorant fools who have never voted are scared into joining the electorate by a new level of fear mongering lies about who and what is responsible for the state of the country.
With book bans being stacked upon decades of defunded public education, things are very bleak.
You realize this country didn’t start with Republicans and Democrats as the dominant parties, right?
You realize that this country didn’t start with any political parties at all, right? And that Washington tried to warn people against their formation, even as Adams and Jefferson consolidated power?
Like no shit things didn’t instantly fall apart the second the Constitution was ratified, there’s been 250 years of context, but FPTP is still one of the central causes of the stratification of elected politicians that we see today
You do realise that there have only been 6 ‘systems’ in the United States over its 250+ year history, right? And you do realise that the only actual political party changes were the First to Second Party System (in 1828, with the Federalists dying off) and the Second to Third Party System (in 1860, with the Whigs dying off, replaced by the Republicans)? You do realise that the Third to Fourth Party System, the Fourth to Fifth Party System, and the Fifth to Sixth Party System have only been realignments of the two existing parties? You do realise that the last time a non-major-party POTUS candidate won even a single EV was in 1968? You do realise that even Ross Perot couldn’t get a single EV in 1996?
You realise that this country has a system in place to prevent voters from causing effective changes? Your vote for your minor party only ensures that you get the major party most opposed to your stances in a FPTP system elected, and you end up getting nothing of what you wanted instead of just something. If you want that fixed, your first step is to get your State to join Maine and Alaska and use Ranked Choice Voting. Your second step is then to get more third party Representatives and Senators in. Then you got to change the Constitution so that the POTUS is directly elected, rather than through the Electoral College, and use RCV nation-wide for that. That’s a far better strategy than relying on something that’s not happened in the past 160 years. IMNSHO, of course. :)
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Matt Gaetz sees a difference between the two. It doesn’t necessarily matter if you or I see their policies as meaningfully different. They are willing to go to war with each other over ultimately minor things.
Another case in point is when Greene called Boebert a “little bitch”. The reason? Boebert had introduced an impeachment proposal against Biden, and Greene accused her of copying exactly what she was going to do. They are not united in purpose; they want the “prestige” of being the one to press that button.
Take advantage of this. It’s the biggest blind spot in extreme right ideology. They absolutely will crack apart if they’re pushed enough on it. They’re already doing it on their own.
Having someone over a barrel doesn’t really work if the guy over the barrel doesn’t care.
I get the vibe McCarthy doesn’t want to be speaker of the house anymore, probably because of the Q crazies he has to treat like “equals” in order to secure their vote.
He’s daring them to do it. He’s let them push him around way more than is reasonable. Who else are they going to get who’s so compliant?
That was no less true the day he got himself appointed.
Usually I would agree but they pretty much did that with the first CR. Then Mccarthy tried to back track on promises and play strongman. They know he will do the exact same thing this time too. This puts more pressure on the far left since it makes it appear there is bipartisan support to oust him.
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They didnt pass a new bill to avert the shutdown, they passed a 45 day extension of the old bill so these assholes can continue posturing and dick measuring until mid November.
That way, if millions of people go hungry it will be right before the holidays. Maybe that gives dems more ammo against McCarthy and gaetz IDK. “If Republicans get their way there will be millions of starving kids and also they wont have presents under the tree. GOP wants to kill Santa”
Maybe, but she could also just happen to be right here, on this point. What sticks in the back of my mind is that McCarthy could have ended this at any point by simply doing what he previously gave his word that he would do, which is also what the majority of both Republicans and Democrats and thus all Americans want.
Edit: what I meant by the above is that he was going to pass an actual budget - and wasn’t that already agreed upon months ago, more or less? Instead, he merely passed a continuing resolution, which is not the same thing, plus he also left out support for Ukraine. Yes he avoided a shutdown, it would be nice for her to acknowledge that, but he could have done so at any time and far more besides?
The reason he cited as to why he did not is bc he would be removed if he did, except now that seems likely to happen anyway?
He gave his word to everyone, which he went back on, and in a manner that also goes back in his word in the opposite direction too, caving on issues that he previously said were impossible to give in on. He’s lying to the other side, he’s lying to his own side, he allows himself to come to power with an insane restriction, then does nothing to change that, then seems shocked - shocked I tell you! - when they actually want to use that option.
I have to stop short of actually judging any of that bc I don’t know enough, but it does seem an absolute mess. And at this point I could see Dems wishing to see someone else in charge of Repubs, if that would actually make things easier to move forward somehow.
Right now? The Democrats have mccarthy over a barrel. They should not be talking about ousting him. They should be talking about how cooperative he was and list very specific things he agreed to. Make it abundantly clear that he is following up on his side of the bargain with the implication that he will be removed otherwise. Talk about how they have their differences but, when push came to shove, they prevented a republican led shutdown AND have the following packages on the table for an immediate vote.
I want to agree with you, but McCarthy put himself over that barrel. He already renegged on a deal once, so I definitely don’t think the dems should praise him for how cooperative he was (AT THE ELEVENTH HOUR, and not a moment before), and the whole shutdown fiasco was specifically his doing because he let the traitor wing of the party run the show, instead of letting actual policy people drive the discussion. Call it divided house if you want, but he was an awful speaker by any objective metric.
As for Gaetz, McCarthy is the one who ceded power to him in the first place, so its no wonder the right are trying to make him a king maker. He made the speaker bend the knee from the jump, and McCarthy hates him for it. But he’s also hated by a good portion of his own party, so I don’t foresee him being any kind of king maker, especially when we’ll inevitably get another 20+ votes for speaker before the continuing resolution expires if he tries.
Edit: Or this could just be a 4D chess move to put McCarthy farther over the barrel, knowing that he only keeps his speakership because the dems helped him against those among them who are calling for him losing his seat, as AOC is doing here. Seems like a good way to get more concessions out of him, assuming you can trust a word that comes out of his mouth…
It might further confuse the maga, as they will have to vote according to AOC?
Even if the strategy were to be to keep McCarthy, who needlessly manufactured this crisis, the only way for the Democrats to get anything out of him would be for almost every Democrat to vote against him.
So who’s the bad strategist?
So get this. Gaetz wants to oust McCarthy as Speaker for working with Democrats on the shutdown deal. That will take a majority vote in the House, and Gaetz doesn’t have enough Republicans behind him to do that. Thus, Gaetz would have to work with Democrats to oust McCarthy for working with Democrats.
Gaetz has handed Democrats the opportunity to be kingmaker. Their question is if they want to keep someone who will sometimes work across the isle to get shit done, or if they want to help Republicans implode by letting the howler monkey contingent run wild in the leadup to a major election year.
The fact that Gaetz apparently doesn’t see this shows that he doesn’t have the political savvy for the job. Can’t think more than one step ahead in 1D checkers.
Let McCarthy embarrass himself with 15-20 votes that fall short, THEN play kingmaker. Put Jon Huntsman, John Kasich, or some other moderate in as speaker. The Constitution doesn’t require the speaker to be a member of Congress.
When is this woman running for president? Like seriously, seems like a legitimate decent choice
She has zero chance of winning a general election. She’s getting the Hilary treatment from Republicans. That is - they’re vilifying her right now to poison people against her before she can run.
The only reason Trump became President is because the Democrats ran an unelectable candidate against him. They spent over 20 years making Hilary the villain, and it allowed them to install the worst President in US history.
And they’re prepping for AOC to be the next Clinton.
They fuckin did Bernie wrong.
Bernie Sanders lost the primary by 3 million votes.
No one did anything to Sanders except vote for his opponent.
I will never forgive the DNC
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Clinton was also preceded by her husband whose record could be attached to her. Until AOC serves in an administration or something it will be hard to complete the process
Can they even put anyone else in is my question.
Does Kevin McCarthy work with Democrats and his Republicans to stay as speaker
Or do Republicans backstab McCarthy and vote a Democrat speaker.
Idk but I don’t imagine regular Republicans voting in a Democrat speaker, and this story is telling me that Democrats won’t support Kevin either 🤷🏽
Can they even put anyone else in is my question.
Lol yes, the house minority leader would be the obvious Democrat choice, but will Republicans vote for him is the issue.
I personally don’t think so 🤷🏽
The only potential way for that to happen IMO is if A: McCarthy is voted out before they reach a full funding agreement, and B. a few of the moderate republicans (“moderate” relative to the Freedom Caucus’s howler monkeys, to any pedants out there) are willing to actually do their job and realize working with dems is the only way to do that. In this case, voting out McCarthy will start a timer in which time they need to elect a speaker if they want to avoid a shutdown, and since there were enough willing to ignore the howlers and avert a shutdown to begin with, that might put pressure on them to vote in a D speaker with some concessions in place for the R’s.
That’s how you end up spending the next 45 days trying to elect a new speaker instead of passing a budget.
McCarthy is the crème de la crap.
