Many of us were worried about how our nation would survive the 2022 elections with the insurrectionist still holding much of the former GOP captive with lies that have been easily proven, often by Republican officials, to be lies. The former president did NOT in 2020, Biden did by a very clear majority. However, many in the former GOP are still afraid of the conman-in-chief and are going along with his madness. We watched with interest as McCarthy was raked over the coals for not being belligerent enough by the MAGA cult consisting of Boebert, Gaetz and their like.
What was hilarious is that on the 14th ballot, they couldn’t even get their schemes all on one page. Apparently Boebert was supposed to vote for Gaetz, leaving Gaetz free to vote present. Well, the two BOTH voted “present” which forced the conference to go the 15th ballot. By the way, personally, I don’t even think Gaetz is a “true believer”, I think he is just a slime ball that is using the conspiracies to rack up personal power, but I could be wrong, he could be insane as well as despicable.
Now, the rules that McCarthy has been forced to adopt are slanted so that the MAGA insurrectionist cult has extra leverage. Some think that will mean that McCarthy is more or less a puppet of the worst element of the Republican party, those who supported the actual attempt to overturn the election of 2020 based on the BIG LIE told by conspiracy theorists like trump himself and people like the seemingly insane Mike Lindell and Giuliani.
These are the rules that were voted on and adopted today: (from an article by CNN)
- Any member can call for a motion to vacate the speaker’s chair — this is significant because it would make it much easier than it is currently to trigger what is effectively a no confidence vote in the speaker. Conservatives pushed hard for this, while moderates are worried it will weaken McCarthy’s hand.
- A McCarthy-aligned super PAC agreed to not play in open Republican primaries in safe seats
- The House will hold votes on key conservative bills, including a balanced budget amendment, congressional term limits and border security
- Efforts to raise the nation’s debt ceiling must be paired with spending cuts. This could become a major issue in the future when it is time to raise the debt limit to avoid a catastrophic default because Democrats in the Senate and the White House would likely oppose demands for spending cuts
- Move 12 appropriations bills individually. Instead of passing separate bills to fund government operations, Congress frequently passes a massive year-end spending package known as an “omnibus” that rolls everything into one bill. Conservatives rail against this, arguing that it evades oversight and allows lawmakers to stick in extraneous pet projects.
- More Freedom Caucus representation on committees, including the powerful House Rules Committee
- Cap discretionary spending at fiscal 2022 levels, which would amount to lower levels for defense and domestic programs
- Seventy-two hours to review bills before they come to floor
- Give members the ability to offer more amendments on the House floor
- Create an investigative committee to probe the “weaponization” of the federal government
- Restore the Holman rule, which can be used to reduce the salary of government officials
Now personally, many of these affect McCarthy’s power, and I don’t care one iota about McCarthy’s power. As far as I am concerned, he is another Republican who has declared his alliance to the insane right wing that has not cooped the once at least sane party of Lincoln, although it has, I admit gotten worse since Reagan. But, although I thought W Bush was about as low as they could go, they proved me wrong with the last person that they got into the White House…a man who sided with a dictator in another country against his own people.
But back to the subject of this post, the House and their captivity by the insurrectionist MAGA cult or in many cases, I think simply people who saw a chance to use the lie and the fact that some people believe it to grab power managed to force the House to 15 ballots, making demand after demand to allow McCarthy to get the speakership. This although, they had NOBODY else that could have made it and probably knew that.e
There were at least two reports from individuals in the more sensible and sane versions of the party that suggested that they would fight against any bill that gave too much power to the cult that calls itself “The Freedom Caucus” (a misnomer if I have ever heard one…they are definitely not about freedom). So what happened? All of the Democrats voted against the “new rules” and one Republican voted no saying that it would damage military budget in a time of struggle to defend democracy against tyranny. This is most noticeable right now with Putins greedy efforts to destroy the freedom and democracy in Ukraine, and China.
So once again, we have the cult of trump STILL holding a whip over those who might have had a backbone at one time, but have been threatened into submission to the violence encouraging MAGA cult hyped up on lies. Some Republicans have suggested that the Republicans are finally finding their backbone and are ready to move on from the autocratic dictates of a C grade reality “star” but apparently with this small “red wave” not enough of the better republicans got in.
Oh well, my prediction is that in 2023, they will force a government shut down because they are too stingy and short sighted to realize what they will be doing to the nation and the world. Maybe we NEED an actual financial disaster to bring the cult to their senses. I say that but then realize that even that is unlikely to do so. But what it might do is wake people up to the fact that the Democratic party is still working for the people while the Republican party has sold its soul to a snake oil salesman who refuses to release them. Of course, there is two sides of the story, they are too enthralled with the power they think they have to move on to sanity too so the two sides deserve each other.
