Paradoxically, right-wing media is a democratic institution. It is media by the stupid, for the stupid, and of the stupid. The information that they lack is rivalled only by the disinformation that they spew. The photo above is of Steve Scalise wearing a mask. Stew Peters, whom I call Stew Pidd, has castigated Scalise for wearing this mask. Why? Because Peters sees it as some form of weakness and/or capitulation to “woke” ideals. What is it in reality? The man has cancer, ergo his immune system is compromised, ergo he’s trying to stay alive. And anybody but a moron would know that. Or, maybe Peters does know but he figures the MAGAs don’t, and use it to get more support for MAGAt Jim Jordan.
He has cancer. I would take this one down.
— Technomojo (@4informed1) October 10, 2023
You believe that? MAGA is now feeling free to attack people with cancer? Wow. New York Times:
Representative Michael McCaul, Republican of Texas and chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said the attack on Israel had made it all the more urgent for the House to elect a new speaker quickly.
“We need to get a speaker by Wednesday,” he said, adding: “The world is watching. They’re seeing a dysfunctional democracy.”
That is exactly right. We have aid we need to get to both Israel and Ukraine. We have military positions to fill, ambassadorships to fill. Right now we lack both an ambassador to Israel and one to Egypt. The government is hamstrung with the lower chamber of congress in paralysis. This is no joking matter.
And so we have the choice between “David Duke without the baggage” as Scalise likes to depict himself, and the performative artist known as Jim Jordan, who has a rather spectacular history of turning a blind eye to things like sexual abuse of minors and the fomenting of the January 6 insurrection. Some choice, huh? And you never thought the day would come when Newt Gingrich would look good, but come it has.
Or, My Kevin can be persuaded to stop crying on his MyPillow and come back to work as the Speaker if people are nice and ask him. He was alluding to that just yesterday on Hugh Hewitt’s radio show. Marge may lead the charge, in fact.
But Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, a far-right Georgia Republican who has aligned herself with Mr. McCarthy, sounded enthusiastic about the possibility of the ousted speaker’s return.
“When a group of eight joined with Democrats to oust our speaker, that was something people cheered for because they were ready for someone’s head on a platter, but it shouldn’t have been our Republican speaker,” she said, adding: “I think it was wrong what happened to Kevin McCarthy.”
Ms. Greene said Mr. McCarthy was “widely supported.”
“I think that’s a wise move to leave the door open,” she said of his current position in the race.
Republicans also were debating possible changes in their internal party rules before the vote, including one that would make it more difficult to kick out a sitting speaker, and another requiring a near-unanimous vote among members of the party before nominating a candidate for speaker. Both were attempts to avoid a repeat of the embarrassing story arc of Mr. McCarthy’s speakership, in which he suffered through 15 floor votes to gain the job in January, before he was kicked out last week.
Whoever emerges from the leadership fight, Mr. McCaul called on his fellow Republicans to look at the violence in Israel and put their differences aside.
“If we don’t have a speaker, we can’t put anything on the floor and we’re paralyzed,” he said, adding: “If that doesn’t wake up the members of my conference, then I don’t know what will.”
I don’t think the members of McCaul’s conference can be awakened. I think too many of them are mindless sheep who never even possessed a moral compass. May we say, just look at George Santos? He’s the poster child for this concept.
Every session of congress has had a few weak links. That’s the nature of any institution. But the GOP is now an institution comprised of nothing but weak links and extremists. The GOP’s been falling apart progressively for 40 years. That’s the problem.
And the bottom line is, without two functioning major political parties, democracy cannot continue. That’s the awful truth we face in 2023.
“Republicans also were debating possible changes in their internal party rules before the vote, including one that would make it more difficult to kick out a sitting speaker, and another requiring a near-unanimous vote among members of the party before nominating a candidate for speaker.”
Well, McCarthy has only himself to blame for the first one. That was one of the conditions he agreed to in order to get the hardliners to either vote for him or just vote “present.”
As to the second, what EXACTLY is meant by “near-unanimous?” I mean, according to Wiki, McCarthy had 188 of the 219 GOP votes in the conference vote for the Speaker nomination. He faced opposition in the first place and, in the first floor vote, he actually got 203 votes (that’s up 15 from the conference vote and 91%). And he still had to rely on 6 “present” votes to win, meaning he only had 97% support in the end. So, how “near-unanimous” is “near-unanimous” enough?