I just wrote an article about how skillfully the Democrats had planned from day one to put a sleeper shell bill in place in the earliest days of the McCarthy Day Care Center, just so they could spring it at the perfect time. And will wonders never cease, now is the perfect time. But what’s the potential long term fallout?
Let’s be clear. In the GOP House, House Squeaker Cavein McCarthy doesn’t have friends, he has handlers. McCarthy rode in on the Tea Party Wave of 2010, but then quickly ditched the Tea Party in quest for more power, finally ending up being then Speaker John Boehner’s number two man. The Tea Party caucus, now the Freedom caucus doesn’t trust him as far as they can throw him, which is why they shackled him with secret codicils in negotiations for him to become House Sqeaker.
The majority of the caucus tolerates McCarthy because he is establishment enough to look presentable in this Workshop of Misfit Toys. He turned out to be more tolerable to them than say a Steve Scalise, or a Jim Jordan, which shows you just how low the GOP has sunk. But when you look at the numbers, and the factions, McCarthy has no actual base of loyal support. The Freedom caucus owns him lock, stock, and barrel. And everybody else is just along for the ride.
McCarthy is at heart heartless. He is an empty suit, totally driven by a craven lust for power. He didn’t replace Boehner as Speaker simply because he was too goddamned stupid and power hungry for anybody else to trust. And that’s going to be his undoing.
I’ll tell you this much right now. There is no freakin’ way that a House Speaker Nancy Pelosi would have fallen for the stunt that the Democrats just pulled on McCarthy. Pelosi’s management were seasoned professionals, who know what to watch for. McCarthy is surrounded by slithering sycophants more interested in FUX News appearances than in actually governing.
A quick word of advice for the Freedom caucus. You get what you pay for! And you have nobody to blame but yourselves. You created a shell Speaker with no authority to do what needs to be done to be productive, and no guts or intelligence to do it. And now you’re about to pay for it BIGLY!
If the Democrats pull this off, then McCarthy is toast. Burnt. His whole purpose was to support the Freedom caucus in their never ending quest to destroy the government and wreak havoc across the land. If McCarthy allows the Democrats to pull a Green Bay Sweep (irony intentional) and raise the debt ceiling with little or no collateral damage, then he denies the Freedom caucus their FUX News airtime holding the country hostage and licking their nuts.
But even if the Democrats ploy fails, McCarthy is still boned. Sideways. Because now, with the specter of a discharge petition vote looming on the House floor, there is no reason for Biden to give anything away to McCarthy in negotiations. And even if the discharge petition fails, by then it will be the 20-21 of May, and even mental midgets like Gaetz, Jordan and Perry aren’t stupid enough to drive the global economy off the cliff 18 months before a presidential election. Personally, I think the discharge petition will pass.
Now, to close this one out, let’s have a little fun with pure speculation for a minute. Let’s just say that the discharge petition works and passes, avoiding a global financial collapse. Raising the debt ceiling was the one must do on the Democrats list in the GOP dominated House for the next two years. Remember this. Thanks to their secret negotiations with McCarthy, the Freedom caucus left themselves with an out if McCarthy came a cropper as House Squeaker.
It only takes one House member, from either party to put a petition on the floor to vacate the Speakers seat. If the discharge petition passes, what’s to stop any Democratic member from rising in the well of the House, and calling for the vacation of the Speakers chair? Everybody on the GOP side is going to be furious with McCarthy for being such a chucklehead.
If the vote to vacate fails, then that means that all but five moderate GOP members voted to keep McCarthy in charge, which opponents in 2024 will use against them. And if the GOP actually votes to remove McCarthy, then its another GOP food fight. And who says that the GOP moderates won’t work with the Democrats to find a moderate caretaker Speaker in order to get something done? The possibilities are endless, but I don’t see how McCarthy survives this either way.
It would be DELICIOUS if his “vacation” would be too embarrassing for him to endure. Imagine the possibilities…..
My mind is captivating with a delicious fantasy and no, despite my being a guy it has nothing to do with sex. It’s about something much better because the satisfaction will be far longer and benefit us all. You keep speaking about those GOP “moderates” in swing districts that were carried by Biden. I think you’re correct in thinking a half dozen or so will sign a discharge petition to bring a debt ceiling increase bill written by Democrats to the floor. In doing so they would in fact increase their odds of retaining their seats in a general election. However, they’d never get to that point. MAGA nation will rise up in fury and ensure each and every one of them loses their primary. That brings us to my fantasy. What if as few as five of them look over at the Senate, to Joe Manchin and the undeserved & outside influence he’s wielded and say “f**kit – I’m going to switch sides and become a Democrat? And vote for the Speaker’s gavel to be handed over to Hakeem Jeffries?” Now, they’d still face a primary opponent BUT if they don’t get too carried away like Manchin (or Sinema) they can shape some legislation to be less progressive than you or I would like but might survive a Democratic primary challenge. Might. I wouldn’t call the odds good but they’d be better than getting the GOP nod. And in the general plenty of Republicans would cross over and they’d win with a better margin than they had in 2022! Crazy? Yep. But that’s how things are these days.
Yeah, well President Obama gave that riech wing b1tch O’Connor the medal of freedumb for giving Bush who lied us into two wars after cheating his way into office, the presidency in 2000 so I don’t see their piddly “efforts” working.
Somehow I think the solution to the debt ceiling problem will come out of the Senate, not the House. McConnell knows what is at stake and seems to have a good working relationship with Biden. I think he will do some deals with the Democrats and then make a few well-placed calls to Republican members to either set up McCarthy for a vacation, or get a reasonable debt ceiling vote through. The four-pillars meeting on the 9th will make it very clear to McCarthy that he is not in control.
Craven McCarthy would have seen this coming if he remembered the movie “Legally Blonde”.