Joan McCarter

The first “policy” vote of the new Republican-controlled House of Representatives continued with their theme of capitulation to the extreme right, and more pointedly the people who fund the political careers of the far right. They voted along party lines, 221 to 210, to rescind the more than $70 billion in IRS funding included in the Inflation Reduction Act to help the agency modernize and more effectively do its job.

It will be hard for Republicans to top their performance of last week, but they’re going to do their damnedest these evening. All the promises Kevin McCarthy handed out in his nearly-failed bid to become Speaker are being revealed (nobody Rep. Byron Donalds getting a sweet committee post, the maniacs guaranteed multiple slots on what’s going to become the most important committee) and the ridiculousness of what they have in the works is being revealed.

This really isn’t how a government should operate. Not this government, anyway. The clusterfuck, however, is continuing. Here we go again, into ballot 15 in the quest to elect a Speaker of the House.

UPDATE: Saturday, Jan 7, 2023 · 5:39:19 AM +00:00 · Joan McCarter

There won’t be a rules vote tonight after all. It will be Monday, giving Democrats plenty of time to remind all the non-maniac Republicans how McCarthy gave away all their shit.

There’s much discussion of would-be House Speaker and 10-time failure Kevin McCarthy reaching a deal with is opposition—not to actually win, mind you, but to lose by less. Also to get some people to vote “present.” They’ve got to be careful there, because of the planned absences among Republicans (as many as three). It could end in the inadvertent election of the guy who’s won the popular vote 10 times now, Democrat Hakeem Jeffries.

The House is coming back in to resume voting for the speaker’s job. Or not. It’s not entirely clear right now if they are ready to keep voting or if Kevin McCarthy is done groveling to the maniacs. He gave in on one thing in the break they took this after: his Super PAC, the Congressional Leadership Fund has agreed to the Club for Growth’s demand that it stop getting involved in safe open-seat primaries.

The vote for House Speaker continues, moving to round three in with Kevin McCarthy’s hapless bid to lead the tiny minority in the new Congress. This is the first time in 100 years that the Speaker was not elected on the first ballot, something that’s only happened 14 times in history.

Stick with us for as long as this goes, and watch all the fun on C-SPAN. We could be here for days.

Incoming House Majority Leader Steve Scalise sent a letter Friday to the Republican conference outlining the agenda for the first few weeks of the session of the Republicans’ tiny new majority. That is, if they can actually get a speaker elected, because they can’t do any business at all until that’s accomplished.

Incoming House Majority Leader Steve Scalise sent a letter Friday to the Republican conference outlining the agenda for the first few weeks of the session of the Republicans’ tiny new majority. That is, if they can actually get a speaker elected, because they can’t do any business at all until that’s accomplished.

Incoming House Majority Leader Steve Scalise sent a letter Friday to the Republican conference outlining the agenda for the first few weeks of the session of the Republicans’ tiny new majority. That is, if they can actually get a speaker elected, because they can’t do any business at all until that’s accomplished.

Incoming House Majority Leader Steve Scalise sent a letter Friday to the Republican conference outlining the agenda for the first few weeks of the session of the Republicans’ tiny new majority. That is, if they can actually get a speaker elected, because they can’t do any business at all until that’s accomplished.

Now that The New York Times has decided to pay attention to the many bizarre stories of fabulist Rep.-elect George Santos, they’re really digging in. It would have been helpful if they’d been paying attention before the election, while local New York papers like the North Shore Leader were raising the alarm about Santos’ finances. That paper concluded he was too “bizarre, unprincipled and sketchy” to hold office.

Democratic lawmakers who have spent decades devoted to health care reform are celebrating a relatively minor legislative victory of 2022, expecting it to pay big dividends down the line. The first year of the Biden administration was going to be when Medicare drug price negotiation finally happened. That didn’t happen in full, but Democrats succeeded in inserting a wedge and intend to keep pushing it until they break Big Pharma’s hold entire.

This should have been Kevin McCarthy’s week of celebration and victory laps, with the U.S. House of Representatives set to flip to the Republicans next week on his watch. He should be unveiling all the big policy proposals and plans the GOP House has for the nation. He should be holding court with the D.C. press, talking about his rise to power.

It’s that time again, Christmas Eve, with everyone gathered round the fire with their liquid warmer of choice and visions of sugar plums. Here’s your slightly more eco-friendly hearth. May your holiday and your new year be full of warmth, love, and happiness.

YouTube Video

(P.S. If you want a little more action in your evening’s background, head below the fold.)

Here’s what the Oklahoma Humane Society presented for Giving Tuesday this year.

There are many, many reasons to celebrate Rev. Sen. Raphael Warnock’s victory Tuesday. The first is that Georgia will be represented by an effective, principled, intelligent statesman. Sen. Warnock is everything you could ask in a public servant, and the people of Georgia—all the people—need that. The Senate most definitely needs all the serious people it can get. The Congress as a whole needs that, as does the nation.

Hoo boy, this is not the voice of confidence in a leader. A month ago, Rep. Steve Scalise (R-LA), told Fox News that he was fully supporting his leader’s bid for the speakership. “He’ll win,” the Minority Whip and number 2 in leadership told Fox News. This week? Eh, not so much. Maybe there could be someone else who could do the job. Three guesses who.

Republican House leader Kevin McCarthy’s wild ride to the speakership promises only to get bumpier. He’s not backing down from having a floor fight, and his loudest detractor just announced his official challenge. That means there will be a contest for the top job on the floor come Jan. 3 unless McCarthy can pull some kind of maniac-appeasing miracle off in the next three weeks.

Rep.

The vote counting is finally all done, and House Republicans have a tiny majority of 222 seats, with Democrats holding 213. This means GOP Leader Kevin McCarthy can only afford to lose four votes in his bid to be Speaker of the House, and there are already five who insist they will oppose him. The chance that he could scrap together a majority with help from Democrats is vanishingly small.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer are staring down the double-barreled threat of multiple, critical deadlines and the knowledge that the House is going to be turned over to a raft of incompetent maniacs in a little more than one month’s time. The two leaders allowed their members to come back from the election on Nov. 8 and accomplish very little, then take the full Thanksgiving week—and the days book-ending it—off.

The slow-rolling demise of Twitter has proven more clearly than anything that out of control wealth is toxic. For no other reason than he could, Elon Musk spent $44 billion on Twitter and then proceeded to burn it to the ground. Because he could.

The would-be leaders of the Republican House and Senate conferences are in for some wild times as recriminations and power struggles take precedence in both chambers. In the House, the tiny majority Republicans has every faction plotting how they’ll control Rep. Kevin McCarthy of California. In the Senate, leader Mitch McConnell is under pretty much daily attack from Sen.

In a tremendous public service to the grassroots universe, Daily Kos and Civic Shout commissioned Civiqs to conduct a survey about how Democratic voters feel about unsolicited fundraising emails and texts. There is a whole lot for the DNC, the DSCC, the DCCC, and every candidate to learn from this. Number one: Stop it.

It’s going exactly how Republicans promised it would if they took the House: vengeance. Nothing but vengeance. Policy agenda? As if.

The first press conference of their majority Thursday, was from the Oversight and Judiciary Committee chairs laying out the number one target for their vendetta. It was all Hunter Biden’s laptop, all the time. A thing that is entirely not real.

On the second day of their majority, Rep.

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi is opening the House floor session Thursday, and will announce whether she will remain leader of the House Democrats, or step back following the narrow defeat of Democrats in the 2022 midterms. Pelosi is undoubtedly also weighing her decision on her husband Paul’s recovery from an attack in the couple’s California home before the election, an assassination attempt in which she was the target.

The U.S. Senate will stay in Democratic control in the 118th session of Congress, beginning Jan. 3, 2023. Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto’s win in Nevada gives Democrats the 50 votes they need to stay in power. That gives this experiment in democracy at least a few more years. The work has to start anew when they return next week to finish out the current session.

It also means that Sen.

The U.S. Senate will stay in Democratic control in the 118th session of Congress, beginning Jan. 3, 2023. Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto’s win in Nevada gives Democrats the 50 votes they need to stay in power. That gives this experiment in democracy at least a few more years. The work has to start anew when they return next week to finish out the current session.

It also means that Sen.

Former House Speaker Tina Kotek, a Democrat, has defeated two white-supremacist- and QANON-friendly opponents to keep the Oregon governor’s seat in Democratic hands.

Kotek has been Speaker since 2013, a tenure during which had to deal with the Republican challenger, the former House Republican Leader Christine Drazan, and her hijinks.

Looking at you, Third Way, and Bernie Sanders, and well everyone else Markos talks about here. This.

THIS:

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (AP) — Kentucky voters reject anti-abortion constitutional amendment in conservative state with near-total ban.— Zeke Miller (@ZekeJMiller) November 9, 2022

Kentucky. The voters of Kentucky, in a 53-47 vote, told their Republican leaders to stuff it, they won’t let them put an extreme abortion ban into the state constitution.

Gov. Tony Evers defeated Republican Tim Michels in Wisconsin’s governor’s race, earning a second term of competent, progressive leadership. Evers’ tenure has mostly consisted of using his veto pen to hold off an extremist right-wing and corporate takeover of the state, including protecting the state’s voters and ensuring free and fair elections for the future.

Traditional media is having a hell of a time this election in the “both sides” game, when one side (arguably their favorite) keeps insisting on doing things like cracking jokes and boosting heinous conspiracy theories about the assassination attempt on Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, an attack that left her husband in the ICU with a head injury.