Or Will Blue Dog Josh Gottheimer Be The King-Maker?
Arizona fascist Andy Biggs knows he’s not going to be Speaker and he probably knows that McCarthy will be. But he officially announced that he’s running. It’s not because he thinks he can become Speaker; it’s because he can prevent McCarthy from getting the job unless he gives in to an incoherent package of the fascists’ demands, which includes a Sword of Damocles rule that would allow them ro remove a Speaker if he so much as looks at them the wrong way.
In his unhinged announcement he claimed that McCarthy is, basically, just another version of Pelosi and made the spurious claim that “The Left wants to see a McCarthy Speakership, as outgoing Majority Whip Clyburn said. Establishment Republicans want to see a continuation of the Swamp, as Paul Ryan has endorsed McCarthy for speaker. And, even phony conservative types, claim that McCarthy is the only guy for them (see radio talker Mark Levin for example, who after blasting McCarthy for years has decided that he is perfect for the job). And people wonder why the establishment is the establishment.”
We actually have the opportunity to dislodge the establishment and reinvigorate the America First movement that was founded by former President Donald Trump. Yes, that Donald Trump.
The lack of leadership by the Republican nominee for Speaker is evident in multiple ways. One is unfolding as I write this.
A spending package is being considered that will bloat our national debt and extend until next October. The biggest leverage the Republicans will have with President Joe Biden in the White House will be the budget. But McCarthy is about to give that away.
And, oddly because Congress grinds to a halt in the last year of a presidential cycle, by giving away our strongest leverage tool of the budget, either through an omnibus spending bill or a yearlong stopgap spender (Continuing Resolution), Leader McCarthy is about to eviscerate our leverage for the balance of the Biden presidency.
And here we have an establishment candidate for speaker of the House who circulated a censure resolution of Trump and protected Liz Cheney when the majority of the Republicans wanted to remove her as their leader. It wasn’t until she personally embarrassed him that McCarthy supported her dismissal.
And, while the Biden Regime has ripped apart the policies that were so successful in economic growth, border security and prestige around the world, the Republican leader has indolently allowed Pelosi and her minions to dismantle those policies.
When people like me instituted a plan to challenge the Democrats using every procedural tool we had, our leader castigated us. I was told that it is inconvenient to require votes on every bill.
Yet it was the Democrat floor leader, Steny Hoyer, who negotiated with conservatives who were fighting with the Democrats on the floor of the House. We were within inches of slowing the Democrat program down when Democrats started consolidating legislation for quicker passage.
As I told our leader, if we had banded together and defeated the first efforts of consolidation — as we had the votes to do — the Democrats would have come back to us to negotiate for better terms. We could have controlled much of the action on the floor of the U.S. House. I and my team were rebuffed. The result: the Democrats were able to dismantle America with virtually little resistance.
…The Left has patiently and unrelentingly taken control of our institutions. Leadership of both parties have either wittingly or carelessly facilitated the takeover of our institutions.
And now, when pro-freedom, America First Republicans have a chance to effectuate change, even our own are fighting that. And you wonder why the establishment stays in power.
Do you think that we as Americans are facing an existential crisis? Do you believe that things will change if we have leadership that includes McCarthy, who has been at or near the apex of the Republican conference in Congress for more than six years?
Or, do you want Republicans to use all available tools to slow the Democrats’ race to Marxism?
It is inadequate to plead, beg, cajole, warn, or work with the establishment.
We cannot let this all too rare opportunity to effectuate structural change pass us by because it is uncomfortable to challenge the Republican candidate who is a creature of the establishment status quo, or because the challenge is accompanied by some minimal risk.
Exiting the current suboptimal path will certainly incur a short-term cost but will have enormous long-term benefits.
We will never defeat or change the status quo, which is taking us to the Leftist’s vision of America, by selecting a status quo candidate as the third most powerful person in the government. The Republican candidate was created by, elevated by and maintained by the establishment.
Is this not the pivotal point of our generation? What will two more years under the Biden Regime look like if we do not have a leader who will stand up to its objectives? Or, If Republicans don’t use every available tool to preserve our rights and defeat the assault by Biden?
Those who support such a change ought to join in our campaign by letting their elected representatives in Congress know that it’s time for a renewed America, not a time for protecting of the status quo.
You can see exactly where the paranoid GOP-QAnon base gets its apocalyptic notions.
Yesterday, Olivia Beavers and Jordan Carney reported that “Some McCarthy backers see the tactics of his conservative skeptics as little more than hot air, predicting that all complaints will fade after a show of force on Jan. 3. But behind closed doors, other allies are starting to doubt that McCarthy can survive the gauntlet needed to win the gavel. It all adds up to a very un-merry GOP conference wracked by anger and worry about a 2024 backlash against their internal squabbles… A growing number of members believe the House’s leader will not be elected on the first day of voting, let alone on the first ballot.”
Interviews with this year’s crop of McCarthy opponents confirmed one thing that his allies are seeking to leverage in their favor: Unlike the 2015 conservative rebellion that ended with former Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI), there’s no single, agreed-upon Plan B leader.
“To my knowledge, there’s not one alternative candidate,” said Rep. Michael Cloud (R-TX), a House Freedom Caucus member who hasn’t tipped his hand on his McCarthy vote, adding that their discussions “have always been about changing the culture of Washington, D.C.”
…[C]ritics of the Freedom Caucus lament that its anti-McCarthy members are simply moving the goal posts to extract maximum concessions from the GOP leader, while having no intention of definitively knifing McCarthy.
And one of those concessions— a compromise reached last month over the conference’s ability to depose a speaker— may be getting relitigated.
Even after the conference backed an amendment from Rep. Mike Turner (R-OH) that required the support of a majority of House Republicans to seek to boot the speaker, McCarthy critics say they don’t think the matter is closed.
“Nothing is closed,” Rep. Chip Roy (R-TX) said. “That’s the point.”
Centrists have already warned McCarthy’s Freedom Caucus opponents that if they tank him, a backup speaker may get elected who they’ll like even less. Making good on that threat might require some House Democrats to vote present on Jan. 3, thus decreasing the total number of votes needed to win the speakership.
But it’s not clear if any Democrats would be willing to work with the GOP to help McCarthy out of a tight spot. And McCarthy has already publicly said he would not seek or accept votes from Democrats.
Conservatives view centrists’ talk of a compromise candidate if McCarthy can’t clinch 218 votes as unserious.
“I want them to name which moderate Democrats that they’re willing to team up with … I think that’s rhetoric that I find not credible,” Perry said in an interview. “But if they’re willing to put some granularity to that, some context to it, I think that would be an important conversation to have.”
Rep. Don Bacon (R-NE), the most outspoken of the pro-McCarthy centrists, vowed they would “go full bore” if McCarthy’s bid gets scuttled over multiple rounds of balloting.
Anti-McCarthy conservatives “don’t have an alternative name, bottom line,” Bacon said. “There’s a large majority of us that are not willing to get rolled. … We’re not going to play nice guy on this.”
Moderates in both parties have been in touch about break-glass back-up plans if McCarthy fails to get 218 votes, as first reported by Politico— a fact that’s sparked accusations from Freedom Caucus-aligned Republicans.
One notable participant in those discussions is Frank Luntz, the veteran GOP pollster and close friend of McCarthy. Luntz has asked questions about Democrats voting present in the upcoming speaker vote during private talks with House members, according to Republicans and Democrats familiar with the exchanges.
Luntz attended a retreat with members of the bipartisan Problem Solvers Caucus last month in Longboat Key, Fla., where he discussed the topic. And while it’s not clear if the GOP leader had given Luntz his blessing to discuss the matter, their close relationship means some in McCarthy’s conference will tie the pollster broaching the subject to the Californian.
Yesterday, there was a vote in the House on Mark Takano's Veteran's Service Recognition Act, which addresses immigration-related issues pertaining to noncitizen military veterans, including by authorizing the Department of Homeland Security to provide lawful permanent resident status to a veteran subject to removal. It passed 220-208, every Democrat plus 3 Republicans voting for it. McCarthy led the 208 Republicans to vote against the bill. The 3 Republicans who voted with the Democrats were Brian Fitzpatrick (PA), Maria Salazar (FL) and Adam Kinzinger (IL). Liz Cheney, as she almost always does, voted with the Republicans. However, she did ask McCarthy in regard to Trump advocating "terminating" the Constitution, "Are you so utterly without principle that you won't condemn this either?" She's a partisan conservative on policy-- and her opposition to Trump and McCarthy are part of how she defines her conservatism.