Rather be King of the ashes then cut a deal with Democrats

I downloaded Michigan’s COVID data. I won’t report on it because I think that because of the Christmas and New Year holidays the data is incomplete. Yeah, Kevin McCarthy’s attempt to be Speaker of the House is still not going well. Yesterday I wrote that Fox News was avoiding talking about it. That changed yesterday. Rebekah Sager of Daily Kos reported Tucker Carlson ranted that McCarthy isn’t doing enough to pull in the maniacs, so maybe he doesn’t really want to be Speaker. There’s talk of cataclysmic consequences if the standoff continues. And Newt Gingrich (of all people) said the maniacs are acting like blackmailers and should stop because that’s not what their constituents voted for. In a pundit roundup for Kos Chitown Kev quoted Tom Nichols of The Atlantic who talked about the maniacs:

What all of these GOP members do seem to have in common is a shared belief that they should be in Congress in order to make other people miserable. Usually, those “other people” are Democrats and various people on the generic right-wing enemies list, but lately, the targets include the few remaining Republicans who think their job in Washington is to legislate and pass bills and other boring twaddle that has nothing to do with keeping the hometown folks in a lather, getting on television, and getting reelected. [...] The Republican rebellion is rooted in a giant inferiority complex: We know we’re not popular, we know a lot of people think we’re jerks, but we’ll show everyone that we can paralyze this country and its institutions using the machinery of government. Democracy, process, lawmaking, and governing? All of that is for saps; doing it is how you end up becoming Eric Cantor or Paul Ryan. The GOP rebels have every intention of staying in Washington and staying in power—even if “power” amounts to little more than sitting in the wreckage of the Capitol and keeping warm by burning the furniture. Win or lose, McCarthy never had a chance at being a true master of the House.

There are a lot of political cartoons about the situation. One from Nick Anderson shows Pelosi riding a donkey and an elephant with shaman horns riding McCarthy. Pelosi asks, “Need some pointers. Kevin?” A cartoon by Kal, shows McCarthy with his head on a platter before a skeptical elephant. McCarthy says, “OK! This is my last concession ... now will you vote for me for Speaker?” Yes, that last cartoon seems accurate. Laura Clawson of Kos reported that last night McCarthy met with the holdouts and tried something different: groveling. Clawson included a video posted by Acyn of a Rep. Kelly saying:

You have 20 people demanding that 201 surrender to them unconditionally. Well, I will not surrender unconditionally. If you have conditions, give them to us… We will not unconditionally surrender. We might surrender if you tell us the terms.

The rest of the Republican caucus is getting annoyed at being held hostage. In some of the vote tallies I yesterday were perhaps twenty for “Donalds.” I thought that might have something to do with the nasty guy. Sagar reported it refers to Rep. Byron Donalds. He was nominated because he is “relatively unknown ultra-conservative Black congressman from Florida.” Sager, a Black woman, wrote:

Haven’t we seen this before? It was just a few months back when, out of nowhere, came a well-known NFL player without an iota of political experience or common sense, thrown into the ring against a seasoned incumbent senator in Georgia. Why? Because he was also Black. Do they think we’re all the same? Just replace one Black person with any other; we’ll never know! So forgive me for bristling when a bunch of white conservatives throw out the name of Rep. Byron Donalds, the self-described “Trump-supporting, gun-owning, liberty-loving, pro-life, politically incorrect Black man,” and then give themselves a pat on the back for being “diverse.”

Joan McCarter of Kos wrote that the Republican Party has known, since shortly after the election, that McCarthy would fail. And they did nothing.

They chose to put themselves through this humiliation, broadcast on live television for the whole world to see. They are choosing to continue it, not looking at the only viable, responsible option for creating a House of Representatives that could function: working with Democrats.

Rep. Tom Cole of Oklahoma and not a maniac said that working with Democrats is off the table. But that comment might bite him – he’s the top Republican on the most powerful House Rules Committee and McCarthy looks to be bargaining away Cole’s chance to be committee chair, giving it to the Freedom Caucus. Yikes! Another giveaway is the threshold of how many representatives are need to call a vote of no confidence in the Speaker. It appears that is now down to one – giving the maniacs a sword to dangle over the Speaker’s head. But other Republicans doubt it would actually get used, so no problem.

The maniacs are going to be in control of the House for the next two years because no one in the House GOP is going to stop them. Period.

Clawson wrote:

Yes, McCarthy is failing because he’s a terrible leader who is unqualified for the job of speaker—the very fact that he can’t get himself elected shows that he’s not going to be able to shepherd through difficult legislation—but he’s also failing because his party is a flaming hot mess. Even if you set aside the substance of the problems with a party filled with insurrectionists and election deniers and people who want to dismantle or shut down the government (kind of big things to set aside, but just as a mental exercise), they’re a disorganized flailing mess of backbiting and backstabbing and ego-driven posturing.

The nasty guy is also losing influence. He called his supporters in the House to get on with voting for McCarthy. They replied he’s still their favorite president, but why isn’t he calling McCarthy and asking him to step aside? Sager offered a roundup of jokes about the situation. Leah McElrath tweeted a thread about today’s votes. They held votes 7 through 11. McCarthy got about 200 votes each time. Jeffiries consistently got 212 votes from all of the Democrats.6 For these votes – which are all roll call votes – the presiding officer is the House Clerk Cheryl Johnson – a black woman. In another thread McElrath tweeted:

The opposition to McCarthy for speaker is not (only) about bargaining. The extreme right and their representatives want the government not to function. The dysfunction is the primary goal. ... Because the disruption is the point and because not all on the extreme right are still interested in currying favor with Trump by obeying his wishes, the Republicans are in a situation in which they have neither stick nor carrot to manage those opposing McCarthy. ... The extreme far right is extremely nihilistic. They see destruction of the current order as an existential necessity. This isn’t just politics as usual.

McElrath quoted Hillary Clinton, who tweeted: “Their agenda is chaos and grandstanding.” CthuLUL replied to McElrath, who agreed with him:

Yes, they got what they wanted, which was a regressive Supreme Court majority and permanent tax cuts for the rich. The goal now is to demonstrate that government doesn't work by being disfunctional. I fully expect a shutdown and/or default this term.

Danielle Miller responded: “It’s almost like someone else is pulling the string...” Elie Mystal, a justice correspondent for The Nation, tweeted:

Sure, the 20 insurrectionists just want to watch the world burn. But McCarthy would rather be King of the ashes then cut a deal with Democrats and create a governing coalition. Focusing on the one crazy people problem and not the deeper GOP establishment problem is a mistake. Republicans, all of them, ALL OF THEM, are unwilling to be reasonable. The way that refusal manifests itself is different in each of them, but the core issue is that the GOP has lost its ability to govern in good faith. This started with Newt Gingrich. It got hyper-charged with McConnell under President Obama. Now, we're sitting here with a guy who is drenched in desperation to be speaker, who won't even approach the idea of picking up votes with concessions to Democrats.

And in a separate tweet Mystal wrote:

Cable news should bring on a professional dominatrix to explain the McCarthy situation at this point.

After writing a post and while proofreading it I pull out phrases to use as a title. Most days I have two or three choices. Some days I don’t see any. Today I had a choice of eight. Pakalolo of the Kos community reported on a heat wave over Europe. Temperatures are up to 17C (31F) higher than average for New Year. It is Europe’s most extreme heat event. On the good side, Ukrainians are not freezing and heating oil won’t be a big problem. And it is better to have a mild winter than a scorching summer. On the bad side ski vacations are canceled. And that scorching summer, plus drought, will be back in six months. Either way, this is getting people’s attention. That drought will continue over the American Southwest, where the Glen Canyon Dam will likely not have enough water to generate electricity sometime this year and Hoover Dam will face the same issue next year. Mark Sumner of Kos reported that the Kremlin has announced new subjects to be taught in schools. The first is essentially a class to feed students propaganda. The second is basics in being a soldier. Sumner wonders since the Army doesn’t know how to teach men how to be soldiers who is going to teach high school students? Those classes imply that Russia is teaching its kids that war is good and will last forever. Sarah Kendzior has a few things to say about the release of six years of the nasty guy’s tax forms. This is part of her Gaslit Nation episode titled “Follow the Money and You Won't Lose the Plot.” Six years of tax returns aren’t nearly enough. They don’t get to the heart of the deep entrenched corruption of the nasty guy and his organization, but also the American institutions that sheltered him. He was known as a tax cheat in the 1980s. The government knew and dropped the case. The Russian Mafia rescued his finances following his bankruptcies in the early 1990s. In 2016 Hillary Clinton knew he was a cheat and called for investigations. Nothing happened. The questions seem taboo.

The key questions to ask are: 1) Why was a known career criminal elevated to the level of the presidency in the first place? 2) Why was he protected by government institutions both during his campaign and while he was in office? 3) Why are the rest of Trump's tax returns hidden? Some speculate that Trump has spent his life as an FBI confidential informant. This is merely a euphemistic way to say that Trump had a collaborative relationship with some of the most corrupt elements in the federal government in order to enable and streamline organized crime. ... That American media and politicians are afraid to even examine these documents and ask questions --even if they don't know the answers, just raise the questions -- should concern you. Given Trump's record, it should terrify you.

Six years of his tax returns are not enough. We need to see fifty years of returns to see the broader context of his decades of mafia ties, foreign ties, and illicit actions involving the US government.