Look, House Republicans Did Something!

 

They managed to get Homeland Security Secretary Mayorkas impeached (by one vote) for the high crimes and misdemeanors of not being in a Republican Administration and them not having bugger-all else to show for themselves. This is the very important vote that Rep. Steve Scalise came back from cancer treatment for. This would have been a tie if one Democratic member wasn't out with Covid-19. They rushed to get this in ahead of Tom Suozzi's win in NY-03. 

Oh, Democrats accomplished something, too, last night. They flipped George Santos' seat, making a Republican slim majority that much slimmer. I'm sure that will help reduce the chaos! (No. I am being sarcastic,) Is it unreasonable to suggest, though, that a Democrat got elected in large part because Republican's seem like they can't get things done? 

Is Mayorkas likely to be convicted for the high crime of being a Democrat in the Senate? No. But that isn't the point. It was about sticking up a stubby middle finger at Democrats for any reason. You may ask, isn't it hypocritical after the games Speaker Johnson has been playing regarding the border?

Speaker Johnson Can Get Lost

 

I have some questions about just what Mike Johnson, Speaker of the House, thinks his job in the US House actually is, because he said this:

“President Biden falsely claimed yesterday he needs Congress to pass a new law to allow him to close the southern border, but he knows that is untrue,” Johnson said. “As I explained to him in a letter late last year, and have specifically reiterated to him on multiple occasions since, he can and must take executive action immediately to reverse the catastrophe he has created.”

Ok, he's wrong on what needs to be done, because closing one border doesn't actually fix immigration but even if Johnson doesn't understand the problem is bigger than just "people try to come though the Mexican border and Biden isn't fixing it" the solution is that we have an equal but separate branch of government that could compel him to do so.  It's in the Constitution--he can check it out. 

The Senate worked on a bill because they understand their job--get things done. If the border and Ukraine funding and funding for Israel are all bundled: figure out a way. But in addition to denying ANYTHING needs to be done about the border during what Republicans have been alleging is a crisis, Speaker Johnson is going to deny the House voting on the Senate bill and wants to put up a standalone bill for aid to Israel. And claims he was cut out of being briefed on the Senate bill. 

Oklahoma Republican Sen. Lankford says that just isn't true--and I believe him. Maybe Mike Johnson claims that God called him to be another Moses, but in real life he knows he's Speaker of the House because Trump suffers it. And Trump already told us what he thinks about a border deal or Republicans who would support one. 

All Clowns, No Ringmasters

 

The GOP search for a new Speaker of the House is quite the circus--but it looks like it's all clowns and no Ringmaster. Harriet Hageman seems to think she is a rodeo clown and brought a lariat to signify this is not her first rodeo. Nancy Mace wore a scarlet A which stands for "adultery" because she helped cuck McCarthy for Jim Jordan, who Trump endorsed and who--didn't get the most votes in the GOP conference about that. She said she supported Jim Jordan because...you know, I don't care what Nancy Mace says is the reason for anything she does? 

Oh, and George Santos was hit with a superseding indictment for credit card fraud and identity theft. And because Steve Scalise wouldn't answer him on the vital issue of whether he'd be spared from an expulsion attempt from his NY delegation, he's now a "bigly" anti-Scalise guy. Nice. He's got big and bronzed ones, for sure. 

Kevin McCarthy: The Man in the Boat

 

More performative BS from Marge Greene, Kevin McCarthy, Elise Stefanik and other Republicans down at the southern border today. pic.twitter.com/tWqjADqoab

— Ron Filipkowski 🇺🇦 (@RonFilipkowski) April 25, 2022

What a fun time House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy seems to be having doing performative bullshit down by the river while pretending that anything has changed with respects to the Biden Administration's prosecution of border security! It's all bullshit, as I've certainly been saying.  But why this performance art, and why with these people at this point in time?

Oh, is it because there is still audio evidence of his perennial two-facedness coming out in the media? Because that is exactly what is happening.  In the most recent offering, McCarthy is heard suggesting that the actions and rhetoric of far right-wing members like Matt Gaetz and Mo Brooks are definitely bad news and liable to lead to bloodshed. He's not wrong, and even Steven Scalise has a point--what they are doing is potentially illegal. It's the old "yelling 'fire' in a packed theater" conundrum. Aren't folks responsible for inflammatory speech in a situation they know is potentially set up for calamity?  

You would think, as with McCarthy's promise to tell Trump to resign, that McCarthy is showing some kind of backbone, for an instant. But just like his claim that he would tell Trump what was what, he didn't have any intention of holding those wild-ass off the ranch maverick crazypants insurrectionists to account at all, either. I certainly don't think he did any such thing. Where would he find the stones--deep in his chicken's craw? 

He lies as easily as he lives--like bitchily pretending today that the partisan bullshit du jour regarding activists fuxxoring up school board and PTA meetings with death threats is exactly the same thing as people just being normal parents and pretending that the FBI is investigating the latter, not the former. 

So of course he was just trying to be normal to appeal to normal old-school Republicans in the event that some kind of backlash against the stupid baddies manifested, but he was hedging, obviously. 

Is that saving his yellow chicken-yolk ass? Absolutely not--Tucker Carlson is going in on him. He says McCarthy sounds like an MSNBC host and is a Democratic operative, so that's some baleful invective (Carlson's #1 son worked for Jim Banks and I have nothing to say about what that means to Tucker, at all, at all). I do know Tucker is going to Iowa in the most homophobic way possible. And I have anticipated where this is going and think it certainly should not.  But right now, Carlson is trusted more than McCarthy is, despite McCarthy's best attempts at doing gutless culture war shit. 

He could probably free his entire set of principles and clear his conscience because his being Speaker isn't ever going to happen. Just sing his down-low shit knowing, occasionally rule-respecting heart out.  But maybe he's more of an NPC and isn't even programmed to know when to leave the boat. 

All I know is, the man in the boat is getting exactly no satisfaction right now. Typical. 

The Scalise Proposition

 

The House’s second-ranking Republican, Rep. Steve Scalise, repeatedly refused to say on Sunday that the 2020 election wasn’t stolen.https://t.co/7xiOcg941S

— Chicago Tribune (@chicagotribune) October 11, 2021

Rep. Steve Scalise once styled himself "David Duke without the baggage" because of course, in politics as in many walks of life, a reputation is your calling card. David Duke, of course, was an early backer of the virulently racist Trump that came down an escalator to discuss his 2016 candidacy in terms of stopping Mexicans and assorted Central Americans from coming to the US who were in all probability (as far as Trump knew) gangsters and rapists. Steve Scalise is a congressman who by now is basically David Duke with a taxpayer-funded job.

We should understand his baggage by now. He isn't different. He's just in office. That's all. 

Some people might point to his not so long ago traumatic shooting incident and I will note there is something that came out of that: many people face tragedy and decide that the outcome will be that they are better people. And Scalise resolved to just be himself, Which was so unnecessary on his part, but I digress. 

Anyhow, he isn't worse than Kevin McCarthy or Mitch McConnell, and definitely no worse than Chuck Grassley, here. He's just so basically weak and inutile to any need of  his constituents that all he can do is perform for their biases. He doesn't serve the people. He serves power, and in his brain, Trump, the twice-impeached one-term wonder with lawsuits and debts clinging to his every waking moment, is still who Scalise thinks is in power, so he cedes him that for fear of what the Twitter-less social media sensation will say about him. 
 

Even if all Trump is chewing up now is the Mar-a-Lago wallpaper. 

Yes, that is amazingly servile and grotesque, a cowardice so mutated from basic human dignity that children should shudder and cling to their parents and plead with unseen angels that they would never be so gutless and miscalculating at once to think pretending Trump won is the winning thing. Rather than, I don't know, actually being a party leader who wants the government scheme outlined by a little old thing called the Constitution to be somehow popular with people for governance-related reasons, not vague culture war bullshit. 

His district should find another congressperson, because this one is clearly broken. And it wasn't Trump who broke him, he came here that way, and only wanted a reason to go full Renfield for the right authoritarian white supremacist shitlord. 

 

Steve Scalise Stole A Disabled Man's Voice

.@SteveScalise tried to steal @AdyBarkan’s health care with more than 60 votes to repeal or undermine Americans’ health care.

Now, he’s trying to steal Ady’s words by lying.

Congressman Scalise must take his doctored video down and apologize immediately. https://t.co/sWlufPsazf

— Nancy Pelosi (@SpeakerPelosi) August 30, 2020

One of the sickest things about this is that Ady Barkan is a very capable speaker on the behalf of people who like himself, really need access to healthcare, so the idea that some political figure would take advantage of the reality that ALS stole Ady's voice and left him with an electrically assisted vocalization to use that substitution to put words in his mouth is appalling. It is not weakness to need an electric voice. It is weakness to need to lie about others to create a false narrative. It isn't enough that Scalise takes down his poorly-orchestrated lie (as if a dedicated activist could not or would not refute this lie on his own behalf, or that many others would not recognize that this was an utter lie). Scalise needs to retire himself. He should altogether resign, because he prefers to do harm than correct it, and doesn't understand the issues at hand.

The harm done to Ady Barkan by putting words in his mouth is something you might think Scalise would give some reasonable consideration to.

And you would be entirely overestimating him. He is not that guy.