Over at National Review, Philip Klein comments on Mike Johnson's plan to force a vote on Ukraine/Israel/Taiwan aid:
It appears that House Speaker Mike Johnson is at his breaking point. Like prior Republican leaders in his position, most recently Kevin McCarthy, Johnson was willing to humor the pugilistic members of his caucus for a certain period of time, but he is now at the point where he no longer cares about their threats. He is willing to accept his fate.
The previous three Republican Speakers were John Boehner, Paul Ryan, and Kevin McCarthy. Every one of them left in disgust with a roughly similar complaint: They were held hostage by extreme right wingers who cared only about getting hits on Fox News, not governing. Obviously nothing has changed.
There was a lot of (justifiable) criticism of Fox a decade ago, but not so much these days - even though their conduct is equally vile *and they got socked with a huge penalty for promoting falsehoods* that made it difficult to follow the Constitution. Why the reticence of pundits and the press to point out how damaging Fox is to stability in the public square and to effective governance?
If something cannot be changed, people eventually move on to talking about stuff that can be changed. The existence of Fox News assholery poisoning the public square has become "dog bites man" stuff - sure, we can talk about it again for the millionth time, but there appears to be absolutely no conceivable politically-plausible solution to it, so why bother wasting time discussing it anymore? People generally don't enjoy talking about problems, and this is exponentially true for problems that either can't be solved (because it's literally impossible) or won't be solved (by the people with the actual power to solve them).
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If all of the executives at Fox were to repent of their sins tomorrow and transform Fox into a legitimate journalistic enterprise, then the very next day 15 other networks will start competing to do what Fox always used to do. One of them will rise to the top, and Fox's former audience will go to them. That's because Fox has abundantly proven that right-wing propaganda designed to promote fear and hate among elderly whites is really profitable. There's gold in them thar hills!
There's no point in criticizing Fox. Networks like them are a permanent fixture of American culture now.
Actually, Kevin has been beating that Drum for quite a while.
He often points out that blaming “social media” for the derangement of right-wingers is misplaced and that essentially all of their sociopathy can be traced directly to Fox “News.”
Well, to be fair, didn't Moses 1.0 have a little difficulty with his followers, too?
Yeah, but (or so the story goes) he had a powerful ally.
No sympathy.
Mike Johnson is an out-and-out theocrat who was one of the movers and shakers behind the attempted coup of 2020. He is part of the problem, and will never be part of the solution, especially because there is always an option for him or any other supposedly beleaguered Republican conference held "hostage" by a "tiny minority" of crazies: reach out to the Democrats and cut a deal for confidence and supply.
Any Republican unwilling to do that is basically affirmatively on the side of letting the crazies run things. If the crazies were truly a minority, you ought to be able to cut a deal where 180 or so Republicans and most Democrats install a Speaker that's to their liking, shut out the crazies, and get on with the business of governing as they like.
Also, this is just wrongheaded:
This isn't true. It absolutely isn't. People have been saying this my entire adult life and it has never been true.
These people absolutely have a governing agenda. They're incredibly open about what it is and they will talk about it at every single opportunity. Folks seem to have a hard time believing it; they think its so manifestly crazy that they MUST just be grifters who are playing to the rubes in the gallery, or narcissists high on their own supply, right?
Well, some of them are no doubt grifters and narcissists, but they're grifters and narcissists who also have a governing agenda. It's one that by turns is comical and terrifying, but it exists.
The people who want to shut it all down until either the entire country collapses into ruin or Uncle Joe Brandon agrees to sign their ultraconservative wish list into law aren't running a game. They really believe that if Biden won't cave, better the country burn and then rise again from the ashes than let him and the commies win. That's not some calculated rube-running, they really think this.
better the country burn and then rise again
yup; mitch stated quite plainly that he'd burn it all down to ensure obama was a one term president
Re: These people absolutely have a governing agenda.
Maybe, but it's as incoherent as a tantruming three year old, and as impractical as a Rube Goldberg perpetual motion machine
Actually, it’s quite simple:
1. Tax the poor (FICA, sales taxes), not the rich (income, capital gains, inheritances, corporate profits).
2. Give a free hand to destroying the planet for short-term profit.
3. Disenfranchise and legally kneecap labor.
4. Preserve straight, white male “Christian” supremacy (for the donor class, to achieve 1 through 3; and/or for the goober class, because they’re bigots).
Teachers can remove disruptive ones from class, and telling their parents on them has a chance of leading to behavior modification, and I haven't heard of many kinder-gardeners serving as unregistered foreign agents to adversarial powers.
But other than that, sure.
The analysis from NR of Johnson's thinking is totally out of touch.
What changed is that Trump now feels he is losing too much politically by blocking all of the foreign aid, so he allowed Johnson to proceed with it.
The rest is just noise.
Given that Mikey J had just returned from a pilgrimmage to MAL to kiss -- let's just say "the ring" -- this seems like the best explanation.
There's a simple solution: normalize the use of discharge petitions. If every bill with majority support in the chamber gets a floor vote regardless of the Speaker's opinion, extremists can't hold the Speaker hostage. The Hastert Rule is the House equivalent of the filibuster, and like the filibuster it needs to go if we want a functioning government again.
It’s telling that Republicans continue to honor their organizing principle named after their longest-serving speaker—a serial child molester.
It’s what the people wanted. Most people either voted for Republicans or didn’t vote… by a lot. So bring on the chaos.
Nope. In 2022 Republican congressional candidates received almost exactly 50% of the vote compared with 47.3% for Democrats. Total difference was less than 3 million votes.
And those vote totals are skewed considering that 80% of congressional districts (or more) are not competitive.
The war that MTG is waging is roughly on the level of kindergarten antics. Via Politico, she's tried to add amendments to Israel funding, "such sums as necessary shall be used for the development of space laser technology on the southwest border" and "Any Member of Congress who votes in favor of this Act shall be required to conscript in the Ukrainian military. "
If she loses the fight against Johnson, will someone finally shut her up?
She's nuts. She mispronounced Laken's name even while she was attacking Biden about Laken's death.
Just curious here. Is GOP House membership against any bill, or is Ukraine the sticking point? If so, why not split them up and write a funding bill for just Israel?
Ukraine is the sticking point because of all the newborn communists in the Freedom Caucus. This has, in fact, been split up into, I think, 4 bills for the House but to be munged into a single bill when sent to the Senate.
Understand GOP cares nothing for Ukraine, but initial speculation was the "aid bill" was stalled because of the Ukraine aid. So why didn't they immediately come up with a stand-alone bill for Israel?
I believe they have cursed themselves through their own gerrymandering. The more districts you have in which the primary is the only election that counts, the more likely you are to put forward lunatics as candidates as everybody tries to get to the right of everyone else. Safe Republican districts = crazy Republican party. Works for Democrats too, but they've been less addicted to extreme gerrymandering and a lot more likely to push removing redistricting from the political process.
Mike Johnson is doing the right thing when allowing a vote on Ukraine aid. And it is taking some guts for him to do this with the MAGA forces targeting him. In recent years I can't recall seeing any Republican doing anything I respect (except for the few remaining anti-Trump Republicans).
Mike Johnson’s short CSPAN interview about allowing a vote is worth watching. Just set aside your hate for the guy for a moment.
https://www.c-span.org/video/?c5114117/speaker-johnson-risk-job-ukraine-funding