Pachyderm Problems

Republicans have made a lot of promises about how they’ll use their House majority. They’re going to close the border, go after “unelected” bureaucrats, they’re going to cut spending, they’re gonna conduct multiple investigations after more investigations, blah, blah, blah. Legislate and govern? They can’t even get through the door.

Yesterday, two members of the Goon Squad, or if you prefer, the Gaggle of Idiots got lost while walking through the Capitol. Matt Gaetz and Lauren Boebert are loving holding their own party hostage because it gives them power, makes them relevant for a moment, and gets them on TV. While showing their asses to the media yesterday, they got lost. I’m surprised they didn’t bump into pathological lying freshman Republican George Santos because he got lost too. At least Santos can blame getting lost on it being his first day. What’s Boebert’s and Gaetz’s excuse? Didn’t they map the place out for their January 6 insurrection?

These “rebels” who are members of the so-called Freedom Caucus don’t have a plan beyond holding their party hostage. They’re not even the entire Freedom Caucus. They have the votes to deny the speakership to Kevin McCarthy, who’s currently on his fourth defeat for that job and probably headed for his fifth at this writing, but they don’t have the votes to elect their choice of speaker.

And if they do get their choice of speaker, which was Jim (Gym) Jordan yesterday (and Byron Donalds for the fourth vote today), this would be a speaker they don’t listen to. Jordan told them to vote for McCarthy and they’re not following him. Of course, Jordan doesn’t want the job because then he’d have to herd racist moronic cats when he’d rather be chairing a gaslighting committee investigating something that doesn’t exist.

Matt Gaetz claims he’s opposing Kevin McCarthy because he’s draining the swamp, while he and other members of the Goon Squad are offering their votes for committee assignments, including chairs of committees. According to reports, each time McCarthy meets one of their demands, they add another one, like Fruit-Roll-Ups Tuesdays. Gaetz said he knows swamps since he’s from Florida, and he sure does. There’s nothing swampier than trading your vote for perks.

The Democratic side has stayed loyal with every member voting for Hakeem Jeffries, who’s received more votes than McCarthy all four times. If anything, this shows that Jeffries is a better leader than anyone the GOP side can put up. Nancy Pelosi taught him well.

And that’s just it. When this is finally decided and we have a Republican Speaker of the House, he or she will be the weakest speaker in the history of that elective body. The GOP’s slim majority is being held hostage by 20 members. When this is over, they’ll be able to hold their own hostage again and again. And it’s not like they know how to govern even if they were all on the same page.

A Speaker of the House doesn’t have a mandate if it takes over four votes to win the job.

Why does Kevin McCarthy even want this job? It’s a job of counting votes and he’s shown he can’t do that. He’s shown he can’t babysit these Republicans. He’s shown he can’t do the job he wants so badly. And he’s had since 2018 to rally up these votes. He went into the first vote without having counted them beforehand. Nancy Pelosi never held a vote without first knowing how many she had.

It may not matter who eventually wins the speakership but I hope it’s not McCarthy. I hate to see ass-kissers rewarded. And here, Kevin has kissed every ass put before him and he still isn’t getting what he wants. I also don’t want Jordan to get it because this man helped with an insurrection and in trying to steal an election. Jordan should be facing federal criminal charges for sedition, not chairing committees or being the leader of his caucus.

But I’m pretty sure whoever gets the job is going to burn the place down. They already tried.

Creative note: I wasn’t even thinking of the self-hostage-taking scene in Blazing Saddles when I did this, but Laura, one of my copy editors, mentioned it to me after seeing this and a reader tweeted it at me. Now, I kinda wish I had made the hostage taker and hostage one elephant.

Music note: I listened to The Toadies.

Facebook Suspension Update: There are 8 days left (I forgot to update this part over the past few days), so it says, in my Facebook suspension for typing the word “Taliban.” Quannah had a countdown clock for it, but it broke.

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