Crazy Seat at the Table

We’re going to start today’s blog with a little civics lesson. You’ll want to pay extra attention if you’re a MAGAt, and extra extra attention if you’re a Republican in Congress.

Despite what Senator Tommy Tuberville believes, the House and Senate are NOT two of the three branches of the federal government. Together, they are one of the three branches. For a bill to make it to the president’s desk for him to sign or veto, it first has to pass both chambers (the House and Senate) of Congress. And before that, both chambers have to resolve their differences in the bill.

For example, the House will pass a bill on the defense budget that will contain items the Senate won’t agree on, and vice versa. So what they do is, they form a conference committee where members of both chambers will get together, resolve the differences, and then send the bill back to their respective chambers for passage. Typically, the members of conference committees are members of the committees in their respective chambers that deal with the issues in the bill. For funding the Department of Defense, those members would come from the House and Senate Armed Services Committees. Guess who is NOT on the House Armed Services Committee.

Marjorie Taylor Greene vowed on Thursday not to vote yes on the $886 billion bill funding the Defense Department. Her “red line” was money going to Ukraine because she’s a Putin-loving stooge who hates freedom and democracies. Despite not getting funding for Ukraine removed from the bill, she voted yes on Friday. What happened overnight to change her vote? Did she suddenly find principles? Did she realize she should support democracies over fascist dictatorships? Did she accept a bribe? Yes. She accepted a bribe, one from House Speaker Kevin McCarthy.

Funding the Defense Department, which always includes pay raises for the troops (and despite what the GOP claims, even in Obama years), passes with bipartisan support. Representatives and Senators quibble over this and that, but everyone votes yet because nobody wants to be that guy or lady who votes against the troops. It’s one reason why our defense spending is astronomically out of control. We have warehouses of tanks we will never use. We currently have 11 nuclear-powered aircraft carriers which is the most in the world while France comes in second with just one. This year’s budget for military spending is $886 billion, which is more than the next ten highest-spending nations combined. Way more. China, the nation with the second-highest defense budget, spends less than $300 billion. By the way, President Biden asked for less than $886 billion. Republicans increased this.

This year’s budget, the National Defense Authorization Act, passed the House Armed Services Committee easily (58-1), but then the fucknut brigade came along and added all sorts of crazy culture war bullshit, like restrictions to abortion access, banning transgender health services, ending diversity training for military personnel, and even a rule against flying Pride flags. With all this right-wing homophobic women-hating crap in the bill, support from the Democrats vanished while members of the Putin-loving Goon (Freedom) Caucus were refusing to vote for it because of funding for Ukraine. That meant Speaker Kevin McCarthy needed as many votes as possible to pass the bill, so he made a deal with Marjorie Taylor Greene, who he’s already made some really bad deals with.

For Marjorie’s vote, Kevin promised her a seat on the Conference Committee despite the fact she’s not a member of the Armed Services Committee and the other fact that she’s an insane racist antisemitic Qanon conspiracy theory-spreading goon who enjoys stalking her Democratic colleagues and survivors of school shootings. Marjorie shouldn’t even be on any committees and was removed from all of them when Democrats controlled the House because she had endorsed terrorism. She’s a vile and horrible person. She’s rancid.

Despite being booted from the Goon Caucus, she still wants what they want. She still wants to defund all support for Ukraine but she voted yes anyway because she wanted a seat at the big table.

On Thursday night, Marjorie spoke of the bill and said, “I’d love to vote for it, but it still has my red line, and that was funding for Ukraine.” On Friday, she said, “Well, that’s what we do here. We negotiate. This is just moving the bill, which has so many good things in it, to the next phase — where I can actually have a bigger voice.” Except she didn’t negotiate anything for her yes vote other than a seat. Nothing in the bill changed. She gave her vote for a seat on a committee where she doesn’t belong.

MTG said she didn’t like to consider her vote “a deal.” OK, let’s not call it a deal. Let’s call it a bribe. Last Tuesday, McCarthy held a Washington fundraiser for Greene, courting big bucks from corporations and K Street lobbyists. Lobbyists had to pay $500 to MTG’s campaign just to get in the door which probably led down to a sewer. To be labeled a host, each PAC paid $2,500 while individual lobbyists gave over $1,000 for host status. Drain the swamp my ass.

Now on the conference committee to shape the bill, MTG can make sure there’s no funding for Gazpacho Police and that there’s room in the budget for fighting Jewish Space Lasers. Maybe she can also fund a study to prove that 9/11 was orchestrated by the U.S. government and that January 6 never happened. Maybe she can find funding to build a memorial to white nationalist insurrectionists.

Marjorie Taylor Greene shouldn’t even be in Congress, yet Kevin McCarthy is putting her in important positions where she doesn’t belong. This proves that neither McCarthy nor Greene have principles. McCarthy’s only concern about being Speaker of the House is that he is the Speaker and MTG can’t even prove to be loyal to the crazy fucknut Qanon conspiracy theories she believes in.

Nobody takes Marjorie Taylor Greene seriously…and nobody should see Kevin McCarthy that way either.

Music note: I listened to Foo Fighters

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