In the wee hours of Saturday, the wee Republicans finally voted in a way that the wee-est of them all, Kevin McCarthy, could become Speaker of the House. Having made extraordinary concessions to the crazies and government saboteurs on the extreme right, McCarthy got what he wanted on the 15th ballot after midnight.
But McCarthy will be a weak speaker, leaving himself constantly vulnerable to being voted out by the right-wing extremists. Imagine this: He agreed to the reinstatement of a longstanding House rule that would allow any single member to call a vote to oust him from office. Other rules changes will give rank-and-file lawmakers more influence in drafting, passing and killing legislation. The debacle that finally ended in the wee hours was a preview of things to come. Maryland Rep. Andy Harris and other members of the House Freedom Caucus, the ones who opposed McCarthy’s candidacy for most of a week, apparently want a Congress that is dysfunctional or obstructionist. “Washington and Congress are broken,” Harris tweeted Friday afternoon, as if he had not had a hand in that very thing.
Two years to the day that the Capitol was attacked by Trump crazies who wanted to stop the vote to certify Joe Biden’s electoral victory, Harris and his colleagues have established a kind of permanent insurrection against the normal functions of democracy. Imagine being elected to represent thousands of Americans in a congressional district, then going to Washington to do nothing and see that the rest of government does as little as possible. The fact is that Republicans want nothing to do with governing because they don’t know how. They want power without the responsibilities that go with it. They want a democracy that stands still or, worse, regresses into anarchy. Stand by, expect the worst.
Dan Rodricks 
It gets even worse. MD QQP elected Harris’ wife to chair its GQP Committee. Talk about a conflict of interest. Harris is a traitor, do nothing, who tried to overturn our democracy. Now that we don’t have those detectors at the House chamber door he can freely carry his gun into that chamber. Loser to the nth degree. Am ashamed to be living in his district.
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McCarthy thanked Trump in accepting the speakership. I suspect that one of the concessions demanded of him was exactly this. Clearly, the most important person in the world to mccarthy, indeed the only important person, is Mccarthy himself. He has the spine and moral compass of an earthworm. ( not that I have anything against earthworms in particular)
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It has now become crystal-clear that anyone who votes Republican is a hater—a hater of reason, of government for the good of the people and of the principles on which the founding of our country was based. There is little hope for the survival of our democracy if Republicans of the ilk seen in this Congress continue to be elected. And so long as there are still many millions of voters who support the lies of the true enemy of the people, Trump, we will be plagued by these haters.
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Absolutely.
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My feelings exactly, Dan. I was sickened by the performance of the republicans. Elect clowns, get a circus.
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How did our government ever get to this point? One word-Trump. Next question: How did a person like Trump, ever become president of the United State of America. I will never figure that out.
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Dan,
you hit the nail on the head on this one, AS USUAL
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Other than voting in the next election, what can “We the people” do? Seems as if we pay their big salaries and yet have so little power to kick out the corrupt politicians.
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