If the fringe runs Congress, it’s likely to be a terrible outcome
Reply to Gaetz’s Question on the 2021 January 6 Flare Activist Reaction – What will the GOP do if Mr. McCarthy drops out of the race?
If McCarthy drops out of the race or is forced to compromise with his party, Republicans could come around to Steve Scalise, the popular conservative who is McCarthy’s top deputy. Republicans may eventually start to look at other options if McCarthy isn’t defeated, despite the resolve from his supporters to vote for him.
Representative Matt Gaetz of Florida asked Mr. Scalise about comments he made on a private conference call days after the Jan. 6, 2021 riot, in which he agreed with Mr. McCarthy that Mr. Gaetz’s comments about conservatives he deemed insufficiently loyal to Mr. Trump had been dangerous and “potentially illegal.”
Two people familiar with the exchange, who are not named, say Mr. Scalise apologized and said he should have waited until he had more facts to say.
The turmoil underscored how Republicans were toiling to find a path forward after disappointing midterm results, and still grappling with the influence of Mr. Trump and his election lies on their party, including the fallout from the Jan. 6 attack. It came as former Vice President Mike Pence made his most scathing comments yet about Mr. Trump’s actions during the assault on the Capitol, and as Mr. Trump himself, who has received an unusual torrent of internal blame for the string of midterm losses by candidates he had handpicked, geared up for an expected announcement on Tuesday night that he would run for president again.
The conditions that provoked and empowered that small group of political opportunists on the right are only possible because of the ex-president’s poisoned legacy. The small Republican majority gives extremists great leverage, and McCarthy only has to lose four GOP votes to be speaker.
Representative Tom Cole said it was going to be a narrow one. “It makes it really critical that you’ve got somebody with superb political skills. Someone that knows what goes on in this conference.
If Mr. McCarthy does have a plan, he has not shared it with members of his leadership team, whom he has cut out of his deliberations about the speakership race in what some regard as a display of paranoia. Instead, he has been spotted in recent days around the Capitol and the Republican National Committee headquarters nearby with Jeff Miller, a Republican lobbyist who is among his closest confidants.
Mr. Norman, who has described himself as a “hard no” against Mr. McCarthy, declined to discuss his call with Mr. Trump, describing it as a “private conversation.” He said he was not certain who to support for speaker. Mr. Crane wasn’t willing to speak to any of the people asking for comment.
When Nancy Pelosi in 2018 found herself about a dozen votes short of what she would need to secure the speaker’s gavel, she quietly picked off defectors, methodically cutting deals to capture exactly enough support to prevail. Ms. Pelosi won seven votes by agreeing to limit her tenure, eight by promising to implement rules that would foster more bipartisan legislating, and one by giving her a subcommittee chairmanship in order to win over her sole challenger.
The Republican of California made a number of pledges to appease the right side of his party. He traveled to the southern border and called on Alejandro N. Mayorkas, the homeland security secretary, to resign or face potential impeachment proceedings. He promised that she’d get a position on the Oversight Committee since she was stripped of her committee assignments for making violent and conspiratorial social media posts.
He has threatened to investigate the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack at the Capitol, promising to hold public hearings scrutinizing the security breakdowns that occurred. He has been quietly meeting with ultraconservative lawmakers in an effort to win them over. He encouraged his members to vote against the spending bill.
The speaker’s race is still undecided and Mr. McCarthy said before the elections that he did not see grounds for impeaching any of the officials. Mr. Biggs dismissed Mr. McCarthy’s more recent threat against the homeland security secretary.
Republicans took control of the House in a fair and democratic election. But their far smaller-than-expected majority is offering extra leverage to the kind of pro-Trump extremists many voters appeared to reject in last year’s midterms.
The Californian, who has lost a stunning 11 consecutive House roll call votes in his bid to become speaker, was the first major GOP leader to embrace ex-President Donald Trump after the January 6, 2021, insurrection.
McCarthy was trying to make the decision sound high-minded and security-conscious. But it was precisely the opposite of that. The just-elected speaker couldn’t run away from his own recorded vows of vengeance.
The bipartisan framework agreement: How much should we tell the public? A question of McCarthy, Biden, Fuentes, and other Republicans
It’s important because the bipartisan framework agreement for which it was announced Tuesday night is so critical because it could dump a fiscal crisis on the lap of a weak and easily manipulated new.
So showing voters in 2024 that GOP governance addressed key problems like inflation and the economy will be important. McCarthy has announced that he will form a select committee to examine Chinas growing threat, but he has focused on the ongoing investigations of the Biden administration and conservatives’ interest in throwing Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas out.
Asked by CNN’s Manu Raju on Tuesday about Greene’s latest inflammatory comments, McCarthy shrugged them off: “Oh, I think she said she was being facetious,” the possible future speaker answered. His attitude was not a surprise; it was consistent with his attempts to rewrite the history of the worst attack on US democracy in modern times, for which he briefly said Trump bore responsibility.
The same dynamic played out when McCarthy wouldn’t criticize the president for meeting with white supremacist Nick Fuentes, who has made antisemitic comments, at a dinner also featuring Ye, the rappers who recently made antisemitic comments. After a meeting with Biden and other congressional leaders last month, the Republican leader lied to the White House that Trump had condemned Fuentes four times.
Roy and 12 other Republicans sent a letter to GOP senators on Monday saying that if the government funding bill passes, they would oppose and whip against “any legislative priority of those senators who vote for this bill.” McCarthy said they had agreed in their letter. If the American people have their way, the bills that are nearly $2T will be dead in the House if they are allowed to move forward.
The split will likely cause future tensions between McConnell and Republicans in the House, and it will make it harder for some GOP senators to vote for a spending deal now.
One thing the California Republican does have going for his dreams of the top job is the fact that there so far is not a strong alternative to his candidacy. The former head of the Freedom Caucus is starting a long-shot bid.
Reply to Comment on ‘What can I do about the North Dakota Republican Speaker of the House and what we can do to make it better”
“This is a lot of unfinished business this year that they would have to take care of next year and I know from having been over there, that wouldn’t be easy, especially when you’ have a narrow majority.”
“We’re enduring the silly season of a campaign. For most of us, that’s over after you get elected. But he’s running for speaker of the House, so the silliness is still evident,” he said.
Four days before the House speaker vote, he tried to get his critics to support him, despite the fact that they were notcommittal about their support in the first place.
The group has used the leverage they have in the razor-thin Republican majority to extract concessions. McCarthy has already given in to a number of their demands, including making it easier to topple the sitting speaker, but so far his efforts have not been enough, and
But now with just one day to go, a group of at least nine Republicans have made clear that they’re still not sold – despite McCarthy’s warning and even after he gave in to some of their most ardent demands, which he outlined during a Sunday evening conference call.
What can McCarthy do? Mr. McCarthy has made several concessions to try to win over the hard-liners, embracing measures that would weaken the speakership and that he had previously refused to support. But so far the concessions have not been enough to corral the votes he needs.
We are getting ready for a fight. Not the way we want to start out in our new majority, but you can’t really negotiate against the position of ‘give us everything we ask for and we won’t guarantee anything in return,’” The North Dakota Republican is a member of the Republican Governance Group.
I give Kevin a lot of credit. He’s brought everyone in and worked really hard to figure out a way forward. A way to make the place run better. But I get the feeling that not everyone is negotiating in good faith.”
McCarthy worked the phones with both critics and supporters to find consensus on rule changes that were designed to win over holdouts.
Reply to the Conference Call on McCarthy’s Compromise to Keeping the Speaker of the U.S. House Minority Free Trade Commission
He can only afford to lose four votes on the House floor, and so far, at least five Republicans have vowed to oppose him, with nearly a dozen other GOP lawmakers publicly saying they’re still not there yet.
Lawmakers worked on the rules package over the weekend. Ultimately, McCarthy informed Republicans on the conference-wide call Sunday evening that he agreed to the five-person threshold on the motion to vacate – which he billed as a “compromise.”
McCarthy sent a letter to all of his fellow Republicans asking them to support him for speaker and also put out a final rules package, which included additional promises about how he would govern as speaker.
Following that secret ballot vote, where McCarthy won 188-31, a bloc of five “hard no” votes strategically began to trickle out their public statements of opposition. More pressure was put on the Republican leader to cut a deal after an additional group made their demands known in a letter.
Gaetz responded to the former President’s endorsement with a statement that seemed to mock Trump’s own rhetoric. “Sad!” Gaetz said something. “This changes neither my view of McCarthy, nor Trump, nor my vote.”
Congressional Campaign against the Judicial Referendum for Kevin McCarthy: “Compromises haven’t changed a bit in the last few years”
They still want a single member to be able to call for a vote to topple the speaker and they want a commitment from leadership that they won’t play in primaries.
“Thus far, there continue to be missing specific commitments with respect to virtually every component of our entreaties, and thus, no means to measure whether promises are kept or broken,” the letter, obtained by CNN, states.
The South Carolina district offices have been flooded with calls from people who have received calls warning them that if McCarthy is elected speaker the state could be in trouble. It was revealed to CNN by Norman’s aide that some McCarthy backers went as far as to exert maximum pressure on detractors in order to sway the congressman’s position.
McCarthy supporters have also contemplated using hardball tactics, including trying to kick critics off their committees if they don’t fall in line and threatening to team up with Democrats to elect a more moderate speaker. The group began wearing “O.K.” buttons around the Capitol, which is a joke at McCarthy’s expense.
In phone calls and text messages during the holidays, McCarthy’s defenders vowed to him and each other they wouldn’t let a handful of members control their conference.
The Republican governance group leader told CNN that the speaker’s fight was holding them up because people wanted to work. “I have people who say they don’t care if it is 500 times, they are voting for Kevin. There is only one other person.
The Freedom Caucus has been divided over McCarthy, but they are more practiced in playing hardball.
The Battle to Obstruct a Democratic Speaker: The Case Against McCarthy and the Stability of the House Against Adversarial Crimes
The committee in charge of administrative matters sent a letter last week outlining the practical implications and pitfalls of a drawn-out speaker’s fight. A memo said that committees won’t be able to pay staff if the House Rules package isn’t approved.
The same memo said that student loan payments wouldn’t be made if a rules package isn’t adopted by mid-January.
Two of them, Reps. Lauren Boebert and Matt Gaetz of Florida, are leaders in the fight to block McCarthy. The speakership stalemate is a sign of the turmoil within the GOP after the far-right forced out two previous speakers. It suggests the new GOP House majority will be perennially dysfunctional and – given the capacity of a few lawmakers to grind the chamber to a halt at any moment – chaotic political crises are likely to dominate the next two years.
Is there an alternative to McCarthy? Republicans could coalesce around someone else if no viable candidate emerged to challenge Mr. McCarthy. Many see Steve Scalise, the second ranking Republican in the House, as the most obvious backup.
Even with the race far from settled, boxes from McCarthy’s office were spotted by CNN being moved into the speaker’s suite last week – a standard protocol, but a sign he’s committed to seeking the job.
“It is a bizarre game of chicken where both sides have ripped the steering wheel off the dashboard and are just going pedal to the metal,” one member said of the ongoing standoff between pro- and anti-McCarthy factions.
McCarthy and his allies are holding active discussions about adjourning the House until Thursday – but it is uncertain if that would be possible because they may not have the votes to pull it off, according to multiple sources.
Voting to adjourn would require votes, and Democratic sources say they would whip against a motion to adjourn. Some Republicans would probably vote against it as well.
The tidal tide of McCarthy’s discontent: A case study of the late night comedy club in the House on C-SPAN
Two GOP sources familiar with the matter said McCarthy’s allies were panicking on Tuesday after the former president gave a tepid response to NBC News when asked about his support for McCarthy. The former president also declined to issue a statement Monday reiterating his endorsement of McCarthy despite a behind-the-scenes effort from several McCarthy allies to get Trump to do so, two sources said.
The opposition to McCarthy is personal and there may be little he can do to reverse the tide, according to a member.
As the votes stretched on Tuesday, the situation appeared to become even more dire for McCarthy, as the vote count in opposition to his speaker bid grew.
The tally for the first ballot in the speaker vote was 203 for McCarthy, with 19 Republicans voting for other candidates. The tally for the second ballot was 203 votes for McCarthy with 19 votes for GOP Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio. In the third round, 202 votes were cast for McCarthy and 20 for Jordan, with Donalds joining 19 other GOP senators who had voted against McCarthy.
The person said that Trump had made calls on McCarthy’s behalf over the last 24 hours in an effort to break the conservative blockade against him.
Long a staunch Trump ally, Gaetz’s refusal to bow to Trump’s desire for a McCarthy speakership raises new questions about the former president’s dwindling influence over Republicans in the midst of his third presidential campaign.
When you watch the unfolding drama in the House on C-SPAN, you’ve likely noticed that the camera shots are different from the usual wide-pans used in the show.
Usually, the House forbids independent media coverage of proceedings, meaning that networks must rely on a government feed for coverage. But when there are special events taking place in the House, such as the election for speaker, independent coverage is allowed.
He said it would be great if we were able to provide this kind of coverage when the speaker election and other more ceremonial functions of Congress took place. Some day cameras should be allowed more frequently than they are now.
The House chamber sounded like a heckler-filled late night comedy club, when Georgia Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor got up and yelled “liar” at Biden. New House Speaker Kevin McCarthy was seen trying to shush his ruder lawmakers, but he was among those Republicans who voted not to certify Biden’s 2020 election victory over false claims of fraud. McCarthy hugged ex- President Donald Trump after he claimed to have been the victim of a stolen election. He appeased elements of his party to get into power last month.
The image of seeing the two next to each other is striking: The House voted to censure Gosar and remove him from committees in November 2021 after Gosar photoshopped an anime video to social media showing him appearing to kill Ocasio-Cortez and attacking President Joe Biden.
Why not have journalists behind the cameras instead of the government? A critical assessment of C-SPAN and the Democrat’s Ben O’Connell
“We are able to show Paul Gosar and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez sitting down and speaking to one another. Ben O’Connell told me that C-SPAN was able to show Matt Gaetz and Jim Jordan before the next votes. “We are able to show scrums of members migrate across the floor as negotiations go on. You don’t see that during standard coverage.”
C-SPAN wants to be able to do this much more often. The organization has petitioned Congress numerous times in order to have more control over the cameras it uses.
“I think it is really important for journalists to be behind the cameras rather than the government be behind the cameras,” O’Connell added. There is a government entity during a legislative day. And I think it would be invaluable to have journalists behind the camera instead.”
Gingrich was elevated and humiliated by the Democratic speaker after he was chastised by the House Speaker for showing the full empty chamber.
The Two Years of Washington, DC, Capitol Insurrection: The Victims of the January 6 Incident, A CNN Editor’s Note
Editor’s Note: Michael Fanone, a former Washington, DC police officer who was injured during the January 6 riot at the US Capitol, is the author of a memoir, “Hold the Line: The Insurrection and One Cop’s Battle for America’s Soul.” He is a CNN law enforcement analyst. The opinions expressed here are his own. Read more opinion at CNN.
The incoming GOP House leadership must find the backbone to condemn political violence and hateful rhetoric incited by members of their own party. And that starts with finally denouncing Trump, who remains to this day the Republican Party’s de facto leader. The incoming Speaker and the House leadership needs to make sure that members of their own party never amplify language or take actions that endanger their lives or the lives of other people.
This week marks two years since I almost died defending the US Capitol from armed insurrectionists who tried to overthrow the government, so they will be getting no sympathy from me. Two years ago, the violent insurrectionists who attacked the Capitol almost took my life ignored my pleas that I have kids.
And that’s just to name a few examples. Without long overdue intervention by Republican top brass, the frightening trend towards violent rhetoric seems certain to continue.
Millions of Americans believe the use of force will be justified to restore Trump to the presidency, thanks to the conspiracists’ large swath of the public on their side. It’s important to reverse this dangerous trend.
There has been no shortage of such reprehensible behavior in recent months, starting with McCarthy himself. McCarthy, the GOP leader, once denounced then- President Trump for his role in the Capitolriots, but then turned around and blamed the rioters. He traveled to Mar-a-Lago in order to appease the defeated President and the election deniers in his own caucus.
Since then, influential GOP House members have called the January 6 assault a “normal tourist visit.” On Holocaust Remembrance Day, some people called for Nancy Pelosi to die for treason and shared antisemitic messages.
I had hoped, as many others did, that outrage and horror over the insurrection would encourage Americans to unify around what should be a shared belief – that political violence has no place in our society. Republican leaders have a responsibility to join other Americans who repudiate such behavior and the former president who inspired it.
Many of her rightwing allies in the House have promoted the baseless, unhinged conspiracy theory around “grooming.” Small wonder, in the wake of such outlandish statements, that irate protesters are overrunning story hour at their local libraries, and calling for the banning of books from neighborhood schools.
There are a lot of recent acts of violence that appear to have been started by right-wing rhetoric. MAGA rhetoric fueled the attack at the home of former Speaker Pelosi and the vandalization last month – allegedly by anti-LGBTQ activists – of the homes of three New York council members over opposition to drag queen story hour at libraries in the city.
Rep. Matt Gaetz encouraged voters to arm themselves at polls, and armed intimidation did take place as voters cast their ballots. Research has even shown that MAGA Republicans are more likely than others – including GOP moderates – to endorse violence as usually or always justified to advance their political objectives. And after agents searched Mar-a-Lago, Twitter posts threatening the FBI saw a dramatic spike.
Over-the-top rhetoric by GOP lawmakers is troubling enough. Unfortunately their extremist views also have been all-too-evident in their voting records. Some members of congress voted against the results of the 2020 election while others voted against the creation of the January 6th Commission.
There were 21 Republican members who voted against me receiving a presidential medal of freedom for my role in defending the Capitol during the insurrection.
It will surprise some people who did not know me before January 6, but I have never considered myself a political person. I was turned off by the anti- police rhetoric of the left and voted for Trump.
I went to the last election to oppose some Trump-inspired candidates I thought posed a danger to democracy. I don’t believe in politicians, I believe in people. Two new groups are demanding sanity and accountability from our politicians.
This week, at an event calling on lawmakers to ramp up the fight against political violence, I’ll join veterans, members of Congress, and the group Courage for America, (which I’ve helped to found and have a leadership role in). Courage for America and Common Defense are joining forces in order to fight the kind of right-wing violence that nearly took my life. The planned venue for the event is the Capitol reflecting pool, where just two years ago, MAGA supporters erected a noose which they threatened they’d use to hang the nation’s Vice President, amid chants by the rioters of ”
hang Mike Pence.”
Is the Leftist Left Behind? Investigating the Left and the Right During the War of 1812-1613 with Julian Zelizer
I was a bit of a trouble maker as a kid and law enforcement was the perfect spot for a rambunctious kid without a clear sense of direction. Becoming a cop taught me to stand up for what’s right, and being an investigator taught me to keep revising and refining the conclusions I drew, as I gathered additional information.
Even though my kids were surrounded by protesters, all I could see were their faces.
I want them to be able to live in a country where elected officials are accountable to the people they serve. Condemning political violence isn’t a partisan issue. It’s a moral one.
Editor’s Note: Julian Zelizer, a CNN political analyst, is a professor of history and public affairs at Princeton University. He is the author and editor of 24 books, including his forthcoming co-edited work, “Myth America: Historians Take on the Biggest Lies and Legends About Our Past” (Basic Books). Follow him on Twitter @julianzelizer. The views he talks about are his own. You can get more opinion on CNN.
We see that in the group of 20 or so members of Congress who are now refusing to support McCarthy. They are happy holding out, despite major concessions from McCarthy. They were willing to go as far as shutting down the government and causing the nation into financial default if McCarthy refused to raise the debt ceiling. In 2011, Tea Party Republicans held the debt ceiling hostage to extract spending cuts from President Barack Obama – this time, Republicans like Norman are going even further by refusing to even negotiate, calling it a “non-negotiable.”
While there is still plenty of time for Trump to turn things around, he has already changed the landscape of American politics. Trump has accelerated the radicalization of the GOP, some of whom are hellbent on playing by their own rules and extract extreme concessions, even if it comes at the cost of the party and the ability of government.
The leader who welcomed them into the fold becomes even more extreme than the one who initially welcomed them. This is what led Boehner to later blast Republicans like Jim Jordan as “legislative terrorists.” They were the rebels and he had become the establishment.
Though they did not heed Trump’s instructions, the rebels relied on his playbook, wrote Julian Zelizer: “A significant part of Trump’s influence was his nihilistic attitude of political combat. He helped to spur a younger, more extreme cohort to step up and demand power. It seems these burn-down-the-house conservatives will do almost anything in pursuit of victory and believe – like Trump – that chaos, instability, and hyper-divisiveness have great political value. And now some of these Trump loyalists might be close to concluding that they no longer need him – or at the very least, they no longer need to follow his every move.”
As for Trump, his very influence could end up playing a role in his defeat. He is unable to sway votes on Capitol Hill, so he is going to have to face a bunch of politicians, like Florida’s Gov. Ron DeSantis or former US Ambassador to the UN Haley, who are capable of presenting a more polished version of Trumpism. Voters might want to choose someone other than Donald Trump as the next president because the GOP is now full of Trumpian Republicans who are running with his ideas.
Does Kevin McCarthy Really Want to Win? The Case for a Revolutionary America in the First Day of the Infamous Attack on the Capitol
Kevin McCarthy is the latest Republican leader to find out that it’s impossible to get ahead of his party’s inexorable march to its far-right extremes.
On Friday the second anniversary of the worst attack on American Democracy in the modern era, he found out that even though his career-enhancement bet was likely to get him some votes in the chaos wing of the GOP, he wasn’t going to be able to get any of Trump’
In another surreal scene on the Hill this week, one of those Republicans, Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene – who has downplayed the insurrection and said rioters would have “won” if she was in charge – is complaining about the extremism of some of her colleagues who oppose McCarthy.
In the aftermath of the attack on the US Capitol, there are strong political incentives for politicians to disrupt the ex president in his image.
Circus style politics that Trump built on is back in full force because he no longer is in the White House. The GOP can’t take power in the form of a government because they can’t be sworn in before a leader is chosen.
It was a result of the ex-presidents false claims of voter fraud and the party failing, that the narrow margin was created.
After a humiliating three-day stretch of 11 consecutive defeats in an election that is now the most protracted such contest since 1859, Mr. McCarthy dispatched his emissaries Thursday night to finalize terms with the ultraconservative rebels, including agreeing to conditions he had previously refused to countenance in an effort to sway a critical mass of defectors.
According to Boebert the country was watching democracy in action, even though McCarthy racked up around 200 votes from his conference and his radical opponents only managed to get 20. (The defections made it impossible for McCarthy to get a majority of the House’s support since Democrats backed their own leader, Hakeem Jeffries, who routinely got more votes than McCarthy, but also short of 218).
“This is not chaos. This is a constitutional republic at work. This is actually a really beautiful thing,” Boebert said. She’s correct in that the messiness unfolding on the floor is based on rules and procedures – the most basic elements of governing that Trump had sought to disrupt with his efforts to overturn the certification of the 2020 Electoral College votes.
The Right-Wing Refidahls: Defending Kevin McCarthy in the 2020 House District Court Apportionment Election
The reality of the rebels behavior is the basis of her arguments. Many other Republicans have complained that it is not clear exactly what concessions the group around Gaetz, who have vowed to never support McCarthy, actually want.
“This ends one of two ways: Either Kevin McCarthy withdraws from the race, or we construct a straitjacket that he is unable to evade,” Gaetz, who cast his vote in the seventh round for Trump, told reporters on Thursday.
In other words, the most extreme hardliners will only accept a candidate that shares their no-compromise, Nihilistic form of politics that effectively makes governing impossible.
In many ways, these demands are the culmination of anti-establishment, anti-government forces first unleashed decades ago by former House Speaker Newt Gingrich’s 1994 Republican revolution. They were the founding fathers of the anti-Washington Tea Party movement. As President, Trump brought down the institutions of government and accountability from the inside as he drove out much of the governing wing of the GOP.
Brian Fitzpatrick, a McCarthy ally, said he was confident of a solution that could be found soon.
The rule that would codify a standing threat of removal of the speaker was included, as it would allow a single lawmaker to force a snap vote at any time.
The detractors are who? The 20 House Republicans who are voting against Mr. McCarthy include some of the chamber’s most hard-right lawmakers. Most denied the results of the 2020 presidential election, and almost all are members of the ultraconservative Freedom Caucus.
What are they interested in? The right-wing rebellion against Mr. McCarthy is rooted not just in personal animosity, but also an ideological drive. The holdouts want to drastically limit the size, scope and reach of the federal government, and overhaul the way Congress works to make it easier to do so.
Hakeem Jeffries: a man of many virtues who defends America, his legacy and the legacy of his 1993 speech to the House of Representatives
Dean Obeidallah, who was an attorney, is the host of the daily program on the radio. Follow him @[email protected]. The opinions expressed in this commentary are his own. CNN has more opinion on it.
Far more memorable was the speech that followed, delivered by House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries before he handed the speaker’s gavel to McCarthy in a display of the peaceful transfer of power.
If only we had a speaker who could do the same, then Jeffries would unapologetically defend American values and our democratic republic.
McCarthy promised that the first bill will repeal funding for 87,000 new IRS agents. After speaking to reporters in the congress, he said that Donald Trump was the cause of the Capitol attack.
Jeffries has consistently lived up to his first name, Hakeem — which translates from Arabic into a “wise” or “learned” person seen as a fountain of deep knowledge. The lawmaker from New York City is Baptist but Muslim. His Saturday speech was the most recent example of his wisdom.
In the House chamber, the first Black leader of a major party said that America’s diversity is not a weakness. He offered his hand of partnership to the Republicans, saying they could try to find common ground whenever and wherever possible.
Yet Jeffries vowed that Democrats will “never compromise our principles.” The Democratic leader listed each principle in a row from A to Z, the most impressive part of his speech.
He said Democrats would always put American values over autocracy, benevolence, bigotry, the Constitution over the cult, democracy over demagogues, freedom over fascists, and hope over hatred. …”
Jeffries began with an alphabetical list of what Democrats will defend and reject:quality of life issues, reason over racism, substance over slander, triumph over tyranny, understanding over ugliness and voter suppression.
Source: https://www.cnn.com/2023/01/08/opinions/hakeem-jeffries-speech-kevin-mccarthy-obeidallah/index.html
When McCarthy stepped up to Trump to apologize for the attack on the House of Representative Correlator Xenial over xenophobia
He sent people Googling the definition of one word when he reached the letter X and said, “xenial over xenophobia.” xenial means warm, welcoming, and hospitable.
The House GOP leader understands these threats. After the attack on Congress a week later, the House speaker took to the floor and said that the President was to blame. He should have immediately denounced the mob that he saw.
But fast-forward to the day after the two-year anniversary of the January 6 attack. Minutes after leaving the House, the newly elected speaker paid tribute to Trump.
I want to thank Trump a lot. McCarthy said that anyone should doubt his influence and that he was with him from the beginning. … So, thank you, President Trump.”
Thank you to the man who refused to accept losing the election and whose words and actions inspired his supporters to attack the Capitol? That’s not what the speaker of the House should be saying.
These words are meaningless as McCarthy has a record of flip-flops on key issues, most notably standing up to Trump on January 6 in order to remain silent over the lies by GeorgeSantos.
The CNN Insider’s View of Frederick Huntington Gillett, Speaker and Whiff of the Causal House, 1923-2019 January 6, 2021
Editor’s Note: Sign up to get this weekly column as a newsletter. We are looking at the best, smartest opinions from CNN and other outlets.
The model of a New England gentleman was Frederick Huntington Gillett. Educated at Amherst College and Harvard Law School, he glided through 16 terms in the US House. The reporter joked that Gillett would refuse coffee in the morning for fear it would keep him awake.
His inoffensiveness may even have been an asset in winning the support of his Republican colleagues for House Speaker in 1919 and 1921. But in 1923, a small group of progressive Republicans blocked Gillett, denying him victory until the ninth ballot, which came after party leaders agreed to rule changes giving rank-and-file members more influence.
McCarthy deserves a big share of the blame for the spectacle of a legislative majority spending days trying to organize itself, wrote Jill Filipovic. “McCarthy, who in the early days after the January 6 attack said (President Donald) After Republicans finally elected McCarthy, the author wrote that Trump bore responsibility for it but didn’t support his impeachment, so they are experiencing an all-too-predictable outcome of giving power to the crazy.
“Even if McCarthy manages to squeak out the leadership, a powerful and vocal contingent of his party has publicly humiliated him and expressed their lack of confidence in his control,” she observed.
Will the House Republicans hold America’s credit rating hostage if they don’t raise the debt ceiling? What kind of oversight will they exercise over the Biden administration? Will they block aid to Ukraine? McCarthy can lead but will he be effective?
The speakership drama extended through the second anniversary of January 6, 2021, when rioters stormed the Capitol to try to block the certification of Joe Biden’s election as president. In a striking moment that day, police drew their guns at the door of the House chamber to protect its members, who were later evacuated.
Source: https://www.cnn.com/2023/01/08/opinions/kevin-mccarthy-chaotic-victory-opinion-column-galant/index.html
The Buffalo Bills-Bengals Game Was Stopped on Monday Night Football after Damar Hamlin Collided with a Player
Americans held their breath when Buffalo Bills safety Damar Hamlin collapsed moments after tackling a rival player on Monday Night Football. Hamlin was resuscitated on the field, and by the end of the week he could speak and move his limbs.
Coy Wire, who played for the Bills and the Atlanta Falcons before becoming a journalist, wrote, “I’m reminded of the brutal nature of the sport I love, feeling the physical pains from my nine seasons in the NFL. I have titanium screws in my neck and a titanium plate. I had multiple concussions, including one in Buffalo where I had no recollection of what happened until I watched the game during film sessions the next day. I remember vividly how scary injuries can be.”
“That’s why, as the horrific scene unfolded on Monday night … and as tears came pouring down players’ faces as they prayed … mental wounds were reopened as haunting memories came flooding back in.”
A few hours before Hamlin’s collapse, the former high school and college football player had watched his sons play a game of playground football. “I was talking to another dad who, like me, played college football and has an 8-year-old son (one year older than my oldest). His son is playing full tackle football for the first time this fall. I don’t see how my son can be allowed to hit that early. Maybe ever. I just can’t.”
Jeff Pearlman told the story of Chuck Hughes, the Detroit Lions wide receiver who suffered a fatal heart attack at Tiger Stadium in 1971 and became the only NFL player to die on the field during a game. Less than 10 minutes after Hughes’ body was taken off the field, the game was back on, Pearlman noted. But times are different now. The Bills-Bengals game was halted after Hamlin collapsed.
Source: https://www.cnn.com/2023/01/08/opinions/kevin-mccarthy-chaotic-victory-opinion-column-galant/index.html
Avatar: The Way of Water: A Memorino of Prince Harry and the Prince’s Families (with a Special Introduction)
“If the Russian account is accurate, it was the cell phones that the novice troops were using in violation of regulations that allowed Ukrainian forces to target them most accurately,” Andelman wrote. “The errors by the Russian military are now becoming so blatant, and as the Makiivka attack shows, so deadly to Russian forces, that some of (Russian President Vladimir) The military establishment has begun being turned on by Putin’s apologists.
“Avatar: The Way of Water” may be on its way to earning as much as $2 billion at the box office, but Jeff Yang was wary of going to see director James Cameron’s sequel until his 14-year-old son persuaded him. The first half hour of the “Way of Water” was so good that it overwhelmed my reflexive cynicism, even though I knew it was an actual motion picture.
Audiences and critics will laud the creativity, attention to detail and other aspects of the franchise, but they will probably not know how much of it was pulled from so many parts of the world.
Prince Harry chose to title his new book, publishing Tuesday, “Spare,” after the adage that people in the line of succession need to have “an heir and a spare.”
There is a contradiction between the revelations of the book and the continuing saga of Harry,Meghan and the royal family.
Harry andMeghan decided to leave the family due to their complaints that they didn’t want the attention of the media that comes with being a royal. In an excerpt from an upcoming interview, Harry told ITV: ‘I want a family. Not an institution.
It’s fodder. According to the gossipy allegations made by Harry in the movie, William knocked Harry to the floor and left him scratched and bruised during a physical altercation between the two during which he was the one who encouraged Harry.
“Competition between children is common, and sibling rivalry between brothers even more so, especially when there are just two of them,” noted Drexler, a psychologist. It is certainly not possible for most to be born in families that remind them of their exact place. A lot of works of art have been inspired by brotherly discord, most of them tragedies. Harry is not special, it is one of the commonest dramas of human nature.
CNN’s latest news: Dem Dem Demographers and Senators after the January 4 U.S. Capitol Avacuum Controversy
Editor’s Note: Frida Ghitis, (@fridaghitis) a former CNN producer and correspondent, is a world affairs columnist. She is a weekly opinion contributor to CNN, a contributing columnist to The Washington Post and a columnist for World Politics Review. The views expressed in this commentary are her own. There are more opinions on CNN. The latest news has been reflected in this piece.
There’s a chance that the new leadership in the US House of Representatives would rein in their impulses topoliize, since the war in Ukraine is getting more tense and the US is preventing Russia from gaining an unprovoked war. But no such thing is happening.
Anyone concerned that House Speaker Kevin McCarthy would find it difficult to steer a moderate course after having to compromise with the most extreme members of the Republican Party to win the seat, had their fears confirmed this week when McCarthy announced he was barring key Democrats from the crucial House Select Committee on Intelligence.
A year ago, he pledged that if Republicans became the majority, they would strip Schiff, Swalwell and Democratic Rep. Ilhan Omar of Minnesota from their committees, as payback for what Democrats had done.
The assault on the US Capitol in January was caused by the use of social media accounts belonging to Gosar and Greene, two election deniers who have embraced all manner of crazy conspiracy theories.
The committee had a tradition of bipartisanship until the arrival of Donald Trump and the news that Russia interfered in the election in order to help him get elected.
It also had to delve into Ukraine’s desperate plea for more American weapons to defend against Russia’s assault. Trump was threatening to stop funding from Ukraine if Zelensky didn’t conduct an investigation of Joe Biden, the man he thought could defeat him in 2020.
These were topics that the committee was aware of. Trump had self-serving mishandling of relations with Ukraine that led to his first impeachment.
McCarthy knows what this means. He explained his decision in a letter to Hakeem Jeffries. He said that he can’t put partisan loyalty ahead of national security.
There are some signs of his brittle integrity. Who can forget his denunciation of Trump from the House floor on January 6, followed promptly by a contrite pilgrimage to Mar-a-Lago. Groucho Marx wrote, “If you don’t like them, I have others”, which is a reference to the famous quote.
He forcefully denied the January 6 New York Times story that he said Trump should leave office. He said that the Times report was false and incorrect. Lordy, there is a tape of him saying that.
There were stories about a laptop belonging to the son of the President. The former intelligence committee chief was criticized for paraphrasing the call between Zelensky and Trump. But in his letter, the Speaker justified his decision by accusing Schiff of misusing his position as committee chairman and leaving the country “less safe.”
Schumer spoke out about the move for the first time in a letter to his Senate colleagues. Schumer said in the letter that, “the speaker is needlessly exposing the Capitol complex” and that the disclosure “poses grave security risks to members of Congress and everyone who works on Capitol Hill.”
Because the Intelligence Committee is “select,” the rules allow the speaker to choose or remove members. He needs a lot of support from the House in order to do his job. It was difficult to remove a person who made antisemitic statements from the Foreign Affairs Committee, but that was what he did.
The Case for Political Correctness: The Case of George Santos, a New York Rep. Nick LaLota, in the White House
After a frenzied week in Washington, it’s good to see who is on the side of the Democrats and who is on the side of the Republicans.
The GOP used the national television audience to back up the hardline “Make America Great Again” base strategy pushed by Trump, who was press secretary in the White House. But her strategy did not come in isolation. For many conservatives, liberal policies on social, economic and foreign policy may well be viewed as “crazy.” And Democrats have had their own issues with extremists in recent years, including left-wingers who once called for “defunding the police” – a position that turned into a huge political liability for their party in successive elections.
The distraction of George Santos, a New York congressman who was caught lying about his education, job resume, and family background, is complicating the situation for the new House majority. His fellow New York Republican, freshman Rep. Nick LaLota, told CNN on Wednesday, “Every time I have to come to something like this and talk about George Santos, I can’t talk about what Republicans ought to be doing instead.”
Meanwhile, new Republican-led oversight hearings – including one on Wednesday apparently designed to prove that some combination of Twitter, the FBI and Biden stole the 2020 election – have further erased the line between conservative opinion TV and governance. The all day session featured histrionic questioning and provoking witnesses, which delighted the GOP base and ran on the right-wing media. It undermined the idea that the FBI ordered the New York Post to hide the fact that a laptop belonged to the president’s son. The first of the series of House hearings into the government’s alleged “weaponization” against conservatives will give the impression that the GOP is trying to build scandals from right-wing talking points.
Party leaders get the chance to burn up vital base voters and make up a general stench of scandal, but they risk alienating moderate voters if they focus their attention on the GOP’s most extreme, media-hungry personalities.
Of course, political normality is in the eye of the beholder. The country is in a left-wing cultural purge because Biden surrendered to a “woke mob that can’t even tell you what a woman is” according to the claims made by the senator.
It would seem to fly in the face of lessons learned in the fall elections when voters rejected far-right extremists, despite the fact that the party often rewards far-right candidates.
Since McCarthy has said that Social Security and Medicare will not be a part of the debt ceiling talks, some Republicans might be upset at Biden’s claim that they want to sunset the programs. McCarthy said on Fox that the State of the Union address was one of the most partisan ones he had ever heard.
But the president again positioned himself as the bulwark between more moderate Americans and the excess of what he has called “ultra MAGA” Republicans – a tactic he used especially successfully in the midterms.
This is the reason Biden went against the radical followers of McCarthy after saying Americans didn’t want to see fighting in Congress.
McCarthy dodged questions from reporters about his opinion on the performance of Greene, despite having a strong political relationship with him. While he had hoped to avoid a public spectacle of extremism with millions watching on TV, his hopes of keeping his job long term rely on radicals like Greene and her wilder colleagues. This narrow grip on power thanks to a minuscule majority is one reason why McCarthy has also not repudiated Santos, who is expected to face a House ethics probe.
Even though she provided Democrats with the exact image they most want to highlight, she did not apologize for her poor manners during Biden’s speech. She said she was “pissed off” and “I don’t clap for liars.” Former Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi told CNN on Tuesday night that Greene’s antics encapsulated a choice for Americans between “chaos” and “stability.”
The party has incivility that not every Republican is tolerant of. Romney toldSantos that he had no place in the House. In his interview with CNN’s Kaitlan Collins, LaLota said that the New York Republican had become distraction from the party’s priorities.
The things that the Republicans want to govern on are put our economy back on the right track, secure the border, and hold the administration accountable.
There is plenty for House Republican chairmen to complain about, including the withdrawal from Afghanistan, the Covid-19 outbreak and the border crisis. If there is a genuine investigation into Biden’s finances it should be done with his son under federal investigation too.
House Oversight Chair James Comer warned of a “coordinated cover-up by Big Tech, the Swamp, and mainstream news” to suppress a story that could hurt Biden.
Former senior officials from Twitter admitted that the social media network made a mistake in suppressing the story – on the grounds that they were worried it was based on the same kind of foreign misinformation that had tainted the 2016 election. But they repeatedly testified that they had received no orders from the FBI to do so, undermining claims by top Republicans that the bureau tried to censor a story that could hurt Biden in the election.
NPR has not independently confirmed Carlson’s team has access to the footage. Both Fox News and McCarthy’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Carlson on his Monday night program said his team was reviewing the security footage. He has been a key figure in spreading false claims related to the siege, including incorrect claims that “antifa” groups or the FBI could be to blame for the attack.
After more than a dozen news outlets, including CNN, sued for access to the videos in 2021, the chief judge of DC federal court ruled that the public has a strong interest in seeing some security footage from the attack. However, these video releases haven’t been automatic or guaranteed. News outlets can request the public release of videos after they are played in open court, on a case-by-case basis.
McCarthy promised to release the footage as part of his bid to be speaker, and he had been specifically demanded by Republican congressman Matt Gaetz. In fact, it was on a lengthy list of demands that Gaetz walked into McCarthy’s office with on the Monday night before the speaker’s vote, according to a GOP source familiar with the list.
U.S. Capitol Police had already shared the security footage with Congress, meaning top congressional leaders and committees can now access and share the tapes.
It is hard to overstate the security risks that would befall the country if this material were used recklessly by Carlson or anyone else, said Tim Mulvey in a statement to CNN.
The Capitol Shouldn’t Open until the Next Day: Rep. B. Thompson’s “Complete Analysis” of the Jan. 6 Capitol Attack
January 6 defendants have access to thousands of hours of unreleased footage from the attack, as well from an online database, but the videos are tightly controlled by a protective order and defendants are not allowed to publicly release the clips.
The public will be able to see the video from the U.S. Capitol interior camera once that camera’s ability to pan, tilt, and zoom is made public.
A new wave of misinformation could be caused by the fact that a Fox News host has access to thousands of hours of security tapes.
He issued the warning after it was reported that Tucker Carlson was given access to 40,000 hours of the House Speaker’s tapes.
Earlier on Wednesday afternoon, House Democrats met virtually for a briefing on the matter, led in part by Mississippi Rep. Bennie Thompson, the former chair of the House Select Committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack, which completed its work in December.
“I’m not comfortable with the knowledge that I have right now that the security interests of the Capitol, the people who work there and the people who visit is protected,” Thompson, now the ranking Democrat on the House Homeland Security panel, said. “There are some items … that should not be made available to the general public.”
Thompson went on to detail the painstaking process the select committee followed during its investigation to access the security footage, and his worries the same procedures aren’t in place today.
“When Congressional Leadership or Congressional Oversight Committees ask for things like this, we must give it to them,” U.S. Capitol Police Chief Tom Manger said in a statement.
I said that the tapes belonged to the American public when I was asked about them. I think sunshine lets everybody make their own judgment,” he told the Times.
Reply to ‘Comment on ‘The Dark Side of the Black Hole” by S.E.C. McCarthy and J.R. Schumer
McCarthy is hoping that outsourcing this work to the media will be a way to appease his right flank without upsetting his moderates and majority makers.
Schumer said in the letter that the video was given to Carlson to show how they want to be seen as something other than the truth.
