In the latest sign of House chaos, the temporary speaker is threatening to quit

farcaster@lemmy.world to politics @lemmy.world – 391 points –
In the latest sign of House chaos, the temporary speaker is threatening to quit
nbcnews.com
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You know the class is bad when the substitute is wanting to leave. Them kids are fuckin rotten.

I was that kid once. In my defence, I was only 11.

We gave a teacher a nervous breakdown once. Age 13 we thought it was hilarious but as an adult I feel very guilty about our collective behaviour.

Not sure what they're called where you are; 'Rio Snappers' here. Little twists of paper with some sort of mild explosive in, you throw 'em at the floor and they go 'SNAP'. Everytime she'd turn to write on the board someone would chuck one, 'SNAP'. Reckon she must've been struggling already and we tipped her over the edge. Her husband was our history teacher and we paid dearly for our transgression in every lesson thereafter.

We gave a teacher a nervous breakdown once.

My best friend in high school had elbows that naturally bent backwards at a 45° angle. Any time we had a substitute in gym class, he would go running up to them holding his arm bent like that and screaming. The sub would freak out and go running off to the nurse with him. Cruel but also pretty funny.

Same. I forgot what happened but that teacher hated our class. Then a resource officer came in and started explaining what minimum wage was???

I was very confused why and proceeded to just ignore him in preference for reading a book I had with me.

Just vote in Jeffries

All it would take is like 4 or 5 Rs going "You know what, fuck this shit" lmao

Or ten of them voting "present." Every "present" vote lowers the threshold for Speaker. After 10 votes for "present," Jeffries would reach the threshold. This way, the Republicans could insist that they were just protesting their conference being unable to get it together and they totally didn't want to elect Jeffries (aka plausible deniability).

If anything, the Republicans would benefit from the Democrats being in charge. Why can't they pass any conservative bills? The Democrats are in charge. Why does X problem exist? The Democrats are in charge (even if that's not the real reason). No matter how well the Democrats did, the Republicans would claim it wasn't good enough and they'd do better - without giving specifics. This is their ideal situation, not actually being in charge.

I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of them didn't even know that was a thing.

I can't imagine a scenario in which that doesn't end up with them losing their seats. If they're in a competitive district, they're not going to pick up a lot of independents, and their campaign funds from the party will dry up. If they're in a deep red district, they probably get primaried out from the right.

And then we have a democratic Speaker in a house with a Republican majority, who doesn't have a coalition that agrees on much, and could easily turn on him like we saw with McCarthy.

If only that was viable. It's going to be a wild next 13 months.

Or a broom or some other inanimate object.

"I regret that I have no more fucks to give for my country."

To be fair, he spent a shitload of his fucks on the whole "appointing himself emperor of office space" affair.

To be even more fair, though, that was a stupid waste of time and resources even by GOP standards.

What an absolute shitshow the Republican party is, just a complete mess.

Who would have thought that hatred, arrogance and ignorance aren’t great traits to have in elected officials?

Not only that, not those traits are seemingly the only thing they have. Their entire identity.

It's an idea that McCarthy himself has been floating, and it was the subject of debate during Republicans' 3½-hour private meeting Thursday. During the discussion, some Republicans asked whether they could give McHenry more power "by acclamation" or whether they needed to take an internal vote in the room.

It's a different idea from the formal resolution proposed by Rep. Dave Joyce, R-Ohio, which would require a floor vote to empower McHenry to move legislation like spending bills and aid packages for Ukraine and Israel.

It’s cute that they’re at least trying to figure out democracy amongst themselves, I guess.

They want a democracy without those pesky democrats

Which hilariously they can't even manage.

There will always be a "Democrat" to deal with. They'll always find a group they won't work with.

Democracy and riches only for them. Those "others" should get the hurt they deserve.

I saw the headline and literally burst out laughing standing on the train platform. What a clown show.

The repub constituents approve of this behavior? Do they even know what's going on?

Why aren't these 5 or so holdouts getting absolutely reamed on the national stage for blocking the entire country from getting anything done? The national media should be shaming the constituent districts too for sending these clowns to congress.

Going to work for government never meant getting things exactly your way. It means finding compromises that work for all the people.

Can't do that job then get the F out.

Republican constituents will have all this in the back of their mind when they say things like, "Washington is just so dysfunctional, politicians aren't doing their jobs anymore," while at the same time blaming Democrats for all of it. They're completely oblivious to the fact that they're the ones creating the dysfunction by their voting choices, completely unwilling to accept responsibility.

and it's the job of news media to correct that sort of thinking

Which the broadcast news media will never do, not in any way but the most soft handed gentle for babys skin way possible that is ultimately empty and meaningless, because they care more about keeping their access than doing their job, cause they know if they do their job properly Republicans will cut them off.

Why aren’t these 5 or so holdouts getting absolutely reamed on the national stage for blocking the entire country from getting anything done? The national media should be shaming the constituent districts too for sending these clowns to congress.

Going to work for government never meant getting things exactly your way. It means finding compromises that work for all the people.

MTG, McCarthy, and Jordan have all said the same thing over the past couple of days. They know that they're supposed to compromise with Democrats. They know that's how the HoR is supposed to function. They literally just don't want to. It's not even the quiet part any more. Compromise is political suicide, and they openly intend to make sure that attempting to work with Democrats on anything will signal the end of your political career.

Compromise = weakness to these people. The mantra of the MAGA wing of the party is now to seize power by any means necessary, including by force.

The HoR, somewhat ironically, was originally designed to handle these things without issue: A group of extremists on either side could be easily stepped on by a larger group of moderates from both parties telling them to have a Coke and a smile and shut the fuck up. But politics in general has long since devolved into an "us vs. them" mentality with two parties who refuse to even acknowledge when the other side might have a point. And this form of "government" absolutely cannot function when there are essentially three parties now with none having a majority.

I know it existed to some degree even before this, but this really started with the Hastert rule, when it was no longer acceptable to pass bills with a bipartisan majority, and instead focusing on pushing through unpopluar Republican bills by force. That was the hard line in the sand and both sides have dug in their heels ever since. Truly bipartisan bills are a relic of the past (And no, I don't count "all the votes from one side, plus one or two other votes from the representatives of Bumfuck, Nowhere" as bipartisan.) , and the current state of Congress is a direct result of that.

Republican voters are fractured as fuck.

The ones that know either

  • don’t care and are glad this is happening
  • don’t care because it’s not THEIR rep doing it
  • care, but can only tsk it away because it’s not their rep doing it
  • use this as ammo that government doesn’t work

The rest don’t even know it’s happening. They’re election day warriors who vote red and then never think about politics again between election cycles.

I think Fox news cut the stream when it was clear no one was going to be elected again. So maybe they don't know.

Some of the Rs are just anti government. So the longer they can keep this up, the more they get their wish. Especially with the debit ceiling thing coming due soon. Some of our citizens have so many brain worms that they prefer it this way. Their representatives are doing what they want.

Better numbers for the media if this continues, this is easy clicks why give it up now?

No, no, keep him there! Sneak coal under his gavel and he'll crush it into diamonds.

Interesting. Do we know who the other names on McCarthy's list were? [Hell, do the people on McCarthy's list know they were on the list?]

No, the list is never disclosed to the public, unless necessary. This is the first time it’s been necessary

Not sure about your second question tbh. Idk if there’s even a protocol

I’m more interested in the idea that a dead speaker got to choose all the people that would follow him.

That's what mcHenry is saying he doesnt think is constitutional, and hes probally right.

It does make sense to have a "transition" holder that can just call a vote for a newly chosen speaker. Having "Im the house speaker cause that guy died with no vote" as the default mechanism is garbage.

For all the obstruction the GOP is playing at, the truth is they could have a speaker tomarrow. They give dems concessions, some simple compromise, and its over. The fact that they won't is just them being dysfunctional and looking for any loophole not to do the basic governance they gave up 40 years ago.

Exactly. Such a hard line that they won't negotiate even the minimal needed things to make government function. This will continue until people change their mind on voting for obstructionists or gerrymandering is resolved. Hint: this will take a long time.

This is the best summary I could come up with:


WASHINGTON — In a closed-door meeting Thursday, Rep. Patrick McHenry, R-N.C., told GOP colleagues he might resign as speaker pro tempore if Republicans push him to try to move legislation on the floor without an explicit vote to expand his powers, according to multiple lawmakers in the room.

It's a different idea from the formal resolution proposed by Rep. Dave Joyce, R-Ohio, which would require a floor vote to empower McHenry to move legislation like spending bills and aid packages for Ukraine and Israel.

A second GOP lawmaker said that McHenry made the remarks “tongue in cheek” but that the message was clear: He questioned the constitutionality of such an option and said he did not want the greater authority unless Republicans agreed to grant it to him through a formal vote.

In individual conversations with members, McHenry also has threatened to resign as speaker pro tem if such a resolution were passed on the floor, the GOP lawmaker said.

It was not my intention when I put a name down that they couldn’t do anything,” McCarthy told reporters after Thursday's meeting, during which lawmakers debated whether to vote on Joyce’s resolution.

McCarthy was referring to the fact that since 2003, in the wake of the 9/11 attack, House rules have required the speaker to submit a list of names to the clerk of members to act in case of a vacancy in the position and to ensure continuity of government.


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I’d like someone to explain to me why this shit show is superior to just having the caucus lead automatically be speaker unless removed. Seriously, set a precedent and get business done.

That would just shift the fight down a level to removing the Republican House leader and causing a shitstorm about who the replacement would be.