Speaker Kevin McCarthy sent his House members home for the week without a clear plan to avoid a looming government shutdown after hardliners in the Republican conference once again scuttled his spending plans, delivering an embarrassing floor defeat for GOP leadership for the second time this week.
The Republican leader slammed his far-right flank for wanting to “burn the place down,” after conservatives dramatically bucked McCarthy and GOP leadership on a procedural vote over a Pentagon funding bill, throwing the House into total paralysis. And now, members are not set to return to session until Tuesday as the possibility of a shutdown at the end of next week appears ever more likely.
“It’s frustrating in the sense that I don’t understand why anybody votes against bringing the idea and having the debate,” McCarthy told reporters.
All he has to do is work with the Democrats. That’s it. He’s just not going to do it because he is clawing on to his speakership for dear life.
And even there, he could hold onto the speakership by working with Democrats. If he throws the Democrats a few bones in exchange for them voting to keep McCarthy in any speakership vote, then the power of the Freedom Caucus would be blunted.
But silly me, the obvious path forward is really to keep doing the same thing and hope that the Freedom Caucus will become reasonable. Surely, that will work perfectly, right?
Mmm… he knows that everyone on the other side of the aisle fucking hates him.
That said, considering how often and consistently Republicans have outright lied to their colleagues and pulled bait-and-switch bullshit, maybe it’s time to just say they’ll back him for speaker after the vote, and then just… vote for Jeffries instead.
Of course, it doesn’t help that McCarthy pushed for a Biden impeachment on the grounds of “the Freedom Caucus wants this even though there’s zero evidence” only for the Freedom Caucus to decide that wasn’t enough and they wanted more.
The Freedom Caucus are acting like spoiled kids. “I got you the new toy you wanted so now you’ll act nice to mommy and daddy, right?” “NO! I now want these two other toys! Get me them NOW!”
Nah, Dems should vote their conscience and stand back and let the Republicans figure it out. The Republican party has openly and consistently obstructed everything Democrats have tried to do for the last 20 years at least, including assisting with trying to throw the 2020 Presidential election. Democrats don’t have to stoop to that level, but they also damned sure aren’t obliged to rescue the Republican majority in the House when one part of it is obstructing the other part.
Republicans are clowns. They don’t want to do their jobs so bad that they’re obstructing each other now. McCarthy is bad enough. These “hardliners” are lower than dogshit.
The republican philosophy on governance has always been “The government is ineffective and wasteful; vote for me and I’ll prove it.”
He got here by giving crazy people what they want and now he’s confused as to why crazy people aren’t being reasonable? Welp, these are your people, some might say the fact that you don’t want to burn it all down just makes you a RINO.
Oh man that sucks bro yikes wow oh man…
This is the best summary I could come up with:
House Republican leaders are sending members home for the week amid deep divisions over funding the government ahead of the rapidly-approaching September 30 deadline, according to multiple GOP sources.
House Republican leaders are running out of options after conservative hardliners sunk a Pentagon bill from advancing on Thursday and the fate of a GOP effort to keep the government funded remains uncertain.
The procedural vote’s failure marks yet another blow to Speaker Kevin McCarthy as he faces a major leadership test and threats over his ouster and Congress inches ever closer to a potential shutdown at the end of next week.
Days of negotiations have yielded a few apparent breakthroughs, but McCarthy’s Republican opponents have been quick to throw cold water on progress and openly defy the speaker’s calls for unity.
Late Wednesday evening, McCarthy briefed his conference behind closed doors on a new plan to keep the government open – paired with deeper spending cuts and new border security measures – in an attempt to win over wary members on his right flank.
As part of the deal, Republicans told CNN on Wednesday night that they have the votes to move forward on the yearlong Pentagon spending bill that five conservative hardliners scuttled just Tuesday, with Reps. Ralph Norman of South Carolina and Ken Buck of Colorado indicating they will flip to a yes on the rule and will vote to advance the Department of Defense bill Thursday after the speaker came down to the spending levels that Norman had been demanding.
The original article contains 738 words, the summary contains 253 words. Saved 66%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
