After four days and fifteen roll call votes, the newly elected members of the House of Representatives have—and not without drama—elected Kevin McCarthy of Bakersfield as the new speaker of the House of Representatives. The Democrats were present and united for all fifteen votes, selecting Hakeem Jeffries as their choice. While the madness that defines the Republican Party was on display, Katie Porter, a Democrat was reading.
During the final vote Republicans only refrained from physical fights because more sane members restrained less sane members.
Dana Milbank, a contributor to the Washington Post had this to say, “This is what happens when a political party, year after year, systematically destroys the norms and institutions of democracy. This is what happens when those expert at tearing things down are put in charge of governing. The dysfunction has been building over years of government shutdowns, debt-default showdowns and other fabricated crises, and now anti-government Republicans used their new majority to bring the House itself to a halt.”
In no way was this a victory for the Republicans, for the House, for Democracy, or for America. The far-rght members of Congress, more than half of whom were election deniers, who represent only about fifteen percent of all Republicans, have forced the rest of the House to bow to their insanity. Who was one of their most vocal members? None other than Lauren Boebert of Colorado, who failed her high school GED three times, was formerly an escort, and who had multiple abortions in Glenwood Springs. These are the people in charge.
The bomber and the liar.
Hakeem Jeffries, the leader of the Democrats, the man who received 212 votes fifteen times, spoke as the minority speaker. He had this to say, quoted by my friend Anna-Marie Booth.
Ironically, when did all this take place? On January 6th, the second anniversary of the insurrection authored by former president donald j trump, who was present last night on Marjorie Greene’s phone, trying to persuade members to vote for McCarthy, none of whom would take his calls or give a f*uck that he was on the phone.