The Conversation -- October 1, 2023

Miranda Nazzaro of the Hill: "Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) on Sunday said he will push to unseat House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) this week, vowing to make good on his threat after McCarthy backed a measure to prevent a government shutdown a day earlier that won broad bipartisan support. 'I do intend to file a motion to vacate against Speaker McCarthy this week,' Gaetz told CNN 'State of the Union' anchor Jake Tapper. 'I think we need to rip off the band-aid. I think we need to move on with leadership that's trustworthy.'" The New York Times story is here.

Mary Jordan of the Washington Post: President Jimmy Carter and Rosalynn Carter's "drive through downtown Plains[, Georgia, last weekend during the annual peanut festival] was just the latest surprise from Carter, who has already lived longer than any other former president.... The waves of applause only stopped when a 'Happy Birthday' serenade began.... On Sunday, Carter plans to have a low-key birthday with Rosalynn at the Plains home they built in 1961 and where they spend most days sitting together.... But even for a life marked by the unexpected, Carter's appearance last weekend stunned many. In February, doctors told Carter's family he would likely not live more than a week.... In 2015, after doctors told him his melanoma had spread to his brain and liver, a usually fatal condition, Carter seemed unfazed."

Conservative New York Times columnist David French argues that the Christian nationalists who back Donald Trump do so from an emotional or spiritual viewpoint and a sense of fellowship with other Trumpists, rather than from any philosophical or theological position. They rely more on their various prophecies, messages they receive directly from the Holy Spirit, and conspiracy theories. They believe that by supporting Trump, they are playing a part in God's divine plan.

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No Way to Run a Government. Carl Hulse & Catie Edmonson of the New York Times: "Congress narrowly averted a government shutdown on Saturday as the House, in a stunning turnabout, approved a stopgap plan to keep the federal government open until mid-November. After Senate passage, President Biden signed the bill shortly before midnight.... A coalition of House Democrats and Republicans voted to pass a plan that would keep money flowing to government agencies and provide billions of dollars for disaster recovery efforts.... The measure was approved on a vote of 335 to 91, with 209 Democrats and 126 Republicans voting in favor and 90 Republicans and one Democrat in opposition.... The House adjourned immediately after the vote, leaving the Senate to either take up the legislation or face blame for a shutdown, since there was no way for the House to consider additional legislation before Monday. With little alternative, and Senate Republicans clamoring for the House bill, the Senate jettisoned its own stopgap measure that contained $6 billion for Ukraine and approved the House version on an 88 to 9 vote.... In a statement after Senate passage of the bill, Mr. Biden called it 'good news for the American people.' He added, 'I fully expect the speaker will keep his commitment to the people of Ukraine and secure passage of the support needed to help Ukraine at this critical moment.'" (Also linked yesterday.) The AP's story is here. ~~~

     ~~~ President Biden's statement is here. ~~~

~~~ Sarah Ferris, et al., of Politico: "After the vote, McCarthy all but taunted his critics to come after his gavel if they wanted to. And their first chance to do that will be Monday night. Multiple House conservatives confirmed in interviews they will begin seriously mulling whether they will try to seize McCarthy's gavel in the coming days.... 'You can't form a coalition of more Democrats than you have Republicans who you're supposed to be the leader of, and not think that there's going to be serious, serious fallout,' Rep. Matt Rosendale (R-Mont.) said." ~~~

~~~ Dana Milbank of the Washington Post: "Let's have two cheers for the embattled speaker. He did the right thing -- after he had exhausted all other options. After bumbling into another manufactured crisis, he turned to Democrats to bail him out, just as he had done on the debt ceiling.... Eight months late and hours before a shutdown, McCarthy came up with a plan. It could hardly have been handled any worse. Asked before the [final] vote whether he had any support from the wingnuts in his caucus, [Kevin] McCarthy laughed. 'No,' he said. 'Look, I had tried that for eight months.'... In private caucus meetings in the Capitol basement, Republicans shouted at and cursed each other. In public, they called each other names: 'charlatan' and 'joke' were added to an epithet repository that already included 'lunatics,' 'pathetic,' 'weak' and 'clowns.'"

~~~ Oops, False Alarm! Kayla Guo & Gaya Gupta of the New York Times: "Representative Jamaal Bowman, Democrat of New York, pulled a fire alarm in the House Cannon office building on Saturday as his party was trying to delay a vote on a stopgap spending bill, prompting an evacuation of the building and investigations by the Capitol Police and the House Administration Committee. The alarm was triggered at the same time that House Democrats at the Capitol were stalling a vote on a spending measure to keep the government operating for another 45 days. Speaker Kevin McCarthy had unveiled the bill just minutes earlier, and Democrats were scrambling to read the bill and determine whether to support it.... In a statement released Saturday night, Mr. Bowman said that he had not pulled the alarm to delay the vote, as some Republicans had presumed. He said that as he was rushing to the Capitol to cast a vote, he came to a door in the Cannon building that would not open. 'I am embarrassed to admit that I activated the fire alarm, mistakenly thinking it would open the door. I regret this and sincerely apologize for any confusion this caused,' Mr. Bowman said." ~~~

     ~~~ Ginger Gibson & Rebecca Kaplan of NBC News: "House Speaker Kevin McCarthy called for Rep. Jamaal Bowman, D-N.Y., to be punished after he pulled a fire alarm in a Capitol office building on Saturday, comparing it to the Jan 6 rioters who attacked the building. 'When you think about how other people were treated when they come in and wanted to change the course of what was happening in the building,' McCarthy said." MB: Yeah, Bowman definitely should be locked up in the D.C. jail. Maybe MTG will lead a protest because of the jail's appalling conditions and Trump will sing a song with Bowman.

** Maureen Dowd of the New York Times remembers Dianne Feinstein. (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

~~~ Marie: I didn't do a great job of creating the clip below, but you'll get the gist of it. It features Dianne Feinstein during Senate debate on the assault weapons ban in 1993, wiping the Senate floor with Sen. Larry Craig (R-Idaho) (a/k/a Sen. Widestance). Especially if you're a woman, you'll love how Sen. Widestance disdainfully lets the little lady know how superior his Male Wisdom is to her Girly Ignorance:

     ~~~ If you're a young woman, you may not fully appreciate that this is the condescending way in which the majority of men treated women in 1993 (although some men didn't even feign courtesy). Hug your mother and tell her you're sorry about what she had to endure.

About That Silly Due-Process Thing. Tommy Christopher of Mediaite: "A pro-Trump crowd went wild when ex-President Donald Trump promised he would send federal law enforcement to cities with orders to shoot shoplifters as they exit stores. Trump gave a speech to the California GOP convention in Anaheim, CA Friday night that was chock full of outrageous moments, including ridiculing the attack on Paul Pelosi that was committed by a Trump supporter to appreciative laughter."

Annals of Journalism, Ctd. Alicia Menendez of MSNBC hit the right note.

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Kansas. Orlando Mayorquin of the New York Times: "The police chief of Marion, Kansas, was suspended on Thursday, more than a month after he ordered raids on the office of a local newspaper and the home of its publisher in an act rarely seen in American journalism, one that was widely condemned by news organizations as a violation of the First Amendment. Mayor David Mayfield suspended the chief, Gideon Cody, indefinitely, according to ... the city's administrator..., [who] did not a provide a reason for the chief's suspension, and it was not immediately clear whether the chief was suspended with pay. City leaders have faced questions about Chief Cody's hiring in the aftermath of the raids and after The Kansas City Star reported that the chief had left his previous job at the Kansas City Police Department following accusations that he had made sexist and insulting comments."

Comments

[Akhilleus]

Sez the spoiled brat sez:

'You can’t form a coalition of more Democrats than you have Republicans who you’re supposed to be the leader of, and not think that there’s going to be serious, serious fallout,' Rep. Matt Rosendale (R-Mont.) said.”

Well, guess what, Matty, you can if you have to, especially if those you’re trying to lead are demented children, dangerous incompetents, and traitors.

So let the brats bawl. Who will they pick to replace My Kevin? Greene? Gaetz? Bobo? Some other lunatic? So go ahead with your “seeeeerious, seeeerious fallout”, Matty.

The most telling detail about the vicious weaponization (and infantilization) of the House by hyper-partisan diddlers is the fact they anointed the morons involved in the Biden impeachment kabuki as essential workers but declared the military as dispensable.

All they’ve got is the show, the bluster, the bullshit. So c’mon Matty. Impress us all with your legislative chops.

[Ken Winkes]

Behind the door:

The country or Kevin?

Guess we got the country...for now.

Question: If and when the motion to vacate comes, do Democrats get to vote on Kevin's replacement?

Have to look that up.

[ForrestMorris]

Hillary Clinton won an Emmy Award last Thursday. She already
has a Grammy.
She and daughter Chelsea captured the Emmy for the Netflix
documentary "In Her Hands", which they executive-produced
with several others.
Tiny fingers trump is gonna be p____d. He didn't win anything
with that TV show he had.
He's probably gonna lock her up and take her awards if he gets
back in office.

https://democraticunderground.com/100218315671

[Marie Burns]

@Ken Winkes: Every member of the House gets to vote for speaker; the way it's supposed to go is the majority party all votes together and elects the speaker while the minority party votes against him/her (and usually for their own leader). So when McCarthy lost 14 rounds of votes -- or whatever the number was -- in January, all the Democrats voted against him and so did enough Republicans to keep him from taking the brass ring.

It seems to me the sensible thing to do when the House is nearly evenly-split is to choose a speaker who appeals to the majority of both parties, then have a majority leader and a minority leader. The speaker doesn't have to be a member of the House; she could be a retired centrist, for instance. The House would have to set up new rules on how to get legislation to the floor, but if the House had a majority of sensible members (okay, fat chance), that would not be too difficult to do. And the House could hum along, doing what it's supposed to do. Okay, fat chance.

[Ken Winkes]

Thanks, Marie.

Now I don't have to look it up on this lazy Sunday morning.

[ForrestMorris]

Climate change, what climate change? Lots of idiots are ignoring
climate change and will keep on ignoring it until it affects them
personally.
Over a hundred dolphins have just been found dead in the Amazon
as water temperature got up to 102 degrees. We think Lake Michigan
is hot if it gets up to 65 degrees, can't imagine it at 102. That sounds
like my bath water, only hotter.

https://www.cnn.com/2023/10/01/americas/amazon-river-dolphins-
dead-temperatures-drought-intl-hnk/index.

[Bobby Lee]

So who in the Fruitcake caucus is "trustworthy" enough to satisfy Matt Gaetz as speaker? Trustworthy meaning unmovable in defense of the caucus demands. Since he doesn't seem eager to stick his dangle in the grinder we need to find another hard head and big mouth. Perhaps Chip Roy of Texas is willing to be the figurehead.

We'll find out something next week.

[D in Md]

Question for gun toting, Trump stumping, Christian Nationalists:

Who would Jesus shoot?

[RAS]

RonFilipkowski

"Montage of 33 clips of the stupidest, most vile, insane, weirdest, addled dementia-ridden, psychotic statements made by Trump over the past two weeks."