Tag Archives: Speaker

Mike the Misinformed

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Republicans scraped the bottom of the barrel last October when they elected the little-known Mike Johnson of Louisiana Speaker of the House of Representatives and second in line to the Presidency of the United States. Johnson emerged as the fourth Republican nominee in what had become a clown show of political infighting after the Republican caucus threw out Speaker Kevin McCarthy. Johnson’s election required fifteen votes.

McCarthy was voted out of the job in an extraordinary showdown, a first in U.S. history, forced by a gang of hard-right conservative Republicans. The vote threw the House and its Republican leadership into chaos. McCarthy’s crime was to have reached a bipartisan agreement with Democrats to fund the government for a brief period to prevent a shutdown.

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GOP Clown Show Continues

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When we last visited the Clown Show, in January of 2023, we were talking about the farce the Republicans put on trying to elect a Speaker of the House of Representatives. Kevin McCarthy of California finally won the post on a historic fifteenth ballot. But power really lay with roughly fifteen right-win radical Republicans, who battled McCarthy relentlessly.

I took a break from this subject as the GOP stumbled though one of the least productive House sessions on record. Now it’s time to catch up.

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