Tag: House of Representatives

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Congress GOP Social Media

Twitter Brings Down The House With Hilarious Kevin McCarthy Jokes: ‘Best Season Of C-SPAN…Ever’

It’s been an abysmal week for House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), who is trying to become the next Speaker of the House.

By extension, it’s also been a bad week for all House Republicans because they’re making the Keystone Cops look competent.

At last count, McCarthy had lost 10 straight ballots for the Speaker’s chair, with Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) getting the most votes, which is humiliating for the GOP when you consider they have the majority of the votes in the chamber.

According to The Hill, here’s the latest update on the search for a Speaker:

Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) appears to have lost the 10th vote for Speaker of the House.

The preliminary results were largely unchanged from all three of Wednesday’s and Thursday’s first three votes, with McCarthy garnering 200 votes, 20 Republicans voting for another candidate and one voting “present.”

Lawmakers are still in negotiations but are touting progress.

This will send the Speakership fight to a 11th ballot for the first time since before the Civil War. It’s unclear if that vote will happen tonight.

Long story short: It’s a clusterfuck.

However, despite all the chaos, one good thing has come out of this: Humor. Specifically, internet humor. Take a look:

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Congress GOP WTF?!

AOC Has The Perfect Comeback When A GOP Rep. Says Democrats Are Drinking On The House Floor

Since Republicans in the House of Representatives continue to prove that they cannot manage to elect a Speaker, they’re now lashing out at their Democratic colleagues, but it turns out they’re no better at that than they are at picking a leader.

During debate on the House floor Wednesday, Mediaite reports, Rep.-elect Kat Cammack (R-FL) accused Democrats of drinking as they watched the GOP debacle continue for the second straight day.

Refusing to elect McCarthy as Speaker, said Cammack, was tantamount to “stifl[ing] the will of the American people.”

She credited McCarthy for having “done more than anyone in this chamber to secure a Republican majority,” and said they needed to “unify now” to oppose the “liberal Senate” and “Obama’s J.V. Team in the White House.”

“The American people sent a conservative majority to govern this body,” she continued, but “we cannot begin to govern because heck, we can’t even swear in as members of Congress.”

“Diversity of thought” was “a good thing,” and sets Republicans “apart from our friends on the other side of the aisle,” Cammack continued, who “want us divided” and “want us to fight each other.”

And then Cammack casually dropped in her specious accusation:

“That much has been made clear but the popcorn and blankets and alcohol that has come in over there.”

There were loud boos and jeers in response to Cammack’s cheap shot, but perhaps the best comeback came from Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), who replied on Twitter.

“If only! If Dems took a shot every time McCarthy lost a Republican, we’d all be unconscious by now”

At last count, McCarthy had lost FIVE votes to be Speaker, garnering fewer votes than Democratic House leader Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY).

If anyone needs a drink, it’s the House GOP caucus. Maybe if they got rip-roaring drunk they could actually manage to accomplish something. Then again, they’d probably argue over who got the last swig from the bottle.

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Congress GOP

Petition May Keep Boebert And Greene From Being Seated When Congress Convenes In January

A petition filed Friday by two progressive advocacy groups could keep three Republican members of the U.S. House of Representatives — Reps. Lauren Boebert (CO), Paul Gosar (AZ), and Marjorie Taylor Greene (GA) from being seated when the new Congress convenes in January due to their vocal support for the January 6, 2021 Capitol insurrection.

Free Speech for People and MoveOn filed the petition, which cites the 14th Amendment to the Constitution. That amendment bars anyone from Congress who has sworn to preserve, protect, and defend the nation but then “engaged in insurrection or rebellion.”

As of Saturday morning, over 68,000 people have signed the petition, which states, Reps. Paul Gosar (R-Ariz.), Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.), and Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) “are ineligible to hold future public office, having voiced support for and helped facilitate the deadly insurrection on our nation’s Capitol on January 6th, 2021.”

The petition continues:

Publicly available evidence establishes that Rep. Paul Gosar helped facilitate the insurrection, before, during, and after January 6, 2021. Not only was he among a handful of Congress members who expressed vocal support for the insurrection as it was happening , but, according to news reports, Gosar went so far as to offer organizers of the pre-attack demonstration a “blanket pardon” in connection with unrelated criminal investigations, encouraging what would no doubt be an illegal act of violence.

In the weeks leading up to January 6, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene publicly stated that violence might be necessary to keep Trump in power, exhorted her followers not to allow Congress to transfer power peacefully, and, the night before the attack, called the date “our 1776 moment” (a codeword used by violent extremists to refer to an attack on government buildings). Greene has since attempted to defend the violence on January 6 as justified by the Declaration of Independence, calling convicted participants in the insurrection “political prisoners of war.” In December 2022, she bragged that “if” she had organized the attack, “we would have won. Not to mention, it would’ve been armed.”

Rep. Lauren Boebert echoed Greene’s coded sentiments during the insurrection, tweeting, “Today is 1776.” She was billed as a speaker for the pre-attack Capitol protest, though she did not speak. Three days prior to the insurrection, Boebert released an ad featuring herself walking through federal buildings while brandishing a firearm, pledging to carry a handgun in the Capitol despite D.C. laws banning open carry. In addition, two January 6th organizers told Rolling Stone of “dozens” of planning meetings with Boebert and several other Congress members in the days leading up to the insurrection.

The petition follows action taken Friday by more than 40 congressional Democrats who introduced legislation to bar failed former president Donald Trump from holding office again, also citing the insurrection clause of the 14th Amendment.

Rep. David Cicilline (D-RI), lead sponsor of the bill that would keep Trump from serving in office again, explained:

“Donald Trump very clearly engaged in an insurrection on January 6, 2021 with the intention of overturning the lawful and fair results of the 2020 election. You don’t get to lead a government you tried to destroy.”

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Congress GOP

Former RNC Chair Warns: ‘Marjorie Taylor Greene Will Be The Most Powerful Speaker Of The House’

For almost a month now, as it became clear that Republicans would indeed win a narrow majority giving them control of the House of Representatives, there’s been endless chatter about who might be the next Speaker of the House.

The name most frequently mentioned is that of House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), but many conservatives say they cannot support him because he’s not right-wing enough or willing to bend to their extremist will.

Surprisingly, Georgia GOP Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene says she supports McCarthy, which has confounded some pundits since she’s also a hardcore right-wing nutjob.

But according to former Republican National Committee chairman Michael Steele, whoever winds up as Speaker will have to give a great deal of their power to Greene.

Appearing on MSNBC Friday, Steele noted:

“The media and others still want to focus on the man and, you know, what he’s trying to do, what he’s trying to say — we’re past that. I’m now looking at where the party leadership is trying to move itself, and the more telling thing for me was not the dinner that Donald Trump had with [Nick] Fuentes and Kanye [West]. It was the lack of response from political wannabes, who want to be president, the governor of Florida, which I still don’t think he’s put a statement out on that. The leadership of the party, ‘Oh, we don’t like antisemitism,’ without saying that the anti-Semitic former president is the case to be made against, and to draw that very bright line and say this is not who we are, nor is it who we want to be.”

Then came the warning about Greene:

“That small fraction of the party still has political, financial and other sway and control over the leadership. Marjorie Taylor Greene will be the most powerful Speaker of the House because she will have the opportunity to control what comes out of Kevin’s mouth around the things that matter to that small cadre.”

A panelist asked Steele if he thought Greene might actually wind up being Speaker, to which he responded:

“I just call the thing what it is.You call it shadow, I call it the thing. It’s the job, because what you can’t make that separation, when she is — you’re dragging her to your events and propping her up, telling her we’re going to put you back in committee, we’re going to give you a powerful leadership role. Come on.”

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Congress GOP

Adam Kinzinger Predicts Kevin McCarthy Won’t ‘Last Very Long’ As Speaker

Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-IL) said Sunday that even if House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) does indeed become Speaker of the House in the next Congress, he won’t last very long because he’ll be hostage to the most extreme elements of the Republican caucus.

Appearing on CNN’s “State of the Union,” Kinzinger was asked by host Jake Tapper what kind of Speaker he thought McCarthy would be, to which the Illinois Republican replied:

“If you had asked me five years ago, I would have said a pretty good one. Now, I think he has cut so many deals with bad people to get to this position that I think he’s not going to be a leader.”

Kinzinger then elaborated on his prediction:

“I think he’ll be completely hostage to kind of the extreme wings of the Republican Party. And I frankly don’t think he’s going to last very long, Maybe he’ll prove me wrong but it’s sad to see a man that I think had so much potential just totally sell himself. He’s the one that resurrected Donald Trump. The second he went to Mar-a-Lago a week or two after Jan. 6, he resurrected Donald Trump politically. So he owns everything that Trump says now.”

Indeed, McCarthy has sold what was left of his soul to the most extreme elements of the GOP, including Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), who is expected to get assignment on a couple of the most powerful committees in Congress, Judiciary and Oversight.

Kevin McCarthy is about to find out that when you make a deal with the devil, your soul gets lost in the transaction. Provided that McCarthy had a soul in the first place.