The Books of Bokonon

As the late great Yogi Berra once said, "it's deja vu all over again." It is the beginning of the 119th Congress and the House side of Capitol Hill has had a bit of a rough start, for the second Congressional session in a row. Mike Johnson, who became Speaker in the middle of last session, ran to remain Speaker, and he was arguably in a much better position than his predecessor, Kevin McCarthy, was at this same point as the 118th Congressional Session started. Johnson had - at least to start - far fewer initial holdouts after he initially failed to get the nomination during the first vote for Speaker. The saving grace for Johnson was that some GOP members on the House floor changed their votes, thus belatedly giving Johnson the Speaker's gavel. There was plenty of drama on the floor for a while, and the GOP looked like there was a struggle to simply get their act together, so not a great start. At least we'll avoid the seemingly countless votes for the Speaker...

According to the scripture found in the Books of Bokonon , a Pool-pah is defined as a "shit storm" or "the wrath of God." Either will do as far as I am concerned as we witness the latest round of House GOP incompetence (with a significant assist from Trump and shadow president Musk). As of now, we are staring down yet another government shutdown, and I will have to double check the calendar for the last day that the debt ceiling needs to be raised, but also the debt ceiling being breached, thus tanking the global economy. We have some real stable geniuses running this circus.  Here's the sitch: The US House of Representatives has a GOP majority this session that is wafer thin (currently 221 GOP - 214 Dem). It will be an even thinner majority come January when the new Congressional Session starts (220 GOP - 215 Dem, with some seats already vacated thus further narrowing the majority). Any House Speaker, regardless of who he or she is, will have to accept that mos...

You never know what special brand of insanity will come from the wingnuts who run the GOP. We have one wingnut Congress Critter who claims that somehow the "Deep State" and the "Left" are conspiring to cancel cowboys. Confused? Seth Meyers breaks it down in A Closer Look:

Since the protracted process of electing a Speaker of the House of Representatives began on Tuesday, Hakeem Jeffrees, the Democratic Minority Leader, has been a paragon of patience and grace. Following the final vote that just barely elected Kevin McCarthy as Speaker (history-making, but for the wrong reasons), Jeffries delivered the first speech prior to McCarthy taking the gavel. It was a masterful speech which often reminded me of the first time I saw Obama give a speech at the 2004 Democratic Convention. This was one for the ages. Here is the clip from CNN's YouTube channel:  

We've ended the third full day of the new Congressional Session and the House has yet to elect a Speaker . Kevin McCarthy has lost 11 votes in a row. To put into context, that means that this is the first time since before the Civil War that it has taken more than nine votes for the House of Representatives to elect a Speaker. Then again, the majority party is the GOP, the guy wanting the Speaker's gavel is Kevin McCarthy, and so it's no great loss at least for now. My impression from catching coverage after my wife and I came home from our favorite diner was that McCarthy and his team will continue to hold votes for as long as it takes. Like Thanos, he claims to be "inevitable." And he may well be. He's made a ton of concessions to the 20 or so hold-outs, and so far that has not led to a breakthrough. So we go through another potential Groundhog Day scenario tomorrow, and perhaps the next day (and the next day, etc.). Any of us who have ever sought a leaders...

Like many of you, I've been checking the live blogs and C-SPAN to see how the GOP, with its very slim House Majority, would handle the vote for the Speaker's gavel. Our major parties are very broad coalitions, and so one expects negotiations ahead of a new session of Congress to be heated, but probably mostly settled by the time January 3rd hits.  Not this time. Kevin McCarthy has been jockeying for the Speaker's gavel for a good couple years, and is the GOP House Caucus Leader. However, he has never quite been able to close the deal. He's tried to become Speaker before in 2015. That effort failed when he did the equivalent of shooting himself in the foot. His sin that time? After the GOP leaders had taken great pains to present the Benghazi hearings as non-partisan, McCarthy let loose with how much the hearings had hurt Hillary Clinton's chances to become President. In other words, he could not be trusted to refrain from crossing the party line. His support evapora...