[Zamuel]

http://centurylink.net/news/read/article/the_associated_press-house_gop_to_vote_for_new_speaker_but_wont_be_last-ap

House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy just withdrew his name for consideration as Speaker of the House. A VERY unexpected development that has launched house Republicans into a tizzy ... Todays pending vote has been cancelled. I can only speculate that McCarthy did this to spare his party an even larger black eye and further allegations that the current Republican lineup cannot govern.

The White House has blamed this extremely disruptive event on: "conservatives who put their "extreme ideology" ahead of all else."

Zam

[blackjack21]

A VERY unexpected development that has launched house Republicans into a tizzy ...

Why do you think that was unexpected? McCarthy was second in line. Eric Cantor was ousted in the last election and the conservatives have had enough of Boehner. McCarthy flubbed his Benghazi talking points, leading Democrats to call for an ethics investigation. On top of that, Democrat dirty tricks were used to accuse McCarthy of having an affair.

It's this sort of thing that has conservatives irate. The so-called mainstream or establishment Republicans never see this stuff coming, or so they'd have us believe. However, we're quick to trace the IP addresses and we know exactly who is doing what.

Umm. Someone using a DHS IP address edited Renee Ellmers' Wikipedia page to allege an affair with McCarthy
See? In the infowars, the Democrats don't hold the high ground anymore as they are definitely not the smartest people in the room. The Hillary email scandal should be their first clue.

[Zamuel]

Why do you think that was unexpected?

He waited until the last minute ... The house was assembling for the vote. Up until he withdrew he had been vividly optimistic. a last minute withdrawal like this reflects poorly on the entire democratic party and McCarthy has always been a team player. If anybody WASN'T taken by surprise? They sure faked it well ...

Zam

[taltom]

McCarthy didn't have the votes to succeed on the floor, and it was obvious. Nobody does. The far-rightists are gumming up the political works. They're insisting on egregious demands in exchange for their votes. There is talk of electing a caretaker who won't rock anybody's boat, but even that isn't a coordinated plan.

As a liberal who generally has to vote Democrat with one nostril held closed, I have to say it's sweet watching the conservatives disintegrate like this. I know it's not good in the long run, but for now I'm having a wonderfully buoyant sense of schadenfreude. I knew this would happen years ago when the House Republican leadership exulted in its new crop of far-right members. The dog had caught the bus, but now what would he do with it? As it turns out, not much.

[blackjack21]

Up until he withdrew he had been vividly optimistic. a last minute withdrawal like this reflects poorly on the entire democratic party and McCarthy has always been a team player.

The conservatives don't see it this way and they've been proven right multiple times now. For example, Boehner and his ilk said that shutting down the Republicans would cost them seats. Instead, they got the largest majority since the 1920s, and still proceeded to cave to all of Obama's demands. That's why they're out for blood now.

As a liberal who generally has to vote Democrat with one nostril held closed, I have to say it's sweet watching the conservatives disintegrate like this.

The conservatives aren't disintegrating. It's the establishment that's losing grip. That's why Trump, Carson and Fiorina are running 1, 2 and 3 in the presidential polls. People have had enough of professional politicians. You have about 15 more months to enjoy the idea that the conservatives are giving up.

I know it's not good in the long run, but for now I'm having a wonderfully buoyant sense of schadenfreude.

It's not good for liberals for sure. In the long run, if a conservative takes the White House, the establishment will have as hard a time as the Democrats getting back to fiscal sanity. The thing is that the conservatives are enjoying this as much as you are.

[Zamuel]

McCarthy didn't have the votes to succeed on the floor

I disagree, he'd have won handily yesterday. The final vote would have required a little arm twisting, but that's nothing new. The T-Party types may be resolute but they aren't suicidal. Best reason I can envision is that McCarthy decided he didn't want to be Speaker next year when the Republicans loose the presidency and most of the radical right is replaced.

As a liberal who generally has to vote Democrat with one nostril held closed

Try a dab of "Vicks Vapo Rub" right under your nose, works for me.

I have to say it's sweet watching the conservatives disintegrate like this.

I can understand that. Ultimately it's for the good. The right has to expunge these extremists ... "Mr. we could use a man like Herbert Hoover again."

The conservatives don't see it this way and they've been proven right multiple times now. For example, Boehner and his ilk said that shutting down the Republicans would cost them seats. Instead, they got the largest majority since the 1920s.

Except ... It's not a majority, it's a fractured fable. " A House divided against itself ... etc."

The conservatives aren't disintegrating.

Yeah they are ... They can't even get a grip on the campaign platform, it's all Trump and reaction to Trump.

Zam

[quetzalcoatl]

It's not good for liberals for sure. In the long run, if a conservative takes the White House, the establishment will have as hard a time as the Democrats getting back to fiscal sanity. The thing is that the conservatives are enjoying this as much as you are.

Here's the catch in all of this. 85% of Democrats and 100% of Republicans do not have the remotest clue what fiscal sanity is. They do not understand the mechanics of monetary and fiscal operations. Every time somebody tries to explain it to them, as Greenspan did in congressional hearings, they recoil in horror. This is not a mock horror, it is a real horror. They have become so fundamentally divorced from reality, that any attempt they make at correcting problems will only add to them. This is true of both major parties. It is especially true of libertarians and tea partiers.

These people are merely reflections of what the voters believe. You can never save a people who refuse to be saved. So even when conservatives or liberals win, they actually lose. Why? Because their prescriptions are based on a false or radically incomplete understanding. Economically speaking, things are going to get worse no matter who wins. The nihilism of contemporary "conservatives" gets the nod for getting there the fastest, but hey, we "won."

[blackjack21]

Except ... It's not a majority, it's a fractured fable. " A House divided against itself ... etc."

The bankster plan was that they'd let Obama spend like there was no tomorrow, and then the Republicans would get power and spend like there was no tomorrow in exchange for not repealing Obamacare. The problem is that the base doesn't want this. They literally want to burn Washington to the ground as Mike Huckabee put it. So the illusions that they held about these plans are rapidly falling apart. That's also happening on the Democratic party side too. Nobody trusts the establishment inside or outside of the United States.

Yeah they are ... They can't even get a grip on the campaign platform, it's all Trump and reaction to Trump.

Step 1. The establishment must lose power.

It's really that simple.

Here's the catch in all of this. 85% of Democrats and 100% of Republicans do not have the remotest clue what fiscal sanity is.

In elective office, perhaps. What they all want is their own slab of pork. What the conservative base wants is a vegan diet for Washington. The name calling doesn't work anymore. Nobody cares if they are called a racist, sexist, homophobe, extremist, wing nut, crazy or whatever. The base doesn't want to be liked by those people and doesn't want to get along with them. Those days are over.

[quetzalcoatl]

In elective office, perhaps. What they all want is their own slab of pork. What the conservative base wants is a vegan diet for Washington. The name calling doesn't work anymore. Nobody cares if they are called a racist, sexist, homophobe, extremist, wing nut, crazy or whatever. The base doesn't want to be liked by those people and doesn't want to get along with them. Those days are over.

In elective office AND its constituency. As above, so below. (It's not about name-calling either. That's just a tactic employed by both sides.) It's about the real world, which has eluded the grasp of the Tea Party and its allies, as well as most of the rest of the country.

A vegan diet for Washington is just a metaphor. You guys live and die by metaphors, because you aren't willing to specify precisely what you mean. So I'll do everyone a favor and fill in the blanks.

What do conservative GOP legislators want for America (i.e., what do they mean by fiscal sanity)?

1) A vastly expanded military budget (needed to preserve and extend the countless wars and interventions we now service for outside interests). Note: this is not national security or even national hegemony, but transnational interests.
2) Elimination/privatization of Social Security. Wall Street desperately wants its hands on the SS Trust Fund, and privatization will give them exactly that.
3) Defunding Obama Care and replacing it with individual health care savings accounts.
4) Elimination of food stamps.
5) Elimination of unemployment insurance.
6) Secure and extend the hold of Wall Street and bankers. Do not believe the anti-bankster rhetoric. Corporate money directly dictates the planks of Tea Party 'ideology'. In truth, Tea Party groups are simply alternate conduits for outside interests - they have no intrinsic ideology, however clever they may be in pushing the populist buttons. Ask yourself: why do TP & allies never question the practice of banks transferring titles of homes en masse to third party repossession specialists without benefit of signature?
7) Elimination of tax subsidies of solar and wind power, and an increase in the already massive subsidies afforded to fossil fuel production.

They are not interested in small government at all. Only who controls government. Never forget this.

[Zamuel]

What the conservative base wants is a vegan diet for Washington.

Maybe we disagree on Who the Base is ... You seem to think it's some mythical body of idealists ? The Base are the Contributing Donors, the Big Ones ... The little fish swim along in lock step blindly following and apeing every move.

And what they want is - More Pork - More Pork - More Pork .

The Democrats on the other hand -Are- appealing to the average voters on a much more BASIC level. Women = "She's a woman too," Lationos = "She likes Me - Donald Trump hates me " Blacks = "Well, Women ARE the N*g*rs of the world", Gays = "Her Husband turns me on" Poor = "Eat the rich ... etc."

[taltom]

I disagree, he'd have won handily yesterday. The final vote would have required a little arm twisting, but that's nothing new. The T-Party types may be resolute but they aren't suicidal. Best reason I can envision is that McCarthy decided he didn't want to be Speaker next year when the Republicans loose the presidency and most of the radical right is replaced.

He would have likely won in conference, yes. But not on the floor. He would not have won the second round, because the far-right of his own party would have joined with the Democrats to sink him. A simple count of votes available tells the tale. The Republicans control the House, but it isn't a huge majority: 247 to 188. Every Democrat would have voted against him, so there's 188 "no" votes right there. Then figure in the "no" votes from the rightists, and the election would fail. Worse, it would fail very publicly.

There is no arm-twisting available anymore against the extremists. They see themselves as cultural warriors. Once upon a time, House leaders had incentives to give or withhold, but times have changed. Earmarks used to be a major way to hold troops in line, but those are gone now (ironically at the hands of Republicans). And those warriors often don't care about parking spots, larger offices, or even committee appointments. They are prepared to shut down the entire US government to defund Planned Parenthood, for goodness sake. These fanatics are immune to arm-twisting. They see themselves as Rambos who must "take back our country", although who they want to take it away from is never clearly stated.

I sadly predicted this day years ago, after the House was inundated with Tea Party extremists and Boehner publicly gloated over the Republican victory. Perhaps he didn't appreciate what I knew immediately, that his new members were going to be snappish pit bulls that would eventually rend the party. The Republican Party is actually a minority party in the US right now, and the only way it can get outsized power is by arousing anger and resentment. It did so to attract the Moral Majority as an ally many years ago. The problem with that strategy is that the inmates can run the asylum. Politics in a democracy is indeed the art of the possible, and when fanatical politicians at a vital choke point see their mission as god-given and without compromise, the nation suffers. The nation as a whole is not with them. They are delusional, but delusions are still powerful things in powerful hands. The more elevated the political race, the more the successful candidate veers to the left of the nutjobs. It is only in the numerous small local elections, such as House seats, where extremism can thrive. The Senate is more polarized now, but it is not the morass of craziness that the House is. And note that in the one true national election, that of President, a Democrat has won in four of the past six elections, and arguably five of the past six, as W lost the popular vote in his first term. This alone should tell the Republicans something, but it unfortunately doesn't seem to have sunk in. Instead, the radicals seem to believe what all radicals must - that they fail only because they weren't radical enough.

[Zamuel]

I disagree, he'd have won handily yesterday. The final vote would have required a little arm twisting, but that's nothing new. The T-Party types may be resolute but they aren't suicidal. Best reason I can envision is that McCarthy decided he didn't want to be Speaker next year when the Republicans loose the presidency and most of the radical right is replaced.

These fanatics are immune to arm-twisting.

No one is immune to political arm twisting, if you don't have the leverage required, you mfg. it.

the radicals seem to believe what all radicals must - that they fail only because they weren't radical enough.

They havn't really failed, they've funneled Billions of $$$ right where their masters wanted it. But I think they're about played out. Watch for a new dynamic "coming soon to a ballot box near you!"

Zam

[taltom]

I disagree, he'd have won handily yesterday. The final vote would have required a little arm twisting, but that's nothing new. The T-Party types may be resolute but they aren't suicidal. Best reason I can envision is that McCarthy decided he didn't want to be Speaker next year when the Republicans loose the presidency and most of the radical right is replaced.

The situation is worse than you picture it. Previously, House leadership had levers to pull that kept minorities in line. Earmarks were granted or withdrawn. Leadership positions dangled or denied. Power in the House rested in a few leaders who could browbeat recalcitrant members. In particular too, money for campaigns was heavily controlled by the GOP itself, which could be generous or penurious, depending on a member's record.

Today all that has changed. House leadership is impotent. Earmarks are gone and money is no longer funneled through parties, but through the candidates directly, both in hard money and soft money. In effect, each member is now almost wholly independent and he or she owes nothing to the leadership of the party or of the House. The result is the election of kamikaze candidates who truly don't mind committing suicide to both fulfill their lunatic ambitions and to appeal to the fanatical voters who sent them to Congress. Or perhaps more precisely, the successful candidate now owes much more to his donors than to anyone else, including the voters. The House is now top-heavy with loose cannons. These kamikazes will gleefully shut down the government and make the entire nation pay hideous prices to please the people who wrote them checks or wrote them to their PAC. More than at any other time in our history, political donations buy politicians.

One result for McCarthy is that he knew he couldn't win. He had zero leverage against the crazies. They would see him as Boehner Lite and crucify him the way they've done Boehner. He might eke out a conference vote, but the floor vote was a predetermined failure.

There is no Republican Party now. There are warring factions that receive their supplies from disparate points, so there is no choke point from which to enforce discipline. Congress has devolved into the chaotic state that Henry Clay found when he arrived generations ago and saw that he had to whip his colleagues into line. Speaker after Speaker since has done the same thing, but Boehner was in the office when the Speakership was whittled down to figurehead status. If this were a parliamentary system, the Republican Party would be two or more parties, but our two-party system prevents that, at least for a while. There are hordes of voters and candidates who would love to find a home in a centrist-right environment, but that doesn't exist much anymore, not even in most quasi-conservative Democratic holdouts. And with Citizens United still the law of the land, and the ability now to quite literally buy an entire Congress, the situation will only get worse, not better. The crazies will not be ejected any time soon, because there is no mechanism for doing so.

[Zamuel]

The situation is worse than you picture it. Previously, House leadership had levers to pull that kept minorities in line. Earmarks were granted or withdrawn. Leadership positions dangled or denied. Power in the House rested in a few leaders who could browbeat recalcitrant members. In particular too, money for campaigns was heavily controlled by the GOP itself, which could be generous or penurious, depending on a member's record.

You just don't get it ... one little implant of $$$ into a T-Party account ... A leak to the press linking it to a Jihadi/Terrorist sources ... Poof; the obstruction vanishes ... Republicans are KNOWN for this kind of tactic ... Geeze they've turned E-mail into some sort of treasonable offense ... Ok, that's not working out for them, the point being this -IS NOT- something they can't handle.

One result for McCarthy is that he knew he couldn't win.

On the contrary, he knew he could win, but winning now would wind up costing him next year, when the democrats walk away with everything. Having that hung on him would forever quash his aspirations.

There is no Republican Party now.

Sure there is ... They're just up the proverbial creek without a paddle. To bad, they can't run Arnie, the "Guvenator." But "they'll be back."

Zam