Posts Tagged ‘Kevin McCarthy’

BREAKING: McCarthy Ousted From Speaker’s Chair

Tuesday, October 3rd, 2023

And he’s out of there.

Kevin McCarthy has been ousted as speaker of the House of Representatives, becoming the first leader in the history of the lower chamber of Congress to be removed from the position.

In a dramatic 216-210 vote on Tuesday afternoon, the House endorsed a “motion to vacate” to in effect fire McCarthy from the speakership. Eight Republicans voted against their party leader and sided with 208 Democrats, sealing his removal from the post.

The unprecedented vote sets the stage for an election to select a new speaker — though McCarthy has not ruled out putting forward his name to be reselected for the top job.

The historic vote underscores the sharp divides in the Republican party and threatens to usher in a new era of dysfunction in Washington. The House cannot carry out legislative business until a new speaker is elected.

Republicans haven’t had a first-rate speaker since Newt Gingrich stepped down. McCarthy was an improvement on Paul Ryan and Dennis Hastert, but probably not as good as John Boehner. Majority Leader Steve Scalise would theoretically be next in line, followed by Majority Whip Tom Emmer, Conference Chair Elise Stefanik, and Policy Committee Chair Gary Palmer, but line of succession doesn’t always hold water in a speaker fight.

Scalise is, of course, the guy who literally took a bullet for being a Republican. Stefanik has been labeled an up-and-comer for many years now, but I mostly know her from the numerous begagrams that show up in my email. Emmer and Palmer have relatively low profiles compared to the other two. Heritage Action (grains of salt apply) ranks them Palmer 98%, Stefanik 84%, Scalise and Emmer 82%.

Matt Gaetz will not be the next speaker, and whoever gets the job will probably be just as unpopular among conservative activists as McCarthy was.

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Posted in Republicans | 10 Comments »

Kicking The Debt Can Down The Road To 2024

Thursday, June 1st, 2023

Another year, another punt in dealing with America’s ever-mounting debt problems.

After intense negotiations between U.S. Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy (R-CA-20) and President Joe Biden, an agreement was struck which passed the House with both bipartisan support and bipartisan opposition.

The so-called “Fiscal Responsibility Act” (FRA) passed the House Wednesday in a 314 to 117 vote, with 71 Republicans joining 46 Democrats in the minority voting against the measure.

The deal will suspend the nation’s debt ceiling until after the 2024 presidential elections, leaving it up to the next White House and Congress to navigate a deal that addresses the ever-expanding national debt.

With the debt nearing $32 trillion, the congressional budget analysis estimates it will grow by around $4 trillion during the period the FRA is in place, or until early 2025.

Congressman August Pfluger (R-TX-11) was one of the members who voted in favor of the bill but acknowledged in a phone interview that the bill was far from perfect and isn’t to be considered a home run by fiscal conservatives.

Pfluger explained there were some major wins in the negotiations that caused him to vote yes.

“The number one thing we took away from holding the Energy Committee meetings in Midland was calls from the oil and gas industry to reform the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), and I’m proud to say we got the most significant reforms to NEPA in 50 years as part of this deal, and Biden isn’t happy about it,” he said.

Pfluger explained how under NEPA laws, oil and gas permitting and regulations can slow industry projects down, taking almost 10 years in some cases to get federal permitting. He also said the deal would greenlight important pipeline projects.

In addition, Plfuger said he supported the welfare reforms, requiring 80 hours per month of work or job training from The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) and Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program (TANF) recipients, and clawing back of IRS funding, and while the proposal didn’t cut as much spending as he would like to see, it was still a small step in the right direction.

Here is where the usual blogging protocol would be to put in my analysis of the good and bad points of the deal. Nah, it stinks, because it doesn’t treat the looming national debt crisis seriously. We need a republican House, a Republican Senate, and a president who is willing to ride herd and veto non-balanced budgets to start fixing the problem, and we haven’t had that combination in my lifetime. Gerald R. Ford was the last Republican President who really fought to balance the budget, and republican congressional leadership hasn’t done so since the days of New Gingrich, Phil Gramm and Dick Armey.

Democrats will always vote for higher deficits because their entire business model is predicated on raking off the graft and doing the bidding of elites who prosper from asset inflation. Republicans as a whole always cave to them because no one holds them in line and because every debt limit hike is always an emergency rushed into law at the 11th hour when nobody is paying attention and they can whine “But we had to!”

Real austerity is limiting government outlays to receipts, and we haven’t had that since Gingrich and company held the line and the Dotcom boom brought in then record revenue in the late 1990s. Undoing Gramm-Rudmam-Lotta was disasterous.

I’d like to think that DeSantis could hold the line on deficit spending if he gets in. Sadly, we know from experience that Trump (whatever his other strengths) won’t…

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Posted in Budget, Democrats, Republicans | 6 Comments »

LinkSwarm For January 13, 2023

Friday, January 13th, 2023

Fallout from the House speaker’s race, Biden busted for mishandling classified files, more blue state teachers raping their students, Cadillac’s EV breaks into double digit sales, and the Imelda Marcos disco musical! It’s the Friday LinkSwarm!


  • Kevin McCarthy finally wins Speaker of the House race on 15th vote after offering concessions to the House Freedom Caucus.
  • How is McCarthy doing? Early signs are encouraging. “The House of Representatives passed a new rules package Monday that overhauls the way it functions by putting up more barriers to congressional spending and creating a more deliberate process for passing legislation, which were key demands of the more conservative members of the Republican Party.” (Hat tip: Sarah Hoyt at Instapundit.)
    

  • Shot: Texas Rep. Dan Crenshaw calls members of the House Freedom Caucus “terrorists” for opposing Kevin McCarthy for speaker. Chaser: “Freedom Caucus Member Mark Green Beats Dan Crenshaw in Race to Chair Homeland Security Committee.”
  • Heh:

    (Hat tip: Not the Bee.)

  • “After 15 Grueling House Speaker Votes, America’s Long National Nightmare Can Finally Begin.”
  • “Nation In Shock As Politicians Show Up To Work 4 Days In A Row.”
  • After the whole absurd raid on Trump because “OMG he has classified documents/nuclear codes/eleventy!!!!” it turns out that Biden kept at least two different batches of classified documents in insecure locations.

    House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R., Calif.) used Thursday morning’s press briefing to criticize the Department of Justice’s handling of the issue.

    “They knew this happened to President Biden before the election, but they kept it secret from the American public,” McCarthy told a scrum of reporters on Capitol Hill.

  • A whole lot of Chicago teachers are sexually abusing the children in their care. 

    Chicago Board of Education Inspector General Will Fletcher reported 470 sexual complaints against Chicago Public School employees from students in 2022.

    “The report details students being abused, groped, groomed, assaulted and threatened by school officials.

    “One investigation found a former Junior ROTC staff member had sex with a 16-year-old high school student for a year. When he learned there was an investigation, the staff member threatened to kill the girl and her family if she cooperated with investigators.”

    (Hat tip: Instapundit.)

  • More on the same subject.

    The teachers’ union in Chicago, Randi Weingarten’s American Federation of Teachers, so praised by Joe Biden, has done nothing and said nothing about it so far as I can tell, and I did look, focusing instead on promoting critical race theory into the school system. Left unsaid is that the union ensures that firing any of these teachers involved in this activity is virtually impossible. Chicago’s public schools’s firing rate of bad teachers owing to their union membership, as of a few years ago, is 0.1%.

    What’s vivid here amid all this widespread predatory behavior from the teaching classes, which like Harvey Weinstein, are prolific campaign donors to Democrats, is that the low outrage factor stands in sharp contrast to the sexual abuse scandals of the Catholic Church, which was ordered by courts to pay billions in reparations to the victims, has seen its leaders publicly apologize for the abuses, and has many programs now to prevent child abuse by perverts in authority. This activity was evil and inexcusable and rightly punished.

    As for the more widescale abuse now seen in Chicago’s public schools, along with comparable scandals in the Los Angeles public school system, and other bad cases in New York and other blue cities, well, crickets. The perversion has gotten out of control in Chicago and the story barely makes the national news. 

  • “West Virginia Law Restricting Sports By Biological Sex Is Constitutional.”
  • How Biden’s inflation is destroying family budgets:

    (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)

  • Federal appeals court strikes down bump stock ban.

    A federal appeals court on Friday struck down the Trump-era ban on bump stocks, a firearm accessory that enables a semi-automatic gun to shoot at an increased rate of fire.

    In a 13-3 decision, the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans held that the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), acting under “tremendous” public pressure, short-circuited the legislative process by approving a rule to define bump stocks as “machineguns,” which are illegal to possess. The court said ATF did not have the authority from Congress to do so.

    Damn straight it doesn’t.

  • Pentagon ditches Flu Manchu vaccine mandate. Where do the wrongly discharged sue to get their careers back?
  • This is what a real pro-natalist policy looks like: “Hungary addresses falling birthrates by exempting moms under 30 from income tax for life.” More:

    Hungary has taken several measures in recent years to encourage its citizens to have more children, including three years of paid parental leave and state-funded daycare.

    The country previously suspended income tax for moms with four or more children, but this new policy specifically encourages women to have children sooner, which in the long run means a higher likelihood of having more children overall.

  • Arkansas governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders signs executive order banning Critical Race Theory in state schools.
  • Israel hit Syria again, and I heard just about nothing about it. Ukraine has really pushed Syria out of the headlines.
  • Speaking of Ukraine, Russia has largely captured the salt mining town of Soledar, though at a high cost in man. And good luck checking those hundreds of miles of salt tunnels for partisans…
  • “Tesla plans Houston-area expansion with large new industrial site in Brookshire…Little is known about Tesla’s plans, but the Fortune 500 company signed a lease late last year for about 1.03 million square feet at 111 Empire West, part of the 300-acre Empire West Business Park in Brookshire.” A bold move, considering how radically car sales have dived this year.
  • Other EVs update: “GM delivers record Cadillac Lyriq deliveries in Q4 – 12 per month.”
  • “Sequel to The Passion of the Christ about to start filming.” This is pretty much obligatory:

  • “David Byrne, Fatboy Slim Disco Musical ‘Here Lies Love’ Sets Broadway Debut. The musical, which has had a long journey to Broadway, centers on the life of Imelda Marcos, the former first lady of the Philippines.” They say the mirror ball shine bright on Broadway… (Hat tip: Dwight.)
  • “Celebrity Who Travels On Private Jets And Collects Luxury Sports Cars Says You’re The Reason For Climate Change.”
  • “Experts Say They Don’t Know What Thing Is Causing Everyone To Suddenly Collapse, But It’s Definitely Not That One Thing.”

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    Posted in Communism, Crime, Democrats, Economics, Foreign Policy, Guns, Military, Regulation, Republicans, Social Justice Warriors, Texas, unions, video | 2 Comments »

    LinkSwarm for January 6, 2023

    Friday, January 6th, 2023

    Greetings, and welcome to the Friday LinkSwarm! By the time you read this, Kevin McCarthy will have lost more elections than Pat Paulsen.

  • Stop me if you’ve heard this before: “More U-Haul Trucks Left California Than Any Other State In 2022, Texas Top Destination.”

    More moving trucks left from California than any other state in 2022 for the third year in a row, while more Americans are flocking to Republican-led states like Texas and Florida, a new study published on Jan. 3 has found.

    The study was conducted by the moving truck rental company, U-Haul, and found that Texas, Florida, and the Carolinas were the preferred destinations for one-way moving trucks in 2022, with those states ranking as the top growth states on the annual U-Haul Growth Index.

    U-Haul’s Growth Index is compiled according to the net gain of one-way U-Haul trucks arriving in a state or city, versus those departing from that state or city each calendar year across the U.S. and Canada and is a strong indicator of what kind of job states and cities are attracting and maintaining residents, according to the company.

    Texas is the top destination for U-Haul trucks for the second consecutive year and the fifth time since 2016, according to the study. That is followed by Florida, which has been a top-three growth state for seven years in a row. South Carolina, North Carolina, Virginia, Tennessee, Arizona, Georgia, Ohio, and Idaho also saw strong growth rates in 2022, the study found.

    I think I’ve posted a variation on this story just about every year I’ve published this blog…

  • Speaking of people fleeing high taxes, New York is hemorrhaging taxpayers as well.

    From July 2021 to July 2022, 300,000 more people moved out of the state than moved in. New York had the largest population loss—in both percentage and absolute terms—experienced by any state during that period.

    Sadly, this was both predictable and preventable.

    In March 2021, a study of New York found that its already staggeringly high tax burden had worsened due to an increase in the top marginal tax rate to almost 15% for those in New York City. The study projected that the flood of people leaving would only accelerate—and it did.

    Even before that study, the Empire State lost so many people that it cost New York a seat in Congress after the 2020 census. This exodus is a direct response to New York’s obscenely high taxes.

    Just how bad is it? Compared with other states, New Yorkers:

    • Pay the highest total tax burden and highest share of personal income (14%) in taxes.
    • Endure the second-worst overall business-tax climate.
    • Face the highest individual income-tax rate and income-tax collections per capita.
    • Pay the second-highest state and local corporate income tax collections per capita.
    • Have the fourth-highest property taxes and local sales-tax rate (on average).
    • Pay the highest cigarette taxes and ninth-highest gasoline taxes.
    • Pay the sixth-highest capital-stock tax rate.
    • Are tied for third-highest estate-tax rate.

    (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)

  • Speaking of California: “California Officially Becomes a Sanctuary State for Child Mutilation.” (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)
  • Things that make you go “Hmmm“: “Virgin Islands AG Fired Three Days After Suing JPMorgan Over Jeffrey Epstein.”
  • Three Biden tax hikes that took place January 1. (Hat tip: Ed Driscoll at Instapundit.)
  • Remember how I’ve noted that semiconductor memory manufacturers make money hand-over-fist in boom times and barely break even during busts? “Samsung Profits Plunge 69% As Global Chip Demand In ‘Full-Fledged Ice Age.'”
    

  • Turnabout is fair play: “U. Houston Prof Tells Students to Report Teachers Berating ‘White People or Christians to DEI Office.'”
  • Denver Mayor Michael Hancock takes pride in virtue signaling his city as a refuge for illegal aliens. Guess what?
  • Former Pope Benedict XVI dies at age 95.
  • Thanks to green energy policies and the Russo-Ukrainian War, it’s now too expensive to break bread in Europe. (Hat tip: Instapundit.)
  • U.S. passes Qatar as world’s largest LNG exporter.
  • “How is it like being homeless in Portland?” “It’s a piece of cake really.”
  •  Jordan B. Peterson: “People camouflage themselves against the herd.”
  • This story should piss you off. (Hat tip: Dwight.)
  • Drone swarm vs. carrier group simulation.
  • Ouch!
  • Some pretty amazing skiing.
  • Cereal experiments lame.

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    Posted in Crime, Democrats, Republicans, Social Justice Warriors, Texas | 2 Comments »

    McCarthy Out Of Speaker’s Race

    Thursday, October 8th, 2015

    “Having failed to secure the votes of the 40 members of the House Freedom Caucus, Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) has bailed on running for Speaker of the House.”

    Well, that’s a very interesting development indeed. As Majority leader and Boehner’s heir apparent, McCarthy was considered the race’s favorite. Him withdrawing means there’s a chance things won’t just be Business As Usual.

    I wonder if Texas Rep. Jeb Hensarling will reconsider his decision to drop out of the race now that McCarthy has withdrawn…

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    Posted in Republicans | No Comments »