I expect the crazies like Gaetz and MTG to do their thing, and McCarthy to go along with anything he thinks will keep him in the speaker's chair. But there are a number of Republican members who've been vocal about criticizing their far-right colleagues but haven't had the guts to do anything about it with their votes. It's like McConnell going on about how Trump was responsible for January 6 but then voting not to convict.
Will Kevin McCarthy become Speaker?
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When was the last time the Republicans had a respectable speaker?
I saw a picture taken this year of the last few speakers (McCarthy, Boehner, Ryan, Pelosi, Gingrich), and all of the republicans were insufferable speakers, either politically or personally. Dennis Hastert wasn’t even in the photo, for obvious reasons. Boehner and Ryan are decent men by all accounts but their lack of a spine and inability to tell the truth about their caucus - at least until they were relegated to irrelevancy - is why we have Trump today.
And what is McCarthy doing? The same thing - pretending all is well, not calling out the racism, corruption and crime in his party and getting owned by the biggest do-nothing frat boy dipshit in Congress.
Democrats seem happy to sit back and let the republicans self-destruct, but with democracy on the line and watching wrestling coach subpoena-skipper Judiciary chair “Gym” Jordan hold these inept committee hearings with the sole purpose of putting on some piss-poor Perry Mason-esque courtroom defense of his cult leader, I think I’d be more than happy to rub it in their faces every chance I got.
These people CANNOT govern. They WON’T govern. They are in a 24/7 cycle of engineering legal, political and social defenses of one individual, Donald Trump. They are totally detached from reality and what used to be easy facts and basic decency.
Irrespective of subjective policy views, democrats govern better. Hell, even if they governed poorly, that’s still better than the republicans.
I saw a picture taken this year of the last few speakers (McCarthy, Boehner, Ryan, Pelosi, Gingrich), and all of the republicans were insufferable speakers, either politically or personally. Dennis Hastert wasn’t even in the photo, for obvious reasons. Boehner and Ryan are decent men by all accounts but their lack of a spine and inability to tell the truth about their caucus - at least until they were relegated to irrelevancy - is why we have Trump today.
And what is McCarthy doing? The same thing - pretending all is well, not calling out the racism, corruption and crime in his party and getting owned by the biggest do-nothing frat boy dipshit in Congress.
Democrats seem happy to sit back and let the republicans self-destruct, but with democracy on the line and watching wrestling coach subpoena-skipper Judiciary chair “Gym” Jordan hold these inept committee hearings with the sole purpose of putting on some piss-poor Perry Mason-esque courtroom defense of his cult leader, I think I’d be more than happy to rub it in their faces every chance I got.
These people CANNOT govern. They WON’T govern. They are in a 24/7 cycle of engineering legal, political and social defenses of one individual, Donald Trump. They are totally detached from reality and what used to be easy facts and basic decency.
Irrespective of subjective policy views, democrats govern better. Hell, even if they governed poorly, that’s still better than the republicans.
I think the overwhelming majority of R’s signaling discontent for Ukraine spending are simply just acting out political theater. It’s a convenient way to stir up general discontent…. But if you actually listens to what many of these people say, they never say they want to cut off spending, they say things like they don’t want to send a blank check or seek auditing to ensure where the money is going.
It’s hard to imagine most politicians not supporting Ukraine. Much of the money we have “spent” is the replacement value of retired military equipment we wouldn’t have been using anyways- likely to be end up in the trash, sold off for Pennie’s on the dollar, or sit in a warehouse for decades lost to time. We’re spending a negligible amount of the defense budget to obliterate Russia’s military for generations and kill Putin/Russia’s world standing… the small amount they had. And it’s not like the US is sacrificing its own soldiers in fighting this war. Furthermore, this has been a boon for the defense contractors, which of course benefits politicians… and not just in supporting Ukraine materially. Lockheed couldn’t make enough HIMARS launchers if they wanted to… Poland just placed and order for I believe over 400 units… I don’t think the US had that many. And they’re far from the only nation looking to buy.
My theory is that if we’re going to support Ukraine, we should give them everything within reason to support them. The dragging of feet with military aid only results in more deaths.
I do think there should be better oversight with where material and money ends up, but also understand corruption and wars are commonplace. It seems like there has been some cracking down recently, which if appropriate, is great news. I think the worst problem is how much the US is spending versus some of our European brethren. To be fair, some European nations have taken in refugees and have provided substantial humanitarian aid- which I think is fine as many don’t have a large military or defense industry. France for example certainly can’t be said to be pulling their weight no matter how you cut it, at least last a checked. But at least they provided long range cruise missiles… something that can’t be said for the US (at least as far as we know at this point).
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McCarthy has no control over his party and they're being held hostage by the few most radical members. Not sure why he fought so hard to get the seat, he knew what he was in for so I don't feel any pity for him. He got what he asked for.
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I'll never understand how some people can roll over like that.
I'd like to think that I, or anyone here, wouldn't succumb to that. And if my constituents (or fellow House members) didn't like me standing up on principle and then voted me out, that would be A-OK with me. F em...
Politicians like McCarthy roll over or do anything else just to remain in office and keep their high-level positions. It's an end in itself, not a means to govern and improve the lives of the people they're supposed to serve.
KingOfPain
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Kevin McCarthy wanted to become the third most powerful person in the the USA so badly that he is now practically powerless.
Because to become the Speaker he handed his balls to the crazies in his party, and they are now on the squeeze.
According to the latest stats, Europe has now outstripped the US cumulatively both in military and civilian/financial support to Ukraine. Yes certain countries could do more with respect to volume, but then some of those have been at the forefront of delivering certain capabilities as you yourself pointed out. For all of these countries, including the US, there may be of course secret budgets which are not accounted for here and providing things like intelligence are difficult to quantify with a price tag. Indeed I’ve seen it mooted that one reason other than the advanced delivery of capabilities that Ukraine is so easy on certain delivery-volume laggards like France is that those countries supply direct intelligence, something the US does openly, but which others may (or may not) be doing more secretly.
One issue with the above chart is that for some countries this may include multi year commitments whereas for the US it’s what we’ve delivered plus the next few weeks/months depending on what actually happens with the remaining PDA, especially as a new package has not been put together.
Speaking of which, a lot of those Republicans were willing to vote for a package that stripped Ukraine funding for party solidarity and which catered to the most extremist elements of their party, it was 5 Republicans who declined. The ones talking out both ends of their mouths are trying to triangulate between what they know is right (annd their own previous positions) and where the perceived/real power center in their party lies. I tend not to give them the benefit of the doubt that their positions are genuine since they’ve proven to be such spineless lickspittles to the Trumpist wing of the party in the past. Maybe I’m doing a couple of them a disservice, but not in general.
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It indeed will be interesting to see what Trump’s stance would be on this if he were to make it back to the White House. His comments have been all over the place regarding the war and what he’d do- other than solving it in 1 day by talking to Putin
. But generally I think at the end of the day the benefits are just so obvious to anyone who thinks about it. Despite the “perfect phone call” Trump was far more supportive of Ukraine militarily than Obama. And for all the speak of Russia collusion, Trump was actually much harsher on Russia than previous admins. Most of the condemnation around Ukraine aid is just the asinine “oppose the policy of the opposing party just for the sake of it” and to draw attention to and exacerbate negative sentiments around domestic problems. Knowing Trump it’s entirely unpredictable. Just look at his recent comments opposing the R’s anti-abortion radicalism.As for the conclusion “Europe takes the lead”, that smells of misleading statistics. Why would you necessarily compare all/many/most European countries (evidently EU and non-EU) versus the US. That’s an explicit red flag right there. Certainly many of the Eastern European countries have committed a much more significant percentage of the their GDP, such as the Baltic counties. These are low GDP countries to begin with.
I don’t think comparing GDP is necessarily appropriate when you consider the US GDP is 25T while the next biggest is Germany at 3.8T and a country like Lithuania (one of the highest contributors by %GDP) is $70 billion. Secondly, I think it’s fair to say the US’s interest is in protecting Europe from Russian invasion is important, but is something that we should not be taking more seriously than the Europeans. This is particularly frustrating considering that for decades many of our NATO partners in Europe committed well below the agreed upon %GDP for defense… basically expecting the US military to pickup the slack in the event of conflict. [Heck, I’m not sure there has been an explanation why the US shot down that unidentified balloon over Canadian airspace- obviously NORAD is collaborative but I’d expect the local military to take the shot. It’s been suspected it has to do with their ancient and overdue for retirement CF-18 fighter jet’s older-generation radar limitations. Canada’s defenses are also considered to be very much neglected.] It’s also definitely weird when Japan is donating a higher %GDP than a number of wealthy European countries. At least in respect to military aid, it’s tough for much of Europe to provide when most of Europe, especially Western, has let their military investments and readiness dwindle considerably over the past 30+ years.
The other problem here is the timeliness and specific type of military aid. Take Germany for instance- just one example here- holding up transfers of Leopard tanks… not even German-owned tanks but rather 3rd party nations, went on for months and some might say allowed an extended opportunity for Russia to build multiple lines of defense. And even for that to happen the UK and US had to donate what amounts to a completely insignificant of Challanger and Abrams tanks (14 and 31 respectively IIRC) and which if actually used in battle at those numbers will probably just cause more logistical headaches than worth dealing with.
Another factor is the committed aid and actually dispersed aid. In some cases this can differ as the aid is intended over a period. But what’s less clear is (existing) hardware that is committed but never received months and months and months later.
And there should be some context given too that countries who have donate larger %’s of the smaller GDP’s have in some instances been provided stop-gap measures or US replacements by the US for handing soviet era hardware due of its familiarity with Ukrainian operators. I suspect these types of transfers are not adequately accounted. For example, replacing country’s soviet-era given to Ukraine with Patriot systems or providing regular air patrols courtesy of the US Air Force (on behalf of NATO of course).
To be clear, I am not complaining the US has provided too much aid- more so there are some European countries in particular should be doing more. And furthermore, the history of many/most NATO members expecting the US to bankroll NATO defense in Europe while failing to meet their defense spending commitments is just an unacceptable way to conduct oneself in a partnership.
I moved my reply to the Russia-Ukraine thread.It indeed will be interesting to see what Trump’s stance would be on this if he were to make it back to the White House. His comments have been all over the place regarding the war and what he’d do- other than solving it in 1 day by talking to Putin
As for the conclusion “Europe takes the lead”, that smells of misleading statistics. Why would you necessarily compare all/many/most European countries (evidently EU and non-EU) versus the US. That’s an explicit red flag right there. Certainly many of the Eastern European countries have committed a much more significant percentage of the their GDP, such as the Baltic counties. These are low GDP countries to begin with.
I don’t think comparing GDP is necessarily appropriate when you consider the US GDP is 25T while the next biggest is Germany at 3.8T and a country like Lithuania (one of the highest contributors by %GDP) is $70 billion. Secondly, I think it’s fair to say the US’s interest is in protecting Europe from Russian invasion is important, but is something that we should not be taking more seriously than the Europeans. This is particularly frustrating considering that for decades many of our NATO partners in Europe committed well below the agreed upon %GDP for defense… basically expecting the US military to pickup the slack in the event of conflict. [Heck, I’m not sure there has been an explanation why the US shot down that unidentified balloon over Canadian airspace- obviously NORAD is collaborative but I’d expect the local military to take the shot. It’s been suspected it has to do with their ancient and overdue for retirement CF-18 fighter jet’s older-generation radar limitations. Canada’s defenses are also considered to be very much neglected.] It’s also definitely weird when Japan is donating a higher %GDP than a number of wealthy European countries. At least in respect to military aid, it’s tough for much of Europe to provide when most of Europe, especially Western, has let their military investments and readiness dwindle considerably over the past 30+ years.
The other problem here is the timeliness and specific type of military aid. Take Germany for instance- just one example here- holding up transfers of Leopard tanks… not even German-owned tanks but rather 3rd party nations, went on for months and some might say allowed an extended opportunity for Russia to build multiple lines of defense. And even for that to happen the UK and US had to donate what amounts to a completely insignificant of Challanger and Abrams tanks (14 and 31 respectively IIRC) and which if actually used in battle at those numbers will probably just cause more logistical headaches than worth dealing with.
Another factor is the committed aid and actually dispersed aid. In some cases this can differ as the aid is intended over a period. But what’s less clear is (existing) hardware that is committed but never received months and months and months later.
And there should be some context given too that countries who have donate larger %’s of the smaller GDP’s have in some instances been provided stop-gap measures or US replacements by the US for handing soviet era hardware due of its familiarity with Ukrainian operators. I suspect these types of transfers are not adequately accounted. For example, replacing country’s soviet-era given to Ukraine with Patriot systems or providing regular air patrols courtesy of the US Air Force (on behalf of NATO of course).
To be clear, I am not complaining the US has provided too much aid- more so there are some European countries in particular should be doing more. And furthermore, the history of many/most NATO members expecting the US to bankroll NATO defense in Europe while failing to meet their defense spending commitments is just an unacceptable way to conduct oneself in a partnership.
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- Good luck, Kevin.This is bullshit. They may as well be having a press conference about Joe Biden secretly being Obama or something, same level of ridiculousnes.
*Later that day,…
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This is bullshit. They may as well be having a press conference about Joe Biden secretly being Obama or something, same level of ridiculousnes.
*Later that day,…
Another good one:
Representative Jasmine Crockett for the win, seriously good to see Democrats actually fighting back.
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Here is what Byron Donalds introduced as evidence... A text showing Jim Biden offering to help pressure his brother, President Biden, to help with Hunter’s business dealings. Which isn’t a crime and wouldn’t be proof of Joe Biden doing anything. Except Biden was not VP or a candidate at the time. And that is not what the text is about, at all. It’s a family issue about alimony and which Donalds must have “accidentally” missed.
AOC called him out. Republicans are doing so bad this week that there’s a palpable sense of energy. Biden picketed with union workers. Trump went to a non-union, invitation-only event, when he’s on the record being anti-union many years back.
Joe Biden gave an excellent speech today. Trump is threatening to have generals executed. It’s dangerous rhetoric, but we need to start publicly humiliating Trump. He’s not Putin or a dictator - he’s a mental dwarf in the body of a fat metrosexual. Republicans want to keep up the charade that he’s a normal or even great man or leader, and that is getting old. Americans as a whole have soundly rejected Trump twice, and since McCarthy seems incapable of doing anything but dancing whenever Trump tells him to, it’s time to lay the public shaming on thick. Public and constant ridicule needs to be taking place.
AOC called him out. Republicans are doing so bad this week that there’s a palpable sense of energy. Biden picketed with union workers. Trump went to a non-union, invitation-only event, when he’s on the record being anti-union many years back.
Joe Biden gave an excellent speech today. Trump is threatening to have generals executed. It’s dangerous rhetoric, but we need to start publicly humiliating Trump. He’s not Putin or a dictator - he’s a mental dwarf in the body of a fat metrosexual. Republicans want to keep up the charade that he’s a normal or even great man or leader, and that is getting old. Americans as a whole have soundly rejected Trump twice, and since McCarthy seems incapable of doing anything but dancing whenever Trump tells him to, it’s time to lay the public shaming on thick. Public and constant ridicule needs to be taking place.
The knives are being sharpened:
I can’t find it now but there’s a rumor going around that the extremists are going to go after McCarthy next week (you know instead of solving the government shutdown - but then why would they want to do that?)
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That’s what these Trumpers don’t understand, division is a cancer and it doesn’t go away because you break yourself off into what you think is an “ideal” world, because then you find other things to divide yourself over. Who’s white enough, what Christian denomination will reign supreme, etc?
Huh, it seems McCarthy does have something resembling a spine. The House just passed a bipartisan bill to fund the government for 45 days. Notably, funding for Ukraine is absent, though my impression is that it can be passed separately. Gaetz will surely call a vote to remove McCarthy, and McCarthy will now likely need Dem backing to keep the gavel.
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There’s a lot you don’t have, Kevin, including leadership skills or the ability to stand up for yourself and what is right.
The problem for McCarthy is he’s blaming the house dems, the senate and the president - and Hunter Biden as well - when he is asking about something he already agreed to. Why negotiate with people who say “Nevermind, let’s start over” at the eleventh hour?
The house had to adjourn as quickly as possible because Gaetz tried to file his motion to remove McCarthy - we will see what happens Monday.
Lots of republicans voted against this measure to buy more time, and he’s going to be in the same sport again.
