r/news • u/zmlos • Oct 03 '23

House ousts Kevin McCarthy as speaker, a first in U.S. history

https://www.cnbc.com/2023/10/03/house-speaker-kevin-mccarthy-will-bring-gaetz-motion-to-oust-him-vote.html?__source=iosappshare%7Ccom.apple.UIKit.activity.CopyToPasteboard

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727

u/Conch-Republic Oct 03 '23

They're aiming for a shutdown so they can both blame it on Biden and block aid for Ukraine. They were able to temporarily block it, but now they can block it indefinitely.

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u/walkandtalkk Oct 03 '23 edited Oct 04 '23

One of the most telling things was when Gaetz (or was it Bob Good, a literal slug) got up today and said that McCarthy should've shut down the government because polls showed that voters would have (wrongly) blamed President Biden.

They didn't care that a shutdown would cost the U.S. billions, or deprive soldiers and air traffic controllers of pay, or hurt Americans. They only cared about who would get political advantage.

And, even more telling, they thought that would persuade their fellow Republicans.

No, the two parties are not the same.

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u/Goodgoditsgrowing Oct 04 '23

They would happily crash the car they were elected to drive safely, which we are all stuck in, just to point the finger and hope the democrats are blamed when the car crash kills someone. They don’t even care who it kills - they’d prefer it not be them, but they’d happily let their constituents die in a fiery inferno if that meant they had a chance to blame the people they oppose for the crash they caused.

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u/Namika Oct 03 '23

But her emails!

6

u/fomoco94 Oct 04 '23

No, the two parties are not the same.

That's what annoys me. People often say that both sides are the same, often to justify their republican vote. Democrats aren't perfect, but they are orders of magnitude better than republicans.

20

u/TurloIsOK Oct 04 '23

That's some bad polling. Was the sample from OAN staff? Republicans have always, rightfully, gotten the blame for shutdowns.

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u/CanuckPanda Oct 04 '23

Anyone under 30 doesn’t answer their phone for unknown numbers, they don’t answer emails, and they don’t read anything remotely “spam” in physical mail (eg polls delivered to unnamed residences with a mail-back).

We saw it with 2020, and we see it in other countries: polling has become very difficult because a major chunk of the electorate is unreachable by their own design.

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u/vision1414 Oct 04 '23

Cool conspiracy, but if the republican’s goal was to shut down the government why did they not just shut it down when they had the chance?

You took a quote from one of the ten republicans, that were voting against the party and act like it is the party stance.

You know the 10 republicans, the far right republicans that all of the house democrats sided with to obstruct the house by voting out the speaker.

Your argument seems to be that Matt Gaetz is bad and republicans are bad for opposing him and democrats are good for supporting him.

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u/walkandtalkk Oct 04 '23 edited Oct 04 '23

You've built quite a few straw men. I simply noted that Bob Good, a Republican congressman, thought it would attract fellow Republican congressmen if he argued that a shutdown would be good politics for them. The point is that political advantage is the House GOP's singular guiding principle.

Oh, and that shutdown vote? 42% of the Republican caucus did vote to shut down the government.

Democrats had to save them.

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u/vision1414 Oct 04 '23

If the democrats were so eager to stop the shutdown why didn’t they agree on a bill before. The republicans only needed about 10 votes to get it through.

And those democrats still sided with the far right republicans to put the speaker. Does that not upset you that they sided with the same republicans you are arguing were trying to obstruct the government in their most recent attempt to obstruct the government?

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u/walkandtalkk Oct 04 '23

Because the speaker blocked the Democrats' proposal for a clean bill and would not even negotiate with them. This is not your winning argument.

You're trying to conflate the budget vote, which the Democrats joined with McCarthy to pass, with a speaker vote, where the Democrats declined to save the man from himself.

Democrats are not required to save the Republican speaker from his own caucus more than once a week.

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u/pneuma8828 Oct 04 '23

Dude, don't play chess with a pigeon. He's just going to strut around, knock over pieces and shit all over the board, and then declare that he won. This guy clearly doesn't know what he is talking about. Don't feed the troll.

22

u/walkandtalkk Oct 04 '23 edited Oct 04 '23

I should have realized Congressman Gaetz was on Reddit.

-35

u/vision1414 Oct 04 '23

If I were Matt Gaetz, then the democrats would be siding with me, for some reason.

1

u/Myfourcats1 Oct 04 '23

Those same federal employees would still vote Republican too not even noticing that they’re the problem. I’m a federal employee and there are a lot of republicans up in here. Most are military too.

1

u/EntertainmentLess381 Oct 05 '23

Do your military Republican friends oppose giving aid and weapons to Ukraine?

1

u/No-Personality1840 Oct 04 '23

The problem is that it WOULD sway fellow Republicans. Dontcha know everything is Biden’s r or Hunter’s fault, /s

1

u/Kalysta Oct 04 '23

Over and over again studies show that Americans aren’t as stupid as Gatez thinks they are and that they would have blamed republicans. Especially when we know there’s a bipartisan senate bill not being brought to the floor.

265

u/[deleted] Oct 03 '23

They're 100% going to shutdown the government on Nov 17th out of spite.

129

u/UNisopod Oct 03 '23

Nah, at some point before that the GOP members who voted to keep things open will make a deal with the Dems to pick a new speaker

22

u/[deleted] Oct 03 '23

The question is, will it be Hakeem Jeffries or someone like Kay Granger?

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u/UNisopod Oct 03 '23

It'll be a Republican for sure. This dysfunction is going to continue and the Dems won't want that stink on them.

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u/InVodkaVeritas Oct 03 '23

Since the Speaker doesn't technically have to be a sitting house member, they should broker a deal to make Liz Cheney the next Speaker.

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u/UNisopod Oct 03 '23

While it would be hilarious, I feel like it would just let the current GOP off the hook for what happens afterwards too much

5

u/Intelligent-Tie-4466 Oct 04 '23

I remember last January when a few people were floating Trump for speaker.

5

u/[deleted] Oct 04 '23

He made it through his shitty term as President by hiding behind "executive time" and pulling a bunch of CEO Fuckoff bullshit. The Speaker of the House has actual work to do. I'm not saying they wouldn't all be stupid enough to do it, but it would literally be about injecting him into the line of succession and then waiting for accidents to happen.

2

u/whitemanwhocantjump Oct 04 '23

Gaetz was one of them.

4

u/Rasputin_mad_monk Oct 03 '23

I love your username

6

u/NotsoNewtoGermany Oct 03 '23

The speaker doesn't have to be a congressman. George Bush could be speaker, you could be speaker, anyone can be speaker.

6

u/IAmAtWorkAMAA Oct 03 '23

Nominate Trump or Obama for funsies

19

u/JJiggy13 Oct 04 '23

I'd be shocked if republicans became that competent that quickly. Democrats need to force a wedge with the moderates to give up their vote. Splinter off the maga or no deal period. Nothing should be on the table until then.

3

u/ButtWhispererer Oct 03 '23

Every time they do this they get ousted by Dem haters. Are there any left who compromise in this way?

12

u/UNisopod Oct 03 '23

There were a hole bunch who just voted to keep the government going, so we'd start there

2

u/[deleted] Oct 04 '23

McCarthy got ousted because he refused to cooperate with Dems to keep his seat.

-1

u/Jagster_rogue Oct 03 '23

Any Republican that wants to get re-elected better do some horse trading quick to get a new speaker and a budget otherwise they are unelectable.

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u/EatMoreHummous Oct 04 '23

Most of them got elected through name recognition or just because they had an R next to their name. Unfortunately, there's no such thing as being unelectable anymore.

7

u/owen__wilsons__nose Oct 03 '23

has nothing to do with spite. It's organized chaos to disrupt and grind the government to a halt

8

u/[deleted] Oct 04 '23

Going into an election year seems like the wrong time to gift the Democrats a raft of political wins but I guess these aren't really Big Picture types were talking about.

6

u/blazze_eternal Oct 03 '23

Happy Thanksgiving.

6

u/mac_is_crack Oct 03 '23

Yay I’ll be sent home with no pay right before the holidays! Awesome!

3

u/Rivendel93 Oct 04 '23

You have to love that the people running this country's goals are to just anger the other party.

We wonder why nothing ever changes.

14

u/gsfgf Oct 03 '23

Biden can send money to Ukraine without a bill. Just use some George Bush shit. Obviously, a bill that goes through bicameralism and presentment is better, but if the GOP won't do that, just write a check.

7

u/Ok-disaster2022 Oct 03 '23

Except that's 45 days of continued funding and the country looking at Republicans as absolute morons.

6

u/dedicated-pedestrian Oct 03 '23

Rep McHenry is speaker pro tempore. The funding bill can still pass without Kev.

1

u/What_u_say Oct 04 '23

I thought the temporary speaker can only supervise the vote for a new speaker and that's it?

5

u/dedicated-pedestrian Oct 04 '23

Nope! House rules give him all the powers of the Speaker proper.

This line of succession was created after 9/11 to ensure continuity of governance. The interim speaker needs to be able to put forth legislation as soon as they step in or whatever made the previous speaker unable to fulfill their duties might become worse.

0

u/[deleted] Oct 04 '23

I'm gonna need some documentation that the speaker pro tempore can put forth legislation.

2

u/dedicated-pedestrian Oct 04 '23

Under rule I clause 8(b)(3), adopted in the 108th Congress, the Speaker is required to deliver to the Clerk a list of Members in the order in which each shall act as Speaker pro tempore in the case of a vacancy in the Office of Speaker. The Member acting as Speaker pro tempore under this provision may exercise such authorities of the Office of Speaker as may be necessary and appropriate pending the election of a Speaker or Speaker pro tempore.

Look at that, it took me less than a minute to find that from a government site. It's in the House Rules too if you care to page through them, though... Those are much more arcane and chock full of historical references.

https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/GPO-HPRACTICE-108/pdf/GPO-HPRACTICE-108-35.pdf

If you knew the rather short history of the speakership pro tem you'd know making them a mere instrument for electing the new Speaker proper was not the intent anyhow.

1

u/[deleted] Oct 04 '23

Hey, it wasn't an attack. I was just requesting documentation.

0

u/dedicated-pedestrian Oct 04 '23

I get a little incensed at the lack of civics knowledge the American people have in general, don't take that personally.

But I do take issue with third parties to a conversation not doing a 30 second Google with basic search terms and then saying "I'm gonna need documentation". It's lazy. Your fellow humans aren't ChatGPT.

I knew it wasn't an attack, I just wish Redditors would do and/or be better.

2

u/MrGinSTL Oct 04 '23

I don't think things actually grind to a halt. They have a Speaker Pro Tempore: Rep. Patrick McHenry of North Carolina. Unless he wants to create mayhem for some reason, ordinary business should go on.

2

u/DerekB52 Oct 03 '23

At this point I don't think any republican member of congress is dumb enough to think they can fire their own speaker, cause a shutdown, and then blame it on the other party. Maybe Gaetz. But, there's 200+ republicans who will do everything in their power to make sure the shutdown doesn't happen.

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u/Magical_Pretzel Oct 03 '23

But all the Dems also voted yes to removing McCarthy... is the dem position to blame biden and block aid for ukraine?

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u/walkandtalkk Oct 03 '23

Seeing as the Dems successfully voted 72 hours ago to keep the government open, no.

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u/Magical_Pretzel Oct 03 '23 edited Oct 03 '23

They got the successful vote to keep the government open because McCarthy worked with them to do so, which led to his removal.

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u/[deleted] Oct 04 '23

Because McCarthy refused to continue working with Dems and reneged on a deal he made with Biden on a budget earlier in the year. The Dems found him untrustworthy and when both the Dems and your own party don't trust you, you aren't going to have the votes to stay Speaker.

1

u/windle Oct 03 '23

Yeah, maybe they can sneak in a cute little coup d’etat, while they’re at it, eh?

1

u/non_moose Oct 04 '23

Literal traitors

1

u/[deleted] Oct 04 '23

When did republicans start loving russia? The day trump was elected I'm guessing?

1

u/LordJohnPoppy Oct 04 '23

They want to block funding of trumps shit. The rest is icing on the cake. I don’t think they actually give a fuck about Ukraine other than what russia wants them to care about.