Et Tu, Matty?

     Nine months ago, we read the tea leaves, or the bay leaves, as it were.

     Kevin McCarthy now enjoys the distinction of being the first Speaker in US history to be removed and by eight members of his own party, at that. The final vote was 216-210 (in other words, not by a majority of the House, as nine abstained or voted present). It marks the second-shortest Speakership in history, next to Theodore Pomeroy, who served for a day in 1869.

     The Republicans who voted against McCarthy reads like a Who's Who of the Usual Suspects: Joining Gaetz (R-Mann Act) were Ken Buck, Andy Biggs, Tim Burchett, Eli Crane, Bob Good, Nancy Mace and Matt Rosendale. Note Lauren Boebert's name wasn't on there. She was never on board with his ouster and is now facing backlash from her own constituents.

     So, now what? Well, professional nonentity Patrick McHenry of North Carolina is the Speaker pro tem until the House votes on a new Speaker this Tuesday. The problem is, they have no clear front runner. Yes, the House GOP caucus was so eager to get rid of McCarthy they did so without a clear successor in mind.

     The amazing thing was, it only took eight Republicans to do this, joining 208 Democrats who unanimously voted to toss McCarthy.

     But McCarthy only has himself to blame. It was a classic case of someone sleeping with the enemy, in this case, his own caucus. During his nine month Speakership, Matt Gaetz and his 18 inch-high pompadour had been breathing down McCarthy's neck virtually every day. McCarthy agreed to Gaetz's demand that the rules for vacating the Speakership be streamlined from five congress people to just one.

 

     He essentially gave away the farm because, while he's not the brightest bulb on the Christmas tree, McCarthy was ravenously ambitious. And if the votes had stretched longer than 15 tries, he would've let Matt Gaetz fuck his wife on his dining room table in front of his kids during a PPV just to get that little piece of wood in his hand.

    In his brief nine month Speakership, McCarthy made several catastrophic blunders. The first was in reaching a tentative deal with the White House last May to raise the debt ceiling and fund the government.

    Well, Republicans couldn't have that. God forbid we should ever have a functioning government that actually works for the 99%.

     Rep. Melanie Stansbury (D-NM) put it best when she said, “It’s not our circus and he’s not our clown.” And that arose from McCarthy's worst blunder of all time: Going on CBS and saying less than 12 hours after the stopgap spending bill was passed largely because of Democrats, that the Democrats wanted the government to shut down (that made Martha Brennan literally laugh in his face).

    Well, Democrats couldn't have that.

     If there was any doubt what a shameless lickspittle like McCarthy is, that removed any doubt and that explains why not a single Democrat voted to bail him out. He plainly couldn't be trusted and just hours after the vote that revived the government's funding, he immediately began thrashing around like a brain-dead scorpion and began stinging the frog because, well, that's his nature.

     And that set up today's showdown and why, for the second time in nine months, the 118th Congress doesn't have a Speaker, with no clear successor in mind. This is why the GOP is called "the chaos caucus."

     So, Marjorie Taylor-Greene is gonna have to find a new Sugar Daddy.

     As Rachel Maddow is fond of saying, "Watch this space."