Who the Fuck is Mike Johnson?

(By American Zen's Mike Flannigan, on loan from Ari)

"Mr. Johnson’s quick ascent came when members of the conference were worn down and ready to accept someone whom they did not view as an obvious choice or the party’s natural leader in waiting. Instead, he cleared a lowered bar: They view him as someone sufficiently conservative and who they do not personally despise." - Annie Karni, the New York Times.

It all happened so quickly and resolved itself in a way that even all but a few House Republicans foresaw. After better than three weeks without a Speaker, three weeks of a ceaseless Republican clown show, it shook out like this:

     After introducing a motion to vacate, Matt Gaetz, the maestro of the aforementioned Republican shit show, cost Kevin McCarthy his job. Steve Scalise, the Majority Leader, got nominated, then was out a day later. Then Jim Jordan got the nod and, after a bellicose and mean-spirited intimidation campaign that actually involved a MOC's wife, after three votes that saw him get fewer and fewer votes, Jordan was out. Then it was Tom Emmer's turn in the dunk tank and he didn't even last a day.

     Enter Mike Johnson, the Bucky Dent of national politics, minus the soft, improbable home run that briefly brought glory and victory. Or more like Ed Armbrister, a guy who just got in the way in the right place at the right time.

 

    Before anyone knew what was happening, we had a House Speaker. It was like John Cleese's Sir Lancelot, eternally at the same distance, sword in hand, madly running toward the castle, then suddenly he's on top of us, hacking away with gleeful abandon.

     Mike Johnson? Who the fuck was he? Even political pundits like yours truly began Googling his name, looking up his voting record. Whoever this bird was, he was certainly hitting below the Mendoza Line. Prior to yesterday's vote, Johnson was just another of nine candidates, including the aforementioned Tom Emmer, the Minnesota Republican who had to temerity to vote to certify the 2020 Electoral College results and, most unforgivably, voted in favor of LGBTQ rights. For a few days, it looked like a MAGA version of an Agatha Christie novel. And then there were eight, seven...

    Then, bloated with hubris and arrogance and pretending very convincingly that over the last three weeks they did not make our government the laughingstock of the world and showing it the chaotic dysfunction formerly peculiar only to banana republics, House Republicans bunched up behind their newly-anointed Speaker for their first post-election press conference.

     ABC's Rachel Scott asked Johnson about his vote to overturn the 2020 election results. She was met with laughter, shouting and Virginia Foxx, who literally is older than dirt, yelling at her to "shut up". Foxx, it ought to be mentioned, is the chair of the House Education and Workforce Committee. Of late, she is best-known for shaking her bony little fist at reporters and screaming at them to get away from Members Only elevators.

The Accidental Speaker

 

Occasionally, politicians, especially nonentities like Johnson, hit the lottery and with minimal effort. The supreme exemplar of this is Gerald Ford, the only man to ever ascend to the vice presidency then the presidency without being elected to either position. And then there are guys like Mike Johnson.

     Johnson obviously was the last man standing in the GOP's War of attrition on itself. He is, as Annie Karni tartly observed in the NY Times, "(S)omeone sufficiently conservative and who they do not personally despise." (In other words, to paraphrase Harvey Dent, someone who hasn't hung around long enough to see himself become the villain.) 

     Plus, he was endorsed by Trump! Just like Jim Jordan was. Of course, Trump's tiny-handed fist-pumping of Johnson has a little to do with Johnson voting to decertify the election results in 2021 and even more to do with the incalculable damage he can do as House Speaker on January 6, 2025. I'm sure Trump's already got his cell phone number on speed dial, already planning on giving him the Mike Pence treatment no matter how hard Biden kicks his fat, pasty ass.

     So, again, who the fuck is Mike Johnson?

    Well, on top of voting to decertify the results of a free and fair election, the meddling of which made Trump an indicted conspirator in Georgia, Johnson signed his name to an amicus brief to the ridiculous lawsuit filed by impeached Texas AG Ken Paxton, who went to the Supreme Court in a comically Quixotic attempt to overturn the results of the election in four states, none of which being Texas.

     Of late, he's also vowed to cut off funding for Ukraine, turn on the money spigots for Israel and has been a reliably right wing voice in opposition to abortion and LGBT rights. He co-hosts a podcast with his wife that frequently pissed and moaned about Trump's two impeachments and probably his four indictments.

     In short, Johnson promises to be nothing more or less than a cock puppet of Donald Trump, who is himself a cock puppet of Vladimir Putin. Yes, the 56th Speaker in US history is also the first one to hold the gavel who's an insurrectionist. He'll be the first one to see to the interests of not one dictator but at least two.

     He was simply the relatively fresh barfly sitting by himself at last call, the enemy plane who flew just far enough beneath the radar to slip in. It'll be interesting to see how nicely he plays with Mitch McConnell but I wouldn't give him much chance of succeeding on that front. And, while the GOP caucus was making a Broadway production of looking unified yesterday, I'd say it'll be a miracle if this newest clown lasts out the year because, at some point, he'll piss off someone in the caucus. After the last three weeks, it's inevitable.

The Cruelty is the Point, Redux

     Because, fucking A, this is exactly what Jesus would've wanted.

     We've always been hostile to the poor and justify that prejudice by claiming that poor people choose to live in poverty, which most of us do not. We show our contempt to the poor by slapping them with fees, surcharges, penalties, reconnection fees and so forth as if the added burden will make it easier for us to pay up. Rich people don't have to worry about this shit.

     We successfully criminalized indigence so that now it's a thriving multibillion dollar a year industry. Poor people are the reason why collection agencies and repo men exist, why payday lenders exist, why debtor's prisons exist. If you stumble once, people will do their damnedest to ensure you stay down. That's the point.

     When my fiancee, Barbara, died four weeks ago, and even for months before that, they made me insolvent by taking away her Social Security checks because, of course, a multi million dollar nursing home needed it more than us. They left me unable to pay my rent and now I'm looking at imminent eviction. The rules are simple- If you can't keep up with the other rats in the rat race, you get thrown to the wayside.

     And they did it with such casual sadism. Every day, I cry because I miss her so much. Every day I've lived these past four weeks is like the day I got the horrible news. It's like Groundhog Day, only without the laughs.

     Oh, and yesterday, I got a letter from the food stamp people expressing their sincere condolences on Barbara's passing right before telling me they were taking most of my SNAP benefits. The subtractions. They never end.

     And people wonder why I say I no longer want to live.

Gone With the Wind

     Say what you want about her but the old girl has a few surprises left in her yet.

     Yesterday, it was announced that Sidney Powell had agreed to plead guilty to six misdemeanor counts and to receive a sweetheart deal in exchange for future testimony related to Fani Willis' prosecution of Donald Trump and 18 co-defendants. In exchange, she gets to avoid jail time and felony convictions, must be on probation for six years, pay a $6000 fine and write a letter of apology to the citizens of Georgia.

     To get a sweetheart deal like that, Powell must have some juicy shit on Trump. Prosecutors at the county, state and federal level don't proffer let alone agree to deals like that unless they know they're going to get something in return.

     The news that Powell, one of the most untruthful of the True Believers, would flip on Trump sent shock waves throughout MAGAdonia. It wasn't as if they didn't suspect that she'd flip. Trump's army of rat fuckers, true to form, were already laying the groundwork to throw Powell under the bus. It was how soon she'd agreed to flip that sent them into a state of panic.

     Powell, of course, had been behind the genteel breakin of the elections office in Coffee County, a county that Trump took by 73%. She'd sent operatives to access voting machines, operatives who then looked at the proprietary data from that office under the watchful eye of the former Coffee County GOP chair.

     Let's keep one thing in mind- Sidney Powell is crazier than a shithouse rat after smoking a pound of crystal meth. She went on Maria Bartiromo's show on Fox and listed among her "sources" a woman who claimed to get her "facts" from the wind, astral projection and time travel. She also claimed Hugo Chavez, the Venezuelan strongman who'd died over a decade ago, somehow engineered a plot with Dominion to keep Republicans from winning elections was responsible for Trump losing in 2020.

     But Powell has enough survival instincts to know who her friends are and aren't. And she's not so old or senile or crazy to not know that she has no friends in Trumpworld. She knows they were sharpening their knives in preparation for her testimony. Look for Trump to start throwing verbal grenades in her direction from Truth Social, which could be construed as witness intimidation.

     And the other 17 co-defendants will be watching and listening.

Weird Scenes Inside the Guano Mine, Day Two

     What was it Einstein said about doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results?

 

Pottersville Digest: Super Expanded edition

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    A divorce is always sad, even if it's amicable as this one seems to be. But, my God, could she possibly look more like trailer park trash?

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     I could watch this literally all day.

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     How's he gonna ruin them, max out their credit cards?

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    It's a major failing in this country when a multimillionaire is expected to hand over everything they've earned over several decades to a health care conglomerate.

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    I find it difficult to believe that even an idiot like Lindell could blow $100,000,000 in three years. Right wing scumbags like him always move their money to LLCs or to other people so the courts and litigants can't touch it. Look at Alex Jones and the Sacklers. I'm telling you, he moved what he had left.

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     217 chimps flinging their feces couldn't have made this a bigger clusterfuck than the GOP.

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   "We want to govern on important issues in this country regarding our national debt, regarding immigration, regarding our children's education. Lots of republicans have lots of good ideas..."

     I'd love to know where Christie is getting all this from. Because when they're not mud wrestling with each other over the Speakership, all they've done thus far is hold dysfunctional impeachment inquires against Biden and going after Hunter's laptop.

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    Since the GOP has proven it can't govern a pile of shit, much less half of Congress, it's become screamingly obvious that the only way to reopen the House is to elect Hakeem Jeffries as the next Speaker. He has more votes than anyone (212) & all that's needed is five GOP votes. It's obviously the fastest path to reopening the House. It's that simple.

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     Tell me again about how Toni Morrison is the bad guy here.

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     God help us, one and all. Are they really going to make me pine for Newt Gingrich?

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     Help Make Bonnie's Final Dreams Come True.

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    "I never heard of such a thing even when I parted the Red Sea and led my people to the Promised Land!"

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     Elect Jeffries Speaker. There's your compromise. Take it or leave it. Or show us a more direct path to reopening the House.

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     Your Brad and Karen o' the day,.

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     You have to wonder when these insurance companies are going to stop insuring these municipalities.

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     Cartoon intermission.

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     Quote o' the day:

     "Never have so many people quarreled so hard about a choice so meaningless. Picking out of the lineup of MAGA jackasses (for Speaker) is like trying to figure out which cat turd in the litterbox I like best." -Amanda Marcotte.

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     "In addition, when a man shakes a woman's hand in the same pulling-toward-their-torso fashion, it's not only indicative of narcissism & manipulative personality, but it also has an extremely high correlation w/ misogyny, objectification, & tendency toward physical abuse." -Dr. Jack Brown.

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     "I don’t think they play fair.” What? Donald Trump, not playing fair? What're the odds?

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     Nobel Prize-winning poet Louise Glück has just passed away. Damn, and I was reading about her on the internet just a week or two ago. RIP, Louise.

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     Forget about the insurrection for a moment. His complete disregard for classified materials alone renders him, or should render him, unfit for the job and he ought to be barred from running again. Full stop.

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     "They are terrorists like the leaders of Hamas. They are despots like Vladimir Putin. They are men like Donald Trump, who has never gone without a meal or lacked the social lubricant of money his entire life, and yet has convinced millions he is the answer to all our problems."

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     One young man was brutally murdered, another was maimed and nearly lost his life. A young girl was traumatized, possibly for life. Am I a heartless prick for seeing a novel in this?

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     You know what would be a delicious irony? If we did accept Gazan refugees into, say, California, and then Gavin Newsom sends them all to Florida.

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     RIP Suzanne Somers, aka Crissy on Three's Company. Her 77th birthday would've been today.

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    Then what happens if and when we have to go to war with China over Taiwan? Because if they attack Taiwan, according to international law, we'll have to defend them.

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     Just watch- Within 24-48 hours, he'll be ragging on Bibi for Jewish space lasers.

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     He might as well have left it in cash on her nightstand.

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     What a great-looking guy. Yeah, I'd want to rent a unit from him.

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     An eight minute-long supercut of the craziest moments from the GOP and right wing just in the past week. And finally...

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     I still remember the flaming shit storm that resulted from the revelation that Hillary Clinton was coached by CNN when they slipped her debate questions through the DNC's Donna Brazille.

     But this is on a whole 'nuther level entirely because it involves not one candidate but half the Legislative branch. And it's not even getting half the press the Hillary scandal did.

Help Make Bonnie's Final Dreams Come True

     Bonnie (far right) and I go all the way back to 1980. We first met at a rooming house in Hudson, MA called the Hudson House. From the first moment I met her, I was sweet on her but too shy to make my feelings known to her. She was 20 and I was just 21 when we met.

    Then I joined the Navy and didn't see Bonnie again until about a decade later. Then I wouldn't see her again for another 10-11 years, at a memorial service for an old friend of ours from the Hudson House days.

     Last April, I had a heart attack and, at its onset, I was contacted out of the blue by my dear friend, Christine Lyden from York, UK. She asked how I was doing. I said I thought I was having a heart attack and she strenuously told me to call an ambulance. I later asked her why she contacted me then and she said, "I had a feeling."

      Last month, I guess it was my turn for a premonition so I looked for Bonnie and found her on Facebook. Eventually, we began communicating again and she told me about her possible ALS diagnosis. So we began making plans to meet up at a local Amvets. The day we were to meet was the day I learned about my fiancee Barbara's death.

      Plainly, I wasn't in the mood to party but a promise is a promise. I felt very strongly that Bonnie and I needed to see each other after that 21 year-long absence. Five days later, the ALS diagnosis was confirmed.

      Her daughter Alicia set up a GoFundMe for her mother to fund her bucket list. I wouldn't be much of a friend if I didn't share the link so here it is. However many or few adventures it funds, I still intend on helping her assemble and publish a book of her poetry on Amazon.

 

      I never talk about my past, especially that far back into it, but we all have them. And Bonnie was a precious part of it, as well as my present.

      So if anyone could contribute to her fund, we'd both deeply appreciate it.

Donald Trump Admires the Worst of the Worst

 

     Now, let's get one thing straight- I'm no fan of Israel's government. Since Israel's inception in 1948, they've visited untold misery on the people of Palestine. They've committed countless war crimes against the Palestinian people for decades in violation of virtually every international treaty on the books.

     I could write a post saying essentially that the chickens have come home to roost. But I won't. The people who were killed on Saturday at the hands of Hamas terrorists and in the days ahead, 1000 at last count, were innocents. Male noncombatants, women, children. Babies.

     Innocents. No long-delayed justice or vengeance can be justified by slaughtering innocents. I believe these terrorists need to be hunted down by the IDF and exterminated and fuck their rights. No International Criminal Court. No due process. Just take 'em out.

     Unfortunately, they seem to have an unlikely ally: Donald Trump.

     Yes, the man who never met a dictator he didn't want to immediately fellate actually went on a stage to insult Bibi Netanyahu and praise Hezbollah for being "very smart" for getting under Israel's famed Iron Dome and killing hundreds of Israelis, 260 at a music festival (an eerie reprise of the Las Vegas shooting in 2017).

     Yes, the presumptive nominee of a major political party, the same guy who wanted to negotiate with Taliban terrorists at Camp David, openly praised a terrorist organization.

     I'm sure Republicans would've had plenty to say about that if they weren't busy fucking rats and throwing their own fecal matter against the walls in their latest shit show of a Speakership election. I'm sure they'll get around to it.

     But to any head of state of a democratic nation, they should be very concerned. Because the very basic concept of terrorism, especially a religious-based ideology that employs violence and mass murder, is completely antithetical to the idea of a functioning democracy.

     But Donald Trump has proved time and again that he's no fan of democracy except when he wants to playact at being a statesman when there are cameras nearby.

Pottersville Digest

(I just put this pic up on Twitter and it went viral. Predictably, the right wingers are losing their shit. My work there is done.)

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And, to think, these psychopaths have nearly unlimited power over the lives of innocent human beings.

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     I remember a right wing news site about 11 years ago had a filter that changed certain words, especially euphemisms. So when one sports article featuring the sprinter Tyson Gay appeared, the algorithm printed his name as Tyson Homosexual. Apparently, we haven't crawled away from the gay hysteria by one inch.

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     "All units be advised, there's a BOLO on one Fudd, Elmer. He's considered armed and dangerous and has an unnatural obsession with abortion and a certain rabbit."

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    At this point, I wouldn't trust the GOP to govern a pile of dog shit. And Tuesday will be the beginning of yet another Republican-orchestrated shit show.

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     Great OPPORTUNITY? The death toll stands at over 1000.

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     "I completely condemn that guy and everything he stands for. I would never in a million years meet with that guy.”

     And yet, there you were, in the same building at the same time. My, my, the Devil works in mysterious ways, does he not?

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    Why do we need crappy shows like this when we already have Congress? I mean, seriously, we can get this on C-Span.

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     Typical Nazi.

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    I wouldn't be surprised if this right wing asshole has already killed someone.

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     Meme intermission.

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     Every time I look at Ronna McDaniel's head, I think of steak sauce.

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     “Everybody has their own thing.” Wow. Straight out of Trump's "very fine people" playbook.

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     George Santos (@RepSantosNY03): “This never happened to me when I was in the Knesset.”

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     This MAGA wingnuttery is brought to you by the letter A and Nathaniel Hawthorne."

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     Well, thank goodness Biden hasn't gotten us into WWII, yet. Trump may yet prevent the Holocaust.

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     That's right, Toby. Keep a civil tongue on that jackboot.

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    Someone should remind these cosplaying douchebags what happened to the SA, or the original brown shirts, in 1934.

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     I smell leprechaun flop sweat. And finally...

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     It'll be hard to do whistle stops if the only whistle he hears is the one announcing lunch at the prison mess hall.

Another Shitty Keyboard Bites the Dust

     Last night was the night from Hell. My computer suddenly started acting like it was possessed by Satan. Pages were scrolling down by themselves. The laptop beeped constantly when I tried rebooting it. Then when I tried to type something, symbols and letters would pop up instead of letters. The prompt always ran back to the start of the sentence. Finally, I just shut down the laptop for the night.

     I rebooted the laptop at 4:30 this morning since I can't sleep, anymore, and hoped for the best. The scrolling and symbols and letters stopped but I also woke up to no backspace, h or g

 keys. For good measure, I also lost my apostrophe.

     By last night, process of elimination told me that the keyboard is the culprit for all my problems on the laptop so I ordered a new one on my Android. Keep in mind, this is the same piece of shit keyboard I'd installed just last July 12th. That's right, the Chinese piece of shit didn't even last three months.

     So, long story short, posting will be light to nonexistent until the new keyboard arrives on Wednesday.

Pottersville Digest: Abridged version

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     "I might have been given a bad break, but I’m still the luckiest man alive." What, is he channeling Lou Gehrig? You got fired by Matt Gaetz, you fucking moron. That's as bad as it gets.

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     Just as a PSA: Medicare Advantage is a fucking ripoff.

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   "She did find time and resources to pursue politically chosen cases when the jail has been deteriorating, resulting in deaths.’”

     Yeah, pal. Let's talk about political hit jobs.

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     This makes, what, five arrests this year?

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     "I can't do that, Dave."

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     He's at it again.

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     Dickens lives.

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     Let's take stock of the major players: Jordan's a blithering idiot with too much baggage. Scalise is a racist asshole. Gaetz is too hated. Marjorie Taylor-Greene's a nut job. Boebert already has her well-toned ass halfway out the door.

      Look, I don't know every Republican in the caucus but I do know this: There isn't a single one that will get anywhere near the necessary 218 votes. Extreme polarization has much to do with that.

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    "Though he didn’t deny being behind Frame Game, he said it was meant to stop hatred against Jews."

    Yeah and the concentration camps were country clubs.

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     "But she said if Republicans abandon their values, 'the party becomes dangerous to democracy'.”

     The problem is, when Republicans embrace their values, they're at least as much a threat to Democracy.

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     "Things a Totally Innocent Man Would Never Say for $400, Alex..."

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     Cult members are always the last ones to realize that they're in a cult. Being in a cult is so much easier to swallow if you call it something else, like a movement or a revolution or an actual political party.

Pottersville Digest

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     Who?

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     Reading shit like this actually makes me queasy. I mean, I've known for decades that politics was corrupt but no matter how much you think you know, no matter how bad you think it is, the reality is always far worse.

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     Sure, he's running out of bodies to throw under the bus because they're already on their way to prison.

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"In fact, FDA received reports of people requiring hospitalizations, developing life-threatening conditions, and even dying after drinking MMS."
So why couldn't the feds get them on murder charges?

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     Any asshole that kills a dog doesn't deserve to live.

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     Well, if anyone's going to give the GOP head back, it's the guy in the picture.

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     Matt Gaetz: The world's creepiest frat boy.

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     Why restrict ourselves to one or the other? Why can't she be both incompetent and a crook?

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     Yeah, releasing this douchebag on his own recognizance the first time you arrested him was a great idea because this is exactly the type of guy you want on the loose, right?

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     Meme intermission.

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     I guess he forgot about the part where he would've been forced to testify under oath.

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     He's only calling Trump a grifter because he got caught and sent to prison while the grifter remains free.

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     I'm amazed that bald-headed rat fucker is still there. I mean, I know the president can't fire him but still...

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     All bullies at heart are cowards. You stand up to them, they will wilt and fade away. Trump's no different.

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     I love watching this two way right wing feeding frenzy. It makes me want to buy air horns and giant foam rubber fingers on Amazon.

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     Good luck finding new counsel when your fat, pasty ass is broke.And finally...

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   They never should've been allowed to defy the SCOTUS. They should've been expelled then prosecuted.

What a Time to be a Psychology Student

     It's not very often psychologists and psychology students get a real-time look into the deconstruction of an allegedly human mind. Yet all one has to do is to look at Trump's Truth Social account, provided they have the stomach for it, to see his daily mental disintegration.

     It's filled with hatred, fury, projection, fact-free bombast and weapons-grade sadism. It's plainly overcompensation for what he knows deep down at heart is a decades-long fraud, that of being a successful businessman and president. He stares into the abyss constantly but he doesn't like it when it balefully stares back at him.

     And this is obviously the worst time in his life. He's already been arrested four times this year on four different indictments consisting of 91 criminal charges in four different jurisdictions plus a civil case in which he stands on the brink of losing all the crown jewels of his real estate empire. E. Jean Carroll is suing him for defamation, again, and he faces a growing list of smaller civil suits.

     Like his screaming zombie apostles Mike Lindell and Rudy Giuliani, Trump is about to lose it all. And that's what he fears more than incarceration or the catastrophic loss of wealth. It's exposure. He's furious and baffled as to why he's being revealed as the sociopathic charlatan he's been his entire life. And he's randomly lashing out at people like Rep. Frederica Wilson over a years-old incident, at Sen. Bill Cassidy, his former Cabinet members, anybody he thinks of in his daily brain seizures.

     A man ought to be entitled to his own myth-making. I am the Trump! I deserve my delusions and the chance to share them.

     The damnable thing is, it's worked for him and, up to a point, still does. There are millions of nameless zombies out there who actually think the more often he's arrested, indicted and charged with crimes, whatever their severity, that just makes him greater in their jaundiced eyes.

     But it wasn't until Trump's descent down that escalator that the Goldwater Rule was jettisoned. Mental health experts, starting with his own niece, Dr. Mary Trump, virtually put him on the sofa and began psychoanalyzing him and coming up with surprisingly consistent results.

     More than one neurologist had ventured a plausible guess that he has frontotemporal dementia based largely on his bizarre tilt.

     Yes, this is the asshole who wants to be the Speaker and president.

      Years and decades down the road, long after this shit show gets flushed down the pipes of history, long after Trump's dead and buried, psychologists will be doing commissioned, peer-reviewed studies seeking to explain how this happened. And it won't be Donald Trump who will be put on the couch. It'll be us.

Pottersville Digest: Expanded edition

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     Have you ever heard the old saying about throwing good money after bad? (Pointing at this article)

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    Maybe someone should tell him for good measure that the Speaker's gavel also isn't for cracking walnuts.

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     All "constitutional sheriffs" are are just lawless scumbags who don't want to obey the law.

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     And Bannon's looking at him, thinking, "Why couldn't I get Roger Stone today? Pork rinds, I need pork rinds. Colt 45, too..."

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     Oh yeah, clear skies and smooth waters all the way.

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     Yeah, he looked like he had another good day in court.

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     Meme intermission.

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     I think Trump just found his next Education Secretary.

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     She may have a D after her name, but new Senator Laphonza Butler is no friend to labor.

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    These psychopaths simply can't be seen in public. How the hell did this shrieking harpy ever get a law license?

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     Warfare in the 21st century.

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     What name and reputation? That's like a madame fighting to get her virginity back.

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    Weird scenes inside the guano mine..

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     It's not just the fact that Bowman is a Democrat and that Republicans will latch on to any excuse to subtract Democratic-held seats in the House. It's also the fact that he's Black. To Republicans, this triggers their appropriated PTSD from the protests in 2020 after George Floyd's murder. White Republicans can't tolerate the very thought of Black people taking control of anything whether it's through legitimate or illegitimate means. It's baked into their DNA. Some of the more historically literate will have fever dreams about Nat Turner and Vesey Denmark.

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    So, this tool simply doesn't go to court, stays home so Stevie Wonder can find him and it took Naples law enforcement and the FBI nearly a month and a half to find him... why?

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   There's a big difference between deliberately sinking McCarthy's Speakership and simply not helping him. As Batman said to Raz al Gu in BATMAN BEGINS: "I'm not going to kill you but I'm not going to save you, either."

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     I don't know who got paid but I can guarantee you it was a male.

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     If you can govern, then how come we don't have a Speaker? And finally...

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     While I would've loved to see Roy paste one across his arrogant kisser, it has to be said Gaetz isn't the disease. He's just one of the symptoms.

Aryan Jesus Says

 

     Yes, someone actually drew this because Anabolic Steroid Jesus would've been fully all in for tax fraud.

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."