Pick your term - "establishment", "uniparty", "swamp", "sellouts", whatever - for those that supported McCarthy from the get go.
Hopefully the holdouts brought about real change.
Ironically, it’s quite possible that the massive democrat election fraud that stole 55 to 85 or so U.S. house seats in the midterms (Yes, again, the fraud is that bad.) is what allowed a small group of holdouts to get an agreement on big time rule changes in that body. While with no fraud the group is perhaps double the size, if there’s no democrat fraud at all McCarthy could have won on the first try with 50 or more holdouts. Let’s hope all of the changes agreed to in order to win over most of those holdouts are honored by McCarthy and his band of establishment buddies.
In my previous post I talked about changing how the speaker is picked such that you don’t have to worry about an establishment or swamp picking the speaker. It’s merit based, and constituent plus overall American representation based.
With the sort of criteria in my prior post above, any man wearing a Ukrainian flag anywhere on his suit, or voting for sending billions to a horribly corrupt county like Ukraine, while there are so many severe problems here in this country, has ZERO chance to become speaker of the house.
The picture above has the added bonus of having RINO Mitt “Pierre Delecto” Romney in the background.
The other HUGE problem I’ve also talked about before, is that so many politicians are bought and paid for. Prohibit businesses and billionaires from giving money to candidates and office holders, and you stop most of the corruption. Most subscribers here now have not seen that older post, and even if you have I’ve revised it somewhat just today:
I used to be pretty skeptical on Dwight Eisenhower’s term of “the military-industrial complex”:
…out of the war, what Eisenhower called a permanent armaments industry of vast proportions emerged. This conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience Eisenhower warned, "[while] we recognize the imperative need for this development...We must not fail to comprehend its grave implications we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence…The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist." Eisenhower cautioned that the federal government’s collaboration with an alliance of military and industrial leaders, though necessary, was vulnerable to abuse of power. Ike then counseled American citizens to be vigilant in monitoring the military-industrial complex.
Now I’m not skeptical at all, and Eisenhower has surely rolled over in his grave many times wondering why in the hell his warning was not heeded. The military-industrial complex is almost certainly the entire reason congress has allocated somewhere around 100 billion for the war in Ukraine.
It’s certainly not because Ukraine is a well functioning and honest democracy, and is otherwise critical to U.S. national interests. Far left wing NPR has revisited Ukrainian corruption even since the war started. The CATO Institute had better coverage months earlier than NPR. Along with many handy links in the CATO article, there is this:
The notion that Ukraine was such an appealing democratic model in Eastern Europe that the country’s mere existence terrified Putin may be a comforting myth to U.S. politicians and pundits, but it is a myth. Ukraine is far from being a democratic‐capitalist model and an irresistible magnet for Russia’s groaning masses. The reality is murkier and troubling: Ukraine has long been one of the more corrupt countries in the international system. In its annual report published in January 2022, Transparency International ranked Ukraine 123rd of the 180 countries it examined, with a score of 32 on a one to 100 point scale. By comparison, notoriously corrupt Russia ranked just modestly lower, 139th, with a score of 29.
If you thought the process of delaying McCarthy’s final confirmation, and in fact preventing it being a pro forma coronation, was “embarrassing”, you’re horribly wrong. I’ve seen comments along these lines from republicans this week, and you can only conclude people who think that are very ill informed even if they are true republicans. The rule changes alone, including one member being able to call to “vacate the chair”, were worth the trivial delay .
Having read thousands of comments on Twitter, which until I’m persuaded otherwise represents a large segment of the most active and in general the most informed of the republican voters, the VAST majority of those republicans on Twitter opposed McCarthy as speaker. A Rasmussen poll put it much closer but still showed a majority opposed McCarthy.
Based on that and based on how so many R house members voted for McCarthy anyway, my thoughts on the term “uniparty” have changed, just like they have with other seemingly far fetched ideas I heard in the past. Oh for the days when “conspiracy theories” were still just that, instead of “reality descriptions”.
Ultimately the establishment republicans and those that chose to vote with them could not be stopped. The band of patriots who chose to fight anyway, and who almost certainly brought about real change, are to be celebrated.
"...massive democrat election fraud that stole 55 to 85 or so U.S. house seats in the midterms..."
Thanks for that reminder, Chris. Most observers prefer to keep their mouths shut about it. Which isn't entirely surprising, because the J6 committee, with the help of the Justice Department and the D.C. courts, has demonstrated what punishment befalls those who challenge the criminals-in-charge. The Bill of Rights doesn't protect "domestic terrorists" or "insurrectionists" or "election-deniers."