01/04/23

Good morning! It’s Wednesday, January 4th. National Spaghetti Day! Finally!

How will you celebrate? You know what my favorite National Spaghetti Day tradition is? Leaving just a little bit of sauce out for Spaghetti Claus.

What a dumb joke. You come here for the news. We’re all silly!

And now, the news.

Republicans in (Historic) Disarray

-via NY Times, Axios, and Steve Kornacki

-Matt Gaetz Charges via Pensacola News Journal and NBC News

-Jim Jordan Charges via CNN and NY Times

The big story today is, of course, the first day of the 118th Congress. How’d it go? Not great! Well, great if you’re not a Republican and also like comedy. So for me, very funny day. In general though, in all seriousness, today was super embarrassing for the Republicans (or the serious ones, at least) and historically… not great. So let’s break down the breakdown.

The House of Representatives has 435 members. The Speaker of the House sets the agenda and that person gets voted in. It’s usually a pretty nothing moment, just a piece of normal business that gets done and then that Speaker can start swearing everyone into their positions as House members.

But because the Speaker is so key to the House, nothing else can be done until that’s done.

The vote happened today and it was, if you can believe it, even messier than we all expected. So the way it works is that people nominate someone for Speaker, in this case Elise Stefanik nominated Kev and Democrat Pete Aguilar nominated Hakeem Jeffries. Then it all went off the rails when Paul Gosar nominated Andy Biggs, followed by nominations for other Republicans as well, including for one person who isn’t even a House member anymore!

Because fun fact – you do not need to be a House member to be Speaker. I could be Speaker of the House and, at this point, why not?

So all the nominations get put forth, and then everyone votes.

With only 222 Republican members, Kevin McCarthy, who has been making all kinds of deals and concessions to get the votes to become Speaker, could only afford to lose 4 votes.

In the first round, Jeffries, who is a Democrat, came out with 212 votes. McCarthy had 203, and 19 votes went to other Republicans. Which meant that, for the first time in 100 years, the Speakership was not decided in the first round of voting.

This is only the 15th time this has happened, the 14th time was literally 100 years ago in 1923. The 13 times before that were all pre-Civil War.

And I’m not saying we’re headed for a Civil War, mostly because I’m not sure the Civil War ever really ended, but I do think the context of when the last time this happened, combined with the fact that this is the first large swearing in process, besides the presidency, since January 6th, is pretty chilling. Especially because some of the people that sit in the House, including (spoiler alert) some that were nominating and getting nominated for Speaker, are under investigation for their actions on the 6th.

Anyway, so first round of voting – no one gets to 218. Second round of voting, no one gets to 218. But we did have Matt Gaetz, who sought a pardon from Trump related to a DOJ investigation into whether he violated federal sex trafficking laws as well as his actions relating to January 6th, stand up and nominate Jim Jordan, the former wrestling coach who six of his former wrestlers accused of knowing about, and explicitly ignoring, allegations of sexual abuse by the team doctor, for Speaker.

Jordan has refused to cooperate with the January 6th committee, which makes sense because he was texting Mark Meadows on January 5th about how Mike Pence should call out all the electoral votes that he believes are unconstitutional, giving them no votes at all.

Turtles, all the way down. If those turtles were insurrectionist gross badmen.

So that was round two. Round three was basically the same, but McCarthy ended up losing yet another vote in that last round.

At that point, there was a move to walk away for the day and reconvene tomorrow for more votes. So… we’ll see. Kev says he’s down to endure as many votes as it takes. (Embarassing!) In the meantime, no one can get sworn in and the House can’t do any work. Maybe, and hear me out, the Republicans aren’t so great at the governing thing.

Here’s something VERY fun that I want to say won’t happen, but honestly… who knows at this point. The Speaker has to get to 218 if no one is voting present or abstaining from their vote. If, however, some House members do that, it drops the threshold needed. For every two members that abstain from voting, or just vote present, the number needed for the Speaker goes down by one. Since the Democrats all voted for Jeffries, every single time, there is no reason to think they won’t do that tomorrow (or for as long as these votes take place). However, if at least 11 Republicans (of which there are more defectors) vote present or abstain, it is possible (not likely, but technically possible) that Democrat Hakeem Jeffries will take the Speakership.

Isn’t that fun? And, again, this is not likely but Matt Lewis from the Daily Beast reported yesterday that Matt Geatz told Kev that he doesn’t care if Jeffries is Speaker.

And the BEST part about all of this… they’ve had months to figure this out and they never locked it down. But still, Kevin McCarthy moved his furniture into the Speaker’s office already!

Incredible!

I’m joking about it because… I don’t know. Hubris coming back to bite feckless politicians who aren’t doing anything to help anyone is funny. It’s funny to watch all these terrible, truly feckless wannabe authoritarian dinkuses like Marj and Boebz, be upset because they didn’t get what they wanted.

But no one wins in this situation, so I don’t know… it’s a rough start to the 118th Congress and, unfortunately probably the clearest possible picture of what the next two years will look like.

I could go on and on about this but… well, let’s just go on to the next story because we’ll be talking about this tomorrow too.

Damar Hamlin Tragedy

-via CBS News

Buffalo Bills safety Damar Hamlin is in critical condition after collapsing on the field in Monday night’s game. In a statement from the Bills, the 24-year-old suffered a cardiac arrest following a hit in the chest during the game.

He remains in critical condition. The game was postponed with no current plan on when it will resume, though it will not resume this week.

Everyone’s hearts are with Hamlin while we wait to hear more.

Our hearts are with Hamlin and his family, but my mind is on the NFL in hopes that they use this moment to understand that they cannot just treat the bodies of the players they employ like this. Fix your equipment to protect the players that make you hundreds of millions.

Birth Control Pills Now Available OTC

-via NY Times

And finally (not really, there’s actually SO MUCH MORE NEWS but this dumb Speaker vote really chomped through the whole show), new FDA rules will make abortion pills available over the counter. While a prescription is still needed, any retail pharmacy that wants to do so, can carry the pills in their stores and by mail.

The abortion pill is used in more than half of terminated pregnancies in America.

And that’s it. That’s the news.

Some of the news.

A piece of the news. Come back tomorrow, when I plan to talk more about the House vote, a newly elected, but yet-to-be-sworn-in House Rep who is a liar liar, canceled flights, an update on Kari Lake,          and a bunch of other stuff that I can only assume will also get tossed out because the news does not care about my rundowns. r

I’m proud of… oh man. Tough one this time. Spaghetti, of course. Obviously.

But more than that – more than the homemade spaghetti I made the other night, and it was so warm and delicious, just totally unreal. So good. But more than that first bite of that truly delicious meal… I’m proud of you.