The Great Ongoing Revolving Speakership of the 118th Congress {Mike Johnson is new speaker as of 2023-10-25}

Terry Gross interviewed Liz Cheney on Fresh Air on Dec 5. To expand and clarify, using Cheney’s own words from the transcript (available at the link):

GROSS: Did you vote for him twice?

CHENEY: I did.

GROSS: So I’m curious. Like, what did you see in him in the sense that - you know, certainly even before the first election, he was so litigious as a businessman. There were so many lawsuits against him and so many lawsuits that he filed. He made claims about his finances that weren’t true. He bragged about being able to grab women by their genitals because he was a celebrity… [snip…Terry enumerates trump’s crimes and faults] So why did you want to vote for him for a second term?

CHENEY: Well, I certainly wish I hadn’t.

CHENEY: I think that, you know, certainly I was representing Wyoming and the policies that the Trump administration - not necessarily him, but the policies the Trump administration put in place in areas like energy policy, land use management policy, some of the things that really mattered for my constituents in Wyoming, some of the issues that mattered with respect to national security, in terms of defense spending. There were issues that I’d been working on that I thought were very important for Wyoming, I still think are important for Wyoming and for the country. And I think what people need to know now going into this next election is that just can’t be an option. And as Republicans and as Americans, we have to be able to find a way where we can advocate for those kinds of policies where we aren’t having to choose someone who’s shown that he has a complete lack of respect for and willingness to abide by his oath to the Constitution.

CHENEY: … Now, the issue, though, is that right now we’re faced with a choice between - you know, if you have to say, look, the country can sustain several years of bad policies.* We cannot sustain somebody willing to torch the Constitution. And no matter where you are in terms of saying, I made the decision at this moment or this moment, once you get through January 6, once you get through him trying to seize power and overturn an election, you know, there’s no - that’s a line that can never be crossed. And there’s no defense for that.

The upshot is that Liz is still committed to Republican policies (no surprise there) but that Jan 6 was a bridge too far for her and trump cannot be voted in as president again.


* I took “bad policies” to mean Democratic policies. That is we can live with whatever the Democrats come up with because however bad we Republicans think their policies are, they aren’t trying to destroy the government.

Yup.

I would have been disappointed if he weren’t.

That is one funky NH panel.

To the surprise of nobody, the House voted to ‘formalize’ the impeachment inquiry.

But . . . but . . . what about all the “moderate Republicans” who were ready to reach across the aisle during the Speaker’s race and work with Democrats to elect a bipartisan Speaker? What happened to them?

All those moderates will be lost in time, like tears in rain.

I saw a political operative on MSNBC (wish I could remember his name, he was interesting—a dumpy-looking, angry dude) who said he hoped this put an end to the belief that there’s such a thing as a moderate Republican in Congress.

He asserted there are two types: MAGA true believers and “Scared to Death of MAGA” cowards. Neither are moderate in the end. Makes sense to me.

That was Mark Elias of Democracy Docket, which has filed dozens of lawsuits against anti-Democratic laws passed by Republicans in red states.

Very usefully phrased.

And it should be noted, he almost always wins. He’s a true American hero and righteous defender of democracy. I love that guy.

He is one very fierce lawyer.

Mark Elias has probably done more for voting rights in this country than anyone in government. But it pains me how often districting, for example, is now decided in courts when political scientists have offered up numerous ways to do it in a fair way.

Well, as long as the people affected by the process are also the people that design the process, “fair” will remain fundamentally irrelevant until a (hopefully) fair court intervenes.

Yes, we have a lot of work to do to get Congress to value fair representation over its own job security and maintenance of the existing duopoly. But that’s why I’m here.

A bit clickbaity, but this déjà vu all over again is from mainstream media (Bloomberg):

Mike Johnson May Be the Next House Speaker to Lose His Job

I don’t know why people don’t trust Johnson. He shares his porn watch with his son and only wants the best for his daughter.

"“We have to acknowledge collectively that man is inherently evil and needs to be restrained.” That’s an interesting political view.

Land of the Free. Home of the Fucked Up.

Prediction: Johnson will last 1-2 months. No more. Chaos till election.

He bought himself time with his “bifurcated” continuing resolution and has done fuck all with it. The first tranche of agencies have their budgets expire on January 19 and the second two weeks later.