Hodad

You are writing pure fiction here. The Democrats had no power to "blow up" McCarthy's speakership. As a matter of fact, their votes didn't change at all from his initial election to his deposal. Gaetz and the chaos caucus initiated the vote. They changed their votes. They "blew it up." All because McCarthy gave them the power to do so. Democrats didn't initiate anything or change their position. Yet you want to blame them, rather than the people who actually took action. It's bizarre. Not sure how you managed to convince yourself of this.

It's not a new one. He was impeached for it. (Was that not covered in your info bubble?) Republicans chose not to hold him accountable. "Bill Taylor, the Trump administration's top diplomat to Ukraine, testified that he was told that U.S. military aid to Ukraine and a Trump–Zelenskyy White House meeting were conditioned on Zelenskyy publicly announcing investigations into the Bidens and alleged Ukrainian interference in the 2016 U.S. elections.[39] United States Ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland testified that he worked with Giuliani at Trump's "express direction" to arrange a quid pro quo with the Ukraine government.[40]" What does that have to do with your fictional "uni-party"? All it shows is that there isn't room in the GOP for principled disagreement. No matter how egregious Trump's misdeeds--up to and including the attempted coup--if you cross him, you're out. Trump uber alles.

The is no "uni-party," and "the swamp" certainly won't be drained by a cheating pathological liar and fraudster who attempted to overthrow democracy. Trump is so corrupt he's just a big orange skin sack filled with swamp juice. I mean, good lord, the man tried to leverage US military aid for campaign favors from a foreign nation.

Sure, extremely conservative lifelong Republicans are RINOs because they didn't help an un-conservative carpetbagger stage a coup. ? And you don't even realize how absurd you are. Sigh.

What a joke. Tell that to Mike Pence or Liz Cheney. They're all "politically aligned" to the GOP as is possible, yet have been ostracized for disapproving of the attempted coup. It's true that you don't have a hive mind, which implies some kind of parity. You have a cult utterly devoted to one "charismatic" figure.

I don't think there was anything unclear about those words. You want the Democrats to capitulate entirely--to not fight for the policies they promised their constituents to fight for--in order to solve the problem of Republican dysfunction. Which is a very strange reaction. Again, if a Republican wants to earn Democrat votes, he or she needs to earn them. Did McCarthy do that? No. Will someone else? Maybe. Republicans are the majority. They have the votes to elect a speaker. They are being held hostage by extremists in their own party. They can either submit to the extremists, or they can earn support from the center. One way or another, they have to do something to get the votes. I know what I think they should do, but one way or another they have to make a choice.

You seem to have this weird perspective that Democrats are supposed to cover for the Republican dysfunction by just handing them power (support) to do whatever they want. It's bizarre. These are our representatives. We vote them into office to represent our interests. If we wanted to give Republicans power to enact Republican aims, we would all have voted for Republicans. If there isn't a solid enough majority to elect a speaker, the parties need to work together to do so. To compromise. THAT'S the obligation. In no reality is there an obligation for one (near) half of the legislative body to simply hand support to the other half.

McCarthy is not a moderate or an eager collaborator. Why should they endorse his leadership with a "yes" vote? What did he do to earn their votes? If you strip away all the nuance and gamesmanship, the next Republican speaker has two choices. He can move his party to the extreme of the intractable chaos caucus-- where they don't really want to be--or they can work with the Democrats to get things done. That's it. That's the bottom line. Republicans -- and particularly Speaker candidates--are in the drivers seat. They can resolve this situation at any time. They just have to decide which direction to turn.

I'm pretty sure they're always thinking of getting Trump off. It's total dedication.

IMO, you're putting the onus on the wrong agents in this situation. Republicans are reaching and stretching further and further right to earn the support of the 11 fringe members of their own party-- people who are demonstrably unwilling to compromise, who are fully willing to break the entire government, and people the rest of the part would like to see further marginalized for the good of the country. They are choosing to reach that direction. Rather than reaching just a little toward the center to pick up that same number of Democrat votes. Democrats can't drag them toward the center. They can just be there to compromise in good faith when the opportunities arise. -- That's exactly what happened to pass the continuing resolution. McCarthy reached right again and again and again and STILL couldn't satisfy the chaos caucus. So he reached a little left instead and got all the votes he needed--and then some. Democrats would vote for a Republican speaker candidate, but it has to be someone they can actually support. Someone who looks for negotiation and compromise as a strength, not a surrender. --we could probably speculate for days about why so many Republicans have become so radicalized that they don't even consider compromise anymore. We're talking about people who labelled people with unimpeachable conservative bona fides, like Mike Pence and Mitch McConnell, RINOs for disapproving of the coup attempt. There's definitely an extreme purity test at play, codified and vitrified. Party uber alles.

Yes, that's exactly right. McCarthy calculated that it was better for him to appeal to the crazies enough to get their votes than to appeal to a handful of moderate Democrats to secure the same number of votes. The purity test at work. A miscalculation? Probably. @myata The Democrats should not offer unconditional support to any Republican. They didn't owe it to McCarthy or anyone else. Their support should be conditional. Put up a candidate who is willing to work with them and compromise to get things done and they should be happy to support. That is the way they represent the constituents who voted for them and the policies and priorities that are important to those voters. I am absolutely certain that a moderate Republican could gain enough Democratic support to become Speaker. But they don't have any reason to support Scalise or Jordan.

Yes, it's a very stupid thing to say, so stop putting your stupid words in my clever mouth. There is no tax plan or circumstance that eliminates the need for an IRS-like agency. Someone still has to do the work of writing the laws and standards, communicating those standards, and tracking, monitoring and enforcing those standards.

Dude, check your own cite. In a nation of 300+ million people, the Heritage Foundation was only able to find 25 documented cases of voter impersonation over the last 20 years. Lol. My goodness, 10x+ that number of children have been murdered in schools over that same period. I guess if Republicans cared even 10% as much about the life of a child as they pretend to care about a single vote, they could manage to recognize gun violence as a problem and we could pass laws to address it. GTFO of here with this joke of "a serious problem we need a new laws to solve!" And take your lame conspiracy theories with you.

Jeebus, what about that post makes you think voter impersonation is remotely plausible as a concern to election integrity? It's not. It's been researched exhaustively. Same people aren't risking prison to cast a single vote. Or maybe your cultish zealotry is so strong, that it makes sense to you?

Tax reform is an entirely different argument to make than the asinine "eliminate the IRS." I'm sure someone told you that the United States should model it's tax system after a country with a population about the size of San Diego (because that's apples-to-apples ?) but even they have an "IRS."

It depends on the state. Many states do require IDs at this point. However, the basics are that: A. We show up to the assigned polling places and give the right name B. We sign in/check in and the poll workers perform a signature match against the registration signature Could one or a few people with special knowledge pull off voter impersonation? Sure. But the idea of doing it at scale is laughable. Hardly anyone is dumb/desperate/devoted enough to commit a felony to get politician X one more vote and the risk of being caught is high--they have no idea if the other person who they would impersonate has already voted by mail or in person. And trying to get enough dumb/desperate/devoted people to tilt an election is functionally impossible--and for them all to keep it secret, doubly so. Virtually ANY other tactic would be lower effort, lower risk, lower cost and higher reward. This fictitious boogeyman is just a silly prop for Republicans to drum up support for making it harder to vote.

As a foreigner, it's pretty clear you have no idea what you are talking about. In the US, we do NOT have a system where just anyone can show up to any polling place and cast a standard ballot without ID.? We provide evidence of eligibility when we register to vote (which is not time constrained) so that when we show up at our designated polling places all we need to do is check in. Again, there is virtually zero voter impersonation fraud. Study after study after study confirms this. So if Republicans are not solving a problem (and all data shows that they are not) then why are they erecting any hurdle to voting? Harm without help is just selfishness and spite.

There is virtually zero voter impersonation fraud. It's a non issue, so passing such a law does not help anything or anyone at all. It does no good. On the other hand, some non-zero number of people will show up to the polls not having heard of this law. Some will not have an ID. Some will simply have forgotten their ID in their other pants (or whatever) and will be turned away. And some number of them won't be able to return for a second try--particularly as Republicans work to ensure that people in some districts will have to wait in line for hours before being turned away. So why would Republicans want to pass a law that does more harm than good? That solves a non-existent problem? It's really simple. They think that all of these various hurdles and challenges to voting will affect Democrats more than they will affect Republicans. And they're almost certainly right. You see, they don't particularly care about the will of the voters. That couldn't be more clear with the support for the Trump coup. They know they are outnumbered, but instead of changing their policy, they seek to disenfranchise Americans.

Another reason why nobody takes him seriously. I mean, the idea that we can just eliminate the work of the FBI, ATF, IRS, etc.-- that the work simply won't be done anymore-- only appeals to children. Obviously those agencies provide significant value. They can't simply cease to exist. Obviously some agency will need to collect taxes. Just randomly breaking stuff that feels unpopular or inconvenient isn't smart, it's stupid. And it certainly isn't leadership.

This is shocking news! ?

What is this "we" crap? You don't even live in the U.S. You're like those sports fans who are so wrapped up in the team they follow that they confuse their own sense of identity and start taking about "we scored a touchdown." You're welcome to opine about what goes on in any country, but there is no "I" in "team" and the is no "we" in "U.S."

Is that what you're hung up on? Where is your media created, and what did the deaths look like in THAT country 2022 vs 2021?

Like you and COVID vaccines.

Yeah, at his age nobody thought Biden would be any good at piloting a drone--that's why they usually recruit young people--but as soon as he decided to "murder" a family he zeroed in and delivered the payload right on target! Amazing! ?

I know you not into posting things of substance, but do you not see a difference between the two? Seriously?