Brooks and Capehart from January 6, 2022

 

President Biden Showed What Leadership Looked Like while Kevin McCarthy Did Not

While Kevin McCarthy was giving away the country so he can get the coveted position of Speaker of the House, President Joe Biden showed this week why the majority of the country was wise to vote him into office two years ago.

While McCarthy was working to make a deal with the fringiest of the fringe in his caucus to try and become Speaker instead of trying to reach an accommodation with Democrats, President Biden was with Political Prince of Darkness Mitch McConnell, Democratic Senator, Sherrod Brown, Democratic Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear and Republican Ohio Governor Mike DeWine at a ceremony highlighting the positive regional effects of the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, a measure McCarthy and the people he was dealing with vehemently opposed.

While Mr. McCarthy spent the week salvaging his political career by giving in to the people that voted against every constructive Biden and Democratic pro-country measure in the last Congress (including the American Rescue Plan, the aforementioned Infrastructure Law, Gun Safety, the CHIPS Act, and the Inflation Reduction Act,) the President celebrated another positive jobs report that saw the unemployment rate drop again to 3.5 percent.

In his statement on the jobs report, the President said:

"...The first two years of my presidency – 2021 and 2022 — were the two strongest years of job growth on record. And in December, the unemployment rate fell to its lowest level in the last 50 years. Unemployment is near record lows for Black and Hispanic Americans, and the unemployment rate for people with disabilities has never been lower in our country’s history. At the same time, average monthly job gains have come down from over 600,000 a month at the end of last year to closer to 200,000 a month. This moderation in job growth is appropriate, and we should expect it to continue in the months ahead, even as we maintain resilience in our labor market recovery.

These historic jobs and unemployment gains are giving workers more power and American families more breathing room. Real wages are up in recent months, gas prices are down, and we are seeing welcome signs that inflation is coming down as well.

It’s a good time to be a worker in America.

We have more work to do, and we may face setbacks along the way, but it is clear that my economic strategy of growing the economy from the bottom up and middle out is working. And we are just getting started..."

Finally, while Mr. Trump Enabler McCarthy begged some of the people who openly cheered the January 6 Trumpist Domestic Terrorists to please please make him speaker on the second anniversary of the attack (a commemoration at the House steps which only one House Republican (not McCarthy) attended-how pathetic attended,) President Biden hosted an event at the White House awarding 12 Citizens Medals to the heroic brave defenders of the American Republic during that time including now former Arizona House Speaker Rusty Bowers.

In his remarks at the ceremony, the President said that

"On this day of remembrance joined by the Vice President, the Second Gentleman, and all of you, we honor a remarkable group of Americans who embody the best before, during, and after January 6, 2021...This is who these extraordinary Americans are. Heroic law enforcement officers...You held the line that day and the line was Democracy and history will remember your names...They'll remember your courage. They'll remember your bravery and extraordinary commitments to your fellow Americans...America owes you. Owes you all...These people and those who are representing people who couldn't be here because they gave their lives for this was incredibly consequential. That's not political talk. That's historical fact..."

Please remember again that one of these men this week celebrated and honored laws that benefit the country and the American People, another month of job growth, and heroes that saved the American Ideal and the Republic while the other gave in to the very agents of chaos, white nationalist extremism, insurrection, and criminal fascist-autocrats so he could advance his own selfish ends.

Joe Biden proved again he was a real leader this week.

Spineless and self-serving Trumpist enabler Kevin McCarthy proved again he is lacking.

 

Faust Would Not Have Made the Bargain Kevin McCarthy Did

Photo from ABC News.

Subpoena avoiding Kevin McCarthy finally has what he has always wanted since becoming part of the Republican leadership team and a member of the "Young Gun" Trio of Eric Cantor, Paul Ryan, and himself.

After 15 ballots, fourteen of them contentious, he is the Speaker of the House of Representatives.

But what will this selfish quest to become the Speaker cost the country?

In making a deal with 20 of the fringiest of the MAGA right (all election deniers; some of whom had a criminal hand in organizing the January 6 domestic terrorist attack on the Nation's Capitol,) to get the job he coveted, the new Speaker sold his political and personal soul by making it possible for the nation to default on its debt, plague the country with needless political chaos, and plunge the American people into continual divisiveness.

One could say that what McCarthy did was make a Faustian Bargain with the extreme right to fulfill his greatest desire.

That would be an unfair statement...to Faust because at least he was smart enough to get a 24-year deal of service from the devil for his soul.

McCarthy, in his arrogance and stupidity, will be lucky, if he gets a full two-year term as Speaker with the deal he made yesterday (January 6, 2023: two years after some of these same people that coerced him cheered the terrorists trying to break into the same chamber he was just sworn in.)

Faust probably would not have made the bargain Kevin McCarthy made which started the day the California Representative made the unholy journey to MaraLargo to make nice with the twice impeached Donald Trump after telling the country the twice KKK endorsed occupant of the White House bore a share of the responsibility for the January 6, 2021 attacks.

Now the American People will have to wait and see what havoc will result from the new Speaker's selfish bargain for power.

If history and literature are any guides, it will not be pretty.

 

Hakeem Jeffries Should See If There Are Six House Republicans Out There Who Want to Become Democrats

From CNN

One party leader is close to becoming the next Speaker of the House in the United States Congress and it is not Kevin McCarthy.

In a humiliating and stinging defeat, the Trumpist enabler is apparently still not good enough for the 20  fringe MAGA Republicans (like January 6 insurrectionist supporters and resident low lives Lauren Boebert, Andy Biggs, Paul Gosar, and Matt Gaetz) who have denied him the necessary 218 votes needed to become the next Speaker on three separate ballots.

Mr. McCarthy has garnered no more than 203 votes.

By contrast, newly elected Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries, with united support from all the members of his party, has won each ballot with 212 votes.

Looking at the math, 212 votes are a lot closer to the magic number of 218 than 203.

It looks like McCarthy may have been premature to have moved his furniture into the speaker's office.

If McCarthy can not get the support from 16 of the 20 holdouts (at the time of this writing, not likely) and there is no viable Republican alternative that can effectively hold the speaker's gavel, Mr. Jeffries, if his team has not already thought of this, should reach out to the 18 Republican House Candidates that won in districts Joe Biden won in 2020 and see if there are six of them that would like to become Democrats.

This idea may not be as far-fetched as it may have been just hours ago given:

a) These 18 Republicans have a vested interest to prove they can actually participate in governing.

b) Given the debacle of today and how dominant the damaged and ideologically distorted the fringe of the modern Republican Party is, these individuals may think the grass (and their political futures) are greener by switching to the other side.

It will be interesting to see what happens in the next day or so.

Hopefully, Mr. Jeffries, seeing a small, yet potential opportunity, will pick up the phone and see what the possibilities are.

 

 

 

  

So True.

 

Editorial Cartoons for the Week from Blog for Arizona

 

Brooks and Capehart from 12/30/22