Cassandra, Congress, Political Crack, Stupid Republican Tricks

Stupid and Contagious

I took a break from politics last week and I really enjoyed writing about some happier topics.  But I’m back.

I’m intensely interested in what’s going to happen in the House of Representatives next year. Based on how things are going for the GOP, the prognosis for success is not good. Let’s see what they’ve been up to.

The best thing about the incoming GOP House is that they are already at each others’ throats over electing Kevin McCarthy to the Speakership. Our Fearless Leader wrote about it on Tuesday and I fully agree with his support of anything that makes McCarthy miserable.

You’ve already seen the list of things that the Republican leadership want to do to move this country forward:  Hunter Biden hearings, Anthony Fauci hearings, the TRUE origin of Covid hearings, blah blah blah. It’s amazing how out-of-touch they are with anyone outside of their tightening wingnut circle, and today they added more proof:

Threaten me with a good time, why dontcha!

But wait—there’s more. For some reason the House Freedom Caucus convinced itself that the current Congress wasn’t going to able to pass an omnibus spending bill, so that task was going to magically appear on their “to do” list in the next Congress. You may remember all their salivating over the chance to defund Social Security and to cut every safety net program.

You may also remember that over the summer the Democrats secretly negotiated with President Joe Manchin and wrote and passed an infrastructure bill without involving Senate Republicans. Well since those who don’t learn from history are doomed to repeat it, the Democrats and some Republicans—under McConnell’s direction—have just about finished an omnibus bill that will keep the Freedom Caucus from cratering the economy in January–and this apparently has caught House Republicans flat-footed.

But the Freedom Caucus is about to take power and they were not about to let this treason go unpunished so they fought back by…writing a letter to Senate Republicans telling them that if they vote for the omnibus bill they will be sent to bed without supper:

Oops, sorry, it says that any Senate Republicans who vote for the omnibus bill will be sent to bed without supper AND so will House Republicans. You can’t make this stuff up. House Republicans—with the support of McCarthy—will punish members of their own party for not agreeing to their plan to set the Republican Party on fire. OMG YOU HATE TO SEE IT.

Now please don’t worry about this tactic backfiring and teaching the Republicans a lesson. Why? Remember that autopsy that the GOP is writing about how it lost a Senate seat and barely took the House while an unpopular president was in the White House? Here’s an update on that:

But other Republicans shared that blame, they argued, by not delivering a compelling, positive agenda to voters, or exposing the left for an agenda that voters would recoil from, if they understood it.

That was the pitch from Blake Masters, who gave his first major speech since losing his U.S. Senate race and joining the RNC’s election autopsy project, and hinted he may run again

Republicans, said Masters, did not offer a “clear platform to run on” in 2022 — McConnell deliberately avoided doing so — and were torn apart by the Democrats’ campaign data and fundraising advantages. Candidates needed to challenge the “propaganda” that lowered their expectations of prosperity — especially when they were accused of being “conspiracy theorists” for doing so.

So far, so good, right? Oh, yeah—there’s more:

“Have you guys heard that testosterone levels in men have been dropping precipitously?” Masters asked. “Down 50% in the past few decades. So, what the hell is that? Yeah, soy? Is it microplastics and everything? I mean, we should be talking about this, because it is a big problem. But if you talk about it — wow, that’s weird. Right?”

I like the Democrats’ chances in 2024.

In the meantime, Nirvana understands what’s going on: