Rep. Patrick McHenry is now the acting Speaker of the House.

    • dhork@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      I did some reading up on this, and there is a difference between the situations now and January. Back in January, the House couldn’t formally start anything for the new Congress until the Speaker was elected. So no committees could be established, no hearings could be held, and new members couldn’t even be sworn in.

      But now, all that stuff has happened, so technically committees can still hold hearings. But when the whole House is in session, the only thing they can consider is the Speaker election.

      If this goes on for a few days, I wonder if any Republicans will have the chutzpah to hold those Biden Impeachment hearings while they still can’t yet decide on a Speaker…

      • Convict45@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        It’ll go on until some legislation that gives a big break to billionaires needs to move forward in the house, and then all the GOP lickspittles will snap into line faster than they can cash a campaign finance check.

      • TehWorld@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Yes. They will absolutely hold hearings to “own the libs” if they have any option to. It gives them something to pivot to when asked questions that they don’t want to answer (pretty much EVERY question these days).

      • BarqsHasBite@lemmy.ca
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        1 year ago

        So what does this mean Wrt the shutdown? No discussion can happen? And if there’s no new speaker in 43 days is there an automatic shutdown?

        • dhork@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          Committees can still meet, and it’s possible that new budget legislation can be drafted, but it will halt once it gets out of committee, because the whole House can’t take any action until it has a Speaker again.

      • ShittyBeatlesFCPres@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Can the speaker pro tempore preside? I’m not sure I’ve seen a good resource on that (or who is third in line for the presidency).

        • dhork@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          Because the hearings are scheduled by the committee chairs, and the committees are still functioning. It’s only the full House sessions that are stuck.

    • archiotterpup@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      No. There is the Speaker Pro Temp. They’ll run the chamber until a new vote. Speaker votes don’t need to happen any time soon either. Unlike the start of the term, the members are already sworn in and can go about regular business.

      The current Pro Temp is a McCarthy ally who was in the debt ceiling negotiations. So we’ll probably see the same as what McCarthy would be doing.

      • TechyDad@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        To give an idea of what to expect, the Pro Temp Speaker’s first action after graveling out like he was swinging Mjolnir was to evict Nancy Pelosi from her office despite the fact that she’s in California attending Feinstein’s funeral.

    • rhacer@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      I’m curious why you find it funny? What is your proposal for the government to move forward without the speaker?

      I’m the anarchist and I don’t find that kind of chaos funny.

      • ShittyBeatlesFCPres@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        You’re laughing? A soulless politician sacrificed every ounce of his dignity to become Speaker of the House only to be fired by Matt Gaetz, famous sex pervert, and you’re laughing?

        • BlinkerFluid@lemmy.one
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          1 year ago

          That’s the republican party. Yeah, I’m usually laughing. They’re assholes, racist, fascist, closeted and generally full of shit.

          Doing absolutely nothing but arguing would be the best thing they could do for anyone.

        • Brainsploosh@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          Both of those politicians are duly elected representatives, of the same party.

          A) If the people wouldn’t want to be represented by a soulless, friendless husk or a notorious sex pervert, they wouldn’t have voted for them. Obviously a lot of people see that as an appropriate representation of their values and world view.

          B) Them sabotaging eachother is actually democracy at work, representing their constituents will in the governing of the collective resources and issues that face the nation. Otherwise, they would be impeached or at least not re-elected.

          This is the government the Republican voters want and continue to vote for.

          It just happens to be hilarious as it plays out like a farce, we’re only a few poop jokes away from getting cultural grants.

          • The House is such an interesting part of our Democracy; it’s where local issues collide with national interests. While Just under 200k voters isn’t a small number of people, it seems like a tough argument to suggest that this small smidgen of Florida represents the will of ‘the people’. However, what it ought to do is underscore the importance, nationwide, of participating in the electoral process.

            I think the extent to which that will happen largely depends on how the rest of this process plays out, but for the time being, I’m content to sit back and laugh at the absolute shitshow as it develops.

      • roguetrick@kbin.social
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        1 year ago

        You sure you’re an anarchist? I’d think that the failure of the US government would be a key point in developing local communes. It kind of forces self determination on folks.

        • cacheson@kbin.social
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          Also an anarchist. People in the US (and in most places) aren’t ready for the government to collapse on them. Not in the sense that they’re “not evolved enough” or anything like that, just that there’s work that would need to be done that mostly hasn’t been done yet.

          The state is an exploitative organization, but it does perform some legitimate functions that people rely on. Anarchists have ideas on how to replace those functions, but it’s ideally the sort of thing you prepare well in advance, rather than throwing together in a panic at the last minute. A slow decline would be preferable.

          • roguetrick@kbin.social
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            I’m of the opinion is only through shocks or actual crisis that you’ll see that sort of organization. You either have folks gearing for a civil war like the Spanish anarchists or you develop something because it’s obvious the system is fundamentally broken (zapatistas, though they’re not quite anarchist). I’m not an anarchist though, just a demsoc.

        • rhacer@lemmy.world
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          Yep, I’m sure, my perfect world would be all voluntary communities.

          But, I happen to live here, people I care about live here, an unplanned descent into chaos is not high on my list of things to live through.

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        Oh no, whatever will we do without a speaker?! Everything was working so well up until now. Lmao.

        You are not an anarchist.

      • Zorque@kbin.social
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        The government was struggling to move forward with the speaker they had… it sucks that this kind of chaos is occurring, but it’s hardly a new thing. It’s been escalating for years. It’s just this time it bit one of the perpetrators in the ass.

        • cogman@lemmy.world
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          No reason to feel bad for McCarthy. The entire reason he was able to be voted out so easily was because of concessions he had to make with Gaetz and co to get the speakership in the first place.

          Had he compromised and worked with the conservative/centrist Democrats, he wouldn’t be nearly as weak as he ended up being.

          He compromised with a child sex trafficer, and this is what he got.

      • Conyak@lemmy.tf
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        1 year ago

        How is this chaos any different from when he was still speaker? He took us to the edge of a shutdown just days ago. The chaos has already arrived my friend. At least now their incompetence is on full display and will potentially kill any chance for a majority in the next election.

  • GopherOwl@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Couldn’t have happened to a better person.

    Because a better person wouldn’t be dumb enough to be the Republican Speakers of the House.

  • Conyak@lemmy.tf
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    1 year ago

    Wait! I need to get some popcorn! This is going to be an absolute shit show!

    • PLAVAT🧿S@sh.itjust.works
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      The fool that he is McCarthy went on Face the Nation and blamed the very Dems that were working with him. The interviewer laughed at him. I’m sure that helped.

    • jballs@sh.itjust.works
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      1 year ago

      Reminds me of that scene from Gladiator where you’re not sure if the emperor is going to put his thumb up or down.

    • spaghettiwestern@sh.itjust.worksOP
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      This isn’t the first time democracy in the U.S. has been under threat and from much greater forces than Trump and the GQP. We’re not yet to the place where say, a coalition of countries from around the world are forced to go to war with us and ultimately dismantle the fascist dictatorship we allowed to take over our country.

  • Techmaster@lemm.ee
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    1 year ago

    This is what I don’t get. Yeah McCarthy is a weasel. But by republican standards he’s still fairly moderate. By the Dems helping to push him out, I can pretty much guarantee that whoever replaces him will be 100x worse. Like speaker majorie green. And with another budget battle coming in 6 weeks, I think the Democrats voted very foolishly today. Their votes definitely aren’t going to make things any better.

    • MedicatedMaybe@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Stop blaming Democrats for the inability of the Republicans to govern. They made this mess and I’m not going to sit by while some dumbass like you tries to blame everybody but them.

      • Techmaster@lemm.ee
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        No, the republicans are 100% to blame here. They’re an absolute joke. But we still have a country to run, and the Democrats usually govern from a pragmatic viewpoint.

        What’s better for America?

        • keep McCarthy in the speaker seat for another 16 months and take the wind out of the sails of the maga extremists, and have a speaker who twice already has compromised with the Democrats when the clock ran down.
        • help the maga extremists remove McCarthy and then the country goes into a quagmire of no house leadership for 6 months, causing massive amounts of suffering to government employees and others who depend on the government because of the 5 month long government shutdown that ensues.

        McCarthy is a piece of shit, hell all the republicans are, but now Matt Gaetz has a taste of power. And I don’t know if you’ve heard him speak, but he seems pretty intelligent. He could end up being the “smart version of Trump” that we’ve all been fearing. As bad as McCarthy has been, I have a feeling the next speaker will be worse.

        That is not blaming the Democrats for what is happening. I’m just shocked that they aren’t doing some damage control. It’s like when King Solomon had 2 women fighting over a baby. So he offers to cut the baby in half. And one woman says “no, she can have the baby!” and he knows she’s the real mother. The Democrats are usually like her.

        At the same time, I bet McCarthy’s stress level just went from 1000 to 1. LOL

        • MedicatedMaybe@lemmy.world
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          Yeah I get that sorry about the name calling I’m just burnt out with this shit and angry. I guess it gets old always watching the Republicans fuck up left and right but the Democrats have to clean it up with little to no praise.

          He literally goes on the news and trys to blame all this stuff on Democrats and then he needs them to save his job. Democrats are just supposed to bail them out of their inability to do anything correctly.

          Stuck between a rock and a hard place.

          Yeah maybe the Democrats should step in and save the Republicans one more time. Then they can go on network television and continue to blame Democrats and give them no credit for keeping the government open.

          Maybe they feel like it’s time Republicans finally deal with the consequences of their actions. Maybe some America’s will wake up and see for themselves how dysfunctional that party really is.

          However, in retrospect we will probably find out you’re right and that whatever we get after this is going to be worse than what we had. The enemy you know is better than one you don’t.

          • Techmaster@lemm.ee
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            It’s really stressful, watching the two parties in a chess game over who gets to be in control, and the good guys still think they can compromise with the republicans. I think they’re finally starting to understand that the republicans never negotiate in good faith. They will change the rules to suit their needs, every single time. We have all been screaming this at the Democrats for at least 15 years now. I think they’re starting to understand. So maybe that’s a good sign. I’m honestly glad we have guys like Adam Schiff and Jamie Raskin. They’re sharp as a tack, so as long as they’re on our side I have hope that there’s a plan.

            But there’s always that worry that certain people don’t understand what’s at stake. I’m not even that worried about Trump, I doubt he has 5 more years left in him. He has poisoned the republican party, and they’re really starting to realize that the truth doesn’t matter. They can say anything and their base will believe it. And they must acquire power at all costs, or there will be no future for them. And even God is on their side. This is a powder keg that is about to erupt into violence, and countries like Russia are fanning the flames. I keep hoping it’ll improve, but it just keeps getting worse. And a lot of the people I care about believe this shit.

            And the republican extremists just killed the guy who was steering this shitty little carbon fiber submersible of ours. What could go wrong?

        • GoodbyeBlueMonday@startrek.website
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          It’s like when King Solomon had 2 women fighting over a baby. So he offers to cut the baby in half. And one woman says “no, she can have the baby!” and he knows she’s the real mother. The Democrats are usually like her.

          I think the Democrats have finally learned that there is no wise Solomon that will reward wisdom and responsibility, so the “fake mom” always gets the baby.*

          The thing is…in a lot of ways, I agree with you. I do generally want people to take the high road whenever possible. I think short-term losses can be long-term wins, because I think moral behavior is a good thing to model in the world. Forgiveness is a wonderful thing for everyone. The GOP though…as long as I’ve been alive, haven’t been good faith participants in our democracy. There’s a danger in letting bullies get away with their behavior, if there’s no evidence they’re willing to reform.

          So I respect this as a surprisingly tough play from the Democrats. The Republicans could have initially put forth a better Speaker candidate that got bipartisan support, but instead they kowtowed to the extreme right, and the Speaker they put in reneged on a budget deal, so he got shitcanned. The moderate Republicans could still, now, reach out to the Democrats for help. But like McCarthy on Sunday, most of them are terrified of their base, and see bipartisanship as a poison pill to their reelection changes (which is true).

          *I think in this metaphor Solomon is “the voters”, and the “fake momma” is the GOP?

    • archiotterpup@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Greene won’t get the votes.

      I think what you’re missing or weren’t paying attention to was the fact this all would have been avoided had McCarthy just stuck with the deal from the Debt Ceiling.

      Dems didn’t push him out. They just didn’t save him after he said he wouldn’t negotiate with them. He also spent all weekend going off on Dems on all the Sunday shows when it was his own caucus holding talks hostage.

      I think you don’t know enough to really speak on the topic.

      • Techmaster@lemm.ee
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        I know a lot more than you realize. I wrote another reply that explains a bit more. I’m just trying to be pragmatic here about what’s best for the country. We have no speaker now, with a pending government shutdown in just a few weeks. And we saw how long it took for those lunatics to confirm McCarthy, when they already had a speaker lined up. They don’t even have a replacement lined up. They’re the dog that managed to catch the car. Things are about to get a lot worse in Washington, and that’s not even including the fact that the next speaker will be even worse. I understand why the Democrats are pissed off at him, he’s an asshole. There was also a point in time when everyone thought Boehner was as bad as it gets.