Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy holds gavel following his election. Image: Wiki Commons
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The far-right members of the lower house may have been running a sort of "professional wrestling" operation by holding up McCarthy's possession of Nancy Pelosi's gavel. And people fell for it with each theatrical body slam.
The country woke up this morning to rumors that finally-elected Speaker of the House McCarthy was granting Marjorie Taylor Greene the power to fire 87,000 IRS agents and disband the FBI and DOJ.
The idea that the Speaker could grant one Member of Congress that sort of power is of course ludicrous. But rest assured someone in the nether regions of Trumpland will be using this rumor to raise funds for something.
According to an opinion piece by Robert Palmer of the Palmer Report, the week-long holdout by the Treason Caucus against McCarthy’s speakership had nothing to do with ideology. It was about fund raising. When the far-right loony crew had soaked their marks for as much as they could, they let McCarthy have his gavel back.
Remember that members of the lower house must stand for re-election every two years. So Palmer’s take that this was a fundraising gambit makes some sense. After all, their Orange Calf idol raised an estimated $250 million immediately after losing the 2020 election with his Big Lie and other related appeals. The formula for soaking the not-quite-bright was right there staring these guys in the face.
Also remember that this pattern of creating a “fear for the future,” is also the fund raising pattern that televangelists have plied for years, prizing money from the pockets of their flocks and building mega churches, mega homes, fleets of luxury cars and private jets. Far-right Republicans are fleecing the same people with here-and-now dangers of “being invaded” by non-white people and the “communist” threats of Medicare and Social Security.
When people are not the least bit educated on a subject they can be sold just about anything about it. So, if Palmer is right, the far-right members of the lower house ran a sort of “professional wrestling” operation by holding up McCarthy’s possession of Nancy Pelosi’s gavel. And like many watchers of professional wrestling, the far-right voters fell for it with each theatrical body slam. Hell, everybody did, some of us with unfettered glee. But the morning after a binge like that, some analysis begins to seep in and the thought, “What the hell! Where’s my wallet?” creeps to the fore.
Points of Fact
Members of Congress do not have the power to fire the staff of any federal agency. Nor do they have the power to disband organizations like the FBI or the DOJ. The House of Representatives can propose legislation. That is their job. Once they pass a measure it is sent to the Senate, who votes on it or not. (In the case of Democratic measures forwarded to the Republican Senate under McConnell, the rule was majorly not.) Once a measure passes both Houses, it goes to the President for approval or veto.
None of the announced legislation from the far-right faction of the House has a hope in hell of getting past the Senate much less to Biden’s desk for a certain veto. These plans are more of the same: noise to keep the base complacent and make it look like they are doing something, anything besides what they will be doing: posturing.
Remember how many times Republican Congresses voted to repeal the Affordable Care Act, aka Obama Care? For the score keepers in the crowd, it was fifty-four. Posturing.
But by the same token, the Treason Caucus will also prevent progressive legislation from the Senate from making any forward motion. That too will be fodder for fund raising.
Solutions
It should come as no surprise that the far-right faction of Congress is composed of mostly the same members who had a hand in the Insurrection of January 6th.
The name “Treason Caucus” is not a just a convenient name for this crew. Treason is what they intended and in some cases, like Wisconsin Senator Ron Johnson, admitted to.
Inexorably, we return to Section 3 of the 14th Amendment. None of these people qualify for their positions of office in Congress, or any other office. And it is up to the Department of Justice to see to their prosecution and removal.
Until Jack Smith files his indictments of Trump and rest of the cabal, we are going to be seeing lots more posturing. And the bases that elected and re-elected the Treason Caucus are going to be seeing a LOT of fund raising emails.
But now Smith, and the country, is on a clock. The House does have one significant power: the power of the purse. All funding legislation must pass the House. And the stated intention by Republicans to shut down the government when the current funding bill expires on September 1 should be considered real.
As Comedian Larry the Cable often says in his act, “Let’s get ‘er done.”
Marty Kassowitz
Marty Kassowitz is co-founder of Factkeepers. As founder of Interest Factory and View360, he brings more than 30 years experience in effective online communications, social media management, and platform development to the site. He is a writer, designer, editor and long time observer of the ill-logic demonstrated by too many members of the species known as Mankind. After a long history of somewhat private commentary on a subject he totally hates: politics, Marty was encouraged to build this site and put up his own analyses as well as curate relevant content from other sources.
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