About an hour ago Punchbowl News sent out an email: “Special Edition: How Congress Averted a Shutdown.” It includes a lot of interesting detail and tidbits. I’m not criticizing it as a report, per se. But the big picture of what happened here is actually very simple.

It had nothing to do with “Congress”. It certainly had nothing to do with House Democrats who were ready to vote for a clean continuing resolution at any point. The Senate, with substantial bipartisan majorities, was ready to pass the appropriations bills that made any continuing resolution unnecessary. Since the House had missed its deadlines the same bipartisan Senate majorities were ready to pass a clean continuing resolution. Even a significant number of House Republicans were willing to pass a clean resolution all along. Indeed, a clean continuing resolution was required all along by the agreement Congress and the President made back in May. Kevin McCarthy simply decided to break that deal to appease House hardliners.

Continue reading “What Really Happened Today Isn’t Complicated” →

Ditto to everything David says below to this denouement of the latest House GOP clown show. The big picture: House Republicans first demanded huge spending cuts. They then decided to shift to demanding miscellaneous border related abuses to get their prized shutdown. In fact they could never agree what to demand. That was the whole issue of not being able to pass anything. In the end they agreed to give up all their demands and settled for giving Vladimir Putin a big sloppy kiss in the form of killing any new aid to Ukraine in this continuing resolution. This was the sweetener that made the capitulation possible. It’s a telling but unsurprising signal. For the Trumpist Right today, Ukrainians are just Democrats with a funny alphabet. Doing Putin a solid provided enough psychic satisfaction to make this happen.

This keeps the government funded for 45 more days – in essence, until Thanksgiving.

Continue reading “Joe To Big Kev: This is My Offer. Nothing.” →

At long last Kevin McCarthy came to his senses – or at least saw no other path.

Continue reading “Still No Way To Govern” →

As of today we are seeing more and more reporting that House Freedom Caucus hardliners may actually force a vote on Kevin McCarthy’s speakership and drive him from office. Like, not the, “we might do this!!!” we’ve heard more or less constantly for the last nine months but, “hey, this might actually happen.” One report said insiders don’t think McCarthy will last past December. While I’m skeptical, I certainly wouldn’t rule it out. But let’s remind ourselves that this isn’t a relationship coming apart at the seams or a system going haywire. It’s a system — that of the post-2010 House GOP caucus — working exactly as intended.

Continue reading “The McCarthy & Freedom Caucus Relationship is Working Just As Intended” →