So we're doing this again, huh?
Friday, January 6, 2023
BY JULIA CLAIRE & CROOKED MEDIA
- Tucker Carlson ([link removed]) , confirming what we've always known about him
Days of voting to elect a new Speaker of the House: Four. (4.) Speakers of the House elected: Zero. (0.)
* Friday marked the two-year anniversary of the January 6 insurrection, which Congress commemorated with a moment of silence on the Capitol steps ([link removed]) amid brief remarks from Democratic leaders new and old praising Capitol police, and, if you can believe it, none from Republicans. Only one Republican bothered to attend at all. Can’t imagine why! To be fair, House Republicans were very busy commemorating the day’s events by holding the government hostage.
* When we left off yesterday, the world’s thirstiest legislator Kevin McCarthy had failed to garner enough support among Republicans to become House speaker 11 times, before eking out just enough votes to adjourn for the night to briefly halt his merry-go-round of humiliation, and wheel it behind closed doors. But it fired back up again today, with McCarthy losing, wait for it, twelfth and thirteenth ballots ([link removed]) —this time by closer margins, after giving in to some of his far-right detractors’ more outlandish demands. For instance: McCarthy has agreed to reinstate a House rule that would allow a single member to call a no-confidence vote to oust the speaker (him) from office. Matt Gaetz would never abuse that rule, right?
* It’s worth reiterating that McCarthy is already extremely right wing himself—a die-hard loyalist to disgraced former president Donald Trump and an early proponent of the Big Lie. But now, he has allowed the craziest, fringiest members of his caucus to take the wheel, signaling that even if he does manage to get enough votes for speaker, he will have traded away nearly all of the power of the office. This man is deeply unwell (and did we say thirsty?) but McCarthy personally having a bad time once he becomes speaker is really not our concern, giving a bunch of lunatics control of the House is.
For now, the House is adjourned until 10 p.m. Eastern, but the broad strokes of McCarthy’s “deal” with these devils are becoming clear.
* The full proposal hasn’t leaked, but parts of it have, and as you can probably guess, it’s not good, folks. McCarthy has also agreed to give three seats on the powerful House Rules Committee to members of the hardline Freedom Caucus ([link removed]) (enough for them to block legislation from coming to the House floor), and promised to force the United States government into default on its debt if at all possible. Super.
* Not since the Civil War has a prospective speaker been dragged through this many rounds of voting, and it’s unlocked a new level of embarrassment for a party we thought couldn’t possibly top its last few years. Apart from the fact that freshmen members of Congress in the lower chamber have not yet been sworn in, without a speaker the House’s usual legislative and oversight powers have ground to a halt, which means the body can not respond to any prospective l crisis like a natural disaster or, oh I don’t know, a global pandemic.
Two years after the horrific events of the insurrection, and just two months after losing the 2022 midterms, the Republican Party has unsurprisingly learned nothing, and is letting its most extreme members set the party’s agenda, and we’re all paying the price for it.
Police in Newport News, VA, took a six-year old child into custody after the student shot an elementary school teacher ([link removed]) , who was rushed to the hospital with life-threatening injuries. The police chief said that a call initially came in for an active shooter, but upon arriving at the scene, it became clear that this was not an instance of an individual firing off rounds around a school, but a shooting in an isolated location. Police stated that the shooting was not accidental, and resulted from an altercation between the six-year-old boy, who had a handgun, and his teacher. They also confirmed that no other students at Richneck Elementary School were harmed, and that the commonwealth’s attorney was contacted once the boy was in custody. As Republicans like to say, guns don’t kill people, people kill people, including six-year old children, and they’re fine with that.
Nineteen suspected gang members and 10 military personnel were killed in the violence surrounding the arrest of Mexican drug cartel boss Ovidio Guzman ([link removed]) , son of the infamous “El Chapo.”
A top Iranian Sunni cleric denounced Iran’s use of force against detained protesters ([link removed]) as un-Islamic.
California civil-rights officials have sued two Sacramento landlords, alleging that they illegally harassed and evicted a tenant because she paid through Section 8 vouchers ([link removed]) . You’re telling me a landlord did something unethical in order to make more money? Well now I’ve seen it all.
An American warship sailed through the Taiwan Strait between Taiwan and the Chinese mainland yesterday ([link removed]) , prompting criticism from the Chinese government.
Germany and the U.S. have agreed to join France in sending armored military vehicles to Ukraine ([link removed]) .
Major storms this week have left tens of thousands of homes and businesses in Northern California without power ([link removed]) and the area is bracing for more severe weather this weekend.
A series of shootings in New Mexico have all targeted the homes or offices of elected Democratic officials in the state ([link removed]) , amid a sharp national rise in threats to legislators and election officials.
A new poll shows that the majority of Republican voters do not view the January 6 insurrection as a sad day ([link removed]) . We could’ve told you that.
Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered Russian forces in Ukraine to observe a unilateral, 36-hour cease-fire ([link removed]) , starting Thursday, January 5. Ukrainian officials dismissed the order, but did not clarify whether their troops would follow suit. After 11 months of the conflict, Putin’s announcement was unexpected. It came after Patriarch Kirill, the head of the Russian Orthodox Church, proposed a cease-fire for the Christmas holiday, which in the Orthodox calendar is celebrated on January 7. United Nations staffers on the ground in Ukraine reported having not seen evidence of major fighting, but Russia’s Defense Ministry continued to depict Ukraine as an aggressor and accuse Ukrainian forces of multiple attacks that are currently not possible to verify. Mutual distrust runs so deep between the two countries that it’s unclear
whether the cease-fire will actually hold.
The Biden administration’s EPA has proposed tougher standards for a deadly air pollutant found in soot emitted from tailpipes, smokestacks, and wildfires ([link removed]) . Not sure how the last one could be regulated but we love the spirit!
China is in talks with Pfizer about the possibility of a generic version of the Covid antiviral drug Paxlovid ([link removed]) .
According to the latest Labor Department employment report, U.S. job growth slowed but remained solid last month ([link removed]) .
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