Chaos in Congress
After House Republicans ousted Kevin McCarthy as Speaker of the House last week Tuesday, Congress has been plunged into chaos. By its own rules the House of Representatives is literally not able to act on anything without a Speaker. (There is an Interim Speaker, but the only one thing that person is allowed to do is preside over the process of electing a speaker.) What does that jeopardize? Well, aside from all the business of the US Congress coming to a standstill a few big-ticket items that could reach crisis stage soon are:
While Kevin McCarthy was bad enough, with his post-facto support for subverting the will of the people on January 6 and his support for evidence-free investigations of President Biden's son, Hunter, and the president himself, the other two are even worse. Scalise is even more of the same, and Jordan is not just a supporter of lies but an active planner of them. Jordan leads the committee that has pursued investigations of the Bidens despite no evidence of wrong-doing. Even when witnesses blow up in his face and say there's no evidence, he's kept going. Former Congresswoman Lynn Cheney has said in speeches that the January 6 committee she sat on found evidence that Jordan was a co-conspirator with former president Trump in the days before January 6 on exactly how to do it. We're clearly headed toward even worse chaos when the people who subverted the Constitution for partisan gain are now positioning to gain control of the Constitution's levers of power.
- Funding for the federal government. Two weeks ago the House passed short-term funding measures to keep the government operating for just another 45 days. Those expire in mid November. Congress needs to be working on proper, long term spending agreements now to avoid another crisis and potential government shutdown next month. Ironically, of course, it was specifically because of McCarthy's bipartisan deal to pass those 45-day temporary measures that he was sacked.
- Military aid to Ukraine. This was clipped out of the temporary funding bill to appease right wing hardliners. Without more support we could soon see this democratic country fall to Russian invasion.
- Military aid to Israel. The terrorist group Hamas launched attacks of breathtaking scale on Israel Saturday. Israel has declared war. The US, Israel's biggest supporter in the world, is limited in ability to support its ally without a functioning Congress.
While Kevin McCarthy was bad enough, with his post-facto support for subverting the will of the people on January 6 and his support for evidence-free investigations of President Biden's son, Hunter, and the president himself, the other two are even worse. Scalise is even more of the same, and Jordan is not just a supporter of lies but an active planner of them. Jordan leads the committee that has pursued investigations of the Bidens despite no evidence of wrong-doing. Even when witnesses blow up in his face and say there's no evidence, he's kept going. Former Congresswoman Lynn Cheney has said in speeches that the January 6 committee she sat on found evidence that Jordan was a co-conspirator with former president Trump in the days before January 6 on exactly how to do it. We're clearly headed toward even worse chaos when the people who subverted the Constitution for partisan gain are now positioning to gain control of the Constitution's levers of power.