The ridiculous House Benghazi committee may not have derailed Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign, but it may well have wrecked Chuck Schumer's plans to win with his patsy, Patrick Murphy, in Florida, and it may yet derail Kevin McCarthy's bid for the speakership. Rachel Maddow was ahead of everyone on the story about McCarthy's unfitness for office.
Kevin McCarthy, the Republican Majority Leader of the House-- still on track, if just barely, to replace John Boehner as speaker-- pissed off everyone by admitting that the purpose of the Benghazi committee was to give hyper-partisan Republicans an opportunity to smear Hillary Clinton and bring down her poll numbers. Only a complete moron didn't know that from the day the committee was proposed, but it still isn't something you're supposed to say out loud, even on Fox News.
Right-wing crackpot Daniel Webster (R-FL) was the first member of the extremist Freedom Caucus to say he wants Boehner's Speaker's gavel. He'll be the far right's sacrificial lamb against current Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA). Oddly enough, both men are in electorally vulnerable districts. McCarthy's district, CA-23 has been solidly Republican and still officially boasts an R+16 PVI.
Alabama racist Mo Brooks would like to take away a little of Steve King's thunder to adorn his own Confederate glory. Last week, the House passed Brooks' latest anti-Hispanic scheme, 221-202, every Democrat voting NO and 20 Republicans abandoning the party's racist, anti-immigrant core.
I was in New York Tuesday and could concentrate on the votes that were going down in the House and I'm afraid people may have missed a vote on Eric Swalwell's H.R. 1022, the Securing Energy Critical Elements and American Jobs Act. The Boehner/McCarthy/Ryan clique that's still fighting to control the House Republican Caucus, felt it had the votes to suspend the rules and pass the bill with a 2/3 majority and no amendments.
DWT is for Raul LabradorAngry right-wing populists struck out blindly against Eric Cantor last week-- and scored a knockout. But to the victors do not go the spoils, not Inside-the-Beltway. David Brat will become a largely ignored, probably short-term, backbencher; he will not become Majority Leader. Nor will any teabagger who celebrated Cantor's political demise.
To be honest, the only interest I have in the Republican leadership fight is my hope that they pick someone really demonstrably terrible-- which is a slam dunk, since only demonstrably terrible candidates have offered themselves up for the June 19 election-- and that there be plenty of opportunities for the kinds of humor that will entertain our little community here at DWT.
Allan Hoffenblum, a Republican consultant in California politics since the Nixon era, told the NY Times that “Until we solve our Latino problem, we’re not going to be a viable state party, and it’s hard to understand how that’s possible without fixing immigration.” The Times explains what everyone in California is already well-aware of:
Republican House Whip Kevin McCarthy used to be in a safe Central Valley red seat. CA-23 shares Bakersfield with Republican David Valadao, Lancaster with Republican Buck McKeon and Visalia with Republican Devin Nunes. Valadao and McKeon are likely to be serving their last terms as Members of Congress now and the demographic changes in their districts have already started changing McCarthy's as well.
