yourpalmooney

  Last week I published some schadenfreude at the GOP's expense, seeing as how they cycled through countless candidates for Speaker while they sabotaged any chance at keeping the House of Representatives under their control in the next Congress. They finally elected one! And... ...it's Mike Johnson! You might ask just who the hell this is, and I have to concede that I don't know! He's just some guy.  People tend to misunderstand what the Speaker's role is, or what it entails. It's a thankless, hideous job that requires expert deal-making, vote-whipping, and fundraising. The Speaker is a political animal that needs to lack a certain measure of humanity to succeed. John Boehner and Nancy Pelosi, whatever you think of them, were mildly effective Speakers. They managed their majorities well and kept the things moving. They worked to get their incumbents re-elected with fundraising and shrewdly targeting ripe districts. GOP Speaker Dennis Hastert had the job for awh...

  Much like the Big Bang, the GOP's self implosion wasn't a singular, one-off event. It's a slow and perpetual expansion that manifests as organized chaos. But unlike the Big Bang, we know the cause.  When Trump was elected in 2016, the Republican party fractured into its conservative, moderate, and nationalist wings - the latter of which has dominated much of the party's business in the six-plus-years since that general election. Anyone who dares wander from the base is described as "RINO," which will never stop being amusing seeing as how the dominant wing of the party long ago abandoned "conservatism" to embrace populist, conspiracy-mongering madness.  Kevin McCarthy was toppled as Speaker when one of his fellow caucus members, Matt Gaetz, decided to make a name for himself. Steve Scalise, who once alluded to himself as "David Duke without the baggage," mounted a bid to replace McCarthy. He failed. Up stepped Jim Jordan, who declared ...