Succession 🌻 🌻 🌻

🤡 🤡 🤡: In the words of Mike Lawler, a Republican Congressman from New York, “this is stupidity….it’s a clown show.”  Lawler is referring to his fellow House Republicans’ inability to pass a budget or failing that a short-term continuing resolution to keep the government open past September 30 while they continue try to pass a budget, or really a series of budgets.  Lawler is right, the clowns can’t even pass the required rule necessary to get a floor vote on any funding plan, not even for the defense budget, one of those holy cows that Congress generally prioritizes because, at least until now, funding defense has always been something Congress, particularly Republicans, are all in on. To backtrack, this summer, Speaker Kevin McCarthy and the White House negotiated a deal to avert a debt default.  As part of that deal, a broad budget framework was agreed upon.  The debt ceiling lift, including that budget framework, was passed by both the House and Senate and signed by President Biden with McCarthy receiving lots of praise from the press and the pundit class for getting his unwieldy caucus on board. Unfortunately, that was then, and this is now and a number of members of Kevin’s caucus, with the encouragement of chief clown Trump whose priorities include f-cking things up for “crooked Joe” and defunding Special Counsel Jack Smith’s “political persecutions” of him and those January 6 “patriots,” have no interest in adhering to the framework set out over the summer.  As a result when McCarthy, who has made so many conflicting promises to different members of his caucus that no one knows for sure what he’s has given away, tried, twice if anyone is counting, to bring the procedural rule vote to the floor to even get to a vote on a defense budget, Arizona’s Andy Biggs, North Carolina’s Dan Bishop, Arizona’s Eli Crane, Georgia’s Margia Q, and Montana’s Matt Rosendale all weighed in against it, a bigly problem for McCarthy who can only afford to lose four votes. Notably, Panhandle Putz Matt Gaetz who seems to be calling the shots right now and who threatens at least once a day to call for a “motion to vacate” the speakership which would cost McCarthy his job, his plane and his big office, did vote for the defense rule but only because his district includes the Pensacola Naval station and a boatload of military communities and even he can’t afford to piss off his constituents especially since he’s already signaled plans to run for governor to replace Governor DeSantis’s at the end of his term.  Scary as it sounds, it’s Florida so Gaetz could actually pull that off. After promising to keep everyone around all weekend to work out a solution, McCarthy instead sent his crowd home because he has no solution, at least no solution that doesn’t involve seeking the help of Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries who is really pissed at him for opening the Biden impeachment inquiry and won’t provide help without getting something really significant in return.  That said though crossing the aisle might work, it would also ensure that McCarthy’s days as Speaker are numbered because Putz Gaetz would do the motion to vacate thing.  Bottom line, McCarthy is in a pickle, and he’s got the whole country in the briny barrel with him.  Shutdowns are bad, and the party responsible for them generally suffers at the polls so Senate Republicans, aren’t happy but that’s the way it goes.  The dumbest part of this is that nothing McCarthy’s crowd agrees upon will pass the Democratically controlled Senate so it’s all an exercise in stupidity, but stupidity is what we’ve got to deal with right now.  

Another 🤡: Speaking of stupidity and clowns, Alabama’s Tommy Tuberville is still holding up somewhere around 300 promotions over his opposition to the military reimbursing travel expenses for those having to travel for abortions and raising lots of money doing so because the cash coffers open up wide these days whenever a politician does something divisive.  Despite Tuberville’s opposition, Senate Leader Chuck Schumer did manage to finally get a few really important military leaders confirmed including Air Force General CQ Brown, Jr to replace Mark Milley as the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Randy George as Army chief of staff and General Eric Smith as Marine Corps commandant.  For the record, keeping with the clown theme, in addition to Alabama’s Tommy Tuberville, Indiana’s Mike Braun, Missouri’s Josh Hawley and Eric Schmitt, Florida’s Marco Rubio, Texas’ Ted Cruz, Kansas’ Roger Marshall, Utah’s Mike Lee, Wisconsin’s Ron Johnson, Wyoming’s Cynthia Lummis and Ohio’s JD Vance all voted against General Brown’s confirmation even though the failure to vote him in would have left the country without a Joint Chief since by law Mark Milley has to leave at the end of the month. If you’re wondering why Schumer doesn’t go through with holding votes for all the other still unconfirmed promoted officers, it’s because it would take upwards of 700 hours of Senate time to go through the hoops necessary to get by Tuberville’s hold, time that would take away from virtually everything else, including the confirmation of judges.  Moreover, it would set a precedent, telling other wayward Senators that they too could gum up the Senate works.  Schumer is still hoping to get Mitch McConnell to force Tuberville to back off but meantime a slew of military families are living in limbo, unable to move to their new assignments or enroll their children in their new schools.  All so Tommy Tuberville can raise his profile and lots of money.  Maybe he, like far too many others, is hoping to become Trump’s running mate?          

Serious People? In other news, yesterday morning 93-year-old Rupert Murdoch announced that he is stepping down as head of the Fox and News Corps boards.  He asserted that his health is fine and that he’ll still be weighing in on business decisions, even if he’ll no longer be officially in charge. Rupert’s health isn’t fine, though he hid it from the public, he’s been hospitalized a few times over the past two years including for a gnarly bout of COVID.  However, as long as he’s still breathing the reins of Fox and News Corp will pass to his even more conservative son Lachlan who, unlike his father, supported Trump in 2020 so don’t count on a philosophical change until Rupert departs this world at which point the company trust will be split among Lachlan and his more liberal brother James and two of his sisters. That said, Lachlan lives in Australia, doesn’t share his father’s insane work ethic and Fox is still facing some more costly lawsuits, in particular the Smartmatic election machine case still needs to be tried or settled.  In addition, Fox, given its reliance on legacy cable as opposed to streaming and its older viewer base is not positioned well for the future so Lachlan might conclude that now is the time to break up and sell off the company’s assets. Don’t celebrate yet, since it could turn out that Fox’s next owners are even worse than Rupert, think Elon Musk or someone of a similar ilk. As to people of ill repute, Rudy Giuliani’s reputation continues to find new lows, as if that is even possible. In her soon to be released book former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson reports that America’s one time mayor groped her aggressively on January 6.  Naturally, he denies it but since most of us have seen Borat Subsequent Moviefilm and/or are aware of the really icky lawsuit against him by his former associate Noelle Dunphy it’s highly likely that Hutchinson is the truth teller here.  By the way, Rudy’s problems extend beyond those sexual allegations, yesterday lawyers for poll workers Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss told Beryl Howard, the judge overseeing their defamation case, that Rudy has failed to comply with her order that he pay $89k of their legal fees and turn over certain documents and Rudy is due back in court in early December for the trial to determine the way larger damages amount in their defamation case.   

Foreign Intrigue:  Ukraine’s President Zelenskyy visited Washington and made the required rounds yesterday seeking more support.  Though he received a warm welcome from Biden, most Democrats and some Republicans, another group of Republicans weren’t happy to hear from him and while some of them may have genuine concerns most of them are just following Trump and by extension Putin’s orders. Elsewhere, something weirdly awful is going on between Canada and India. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has called out India’s government and India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi for the assassination of a Sikh leader residing in Canada. As a result of the accusation, which Modi denies but is probably true, relations between the two countries have hit a new low. Then again, maybe Modi has little to worry about since it’s not like engaging in gruesome behavior has done much to hurt Saudi’s Mohammed bin Salman’s reputation. And lastly, there really are more migrants crossing the border right now. The Biden administration is now extending Temporary Protected Status to some of those from Venezuela which will allow them to work legally, that will alleviate the financial burden on cities like New York.