Kevin McCarthy
March 23, 2024 — Scott Johnson
John and I found the protracted humiliation of Kevin McCarthy in connection with his election to be Speaker of the House a clown show. By contrast, Steve Hayward looked mostly on the bright side in “In re: Speaker McCarthy — dissents and concurrences.” It is at least worth noting that the GOP majority is dissipating. The clown show set the stage for the shrinking of the small GOP House majority
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September 14, 2023 — Scott Johnson
What is proof? In common parlance, “proof” is evidence. Evidence may be direct or circumstantial. The shiftless Adam Schiff to the contrary notwithstanding, there is no in between. Evidence consists of testimony or exhibits that tend to make the existence or nonexistence of a relevant fact more likely than not. I took up the law of evidence (focusing on hearsay) here in connection with the House Judiciary Committee impeachment hearing
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September 12, 2023 — John Hinderaker
This morning, Speaker Kevin McCarthy announced that the House is launching an investigation that may lead to the impeachment of President Biden. Here is McCarthy making the announcement; text is below: Welcome back, everyone. You know, in the months that we were gone, in the weeks, House Republicans have uncovered serious and credible allegations into President Biden’s conduct. Taken together, these allegations paint a picture of a culture of corruption.
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May 29, 2023 — Steven Hayward
We don’t have many of the fine details of the debt ceiling deal Kevin McCarthy has struck with (P)resident Joe Biden yet, but my first proposition is that the exact details don’t matter, and my conclusion is that the outcome is a modest but potentially significant win for Republicans. I think McCarthy played a weak hand—the political equivalent of a pair of deuces—extremely well. The political outcome of this deal
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May 17, 2023 — Steven Hayward
Last week on the podcast I predicted that the chief sticking point on a deal to raise the debt ceiling wouldn’t be any of the GOP demands for spending restraint, but rather the demand for new work requirements of able bodied welfare recipients. Because the left views welfare and other income support programs as means of entitled redistribution without reciprocal obligation rather than relief from unfortunate circumstances, Democrats would resist.
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May 10, 2023 — Scott Johnson
We are obviously crushed by the voluminous bad news. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy provides what must count as today’s good news. He has foiled Rep. Rashida Tlaib’s attempt to host an event at the Capitol Building with anti-Israel groups decrying the founding of Israel as a “catastrophe.” “This event in the US Capitol is canceled,” McCarthy announced in a tweet on Tuesday (below). “Instead, I will host a bipartisan discussion
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February 21, 2023 — Scott Johnson
Yesterday Axios broke the story that House Speaker Kevin McCarthy has given Tucker Carlson’s Fox News producers access to the 41,000 hours of Capitol surveillance video from the riot and preceding days. In Axios’s story Mike Allen stated that “[t]he archive was previously reported to be 14,000 hours. I’m told it’s now much more.” Tucker Carlson himself announced that his producers were reviewing the video on his show last night
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January 25, 2023 — Scott Johnson
Actually, Kevin McCarthy kicks butt would be more like it. Yesterday Speaker McCarthy “officially booted Reps. ADAM SCHIFF and ERIC SWALWELL from the House Intelligence Committee.” McCarthy set forth his decision in a letter to Hakeem Jeffries posted on Twitter. The lady and gentlemen of Politico Playbook find the letter “short on details about the two California Democrats’ sins[.]” You can grok that the press wants to pick up its
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January 11, 2023 — Scott Johnson
AP congressional reporter Farnoush Amiri report via Twitter (below) that Speaker Kevin McCarthy will follow through on his promise to remove Reps. Eric Swalwell (Intelligence), Adam Schiff (Intelligence), and Ilhan Omar (Foreign Affairs) from their committee assignments. Of the three, I think Schiff is the worst. He should be tarred and feathered and run out of town for abuse of his position as Intelligence Committee chairman to perpetuate the Russia
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January 7, 2023 — Scott Johnson
In my facetious new year’s predictions I foresaw that Kevin McCarthy would find a way to win election as Speaker of the House in January. I added that by February he would begin to wonder why he wanted the job so badly. I’m thinking he began the wondering last week, so might have missed on that one. I did not foresee that a fight might break out over the Speaker
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January 4, 2023 — Scott Johnson
The humiliation of Kevin McCarthy as he stands for Speaker of the House represents the humiliation of the Republican Party. It is humiliation wrought by a fringe that is greatly enjoying its attention. If you have any doubt of the humiliation, consider the ecstatic mainstream media coverage of the show. They love it. What accounts for their joy? I think I have a pretty good fix on it. If that
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November 20, 2022 — John Hinderaker
At the Republican Jewish Coalition’s meeting in Las Vegas yesterday, incoming Speaker Kevin McCarthy announced that he intends to kick Ilhan Omar off the House Foreign Relations Committee: “We watch anti-Semitism grow, not just on our campuses, but we watched it grow In the halls of Congress,” McCarthy said…. “I promised you last year that as speaker she will no longer be on Foreign Affairs, and I’m keeping that promise,”
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