Kevin McCarthy is ousted as House speaker in a historic vote pushed by conservatives

West Virginia Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin called today’s vote to oust McCarthy a “sad day for our country” that sends a negative message to the rest of the world about American democracy.
-Said a douchebag who spent years obstructing progress.
- "I didn't make any money from this. A sad day."
  
  Nailed it
- Joe Manchin voting record sends a negative message to the rest of the world about American democracy.
  
  Perhaps. But consider Speaker Jordan. McCarthy may be a jellyfish who had no business wrapping his tentacles around the House gavel, but he at least tried to slither across the aisle on occasion.
  I’m settling in for the clown show to come.
- West Virginia Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin
  They misspelled republican in disguise wrong
  
  They misspelled it wrong, so they spelled it right?
- I bet he said all that from the back of his yacht.
- Eli5 on Joe Manchin please? Never heard of him
  
  He's a dem who doesn't seem to share any views with other Dems.
  He singlehandedly delayed or outright prevented many large bills from going through.
  When Bidens term is looked back upon, Manchin will be the force that prevented Biden from pushing though some of his more progressive plans.
  
  Democratic senator from an otherwise red state. He tends to be a spoiler for Democratic plans, along with Kristen Synema.
  If the GOP was closer to the center, he would likely switch parties.
  
  He's a bitch boi
  
  He's like the swing vote guy, or one of them. Votes against party policy.
  Summary of voting record: opposes big business, environmental protection, financial sector regulation, gun control, hawkish foreign policy, foreign and humanitarian aid, taxing the middle class, military spending, domestic surveillance. Supports taxing businesses, restrict money in politics, consumer protection, disaster relief, funding education, public health, labor rights and wages, lgbt rights, internet freedom, a robust safety net, higher spending, women's rights.
  Came across this site looking up an answer for you. http://politicsthatwork.com/voting-record/Joe-Manchin-412391
  Worth looking at it in more detail because he did vote to support abortion restriction so idk about supporting women's rights etc.
  
  He's the dem senator from west Virginia. He's a coal barron we put up with because if he lost a Republican would most likely take his seat. He's the Senate's kingmaker
- "Democratic Senator"

Democrats this morning were shown a clip of McCarthy on CBS over the weekend trying to blame them for shutdown chaos, Rep. Gerry Connolly, D-Va., said, calling that a clarifying moment for those in the party who might have voted to save him. McCarthy's decision to blame Democrats on TV this weekend was "one of the most crushingly stupid things somebody could do on the eve of your survival vote," he told NBC News this afternoon.
I saw that interview clip - the reporter actually started laughing when he tried to blame the Democrats. It really was a stupid thing to say.
- The Democrats were discussing working with him. Then he basically told them to fuck off with that interview. So he lost with 8 republican votes. Such bad strategy. It just makes you think, aren't you supposed to be a politician. You ever politiced in your whole life?
  I guess this is the kind of stupid, horrible strategy you can expect from the current Republican party. They don't have to make deals are negotiate. Their entire platform is scream Democrats bad.
  
  He was trying to throw the democrats under the bus because the threat from Gaetz was that he was working with the Democrats. But he forgot the Democrats aren’t complete pushovers, just mostly pushovers, and ended up falling under the bus instead.
  
  He eas trying to get the most radical reps back by showing "hey i am one of you, i also wanto to own the libs" But fascists hanging their own to try if they are not radical enough is a story as old as fascism.
  
  They already made their deal, with Putin.
- I mean, hasn't he always been kind of dim? I've always thought of him as kind of an older Eric Trump, tbh.
- Do you recall where you saw that video?
  
  I don’t remember the exact link I watched, but here’s a clip: https://youtu.be/6sAFFDWaNtY?si=wUaBjyiPv1o8SWzJ
- https://youtu.be/6sAFFDWaNtY?si=wUaBjyiPv1o8SWzJ
- Former Fairfax County Commissioner Gerry Connolly? The man who never met a defense contractor he could say no to?
- Everyone wants to act like he wants to be speaker...
  He gets zero out of it and no matter what happens it hurts his chance retaining his seat or moving up to a higher office.
  He probably can't be happier to step back in the shadows.
  Edit:
  Woke up to see no ones ever heard about a dog that spends it whole life chasing cars, then when one stops realizes it doesn't know what to do
  
  He desperately wanted to be speaker. He was pissed off when it took him many votes to get the role, actively negotiating for the job he should've been a shoo in for.
  Then even once he had it, he was doing anything he could to appease the freedom caucus, including the unilateral impeachment investigation and the shutdown threat.
  In averting the shutdown he essentially resigned, but at that point he was a broken man who was tired of selling his soul to appease the far right. Lets not act like he didn't do everything's short of shutting down the government to avoid this.
  
  He's been trying to get that speaker spot for years, you have no idea what you're talking about.
  
  Speaker is usually end game. For politicians who want it, that’s where their career peaks. Party leaders pretty much always end up unpopular. That’s why Paul Ryan was reluctant to do it and now his career is tanked. John Boehner is a full time lobbyist now. Pelosi will probably never leave Congress.
  But no one has ever wanted to be speaker more than Kev. He’s not really smart or popular enough to get any higher anyway. The fact that such a dim witted sad sack got as high as he did is a miracle by itself.

I want to keep this as civil as possible. The world would be a better place without Republicans in it.
- Delete conservatism and religion.
  
  If you deleted religion would conservatism even survive a few generations?
- Without all authoritarians in it, in fact.
- They can take a long walk off a short pier for all I care

Remember this is the same McQarthy who chose to kiss orange ass at every opportunity he got. He was given so many opportunities to do the right thing but deliberately chose to be an asshole and pack all the committees with Nazi caucus members. He did everything he could to push extreme right wing lunacy and kill bipartisanship.
Now the same Qevin turns around and makes a pikachu face why Dems didn’t save his sorry ass.
- K-Mac was also the dude that said on the floor that Putin pays Trump and Dana Rohrabacher. Yet he continued to side with them, after Dead Eyes Paul Ryan told him to keep that info in the family.
  Kevvy pooped in his bed and was surprised he woke up covered in shit.
  
  K-Mac sounds a budget version of a Big Mac except somehow you have convinced yourself you a have a 50 % chance of getting dysentery and the other 50% is that it won't give you dysentery. Yet every time, you have a K-Mac...you get dysentery.

We gonna get a carousel like the Conservatives in the UK last year? Will our next speaker outlast a cabbage?
- On this side of the pond we use Scaramuccis
  
  Conversion ratio, for reference: One Truss is equal to exactly four Mooches.
- No, because those things are so full of salt and other preservatives they'll last forever.

I get that Dems are enjoying seeing the Republicans seem to fail, but I get the feeling this is going to turn out horribly. We’re going to see Speaker Jim Jordan or Matt Gaetz and the country will suffer for it.
- Highly unlikely. Freedom caucus will not get the speakership. GOP hates them more than McCarthy. Gaetz didn't think this through. The only option is more of the same or somebody more friendly to the Democrats.
  
  The freedom caucus can block any nominee they want, and Republicans have made it clear they won’t accept someone that wants to work with Dems. It took 15 votes to get McCarthy as it was. I am not hopeful.
  
  I mean they just showed they have the power to remove the speaker, the power goes through them
  
  Well, we have Jim Jordan and Steve Scalise as the choices. Both worse than McCarthy.
- I can’t shake the bad feeling that the timing is going to be a real problem once shutdown time rolls around here in less than 40-ish days. What if we don’t even have a fucking speaker at all by then??
  There is the possibility that Dems coordinate a vote with the not-Freedom Caucus GOP to elect the least disagreeable candidate, though…
  
  If that was a possibility, I would think they would have done so in one of the 14 ballots before Republicans settled on McCarthy.
  Look what they did to Liz Chaney. They would expel a Republican that did that from the party, and then they would Primary them out of office.
  
  I'm not a betting man, but if i was, this will be the outcome.
- Plus most ofvmy family would blame this all the dems for not reaching accross the asile, and being the party of devision.
  
  "Yeah! Why aren't dems meeting halfway between Donald Trump and Kevin McCarthy???"

Man, the GOP have really let themselves be gutted by their most extreme members.
- Yeah man. I'm running out of popcorn here.

Elect a clown, expect a circus

Call me old and cynical but I see the inevitable conclusion of this game that the conservatives have been playing being a civil war. This is what they are pysnigb for, this is what they want.
The reason they want this is because, well, they are extremist Christian terrorists and they're plain evil. Dunno how else to say it. They don't want gays to have any rights, they want gays converted or dead. They don't want trans people to have rights and have a remote shred of happiness, they want them dead. They don't give a shit about abortion, they want more babies in poor and breken families who are easy to manipulate into voting for them. Hell, they don't want democracy, they want a theocracy.
They watched the handmaid's tale and thought they were watching an awesome documentary. It contains all the elements that gets them hard; being able to force their religion upon others, being able to control others, rape others...
Imitgt be having a tinfoil hat on right now but I see these extremists come up with a document that wants to do away with democracy and have an all powerful ~~president~~ dictator, that outlines a plan to prohibit porn and even simply books that talk about transgender issues and jail anyone who produces or possesses such evils...
These are not nice people, at this point I think it's safe enough to say that these are dangerous terrorists
I think the US is in much bigger trouble than most people see
- Imitgt be having a tinfoil hat on right now
  No thank you. Literally every holocaust survivor was screaming deja vu with Trump, along with all their descendants who got the bed time stories.
- What really fucked up is the shit in handmaud book that was left out of the show
  
  I've straight up had people say that in the wake of a birthrate crisis, Gilead would be completely justified.
  I'm not an anti-natalist, but if the choice really was between Gilead and humanity dying out, I might reconsider.
  
  I never read the books. Is it that bad?
- For the voters you maybe right. For the leaders, follow the money... It's as simple as wealth and power.
  Keep us "plebs" fighting on stupid shit so we don't eat the rich. Terrorism recruiting strategy 101. Get people addicted to hate so it can be channeled against the opposition.
  At least those are my insights.
  
  Do we actually have to eat the rich? Can we just use them as fertilizer instead?
- See https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Matt_Shea
- You sound like Marjorie Taylor Greene lol. Things are nowhere as bad as you are projecting, we are all literally laughing at the Republican party (Republican party included).
  If anything, this whole ordeal probably just saved us from going to civil war because it showed the country how dangerous this type of MAGA thinking in just 8 representatives can be.
  
  I've seen many rather too prominent R party members talking casually about civil war. If that doesn't at least make you frown then I think you might be a bit naive. Hitler too was a funny guy until he suddenly burst on the world stage. Trump too was laughed at a year before he was president

Hahahahaha
Fucking clowns

Could we please stop calling these agents of destruction "conservative"? They don't want to conserve anything. "Destructives" would be better.

Now they're a complete set of failures!
- What happened to Eric Cantor?
  
  According to Wikipedia, he lost the primary in his own district when he was house majority speaker. First in history to do so.
  
  Lost his primary in 2014 then resigned before finishing the term.
  
  What happened to Paul Ryan?
- The Speaker position was but a mere stepping stone to their true calling of being wealthy k street lobbyists.
- Young gun, gray hair.
  
  Haha.

As it stands the GOP seem unlikely to be able to elect a speaker. Speakers provide a list of people to become temporary speaker in case of emergency, so upon McCarthy's ouster rep. Patrick McHenry became speaker pro tempore. Speakers pro tempore have only the authority to gavel sessions in and out, and to conduct votes for a new speaker.
Basically McHenry's first act with the gavel was to order Pelosi out of her offices. What an asshole
- Right?
  I'm no fan of hers, but jeez McHenry... let's see, what's more important: try to get the House back on track, or engage in petty, vindictive partisan bullshit?
  I'm glad the House passed that CR, though I'm not sure they'll have a new speaker before it runs out.
  
  Pretty, vindictive, partisan power-grabbing shit. The interim speaker shouldn't even be able to do that

Apparently some of the Republicans are talking about nominating Trump as speaker. The speaker doesn't technically need to be a member of congress. I wonder if there are enough anti-Trump republicans in the House to block that. If it's a close vote and certain congress people block Trump, they could get a mountain of hate.
- Amazing that the founding fathers didn't contemplate the possibility of a felon under active lawsuits becoming speaker
  
  In defense of the founding fathers, they were all traitors to the crown and enemies of the state when they wrote that.
  
  The founding fathers were amazingly shit at game theory.
  
  They didn't even contemplate the House Speaker being in the Presidential line of succession. Which is the reason they want to put Trump there. Not that it would work; they'd have to remove both the President and Vice President at the same time, and the Senate ain't going to do that.
- Only 3-4 republican votes are needed to block any candidate since the Democrats will all be voting against.
  
  Yes, but if Trump is on board, can you imagine the mountain of hate mail and death threats those 3-4 would receive? Would they have the guts to accept that consequence?
- This is one of the least likely scenarios.
- That sounds scary if possible
  
  It's not
- that ain't going to happen
- Speaker of the house is 3rd in line to take over if the VP and Pres are dead or unavailable.
  Question is if you think that MAGA and foreign intelligence would be up for forcing that issue.
  
  Making Trump speaker would be a major national security risk to Biden and Harris. Gives way too many lunatics big ideas is there's a direct benefit to their movement. Not to mention it WAYYY to closely mirrors the arc of Hitlers rise. Failed coup attempt, followed by taking on a secondary post a few years later.

Now wait a minute.......I thought they liked McCarthy SOOOO much, they were willing to vote for him as speaker 15 times in a row just this year?
- The first 14 times McCarthy failed to get voted in. They disliked McCarthy so much it took 15 votes to get them in the first place.
  
  Correct. And instead of fixing the issue.....here we are. But hey, they got a beefier salary out of it.

What was McCarthy's plan?
He spent the last week daring Gaetz to file the motion, and once it happened, that was it? No political maneuvering or deal making? Just let the chips fall where they may?
- Deep down I don't think he wanted it anymore. Trying to wrangle this shitshow of a party for 8 months has probably taken a decade off his life.
  
  The same reason Trump couldn't keep a press speaker for more than 6 months at a time.
- I mean, its not actually clear this leads to a good outcome for Gaetz yet. I suspect it doesn't.

I can't wait for a historic 16 rounds of voting to get a speaker this time.

- Probably because he went back on the deal that he made with Biden after the Debt Ceiling thing. If he had stuck to that, he might have gotten enough Democrats to vote "present" to have survived the vote.
  But why throw any support to a person you can't trust?
  
  Yeah I think this.
  You can't even make deals w/ him anymore because he won't abide by them. On top of that, he has to bend to the most fringe aspects of his party to stay in power so it appers that he's reaching the same conclusions (impeachment, reneging on his words, etc) as a more conservative speaker, w/ just the semblance of moderate leanings
- This is a republican problem. They renegged the budget, they caused the shutdown, they ousted their speaker when he swerved to avoid it. The republicans have all the votes they need to not fuck over the constituents. All they have to do is their job. Dems know they won't do it. Every second republicans are burning political capital.
  
  Yep, and they're wasting the time they have with a majority in the House.
  The Freedom Caucus is acting like a crew of undercover Democrats infiltrated the Republicans Party to sabotage it by acting like caricatures. Like, back in 2010ish, some people that were fed up with Republicans being so rigid would complain by exaggeraing their politics, and these Freedom Caucus dipshits said, "Let's do that, but for for real." However, they're in effect practically helping the Democrats. This is crazy 😮
- I think they decided that he is such an incredible piece of shit who stabs them in the back and reneges on every deal (see: his attempt on Sunday to blame the budget fiasco on them, his renging on the debt ceiling deal, his stance on J6...) that he wasn't worth saving. Either some R's join with D's to make a coalition (as just called for by H. Jeffries) or the R's have to get their shit together, painfully, for the budget. The last CR clearly showed the issue with the current R party composition. There is a wing that essentially acts as a third party spoiler. The CR was very much a win for the Dems (except for Ukraine funding, although I am of the personal opinion that a clean CR is the correct way to do a CR, fund other stuff separately).
  
  I keep seeing 'CR' in comments, what does it stand for?
- Because he can't be trusted to share power.
  McCarthy had two choices:
  Do what the freedom caucus wanted and never see anything pass the Senate.
  Make a deal across the isle and get some work done.
  He dragged his feet, hymed and hawed and eventually caved in on option 2 as it's the only reasonable one.
  Then he proceeded to attack those who he just made a deal with the very next day.
  He could have instead said that real leadership is finding compromises that move things forward but he's lose MAGA voters who see the government burning down as an upside.
  So he sold his soul, again, to those crazies and yet again proved he isn't reliable.
  Does this benefit the House as an organization?
  Absolutely not. But the clown show that will follow in the next few weeks will make the GOP look horrible at least.
  And maybe, just maybe, some of the more sensible parts of the GOP will come to the Democrats with a power sharing deal that will completely neuter the freedom caucus once they see how hopeless their situation is.
- What is the better alternative? What if there isnt a speaker by the time the stop gap measure expires?
  I have this same question too, and - with all due respect - it would be nice if someone had a response other than blaming Republicans and just leaving it at that (I mean, it’s absolutely their fault, but it doesn’t answer the real question).
  It would be nice to know Dems have a plan after taking this action. I’m fairly certain they do, but best I can do now is guess how it might play out. Not reassuring…
  
  McCarthy basically spat in the Democrats face and tried to blame them for the shutdown. So Dems told him to eat a bag of dicks.
  
  Most Republicans don't want a shutdown, they know it's political suicide. McCarthy made a deal with Democrats to avoid a shutdown because most Republicans (privately) pressured him to do so.
  Most Republicans don't want a shutdown in November, either. They are the majority party so they have the power to choose a speaker who will avert one. So Democrats don't necessarily need a plan, the process may remain completely outside their control.
  If Republicans end up needing Democratic votes to elect a Republican Speaker, then they will need to offer something to Democrats, because by itself electing a Republican Speaker is not in the interest of Democrats.
  All of the above is already crystal-clear to both parties. The ball is in the GOP majority's court, they get to choose the next move: work together with the Freedom Caucus or work together with Democrats.
  
  I mean if they play their cards right we might have speaker Jeffries for, like, a day.
  
  I mean if they play their cards right we might have speaker Jeffries for, like, a day.
- There is already a speaker pro tempore. The house can decide when it wants to elect another speaker, but business doesn't just suddenly stop now.
  
  Actually, that's not true. The only thing the House can do now is elect a Speaker. That's all the temporary speaker can do, he can't do anything else.

Anyone know who are the 5 most liberal republicans in the house are and if they want to just come over to the side that wants to govern?
Edit: According to a list I found online, those would be: -Fitzpatrick, Brian (PA-1) -Van Drew, Jeff (NJ-2) -Lawler, Mike (NY-17) -Chavez-DeRemer, Lori (OR-5) -Smith, Chris (NJ-4)
I'm never heard of any of them.
- Van Drew ran as a Democrat and then flipped parties after Trump's impeachment. I wouldn't trust him as far as you could throw him.
  
  Must be why he had a high history of voting with democrats.
- I'm never heard of any of them.
  That's probably a good thing Do you want any that you have heard of to be speaker?
  
  As the current situation stands, I'd be suspicious of anyone who would willingly take the job.

Hows this going to impact fumding for Ukraine?
- Badly. The vote to pass spending removed it, and now a separate vote to add it separately will be delayed.
  Putin is getting exactly what he paid for, and he's got to be absolutely thrilled.
  
  If anything this is proof that all that spying the alphabet bois are doing isnt actualy to protect anyone. If it was everyone being bribed by putin would already have been charged with treason.

,
- Whoa, let's keep this political. Slut shaming is not okay.
  
  He was complaining McCarthy sleeps around?
  
  Kevin is a slut?
  
  Fair enough.

Are those actual conservatives or ones which would be called extreme right-wingers or fascists in non-american politics?
- They're both the same picture

Oh no.
Anyways...
- Could have consequences for many people in the US. McCarthy at least wanted to keep things running even if he was extreme. The next guy may not.
  
  In the long run, that will cost the GOP and they will lose more power.
  
  He wanted to keep things running about as much as any other Republican. He was literally blaming Democrats when shutting down the government is pretty much a normalized annual thing from the Republicans at this point.

ahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha

I don't know about other people but I am hooked into this story and I don't totally understand why. Been much better about avoiding US politics but this and the indictments are occupying me.
Can't say that it's good for my wellbeing. tbd.
- I don’t know about other people but I am hooked into this story and I don’t totally understand why.
  Well looking in from outside it just is really funny to see the Republicans fight against them self. But that's much easier when I don't have to suffer from their incompetence.
- That's just the coming election finding new ways of appealing to you.

republicans are winning and winning and winning. maybe the biggest winners in history. they will keep on winning so much...like they will ask to stop the winning on weekends. else would just be too much winning.

Thoughts and prayers

pulling every control knob they can find on the Titanic

Please change the title of this post to match the title of the article so that I don't have to remove it for violating Rule 4. THANK YOU!
- This is the title that NBC put when I shared it. It was the title of the post at the time of sharing. I see now that they've removed the portion that says "pushed by conservatives". Is that the part that you would like me to amend?
  
  Yeah it looks like they keep changing it. No worries then. How strange.

I think the Democrats should have voted to keep him in

The democrats voted to oust this guy and trust me you reap what you sew. The next will be worse.
- Surely you must be joking. Matt Gaetz spent several days telling everybody that he was going to oust Kevin McCarthy. Then he did.
  The Republican speaker of the House was removed from his position by the craziest contingent of the Republican party.
  The self sabotage is nutty.
  
  Go look at who voted to say yes. Look at how many democrats said yes. They could have said no.
- So keep someone horribly damaging and untrustworthy around because things could get worse? Sounds like a cowards/defeatist mindset, you should always strive for better and removing those who do damage.
- Worse how?
  The Speaker is ultimately a mouthpiece for the party. Speakers do not advance a personal agenda, they do what the "majority of the majority" wants them to do. The new Speaker will be no different in that regard.
  However, a Speaker is also the point of contact for the opposing party. A Republican Speaker can disagree with Democrats about literally everything, but they shouldn't lie to Democrats, renege on deals, etc. If nobody can trust you, then you are worthless as an intermediary. So McCarthy was among the worst possible people for the job.

Damn. I guess the gop speaker will never compromise with the dems ever again.
EDIT: I meant in the context of the bill that mccarthy passed on Saturday with the help of the dems. Any new speaker will be very wary of pissing off the gaetz crowd.
- McCarthy almost did the right thing by letting the funding bill come to the floor, but it also stripped Ukraine funding and was a can to kick things down the road giving us only 45 days till we're in the same spot. He could have also offered consessions to the Dems for their vote, which he refused to do. Add to that what is a literal witchhunt of an Impechment inquiry, why do you think the Dems should have saved him?
  
  I don't think they should have saved him. I added some context to my comment, since everyone is thinking I meant something very different.
- Refusing to cooperate with Democrats is what sank him.
  He needed support from Democrats to keep the Speakership. He's spent the entire year giving them no reason to trust him -- including going on the Sunday shows this week knowing this vote was coming and trying to blame Democrats for the near shutdown.
  
  This. If he had just stuck to the deal that was agreed to with Biden, he'd probably still be speaker.
  But no, he had to try and play both sides.
  Now the fascists are going to get their speaker in and there will very likely be a shutdown in 45 days
  
  Ah, ok that makes sense now. I hadn't really kept up on dem/mccarthy relations. I was referring to the new leader being afraid to piss off the gaetz crowd by working with Dems even once.
- tell me you haven't been paying attention to republican politics since 2016, without, you know, telling me
  
  I added a bit of context to my comment, I definitely didn't communicate my thinking well.
  I meant that a new speaker will be scared of the gaetz crowd. They'll be even less cooperative than the gop have been.
- wouldn't
- McCarthy knew that a government shutdown would have pissed off even more Republicans in Congress, including all of those in vulnerable districts.
  For example, Boebert's district. Notice how for once she didn't vote alongside Gaetz? Behind closed doors, there were plenty of Congressional Republicans telling McCarthy that making make a deal with Democrats was preferable to a politically suicidal shutdown.
  
  I saw that she didn't vote with gaetz and I was puzzled, thanks for the info!
- The new speaker will only survive if the new speaker can get support from some of both parties. The lesson is clear.
  
  I think that's an impossible act in this day and age.