Ending Business As Usual
The debate over who will be the next speaker of the House has been frustrating to some. But, as I noted in yesterday’s report, this really is an important debate about ending business as usual, which is something most Americans say they want.
And there have been really important moments during this debate because people are hearing the truth about what has been happening on Capitol Hill, which even some conservatives have forgotten.
Rep. Chip Roy, who is opposing Kevin McCarthy, made an impassioned speech on the House floor this week. He asked the members to look around the chamber, noting how unusual it was that every seat was filled.
But as anyone who has tuned in to C-Span knows, the House chamber is usually empty, even when someone is giving a really great speech on a critically important issue. Debates have become perfunctory because so much is done by unelected staff and controlled by the dictates of the Rules Committee.
Yet business as usual has been a disservice to the American people and to our country, which is why House conservatives are demanding change.
Here’s something else that some conservatives may have forgotten: This isn’t McCarthy’s first run at the speakership. He should have succeeded John Boehner in 2015, but he didn’t have the votes then either.
McCarthy Makes Concessions
Intense negotiations last night resulted in a number of significant concessions by Leader McCarthy. Here’s what we know that McCarthy agreed to:
- McCarthy is promising to appoint more conservatives to the powerful Rules Committee.
- He is promising to hold floor votes on border security legislation and term limits.
- He is promising to allow more amendments on the House floor to improve legislation.
- He agreed to accept a rule allowing any one member of the House to file a motion forcing a “no confidence” vote in the speaker.
- Lastly, he agreed that his leadership super PAC will stay out of open seat Republican primary contests. In other words, Washington insiders won’t try to push moderate, establishment candidates in conservative districts.
Evidently, it wasn’t enough. After two additional rounds of voting so far this afternoon, McCarthy still has not secured the votes he needs to prevail.
History In the House
More history was made in the House this week as conservatives nominated Rep. Byron Donalds of Florida to be speaker of the House. Donalds’s nomination marked the first time that both parties nominated black candidates for speaker. To their credit, members of the House on both sides of the aisle jumped up to applaud the historic moment.
But not everyone was celebrating.
Squad member Cori Bush insanely attacked Donalds as a “prop” whose agenda would “perpetuate white supremacy.” She once again embarrassed herself by denouncing Donalds’s nomination, saying it was not evidence of “progress,” but was instead “pathetic.”
Donalds fired back, tweeting, “Before you judge my agenda, let's have a debate over the policies and the outcomes.”
Sadly, we know the intolerant, totalitarian left doesn’t want a real debate over policies and outcomes. That’s why it is so quick to censor and smear whatever it doesn’t like, especially dynamic conservative minorities like Byron Donalds.
Biden’s Baby Pesticides
The Food and Drug Administration announced Tuesday that it was allowing pharmacies like CVS and Walgreens to sell abortion-inducing drugs. The announcement came in coordination with a determination from the Justice Department that the Post Office could also send the drugs through the mail into pro-life states.
This is more evidence of the Biden Administration’s bizarre obsession with ensuring that as many babies as possible are aborted and never take their first breath outside the womb.
And it is a deliberate attempt by Joe Biden to impose his radical pro-abortion agenda even on those states that have duly enacted pro-life laws through their elected legislatures, proving once again that the intolerant left has no respect for the values of conservative Americans.
America will never be the “shining city upon a hill” it should be as long as we tolerate the sacrifice of hundreds of thousands of innocent babies on the pagan altar of “choice.”
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