In a disturbing indicator that American journalism may be undergoing a crisis of credibility, CNN ran a story Friday with the headline “Marjorie Taylor Greene files surprise motion to oust Speaker Johnson, a sign of growing revolt from the right.”
Surprise? Is CNN surprised when the sun rises each morning, surprised when a cat knocks things off an end table, surprised when a dog returns to its vomit, or even surprised when Yr Wonkette writes “when a dog returns to its vomit”? For shame, CNN. Nothing gets done in Congress anymore without Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Georgia) loudly demanding attention with some dumb political stunt, and CNN should know better.
Anyhow, the House did its most basic of jobs, Constitution-wise, by passing a bill to fund the operations of the US government for the rest of the fiscal year. No applause, please, because, again, it took six months, multiple continuing resolutions, the ousting of one dumbass speaker and the election of another, and of course a few million attempts by the Freedom Caucus to demand huge budget cuts, abortion restrictions, and anti-LGBTQ measures.
But hey, they passed the thing finally and sent it to the Senate, and as of Friday afternoon when we’re writing this we don’t know whether it passed the Senate (because Rand Paul) before midnight or there’s a partial government shutdown underway. We hope you people in the future on Saturday are OK.
We also don’t know what, if anything, came of Greene’s dumb “motion to vacate” the office of speaker, which could remove Mike Johnson from the job he’s held for five months since taking over from former Rep. Kevin McWossname. We’re betting that nothing at all has happened, because, as NBC News explains, Greene
did not file the motion as privileged — which would force a vote within two legislative days — but instead as a regular motion, which could be referred to a committee, where it would likely languish.
Why exactly did Greene want to pretend she wanted to fire Johnson? Here, see if you can make any sense of what she said to reporters who showed up to cover the non-event.
Haha, trick question! The closest Greene came to an explanation in the clip was that the House needs “a new speaker of the House that will stand with Republicans and our Republican majority, instead of standing with the Democrats.”
Greene very graciously said that her motion was “more of a warning than a pink slip,” because she didn’t want to “throw the House into chaos,” as if that isn’t her actual party affiliation.
The New York Times adds that Greene was apparently upset that Johnson didn’t force a government shutdown over the “crisis” at the border that Republicans refuse to vote on, so Donald Trump can run on that crisis.
“This was our leverage,” Ms. Greene said of spending legislation. “This is our chance to secure the border, and he didn’t do it. And now this funding bill passed without the majority of the majority.”
The spending bill passed, with Democratic support, in a 286 to 134 vote because how dare Johnson allow Democrats to not throw the country into chaos with a government shutdown that still wouldn’t get the Loony Caucus a complete ban on immigration and maybe abortion too?
The bill then was sent to the Senate, and we have no idea what happened next because it’s Friday afternoon and damned if we plan on checking for updates on Republican obstruction there, or whether Mike Johnson is defenestrated, or any of it. It’s the weekend and we have a house to clean before the landlord comes to renew our lease, to say nothing of all the anime we must catch up on, goddamnit.
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Update from the future: the Senate passed the bill.
https://www.cnn.com/2024/03/22/politics/federal-government-shutdown-march-friday/index.html
Oh puke. NBC just hired Ronna McDaniel as a commentator. What, Blake Masters and Josh Mandel weren't available?