Wingnuts Grip Kevin McCarthy's Balls As He Vows To Boot Reps. Schiff, Swalwell, And Omar From Committees

Republicans really aren't so much on governing.

GOP Rep. Kevin McCarthy, who is poised to take the speaker's gavel with the slimmest of House majorities, went on Fox News's "Sunday Morning Futures" to flex his puny biceps.

"One thing I said from the very beginning, Eric Swalwell cannot get a security clearance in the public sector," he told Maria Bartiromo. "Why would we ever give him a security clearance and the secrets to America? So, I will not allow him to be on Intel."

This is arrant nonsense, of course, particularly in light of the GOP's silence as Donald Trump overruled career officials to grant security clearances to Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump, as well as the former administration's refusal to cooperate with congressional oversight into the incident. In the case of Swalwell, a Chinese agent cozied up to about a dozen politicians and campaigns between 2011 and 2014. There's no indication she had any kind of personal relationship with the California representative, although she did have sexual interactions with other political figures. When the FBI approached Swalwell's campaign and said "hey, this lady is a spy," he cut ties. Nonetheless, Republicans have pretended for years that Swalwell is a Chinese spy and a danger to national security.

McCarthy promised in January to remove Swalwell and Rep. Ilhan Omar from their committees as payback for House Dems booting Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, citing her long history of antisemitic remarks, violent rhetoric and support for QAnon and other conspiracy theories.

"You have Adam Schiff, who lied to the American public time and again – we will not allow him to be on the Intel Committee either," he went on yesterday, discarding the charade that this was anything other than retribution against a hated enemy of the GOP. "Look at Congresswoman Omar, her antisemitic comments that have gone forward. We're not going to allow her to be on Foreign Affairs."

Which is fucking rich from a party that traffics in wildly antisemitic rhetoric about George Soros and whose de facto leader just this weekend lectured American Jews for their lackluster support for Israel, before saying it was fine because evangelicals would replace us.

"Well, I suspect he will do whatever Marjorie Taylor Greene wants him to do," Schiff shot back in an appearance on ABC's "This Week." "He's a very weak leader of this conference, meaning that he will adhere to the wishes of the lowest common denominator, and if that lowest common denominator wants to remove people from committees, that's what they'll do."

Indeed, McCarthy is very weak, as Politico laid out this morning in excruciating detail. On the one side, he's got an emboldened lunatic faction in the House Freedom Caucus demanding 24-7 investigations of Hunter Biden and Anthony Fauci, and threatening to withhold its vote for him for leadership. On the other, a bunch of relative moderates from the Main Street and bipartisan Problem Solvers caucuses, many of whom won in Biden districts, are clearing their throats loudly about the need to do some actual governing and not simply wage culture war while flinging feces.

“Kevin’s not stupid,” head of the Republican Governance Group Rep. Dave Joyce told Politico. “He’s trying to add to his numbers, not destroy his base. And so I count on his political acumen to know what’s acceptable to the rank and file inside the conference.”

Kevin McCarthy's political acumen? Oh, you sweet, summer child!

One anonymous Republican seemed to have a more realistic take on McCarthy's strategy to win the speaker's vote in January.

“We’re not going to be voting for any crazy policies, so he can make all the commitments he wants,” this brave truth teller admitted to Politico.

He'll say any dumb shit to win, and then go back on all of it. Which does sound like Our Kev, doesn't it?

[ Fox / ABC / Politico ]

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