Note, just FYI: Supreme Court makes known its decision re: the Brunson case on Monday. SGAnon has an interesting take on what he sees as three possibilities: 1) they will agree to take it, immediately; 2) they will agree to take it, but push the date back; 3) they will turn it down, saying the case has no merit. SGAnon assumes that the third choice would make “about 150 million Americans” rise up in fury. Question, are the justices aware of that possibility? Are they aware that this decision would remind us all too much of what happened after the 2020 election?

Back then, we were shell-shocked. Now, we expect it, and are prepared to respond.

 

Okay, back to the present moment.

What just happened?

Kevin McCarthy who wanted to be Speaker so bad that he suffered through 14 defeats before being voted in, during a grueling, five-day, cliff-hanging drama that broke through any veneer of politeness to down-to earth, all-too-human emotional argumentation (that even threatened to become physical!) — a tug-of-war that should, some say, be what goes on with every bill. Argue it out in public, rather than do back door deals in secret.

The wait was excruciating. It was also very productive. In the end, in order to secure his Speaker position on the 15th try, McCarthy submitted to an amazing array of concessions which basically, undid Nancy’s consolidation of the Speaker’s power during her reign, which began in 2007, and just ended, for a total of four terms in that office.

Here’s CNN’s story listing the concessions.

https://www.cnn.com/2023/01/06/politics/mccarthy-speaker-fight-friday/index.html

They are clearly significant. McCarthy is on notice that only one member of Congress is needed to make a “Motion to Vacate,” calling for the Speaker to be removed if he doesn’t follow through on his agreements.

Here’s an excerpt from Rep. Lauren Boebert’s (one of the 20 die-hard holdouts) explanation of how and why they acted as they did:

But how, actually, did all this get accomplished? What are the, again, all-too-human details? At one point, I saw a video of Matt Gaetz, fearless leader of the pack of 20 holdouts, nominating Donald Trump for Speaker (as a joke? to deepen the drama?) while sitting with Marjorie Taylor Greene who voted and rooted for McCarthy the entire time. And yet, these two supposed rivals were smiling, giggling, clearly sympatico, totally at ease, as if they were players in a drama, each with a specific role — (Gaetz as leader of the pack) MTG (as outspoken McCarthy fan) — a drama of which both knew the eventual outcome. Hmmm. . . that was weird.

https://www.newsweek.com/video-shows-marjorie-taylor-greenes-reaction-gaetzs-trump-vote-1771715

Then I learned that McCarthy was the very first visitor to Mar-A-Lago after Trump conceded (oops! he did NOT concede!) the 2020 election. What was that about?

Then, I saw more of what MTG was about, the specific role she played in the drama.

The role she played made perfect sense to me. About ten years ago, a friend of mine (since deceased) decided that she would get together for lunch once a week with a recalcitrant curmudgeonly man who refused to let go of his leadership position in a local organization. He’d been in that position for 20 years; and seemed blind to the fact that the organization was clearly suffocating under his rule. She succeeded; after one year with her, he agreed to give up the position so that new blood could flow in.

In the case of McCarthy, it appears that political insiders knew that their only choice for speaker would have to be McCarthy.

Meanwhile, we can also ask, what does Trump have over McCarthy’s head, that he would agree to so many concessions? After all, we all know now that this is how politicians are managed, through threat of blackmail.

So MTG had a very specific task, to gradually soften McCarthy up, so that he would agree to MAGA demands. (I notice that even Bombard’s Body Language thinks that the pictures and videos of the two of them together actually meant that MTG had fallen in love with McCarthy. What? NOPE.)

Does her smile look real? NOPE. As Bombard would say, she’s “in portrayal mode.” But it does look victorious . . .

 

 

Marjorie, in turn, didn’t mind letting us know that she was doing her job at the behest of Trump. (Her phone says “JT” at the top). And remember Trump’s “perfect phone call” with Zelensky way back in 2020 . . .

 

I’m not the only one who thinks this makes sense.

Okay, that’s the short version of how it all went down, in the longest House fight for Speaker since the Civil War. How appropriate, that this unusual, vociferous drama should play out during the first ever Pluto Return to the U.S. Chart.

And guess what?

Q told us it would, exactly five years ago, to the day.