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      ‘One more embarrassment’: McCarthy debacle wearily received in California home town

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      ‘One more embarrassment’: McCarthy debacle wearily received in California home townBakersfield, in California’s unfashionable Central Valley, has been thrown back into focus by the sorry saga in Congress Kevin McCarthy’s home town – the hardscrabble city of Bakersfield, in California’s Central Valley – has experienced plenty of bruised feelings over the past week, but not necessarily because people have felt the pain of their congressman’s tortured path to the House speakership.Many have bristled at being under a national spotlight during what even Fox News has described as a political clown show. Local Republicans appeared increasingly defensive as McCarthy fell short in vote after vote – before finally prevailing in the early hours of Saturday morning. Democrats, meanwhile, expressed growing concern that McCarthy had been taken captive by his party’s far-right wing and, especially, by apologists for the violent insurrection at the US Capitol two years ago.None of it reflected well on a distinctly unfashionable city known for its hot, dusty climate and polluted skies, its big agricultural businesses and the hundreds of oil wells dotting the surrounding hills. “I only wish they would have stopped saying Mac [McCarthy] was from Bakersfield,” a local insurance salesman, Mark Pearse, wrote in a letter to the local newspaper. “We do not need any more negative publicity.”Reached by phone, Pearse elaborated: “We’re already in the top ten of a lot of negative things. Pedestrians getting run over. Our police and sheriff’s department shooting and killing people. This is just one more embarrassment.”Certainly, nobody has been out in the streets cheering on the local celebrity. McCarthy’s district office, which sits in a business park next to a cluster of medical offices, resembled a suburban fortress with blacked out windows, a door kept locked at all times, and a sign under the door bell saying the only way to be invited in was to call by phone. Staff referred all questions – even questions about a protest on the anniversary of the January 6 uprising taking place directly outside – to McCarthy’s Washington office.More forthcoming was Cathy Abernathy, a seasoned Republican consultant who gave McCarthy his first taste of rejection back in 1987 when she turned him down for an internship with the district’s previous congressman, Bill Thomas. (She later hired him anyway and eventually groomed him to succeed Thomas in 2007.)Sitting in front of a life-sized cardboard cut-out of Abraham Lincoln on Friday, with Fox News reporting the 13th of the 15 vote counts on the television, Abernathy dismissed the week’s drama as an uncommonly visible version of business as usual on Capitol Hill and said the characterizations of McCarthy as weak or politically tone-deaf were grossly unfair.“This is the way things get done in Washington,” she insisted. “It takes hours and hours to achieve anything … It’s unfortunate that a group of 20 members have given such a negative impression of him. He’s a happy-go-lucky, friendly guy. It’s too bad some people mistake that for brainless.”Democrats, meanwhile, took advantage of the January 6 anniversary to stage a series of small protests in and around Bakersfield and tell whoever was willing to listen that McCarthy was one of 147 Republican House members who voted against the certification of Joe Biden’s election as president in 2021, quickly forgave Donald Trump for his role in stirring up the Capitol riot, and has sought to build his power base accordingly ever since.“All of this stems from his decision to kiss Trump’s ring,” said Mari Goodman, one of the protesters outside McCarthy’s district office.“We’re here to remember the people who were hurt and the damage caused,” said Laura Hardman, one of a cluster of January 6 protesters at a busy traffic intersection in Tehachapi, a farm town in McCarthy’s district 40 miles from Bakersfield. “The leaders are still not accountable.”Hardman said she took no pleasure in seeing McCarthy struggling to win over House members who were among the biggest apologists for the insurrection. “As one of his constituents, I find it embarrassing,” she said. “I voted for him in 2006, and he worked with us on some issues. But the longer he’s stayed in Washington, the further he’s drifted from his district.”Such sentiments are a distinct minority view in a part of California that prides itself on bucking the West Coast liberal stereotype. Many of the resentments and frustrations with establishment politics that fueled the rise of Donald Trump seven years ago can be felt in the Central Valley, where farmers and business entrepreneurs often complain that the progressive politicians who run California do not give them the respect they deserve.That complaint extended, last week, to parts of the media. Abernathy, the Republican consultant, said she’d picked up a distinctly condescending tone from reporters and TV producers. One expressed surprise that a man in McCarthy’s position had not gone to an Ivy League university. (He graduated from the Bakersfield branch of California State University.) Another, searching for a way to distinguish Bakersfield from Los Angeles, its giant neighbor 100 miles to the south, offered: “You people have grit.”If some people in Bakersfield felt the country was making fun of them and their most prominent native son, though, others were more than willing to go along for the ride. As Mark Pearse, the insurance salesman, asked after a healthy dose of McCarthy-bashing on the phone: “Haven’t you heard me laughing?”TopicsCaliforniaUS politicsHouse of RepresentativesRepublicansDemocratsnewsReuse this content More

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      McCarthy clinches speaker’s gavel at 15th attempt as Republicans in disarray

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      McCarthy clinches speaker’s gavel at 15th attempt as Republicans in disarray With a wafer-thin majority, and few powers, Nancy Pelosi’s successor looks set to be one of the weakest speakers in historyHe had nothing to lose but his dignity. Congressman Kevin McCarthy knew the job he had always craved was within his grasp. All he needed was the vote of a 40-year-old Florida man under investigation over sex trafficking allegations.McCarthy walked over and begged Matt Gaetz to make him speaker of the US House of Representatives. Gaetz stared, pointed a finger and refused. Fellow Republican Mike Rogers stormed towards Gaetz and had to be forcibly restrained.After Brexit and Trump, rightwing populists cling to power – but the truth is they can’t govern | Jonathan FreedlandRead moreThat this tragicomedy played out on the second anniversary of the deadly January 6 attack on the US Capitol was almost too on the nose. That it was Gaetz, an ardent supporter of Donald Trump and smash-mouth media performer, who held McCarthy’s fate in his hands said everything about the Republican party in 2023.Midnight tolled, and within an hour McCarthy had achieved his dream of becoming speaker, securing a majority of votes from those present at the 15th attempt in the longest such election since the civil war. He beamed, punched the air and waved the gavel with childlike enthusiasm. “That was easy, huh?” he said. “I never thought we’d get up here.” But at what cost?After a historic humiliation, it was a pyrrhic victory. With a wafer-thin majority, and having surrendered numerous powers to far-right rebels so they would drop their opposition, McCarthy is set to be one of the weakest speakers in history.His concessions reportedly included allowing a single member to call for a vote to remove the speaker, putting him at risk of a shorter tenure than Liz Truss’s 50 days as British prime minister. He also offered key committee positions to the House Freedom Caucus, granting them outsized influence and raising the spectre of chaos for the next two years.The former Republican National Committee chairperson Michael Steele told the MSNBC network: “If it does come to, God forbid, a shutdown of the government, the American people have only one place to look and that is the man right there on our screen right now who gave away the House so he could take a seat.”The late-night drama capped a torrid week in which liberals indulged some guilt-free schadenfreude as the Republican party ate itself on live television, unable to coalesce around a choice for the position that is second in line in the presidential succession.The old House chamber resounded with a hubbub of voices, fiery speeches, shouts of “McCarthy” and “Jeffries” [Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries], chants of “Hakeem! Hakeem!”, roars of “Yea!” and “No!” to decide adjournments, the wails of babies (some members brought the families and, in one case, a pet dog) and, 14 times over, House clerk Cheryl Johnson uttering the words, “A speaker has not been elected.”Joe Biden described the saga as an “embarrassment”. For McCarthy, it was like a recurring nightmare. Nominating him on the sixth ballot, Florida Congresswoman Kat Cammack said: “Well, it’s Groundhog Day.”Trapped in a time loop, the elected representatives to the House could not be sworn in, leaving the lower congressional chamber in suspended animation. But still the Capitol hummed with tourists, reporters and banks of TV cameras. Trolleys of pizza rolled along marble corridors to sustain late-night negotiations behind closed doors.Commentators interpreted the disarray as evidence of a new generation of conservative Republicans, many aligned with Trump’s “Make America great again” (Maga) base, who want to upend business as usual in Washington. It also suggested that the former president has unleashed anti-establishment forces that even he can no longer control.McCarthy had initially condemned Trump over the January 6 attack but, before the month was out, went cap in hand to his home in Florida to pledge his fealty. In turn, Trump supported McCarthy for the speakership but the gesture appeared half hearted; notably the former president did not round on McCarthy’s opponents with his customary insults and nicknames.As the voting went on and on, Congresswoman Lauren Boebert of Colorado, a conservative firebrand, noted that “her favourite president” had called on the anti-McCarthy holdouts to “knock this off”. But she went on: “I think it actually needs to be reversed. The president needs to tell Kevin McCarthy, ‘Sir, you do not have the votes and it’s time to withdraw’.” The show of defiance prompted a loud “Oooh!” from many in the House.Speaking by phone on Friday morning with the House still in limbo, Newt Gingrich, a former Republican speaker, said: “It was very significant that these people who call themselves Trump supporters just shrugged off his endorsement of McCarthy. That was a significantly different reaction than he would have gotten a year or two ago. It certainly means he’s weaker than he was. He must have been very surprised by how casually they rejected him.”Some of the rebels’ motives would have been very familiar to Trump: money. Several McCarthy opponents used the stalemate as an opportunity to send out fundraising appeals. Gaetz’s campaign asked donors to “support our fight with critical reinforcements” and branded McCarthy “Kyiv Kevin” – a reference to his support for Ukraine. Congressman Andy Biggs of Arizona urged donors “to turbocharge our emergency efforts to break the establishment”.Gingrich commented: “There is a wing of the Republican party which is very unhappy with Washington and that wing makes it profitable for some members to be very disruptive. If you look at Gaetz and Biggs, they’re making money every day this goes on because they’re sending out fundraising appeals by email, so they have a big vested interest in keeping it going. If you look at others, this is their chance to maximise their leverage.”He warned that this is “the most dangerous period” for Republicans since a divisive 1964 party convention that saw moderates facing off against conservative insurgents. But there are some critics who argue that Gingrich himself planted the seeds of the current crisis, pointing to his partisan shock tactics as speaker in the 1990s that transformed politics into a blood sport (a charge he vehemently denies, pointing to several bipartisan accomplishments during the Bill Clinton White House).The next mutation was the Tea Party in 2010, a grassroots conservative movement that endorsed small government and fed a racist backlash against President Barack Obama. Republican speakers including John Boehner had trouble fending off a rebellious right flank and ended up with government shutdowns, standoffs and early retirement.The right was further empowered by the rise of Trump and went on to adopt his style of performative populism. A majority of the members opposing McCarthy this week voted to overturn the 2020 election. Yet party leaders have repeatedly acquiesced to their demands rather than seeking to hold them accountable.Former Republican Capitol Hill communications director Tara Setmayer said: “The Maga wing are political nihilists and that’s evidenced by their behaviour and their demands. They’ve been rewarded for being political trolls, not professional elected officials who govern for the best interest of their constituents. This is all about political kabuki theatre and fundraising for them.”Many of the holdouts represent overwhelmingly majority Republican districts, Setmayer noted, and cannot be bought off with promises of infrastructure projects to impress voters. She added, “Bringing the bacon home to their districts? That is not the currency that the Maga wing operates in today’s political climate. In the era of Trumpism it’s attention, viral moments, media hits on Fox News and Steve Bannon’s podcast. The grift is the political currency.”Setmayer, a senior adviser to the Lincoln Project, an anti-Trump group, warned that these are ominous signs for the coming Congress, saying: “The Republican party is incapable of governing like grownups in Washington and that’s unfortunate because it [affects] the entire country.“If you listen to what a lot of these Republicans are saying, their focus is on personal agendas and vendettas against Democrats or the Biden administration. They want to focus on nonsense like endless spurious investigations into Hunter Biden and the Department of Justice and the ‘deep state’ and Dr Fauci and relitigating Covid policies. This is all backward thinking, not putting a focus on real issues that impact Americans every single day. It’s going to be chaos. Chaos is their currency.”The power of the far-right extremists could jeopardise crucial agenda items such as passing a budget and lifting the debt ceiling limit to cover previously authorised spending.Bill Galston, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution thinktank in Washington, said: “I believed from the start that this would be a period of minimum legislative productivity and nothing that’s happened in the past four days has changed my mind. But this is a game for very high stakes because these people could blow up the world financial system if they’re not careful.”Democratic strategist Kurt Bardella agreed. “We’re going to have nothing but internal strife and gridlock within the Republican party that will create a dysfunctional House of Representatives,” he said. “This is what happens when you allow someone like Donald Trump to hijack an entire party, someone who only traffics in lies and conspiracy theories.”Kevin McCarthy wins House speaker bid after gruelling 15-vote sagaRead moreRepublicans’ identity crisis looks set to persist. Disappointing midterm election results suggested that Trump’s influence may be waning as he again seeks the party’s presidential nomination. But the decline of a strongman can create a leadership vacuum and fresh uncertainties. This week saw allies such as Gaetz and Marjorie Taylor Greene on opposing sides and drove a wedge between Fox News hosts Tucker Carlson and Sean Hannity.Larry Jacobs, director of the Center for the Study of Politics and Governance at the University of Minnesota, noted that for decades the Republican party had an ideologically-driven conservative wing that sought to change policy.“But we now have an almost anarchist element in the Republican party that has no real concern about governance,” he said. “In fact, they’re anti-governance. They don’t want to see Congress operate and so the normal rules for negotiations, the give and take, doesn’t apply because the only thing they want is mayhem. It’s a whole new radicalism.”TopicsHouse of RepresentativesUS CongressUS politicsRepublicansDemocratsnewsReuse this content More

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      ‘Coward’ Josh Hawley mocked by Senate rival for fleeing Capitol mob he incited

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      ‘Coward’ Josh Hawley mocked by Senate rival for fleeing Capitol mob he incitedDemocrat Lucas Kunce says ‘I swear this coward is always running from something’ as he announces bid to challenge key Republican01:08Announcing a run for US Senate in 2024, the populist Missouri Democrat Lucas Kunce released an ad focusing on how his prospective opponent, the Republican senator Josh Hawley, ran from the mob he encouraged on the day the US Capitol came under attack.Republican Josh Hawley fled January 6 rioters – and Twitter ran with itRead more“I’ve done a lot of running in my life,” Kunce said, over footage of a man in a ripped suit running on a country road, dropping a US flag pin.“Running to stay healthy, running to fight for my country, running to defend democracy. And by the way, that guy you’re looking at, that’s not me. That’s our current US senator, Josh Hawley. This guy.”The ad then showed a famous picture from 6 January 2021, of Hawley raising a fist to Trump supporters outside the Capitol, a picture Hawley has used for fundraising purposes.Kunce said: “Or maybe you better recognise him running for his life a few hours later.”Last July, the House January 6 committee released security footage of Hawley running from supporters of Donald Trump after they breached the Capitol, looking for lawmakers to capture and possibly kill in a riot now linked to nine deaths, including law enforcement suicides.The footage of Hawley went viral, in many cases scored to satirical music.Nonetheless, Hawley is widely seen as a likely candidate for the Republican presidential nomination in 2024. Accordingly, he is due to release a book this year.According to promotional material, Manhood: The Masculine Virtues America Needs, will argue “that the character of men and the male virtue that goes along with it is a necessary ingredient to a functioning society and a healthy, free republic”.Kunce said: “I swear this coward is always running from something and now this is the guy who’s writing a book telling every single one of us how to be a man.”A former US marine who served in Iraq and Afghanistan, Kunce, 40, also worked on international arms control. He has already mounted a Senate run, last year, losing the primary to Trudy Busch Valentine, a brewing heiress who went on to lose to Eric Schmitt, a former state attorney general.Lucas Kunce: ‘Populism is about everyday people coming together’Read moreA Hawley spokesman told news outlets: “We welcome this desperate woke activist to yet another political race. He just barely finished losing his last one. Maybe he’s running in the wrong state.”Signing off the ad, Kunce said: “Josh Hawley is a fraud and a coward and by the time I’m done with him, the whole world’s gonna know it. So keep on running, Josh. Keep on running.”Released on the second anniversary of the January 6 attack, the ad was widely noted for its combative tone.Lis Smith, a Democratic consultant who ran Pete Buttigieg’s presidential campaign in 2020, said Kunce “takes a metaphorical bat to coward Josh Hawley in his first ad”.Hawley, Smith said, “should never able to live down how he helped stoke the crowd on January 6 then sprinted away as they stormed the Capitol”.TopicsUS politicsRepublicansDemocratsMissourinewsReuse this content More

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      After Brexit and Trump, rightwing populists cling to power – but the truth is they can’t govern | Jonathan Freedland

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      After Brexit and Trump, rightwing populists cling to power – but the truth is they can’t governJonathan FreedlandThe farcical scenes among US Republicans have echoes in our Tory party. Both promise disruption, then deliver exactly that The US right has this week been staging a clown show that has had liberals in that country and beyond pulling up a chair and breaking out the popcorn. There has been a karmic pleasure in watching the Republicans who won control of the House of Representatives struggle to complete the most basic piece of business – the election of a speaker – but it’s also been instructive, and not only to Americans. For it has confirmed the dirty little secret of that strain of rightwing populist politics that revels in what it calls disruption: it always ends in bitter factional fighting, chaos and paralysis. We in Britain should know, because Brexit has gone the exact same way.Start with the karma that saw House Republicans gather two years to the day since they sought to prevent the peaceful transfer of power from one party to another: often overlooked in the anniversary recollections of 6 January 2021 is that, mere hours after rioters had stormed the US Capitol, a majority of Republican House members voted to do precisely as the rioters had demanded and overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election. Yet here were those same House Republicans on 6 January 2023, having prevented the smooth transfer of power from one party to another – except this time, the party they were thwarting was their own.House still without speaker as McCarthy pleads with Republican holdouts – liveRead moreIt should have been straightforward. Republicans won a narrow majority in the House in November, which gave them the right to put one of their number in the speaker’s chair. The trouble was, while most backed Kevin McCarthy, about 20 rebels did not. By Thursday night, they had gone through 11 rounds of voting – the most since the civil war era – without McCarthy or anyone else winning a majority. The result: deadlock.It was a study in incompetence. A party asks the electorate to give them power; they get it and then freeze, unable to take even the first step towards using it. There’s no clear political logic to the stalemate. The rebels are devotees of Donald Trump, but McCarthy himself is a tireless Trump sycophant – patronised by the former president as “my Kevin” – who begged for and won the backing of the orange one. The pro-Trump rebels are divided among themselves: one rebuked Trump for sticking with McCarthy, while another voted to make Trump himself speaker.It’s telling that the rebels’ demands are not on policy but on procedure, seeking rule changes or committee seats that would give them more power. Otherwise, they can’t really say what they want. They succeeded in getting metal detectors removed from the entrance to the chamber, so now people can walk on to the floor of the House carrying a gun, but apart from that, and their hunger to start investigating Democrats, including Joe Biden’s son Hunter, nothing.All this has significance for the year ahead in US politics. For one thing, it’s yet more evidence of the diminishing strength of Trump among Republican leaders, if not yet among the party faithful. For another, if Republicans cannot make a relatively easy decision like this one, how are they going to make the tough but necessary choices that are coming – such as authorising the spending, and debt, required to keep the US government functioning?But its meaning goes far wider. For what’s been on display this week, in especially florid form, is a strain of politics that has infected many democracies, including our own. Its key feature is its delight in disruption, in promising to upend the system. That was the thrust of the twin movements of 2016, Trump and Brexit. Both promised to sweep away the elites, the experts, the orthodoxy – whether in Washington DC or Brussels. They were new movements, but they were drawing on deep roots. Four decades ago both Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher cast themselves as radicals daring to shake off the dead hand of the government.So we can hardly be surprised that those who railed against government should be so bad at it. They promised disruption, and that’s what they’ve delivered. In the US it was the chaos of Trump himself, and now a House of mini-Trumps that can’t tie its own shoelaces. In the UK, it looks different: we have a prime minister in Rishi Sunak whose pitch is technocratic competence. But that should not conceal two things.First, the post-2016 Tory party delivered just as much parliamentary turmoil and intra-party division as McCarthy and co served up this week. Whether it was the Commons gridlock of the two years preceding the 2019 election or the psychodrama of the three years after it, Brexit-era Conservatism has proved every bit as unhinged as Trump-era Republicanism. When it comes to burn-it-all-down politics, the Republicans’ craziest wing are mere novices compared with a master arsonist such as Liz Truss. The US and UK are simply at different points in the cycle.House Democrats should unite with moderate Republicans to elect a speaker | Robert ReichRead moreSecond, even with Sunak in charge, and though painted in less vivid colours, Brexit-era Toryism is just as paralysed as its sister movement in the US. The five-point plan unveiled in the PM’s new year address consisted mostly of the basics of state administration – growing the economy, managing inflation – rather than anything amounting to a political programme.And that’s chiefly because his party, like the Republicans, cannot agree among themselves. Consider how much Sunak has had to drop, under pressure from assorted rebels. Whether it was reform of the planning system, the manifesto commitment to build 300,000 new houses a year or the perennial pledge to grasp the nettle of social care, Sunak has had to back away from tasks that are essential for the wellbeing of the country. True, he has avoided the farcical scenes that played out this week on Capitol Hill, but that’s only because he has preferred to preserve the veneer of unity than to force a whole slew of issues. The result is a prime minister who cannot propose much more than extra maths lessons lest he lose the fractious, restive coalition that keeps him in office.None of this is coincidence. It’s in the nature of the rightwing populist project, in Britain, the US and across the globe. Brexit is the exemplar, a mission that worked with great potency as a campaign, as a slogan, but which could never translate into governing, because it was never about governing. It was about disrupting life, not organising it – or even acknowledging the trade-offs required to organise it. It offered the poetry of destruction, not the prose of competence.The Conservatives are several stages further down this road than the Republicans, perhaps because their power has been uninterrupted throughout. But in both cases, and others, the shift is unmistakable. Once parties of the right saw themselves as the obvious custodians of state authority: the natural party of government. Now they are happier shaking their fists at those they insist are really in charge. They are becoming the natural party of opposition. Jonathan Freedland is a Guardian columnist
      Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here.
      TopicsUS politicsOpinionRepublicansDonald TrumpBrexitConservativesRishi SunakEuropean UnioncommentReuse this content More

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      Kevin McCarthy loses US House speakership bid on third day as votes tally climbs to 11 – video

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      After more than eight hours and five votes, would-be speaker Kevin McCarthy lost his 11th speakership ballot. This is the most drawn-out speakership vote since 1859. With McCarthy’s supporters and foes locked in stalemate, feelings of boredom and desperation seemed increasingly evident with no quick end in sight

      McCarthy fails in speakership bid for third day after 11th vote
      Republican rebels: the hardline House members voting against McCarthy More

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      Republican Kevin McCarthy falls short on ninth ballot for House speaker – live

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      Kevin McCarthy’s epic humiliation in the House of Representatives continues as he fails to be elected to become speaker in the eighth round of voting.The California Republican is being blocked by a phalanx of far-right rebels and, if anything, his votes are declining, not growing. On Tuesday, when the 118th Congress convened and voting for the speakership began, McCarthy garnered 203 votes in the first round – a massive 15 short of the simple majority needed.In this once-in-a-century eighth round of voting, he managed 201 votes, with 21 Republicans refusing to vote for him, either spoiling their votes, essentially, or placing them for strategic-disrupter nominee Byron Donalds.As we’ve been expecting for several hours, it looks very unlikely that we’ll see a speaker elected today. The House business now paused between votes (but is not in recess).Republican Don Bacon of Nebraska condemned the members of his party holding out against Kevin McCarthy, saying that the chaotic scene in Congress might prompt totalitarians to say, “This is why we don’t want democracy.” Here’s him on CNN: Rep. Don Bacon (R-NE) slams the Republicans who oppose Kevin McCarthy for House Speaker:“I think there’s totalitarian states out there, look at those 20 and say, ‘This is why we don’t want democracy.’” pic.twitter.com/B6CuaOGYvo— The Recount (@therecount) January 5, 2023
      The vote tally in the ninth round: Hakeem Jeffries – 212 Kevin McCarthy – 201 Byron Donalds – 17 Kevin Hern – 3 Present – 1McCarthy is on track to lose in the ninth round of voting, surpassing the previous record set in 1923, when Frederick Huntington Gillett won the position after nine rounds of voting. The longest speaker’s race prior to that was in 1859, when it took 44 rounds of voting. And before that, in 1855, it took 133 ballots to decide the speaker’s race. Joe Biden said today the US would immediately begin turning away Cubans, Haitians and Nicaraguans who cross the border from Mexico illegally, his boldest move yet to confront the arrivals of migrants that have increased since he took office two years ago, the Associated Press reports.The new rules expand on an existing effort to stop Venezuelans attempting to enter the U.S., which began in October and led to a dramatic drop in Venezuelans coming to the southern border. Together, they represent a major change to immigration rules that will stand even if the Supreme Court ends a Trump-era public health law that allows U.S. authorities to turn away asylum-seekers..css-cumn2r{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}Do not, do not just show up at the border. Stay where you are and apply legally from there,” Biden said as he announced the changes, even as he acknowledged the hardships that lead many families to make the dangerous journey north.Biden made the announcement just days before a planned visit to El Paso, Texas,on Sunday for his first trip to the southern border as president. From there, he will travel on to Mexico City to meet with North American leaders on Monday and Tuesday.Homeland Security officials said they would begin denying asylum to those who circumvent legal pathways and do not first ask for asylum in the country they traveled through en route to the U.S.Instead, the U.S. will accept 30,000 people per month from the four nations for two years and offer the ability to work legally, as long as they come legally, have eligible sponsors and pass vetting and background checks. Border crossings by migrants from those four nations have risen most sharply, with no easy way to quickly return them to their home countries..css-cumn2r{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}This new process is orderly. It’s safe and humane, and it works,” Biden said.The move, while not unexpected, drew swift criticism from asylum and immigration advocates, who have had a rocky relationship with the president..css-cumn2r{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}President Biden correctly recognized today that seeking asylum is a legal right and spoke sympathetically about people fleeing persecution.
      But the plan he announced further ties his administration to the poisonous anti-immigrant policies of the Trump era instead of restoring fair access to asylum protections,” said Jonathan Blazer, the American Civil Liberties Union’s director of border strategies.The House is now in its 9th round of voting, with Lauren Boebert again delivering remarks about Kevin Hern shortly before the roll call. “We need to get to a point where we start evaluating what life after Kevin McCarthy looks like,” she said, claiming that “threats were made” behind closed doors regarding committee assignments for those who plan to not vote for Kevin McCarthy. “But we don’t govern in fear, we govern for the people on principle, don’t be afraid to do the right thing,” she added. As she nominates Rep. Kevin Hern (R-OK) for House Speaker, Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO) claims those who don’t vote for Kevin McCarthy were threatened with not getting committee assignments. pic.twitter.com/aLW0FygYmb— The Recount (@therecount) January 5, 2023
      During the eighth round of voting, hardline Republican representative Lauren Boebert of Colorado voted for Kevin…Hern as speaker of the House. Speaking about the Republican representative from Oklahoma, Boebert said that Kevin Hern is a “businessman from humble beginnings” and a “true consensus candidate.” As Boebert spoke, murmurs across the House soon echoed into loud side conversations as those around Boebert looked around in stunned confusion. Whoa, I missed this originally:Lauren Boebert trolls Kevin McCarthy and her fellow Republican caucus members by feinting as though she’s going to vote for McCarthy and instead voting for Kevin Hern.pic.twitter.com/wathK9rU8q— Leah McElrath (@leahmcelrath) January 5, 2023
      Kevin McCarthy’s epic humiliation in the House of Representatives continues as he fails to be elected to become speaker in the eighth round of voting.The California Republican is being blocked by a phalanx of far-right rebels and, if anything, his votes are declining, not growing. On Tuesday, when the 118th Congress convened and voting for the speakership began, McCarthy garnered 203 votes in the first round – a massive 15 short of the simple majority needed.In this once-in-a-century eighth round of voting, he managed 201 votes, with 21 Republicans refusing to vote for him, either spoiling their votes, essentially, or placing them for strategic-disrupter nominee Byron Donalds.As we’ve been expecting for several hours, it looks very unlikely that we’ll see a speaker elected today. The House business now paused between votes (but is not in recess).As the latest round of voting for Speaker of the House is underway, all the signs are it will be another long day on Capitol Hill.Here’s where things stand:
      California Republican Kevin McCarthy, the frontrunner for speaker, moments ago lost his seventh round of voting for the position, putting himself the GOP in the House in deep trouble.
      Joe Biden, accompanied by vice-president Kamala Harris, announced new security measures at the US-Mexico border and, in remarks at the White House, once again admitted that the US immigration system is a mess.
      In Senate news, Democratic senator Debbie Stabenow of Michigan announced on Thursday morning hat she will not be seeking re-election and will be retiring once her fourth term ends in 2025.
      North Carolina’s Republican representative Dan Bishop nominated Byron Donalds, a Florida lawmaker nominated by hard-right Republican representatives as an alternative to Kevin McCarthy.
      Alaska freshman member of congress Mary Peltola just placed her vote for speaker for fellow Democrat Hakeem Jeffries.But, meanwhile, she has tweeted about the ludicrous spectacle of all the new representatives being in the House without actually being sworn in yet.It’s the strange limbo because the House can’t proceed with any business at all until it has a speaker. Day three of the 118th Congress, and counting….I’m never getting sworn in am I? pic.twitter.com/aSeD5Z5kvT— Mary Peltola (@MaryPeltola) January 5, 2023
      Peltola is the first Alaska Native to serve in Congress and won her bid to retain the state’s sole seat in the House of Representatives, at the midterm elections last November.Peltola made history when she won a special election last summer to replace the Republican Don Young after his death.She is also the first woman to represent Alaska in the House of Representatives since it became a state in 1959, if you can believe that in this day and age.Mary Peltola, first Alaska Native in Congress, wins bid to retain seatRead moreThe Democrats’ Hakeem Jeffries once again prompted clapping, hooting, cheering and hollering of support from his own side as he was obliged to rise from his seat in the House and vote for himself as Speaker, for the eighth time this Congress.Moments before, Jeffries was chatting with a fellow lawmaker, looking cool as a cucumber in a blue suit, blue shirt and pink tie.As his name was called in the roll, he started very slightly, having been somewhat distracted, grinned broadly and rose to speak. The clerk said: “Jeffries.” Jeffries said: “Jeffries” and sat back down.If he thought it was dignified to have a bucket of popcorn at his feet, he surely would have one. As a reminder, Jeffries cannot become speaker without something absolutely out of the ordinary occurring in the House (ie a massive GOP defection, which is not likely to happen), because the Democrats don’t have the majority and you need a simple majority of the votes.He is the House minority leader and has succeeded Nancy Pelosi to the leadership position.The eighth round of voting is underway in the House as California Republican Kevin McCarthy flounders in his efforts to become speaker, while refusing to step aside.Talks still ongoing behind the scenes, as well as inter-vote huddles on the floor, as McCarthy believes he can still win if he sticks it out through round after round.Right now, with four votes for Republican hard-right-winger Byron Donald, and two spoiled votes, that means McCarthy already looks set to lose this round.It’s the first time for a century that a House speaker has not been elected on the first round of voting. It took nine rounds and three days in 1923…..is the record about to fall?As a reminder, no other House business can take place until there is a speaker, including swearing in the lawmakers formally – especially significant for the brand new members elected in November’s midterm elections.Gaetz casts a second vote for “Donald John Trump.” Trump has now tied John Quincy Adams for the most Speaker votes cast for a former president. Adams received two votes in the 1835 Speaker’s election— Ben Jacobs (@Bencjacobs) January 5, 2023
      Meanwhile, in Senate news, Democratic senator Debbie Stabenow of Michigan announced on Thursday morning hat she will not be seeking re-election and will be retiring once her fourth term ends in 2025. In a statement, Stabenow said: .css-cumn2r{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}“Inspired by a new generation of leaders, I have decided to pass the torch in the U.S. Senate. I am announcing today that I will not seek re-election and will leave the U.S. Senate at the end of my term on January 3, 2025.
      “As part of my own new generation, I was elected to the Ingham County Commission in 1974 at the age of 24. As the youngest and first woman to chair the Board, this began years of breaking barriers, blazing trails, and being the ‘first’ woman to reach historic milestones as an elected official, including the honor of being the first woman from Michigan elected to the U.S. Senate. But I have always believed it’s not enough to be the ‘first’ unless there is a ‘second’ and a ‘third’…”Stabenow went on to add that for the next two years, she will continue to focus on various ways to improve the lives of Michiganers, including leading the passage of the next five-year Farm Bill which determines food and agricultural policies across the country. Kevin McCarthy has failed to secure 218 votes needed to become House speaker … yet again.McCarthy received 201 votes among GOP lawmakers.The same 20 hardline Republicans who voted against him yesterday also voted against him today during the seventh ballot.Nineteen of them voted for Floridian representative Byron Donalds, while Matt Gaetz voted for former president Donald Trump.Florida’s Republican representative Matt Gaetz has nominated Donald Trump for House speaker.“Donald John Trump,” Gaetz said, standing up and smiling, as his name was called for the vote. Next to him, Georgia’s Republican representative Marjorie Taylor Greene smiled as murmurs of surprise spread across the House..@RepMattGaetz votes for former President Donald Trump for Speaker of the House. #118thCongress pic.twitter.com/VCQgi0bgLA— CSPAN (@cspan) January 5, 2023
      Gaetz’s vote for Donald Trump – a day before the January 6 riots anniversary – comes not only as an embarrassing blow to Kevin McCarthy who is trying to unite Republican representatives into casting a vote towards him but also towards the GOP in assuming control of the House as Republican infighting continues. North Carolina’s Republican representative Dan Bishop nominated Byron Donalds, a Florida lawmaker nominated by hard-right Republican representatives as an alternative to Kevin McCarthy. “Yesterday, we could have elected the first black Speaker of the United States House of Representatives,” Bishop said of Byron, to which Democrats responded with cheers of “Hakeem! Hakeem!”, referring to Hakeem Jeffries, the Democrats’ nominee for House speaker..css-cumn2r{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}“He ain’t no prop… He’s a man of personal conviction,” Bishop said of Donalds.
      “This is the tired, old, grotesquely racist rhetoric that we have seen far too long,” he added. Michigan’s Republican representative-elect John James nominated Kevin McCarthy for House speaker.“I don’t need DC politicians to tell me about how broken DC is… The American people have already told us how broken DC is,” he said..css-cumn2r{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}“The American people have told us…they want Republicans to lead,” he added.“Right now, the people are left out. Right now, they don’t have a Congress to speak for them,” James said of the current impasse.He also brought up the slavery debate regarding the “value of man,” which he described as “drawn out painful process, but it needed to happen.”.css-cumn2r{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}“He’s earned my trust,” James said of McCarthy. “We’ve come so far…you don’t fire a guy whose winning… We need to learn how to win… We need a conservative fighter to help this country get back on track.”The House of Representatives has convened on Capitol Hill for the third time in attempts to elect a speaker. Guardian readers, feel free to follow the House session via our livestream at the top of this page!President Joe Biden announced new border enforcement actions on Thursday, according to a statement released by the White House. .css-cumn2r{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}“These measures will expand and expedite legal pathways for orderly migration and result in new consequences for those who fail to use those legal pathways. They also draw on the success of the Venezuela initiative, which launched in October 2022 and has resulted in a dramatic drop in the number of Venezuelan nationals attempting to enter the United States unlawfully,” it said. The Biden administration said that new consequences will be imposed onto individuals who attempt to cross the border unlawfully, including increasing the use of expedited removal. .css-cumn2r{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}“Effective immediately, individuals who attempt to enter the United States without permission, do not have a legal basis to remain, and cannot be expelled pursuant to Title 42 will be increasingly subject to expedited removal to their country of origin and subject to a five-year ban on reentry,” the White House said. The Biden administration will also expand the parole process for Venezuelans to Nicaraguans, Haitians and Cubans. Up to 30,000 individuals from these countries who have an eligible sponsor and pass venting and background checks can come to the US each month for a period of two years and receive worth authorization. Meanwhile, Mexico will also be accepting the return of 30,000 individuals per month from these four countries who cross the border unlawfully. The Biden administration said that it also plans to welcome up to 20,000 refugees from Latin American and Caribbean countries during 2023 and 2024, in turn “putting the United States on pace to more than triple refugee admissions from the western hemisphere this fiscal year alone.” More

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      McCarthy takes vote losses to six as US House of Representatives adjourns again – video

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      Republican leader Kevin McCarthy failed for the sixth time in two days to capture the speaker’s gavel. After the House adjourned for a few hours, McCarthy and his allies went into negotiations with the Republican holdouts without a clear path forward to end the standoff, then pushed back a seventh vote on the House leadership until Thursday

      House adjourns as speakership evades McCarthy even after sixth vote More

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      in Elections

      Kevin McCarthy takes vote losses to six as US House of Representatives adjourns again – video

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      Republican leader Kevin McCarthy failed for the sixth time in two days to capture the speaker’s gavel. After the House adjourned for a few hours, McCarthy and his allies went into negotiations with the Republican holdouts without a clear path forward to end the standoff, then pushed back a seventh vote on the House leadership until Thursday

      House adjourns as speakership evades McCarthy even after sixth vote More