What Mortal Could Be the New Speaker? The Spy's Nominees:

By Isidor Feinstein and Nellie Bly
Spy Washington Bureau

With the news from the Middle East becoming more dire with each edition, with war and conflict threatening to rage out of control, and millions of civilians in harm's way, the world turns its eyes to its last best strongest hope: the United States.  From the White House, the Biden Administration is working hard to get its arms around the manifold urgent overlapping life-and-death crises.  

Matt Gaetz couldn't resist the call of his base

At the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue, the House of Representatives stands paralyzed by the inability of House Republicans to find someone, anyone to serve as Speaker.  Apparently moderate consensus-building insurrectionists are not easy to find.

Exhausted by their lack of effort, House Republicans have decided to take a long weekend off in this time of international calamity.  According to DC pundits, they are no closer to elected someone than they were a week ago, and they still refuse to reach out to House Democrats to see if the Democrats will help them in exchange for an end to the insanity.  But insanity is the Republican brand.

This motley crew of criminals, pervs, racists, and Brazilian transvestites is out of ideas.

The Spy, as usual, rides to the rescue.  We have been informed that the Speaker of the House does not in fact have to be a sitting House member.  This opens up the job to a wide variety of highly-qualified individuals sure to appeal to House Republicans. Some have speculated that the Tangerine-Faced Defendant, who in fact runs the House Republican caucus, should take the job, but that seems too much like work to appeal to the drug-addled grifter.

Fortunately, there are many plausible alternatives who would be perfect for the job.  Under the leadership of one of these worthies, the House can get back to work on vital national issues like banning books, publishing pictures of Hunter Biden's shvantz and cutting food assistance so more children can go hungry.

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Sarah Palin

She's tanned, rested, and ready, and she could really use the job, or indeed any job.  

Why this authentic down-home crackpot and hatemonger disappeared from the Republican roster remains a mystery.  She's got it all: 

• she'll say anything, no matter how stupid, to get cable TV coverage, 


• she knows nothing about any pressing issue, foreign or domestic, 


• she's greedy and corrupt, and 


• she's free from any hint of competence, intelligence, compassion, or integrity.  

That's why they call her “Ms. Republican!”

But she's not without her downsides:

• She's 30 years too old for Matt Gaetz


• The lumpier (but blonder) Marjorie Taylor Greene might not appreciate the competition


• She's incredibly lazy and likely to walk away from the job on a whim; and
  


• She'd need a $250,000 clothing allowance.

But if House Republicans need someone who can bring together every single idiot white supremacist reactionary and insurrectionist, it's hard to think of a better candidate.

And if she brings her daughters with her, Lauren Boebert can teach them how to make a boy happy without getting preggers.

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Tucker Carlson

Whatever happened to ol' Tuck?  Just a few months ago he was riding high  He had a nightly audience of millions of white bigots ready to follow him into the fiery lava fields of white supremacy and anti-Semitism.  Then he cost his boss and patron Rupert Murdoch a quick $767 million, and, worse yet, was found to have slagged off the old tosser and his mouth-breathing son in what he thought were confidential text messages.

Yeah, Tucker was so dumb he believed that there was such a thing as “confidential text messages.”

For these sins he was exiled to his palatial bunker in the deep woods of Maine, where he hasn't been heard from since, thanks to his ace media adviser Elno Musk. 

But he'd be perfect for House Republicans.  He knows how to use media to advance their agenda.  He shares their bats**t crazy ideas.  He's ready to march on the Reichstag [Surely, the Capitol? – Ed.]  Best of all, if you really want a crazed insurrectionist in a position of power, it's hard to see how you could do better.

The only downside that House Republicans might want to consider is that if Tucker gets the job, he's going to want a 1,000-year term.  And he's not known for taking nein for an answer.

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Aaron Rodgers

Rodgers explains zinc to a nurse

Here's another big name who desperately needs a new gig.  He lasted about four downs as the salvation of the New York Jets (we're going to have to hold off on our endless repository of Jets burns as long as the home town team up here is dredging new depths of suckdom), and gained some notoriety spouting anti-vaccine drivel sure to enamor him to the House Republican Caucus.

And given the obscene amount of money he's making for not doing anything, he's sure to support Republican efforts to cut taxes on the idle rich.

He's certainly less divisive and more telegenic than any House Republican, and he enjoys surprisingly favorable press attention considering how loathsome his views are.  And unlike any other Republican member of the House, he'd always be welcome at the White House for an afternoon of football on the big screen, hot wings, and brewskis.

We'd be inclined to note on the downside that he is known for speaking passionately and endlessly about stuff he knows nothing about, but to this Republican Party, that's a feature, not a bug.

 

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Keri Lake

Put the filter on

Keeping in mind that the Tangerine-Faced Defendant has a veto over who serves as Speaker of the House, here's a candidate that he'd be likely to back.

She covered herself in glory refusing to concede that she lost the Arizona Governor's race last year even after she lost every single worthless challenge she filed in court.  That kind of disregard for indisputable facts and contempt for democracy should endear her to every House Republican.

Now she's running for Senate from Arizona and seems doomed to lose.  Nominee Tiny Toadstool has already signaled that she's too annoying to be his VP nominee, so she needs something to keep her like a cinder in the public eye. 

She never met a camera she didn't like and as long it's slathered in Vaseline, the camera returns the favor.  And she's willing to lie on Fox “News,” or indeed to say or do anything  for a live shot, up to and including vacuuming the rugs in the studio and on the heads of their male talent.

If House Republicans want to cause chaos and paralyze the government, it's hard to imagine anyone better equipped to do so, with the possible exception of every sitting House Republican.  

 

 

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So that's our Slanderers' Row of Speaker candidates.  If you think it's light on political experience and judgment, in our defense, none of these four worthies either conspired to overthrow democratic government in the United States (although Tucker liked the idea) or covered up evidence of sex crimes committed against college athletes they were supposed to protect.

In both these respects, they are better candidates than the House Republicans' current nominee for the job.

Brutal Hamas terror attack - thank you George Bush!

By Middle East Correspondent Rebecca Bell
with Spy Archivist Aula Minerva

The horrific news coming in from Israel of a multi-faceted bloody Hamas terror attack on Israeli civilians and villages inside Israel's 1967 borders is still being digested.  The prospect of thousands of more deaths, Israeli and Palestinian alike, seems likely.  Hamas rockets have reached Tel Aviv. and Hamas terrorists wantonly and happily slaughtered hundreds of Israelis who dared to attend a dance party inside the state's pre-1967 borders.

With the grave situation still in flux and all Americans ready to unite behind President Biden's support of Israel's right to defend itself against Hamas, Republicans joined this bipartisan response to emphasize American unity and resolve in this crisis.

Actually, we're just s***in' you.  

Of course the Republicans didn't.  

Apparently they have been texted a few idiotic points blaming Biden because he negotiated the release of detained Americans in Iran by in part letting Iran have access to its own money for humanitarian purposes.  And Iran does support Hamas. So by the transitive property of Republican ratf***ery, it's all Joe Biden's fault.

Here's corrupt Republican Senator Rick Scott, setting aside his love of the Fifth Amendment for a minute and weighing in thusly:

.@JoeBiden funded this attack when he bowed to Iran and gave $6 BILLION to this evil regime that starts every day plotting to destroy Israel.

While Biden is silent, his appeasement of Iran and Hamas terrorists is heard in every siren blaring across Israel. https://t.co/4UKHEvVMfk

— Rick Scott (@SenRickScott) October 7, 2023

Of course the Republicans' favorite bloodthirsty dictator, Vladimir Putin, also supports Hamas but you haven't heard any of his Republican apparatchiks saying boo about him. 

As long as we're ignoring the real issue of what America should be doing to both support Israel while limiting human suffering, let's follow Rick Scott's lead and try to make some partisan political hay of the unfolding disaster.

How is it that Gaza, a relatively rich, educated, well-located city-state of 1,500,000 fell into the hands of Hamas butchers?

Funny story, but it all goes back to this f***in' guy:

Although we are aware that none of you care about history unless it's Taylor Swift's exes, let's go back to the ancient Middle East, in 2005 to be exact.

In the summer of 2005, then Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, whom no one ever described as dovish on Palestine, decided after 38 years of occupation to withdraw all Israeli citizens and troops from Gaza:

He began Gaza as a unilateral move while Mr. Arafat was alive and insists on it now because Mr. Sharon does not really believe in negotiations....He decided to leave Gaza for many reasons: demographic, political, financial, diplomatic, his aides say, adding that Palestinian violence was not an important factor, especially after the Israeli Army defeated the Palestinians at the height of the last intifada, in spring 2002.

Still, the anti-pullout movement in Israel, which includes much of Mr. Sharon's own Likud Party, is, like Hamas, accusing the old soldier of capitulating to violence.

Observers at the time noted that Gaza was poised on a knife's edge between Fatah, which showed some interest in building a Palestinian state alongside Israel, and Hamas, which favored killing all the Jews.

There were some hopes that Fatah could build a successful city-state in Gaza that might serve as a springboard to a true Palestinian state in Gaza and the West Bank, although they were voiced by the likes of Iraq War stooge Six Months Tom Friedman:

Condi to the rescue!

The other hugely important fact is that Israel is going to begin withdrawing from the Gaza Strip in mid-August. In a courageous move to shrink Israeli control of Palestinians, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon is risking his life, and defying all the schemers and backstabbers in his party trying to topple him, to unilaterally uproot the Jewish settlers in Gaza.

This pending withdrawal and the eruption of a pent-up desire for normalcy among both Israelis and Palestinians together form the foundation for rebuilding the crumbled peace process. That's the good news. The bad news is that although this Israeli withdrawal is unilateral, for it to provide the peace and prosperity that both sides want from it requires a series of complicated agreements about how Gaza will relate to Israel and the rest of the world. Many key details are still not fully baked -- at all....

Finally, if this Gaza withdrawal is going to happen in a way that lays the foundation for a wider settlement, which it can, it will in the end require a U.S. broker, guarantor and arm-twister -- at the highest level.

So far, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has just breezed in and out. Bad call. Not only will she not escape failure, but she is also missing how emotionally important and helpful a high-level U.S. embrace of the Israeli majority's desire to get out of Gaza would be right now. Also, helping to knit together all the unresolved issues would not only bring off the withdrawal in the right way, but would also bolster America's standing in this region at a key time.

God created American secretaries of state for this kind of moment.

Then God laughed the Eternal One's ass off.

To provide a rationale for the continuing bloody stalemate in Iraq after the original ones were shown to be, ahem, lies, Bush and his stooges, including well-known moderate mainstream intellectual and then Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, orchestrated a series of elections to justify the preposterous claim that the Iraq War was in defense of democracy:

 

Congressional Research Service report, January 29, 2008.

A few weak American clients succumbed to this pressure, including Fatah Leader Mohammad Abbas, who had avoided holding elections for years because he knew he'd lose to Hamas.

He did lose.  Hamas won.  Abbas, with American and Israeli support, ignored the election results.  Not long thereafter, Hamas simply seized power in Gaza, with the results now before us.

It's possible that Hamas might have seized power in Gaza anyway, but the elections gave them the legitimacy to proclaim themselves the true Palestinian government.  Their reign of terror in Gaza has continued without meaningful interruption since 2007, and exploded into Israel yesterday.

Bush's willingness to sacrifice the delicate peace between Israel and the Palestinians for a f***ing stupid talking point intended to make his Iraq War disaster look other than a pointless effusion of blood and treasure marked another highlight of his disastrous foreign policy that left the United States weaker and the world an infinitely more dangerous place.

Does that mean that Bush and his Republican enablers, many of whom have reopened for business as our Wonderful Allies, are as evil as Hamas?  Of course not.

But it's a reminder that Republicans have been busily undermining US national security for the past 23 years.  It's something to keep in mind when you hear Republicans trying to blame Joe Biden for the outrages of Hamas.

If you want to learn more about the most sensitive details of US foreign policy and national security, you could dig into the Internet archives for yourself.  Or if you're too busy, just swing by the omelette bar at Mar-a-Lago.  Your gracious host will be only too glad to tell you everything he knows.

Report from Capitol Hill: Another problem solved!

By Isidor Feinstein and Nellie Bly
Spy Washington Bureau

Proving once again their inability to govern, House Republicans today threw the grenade whose pin they had pulled in January, voting to oust former Speaker Kevin McCarthy at the request of the Scourge of Florida Deb Balls, Matt Gaetz.

All day long the insufferable talking heads speculated wildly about the likelihood that some, a few, any moderate Democrats would ride to the aid of the embattled Speaker, who, it will be recalled, endeared himself to Democrats and patriots everywhere by supporting the Tangerine-Faced Defendant's continuing insurrection against lawful government in the United States and the preposterous but also sad trumped up impeachment inquiry against real President Biden.

They were shocked, shocked to learn that Democrats were not inclined to support a weak feckless extremist subversive lying Trump and Putin tool.  This came as a harsh blow to the Problem-Solvers, the self-described caucus of Republicans and Democrats who believe, notwithstanding their own eyes and ears, that America's pressing problems could be solved if only children and refugees among others were sacrificed on the altar of bipartisan compromise. 

Last time we looked, the so-called Problem-Solvers were looking to solve the problem, if indeed it is one, of refugees entering the United States by – locking them up.

Democrats told the likes of Krysten Sinema thanks but no thanks and the Republic endured.

This time, when Democrats told the Problem-Solvers that they had no interest in propping up the most inept, unpatriotic, and extreme Speaker in Republican history, the Problem-Solvers decided it was time to stage a mass sulk:

NEW: Republicans on the bipartisan Problem Solvers Caucus are considering quitting the group “en masse” after Democrats in the group voted to oust McCarthy, per a GOP member of the group.

Latest sign of fallout after the historic removal of the speaker.

confirming @juliegraceb

— Melanie Zanona (@MZanona) October 3, 2023

After all they have done to save our country, this is the thanks they get!

Before the vote the Washington mainstream gasbags were full of, let's call it speculation about how Democrats could save the Man from Bakersfield if they saw the bipartisan light:

But some Democrats could vote to rescue McCarthy — especially if he strikes a last-minute deal with House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) to change the House rules, bring more funding for Ukraine up for a vote or to back other Democratic priorities.

Yeah, that didn't happen:

Democrats thought about voting with a majority of Republicans to help McCarthy keep his job. They contemplated it but ultimately decided not to; every Democrat present voted against McCarthy.

There are lots of reasons Democrats dislike McCarthy: He’s all-in on Donald Trump; he just launched an impeachment inquiry into President Biden over “allegations”; and he thwarted Jan. 6 investigations. But the last straw for them was seeing McCarthy on TV over the weekend trying to blame Democrats for the near-shutdown, reports The Washington Post.

“He dug his own grave,” one person in the know told The Post about why Democrats weren’t saving him.

Perhaps the last shovelful was McCarthy's effort to renege on his promise to hold a vote on aid to Ukraine, which commands wide bipartisan support despite the 100+ members of the House Republican Putin Caucus.

It turned out that once again the Pride of Bakersfield was lying, weak, evil, and advancing the interests of Vladimir Putin – the Republican Grand Slam:

The California Republican now says that if Democrats want a new package of aid to Ukraine... they must help pass the GOP “border security” agenda.

As long as Republicans seek to torment
refugees, we'll use this picture

But McCarthy’s proposal is about much more than “border security.” If passed, the GOP agenda would dramatically roll back certain types of legal migration to this country and otherwise transform our immigration system in numerous radical, cruel and reckless ways.

And bonus Republican points: deporting the Anne Franks of today to meet their fates would be a undeniable violation of U.S. treaty commitments under international law!

How could Democrats abandon a prince like this in his time of need?  It's not like he was seeking protection from a violent mob persecuting him for his political beliefs, because he doesn't have any.

So why did Republicans defenestrate their Speaker and plunge the House into chaos?  What was so important to them?  Glad you asked:

[Rep. Bob] Good asserted in a floor speech Tuesday that McCarthy was more interested in remaining Speaker than in cutting spending. 

Good had his white robe in a twist because McCarthy gave up on the Republicans's insane continuing resolution demanding a 30% cut in all spending that helps people, like providing food and health care:

Earlier proposals from House Republicans would have cut hundreds of billions of dollars from programs serving millions of Americans, including nutritional aid for pregnant mothers, housing subsidies for low-income families, funds for medical research and initiatives to protect the environment, among others. 

And who needs government anyway?

[Hard right Republicans] are determined to not only slash spending levels but remake the U.S. government, which they view with growing enmity and criticize as “woke and weaponized.” Some conservatives have downplayed the effects of a government shutdown and even contend that it would have benefits.

“The Biden regulatory agenda comes to a grinding halt with a government shutdown,” Russell Vought, an influential strategist among the right-wing lawmakers, posted on social media this week.

Sound familiar?  The usual gasbags moan that the Republican Party has descended into chaos from the heights it once occupied in the misty golden past, but it sounds to us like the same anti-government ragtime that lovable Ronald Reagan implanted into the brains of good Republicans over 40 years ago. And has it been 30 years since Newt Gingrich, in between getting his rocket polished by a woman not his wife, shut down the Government to demand a cut in Medicare?  How time flies when you're bats*** crazy!

House Republicans caucused to determine next their steps

In fact the Republican proclivity towards blowing up the government unless it stops doing anything to comfort the afflicted or afflict the comfortable is almost two generations old, as is its embrace of white supremacy.  The clowns who unseated Kevin McCarthy swim in that Republican mainstream. 

The only new wrinkle is that government chaos serves an additional goal: weakening the institutions of democracy to assist the return of tangerine-faced Fascism.  Fascists and totalitarians from Lenin to Mussolini to you know who have always sought to undermine the institutions of democratic government so that they can build reactionary dictatorships based on hatred of others and cultlike worship of the Dear Leader.

That's all they have.  Nancy Pelosi was able to keep a tight grip on her five-seat majority because Democrats want to legislate. Republicans have no legislative agenda, other than tax cuts for the rich, white supremacy, and chaos. 

So now what?  Republicans, with their genius for performative petty vengeance, left town while their minions punished Democrats for voting Democratic by taking away Nancy Pelosi's Capitol office while she was off in California mourning with the Feinsteins.

They'll eventually put some hard right stooge back in the Speaker's chair on the condition that he shut down the Government the week before Thanksgiving.

Meanwhile, if the Problem-Solvers are really committed to a bipartisan solution to cleaning up The Mess in Washington, they could nominate for Speaker a moderate, mainstream, cautious bipartisan compromiser.  His name is - Hakeem Jeffries.