Speak up, please

"Possession is nine tenths of the law," my mother used to say.  "What the hell does that mean?" I would ask but she always changed the subject.  She didn't live long enough to waste all day on the internet, where this cryptic expression has its own Wikipedia page.  Apparently if you possess something it's up to others to prove you shouldn't have it, except where the opposite is true.  Seems kind of ambiguous.

I bring it up because Kevin McCarthy has moved all his souvenir beer mats and autographed photos of the Russian leadership and other junk into the Speaker's Suite without first making sure he had the votes to install him officially.  It's endlessly entertaining to follow along as the Republican carcass caucus snarl and scream and reveal how much they hate one another, much less McCarthy.  Earlier today Matt Gaetz let a mangy feral cat out of the bag when he said, "I don't want to relive the Benghazi experience where it's just theater pretending to be oversight."  You remember that farce, when Secretary of State Clinton testified for eleven fucking hours while being accused of the murder of four Americans.  I hope she didn't choke on her Chardonnay this afternoon.  

McCarthy, who is apparently unfamiliar with "negotiation," complains that people keep coming to him with "personal asks" (presumably deluxe committees for votes), to which Lauren Boebert, ever the voice of reason, replied, "BULLSHIT!"  Gaetz told McCarthy he doesn't care if Hakeem Jeffries is the new Speaker (although he probably does) while Empty Greene is "Hmph!  Done!" with the lot of them.  (She calls the Gaetz gang "destructionists."  Was it only last summer the Big Giant Heads were campaigning together?  It was!)

Perhaps the closed-door meeting is over.  Here's Ted Lieu headed for the House floor:

And poor George Santos can't even lie low in his office on account of it's full of reporters who want to talk about his possible extradition to Brazil on that 2008 fraud case.  I'm guessing this would not happen if Bolsonaro had been re-elected, but he's standing in line at the Mar a Lago omelet bar right about now.

As with the real estate grab, McCarthy is already pretending to be Speaker by courting the far far right of his far right party with rule changes, like crippling the Office of Congressional Ethics.  Why are ethical constraints such a problem for "swamp drainers" like Gym Jordan and Statutory Gaetz?  It's a mystery!  Anyway, the OCE won't be investigating the members who supported Trump's coup or looking into the fantasy life of George Santos.  

Here's the second ballot, with more to come:

The cockroach/dentist appears confused.  Or maybe he's preparing to shed the dentist skin and assume the meat sack of the earthling beside him.  A C-SPAN exclusive!

Robert Reich, now a professor of public policy at Berkeley, has written the obituary of the Republican Party.  It may be a few months premature, but "nihilistic mindlessness" will be hard to top.