Kevin and Marjorie, sitting in a tree, K I S S I N G

Kevin and Marjorie, sitting in a tree, K I S S I N G

By Hal Brown

Scroll down for Jan. 25th update

The insert was manipulated by me to bring McCarthy within kissing distance of Greene.

When I looked at Salon this morning this was the main article:

Click above to read article

From Salon:

McCarthy's nauseating adoration for Greene continues throughout the article (in The NY Times), leaving it impossible to believe there's anything resembling reluctance on either side of this alliance.

The title uses the words "hopelessly devoted" plus the texts say nauseating adoration, indeed... I rather doubt these words were chosen at random.

And then there's this quote:

There are non-too-subtle implications here, so I'm going to come right out and say it. If it looks like an amorous duck, walks like one and talks like one, perhaps it is one.

I suppose you can say that the Devil made me do a wee but of tinkering with the image when I saw, like how anyone could miss it, how intimate these two appeared to be in the photo.

The "Kevin and Marjorie sitting in tree, K I S S I N G" was too euphonious not to use it in a blog for a title.

Democrats are  reveling at the level of Republican dysfunction within the House. Angry non-MAGA Republicans may be saying "you made your bed, Kevin, now sleep in it" bring up the image of Kev and Marge under the sheets. If I could draw I'd make a cartoon showing this.

The notion of a political marriage was not lost on journalists. Consider:

Lawrence O’Donnell Spots Kevin McCarthy’s ‘Strangest' Vow To Marjorie Taylor Greene

“He was not talking about his wife of 31 years, the mother of his two children,” the MSNBC anchor said of the House speaker's promise to the far-right congresswoman.

Excerpt: 

O’Donnell pointed to a New York Times article in which McCarthy was quoted as telling a friend: “I will never leave that woman. I will always take care of her.”

McCarthy wasn’t “talking about his wife of 31 years, the mother of his two children,” noted O’Donnell.Instead, McCarthy was reportedly making a political marriage vow to extremist Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.). 

The Times article — titled “How Kevin McCarthy Forged an Ironclad Bond With Marjorie Taylor Greene” — explained how Greene’s help was crucial in McCarthy finally winning his drawn-out bid for the speakership.

McCarthy “can only hope no one back home in Bakersfield, California, was reading The New York Times today,” O’Donnell added.

If you have a subscription to The New York Times you can read the article O'Donnell was referring to. Here's the photo used to illustrate it. The background suggests it was taking at the same time but a few moments after the photo Salon used was taken.

There's nothing wrong with hugging, however I don't see lots of photos of male Republicans hugging each other.

Excerpt:

Their political union — a closer and more complex one than has previously been known — helps explain how Mr. McCarthy rose to power atop a party increasingly defined by its extremes, the lengths to which he will go to accommodate those forces, and how much influence Ms. Greene and the faction she represents have in defining the agenda of the new House Republican majority.

“If you’re going to be in a fight, you want Marjorie in your foxhole,” Mr. McCarthy said. Both he and Ms. Greene agreed to brief interviews for this article. “When she picks a fight, she’s going to fight until the fight’s over. She reminds me of my friends from high school, that we’re going to stick together all the way through.”

It is a relationship born of political expediency but fueled by genuine camaraderie, and nurtured by one-on-one meetings as often as once a week, usually at a coffee table in Mr. McCarthy’s Capitol office, as well as a constant stream of text messages back and forth.

From reading this and other articles one might conclude that for the most part McCarthy a savvy political tactician and is manipulating Greene by giving in to her demands. I wonder whether the reverse is true with Greene using her wiles to manipulate McCarthy.

.......

Greene and her husband Perry divorced in 2022. Here they are in presumably happy times for the couple celebrating their 25th anniversary.

More photos here.
.......

Addendum:

Related or  not...

Click above to read 2015 NY Post article

Perhaps the gentleman prefers blondes.

Up close and personal with Marjorie Taylor Greene:

Update: Jan 25, 2023

Newsweek article 

Donald Trump and Kevin McCarthy Share Love-In After 'Crazy' Speaker Race

NBC News article 

Marjorie Taylor Greene aims to be Trump's VP pick in 2024 -- "She sees herself on the short list for Trump's VP," said former Trump aide Steve Bannon, who has spoken with Greene.

What a no-brainer this is. Of course MT Greene aspires to higher office.  This leaves only three options. She could run for governor. She could run for the Senate. She could be Trump's choice as his VP running mate, no inference meant by using the term "mate" intended. This would be her most likely ladder to the presidency since actuarial tables suggest Trump might not live to complete a term should he be elected. 

What she has to be careful of is that for the present she serves two masters, Kevin McCarthy and Donald Trump. If these two have a falling out she will have to chose sides. 

That might not be easy. McCarthy has the power to derail her ambitions to be the unofficial Speaker of the House calling the shots whenever she thinks it will accrue to her benefit. On the other hand if she crossed Trump he would never select her to run with him.

DOJ assures Jim Jordan will become Jimmy the Snarling Jester Jordan

 DOJ  assures Jim Jordan will become Jimmy the Snarling Jester Jordan 

By Hal Brown

My illustration added this image to one of Jim Jordan which I modified from a color photo.:

There are jesters and there are jesters.

Click below to enlarge. 

Lower right: In Batman, Jester is the son of the Joker and Harley Quinn. His mother sent him to be trained by an assassin in order to fulfill his father's wish to kill the heroes.

I added my illustration to the article 

DOJ signals to Jim Jordan that it won’t share information about pending investigations from The Hill, but it could be on any of the various stories about this announcement from the Justice Department.

I have no doubt that the bloodthirsty Jim Jordan is salivating at the prospect of pouncing wolf-like onto his Democratic Party victims and devouring them with his incisive incisors.

This DOJ announcement is more than a "not so fast buddy boy." The Department of Justice is telling him in no uncertain terms what the J in DOJ stands for. They are telling him that he is not the king of the hill (and The Hill) that he fancies himself.

My understanding is that the DOJ may comply if asked, or subpoenaed, to provide information about other matters besides ongoing investigations, in other words, about concluded investigations. The fly in in ointment for Jordan is this from The Hill:

Assistant Attorney General Carlos Uriarte said in the letter, obtained by Politico on Friday. “Longstanding Department policy prevents us from confirming or denying the existence of pending investigations in response to congressional requests or providing non-public information about our investigations.” 

If I am interpreting this correctly, all the DOJ has to do is refuse to provide information without explaining why they are doing so.

If or when the DOJ provides information I think Jordan will find that he is on a snipe hunt, literally a fool's or jester's errand. They will bluster and bloviate about all the damning evidence of malfeasance they'd uncovered, but like with Benghazi time will show that there was no there .

The same goes for attempts by the Oversight Committee looking into the so-called weaponization of the DOJ,    as they spin their wheels investigating the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, Dr. Anthony Fauci, the origins of Covid, Big Tech, oh, and the biggest nothing-burger, Hunter Biden. 

No - there - there... not here, not here, not here, not there, not there, not there, sorry dudes and dudettes, not anywhere.

Jim Jordan, the former wrestling champion in the 134 lb. weight class,  and OSU wrestling coach accused of covering up sexual abuse at the college (something that earned him the nickname of Gym Jordan) likes to fleck his muscles. 

Like the typical winning wrestler on the mat, Jordan is very aggressive. I had a couple of friends in high school who wrestled. One of them went on to be a college wrestler. He handily pinned me in about a minute in an intramural wrestling competition. I can attest to the fact that although very aggressive when in a match, they were mild mannered everywhere else.

Not so with Jim Jordan. Not only is he aggressive but obnoxiously so. If he was the least bit likable we might have cause to be a tiny bit worried. The same goes for just about every prominent House Republican. For example, likable in the same sentence with Marjorie Taylor Greene, Lauren Boebert, Matt Gaetz, Paul Gosar, and others, is the very definition of an oxymoron. 

Update: On MSNBC commentary, an observation that if DOJ refuses to give some information the House committee can take it to court, but these cases can take months or even years to resolve.

Republican never-Trumper Stewart Stevens just noted what I did mentioning Marjorie Taylor Greene and (I think) Paul Gosar saying that they aren't even likable people and who would want to be sitting next to them.

Seeing how GOP is about to drive off a cliff reminds me of a favorite Charles Addams cartoon

Seeing how GOP is about to drive off a cliff reminds me of a favorite Charles Addams cartoon

By Hal Brown

Archives on Right >

Why I was banned from Daily Kos

Posting now on Mastodon - see right column there 

Click to enlarge

My Version

CLICK ABOVE TO ENLARGE

When I was too young to appreciate the writing in The New Yorker, which my parents subscribed to, I looked forward to each issue for the cartoons. My favorite cartoonist was Charles Addams which no doubt showed something about my personality. In fact, that when I read McCarthy's Race For Speaker Risks Upending House On Day One in HUFFPOST this morning the above cartoon came to mind.

It was one of the two Addams cartoons which I liked the best. This is the other one:

I suppose this says something about my developing personality and my somewhat morbid sense of humor. I also like the cartoons in The Hanging Book:

Click above to enlarge - I misplaced or loaned out my copy of this book and writing this story prompted my to order the last used copy they had on Amazon.

If you stumbled on this blog because you're a Charles Addams fan and haven't already watched the streaming Netflix show Wednesday I highly recommend it. It has two Golden Globe nominations and features the Christina Ricci  in a supporting role. She played the original Wednesday in the original Addams Family TV show.

But I digress...

Back to what I think the cartoon represents. The car which is about to careen off the cliff is occupied by all Republicans but you have to wonder who is driving it. I'd have to choose between Marjorie Taylor Greene and Donald Trump depending on whether we are thinking only about Congress or the GOP as a party.

Who then is this driver?

He sees the approaching semi and is aware that the Republicans who are chasing and about to overtake him, and is smart enough to take advantage of the opportunity that fate afforded him.

The Democrat's leader, President Biden, lacks the ruthlessness gene and is not a malignant narcissist, anything but, so he wouldn't even dream of sticking his arm out the window and making the universal "it's safe to pass me" gesture which he knows would result in real life in the kind of movie scene where a car speeds off a cliff and bursts into flames.

The other way to interpret the cartoon is to say the man waving driver of the car to pass and die engulfed in flames is Donald Trump and he's being chased by any and all Republicans that don't bow down to him.

The rising star of the GOP will be Jim Jordan

 The rising star of the GOP will be Jim Jordan

by Hal Brown

Archives on Right >

Why I was banned from Daily Kos

Click above toe enlarge image.

Above are the three other House committee chairs who are likely to lead investigations into Democrats. The chairs for other committees haven't been selected yet. Is there a rising star among those three? I didn't recognize a single face and unless you're from their district I bet you didn't either.

Read the entire HUFFPOST article below: \/

This is the excerpt related to what to expect from Jim Jordan's committee:

The Judiciary Committee handles oversight of the Departments of Justice and Homeland Security and issues such as crime, immigration and protection of civil liberties. It’s typically one of the most partisan committees on Capitol Hill, yet Jordan’s combative style stands out even there. The committee would be the place where any effort would begin to impeach a member of the Biden administration, as some Republicans have been proposing for Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas.

Jordan’s inquiries to the administration in recent months make clear the committee will investigate the FBI’s execution of a search warrant at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence. He has also advocated for a wide-ranging look at the Biden administration’s immigration policies and the origins of COVID-19.

“All those things need to be investigated just so you have the truth,” Jordan told conservative activists last summer at a conference. “Plus that will frame up the 2024 race when I hope and I think President Trump is going to run again and we need to make sure that he wins.”

The House of Representatives has its share of unhinged grenade throwers and media hogs. Some are better known than others, but all of them are members of the Freedom Caucus, also known as the 'MAGA Squad', which incudes Paul Gosar, Marjoie Taylor Greene, Matt Gaetz, Madison Cawthorn, Louie Gohmert, Mo Brooks, Andy Biggs, Scott Perry, and  Lauren Boebert. Per the HUFFPOST article none of them seem positioned to chair any of the high profile committees, or any other committees for that matter. Obviously they will all have a chance to make their bones to the base by bloviating and bullying whenever they get a chance in whichever committees they are on.

All of them will have committee assignments, even Marjorie Taylor Greene who lost all of them under Democratic leadership. Look for the Republicans to seek revenge by doing the same thing to some or all of the members of The Squad.

Back to Jim Jordan.

I have no doubt he will make sure that he spends the next two years making the news as often as possible. The 58 year old two time NCAA wrestling champion and winner of the Medal of Freedom Award would never challenge his pal Trump for the presidency. I think his ambition is to build his brand for a future run for the presidency by spending the next two years, and should the Republican's keep control of the House, as long as he can remaining the chair of the Judiciary Committee.

Jordan's main GOP competition for the media spotlight over the next two years will be Donald Trump, Ron DeSantis, and anyone else who stands a chance of winning the Republican primary. 

He is in the enviable position of never having to do anything to piss off Trump or DeSantis unless you count getting more screen time and lead headlines. 

Trump is the master of angry screaming and facial expressions.

Jordan rivals him because he has the angry yelling and finger pointing down pat too. He will beat Trump who only does it to a camera and rally audience because Jordan will be able use it against witnesses in order to try to intimidate them. 

All Jordan has to do is prove himself to the MAGAs is to be the biggest baddest thorn in President Biden's and the Democrats ass.  It won't matter that objective observers will look at his investigations and conclude that there's no there there because it will be all about the show.