Finally Friday Reads: Which of these manmade Gods are in charge here?

Loki with a fishing net (per Reginsmál) as depicted on an 18th-century Icelandic manuscript (SÁM 66)

Good Day, Sky Dancers!

That’s a rhetorical question when you don’t have creator gods running amok in your religious landscape, but I have a suggestion.  I vote for Loki. However, the gods of Norse mythology don’t really have much to do with the current battles. Loki is now known mainly by a TV series, a Marvel character,  the video game “Assassin’s Creed”, and the Wagner Opera “Der Ring des Nibelungen.”

The old gods and goddesses always had a great sense of humor and irony. Much of their fun has to do with internecine complaints among themselves, which humankind is brought into. The God of Abraham seems to be all about revenge, no matter which face you look at.  He’s demanding since he doesn’t have to share anything with other goddesses and gods.  And only one form will do, depending on the tribe that brought you into the world.  You dance and die with the one that brought you unless you shrug your shoulders and read the books without supernatural nonsense.  I could never imagine a perfect being whose primary trait is the desire to be worshipped.  That sounds more like a human with Narcissistic Personality Disorder.  Loki is nonbinary and is good at schemes and deceptions. Maybe that’s why Marvel thought he’d be profitable and popular today.

Loki, however, never had a reality show.  He also isn’t sitting on a shitload of federal and state indictments, including rape, fraud, and the theft of secret documents.

And dead children, old people, and mothers are just as dead from one set of one’s war crimes or another’s. My mother always said two wrongs do not make a right. Mothers always have things like that up their sleeves.  I know am a mother with the cannon of old wives’ tales and admonitions handed down by mine. However, I’m not an old wife, thankfully. Maybe Loki could sort this out like he frequently did within the community of beings dwelling in Asgard.  He indeed won’t be plagued with journos trying to show both sides of any situation.

BB wrote extensively about the continued situation in the Middle East.  So, I will switch to the other chaos in our country.  A two-party system has usually been seen to be more stable than a parliamentary system of democracy because there are two primarily united fronts to make policy and govern. The Republican party is a perfect example of what appears to be a coalition of three stubborn sects with very few policy ideas other than handing the country over to the very rich and creating performance opportunities for the narcissistic among them.

I would say that this is no way to run a country or a homeland of gods.  So, Israel has a coalition government, and we have a hot mess.  Does democracy really have to be this disorganized and angry? Given the proof of a war crime, I can’t drop the Israeli/Palestinian suffering and the current escalation of war crimes as Israel dropped the Rain of Fire indiscriminately around the Gaza Strip today. The country had the high ground and is now losing it.

So, back to chaos in the Republican house that’s been demonstrating how ungovernable they are since John Boehner left the Speaker’s position in 2015. It’s just gotten worse.  Then there’s the Supreme Court, where a majority of theocratic fascists have a hold on American democracy.  You may want to check out this ProPublica piece. “We Don’t Talk About Leonard: The Man Behind the Right’s Supreme Court Supermajority. The inside story of how Leonard Leo built a machine that remade the American legal system — and what he plans to do next. This is a collaboration by Andy Kroll, Andrea Bernstein, and Ilya Marritz.

It’s not really an American democracy thing to have a Handmaiden and a bunch of whacky Opus Dei types deciding what’s supposed to be law.  Here’s another one of Republican Chaos Agents.  But it’s definitely a Leonard Leo thing.

Many could thank Leo for their advancement. Thomas Hardiman of the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals had ruled to loosen gun laws and overturn Obamacare’s birth-control mandate. Leo had put Hardiman on Trump’s Supreme Court shortlist and helped confirm him to two earlier judgeships. Kyle Duncan and Cory Wilson, both on the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, both fiercely anti-abortion, were members of the Federalist Society for Law and Public Policy Studies, the network of conservative and libertarian lawyers that Leo h

ad built into a political juggernaut. As was Florida federal Judge Wendy Berger, who would uphold that state’s “Don’t Say Gay” law. Within a year of the party, another attendee, Republican North Carolina Supreme Court Justice Phil Berger Jr. (no relation), would write the opinion reinstating a controversial state law requiring voter identification. (Duncan, Wilson, Berger and Berger Jr. did not comment. Hardiman did not comment beyond confirming he attended the party.)

The judges were in Maine for a weeklong, all-expenses-paid conference hosted by George Mason University’s Antonin Scalia Law School, a hub for steeping young lawyers, judges and state attorneys general in a free-market, anti-regulation agenda. The leaders of the law school were at the party, and they also were indebted to Leo. He had secured the Scalia family’s blessing and brokered $30 million in donations to rename the school. It is home to the C. Boyden Gray Center for the Study of the Administrative State, named after the George H.W. Bush White House counsel who died this May. Gray was at Leo’s party, too. (A spokesperson for GMU confirmed the details of the week’s events.)

The judges and the security detail, the law school leadership and the legal theorists — all of this was a vivid display not only of Leo’s power but of his vision. Decades ago, he’d realized it was not enough to have a majority of Supreme Court justices. To undo landmark rulings like Roe, his movement would need to make sure the court heard the right cases brought by the right people and heard by the right lower court judges.

Leo began building a machine to do just that. He didn’t just cultivate friendships with conservative Supreme Court justices, arranging private jet trips, joining them on vacation, brokering speaking engagements. He also drew on his network of contacts to place Federalist Society protégés in clerkships, judgeships and jobs in the White House and across the federal government. He personally called state attorneys general to recommend hires for positions he presciently understood were key, like solicitors general, the unsung litigators who represent states before the U.S. Supreme Court. In states that elect jurists, groups close to him spent millions of dollars to place his allies on the bench. In states that appoint top judges, he maneuvered to play a role in their selection.

1863 M.E. Winge

Republican Chaos agent Matt Gaetz and his radical right idiots have brought the Trumpian trickery into the house.  I was amazed to hear the breaking news of Sleazy Steve’s early exit from the Speaker race.  Former New Orleanian and news guy here, Jarvis DeBarry, moved to MSNBC.  However, he still knows Scalise’s trademark, passive-aggressive firebrand idiocy. He has his own type of pantomime politicking.  “The Republican narrative is the only thing that ever matters to Steve Scalise. Need someone to completely disregard the truth and push the GOP version of things? Look no further than the Louisiana Republican who may soon become House speaker.”  It does seem Kevin played the role of tossing water on his fire. Remember, the name Loki was derived from fire.  Here’s Scalise at his sleaziest best.

After Rep. Kevin McCarthy’s ignominious removal from the House speakership last week, Rep. Steve Scalise has been pushed forward as the House GOP’s nominee for speaker — and the smiling face of Republican denialism. If there’s an obvious truth that can’t be reconciled with a Republican talking point or goal, then there may be no better person to smile and pretend the truth isn’t the truth than the Louisiana Republican.

Consider the June 9, 2022, news conference where Scalise, then the House minority whip, said his colleague Rep. Jim Banks, R-Ind., was right to ask whether then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi was “involved in the decision to delay National Guard assistance on Jan. 6.” Four months after that news conference came the release of video of that day that captured Scalise standing within an arm’s length of Pelosi (and apparently paying attention) as she, with her phone on speaker mode, demanded a military response.

There’s the Republican narrative about who Republicans are, who the Democrats are and what Pelosi represents, and then there’s the reality of Pelosi taking charge and acting in the best interest of her country as an angrily pouting Republican president does nothing. These two things — the narrative and the reality — conflict. So Scalise, who had observed Pelosi’s vocal advocacy, suggested that the attack on the U.S. Capitol was somehow her fault and not Donald Trump’s.

And when confronted with video evidence that he was standing near Pelosi on Jan. 6, what did Scalise say? His spokesperson Lauren Fine told The Washington Post that he was asking “why wasn’t the National Guard called prior to the day of?” What a dishonest response.

But it wasn’t surprising. The year before, in an October 2021 interview with Chris Wallace on Fox News, Scalise refused to answer Wallace’s simple question: “Do you think the 2020 election was stolen from Donald Trump?”

Scalise still appears to be unwilling to answer that question. CNN’s Manu Raju posted to the platform X on Wednesday that Rep. Ken Buck, R-Colo., said he wouldn’t vote for Scalise or Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, “since neither man would answer his question yesterday about whether the 2020 election was stolen.”

Loki Bound
1908 Patten Wilson

This Politico article is one of the most prosaic headlines today. “Fear and loathing grips the House GOP. While Republicans appear to be turning next to Jim Jordan, some are already airing open doubts that he can pull off what the majority leader couldn’t.”  Just as I thought and was telling friends last night.  Gymbo isn’t looking to have the numbers either.

The House GOP has entered an angrier and more bewildered phase in its leadership crisis.

The fractious Republican conference has rejected a second speaker hopeful in eight days — this time, Kevin McCarthy’s longtime heir apparent, Steve Scalise. While Republicans appear to be turning next to Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), some are already airing open doubts that Jordan can pull off what the majority leader couldn’t.

The lesson Republicans have learned in the frenetic week since McCarthy’s fall: They have no clear choice for leader who can unite their ranks — no matter how long this drags out and their chamber of Congress is paralyzed.

It’s not just GOP centrists sparring with the hard right. It’s not just McCarthy loyalists secretly fuming at Scalise or his allies. There’s mounting anger across the entire conference that no GOP speaker candidate, including Jordan, appears able to prevail under the current margins.

“We need to all recognize that this is much bigger than just one person or any single person’s petty feelings,” said Rep. Nicole Malliotakis (R-N.Y.), who had voted for Jordan but publicly backed Scalise after he won the internal election.

It won’t be easy for any candidate to get past the internal spats that have only worsened as the GOP’s speaker fight drags on with no end in sight.

Only a messianic cult could like this situation.  Oh, wait … hold my beer.  Anyway, the deadline for government funding is sitting over our heads, as well as any hope for getting more defense weapons to Ukraine or Israel.  Axios today suggests that the messianic cult may run to members of the Democrat Party. This is delusional, but I live in New Orleans, not the District Beltway.  Thanks, Alexander Solender, for the nice midday Heroic Myth!  “Bipartisan talk grows as GOP fails to find a speaker.”  I fart in your general direction.

Lawmakers in both parties are expressing growing openness, both in public and in private, to a bipartisan deal to elect a House speaker as Republicans are continually thwarted in their efforts to do it alone.

Why it matters: With House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-La.) withdrawing despite winning his party’s nomination, some Republicans are concerned nobody can win the job with just GOP votes.

What they’re saying: “There’s a sentiment building around [a bipartisan deal] among Democrats and Republicans,” Rep. Dan Kildee (D-Mich.), a member of Democratic leadership who represents a swing district, told Axios.

• “We’re open to anything that’s reasonable,” said Rep. Maria Salazar (R-Fla.), a member of the moderate Republican Governance Group. “Bipartisanship is not a sin.”
• Rep. Don Bacon (R-Neb.), a perennial bipartisan dealmaker, said “at this point, there are enough Republican and Democrats saying we’ve got to get this fixed.”
• Rep. Greg Landsman (D-Ohio) said, as the situation devolves, he sees Republicans “absolutely” getting more open to a deal: “Yes, I mean you’re seeing that.”

State of play: With Scalise out of the running, all eyes now turn to Judiciary Committee Chair Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), a co-founder of the right-wing Freedom Caucus.

• But some of Jordan’s GOP colleagues are already predicting he’ll suffer the same fate as Scalise. “I think he’s gonna have a math problem as well,” said Mike Garcia (R-Calif.).
• Rep. Greg Murphy (R-N.C.) said “it’s going to be hard” for Jordan to win.

What we’re hearing: A bipartisan group of roughly ten House lawmakers is quietly holding “very” serious discussions, a moderate Republican involved in the discussions told Axios on the condition of anonymity.

• “The question is who gets you to the largest minority of the majority,” the GOP lawmaker said. “Is it Don Bacon, who gets 20 [GOP] votes and 200 Democrats? Is it French Hill who gets 100 votes from Republicans? And the fewer Republicans, the more dangerous this is – not just politically, but structurally.”
• Another question, the Republican said, is how many speaker candidates need to fail before people soften on the idea: “Kevin, Steve, Jordan, Emmer … how many losses do you have to have to make that an acceptable outcome?”

Between the lines: Congress is unfamiliar with bipartisan coalition governments in the vein of state legislatures and foreign governments – but the House had also never voted to oust a speaker until last Tuesday.

Thor Captures Loki
1922 W.O. Reese

Okay, that last line is the only one that makes sense.  So, that’s not going to get a lot of play.  Amanda Marcotte has written this bit, making me wonder what her beautiful black cat was doing at the time. This is from Salon. “House GOP in total chaos: So much for fascist order and discipline! Aren’t far-right movements supposed to make the trains run on time? GOP can’t elect a speaker from its own tribe.”   Here’s your daily reminder that my Daddy bombed NAZIs.  He would’ve been one hundred on the 11th and died at 92 on the same date.  I am so glad he’s not here to witness any of this.

Nearly eight decades after the end of World War II, the thing we ought to understand most clearly about Nazi propaganda is not to believe a word of it. The images pumped out by Hitler’s messaging apparatus depicting a healthy, thriving and prosperous Germany were blatant lies used to paper over a horrifying genocide, as well as a self-destructive war that left much of the nation in ruins. But there’s one historical claim made by fascists that gets accepted at face value by people who ought to know better: The idea that authoritarian regimes are models of order and discipline. Videos of goose-stepping soldiers and myths about full employment and the trains running on time have persisted in the cultural imagination. The belief that the far right is ruthlessly efficient and well organized terrifies its opponents and emboldens its supporters, then and now.

If you still buy any of that, consider the Republicans in Congress, who are behaving like a sackful of trapped weasels over what should be a simple task: Picking which one of the indistinguishable MAGA-monsters gets to be speaker of the House.

Calling this a “clown show” really undersells the situation, and is unfair to the skill and training of actual clowns. All of this kicked off last January, when it took the smaller-than-expected Republican majority 15 ballots to elect Rep. Kevin McCarthy of California who had spent his entire career in politics aiming for that moment. It didn’t go well: McCarthy’s stint with the gavel lasted less than nine months, the shortest tenure for any speaker since Michael Kerr died in office in 1876. He was ousted, of course, by Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida and seven other renegade Republicans, motivated more by a desire for airtime on Fox News than any coherent grievance against McCarthy.

So it’s not a huge surprise that the House GOP’s efforts to elect another speaker are going poorly, even though there are officially only two candidates: Rep. Steve Scalise of Louisiana and Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio. It was announced Wednesday that Scalise, previously McCarthy’s No. 2 in House leadership, had won a secret ballot vote at the GOP caucus meeting. But the prospect that Scalise could actually win a floor vote for the speakership fell apart quickly, after some of the most camera-hungry members of the GOP have refused to go along with the party’s vote. By Thursday, Scalise had enough and dropped out of the race.

Marvel’s Loki. Don’t you just love a genderfluid trickster god who likes to become a fish ever so often?

I think anyone’s cat would love the idea of trapped weasels.  So, anyone Politico messes with the Axios storyline, as we’ve just learned there’s another candidate, er sucker. “Even with last-minute challenger, Jordan poised to move toward speaker’s gavel. Republicans are meeting to hear directly from Jordan and Rep. Austin Scott, who threw his hat into the ring just before the close-door meeting.”  Who will come out of the door victorious but short of votes?

Jim Jordan is poised to take a step toward the speaker’s gavel on Friday — even as he faces a last-minute challenger.

Republicans are meeting Friday afternoon to hear directly from the Ohio conservative and Rep. Austin Scott (R-Ga.), who threw his hat into the ring just before the close-door meeting and added a new dimension to the topsy-turvy speaker’s race.

While there are enough Republicans opposed to — or wary of — a Jordan speakership to block him from getting the 217 necessary votes on the floor, he is projecting confidence that he will clear the much easier simple majority threshold for becoming the conference’s pick for speaker on Friday.

“I think I can unite the conference. I think I can go tell the country what we’re doing and why it matters,” he told reporters, adding that he feels “confident” heading into the secret ballot vote.

But whether Jordan can ultimately capture the speaker’s gavel remains far more uncertain, with a coalition of vulnerable front-liners and frustrated allies of Scalise and former Speaker Kevin McCarthy predicting that the Ohio Republican falls short.

Scott’s entry is viewed more as a move designed to pull over Jordan critics and give the House GOP conference another choice. In a statement, the Georgia Republican said that he wanted to “lead a House that functions in the best interest of the American people.”

But one House Republican, speaking on condition of anonymity, predicted that whoever votes for Austin on Friday “will be a slightly overstated proxy for the Never Jordan people.”

“Others are keeping their powder dry until Jordan realizes he has no path to 217,” the Republican added.

Underscoring that uneasiness, several Republicans left a Friday morning closed-door meeting making it clear that they wanted to see who else other than Jordan would run.

Loki and Sigyn, by Arthur Rackham (c. 1867-1939)

Perhaps prognostication is best left to the Delphi Oracle, the Nechung Oracle, or the Oracle of Omaha?  Well, there is the congressman who went to my high school and represents that district in Omaha.

“When you reward bad behavior you get more of it. So I struggle with that,” said Rep. Don Bacon (R-Neb.), though he stopped short of saying he will vote against Jordan.

He added that “we need to have enough time for other folks to consider [running] and to come up with a game plan.” Bacon floated other alternatives including Reps. Tom Cole (R-Okla.), Tom Emmer (R-Minn.) and Patrick McHenry(R-N.C.).

Notice they always stop short of saying I wouldn’t vote for them because their assholes who misbehave even though I am a pontificating asshole myself?

So, here’s more reads if you haven’t already been tired out by this nastiness.

 NBC News: House speaker live updates: Republicans weigh Jim Jordan after Steve Scalise quits

Carl Hulse  for the New York Times: With the World in Crisis, House Republicans Bicker Among Themselves

Luke Broadwater  for the New York Times: Jordan to Seek Speakership as Republican Infighting Rages

Steven T. Dennis for  Bloomberg: Top House Republican Wants Help From Democrats to Pick a Speaker

What’s on your reading and blogging list today?

Enjoy this from the Stop Making Sense tour, which is about to hit its 40th anniversary!