You Can't Handle the Truth! Part II

By Rich Kozlovich 

On Monday, April 25, 2022 I published this piece, You Can't Handle the Truth!, wherein I cover my views on leadership.  Leaders often aren't really leaders.  They're mostly managers who organize the direction everyone wants to go, hence, most leaders are popularity contest winners, and never really get anything changed that needs to be changed.  

Change isn't just an intellectual effort, it's an emotional effort, requiring certain mental and psychological characteristics, and a really tough hide, because the personal attacks are going to come in droves.  Real leaders striving for change aren't interested in money, power, prestige, privilege or position.  For the real leaders it's all about the mission, and they're prepared to face the consequences to accomplish that mission.  What's that mission? They despise the lies and the corruption, and they just want what's right.   One of my personal heroes is Col. John Boyd who made what I think is a fundamentally profound statement in it's simplicity:

"Ask for my loyalty, I’ll give you my honesty. Ask for my honesty, you’ll have my loyalty."

In that piece I discussed Kevin McCarthy saying: 

First, I have little confidence the Republican party, as it's now configured, will accomplish anything after they take control in 2023, at least not without Trump as President.  However, I do think there may well be enough actual conservatives who get elected this time to throw out Kevin McCarthy as Speaker of the House, and possibly Mitch McConnell as the Senate leader. 

Well, most of that turned out to be wrong.  I also listed links to these articles, and McCarthy's intrinsic ability to capitulate under pressure.

•  We need to talk about Kevin McCarthy
•  STEVE BANNON Delivers Warning to Kevin McCarthy: “He Either Heaves on a Full MAGA Agenda or He’s Gone” (VIDEO)
• Audio: Kevin McCarthy Tells Liz Cheney He Will Recommend Trump Resign
  
• What gives with the McCarthy tape? 
• 'This Is a MAGA Party Now': Joe Biden Calls Out GOP After McCarthy's Leaked Comments on Trump 

Of course when the tide changed, AKA polls, McCarthy who wanted that ‘son of a b....' Trump out of politics, had an epiphany.  An epiphany mind you, must of been kinda like Paul on the Road to Damascus!  So, he went to Mar-a-Lago, genuflected and kissed Trump's ring seeking forgiveness, "because on reflection he realized just how wrong he was".  Lions, tigers and bears, Oh My!

You mean he needed time to see what was obvious to the most casual observer?  So, that's the quality of his intellect and political insights? Remarkable!

Well, two things. First the Senate didn't go Republican and the House barely became Republican, a situation that will only get worse if they don't fix the massive fraud going on in American elections.  As a result the most unpopular Republican in the nation, Mitch McConnell, is still going to be Republican leader in the Senate, and kicking McCarthy out as Speaker has now become problematic.  Why?  Two things.  

Unlike Senate leadership roles, which was created by the Senate, the Speaker of the House is a Constitutionally mandated position, and all members of the House vote for the Speaker, which takes  218 votes to become speaker, and McCarthy doesn't have them.  As of November 19th he only got 188 Republicans to vote for him.  And once someone is elected, they're there for two years, there's no do over.

So it's actually possible for a Democrat to become the Speaker for a Republican house, not likely, but not impossible either.  Also, the Speaker doesn't even have to be a member of the House, which is why there's all this foolish talk about making Trump Speaker.  That's not going to happen.  

•  Update:  11/21/22, 07:44 AM - This American Thinker piece shed some light on the vote for Speaker of the House and McCarthy.  MAGA and the House, which might explain the new spine McCarthy has seemingly developed.  Also, those 31 votes against McCarthy went to Biggs.  One more thing, although he claims he won't do it, McCarthy could ask Democrats to vote for him, and if that happens, he's toast as a Republican leader, no matter if he's Speaker of not.   RK

Here are some pieces on McConnell and McCarthy that outlines their history, and McCarthy is in my mind a notorious flipflopper, first supporting Liz Chaney and then condemning her, and all done with the same information at his disposal, except of course the last poll that created an "epiphany" and motivated his "moral" outrage. 

• McConnell joins Cheney and Kinzinger in giving aid and comfort to the swamp's denizens 
• Now Kevin McCarthy calls January 6 a 'violent insurrection': GOP war deepens after Trump attacked Mitch McConnell for calling it an 'insurrection' 
• Kevin McCarthy, Frank Luntz, and Other Cozy Swamp Connections
• McCarthy, allies retaliate against Freedom Caucus leader

So, now we have House Republican Freedom Caucus members, like Andy Biggs,  saying I cannot vote for Kevin McCarthy as House Speaker.  As for Kevin McCarthy, he's always been...at best....a leaky vessel.  Now McCarthy and his leadership team are refusing to adopt desired rule changes by conservatives, especially those involving spending reductions and restrictions, including ear marks, which the Democrats reintroduced.  House conservatives are disappointed, but claim they're not defeated.  We'll see, and in the meanwhile Kevin is putting on a vertebrate "show" by declaring:

That when he becomes the speaker of the House of Representatives in January he plans to remove “Squad” member Rep. Ilhan Omar, (D-MN), from the House Foreign Affairs Committee due to her “antisemitic” comments.

That's it?  How about Mad Maxine who has been a virtual fog horn for violence against Republicans, including those in office?  How about "The Squad" for their outrageous actions and statements?   Don’t get sucked in to supporting Kevin McCarthy just because he’s doing the right thing with Ilhan Omar.

Well, he's claiming  I'll keep promise to bar Swalwell, Schiff and Oman from committees,  We'll see, but that isn't nearly enough.

One of my favorite writers is Clarice Feldman, and on November 20, 2022 she posted this piece, Congressional Hearings -- Do Them Right or Not at All, stating:

At the Federalist, Jordan Boyd offers up a proposed agenda for the new House of Representatives.................Assuming, for the sake of discussion, Republicans can overcome McCarthy and his presumed uniparty aspirations, Boyd argues that the limitations on legislative ability and to keep the promises the party made to voters it must “punish the Biden bureaucracy and its Democrat allies for creating endless crises.”  Boyd’s agenda is the following, not necessarily in the order he ranked them:

• Impeach Joe Biden
• Impeach Merrick Garland. Impeachment is something McCarthy said earlier he would not want to start with. I hope he will change his mind, because I think it essential.
• Defund the FBI
• Disband the J6 Committee (Note: I disagree, this should be extended and expanded with conservatives on that committee, and recall everyone who has testified in order to be properly questioned, including Nancy Pelosi. Then and only then will the truth be exposed.  RK)
  
• Probe the Biden family business
• Subpoena COVID Tyrants -- Anthony Fauci, Deborah Birx, former CDC Director Robert Redfield “who lied about the origins, research, effects and mitigation of COVID-19.”(In this regard we have learned that the odious FTX crowdfunded studies “through TOGETHER Trial falsely claiming hydroxychloroquine, ivermectin weren’t effective Covid treatments.”)
• Impeach Myorkas and others over failures to secure the border.

Will McCarthy end up being Speaker.  I think so.  Will any of this happen?  We'll see, but given McCarthy's ability to collapse under pressure, I certainly have misgivings.   Just like Joe Biden, never underestimate McCarthy's ability to screw things up.  And all this is a sad commentary on the Republican party.