{"id":16038,"date":"2024-02-25T12:46:31","date_gmt":"2024-02-25T12:46:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/2024\/02\/25\/burning-down-the-house-february-has-been-an-unmitigated-disaster-for-republicans\/"},"modified":"2024-02-25T12:46:31","modified_gmt":"2024-02-25T12:46:31","slug":"burning-down-the-house-february-has-been-an-unmitigated-disaster-for-republicans","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/2024\/02\/25\/burning-down-the-house-february-has-been-an-unmitigated-disaster-for-republicans\/","title":{"rendered":"Burning down the House: February has been an unmitigated disaster for Republicans"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Ah\u2026 Watch out!<\/p>\n

You might get what you\u2019re after.<\/p>\n

Cool babies.<\/p>\n

Strange. But I\u2019m not a stranger.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m an ordinary guy.<\/p>\n

Burning down the house. \u2014Talking Heads. \u2018Burning Down the House.\u2019 1983<\/p>\n

David Byrne\u2019s hypnotic, octave plunge between the lyrics \u2018watch\u2019 and \u2018out\u2019 is a sonic caveat.<\/p>\n

Those are the very first lines of the Talking Heads \u201880s anthem \u2018Burning Down the House.\u2019 The listener is forewarned. A tumultuous musical adventure lies ahead. The pending libretto is gnarly gibberish. Words which fit together \u2014 but don\u2019t make any sense. A near homage to \u2018I Am the Walrus\u2019 by the Beatles.<\/p>\n

Like Byrne\u2019s lyrics, what\u2019s going on these days in the U.S. House of Representatives, doesn\u2019t make a lot of sense.<\/p>\n

Watch out. The House is seemingly out of control right now. Political arsonists are striking matches and pouring gasoline all over the place.<\/p>\n

Republicans hold the majority. But they\u2019ve been burning down their own House.<\/p>\n

\u2018Things have not been functioning well at all and that needs to change,\u2019 beseeched Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick, R-Penn.<\/p>\n

Chaos grips the House.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s saying something, considering this is an institution which practically mastered dysfunction.<\/p>\n

\u2018We can\u2019t get anything done,\u2019 lamented Rep. Mike Quigley, D-Ill.<\/p>\n

Lawmakers are exasperated.<\/p>\n

\u2018My Republican friends are barely hanging onto this majority by their fingernails,\u2019 said Rep. Jim McGovern, D-Mass., the top Democrat on the House Rules Committee.<\/p>\n

My house\u2026<\/p>\n

Is out of the ordinary.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s right.<\/p>\n

Don\u2019t want to hurt nobody.<\/p>\n

House Republicans have blocked their own bills \u2014\u00a0drawn up with the blessing of GOP leaders\u00a0\u2014 from hitting the House floor a staggering six times in the past eight months. The House usually requires the lawmakers approve a \u2018rule\u2019 to allocate debate time and dictate whether amendments are in order. Only then can legislation come to the floor.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The majority usually votes yes, greenlighting the debate. The minority customarily opposes the rule. But Republicans have torched\u00a0their own rule\u00a0six times. That\u2019s a startling figure. Previous majorities only defeated\u00a0two\u00a0rules in the previous 23 years.<\/p>\n

Republicans have struggled for 13 months now with their narrow majority. It started with the 15-round Speaker\u2019s race in January of last year \u2014 an exercise not witnessed since 1858.<\/p>\n

\u2018We only had a two-vote margin at the end (of our majority),\u2019 said former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif.<\/p>\n

But Pelosi could empathize with the contemporary struggles of House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La.<\/p>\n

\u2018I don\u2019t think people understand how hard it is,\u2019 said Pelosi \u2018Respect members on both sides of the aisle. Build consensus. Prioritize your issues. Don\u2019t put people out on a limb on things that aren\u2019t important.\u2019<\/p>\n

T. S. Eliot wrote that \u2018April is the cruelest month\u2019 in his seminal poem, \u2018The Waste Land.\u2019<\/p>\n

Back on Capitol Hill, Johnson, might argue with Elliot about the brutality of April.<\/p>\n

February has been an unmitigated disaster for House Republicans. More things have gone wrong for the GOP than points scored in the NBA All-Star Game.<\/p>\n

To wit:<\/p>\n

Republicans torched two of their own \u2018rules.\u2019 They failed during their first attempt to impeach Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas \u2014 before impeaching him by just a solitary vote after the GOP took a mulligan. Johnson even put a bill on the floor to aid Israel \u2014 which promptly failed. That was an unforced error. Conventional wisdom is that Johnson shouldn\u2019t have pressed on the Israel bill \u2014 especially since the defeat came moments after the failed impeachment vote. And Republicans even saw their meager majority dwindle even further.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Former Rep. Tom Suozzi, D-N.Y. won a special election in New York to succeed expelled Rep. George Santos, R-N.Y. The GOP majority will shrink from 219 Republicans to 213 Democrats when the House swears-in Suozzi on Wednesday. That means Johnson can only lose two votes on any given roll call and still pass a measure \u2014 sans Democratic assistance.<\/p>\n

On the morning after Suozzi\u2019s victory, Ryan Schmelz of Fox News Radio asked Johnson how he\u2019d \u2018handle a narrow majority.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u2018Just as we do every day. We just do a lot of member discussion,\u2019 replied Johnson.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s about the math. But how they\u2019ve done things \u2018every day\u2019 hasn\u2019t provided a victory.<\/p>\n

This is why some Republicans are taking aim at Johnson. They\u2019ve regretted the House ditching former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif. That\u2019s why McCarthy allies are particularly infuriated at how bad things have been in the House of late.<\/p>\n

\u2018Whatever the cards were for McCarthy are the same cards that are being dealt to Speaker Johnson,\u2019 said Rep. Carlos Gimenez, R-Fla. \u2018All it did was take a crowbar to it and make it worse.\u2019<\/p>\n

Some Republicans criticized the leadership for indecision and making late play calls.<\/p>\n

\u2018They\u2019ve got to start thinking strategically over the long-term. Not just what\u2019s in front of us,\u2019 said Rep. Byron Donalds, R-Fla.<\/p>\n

Some lawmakers are certainly making long-term strategic decisions. They\u2019re getting out.<\/p>\n

So far, five committee chairs have announced their retirements: Appropriations Committee Chairwoman Kay Granger, R-Tex., Energy and Commerce Committee Chairwoman Cathy McMorris Rodgers, R-Wash., special China committee Chairman Mike Gallagher, R-Wisc., Financial Services Committee Chairman Patrick McHenry, R-N.C. and Homeland Security Committee Chairman Mark Green, R-Tenn.<\/p>\n

Green said he wouldn\u2019t seek re-election shortly after the House impeached Mayorkas. Green will serve as the lead impeachment manager (or prosecutor) as the House presents its case to the Senate. Green saw that as an opportunity to go out on top.<\/p>\n

\u2018My point being, you go out for the win, right? And I\u2019ve accomplished what I wanted to do,\u2019 said Green.<\/p>\n

A recent poll by Monmouth University found that only 17 percent of people surveyed approve of the job Congress is doing. But not everyone believes political paralysis is bad.<\/p>\n

\u2018Let me just tell you something about the people I represent,\u2019 said Rep. Chip Roy, R-Tex. \u2018They don\u2019t want this body to keep passing more laws and spending more money for the sake of it.\u2019<\/p>\n

This is the \u2018burning down the House\u2019 problem which bedevils lawmakers. Especially as two government funding deadlines loom.<\/p>\n

We talked about February and April earlier. So expect March to enter like a lion.<\/p>\n

So not only burning down the House. But perhaps shutting down the government, too.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

This post appeared first on FOX NEWS<\/div>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ah\u2026 Watch out! You might get what you\u2019re after. Cool babies. Strange. But I\u2019m not a stranger. I\u2019m an ordinary guy. Burning down the house. \u2014Talking Heads. \u2018Burning Down the House.\u2019 1983 David Byrne\u2019s hypnotic, octave plunge between the lyrics \u2018watch\u2019 and \u2018out\u2019 is a sonic caveat. Those are the very first lines of the <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":16039,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[25],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-16038","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-politics"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16038","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16038"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16038\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16039"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16038"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16038"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16038"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}