(C) Daily Kos This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . ICYMI - Kevin McCarthy will take us back to the glory days of Calvin Coolidge. The word from Pierce [1] ['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.', 'Backgroundurl Avatar_Large', 'Nickname', 'Joined', 'Created_At', 'Story Count', 'N_Stories', 'Comment Count', 'N_Comments', 'Popular Tags'] Date: 2023-01-07 Clavin Coolidge (right) working out with Representative Frederick Gillett. Manly men - strong leaders! Charles P. Pierce has something that takes him above and beyond the stock pundit class: a real sense of history. He was watching the slow roasting of Kevin McCarthy when something happened that caught his attention: A congressman named French Hill, a Republican from Arkansas, was nominating McCarthy again, prior to another futile roll call. Hill had avoided my radar completely; the House is full of people like him. The most remarkable thing about French Hill is probably his name. But on Thursday, French Hill got his moment in the national spotlight, and he didn't muff his chance. In fact, he grabbed it with both hands, and what he did with it brought me straight out of my chair. The fog of boredom lifted completely. I may have pulled a back muscle. Making the case for McCarthy, Hill drew on the history of Republican political economics, and what he said probably had the history department at Vanderbilt University, his alma mater, falling into what my mother used to call "HIGH-sterics." He decided to enlighten his colleagues with the story of the last time Republican infighting screwed up the election of a speaker (his comments begin at about the 6:25 mark). Brace yourselves: When Fred Gillett was elected speaker on the ninth ballot in 1923, [he had a] more unified Republican conference, one that would go to work with President Calvin Coolidge, cut government spending, balance the budget, and cut taxes while paying down the debt. House Republicans 100 years ago unleashed a pro-growth agenda. House Republicans under Speaker Kevin McCarthy will unleash a pro-growth agenda to get this economy moving. That pro-growth agenda benefited families in the ‘20s. The McCarthy pro-growth agenda will benefit families across this country today. A century later, under Speaker Kevin McCarthy—mark my words—this party will come together to unleash American energy, make the Trump tax cuts permanent, rein run-away government spending and fight for a balanced budget. I stand before you today with unqualified support to nominate my friend, the next speaker of the House, Kevin McCarthy. I admire loyalty, I truly do. But making a case for McCarthy by saying that he would return the country to the economic policies that led directly to the Great Depression is like hearing a Democrat make the case for Hakeem Jeffries through the politics of Stephen A. Douglas. And calling Coolidge's policies "pro-growth" and a benefit to "families"— unless you mean the Astors and the Rockefellers—is flatly bizarre. Paul Ryan, demonstrating that from Coolidge on, Republicans like to pass as manly men of strength. Writing like this is why I gladly pay to get through the pay wall at Esquire. Pierce has more to say on this, and a few other things. Pierce has a genius for bringing up the history we should have learned. He finishes with how the circle closes once again, and nails it with a Hemingway quote. Which brings us back to French Hill, who brought Silent Cal back into the discussion Thursday afternoon with his promise that McCarthy would bring back the Roaring Twenties. (No, I don't want to think about Lauren Boebert as a flapper.) The Republicans—and more than a few nervous Democrats—followed Reagan into the past of laissez-faire and they've never really returned. Which has resulted in the boom-and-bust economic cycle of the past 30 years and in the establishment of fraud as the basic business plan for American corporations, just as it was in the 1920s. In the aftermath of this (in the pages of this very magazine!), Ernest Hemingway threw an elbow at F. Scott Fitzgerald in his 1936 story “The Snows of Kilimanjaro”: The rich were dull and they drank too much, or they played too much backgammon. They were dull and they were repetitious. He remembered poor Scott Fitzgerald and his romantic awe of them and how he had started a story once that began, ‘The very rich are different from you and me.’ And how some one had said to Scott, Yes, they have more money. But that was not humorous to Scott. He thought they were a special glamorous race and when he found they weren't it wrecked him as much as any other thing that wrecked him. The rich can also buy better politicians. emphasis added The next two years in the House are going to be January 6 by other means. Pierce also has a take on that: Somewhere along the 12th or 13th ballot, it was the turn of Rep. James Comer (R-Kentucky) to speak up for Kevin McCarthy and to pay tribute to how eagerly McCarthy had fired his spine into outer space to become speaker of the House. Comer is a real live one, and he very likely will be the chairman of the House Oversight Committee once the House gets its act together. On Friday, he gave us confirmation that his tenure leading that committee will be a two-year session of the Airing Of Grievances (at the 2 hour, 2 minute mark at that link). To wit: They deserve answers to what really happened in that lab in Wuhan, China. Those of us who have kids in the public school system can testify that our kids have lost a year of their education because of the forced virtual learning that so many of our schools put our children through during the Covid pandemic. Congress ran the debt up at least $3 trillion in the name of Covid-19. Yet as I mentioned earlier, there has not been a single hearing in the Oversight Committee to deal with potential waste, fraud, or abuse of the Covid funds. Not a single hearing. And we all know, despite what Dr. Fauci said, American tax dollars were sent through EcoHealth Alliance to the Wuhan lab in China for gain-of-function research, but yet Dr. Fauci hasn't come before Congress and the House of Representatives[...]Now let me say this loud and clear: The Republicans will also investigate a president for potential wrongdoing in Ukraine and Russia, as well as China. The American people have a lot of questions for Dr. Fauci, Christopher Wray, Merrick Garland, and Secretary Mayorkas. We can't have those questions, we can't ask those questions until we get organized and elect our speaker. The role of the Oversight Committee under Speaker Pelosi was a full-time committee to harass the previous president, a committee to advocate for woke social issues, which the Oversight Committee has absolutely no jurisdiction over. Comer reassured the House that he will investigate everything that ever pissed off a drive-time talk show host in Kentucky. He will also investigate other investigations, including I suspect that of the January 6 select committee. The Vindication Of The Former President* will also be a priority. There will be more smoke blown than a five-alarm warehouse fire. That's what will begin as soon as they get settled in under Speaker Kevin McCarthy, the invisible man. The firm of Clouseau and Javert, Investigators, is on the case. We keep fire extingushers and alarms handy in case fire breaks out. Will somebody please break the glass and pull out the 14th Amendment, section 3? This is the emergency it was intended to head off. [END] --- [1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/1/7/2145977/-ICYMI-Kevin-McCarthy-will-take-us-back-to-the-glory-days-of-Calvin-Coolidge-The-word-from-Pierce Published and (C) by Daily Kos Content appears here under this condition or license: Site content may be used for any purpose without permission unless otherwise specified. via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds: gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailykos/