Just four days out from a government shutdown, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy has declared a bipartisan Senate stopgap measure dead on arrival.

Senators, having apparently lost faith in McCarthy’s ability to stave off a shutdown, negotiated a bill late Tuesday night that funds the government until Nov. 17 and includes $12 billion in aid and disaster relief for Ukraine. It’s expected to be voted on by the end of the week before being sent over to the House, and is intended to buy lawmakers more time to hash out a longer-term deal, Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) said.

But, according to Punchbowl News, McCarthy said in a closed-door meeting on Wednesday morning that he wouldn’t take up a bill that includes Ukraine funding but no border security measures. “I don’t see the support in the House,” he reportedly said.

Aid for Ukraine has been one of several sticking points for ultraconservative hardliners in the House who have repeatedly sabotaged McCarthy’s efforts to get spending bills passed.

  • Flying Squid
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    1521 year ago

    This stupid fuck. All he has to do is negotiate with the Democrats. His speakership is over regardless. He must know that. The only point in what he’s doing now is cruelty. People will starve and he’s fine with it. He wants it.

    • @AllonzeeLV
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      1 year ago

      His speakership is over.

      If he allows Democrats to save his ass, Republican voters will despise him, costing him paid gigs as a Republican pundit in their echo chambers where Republican voters go to have their fucked up biases reconfirmed in between My Pillow ads.

      Americans have permitted greed to become the first and only consideration in every facet of American life. That has consequences, well deserved consequences.

      This is what happens when hyper-individualism and greed become core societal values instead of the severe character defects that harm others they actually are. There isn’t some magic switch that flips for people when they become politicians that makes them selfless. They take the dog eat dog, capitalist, “I got mine and fuck you,” rational self-interest core American values that we fully celebrate and mandate in every other aspect of American life with them, and vote on legislation solely on the basis of what they personally have to further gain. As long as we encourage our people to be selfish as a culture, as we do to the extreme, our leadership will be a reflection of that. So long as a typical American parent is proud of their oil executive child for making lots of money, instead of ashamed at the harm their child’s chosen industry does to society, we will have McCarthys in charge.

      No honor among capitalists. Just a race down into oblivion. We chose to keep the delusion of making “fuck you” money alive at the expense of being a society that cares about what happens to each other and future generations. And sadly there’s more Americans that somehow still want to stay on that course, as we’re all just temporarily embarrassed millionaires who don’t want to be hindered by what we still owe to society when it’s our turn to punch down.

      “I’m not rich, but someday I will be, and then all the poories better watch their step!”

      -The perfectly healthy American mindset

    • Buelldozer
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      1 year ago

      All he has to do is negotiate with the Democrats.

      He did. The Budget was negotiated with President Biden back in June / July. What’s happened is that he can’t get the Freedom Caucus to vote for what he negotiated. It’s ridiculous.

      • Flying Squid
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        201 year ago

        He doesn’t need their votes. He needs the Democrats and a handful of Republicans.

        • TechyDad
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          111 year ago

          True, except the Freedom Caucus is threatening to hold a vote to remove him as Speaker if he dares do anything they don’t like.

          McCarthy wants to keep his power position (even though, as it’s currently set up, he doesn’t really have much power) more than he wants to help this country. If helping the country would result in some minor harm to the level of power he has, he’ll let America burn.

          • @[email protected]
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            41 year ago

            So make part of the negotiations with the Democrats to support him when they try to remove him as speaker. It’s simple.

            • TechyDad
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              71 year ago

              I agree, but McCarthy is still clinging to the hope that he’ll escape this without anyone subjecting him to another vote for his speakership. (He’s delusional.)

            • @hydrospanner
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              21 year ago

              Right?

              The house is close, but it’s not so close that the Dems can get Jeffries in. The next best thing is letting the GOP absolutely tear each other apart.

              Which they’re doing.

              And right now, the best way to thread the political needle, would be to basically offer McCarthy a deal with the Dem devil:

              Bring the Senate bill to the floor and find just five of your GOP friends to vote for it. In return, we back you when that pedophile Gaetz, she-ape Greene, and Trashy Barbie Boebert set up a recall vote. We’ll back you, and surely you can come up with 5 votes from your own side…right?

            • @cybersandwich
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              01 year ago

              This is what I dont get. He could make a deal that he’ll pass that budget as is, but the dems need to vote for it AND they have to have a handful offset the MAGA caucus if they try to remove him. Whats wrong with our congress that they’d rather shut down everything vs working with each other.

          • Flying Squid
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            31 year ago

            He’s lost his speakership no matter what at this point.

            • TechyDad
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              41 year ago

              He’s still delusional enough to think that he’ll cling onto it using some brilliant maneuver. Were McCarthy an extremely skilled politician, I might think that was possible, but McCarthy is far from extremely skilled. Very, very far from it.

          • @reddig33
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            11 year ago

            He’s going to be removed anyway. He’s chicken shit.

    • @dangblingus
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      51 year ago

      This is his negotiation. It’s incredibly weak sauce, but that’s where he’s at. Negotiations hit impasses all the time. He has to signal to the Republican voters and his colleagues that he won’t give a dime to Ukraine unless they build some kind of “not wall” to prevent scary Mexicans from flying into America and overstaying their visa.