“This is, in my opinion, political incontinence on our part. We are wetting ourselves and can’t do anything about. This is insane”

Steve Womack

Said: Rep. Steve Womack (R-Ark.) commenting on a small faction of GOP leaders who were bent upon blockibg the functioning of the House. 

Leadership remains unclear what exactly the group of 11 Republicans want, and different members want different things, making it more difficult to address their concerns.

According to The Washington Post, a two-day stalemate between hard-right Republicans and GOP leaders has effectively frozen the House from considering any legislation for the foreseeable future, as both groups failed to find a resolution to the standoff that would allow the majority to vote on bills.

"McCarthy, Biden and their lieutenants had brokered a deal days before to suspend the debt ceiling until 2025 and cut federal spending, prompting outrage from several hard-right GOP lawmakers who argued that the bill did not cut spending enough — and who accused McCarthy of violating several promises that they say helped them elect him speaker. The blockade presents a high-stakes challenge for McCarthy. The conflict not only threatens McCarthy’s tenure with the speaker’s gavel, but also the House’s ability to take up any legislation, contributing to growing irritation within the razor-thin majority," the Post reported.

“This is, in my opinion, political incontinence on our part. We are wetting ourselves and can’t do anything about. This is insane,” Rep. Steve Womack (R-Ark.) said. “This is not the way a governing majority is expected to behave. And frankly, I think there’ll be a political cost to it.”

Womack did not save criticism for leaders, noting that rank-and-file members had not heard from their leadership all day about what was happening Wednesday.

“You got the tail wagging the dog. You got a small group of people who are pissed off that are keeping the house of representatives from functioning today, and I think the American people are not going to take too kindly to that,” he added.

"Why do anchors and their guests behave like ghouls at a post-mortem when their patient is still alive?"

"Why do anchors and their guests behave like ghouls at a post-mortem when their patient is still alive?," asked Mukul Kesavan, a historian, novelist and political and social essayist.

Mukul Kesavan, in his article titled "BJP-bin Dakshin" in The Telegraph online, reviewed the way anchors at different TV channels were covering the live election results of the Karnataka Assembly yesterday. He specially cited a moment during the Karnataka results show when the Congress’s leads dropped to 113, a bare majority. According to him the oddest reaction to the Congress’s brief slump in the leads was Rajdeep Sardesai’s bizarre outburst on the India Today channel. "Sardesai took it upon himself to chide the Congress spokesperson, Congress leaders, and party workers for a) not working hard enough on the ground to ensure a substantial majority and b) for celebrating prematurely," he wrote.

However, when it became clear that the Congress was all set to comfortably cross the majority mark, most anchors changed their tune and started praising the Congress's overall strategy. Kesavan termed the election coverage as 'T20-style' and asked: "Why do anchors and their guests behave like ghouls at a post-mortem when their patient is still alive?"

Read the full article here.