National

Jonathan Capehart analyzes a potential Keven McCarthy speakership:

That House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) could become the chamber’s next speaker should give everyone pause. Neither he nor the nation will be freed from the passions of the far-right whose incessant revolts and “unrealistic” expectations forced Speaker John Boehner to gleefully choose to spend more time with his family. [...] As I’ve said before, that there have been so many legislative failures should call into question not only McCarthy’s ability to count, but also whether he had Boehner’s best interests at heart.

Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), “who is quietly locking down support to be the next House speaker, is privately assuring Republicans he’ll take a tougher stand against the White House — and also the Senate GOP leadership,” CNN reports.

“He’s hearing from members angry that the GOP Congress has not advanced the conservative cause more forcefully, and he’s responding with a clear message: He is willing to take a more confrontational stand with the White House and the Senate to achieve the results the party has sought to enact.”

Wall Street Journal: “The most militant House Republicans are expected to be emboldened by Mr. Boehner’s departure, and even less likely to agree to a compromise with Democrats in setting spending levels for the rest of fiscal year 2016.” Good. Good. Let your hate flow through you. A new Quinnipiac poll finds 69% of Americans oppose shutting down the government over funding for Planned Parenthood. Just 23% support closing the government over the dispute. Even among Republicans, 56% oppose a shutdown due to Planned Parenthood.

Charles Pierce says the inmates are officially running the asylum.

Welcome to the monkeyhouse, America. The prion disease afflicting the Republican party finally has devoured the last vestiges of the Republican party's higher functions. I had as many problems with Boehner as Speaker as anyone did, but, dammit, he at least believed that the government should keep running. And, as much as the Times wants to believe it, this has nothing to do with the "challenges of divided government," and everything to do with the fact that the modern Republican party, especially in the House of Representatives, is completely demented. (By the way, if I were any of the Republican presidential candidates, with the possible exception of Ted Cruz, I'd be terrified by this development. If the House goes completely mad, if there is (as I suspect) a wild and bloody battle over the next Speaker, that's going to be what the eventual nominee has to deal with every day on the campaign trail.)

Molly Ball addresses the current debate about whether Pope Francis is liberal. “What makes Francis different is really a matter of which Catholic beliefs he has elevated to the level of communal concerns—public policy—and which he has framed as individual choices. To Francis, sharing wealth and fixing global warming are matters that governments should address, while not committing homosexual acts or having abortions are individual choices he endorses. (As he famously put it: ‘Who am I to judge?’) This is quite different from the American Catholic church, which has poured its political energy into laws banning gay marriage and restricting abortion.” “Francis is not an American politician, but his perspective on the state’s role in these issues lines up pretty well with that of most American Democrats.” “Francis aligns more with Democrats than Republicans on other issues: He favors immigration reform, played a major role in the Obama administration’s détente with Cuba, and supports the Iran nuclear deal. No wonder the president and other American liberals are trying to claim him—and conservatives see him as a threat.”

I wondered if this would happen after the Papal Visit. He will resign at the end of October. The delayed resignation tells me he plans to pass a clean budget with Democrats in the House and the Democrats and 8 Republican Senators who defected on the Planned Parenthood vote there on Wednesday, and fuck the consequences, since he is resigning.

I suppose a silver lining in this plan is that Maine will learn that its welfare recipients are whites who live next door, and not the Cadillac driving browns they imagine them to be.

The mayor of Lewiston, Maine, has called on the the state legislature to create a public online registry with the names and addresses of those on welfare in the state, as well as how long those individuals have been receiving benefits. In a Thursday column in the Twin City Times, Mayor Robert Macdonald wrote that "the public has a right to know how its money is being spent." He said that he would submit a bill to the legislature that would create the registry.