Lucas: Kevin McCarthy will soon become most powerful Republican in the country

He’s the new guy on the block but watch out, he’s been around.

No, we are not talking about Republican Govs. Ron DeSantis of Florida, or Gregg Abbott of Texas or any of the other GOP governors or senators running for president.

Nor are we talking about Donald Trump, who in the face of serious headwinds, is attempting to be the Comeback Kid of 2024.

The “new” guy is Republican U.S. Rep. Kevin McCarthy, 57, who is scheduled to be elected Speaker of the House come January.

The Republican majority takeover of the House may be slim, but McCarthy appears to have enough GOP votes to be elected Speaker. And when he does, he will become the most powerful Republican in the country, and this includes Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, Donald Trump and all the rest.

As Speaker, McCarthy will also be third in line to the presidency. The House also controls the power of the purse.

And while he has said that his first order of business will be to halt President Biden from hiring 87,000 IRS agents to shake down already overburdened working Americans, he must first officially dump Nancy Pelosi. Which he will do even though Pelosi, 82, reading the election returns, has already stepped down from her Democrat leadership position, taking her octogenarian assistants with her.

But now she must officially hand over the Speaker’s gavel to McCarthy, who for the next two years will use it to investigate, fumigate and dismantle Joe Biden and his calamitous administration.

McCarthy’s second act will be to dump three Democrats from their committee assignments — Rep. Ilhan Omar of Minnesota for alleged anti-Semitic remarks, Eric Swalwell and Adam Schiff of California from the House Intelligence Committee, one for his connection to a Chinese spy and the other for “lying” about Russian collusion.

In Schiff’s case, he could now be up Schiff’s Creek without a paddle.

And if McCarthy’s border press conference in El Paso, Texas last week is any indication of things to come, it is, in the words of the immortal Bette Davis in the movie classic All About Eve — “Fasten your seatbelts, it’s going to be a bumpy night.”

At that press conference, McCarthy called for the resignation of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas and promised an impeachment inquiry if he did not do so. Mayorkas so far has refused to resign.

He also said Republican-controlled House committees will hold immigration hearings at the border and invite Democrats to attend to see what Biden’s reckless open border policy has wrought.

Mayorkas is our Baghdad Bob — Minister of Information Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf — who told reporters that there were no Americans in Baghdad during the 2003 Iraq War while in the background U.S troops were blowing up a statue of dictator Saddam Hussein.

In Mayorkas’ case, he has repeatedly insisted, despite contrary evidence, that the southern border was secure as thousands of immigrants openly crossed into the country. On his watch, some 5 million immigrants from countries around the world have illegally crossed Mayorkas’ “secure” border since Mayorkas and Biden took office. That amounts to the entire population of Ireland.

In fiscal 2022 alone, 2.7 million illegals entered the country, the highest number ever. And the numbers do not account for the thousands of getaways, including criminals and terrorists. Nobody even knows who they are.

Biden, Mayorkas and the border will be just one of the investigations McCarthy and the Republicans in the House will launch.

Rep. James Comer of Kentucky, the incoming chairman of the House Oversight Committee, has promised a full-scale probe, backed by subpoena power, into Hunter Biden’s questionable Chinese, Russian and Ukrainian business dealings and their connection to the “Big Guy,” identified as President Biden, his father.

Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio, who will chair the House Judiciary Committee, has promised to delve into the Democrat politicization of the U.S. Justice Department and the FBI.

And there are more, like Biden’s botched Afghanistan withdrawal and the Chinese origins of COVID-19.

So, fasten your seatbelts, it’s going to be a bumpy ride.

Peter Lucas is a veteran Massachusetts political reporter and columnist.

from Boston Herald https://ift.tt/VWZa4dO