Kevin McCarthy has been a hack since I knew him in the 1990s

Kevin McCarthy is a hack, a schmoozer and a climber.

I remember him from the 90s, when I was on a train with him and about 100 other Young Republicans crossing the country from Washington, D.C., to San Diego for the 1996 Republican National Convention.

I was working for the National Association of Manufacturers in D.C. at the time. Kevin was working on the Hill as a staffer for powerful committee chairman Rep. Bill Thomas, whose congressional seat in Bakersfield, Calif., he now holds.

What I remember of Kevin has been reduced to a few snapshots in my mind. In the one snapshot, he’s loading beer onto the train. It’s night and the train had stopped in some lonely outpost in the West - in Colorado, maybe. I can see him in my mind’s eye standing on the steps of the train and passing cases of beer up into the train car.

In the next snapshot, we’d arrived in California and Kevin was on his cell phone and then lighting up at the sight of one of the Baldwin brothers — Stephen Baldwin maybe. They knew each other, I could see, maybe because Kevin was the chairman of the California chapter of the Young Republicans. I don’t know.

I didn’t have a floor pass to the convention, so left California after a day or two and flew back to D.C. to go back to work.

In 1997, I think it was, I got roped into helping plan the annual Young Republican convention, to be held in D.C. at the Mayflower Hotel.

We had several panels of speakers. I remember leaving the meeting room at one point, maybe to use the restroom, and on heading back toward the room, was somewhat surprised to see Kevin McCarthy out there in the hall, on his cellphone.

What was he doing? Why wasn’t he in the meeting room with everyone else?

I realized, and was a little shocked and offended to realize, that he had no interest in what was being discussed in the room. He was a hack, as we used to call people like this. Not a true believer. Not a person of substance.

It was at this convention, I believe, that Kevin was elected the national chairman of the YRs — a significant post for someone who is interested in a political career.

I never saw Kevin after this YR convention as I didn’t do much with the YRs after that.

At one point I happened to see that he’d been elected to the California legislature and that he’d become the majority leader.

I’d left Washington by then, gone to graduate school, and was working happily as a newspaper journalist — a dream fulfilled. I was chasing firetrucks, interviewing candidates for public office, and demanding public records from the local police department.

I wasn’t at all surprised to see Kevin elected to Congress, succeeding Bill Thomas, or to learn of his rising in the ranks as a member of Congress. But when he became the No. 2 in the House, after Rep. Paul Ryan, I cringed to hear his short speech. It was about himself — schtick about what a great country it is that the son of a fireman can become No. 2 in the House.

I remember thinking that it was the wrong speech for that moment, when the country, under the Obama presidency, felt like it was slipping through our fingers. We were already in a war in Syria and couldn’t seem to get out of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. The neocons were draining the country in an endless search for “monsters” abroad and it seemed the people had no say in any of it.

We heard the same from his speech on the House floor late last night (or was it this morning?) — about what a great country it is that the son of a fireman and the grandson of immigrants can become the Speaker of the House. BUT…. we heard something else from Kevin — promises that he would use the “power of the purse” and the subpoena power of Congress to investigate both the FBI and the origins of Covid-19.

I’m quite sure that we would not have heard these strong statements on two such important issues from Kevin McCarthy if a small band of rebels had not held the line for three days straight and refused to vote for him for Speaker until they’d forced him to make some concessions.

Those concessions will change the House, and the country, for the better, mainly by dispersing the power more equally among all members of Congress and allowing the People’s House to exercise the People’s will.

The concessions, Roger L. Simon reports, are the following:

1. It will only take a single member of Congress, acting in what is known as a Jeffersonian Motion, to move to remove the Speaker if he goes back on his word or policy agenda.

2. A “Church” style committee will be convened to look into the weaponization of the FBI and other government organizations (presumably the CIA, the subject of the original Church Committee) against the American people.

3. Term limits for members of Congress will be voted on.

4. Bills presented to Congress will be single-subject — no more “omnibus” bills — and there will be a 72-hour minimum period to read them.

5. The Texas Border Plan will be put before Congress. From The Hill: “The four-pronged plan aims to ‘Complete Physical Border Infrastructure,’ ‘Fix Border Enforcement Policies,’ ‘Enforce our Laws in the Interior’ and ‘Target Cartels & Criminal Organizations.'”

6. COVID mandates will be ended as will all funding for them, including so-called “emergency funding.”

7. Budget bills would stop the endless increases in the debt ceiling and hold the Senate accountable for the same.

We know from other reporting that the rebels also won the right to put three or four members of the conservative House Freedom Caucus on the Rules Committee, normally made up of close associates of the Speaker who get to decide which bills make it to the House floor, and which die in committee.

Aside from McCarthy’s statement during his acceptance speech about investigating the origins of Covid-19, we also have this Dec. 14 statement from Rep. James Comer (R-Ky) the incoming chairman of the House Committee on Government Oversight and Reform:

“Discovering the origin of COVID-19 is vital to providing accountability and protecting Americans in the future. Mounting evidence points to the virus originating from a leak at the Wuhan lab. EcoHealth Alliance, a U.S. National Institutes of Health grantee, passed taxpayer funds to the Wuhan lab to conduct gain of function research on bat coronaviruses – research that may have started the pandemic. Dr. Fauci was warned early on that the virus appeared man made and pointed to a lab leak and instead of blowing the whistle may have attempted to cover it up. The American people deserve answers and accountability. We will continue to follow the facts to determine what, if anything, could have been done differently to guard against the harms Americans have endured during the pandemic. We will continue this oversight to hold U.S. government officials accountable for any wrongdoing and ensure Americans’ tax dollars aren’t being used on risky research at unsecure labs.”

In addition, the joint press release from Comer and from the incoming chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, Jim Jordan, says that the Oversight Committee will be requesting interviews with at least 40 people as it begins its investigation.

Investigations may be the biggest thing the new Republican-majority House does, with Comer telling News Nation that House committees are looking at conducting 40-50 investigations over the next two years.

In mid-November, Just the News reported that the Republican-led House will be “getting some help from Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis) who on his own has gathered evidence about Americans injured by vaccines and conflicts of interest inside the federal health agencies.”

Comer told Just the News that he wants the Oversight Committee to look at how money from pharmaceutical companies has corrupted public health officials, but hasn’t yet made any specific mention of investigating injuries and deaths caused by the vaccines.