January 7, 2023

For Four Days, C-SPAN Was the Greatest TV Channel in the World

A Renaissance paintingBill Clark/CQ Roll Call/AP

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12:29 a.m. ET: The House finally voted confirm Kevin McCarthy as Speaker of the House. It’s been a wild ride.

As midnight approached on the fourth day of House speaker voting, things were buzzing on C-SPAN.

The freely accessible channel trained its briefly liberated cameras on Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) as he appealed to holdout Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) to take us out of our misery and vote for him. The dialogue is inaudible, but people shout as McCarthy walks down the aisle. McCarthy hears something that grabs his attention, and he turns around defiantly.

Things got physical:

Portrait of a defeated man:

Members began chanting “one more time” when it became clear that the majority had voted against a motion to adjourn. Buckle up for round 15 of voting:

Rep. Dean Phillips (D-Minn.) says what we’re all thinking:

Here’s a link to the most riveting television on air.

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We need to start raising significantly more in donations from our online community of readers, especially from those who read Mother Jones regularly but have never decided to pitch in because you figured others always will. We also need long-time and new donors, everyone, to keep showing up for us.

In "It's Not a Crisis. This Is the New Normal," we explain, as matter-of-factly as we can, what exactly our finances look like, how brutal it is to sustain quality journalism right now, what makes Mother Jones different than most of the news out there, and why support from readers is the only thing that keeps us going. Despite the challenges, we're optimistic we can increase the share of online readers who decide to donate—starting with hitting an ambitious $300,000 goal in just three weeks to make sure we can finish our fiscal year break-even in the coming months.

Please learn more about how Mother Jones works and our 47-year history of doing nonprofit journalism that you don't elsewhere—and help us do it with a donation if you can. We've already cut expenses and hitting our online goal is critical right now.

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