garuda slotvip Rep. Patrick McHenry sat in the House Financial Services Committee office on Dec. 19, looking fairly relaxed, despite the chaos erupting around him in every other corridor of the Capitol. He had already been asked to move out of his office in the Rayburn building to make room for the next member of Congress who would occupy it. Cardboard boxes were stacked against the wall to his right. From one of them peeked out a plaque that marked his time as the nation’s first House speaker pro-tem. On a table lay two large photographs of McHenry on the House floor during major moments from this session of Congress. He had only seen them for the first time that morning. McHenry sat back in his leather chair ready to talk about his 20-year congressional career, and how it was about to come to an end. But everywhere else in the building, the only conversations happening were about Republican infighting and a potential government shutdown, a constant refrain from the last two years. McHenry looked calm. “This place doesn’t stop,” McHenry said. “It’s just not built that way. So I look back at 20 years and think about the results I got, the type of work I engaged in and the people I engaged with and accrued over the years. “There’s no grand retirement flourish, where the institution stops and all of America stops in reverence or whatever else. That does not happen for members of the House,” McHenry said. As McHenry spoke, breaking news scrolled on the TV across from him about the latest developments in the efforts to fund the government. A funding bill would eventually pass and prevent a shutdown. It’s similar to the place where McHenry found himself at the start of this session of Congress, the place that cost his friend Kevin McCarthy his leadership role and the place that made McHenry have to step in and lead the House for 22 days until Mike Johnson was chosen to succeed McCarthy as House speaker. Rep. Richard Hudson, a Republican from Southern Pines and chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee, thought back to that moment as he talked about his longtime friend McHenry’s time in office. “If you think about the great turmoil it was for Congress, for the country; and he was just such a steady hand,” Hudson said. “If he mishandled that. If he let his ego get in the way of that, if he tried to grab more power for himself, it would have been detrimental for the institution — detrimental for our country. To show great restraint, great judgment: to lose someone like that, you just can’t replace them.” Becoming speaker It was Oct. 3, 2023, when McHenry made his way from the back of the House chamber to the dais as he saw the vote to oust McCarthy going the wrong direction. Few people knew at the time, but McCarthy had asked McHenry to step in if anything should happen to him. It was part of McCarthy’s role as speaker to name a successor in an emergency, under a post-9/11 rule. But people thought if that happened it would be because of something catastrophic, and not Republican infighting. The clerk announced the vote total. McCarthy was out. McHenry was in. McHenry raised the gavel and slammed it as hard as he could , releasing his pent-up anger. It became a gif, a meme, the butt of late-night comedy. And McHenry’s older sister did what any good sister would do: she sent him “the cruelest things” said about him on the internet. “She knew that was exactly what I needed,” McHenry said. “I mean, truly. And she sent me some of the funniest stuff, and like some of the meanest stuff, and gave me her commentary about all of it. When you look like me and you’re my size, you better have a good sense of humor.” For the record: McHenry would not comment on how tall he is, but he’s taller than this reporter, who is 5-foot-2. And with the gavel slam heard round the world, McHenry recessed the House having no idea if he was allowed to adjourn it as speaker pro-tem. No one had been in this position before, so there were a lot of questions about what he could or couldn’t do. As the days stretched on his colleagues offered him, and sometimes urged him to take on, more power than he deemed constitutionally allowed. He went quiet, believing anything he said or did could shape the position’s power for future generations. And he didn’t take any of the extras he was offered. “I’ve studied the institution and it’s one thing to understand checks and balances in a cerebral way, or study it,” McHenry said. “It’s another thing to be in it. What the Founding Fathers envisioned was you would primarily want to be jealous for your branch of government and then, in fighting for that branch, (provide) the checks and balances to the American people; their liberties are protected.” McHenry said each branch of government needs to function well in order for them to be aligned. “The House is meaningful because we empowered the speaker to be on par with the president, to negotiate on our behalf and to have the powers of the institution,” McHenry said. “The president pro-tempore of the Senate is a ceremonial gig. The speaker is a meaningful negotiator of outcomes. So if we diminish the powers of the institution, if we diminish the powers of the speakership, we diminish the powers of the House; we then throw out of alignment the constitutional balance since the first Congress.” McHenry ‘the firebrand’ McHenry wasn’t always like this — so measured. “Patrick preceded me by one term in the legislature,” said Sen. Thom Tillis, a former speaker of the North Carolina House. “He had a great reputation down there, but it was interesting in the legislature. He had a reputation as sort of a firebrand.” McHenry, a Republican from Lincoln County, won his election to the state House in 2002. Then in 2004 he was elected to Congress, making him, at 29, the youngest member. McHenry was still in high school when he met Hudson, who was in college. They were working on opposing campaigns for governor. “It’s just really incredible to watch his development over the years from energetic campaign volunteer to college Republican leader to freshman rabble-rouser in the House to really an elder statesman. He’s, of all the people I’ve ever worked with, he’s just one of the smartest on policy, smartest on strategy; great with people.” But Hudson laughs as he remembers young McHenry picking fights with Democrats whenever McHenry thought they were spending too much or doing something wrong. He said McHenry and former Rep. Barney Frank, a Democrat, both knew parliamentary procedure well and the two of them would get into it. “McHenry would just twist him in knots with parliamentary procedure, and Barney would get mad. His face would get red. Barney kind of had a unique tone to his voice anyway, but when he got mad it would get more high-pitched.” Hudson said watching the two of them duke it out was “high entertainment.” McHenry doesn’t shy away from talking about his reputation when he first entered Congress. “What I did in my first and second term was, I wanted to be in the big fights that consumed the House and I thought to engage in those fights would further conservative policy,” McHenry said. “And in my second term, I realized that my actions did not yield the results that I wanted them to yield.” Hudson pointed to a “seminal moment” involving then-Rep. Jeff Flake, who he said would “introduce amendments to strike people’s earmarks.” “McHenry had one that was for the Christmas tree industry, which is huge in North Carolina,” Hudson said. “Jeff introduced dozens of these amendments. Everybody voted against them, they’d all fail, but in this case, because McHenry had agitated Democrats so much, all the Democrats voted to strip out this earmark. It was important to Patrick’s district.” Hudson said that was a wake-up call for McHenry. McHenry told McClatchy he noticed that his actions weren’t yielding the results he wanted so he found mentors, studied what lawmakers past and present did and read about the institution and legislative craftsmanship and power. “In studying all those things and studying the institution and the history of the institution, that’s how I created the pathway that I then followed, for frankly the next 16 years,” McHenry said. Setting goals in Congress McHenry said in his second term he decided he either wanted to chair the Financial Services Committee or become whip. From 2014 to 2019, McHenry served as chief deputy whip, a position he called “an incredible honor.” His favorite place in the Capitol is by the whip desk in the House chamber, he said. “That’s the cockpit for the majority party,” McHenry said. “You’re at the whip desk, you know the count, you know who has voted, you know how they voted and if you’re in that position you know why they voted.” He was asked to step in for House Majority Whip Steve Scalise after a gunman opened fire, on June 14, 2017, on Republican members of Congress practicing for the congressional baseball game. McHenry ran for whip, but did not win election. Financial Services chairman He then focused himself toward his other goal. McHenry calls the issues before the Financial Services Committee his passion project, and thinks about how those issues affected his father when he started a small business in lawn service. “That’s been my motivator on this committee,” McHenry said. “Helping the small business person that just wants to start a little business in their backyard so they can provide for their family.” McHenry points out that the committee isn’t high-profile, but it touches every American in meaningful ways. “So to chair this committee was in itself, that was the high-water mark of everything I dreamed of achieving in Congress,” McHenry said. McHenry took the helm of the committee in January 2023. He chuckles slightly when he thinks back to his plans for the start of the 118th Congress. They were thorough. But you know what they say about plans. In October 2022, McHenry sat down with his staff director to create his list of goals. He wanted to achieve goals in three policy areas, all focused on the Financial Services Committee. —Financial data privacy standards —Capital formation —Digital assets “So we had this thing worked out,” McHenry said. “We knew the agenda, we even had a calendar for what we do, month-by-month and week-by-week, going into ‘23.” McHenry said he had wanted to leave this session of Congress with changes to the law that he could point to and say, “That’s my mark.” “And it turns out that the marker for members of this committee was the way I treated them, what I tried to cultivate in discussion in the committee, and it was the institution, and the testing of the institution in October of ‘23,” McHenry said. “And maybe I have a few fingerprints on the institution because of that.” McHenry’s legacy Hudson doesn’t downplay McHenry’s legacy as much as McHenry himself does. He said he can’t think of a more consequential member of Congress, in his lifetime, who represented North Carolina. “He’s someone who’s been in leadership, been responsible for ushering important legislation through Congress,” Hudson said. Tillis said McHenry leaves a big pair of shoes to fill. After Johnson replaced McCarthy as speaker and McHenry gave up his gavel, McHenry almost immediately announced another run for Congress. But by the time he needed to file paperwork to run, he had changed his mind. McHenry said he knew by then that if there was a right time to leave, it had come. He served 20 years and 10 terms, and completed his term limit of six years as either a committee chairman or ranking member, his role when Democrats led the House. He said he wanted to honor the institution by not asking for an extension on the committee. “I knew after that experience of October, that there was nothing else for me left to do here in the House, and I knew I that I wouldn’t be in a more meaningful position next Congress to affect policy and outcomes and get results,” McHenry said. “I knew it was time. It was time to let somebody else take over and build. I felt just a complete clarity about the decision and peace that my time was done.” And he added that the last 14 months have confirmed he made the right decision. Honoring McHenry McHenry’s colleagues weren’t going to let him go without a gentle ribbing. Every speaker of the House is given a portrait that hangs in the speaker’s gallery. They have to commission the painting themselves. There was a question about whether McHenry, as speaker pro-tem, should get one. Hudson said he couldn’t afford a full-size portrait of McHenry but he felt he was deserving. So he had a smaller one commissioned, complete with McHenry’s gavel bang. Why a little one? “Well, he had a short term as speaker, and, you know, his stature is not as large, as say, the congressman replacing him, so there are a couple areas to highlight there,” Hudson said. The portrait now hangs in the cloakroom. “That was a great surprise,” McHenry said. “Rather than give me some deep sense of meaning, they roasted me, which felt right.” ©2024 McClatchy Washington Bureau. Visit mcclatchydc.com . Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

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Subscribe to our newsletter Privacy Policy Success! Your account was created and you’re signed in. Please visit My Account to verify and manage your account. An account was already registered with this email. Please check your inbox for an authentication link. Support Independent Arts Journalism As an independent publication, we rely on readers like you to fund our journalism. If you value our coverage and want to support more of it, consider becoming a member today . Already a member? Sign in here. We rely on readers like you to fund our journalism. If you value our coverage and want to support more of it, please join us as a member . MIAMI — Even the most discerning art connoisseurs must occasionally ask themselves an honest question: “Is this work good, or is it just big?” Scale is the art market’s quintessential sleight of hand, and never is it on more flagrant display than at an art fair, where mammoth sculptures and paintings distract from the bleak trade show ambiance. Monumentality is the guiding principle of the Meridians section at Art Basel Miami Beach, and on opening day, December 4, onlookers stood in strangely quiet reverence around Portia Munson’s “Bound Angel” (2021) — an installation that I can confirm is not only big but also good. A long, oval table reminiscent of an altar or the votive candle stands found at churches is crowded with hundreds of thrifted objects — ceramic angel figurines, kitschy lamps, a soap dispenser — all a ghostly alabaster white and tied up with cord or rope. Tangled cables pool on the floor near the trail of a tablecloth made of repurposed wedding dresses. “I was thinking about the kinds of messages that are given to us through these seemingly innocent objects that are pervasive throughout the culture, but almost hidden in plain sight,” Munson, who was standing by her installation, told me. “They’re actually somewhat instructional, in a negative way, about who you’re supposed to be as a woman — beautiful angels, young, white, saintly, but also sexy,” she added. Get the latest art news, reviews and opinions from Hyperallergic. Daily Weekly Opportunities It’s an especially resonant message at a political moment when “we are stepping backward in time” with regard to women’s rights, Munson continued, and in a state where an amendment to protect abortion rights requiring a 60% majority failed to pass by a sliver of votes. The work was an oasis on a day that brought few such reprieves. I felt a wave of dread wash over me from the moment I approached the Miami Beach Convention Center, remembering that Miami-Dade voted resoundingly for Donald Trump in last month’s elections, turning the county red for the first time since 1988. To access my ticket, I had to download the new AI-powered Art Basel app, which opens with a questionnaire that can’t be opted out of. It asks users to identify their “relationship with the art world” — dealer, artist, art enthusiast, “government” (?), etc. — as well as their “art style” and dining preferences. This is presumably meant to inform the app’s new Microsoft-backed chatbot, but it also struck me as a glaring data-collection effort that made my entrance feel even more dystopian. (I reached out to Art Basel for comment.) Inside the fair, the atmosphere was jarringly sanguine, with dealers reporting blue-chip sales galore. Half a million for a Carmen Herrera and $675,000 for a Sean Scully painting at Lisson’s booth. At the booth of Jenkins Johnson Gallery, a massive Mary Lovelace O’Neal canvas with an asking price of $1.8 million remained unsold as of Wednesday afternoon, but probably not for long, a gallery attendant intimated. Thaddeus Ropac Gallery sold a brand-new Anthony Gormley sculpture for £500,000 (~$637,200) and a painting by Tom Sachs, whose studio workplace culture was the subject of scrutiny just last year, for $190,000. (The gallery placed six pieces before the show even opened, including a $2 million Georg Baselitz painting). And at the Rosetta Bakery cafe inside the fair, a bottle of water, drip coffee, orange juice, and the world’s tiniest shortbread cookie set me back $30.59. But are things as good as they seem? According to a press release, this year’s edition boasts 34 first-time exhibitors, perhaps a harbinger of shifts in Art Basel’s notoriously exclusive application process. On the other hand, I counted 50 galleries in the 2023 edition that were absent from this year’s lineup, including market-savvy spaces such as Galerie Eva Presenhuber, Clearing, and Simone Subal. A few of them shuttered or downsized in the last 12 months (Cheim & Read, Helena Anrather, Mitchell Innes & Nash), and others opted for smaller fairs like NADA instead (Mrs., 56 Henry). However, at least 10 galleries that were originally slated to participate this year, according to an exhibitor list issued this summer, disappeared from the lineup. In response to a request for comment, an Art Basel spokesperson referred to a “small number of changes” made to “ensure the best possible experience for exhibitors, artists, clients, and visitors,” and declined to comment further “as a courtesy to our exhibitors.” Maybe the sheer cost of participating in Art Basel has something to do with it. Fees for the Miami Beach edition this year range from $26,850 for the smallest booth to $191,360 for the largest, typically reserved for blue-chip galleries that can break even with a single sale. That’s only the tip of the iceberg — it costs $600 just to apply for the fair, with no guarantee of acceptance, and then there’s airfare, hotels, and installation and production expenses. The message is clear: Art Basel might be worth it, if you can afford it. Henrique Faria, whose namesake New York-based gallery focuses on Latin American avant-garde movements, acknowledged that costs factored into the equation when he decided to opt out of the Miami fair circuit this year (he has exhibited at Untitled Art and Art Basel in previous years). But it was also a calculation informed by current political events and the perpetual question of whether and how to address them in an art-fair context. “The art world is full of -isms, as is any other field. And we need to avoid at all costs opportunism, the biggest -ism of all,” Faria told me. “Even though we are in agreement with a lot of the topics that are being treated within the art world, I think we need to treat them seriously.” “In order to stage a proper comeback, we need to rethink our presentations and choose our battles properly,” Faria added. Jochan Meyer of Meyer Riegger gallery in Berlin, Karlsruhe, and Basel, which showed at Art Basel Miami Beach in 2023, said they passed on the fair this year because of prices and an uncertain cost-benefit analysis, particularly given their highly conceptual program. Part of the problem, he noted, is the lack of reliable information about sales from non-blue-chip exhibitors. “Everyone hears about the big-ticket sales, but it’s impossible to know how the other galleries are doing,” Meyer told me in a phone call. The last six months have brought reports of varying veracity attesting to a period of market “correction,” a euphemistic term that implies that economic downturns are the universe’s way of showing us the true value of things. Perhaps as a result of this instability, Steve Henry, a senior partner at Paula Cooper Gallery, told me that he’s observed an uptick in interest in what he called the “classics”: Sol DeWitt and Claes Oldenburg, for instance, and Mark di Suvero, whose sculpture “Untitled (Swing)” (2008–2022) towered above us at the fair booth. “They smile like they’re five years old,” Henry noted of visitors’ reactions to the genuinely unexpected artwork, which is both big and good. It was under consideration, he said, for “just around a million dollars.” There are much less subtle takes to be found if you seek them out. Roger Leifer, a Miami- and Connecticut-based collector wearing a t-shirt that read “ART BSL” who had just come from a one-hour tequila tasting in the VIP Lounge, told me candidly that the art market is directly tied to the stock market, and by that measure, art should be selling like hotcakes. “The stock market is doing amazing. I mean, people made so much money — including me,” Leifer said, adding that he prefers Art Miami to Art Basel but that the people-watching is unquestionably superior at the latter — just before speaking to me, he caught a glimpse of disgraced casino magnate Steve Wynn. I’m writing this from the bar at Sweet Liberty on 20th Street in Miami Beach. It’s a beloved local watering hole that the elegant woman with slicked-back hair sitting next to me calls a “Miami institution” and whose number-one house rule , “no name-dropping, no star fucking,” will likely be tough to enforce during Art Week. A baseball cap with the phrase “Art is Dangerous” catches my eye; the kind-eyed man wearing it is Bruce Allen Carter, an arts educator who serves on the National Council on the Arts and made the hat himself. He wears it to events where he’s expected to be in formal wear, and it always starts a conversation. Encountering the message at the end of the day felt foreboding. Can art still be dangerous? I hope so, but likely not within the bubble of an art fair. The “Basel-is-back-baby” energy feels disconcertingly at odds with the tsunami of neo-fascism cresting around us — or maybe they’re two sides of the same coin. We hope you enjoyed this article! Before you keep reading, please consider supporting Hyperallergic ’s journalism during a time when independent, critical reporting is increasingly scarce. Unlike many in the art world, we are not beholden to large corporations or billionaires. Our journalism is funded by readers like you , ensuring integrity and independence in our coverage. We strive to offer trustworthy perspectives on everything from art history to contemporary art. We spotlight artist-led social movements, uncover overlooked stories, and challenge established norms to make art more inclusive and accessible. With your support, we can continue to provide global coverage without the elitism often found in art journalism. If you can, please join us as a member today . Millions rely on Hyperallergic for free, reliable information. By becoming a member, you help keep our journalism free, independent, and accessible to all. Thank you for reading. Share Copied to clipboard Mail Bluesky Threads LinkedIn FacebookUS stocks rose Monday, with the Dow finishing at a fresh record as markets greeted Donald Trump's pick for treasury secretary, while oil prices retreated on hopes for a ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah. The Dow climbed one percent to a second straight all-time closing high on news of the selection of hedge fund manager Scott Bessent to lead the critical economic policy position. A widely respected figure on Wall Street, Bessent is seen as being in favor of growth and deficit reduction policies and not known overly fond of trade tariffs. The market "breathed a sigh of relief" at Bessent's selection, said Art Hogan from B. Riley Wealth Management. But after an initial surge Monday, the gains in US equities moderated somewhat. While investors are enthusiastic about the possibility of tax cuts and regulatory relief under Trump, "we do have to face the potential for tariffs being a negative as well as a very tight market around immigration, which is not positive for the economy," Hogan said. Earlier, equity gains were limited in Europe as growth concerns returned to the fore with Germany's Thyssenkrupp announcing plans to cut or outsource 11,000 jobs in its languishing steel division. Currently around 27,000 people are employed in the steel division, which has been battered by high production costs and fierce competition from Asian rivals. Elsewhere, crude oil prices fell decisively as Israel's security cabinet prepared to decide whether to accept a ceasefire in its war with Hezbollah, an official said Monday. The United States, the European Union and the United Nations have all pushed in recent days for a truce in the long-running hostilities between Israel and Hezbollah, which flared into all-out war in late September. Speaking on condition of anonymity, an Israeli official told AFP the security cabinet "will decide on Tuesday evening on the ceasefire deal." And bitcoin's push toward $100,000 ran out of steam after coming within a whisker of the mark last week, on hopes that Trump would enact policies to bring the cryptocurrency more into the mainstream. Bitcoin was recently trading under $96,000, having set a record high of $99,728.34 Friday -- the digital currency has soared about 50 percent in value since Trump's election. This week's data includes a reading of consumer confidence and an update of personal consumption prices, a key inflation indicator. Those reporting earnings include Best Buy, Dell and Dick's Sporting Goods. New York - Dow: UP 1.0 percent at 44,736.57 (close) New York - S&P 500: UP 0.3 percent at 5,987.37 (close) New York - Nasdaq: UP 0.3 percent at 19,054.84 (close) London - FTSE 100: UP 0.4 percent at 8,291.68 (close) Paris - CAC 40: FLAT at 7,257.47 (close) Frankfurt - DAX: UP 0.4 percent at 19,405.20 (close) Tokyo - Nikkei 225: UP 1.3 percent at 38,780.14 (close) Hong Kong - Hang Seng Index: DOWN 0.4 percent at 19,150.99 (close) Shanghai - Composite: DOWN 0.1 percent at 3,263.76 (close) Euro/dollar: UP at $1.0495 from $1.0418 on Friday Pound/dollar: UP at $1.2564 from $1.2530 Dollar/yen: DOWN at 154.23 yen from 154.78 yen Euro/pound: UP at 83.51 pence from 83.14 pence West Texas Intermediate: DOWN 3.2 percent at $68.94 per barrel Brent North Sea Crude: DOWN 2.9 percent at $73.01 per barrel bur-jmb/dw Get any of our free email newsletters — news headlines, sports, arts & entertainment, state legislature, CFD news, and more.A history of the Panama Canal — and why Trump can’t take it back on his own

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Call it an unfortunate sign of the times that the Erie County DA’s Office’s White Collar Crimes Bureau is seeing an increase in incidents where senior citizens are preyed upon by professional scammers and are asked to give up money or other vital information such as social security or credit card numbers. The premise is that a grandchild or some other family member has been arrested or is in trouble and needs bail-out money. Sometimes the caller alleges they are from the IRS or a financial institution and looking for immediate payments. It’s not just an Erie County or Western New York thing, it is happening with more frequency around the country. Erie County DA Michael Keane says that information or money transfers should never take place because of a phone call. “They’ll pretend like they’re a grandson and say Grandma I’ve been arrested please help me, that kind of thing,” Keane said. “The thing we try to point out to the senior citizen population is that no legitimate person is ever going to ask for your social security number or bank information over the phone.” Keane said he routinely sends his staff to area senior centers to explain and warn about these types of nefarious calls. The number of these incidents continues to rise as scammers use more complex methods including the use of computers and social media outlets. And, for Keane, he recognizes these incidents aren’t just about money. They can have a lasting psychological impact on the victims. “It goes back to the urgency; they’re basically telling people that if they don’t act now that something bad is going to happen to you for your grandson, that kind of thing puts them in an emotional state and then they panic, and they make a decision that they wouldn’t if they were to just take a minute to talk to someone that they trust,” Keane said. Keane’s advice: Never ever give out any vital information over the phone, no matter how legitimate the caller may sound. Be smart. You can always hang up on the caller.

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