They're already up to 7 R votes to vacate.

Yeah he is gone.

Some where Steve Bannon and his cronies are very happy. The ultimate goal of him and the old Tea Party was to break the federal government. Looks like it is working though it has been broken for a long damn time.

Conservatives online blaming dems because they voted with Gaetz is gold. They think it's dems jobs to be safety rails for their party.

I just learned something. This will not shut down the House. The Speaker Pro-Tem will take over and they can pass other legislation until they elect a new speaker. So Patrick McHenry will be in effect Speaker.

Dems need to find 6 sane Republicans and make Liz Cheney speaker.

Bye Kev!

Yeah its a nice fantasy, but I just can't see it happening. She will hold them to the fire and admit to their part in Jan 6, kick out those who say no. A lot of the current Republican members wanted the coup one way or another. Can't believe there are many (any?) who will go along with that. She will likely end the investigations into Hunter and Joe Biden, which again most of the conservative and MAGA Republicans will never go for.

Liz Cheney sucks.

Also lol at remembering Nancy Mace is in Congress. She spraypainted her sidewalk and claimed it was antifa a few years ago.

There is just no Republicans left that woukd be considered moderate enough for Democrats. Kevin McCarthy has betray them on deals over and over again. The "moderates" have voted time and time again for all their nutty laws. None of them can show any kind of willingness to work with Dems or they will be primary-ed out of office.


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This seems bad but I remember when Newt had to step down over adultery it was a shitshow too. Someone else was supposed to take over that I can't remember, but he had a mistress too. So they made a child molester Speaker.

Despite what's happening, still a long ways from hitting that low point unless they make another child molester in Gaetz the Speaker.

Gaetz couldn't be elected to take out the trash in the GOP conference.

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We're assuming Gaetz is the only child molester in the caucus?

McCarthy is announcing he will not run again. There will be a new Speaker if anyone is elected.

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pics or it didn't happen

Republicans have decided to shut down the House till next week. They are definitely at a loss on what to do next.

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Didn't expect McCarthy to give up. What a mess.

This is a terrific idea. :D

This does not feel nearly as historical as it obviously is. We knew this would be the end result sooner rather than later given the fifteen round election process. Looking at the Speakers who served during my lifetime, I realized it would have only felt historic if it happened to Tip O'Neil, Newt Gingrich, or Nancy Pelosi. I don't remember Jim Wright. I barely remember Tom Foley. As far as the R's go, I think this could have happened to Hastert, Boehner, or Ryan at any point of their time in office.

So the Speaker Pro Tem's first order: Nancy Pelosi please vacate your office by Wed. She is in CA for Feinstein's funeral

So yeah McCarthy says now that Democrats played political games with Jan 6 investigation and he's still upset over that so that's why he didn't reach out to the Democrats. So yeah I'm glad he's no longer Speaker.

The Republicans blaming Democrats for ousting McCarthy is among the most ridiculous things I have ever seen. Could you imagine the heads exploding if Republicans voted to help keep Pelosi in the Speakership if the positions were reversed?

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Big "Why did you let me put my hand on the hot stove" energy.

The reason for the one week recess, is because by law, the speaker pro tem can only hold the position for three legislating days, before they go back into "Only thing we can do until we elect a new speaker is... elect a new speaker!"

So, they're going to take the week to try to coalesce behind a candidate for a new speaker.

Of course, this is using up almost 20% of the time before our next "Bomb Throwers try to hold the economy/government hostage" moment.

I'm with miami_fan. Based on what the conversation was like at the time of McCarthy being elected in the first place, it's amazing that he lasted this long, not amazing that he eventually got ousted. The historical element to me is nothing about McCarthy, it's about the continually growing dysfunction in Congress.

Oh, yes, McHenry! Bang that gavel. Bang it hard. You know the way I like it! *BANG* OHHHH YESSSSSSSSSS!

Another visual I prefer not to think about!

Paul Pelosi?

I thought I was reading that the only business he can bring in front of the house was a new speaker nomination. Otherwise, they would never need to elect a speaker. The house is effectively shut down, no?

That’s my understanding of it.

Not quite: He can be speaker for three legislating days. Once that term's over, then we're back into the "Forever voting for Speaker" phase.

Of course, if they try to do anything BUT arrange for speaker votes, several R's have said they will put in a new vote to vacate the chair, and then we're in "Forever Voting For Speaker" phase again

edit: https://www.reuters.com/world/us/wha...er-2023-10-03/

Ok. Honest question: Assuming you were of the right political bent and able to be appointed to Speaker, what would be your demands?

A) Removal of the 1-to-vacate rule. Just impossible to govern with it there (which I admit is several folks preferred solution). Instead, 10% of the speaker's party can initiate a vacate the chair vote

B) Permission to seek a "BIG deal" with Biden, where we get some of what we want, and they get some of they want. (border security for DACA, for example)

C) A stop to all the messaging bills and stuff that's doomed to fail. By that I mean some of the more recent "Defund all prosecutions of Trump", etcetera. After the last nine months of insanity, it feels like the R's need to show that yes, they can be entrusted with the seat of power and not immediately piss on the seat.

Any of the three would be enough to disqualify me, even if I was of that political persuasion.

1) Do everything reasonably possible to discomfit the enemy ... and recognize that the greatest enemy is the one on the other side of the aisle.

I'm not sure there's much that wouldn't be covered by that single demand.

And our resident bomb-thrower shows up right on cue... ;)

If congressional fan fiction is wrong then I don't want to be right.

Not meant as a bomb, you asked what seemed like a reasonable enough question. I gave it what was intended as my legitimate answer.

The point, which I thought would be kinda clear, is that as the hypothetical Speaker, there's not a point a, b, c that's a priority. It's about everything, and about recognizing that stopping any further advance by the most crucial threat facing the nation IS the priority. Not one thing, every bit of it. And if the (simplified) options are a) shut it all down completely or b) allowing those advances, then shut it all down indefinitely afaic.

Anything less and I'm not sure what the point of changing Speaker is/was.

I don't think there was a point to changing the Speaker. It was just a pissing match that Gaetz won.

Oh no, wireless test!!! I better watch out cause I’m about to get whacked for being vaxxed!

It reminds me of my children. I say these on a daily basis:

“Literally everything can’t be a competition boys.”
“Ultimately you guys are going to have to realize you are on the same team. You are brothers.”
“You guys are both taking the same side but are still fighting about it. Stop.”

I think quite a bit of that could apply to the Republican Party.

This Marberg virus is no joke. Thanks, Biden.

Who would want this job?

Newt Gingrich: resigned in shame after he was caught cheating on his wife dying of cancer and then destroyed the midterms for Republicans

Dennis Hastert: Child molester

John Boehner: chased out by the Freedom Caucus

Paul Ryan: quit and saw it as an "escape hatch" from Trump

Kevin McCarthy: ousted by the Freedom Caucus

Honorable Mentions-

Bob Livingston: Resigned for an extramarital affair after Gingrich quit

Eric Cantor: Primaried before he could truly chase his Speaker dreams

I feel his fear cause I was on a zoom when it went off and we all died.

The "three day" rule only applies for times when the Speaker will not be avaible due to illness or disability. In the case of a Speaker vacancy, there is no time limit.
"The intent of the rule was for the speaker pro tempore to serve for a short period, until the House elected a new speaker, but the House rules set no specific limit on the length of time that a member may be speaker pro tempore.^"
He does have all the powers of the Speaker, which is why for instance he was allowed to make the petty move of kicking Pelosi and Hoyer out of their offices. The only part of the Speaker he isn't granted is being in the line of Succession. Now it is likely if he tries to move forward as acting Speaker without quickly calling for a vote on a new Speaker, someone will probably call for another vote to vacate. But in theory, he could serve out the rest of the term if no Speaker is elected, and the House could continue to function in its regular disfunction.

As long as the vacate rules remain in place, I don't know why anyone would want the job.


Gaetz wants attention. I think that's all this was. You can tell by the people who voted against McCarthy that they really wanted a shutdown at all costs for the attention. The deal McCarthy offered them was as good as they'd ever get, but I don't think they care about it.

I was reading a House Dem staffer speculating that the continuing resolution that McCarthy offered was designed to get Dems to vote no so the GOP could blame the shutdown on Dems. When Dems voted for it the whole plan blew up and it ultimately cost McCarthy his job.

Not sure that's what happened, but it's plausible given the timing of the surprise CR.

Speakers of the House have always been beholden to their respective party, going back through modern history, Pelosi, Gingrich, Tip O'Neill, etc.

This however, is uncharted territory, where you have someone who is held hostage by a small minority of MAGAts. I don't know what the end result is going to be, but building some sort of a coalition doesn't appear to be a viable option at this time.

Ever since that Emergency Broadcast, I have been feeling funny. Like wanting to eat on brains funny. Anyone up to slowly chasing snacks...er, I mean people around?

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So far as to who wants to throw their hat into the ring:
Scalise
Jordan
:popcorn: :eek:

We found a vaxxer guys

Literally though I’m sure it will be stuff like “they just put the plans on hold because we were aware” type stuff. Or “doesn’t seem like there were any affects at the moment but you never know”. Or “I’m feeling kinda funny but it’s probably “nothing”.”

I think this is the only one that matters, IMO. A GOP Speaker right now can, in theory, get plenty done if a) they don't have to worry about getting canned at a moment's notice and b) they realize most stuff is going to have to pass with Democratic votes.

Which still leaves paths open both for a "conservative" (but not nutcase) GOP Speaker who doesn't let much legislation through because they're not going to negotiate on policy with Democrats (but does enough, even short-term, to keep the government working) or a "moderate" (LOL) Speaker who's willing to deal with Democrats and get some stuff passed that includes compromises that gets the GOP some of what it wants (though, to be fair, it seems the GOP doesn't really want to do that anymore).

I just don't know if a non-nutcase can win the Speakership. The best chance of that is some deal with the Dems, but I just don't think that will happen. Any Speaker then has to bend his will to the 5 craziest Republicans in the caucus.

I don't see republicans looking to dems for help. It's political suicide at this point.

It's absolutely insane that the relatively moderate GOP members of the House greatly outnumber these guy that want to burn it all to the ground just to get their names in the news cycle, but we're looking at these 8 getting their way because the other 207 or so are afraid of going against them.

There is only one person on the right who has the power necessary make demands before being appointed Speaker. Everyone else will do as they are told.

So does anyone know the scoop on McCarthy & Dems?

You know, if I had only the 2 choices, I would rather Trump be Speaker than running for President.

https://www.cnbc.com/2023/10/04/hous...n-the-mix.html

According to staffers I've seen comment, he didn't reach out to Dems and Dems had zero interest in helping him if he did.

His reversal on J6, after speaking to Trump, plus releasing the footage to Tucker killed any chances of Dems ever working with him and he probably knew that.

The "moderate" Speaker candidate described himself as David Duke without the baggage, so...

Pretty much 4. The Dems felt like the bridge had been burnt long ago and even this weekend just passed, McCarthy was pouring more gas on the fire. And McCarthy probably couldn't survive as Speaker with Dem Votes. 'm not sure he could survive, period, the way things are being stoked up.

Trump is actually ineligible due to his felony charges, although they could theoretically change the rules, I doubt it would get enough support, even from the GOP.

Didn't McCarthy say he was approached by Dems but wasn't willing to make any deal?

My guess is he thought that would strengthen his position, but like everything else he made the wrong choice.

Politico reported that McCarthy's staffers reached out to Democrats in the final hours, not the other way around. Politico has excellent sources on the Hill, so I tend to believe them on this "what actually happened" questions.

I mean, that's the thing. "Relatively moderate" are guys like Scalise and Jordan, who just ten years ago would have been holding up the rightward fringe of the party. "Moderate" merely describes where a critical mass lies, not a position on a political spectrum, and as a result there's not enough proximity to Democrats to find any position that would result in comity, even temporarily.

And even if there were, these guys rely on right-wing votes to win their elections. Primaries, certainly, as long as Trump keeps energizing the base, but then generals where "moderates" increasingly aren't voting for them, and they need to keep up the rhetoric to get out the MAGA vote. You can't do that if you do anything not blessed by Dear Leader, and working with Democrats, or working to keep the government running are two of those things that get you excommunicated.

I remember when this came out.

What is it with the GOP putting guys with ties to sexual misconduct in the Speaker's chair repeatedly?

They love guys who involved in sexual assault. Bonus points of its a minor.

Jerry Sandusky ought to run for Speaker.

They were going to have a debate amongst the top candidates on Fox News Monday until some of the caucus got pissed about it. Idiots.

Someone needs to explain the border wall thing. I'm not buying this "the law requires us to do it" when nothing has changed (that I'm aware of). One day you just decide that "Oh yeah, I guess when we said we'd never build a wall we forgot to look at a law Trump got passed that requires it, even though we don't agree with it"? That's the 50K foot view it appears the administration is going with and the media is running with as an explanation.

Democrats suck at governing and marketing.

Democrats have been tough on border security despite what they're accused of. Obama was harsher than Bush and Biden has kept most of the policies of the Trump administration. No one should be surprised by this.

It doesn't have anything to do with who is tougher on border security. Dems in general and Biden specifically have talked shit about Trump's border wall for years, and Biden is specifically on record as saying he doesn't believe walls work and no walls will be constructed on his watch, and then ... poof! He gets pressure from some Dems to do something about the border issue, and this is the fix? They're talking out of both sides of their mouth. It's ridiculous. He rightly deserves the shit he's getting from everyone.

I agree. He lied during his campaign and it's another broken promise. Not a surprise why his approval numbers are in the shitter.

Per the Politico article. Some discussions did occur within the Problem Solvers Caucus.

https://www.politico.com/news/2023/1...eaker-00120438
But questionable how really productive they were ...

And doesn't seem it got to the level of McCarthy & Jeffries.

So I'll classify this as my category #4

From what I've read, the money was already allocated, could not be spent on anything else, and would need to be used by 2024 or else ... Haven't read anything that defines what the or else is. I suspect it is a use it or lose it and therefore, is just not used saving the government $x.

So I agree with you. Weak excuse.

Joe's plan seemed to work initially but not anymore (e.g. guess its a crisis now). So, he just needs to recalibrate some. If I was Joe, I wouldn't have restarted building the wall. I'd apply more carrot or stick with Mexico and put up more border guards on their side (e.g. another one of Trump's plan). Here you want $2B for your election coffers (and Swiss bank account), put more of your border guards here, here and here.

Someone should have known this was a "poison pill" of sorts and either acknowledged it a long time ago, or just kept quiet about it and let it expire.

Instead, the narrative is that the border really IS as bad as the GOP is saying, even Dems are asking for help, and the first tangible thing Biden does is... build a wall? He should have just added that he was going to make Mexico pay for it and completed his own pantsing.

Are we ok with the executive branch just deciding to not use funds for the purpose Congress authorizes then? It would seem that, if we operated on that principle consistently, we'd be in a situation where any funding authorized under a previous Congress could just be over-ruled by a new president, or even a president changing their mind, just saying 'nah, I don't want to do that'. What if a President decides that they don't think money should go to Social Security or Medicare? Are we ok with them doing that because they don't agree with what Congress authorized?

Fair question. Looked it up.

Some background first. Note the word "rescission"

Impoundment of appropriated funds - Wikipedia.
Did Joe try to rescind it? Yes

https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/bide...y?id=103757017
So Joe does have a point.

Couple questions ...

1) Did he need to waive the 26 environmental legislations, essentially giving a fast track to building the wall?
2) Did the funds have to go to building "new parts" of the wall or could it have been used to restore or maintain existing portions of the wall?

and bonus question ...

3) How much are we talking about? I've read several articles and none of them mentioned the total $

Kind of like legislators ignoring court decisions and doing whatever they want anyways

Or

Lower courts ruling on cases on the contrary to that which the Supreme Court has already ruled on

I’m seeing that happen recently and thinking that it’s a continuation of the attempt to usurp the norms we call democracy

Both sides though


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This is way too deep a question for what occurred here. This is 99% messaging and strategy. They knew this existed, he consistently talked about not building a wall and generally downplayed any kind of border crisis, and all of a sudden - in what appears to be a response to pleas from his own party to do something about the border crisis - not only reversed course on a wall by claiming this was required all along, but in effect admitted that a wall is at least partially an answer to securing the border by doing this specifically at a time when his own party was asking for action.

It's a collosal PR fuck up and an unforced strategy error.

Sitting here watching White House YT channel for the 1pm ET speech.

All I see is "We Will Begin Shortly" for the past 1.5 hours, no updates.

Wonder what's going on. A simple powerpoint slide to say "sorry, we'll begin at 3pm" would be nice.

Nice speech. Joe looking spry (?) and did a good job in delivering it. The Golda Meir part seemed unnecessary, he gets into trouble when he tells stories, sometimes with inaccuracies. But I like his tone.

Also. I don't know sign language, but I understood the sign for "bullets" & "shooting". I like that guy's facial expressions also.

There is a lot going on right now, and I imagine there are things that are happenings that are having to be handled minute to minute.

Listening to his speak, it sounds like they are going try to tie funding for Israel with funding for Ukraine.

Joe gave a great speech. But yeah he is senile��

Rep Santos hit with 23 more charges in his conspiracy and fraud case:


https://twitter.com/MacFarlaneNews/s...59145215824172

Agree that it was a pretty good speech.

But be honest, weren't you just a tad apprehensive?

I was. When he went off to Golda Meir, my ears perked up and I did a silent uh-oh.

But the Golda Meir story was great in the end. Tom Friedman was on Morning Joe and mentioned something telling about Biden. “ The idiots at Fox keep saying Biden can’t string together two sentences. He has strung together a Western Aliiance in Europe and is stringing together a ME alliance with Saudi, Israel, USA and the PLO.”

Sounds like NY Republicans are finally going to introduce an expulsion vote on Santos once the Speakership is decided,

But the Golda Meir story was great in the end. Tom Friedman was on Morning Joe and mentioned something telling about Biden. “ The idiots at Fox keep saying Biden can’t string together two sentences. He has strung together a Western Aliiance in Europe and is stringing together a ME alliance with Saudi, Israel, USA and the PLO.”

Sen. Bob Menendez charged with conspiracy to act as a foreign agent in new indictment | CNN Politics

Jesus.

Expel his ass.

Give him his fair trial and everything. But no need for him to be in the Senate.

And if he is expelled from the Senate, it opens the door for the GOP to elect him Speaker of the House.

Trump's next running mate.

Maybe a 2/1 deal on Expulsions? Santos and Menendez-time for both Houses to clean house I think. They can always run again if somehow found not guilty by a jury.

Blinken had a 7-and-a-half-hour meeting with the Israeli War Cabinet today, and now announced President Biden will be traveling to Israel on Wednesday.

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