Here I thought that it couldn’t have gotten any crazier, but the Republican fire drills are going to a strange place.
In the latest sign of House chaos, the temporary speaker is threatening to quitThe Constitution is optional! Hey we won’t let a little detail like the Constitution to get in our way.
Rep. Patrick McHenry, R-N.C., is resisting a push to get him to move legislation without an explicit vote to expand his powers.
NBC News
By Scott Wong and Rebecca Kaplan
October 19, 2023In a closed-door meeting Thursday, Rep. Patrick McHenry, R-N.C., told GOP colleagues he might resign as speaker pro tempore if Republicans push him to try to move legislation on the floor without an explicit vote to expand his powers, according to multiple lawmakers in the room.
“If you guys try to do that, you’ll figure out who the next person on Kevin’s list is,” McHenry told the room, three sources said, referring to former Speaker Kevin McCarthy's secret list of GOP lawmakers who would serve as temporary speaker in the event of a vacancy.
McHenry's comments underscore the quandary Republicans are in: They can't really do anything until they choose a new speaker, but they can't agree on someone who can get the votes to be that new speaker.
And McHenry is unwilling to set a precedent that would give future temporary speakers the full power of speakers who are elected on the House floor. It could mean that the House wouldn't need to elect speakers in the future.
A second GOP lawmaker said that McHenry made the remarks “tongue in cheek” but that the message was clear: He questioned the constitutionality of such an option and said he did not want the greater authority unless Republicans agreed to grant it to him through a formal vote.
McHenry “will not act in a manner he interprets as unconstitutional” as speaker pro tem, a third member in the room said.
After two straight days of unsuccessful speaker bids, Rep. Jim Jordan started Thursday by not immediately going for a third vote, but instead backing a plan to temporarily empower acting House Speaker Patrick McHenry, R-N.C.
But that plan hit a snag after a contentious meeting of House Republicans on Thursday, continuing more than two weeks of disfunction and chaos in Congress’ lower chamber.
GOP Rep. Jim Jordan's office said the third round of voting for House speaker will take place Friday morning at 10 a.m., and two hours earlier, at 8 a.m., Jordan will be holding a news conference.
The Ohio Republican is pressing on with his bid to become the next speaker of the House after a plan he supported to temporarily empower the interim speaker was met with opposition from his fellow GOP lawmakers on Thursday.
Republicans met on Capitol Hill to chart a path forward after Jordan fell short of the 217 votes needed to become speaker in the first two rounds of voting earlier in the week. Plans for a third vote Thursday were abandoned. Jordan told colleagues he would support a proposal to allow Speaker Pro Tempore Patrick McHenry to oversee the House until January while he remained in the race and tried to muster support.
Queue the circus music.
Update 9:30AM
Just when you thought that it couldn't get any weirder, death threats are being made!
AP NewsBy Stephen GrovesOctober 20, 2023It was the thing that was supposed to make Rep. Jim Jordan the 56th speaker of the House.
An onslaught of pressure from the Republican Party base, allies predicted, would compel the GOP’s moderate and establishment members to support Jordan, a hero of the far-right, and help him secure the votes for the gavel.
But as the pressure campaign devolved this week into death threats against lawmakers and their families, something unexpected happened: Positions hardened, and a ragtag coalition of roughly 20 House Republicans rose up to deny Jordan the speakership.[...]Still, Bacon said the harassing text messages and phone calls have taken a toll. His wife slept with a loaded gun near her bedside one night. Other Republicans said their families have been threatened. And every lawmaker who voted against Jordan has received a barrage of angry phone calls and messages.[...]After Rep. Drew Ferguson’s family started receiving death threats for his vote against Jordan, the Georgia Republican said in a statement that he would not support “a bully” for speaker. He said the threats were “unacceptable, unforgivable, and will never be tolerated.”
I'll tell you, you do not want to cross the Trump MAGA supporters they are out for blood!
Meanwhile, Jordan tried to win over more moderate Republicans by casting himself as a unifier who would listen to their concerns. He told his fellow Republicans he would not take the speaker vote to the House floor unless he had secured 217 of their votes.
He quickly broke that promise, scheduling a floor vote Tuesday and forcing the holdouts to publicly state their opposition and face the political fallout. Jordan and his allies believed the public vote would quickly wear down their opposition.
Vote for me or I'll send my friends out for a little visit!
Jordan, for his part, has tried to stop the threats and pressure. After Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks said in a statement that she had received “credible death threats” after voting against him Wednesday, Jordan condemned the threats and called for unity.
“Stop. It’s abhorrent,” he said on social media.
But colleagues have watched for years as Jordan and his allies denounced their legislative work while playing to the party’s base. They were unmoved.
Update 2:15 PM
Oh for three! Y...O...U...’RE OUT!
House Republicans reject Jim Jordan a third time for the speaker’s gavel as opposition deepens
AP News
By LISA MASCARO, FARNOUSH AMIRI, STEPHEN GROVES and KEVING FREKING
October 20, 2023Rep. Jim Jordan failed badly Friday on a third ballot for the House speaker’s gavel, rejected by even more Republicans from the conservative mainstream who warned the hard-edged ally of Donald Trump that no threats or promises could win their support.
The Republicans have no realistic or workable plan to unite the fractured GOP majority, elect a new speaker and return to the work of Congress that has been languishing since hard-liners ousted Kevin McCarthy at the start of the month.
In all, Jordan lost 25 Republican colleagues, leaving him far from the majority needed, as the standoff deepened with next steps uncertain.
You can run but you can’t hide your money!
AP News reports that…
A Texas judge has ruled that Infowars host Alex Jones cannot use bankruptcy protection to avoid paying more than $1.1 billion to families who sued over his conspiracy theories that the Sandy Hook school massacre was a hoax.
The decision is another significant defeat for Jones in the wake of juries in Texas and Connecticut punishing him over spreading falsehoods about the nation’s deadliest school shooting. U.S. District Judge Christopher Lopez of Houston issued the ruling Thursday.
Jones filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection last year and more recent financial documents submitted by his attorneys put his personal net worth around $14 million. But Lopez ruled that those protections do not apply over findings of “willful and malicious” conduct.
[…]
The amount of money Jones owes Sandy Hook families could grow even larger. Another lawsuit is pending in Texas, brought by the parents of 6-year-old Noah Pozner, one of the children slain in the attack. A trial date has not yet been set.
Relatives of the victims testified at the trials about being harassed and threatened by Jones’ believers, who sent threats and even confronted the grieving families in person, accusing them of being “crisis actors” whose children never existed.
Every once in a while I read the comments on Yahoo and here are a couple that caught my attention.
12 hours ago
It’s still hard for me to believe almost 200 congressmen are seriously considering electing a speaker who’s never written a bill that has become law.
I did a little research this afternoon. Two of the most productive legislators in our history were Orin Hatch a republican and Ted Kennedy a Democrat. Between them about 500 bills that originated from their respective offices became law. And here’s the crazy part, it actually wasn’t uncommon for them to cosponsor each other’s bills. Yes, two of the most productive senators were from opposite parties and it wasn’t uncommon for them to work together.10 hours ago
You are correct, two Senators from two different worlds coming together for the common good, the people. It's also important to note their friendship that lasted for decades and how Mr. Hatch helped Ted through very difficult times. Also, John McCain was part of that process the same John McCain who at a presidential Town Hall while running for the presidency grabbed the microphone from the lady bad mouthing Barrack Obama and telling her that he would not allow such vile talk at his rally. Times have changed, not for the better.
12 hours ago
Welcome to the new day where the speaker is voted out of his seat because he compromised and pushed through a bill that had a prayer of a chance in the Senate. In other words, now you are punished for doing your job. This is what happens when 10% of your members are insurrectionists.
"They play hardball in the Republican party!" Well let us hope that we can hit the hardball harder than they. At the very least we should stall them all we can and inch by inch break them down. Jordon is a neo-fascist plain and simple.
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