Democrats sound the alarm about Jim Jordan’s potential interference in the 2024 election

Posted on October 14, 2023 by Aldous J Pennyfarthing

If you need further proof that the GOP is not a serious party—apart from its continued fealty to a disgraced ex-pr*sident who’s roughly 20% evil and 80% Happy Meal—consider that they’re actually thinking about making Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan, a known insurrectionist, House speaker.

And no, he wasn’t just another of the cow-eyed and craven Republicans who stood by slack-jawed and mute as Donald Trump tried to smother American democracy with a lumpy MyPillow. He was elbows-deep in the shenanigans, and he wasn’t even trying to hide it.

Well, plenty of people have noticed the irony in potentially putting an America-hating coup plotter second in line to the presidency—and they’re not just Democrats. After all, giving this guy the power to finish what he and Custard Cream Caligula started in January 2021 is the height of irresponsibility for a party with any real pretensions of patriotism.

On Oct. 4, former House member Liz Cheney, one of the few Republicans who still thinks the person who won the most electoral votes should get to be president, even if that person is a Democrat, warned that a vote to elect Jordan speaker would be a vote for further undermining the increasingly vulnerable foundations of our democracy.

“Jim Jordan knew more about what Donald Trump had planned for Jan. 6 than any other member of the House of Representatives,” she said during a speech in Minnesota. “Somebody needs to ask Jim Jordan, ‘Why didn't you report to the Capitol Police what you knew Donald Trump had planned?’”

Cheney also noted—correctly—that if Republicans elect Jordan speaker, it would be tantamount to abandoning the Constitution.

Jim Jordan was involved in Trump's conspiracy to steal the election and seize power; he urged that Pence refuse to count lawful electoral votes. If Rs nominate Jordan to be Speaker, they will be abandoning the Constitution. They’ll lose the House majority and they’ll deserve to.
— Liz Cheney (@Liz_Cheney) October 13, 2023

Well, Cheney’s not the only one who’s alarmed. In fact, Rep. Ted Lieu, an outspoken Democrat, is concerned that a Jordan speakership could grease the skids for Bumblin’ Coup 2.0 following next year’s presidential election.

"Jim Jordan is one of the leaders of not respecting the will of American people in elections, and he will absolutely do everything he can to not certify a Biden victory,” said Lieu. “That's what he did before."

Lieu also noted that Jordan would be as much of a nightmare for reasonable (ha ha) Republicans as he is for the rest of the country.

"I think moderate Republicans should be freaked out with Jim Jordan as speaker," said Lieu, noting that Jordan would likely "push for a national abortion ban" and for the impeachment of President Biden.

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, House Democrats’ one and only choice for speaker, echoed Lieu’s sentiments.

“House Republicans have selected as their nominee to be the speaker of the people’s House the chairman of the chaos caucus, a defender in a dangerous way of dysfunction, and an extremist extraordinaire,” Jeffries said on Friday while gathered with other congressional Democrats outside the Capitol. “His focus has been on peddling lies and conspiracy theories and driving division amongst the American people.”

House Minority Whip Katherine Clark has also weighed in, noting that Jordan is an “insurrectionist” who’s currently being blocked from the speaker's chair thanks to blanket opposition from Democrats.

“He was directly involved in the right-wing coup that sought to overturn the 2020 election,” she said. “Every Republican who cast their vote for him is siding with an insurrectionist against our democracy.”

Yes, Jordan was directly—and heavily—involved in Trump’s America-garroting schemes following the 2020 presidential election.

In case you need a refresher, Mother Jones has the deets:

Many Republicans endorsed Trump’s Big Lie about the election. But Jordan was one of only a handful of congressional Republicans who actively conspired with Trump to overturn the election results. As he runs for House speaker, Republicans appear eager to ignore that. Yet by embracing Jordan they tie themselves further to that attack on democracy and the Constitution.

Jordan was an early and enthusiastic recruit in Trump’s war on the republic and reality—in public and in private.

Days after the November election, he spoke at a “Stop the Steal” rally in front of the Pennsylvania state capitol. He spread election conspiracy theories within right-wing media. He endorsed Rudy Giuliani and Sidney Powell’s bogus claims that Dominion Voting Systems and Smartmatic had robbed Trump of electoral victory. He called for a congressional investigation of electoral fraud for which there was no evidence and demanded a special counsel be appointed. He endorsed state legislatures canceling vote tallies and selecting their own presidential electors. He urged Trump not to concede. He demanded Congress not certify Joe Biden’s victory in the ceremony scheduled for January 6, 2021.

In other words, making Jordan speaker of the House would be a little like checking your local school bus driver’s pupils to make sure he is on drugs.

But Republicans, for the most part, don’t see it that way. For instance, profile in porridge Mike Pence, who actually did right by the Constitution on Jan. 6, 2021, is nevertheless supporting Jordan’s speaker bid. He was recently interviewed by CNN’s Kaitlan Collins, who asked him a very rude question he didn’t want to answer. So he didn’t. Answer it, that is.

YouTube Video

COLLINS: “It’s interesting to me to hear you say that, that Jim Jordan would be a great speaker given he was someone who sent a text to the chief of staff on Jan. 5 that outlined for you to violate the Constitution and block the certification of the election. I mean, do you really believe that’s someone who should be third in line [sic] to the presidency?”

PENCE: “I have immense respect for Jim Jordan, he’s a man of integrity, and I’ve known him for many years. I was not aware of his opinion going into Jan. 6. My interaction with Congressman Jordan in December was simply over the legitimate objections that members of Congress were permitted to file under the law. But look, we may have a difference of opinion about my duties under the Constitution that day, but I’m very confident that if Jim Jordan becomes speaker of the House that he’ll lead with integrity.”

Ladies and gentlemen, the Bullshit Bot 9000, new from Ronco! I really wonder sometimes if Pence could pass the Turing test. Something tells me if Trump’s mob had actually succeeded in hanging him, he’d have sputtered his rehearsed talking points to his last breath: “I’m a Christian, a conservative, and a purpling corpse—in that order!”

Meanwhile, Democrats are pushing hard against the notion that Republicans’ demonstrated inability to get out of their own way is somehow the minority party’s fault.

“It’s really appalling that they can’t even own their mess,” said Rep. Suzan DelBene, chair of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. “They’ve been unable to govern from the beginning of this Congress and unable to work with Democrats. All they seem focused on is fighting each other.”

“When I’ve gone through battleground districts across the country, folks want to see governance work,” DelBene added. “All they’ve seen from the Republican side is chaos and dysfunction.”

Uh huh. And that’s all they’re going to see, especially if Jordan gets his wish. Well, that and another big, steaming kettle of coup stew.

Check out Aldous J. Pennyfarthing’s four-volume Trump-trashing compendium, including the finale, Goodbye, Asshat: 101 Farewell Letters to Donald Trump, at this link. Or, if you prefer a test drive, you can download the epilogue to Goodbye, Asshat for the low, low price of FREE.

ICYMI: Trump praises terrorists, calling them ‘very smart’

Posted on October 13, 2023 by kos

Donald Trump praises terrorists

Donald Trump has always been a terrible human being, but no one can say he wasn’t effective. He conquered the Republican Party and won the presidency by projecting power and strength. He also has an uncanny ability to tickle the conservative lizard brain, validating their most racist, sexist, xenophobic, and bigoted tendencies. However, those political instincts seem to have abandoned Trump lately. His low-energy, slurred-word, bizarrely meandering speeches (like this one and this one) are getting him in repeated trouble.

Trump has already angered his anti-abortion constituency by criticizing the draconian restrictions that Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signed into law. But today, Trump finally united his Republican primary challengers in outrage. First, he criticized Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu because Netanyahu, in Trump’s words, “didn’t make me feel too good.” Second, Trump made sure everyone understood just how impressed he was by the terrorists attacking Israel. “You know, Hezbollah’s very smart, they’re all very smart. The press doesn’t like when they say [unintelligible],” he said. But just in case his admiration wasn’t clear enough, he restated his main point: “But Hezbollah, they’re very smart.” Good luck walking that one back.

The 2016 version of Trump would not have made this mistake, but that Trump wasn’t burdened with two-plus years of post-presidential grievances. Trump never got over Netanyahu congratulating Joe Biden on his victory in 2020. “Fuck him,” Trump said about Netanyahu at the time. For Trump, that anger now manifests as him praising terrorists.

Republicans still can’t govern

Trump isn’t the only challenge facing Republicans, who every single day prove their inability to govern. In the House of Representatives, the Republican majority still can’t get their act together to pick a speaker. While earning the official backing of a majority of the Republican caucus, Rep. Steve Scalise is still a long way from the 217 votes he needs from the entire House to become speaker. With enough “hard no” votes among nihilist Republicans to scuttle any leadership vote, Republicans remain paralyzed—and will continue to be until they cut a deal with Democrats. What could Democrats demand? At minimum: funding for Ukraine, Israel, and disaster relief; an omnibus bill to keep the government funded until after the 2024 elections; and an end to the baseless impeachment inquiry against Biden. Meanwhile, Rep. Kevin McCarthy wants his old job back, and he thinks pretending to be an elder statesman will get him there. His problem? He sucks at it.

So where is Trump in all of this? Ghoulishly using Scalise’s cancer diagnosis to undermine him.

Speaker race: Democrats united, Republicans in disarray

Posted on October 11, 2023 by Joan McCarter

House Democrats and Republicans met privately Tuesday afternoon in their respective conferences. The Democrats emerged united, in a unanimous vote that they “wrapped up in seven minutes.”

Tonight House Democrats unanimously voted to renominate Leader Hakeem Jeffries as Speaker of the House. His vision for a bipartisan governing coalition will lead us out of this Republican-manufactured chaos so we can get back to our work of putting People Over Politics.
— House Democrats (@HouseDemocrats) October 11, 2023

Then there’s the Republicans. The Tuesday meeting was a chance for the two candidates—current Majority Leader Steve Scalise and Rep. Jim Jordan—to make their case to their colleagues ahead of the voting, which will start in private sessions Wednesday. Neither candidate came out of the evening’s meeting with a clear majority or even a definite edge. Jordan has more declared supporters, but as one Republican member, North Dakota Rep. Kelly Armstrong, told an Axios reporter, it’s a secret ballot. “One, people don’t have to tell you who they’re voting for and two, they can lie to you about who they’re voting for.”

Scalise and Jordan both said that they would throw their support to whoever emerged victorious in a bid for some kind of unity, though it took Jordan some time to come right out and say it. The rank and file aren’t necessarily ready to unite, however. “I can’t say that I’ll automatically join whoever pulls out the most of them at first vote, but I might,” Rep. Dan Bishop of North Carolina told The Washington Post.

That might be what former and barely Speaker Kevin McCarthy is counting on. There’s still a core group of people who insist they will only vote for McCarthy. He’s been accused of actively undermining Scalise, according to Politico. “They are literally trying every dirty trick to fuck with Steve,” one Scalise supporter said. “It’s sad.”

McCarthy could be counting on being the only option still standing after a drawn out fight between Scalise and Jordan, but it’s hard to see any of the eight who voted to oust him last week changing their minds about him.

That includes Rep. Ken Buck of Colorado, who might not be behind anyone at this point. He had a key question for Jordan and Scalise Tuesday night: Did Donald Trump win the 2020 election?

That’s a big one for Buck, a hardcore Freedom Caucus member who is not a MAGA enthusiast, and who voted to certify the 2020 election and who has had a problem with McCarthy since Jan. 6, 2021. He confronted McCarthy in a conference meeting before the certification votes and warned him that it was wrong to choose the “politically expedient route” of sticking with Trump over “the good of the party” and upholding the Constitution.

Neither Jordan nor Scalise—who both voted against certifying President Joe Biden’s election—would give a direct answer, and “tried to have it both ways,” according to a member who spoke to Politico. Sounds like Buck might have a hard time finding a candidate in the GOP. He told the Post: “I’m not thrilled with either choice…. I think someone else will come forward, and I don’t know who that is. I’m not backing anybody, but I don’t know if it’s just these two.”

Buck might be the only Republican who is worried about things like the Constitution in this fight, but he isn’t the only one who’s having a hard time finding a candidate to get behind. “No one at this point is even remotely close to a majority,” Rep. Kat Cammack of Florida told the Post. “So I think that we’re not just going to be here for a couple extra days. My money says weeks.”

Sign if you agree: Stop the MAGA circus. Hakeem Jeffries for speaker.

GOP's speaker decision delayed as House Republicans regroup

Rep. McHenry relishes his (limited) power as speaker pro tempore

Rep. Nancy Mace’s attention-seeking escalates with ‘Scarlet Letter’ stunt

Posted on October 11, 2023 by Laura Clawson

Rep. Nancy Mace has always courted media attention. But now she’s taking it to the next level, seeking to remake herself fully in the mold of Reps. Lauren Boebert, Matt Gaetz, and Marjorie Taylor Greene. In fact, on Tuesday evening she pulled a stunt that made those three look almost subtle.

Mace had been one of the eight Republican votes to remove Kevin McCarthy as speaker of the House, a prominent role she clearly relished. McCarthy’s ouster necessitated a candidate forum as Republicans try to decide on his replacement. Mace wasn’t going to be overshadowed by some piddling little candidate forum: She showed up in a top with a giant red “A” on it.

Mace: I’m wearing the scarlet letter after the week I had being a woman and being demonized for my vote and voice. pic.twitter.com/guVpxGHUq7
— Acyn (@Acyn) October 10, 2023

“I’m wearing the scarlet letter after the week that I just had last week, being a woman up here and being demonized for my vote and for my voice,” Mace said, giddy self-regard coming off of her in waves. “I’m here to let the rest of the world know, the country know, I’m on the side of the people, I’m not on the side of the establishment, and I’m going to do the right thing every single time no matter the consequences, ‘cause I don’t answer to anybody in D.C., I don't answer to anyone in Washington, I only answer to the people.”

In Nathaniel Hawthorne’s “The Scarlet Letter,” Hester Prynne is forced to wear a scarlet “A” for “adultery.” In Mace’s case, of course, the “A” is for “attention.” You have to suspect that over the weekend she rewatched the Emma Stone movie "Easy A"—and missed the point of that as thoroughly as she did of “The Scarlet Letter.”

Until now, Mace’s bids for attention have largely been for moments where she criticized her party as too extreme, such as calling on Republicans to find a “middle ground” on abortion or saying she held Donald Trump accountable for the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol (although she did not actually hold him accountable when it came time to vote on impeachment). Back in January, as McCarthy sought the speakership, she described Gaetz as a “political D-lister” and a “fraud” trying to fundraise off of his opposition to McCarthy. That has changed.

Mace’s “whee, look at me” attire on Tuesday followed an appearance with Gaetz on former Trump adviser Steve Bannon’s podcast last week, and a Fox News appearance in which she violated House ethics rules by fundraising on live TV while at the Capitol. She then made a Sunday appearance on “Face the Nation” in which she touted her support for Rep. Jim Jordan as the next speaker, waving off his efforts to overturn the 2020 election and allegations that he ignored sexual abuse of Ohio State University wrestlers when he was a coach there. One of Mace’s earlier efforts to appear as the moderate corrective to her party’s extremism on abortion included talking about her experience as a rape survivor, but when it comes to Jordan having enabled sexual abuse of college athletes he was coaching, Mace’s response was, “I don't know anything, and I don't know anything about it.”

Mace has always been a standout even among House Republicans in her attention-seeking. Now, as the Supreme Court considers whether Mace’s district was made more safely Republican in an illegal racial gerrymander, she’s gone into overdrive. She’s trying way too hard to create a new political persona for herself in the space of a week. Mace survived a 2022 primary challenge, but she could be in for another in 2024, and potentially in a more challenging district. If she’s pulling out the scarlet letter in October 2023, what will she have escalated to by the time the 2024 election rolls around?

Sign if you agree: No more MAGA circus. Hakeem Jeffries for speaker.

Jim Jordan’s based his career on enabling Republican crimes

Posted on October 6, 2023 by Hunter

With Donald Trump endorsing loud ally Rep. Jim Jordan for the speakership of the House, fellow Trump ally Rep. Steve Scalise's bid for the position may look futile. The whole point of Republicanism the last few years has been to purge anyone who might refuse to do what Trump says, so anyone with House Republican membership in 2023 is almost by definition there because they have promised to govern entirely from inside Trump's colon.

But Jordan's still got to make his own case. He had a go at it Friday morning, telling CNN reporter Manu Raju that the speaker's race will come down to "who can go tell the country what we're doing."

Jim Jordan trying to pitch himself as someone who can be the chief GOP messenger as he seeks to draw a contrast with Scalise. “I think this race comes down to … who can go tell the country what we're doing,” he told me Jordan weighs in on Trump endorsement pic.twitter.com/KhKGNaoTtX
— Manu Raju (@mkraju) October 6, 2023

The odds are nine in 10 that you've never before heard Jordan use an indoor voice, as opposed to his usual "shrieking toddler furiously demanding to know why his diaper just got heavier" voice. In terms of telling the nation what House Republicans are doing, that would become trivially easy under a Jordan speakership. Jordan has devoted his House career to one issue above all others: letting Republicans get away with crimes.

Jordan's skill in letting people get away with crimes is how he became the shrieking voice of Republicanism that he's become. In 2018, Jordan was named by multiple former Ohio State wrestlers as one of the school officials who had been aware of the sexual molestation of athletes by team doctor Richard Strauss. Faced with multiple accusers who relayed specific instances and conversations with Jordan, Jordan loudly denied everything and reportedly pressured at least one former student to lie about it. Soon, he and his office began claiming that it was his accusers who were lying, not him.

Jordan's star began to rise immediately after that. The caucus apparently went starry-eyed at the vehemence with which Jordan attacked his accusers, and Jordan soon became the angry sweating voice of every House committee, probe, and publicity stunt he could be wedged into.

It's not overstating things to say that allowing allies to get away with crimes has been Jordan's top congressional focus. Before the sexual abuse allegations surfaced in 2018, Jordan had already become a face of the Republican obstruction of the probe into 2016 Russian election interference, dismissing federal intelligence assessments with new assertions that the probe was a political ploy by Trump-hating government officials. By 2019, he had been stuffed into the House Intelligence Committee as a temporary measure to act as "attack dog" in the House impeachment hearings resulting from Trump holding up military aid to Ukraine in order to extort anti-Biden propaganda from the Ukrainian government.

He would play similar roles until January 2021, when he joined a seditious conspiracy to nullify a constitutional election on Trump's behalf so that Trump could fraudulently declare himself the winner. Jordan was one of 126 House Republicans who signed an amicus brief to a Texas-led lawsuit asking for the results of multiple Joe Biden-won states to be declared invalid.

On Jan. 5, 2021, Jordan contacted White House chief of staff Mark Meadows to promote the theory that then-Vice President Mike Pence could unilaterally block the counting of votes from Biden-won states. He is also known to have spoken "at length" with Trump on the morning of Jan. 6.

After insurrectionists had been removed from the Capitol on Jan. 6, Jordan was among those who still voted to contest the election's results.

Jordan later refused to testify about his own role and communications during the coup attempt, going so far as to defy a congressional subpoena demanding it.

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Jordan was almost certainly aware that the acts he helped facilitate were criminal. He was named as one of seven House Republicans who had probed the White House about potential pardons for House members who had facilitated what became a violent attempted coup.

His role in the post-failed-coup Congress has further congealed around support for Trump's criminal acts. When Trump was indicted in New York over hush money payments made during his 2016 campaign, Jordan demanded prosecutors' documents in the case—while coordinating his actions with Trump himself. Jordan similarly demanded the evidence against Trump be turned over after Trump was indicted in Georgia for his attempted election tampering.

Against the two federal indictments against Trump, Jordan's threats shift into the realm of the bizarre. He has thrown his weight behind plans to block funding from the federal departments and agencies behind the indictments. If the only way to keep Trump out of jail is to disband federal law enforcement efforts wholesale, Jordan and other coup supporters are willing to consider it.

It would be brazenly close to a criminal racketeering scheme if Jordan did not have the unique protections of Congress to hide behind. And all of that stands apart from his other major new effort: to impeach Biden or indict members of his family, even with faked evidence or none at all.

Jordan's view of law and order is consistent. For at least three decades, when faced with a crime committed by an ally, Jordan has sought to ignore it, cover it up, and attack those who discovered it. Against his enemies, there seems no evidence too flimsy for Jordan to claim as proof. It's an unambiguously fascist approach, to be sure, but in starker terms, it is simply crooked as hell. Jordan is on board with whatever criminality his allies may attempt and can be counted on to sabotage justice wherever he can.

There's a very good case to be made that it's Jordan who is the crookedest politician in Washington, D.C. Not Rep. George Santos, indicted though he may be. Not Sen. Bob Menendez, hidden gold bars or no. Jordan's acts to immunize Republican criminality don't stem from schemes of self-enrichment; he appears to truly believe that Republicans ought to be able to commit crimes for the sake of the Republican "movement," and that the movement is obliged to sabotage probes and indictments of those that do.

So that's what Republicans will be "doing" under a Jordan speakership: sabotaging laws outright to allow criminality in their own ranks. It's what he's based his career on. It's the reason Trump counts him as an ally. It's why Republicans embraced him and elevated him to begin with. And if the party is bent on becoming a criminal enterprise and coup-supporting opponents of democracy itself, they would be hard pressed to find a better spokesman than an abuse-enabling, crime-defending, unabashed crook.

House Republicans swiftly act to obstruct on Trump’s behalf

It just got worse: Trump allegedly leaked classified nuclear submarine secrets to Mar-a-Lago guest

Gaetz does not think highly of Republican effort to impeach Biden

Posted on October 6, 2023 by Laura Clawson

It’s emerging that Rep. Matt Gaetz really does not think highly of House Republicans’ drive to impeach President Joe Biden. This seems like the kind of thing Gaetz would be very excited about, but—like many observers—he can see that his fellow Republicans are not doing a very good job of it. That came out during the floor fight to oust Kevin McCarthy as speaker. Gaetz rebuffed House Judiciary Committee Chair Jim Jordan’s defense of McCarthy’s leadership by saying, “It's hard to make the argument that oversight is the reason to continue when it sort of looks like failure theater.” As it turns out, Gaetz had aired similar complaints days earlier at an online fundraiser with Rep. Matt Rosendale and former Trump adviser Steve Bannon.

“I don’t believe that we are endeavoring upon a legitimate impeachment of Joe Biden,” Gaetz said in the Bannon-moderated discussion. “They’re trying to engage in a, like, ‘forever war’ of impeachment,” he added. “And like many of our forever wars, it will drag on forever and end in a bloody draw.”

That’s not all. Gaetz also said, “I just don’t get the sense that it’s for the sake of impeachment. I think it’s for the sake of having another bad thing to say about Joe Biden.”

At the fundraiser, Gaetz claimed he wasn’t criticizing Jordan or House Oversight Chair James Comer, and when NBC News asked him about his comments at the fundraiser, he responded, “Kevin wasn’t serious. Jim Jordan is.” Apparently, the whole “failure theater” thing was not an accusation against the people conducting the failure theater; it was somehow McCarthy’s fault. That’s very convenient for Gaetz as he tries to move forward while many of his fellow Republicans are furious at him. He says Jordan is serious, but he obviously doesn’t think much of the overall effort—so how is he going to reframe his view of it going forward?

Now, this is Matt Gaetz. It’s not that he doesn’t want to attack the Bidens. His favored way that Jordan and Comer could show they were serious and not just engaged in “failure theater” would be to subpoena Hunter Biden, something he brought up both at the fundraiser and on the House floor. How would bringing Hunter Biden in to deny that his father had been involved in his business dealings move things along when several witnesses have testified that the president was not involved in his son’s business? It’s unclear. It kind of sounds like Gaetz just wants to torment the younger Biden in person.

If Gaetz thought Republicans had anything, he’d doubtless be sprinting in front of the cameras to loudly call for an impeachment vote. But right now, he’s not seeing it. He can talk all he wants about how McCarthy wasn’t serious and Jordan is, but Jordan and Comer have been leading the investigations that look like an illegitimate impeachment, failure theater, a forever war of impeachment. And he’s absolutely right in every one of those descriptions.

Sign the petition: No to MAGA impeachment. Focus on what matters.

Republicans turn on Gaetz: ED medication and energy drinks?

Posted on October 5, 2023 by Laura Clawson

Rep. Matt Gaetz engineered the historic ouster of Kevin McCarthy as House speaker this week, and while his fellow House Republicans are training most of their ire on Democrats for not bailing McCarthy out, there is some anger left over for Gaetz.

On Tuesday and Wednesday, some Republicans suggested Gaetz should be expelled from the party conference. Rep. Garret Graves said action against Gaetz would be “pursued in the conference,” while Rep. Mike Lawler told reporters he backed the move, and also that he’d like to have hit Gaetz “square between the eyes” with the speaker’s gavel. Rep. Don Bacon also backed expulsion, saying Gaetz is “not a Republican.”

Graves claimed, without evidence, that Gaetz “just got schooled by AOC and others; he was totally manipulated into doing this.” As if Republicans can’t manufacture their own disarray.

None of this was quite as startling as what Oklahoma Sen. Markwayne Mullin had to say about Gaetz, though.

Mullin, who overlapped with Gaetz in the House for several years, cited the investigation into Gaetz related to sex trafficking of a teenager and echoed the 2021 reports that Gaetz bragged about his sexual escapades on the House floor:

Mullin: Gaetz bragged about how he would crush E.D. Medicine and chase it with energy drinks so he could go all night pic.twitter.com/MbbG1nvryc
— Acyn (@Acyn) October 5, 2023

This is a guy that didn’t have, the media didn’t give the time of day to after he was accused of sleeping with an underage girl, and there’s a reason why no one in the conference came and defended him—because we had all seen the videos he was showing on the House floor, that all of us had walked away, of the girls that he had slept with. He would brag about how he would crush [erectile dysfunction] medicine and chase it with an energy drink so he could go all night—this is obviously before he got married—and so, when that accusation came out, no one defended him and no one on the media would give him the time of the day.
All of a sudden, he found fame because he opposed the speaker of the House back in November, and he’s always stayed there. And he was never going to leave until he got this last moment of fame by going after a motion to vacate.

Those are some very specific allegations about the ED medicine and energy drinks. Gaetz, for what it’s worth, called it “a lie from someone who doesn’t know me and who is coping with the death of the political career of his friend Kevin.”

Mullin wasn't done. In a Newsmax interview, he again referred to “the stuff [Gaetz] would show on the floor and the stuff he would brag about on the floor,” and described Gaetz referring to now-South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem as a “fine ---- … and you can put the B-word in place there.” Mullin also wasn’t the only Republican pointing to Gaetz’s sexual habits. Former Mike Pence chief of staff Marc Short, who is also a former chief of staff for the House Republican Caucus, told CNN’s Jake Tapper, “Matt Gaetz, to say he came here as a fiscal crusader—it’s more likely he came here for the teenage interns on Capitol Hill, to be honest.”

The fact that these allegations and characterizations of Gaetz are bubbling up suggests that even if no one has the nerve to try to get him expelled from the Republican conference—Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene warned against it earlier in the week—or if such an effort fails, he will face continuing rumors and digs. As many people commented on social media following the Mullin comments, Gaetz may be about to get the Madison Cawthorn treatment, with one rumor, allegation, or video after another emerging to damage a Republican who’s become inconvenient to his party. Gaetz should probably be trying to remember what he has told which Republicans about his sexual habits—and if his bragging might come back to bite him.

Sign the petition: No to shutdowns, no to Biden impeachment, no to Republicans

A rundown of the bizarre Republican responses to Kevin McCarthy’s ouster

Posted on October 4, 2023 by Walter Einenkel

The House of Representatives is without an active speaker after Kevin McCarthy was ousted from that position on Tuesday—by his fellow Republicans. Petty interim gavel-banger Rep. Patrick McHenry tried to set the tone by blaming Democrats for not fixing the Republican Party’s dysfunction.

McCarthy, for his part, held a press conference after his public humiliation and blamed former Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who was away at Sen. Dianne Feinstein’s funeral, for his abject failure. Now conservatives everywhere are pointing fingers and spinning the news, alternating between blaming the Democratic Party for McCarthy’s failed tenure as speaker and saying it's super fantastic that McCarthy is no longer speaker and everything is going to be A-okay.

Go figure.

First things first. Traditional media outlets have been giving a lot of credence to the idea that somehow, McCarthy’s terrible track record as speaker isn’t to blame for his inability to retain his position.

Just a little journalism note: Look at the people trying to turn the "Kevin McCarthy refused to make a deal with the only people who could help him, the Democrats" story into a "Democrats screwed up by not saving the guy who lied to them" story. Those are the bad people.
— Elie Mystal (@ElieNYC) October 4, 2023

“Moderate Republican” Rep. Nancy Mace, along with Rep. Matt Gaetz, ran to Steve Bannon’s radio show thingy to talk about how great they were and how without McCarthy as speaker, they can really begin doing more oversight of Hunter Biden’s penis pictures.

Steve Bannon tells Nancy Mace that the only clip that Jack Posobiec and Charlie Kirk played from the impeachment inquiry hearing was hers. Mace: "I'm gonna take that as a compliment." She then starts talking about going after Hunter Biden for sex trafficking. pic.twitter.com/Na6lHbVUaM
— Justin Baragona (@justinbaragona) October 4, 2023

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene wants Trump to become the next speaker of the House because he’s doing well in the polls and “he has a proven four-year record as president,” which is … true? I mean, he was technically president (if twice-impeached) for four whole years.

I’m supporting President Donald J. Trump to be the next Speaker of the House! He has a proven four year record of putting America First and implementing the policies the American people want. President Trump is the man for the job! pic.twitter.com/KFOIb64XMe
— Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene🇺🇸 (@RepMTG) October 4, 2023

What does the vice chair of the Republican National Committee believe?

You’ve got to start to wonder out loud if George Soros or some other liberal dark money is behind the idiotic move to derail the House Republican Majority and this pathetic Motion to Vacate effort.
— Nick Langworthy (@NickLangworthy) October 3, 2023

Wowsers. Didn’t see that one coming. Here’s a solid response summing up the theory:

pic.twitter.com/gLFuHZ93En
— memes (@OrganizerMemes) October 3, 2023

Fox News’ Brian Kilmeade wasn’t happy and had a fight with Rep. Tim Burchett of Tennessee about praying.

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A little while later, Burchett went on CNN and claimed he had a recording of his conversation with McCarthy—a conversation that “went on in a belittling tone.”

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We have two summations of the Republican Party’s talking points the last couple of days.

GOP (Sunday): “Dems are pedophiles!” GOP (Monday): “Dems are Communists!” GOP (Tuesday): “Dems are fascists!” GOP (Today): “Why didn’t Dems help us?”
— Tea Pain (@TeaPainUSA) October 4, 2023

Kevin McCarthy: *agrees to far-right Speaker demands* *gives January 6 footage to Tucker Carlson* *holds debt ceiling hostage* *blocks Ukraine $ for border wishlist* *launches impeachment of Biden* *blames govt shutdown drama on Dems* Media: “Why won’t Democrats save McCarthy?!”
— Sawyer Hackett (@SawyerHackett) October 4, 2023

After wringing his hands about how badly McCarthy was being treated, Politico reports that Rep. Jim Jordan has thrown his name into the ring to become the next speaker.

Jim Jordan's detractors say his involvement with a sex abuse scandal at Ohio State should disqualify the Congressman from holding GOP leadership positions. His supporters say he could be a fine Speaker in the mold of Dennis Hastert.
— New York Times Pitchbot (@DougJBalloon) October 4, 2023

C'est la vie!

The “Speaker Kevin McCarthy” sign above the Capitol Speaker office is being removed now 👀 ⁦@CNN⁩ pic.twitter.com/omRFncVfnE
— Haley Talbot (@haleytalbotcnn) October 4, 2023

Enough with the weak leadership and MAGA circus. Sign the petition: Hakeem Jeffries for speaker!

McCarthy pathetically blames Nancy Pelosi for his failures

Posted on October 4, 2023 by kos

Former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy is asked at a press conference why he’s not fighting for the speakership since he claimed he would “never give up fighting.” His answer is absolutely bonkers.

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McCarthy: You know what’s interesting? […] In today’s world if you’re sitting in Congress, and you took a gamble to make sure government was still open, and eight people can throw you out as speaker. And the Democrats who said they wanted to keep government open, I think you got a real divide. I think you got a real institutional problem.

Interesting, it was in this room, after we had won the majority and I had become speaker, Nancy Pelosi came to me, she was speaker at the time on the way out, and I told her I was having issues with getting enough votes. And she said, “What’s the problem?” I said, “They want this one person can rule you out.” She was the only speaker that changed that rule.

I had the power to call the vote on her, but I never would. I lost some votes because of it.

She said, “Just give it to them. I will always back you up. I made the same offer to [John] Boehner, and the same thing to Paul [Ryan], because I believe in the institution.”

I think today was a political decision by the Democrats. I think the things they had done in the past hurt the institution. They started removing people from committees. They just started doing the other things. My fear is the institution fell today, because you can’t do the job if eight people […] can partner with the whole other side. How do you govern?

Dear god, where to begin?

“You took a gamble to make sure government was still open …”

He wants a cookie for doing his job. This is the lowest freakin’ bar, and he considers it “a gamble.” Maybe that, right there, is why McCarthy failed. Maybe it was because he couldn’t do the most basic part of his job without expecting Democrats to hail him as some sort of conquering hero.

“[A]nd eight people can throw you out as speaker.”

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Yeah, those were the rules he instituted. That’s his problem, not the Democrats. And it wasn’t eight people that threw him out. It was 216 members of Congress.

“I had the power to call the vote on her, but I never would. “

Sure, he could’ve challenged her speakership, and he would’ve lost. She was actually good at her job.

And to be clear, Democrats didn’t call this vote. They didn’t bust any norms that McCarthy supposedly upheld. They just sat back and voted the exact same way they voted when McCarthy was first elected speaker. Thinking they would do otherwise, absent an actual deal with the current Democratic leader, was sheer madness.

“I think today was a political decision by the Democrats.”

House Republicans are currently investigating Hunter Biden penis pictures and engaging in a sham “impeachment inquiry” of President Joe Biden, and yet he’s going to cry about “politics”? Of course Democrats played politics! So did Rep. Matt Gaetz and the Freedom Caucus. And so did McCarthy!

The problem is, McCarthy played his politics poorly.

Why would he expect Democrats to bail him out after McCarthy resuscitated a wounded Donald Trump post-Jan. 6 insurrection? Why would they help him when McCarthy did everything possible to undermine the Jan. 6 commission? What about all the bullshit investigations, all of them at the behest of the Freedom Caucus? And why would he go on TV this past weekend and blame the potential government shutdown on Democrats?

Even if he had a deal, he had a shitty way to uphold his end of the bargain, which was, quite obviously, to act in the best interest of our nation.

But there was no deal, and we know he’s full of shit because of one simple reason:

If Pelosi had truly inoculated him against the Freedom Caucus, why would McCarthy go to such great lengths to let the Freedom Caucus run the show? From investigations to Trump’s butt-kissing, McCarthy always acted in the interests of his unruly nihilists hoping that giving them what they wanted would pacify them. If he had any agreement with Pelosi, he would’ve told them to pound sand from the beginning, daring them to pull the trigger on the leadership challenge.

But he didn’t. He ran his caucus scared. And when the time came to protect his speakership, did he go to the Democrats to confirm he had a deal? No, because there was never a deal, and he was too arrogant to do anything about it.

Imagine if McCarthy went to Democrats and offered to uphold his original budget deal with Biden and end all the sham investigations through the end of this term? That would suggest that McCarthy was, indeed, putting country over his party, and they could’ve worked together on a bipartisan solution to the budget impasse. Given a bipartisan power-sharing deal, Democrats would’ve saved his ass.

But he didn’t try. Even when Democrats told him flat out that they were voting against him, he didn’t try. And crying about Pelosi is just about the most pathetic thing that this pathetic spineless man can do on his way out the door.

Evening Brief: Breaking Point—McCarthy out, Trump on the edge

Posted on October 4, 2023 by kos

The cold war between House Speaker Kevin McCarthy and nihilist Freedom Caucus Rep. Matt Gaetz finally turned hot today, as the two faced off in an ouster vote.

McCarthy lost.

Democrats made it clear early in the day that they wouldn’t bail out McCarthy, pointing to his actions on Jan. 6, his sucking up to Donald Trump at Mar-a-Lago post-insurrection, his attempts to discredit the Jan. 6 committee, his sham Biden impeachment inquiry, his reneging on debt-limit deal, and his actions on national TV this past weekend, claiming Democrats wanted to shut down the government.

With McCarthy ousted (for now), we are in uncharted territory. Here’s what could happen. Unhappy House Republicans are reportedly already talking about expelling Gaetz from the House. Gaetz used Democratic votes to oust McCarthy, so it would be hilarious if Republicans then use Democratic votes to oust Gaetz. That would be bipartisanship we can all believe in! Democrats will happily assist Republicans in ousting any Republican they want, making the slim Republican House majority even slimmer.

Meanwhile, Donald Trump continued his unhinged tirades from a New York courtroom, where he continued to cry about the lack of jury trial. (His lawyers specifically didn’t request one. Was that a hilarious screwup, or was it done on purpose?) Trump also bizarrely claimed a courtroom clerk was Democratic Senate Leader Chuck Schumer’s “girlfriend,” leading the judge to issue a gag order on Trump. Shockingly, Trump seems to have backed down! He removed the offending social media post, offering a good lesson to all the other judges in all the other Trump cases on how to handle his volatile theatrics. Separately, the judge had to clarify that Trump’s claims of an important courtroom win were false. Trump isn’t winning anything at the moment.

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