they don’t need to vote for him, enough of them just need to not show up. they can go on a fact finding trip or get stuck in traffic or something.
That’s good!
Ha ha ha ha ha ha! I’d like a pony that poops skittles while you’re at it.
Isn’t there some sort of Compromise caucus? Like 20 Republicans and more dems?
At this point I would argue that the Republicans have only one real strategy. Do a secret poll to find out who is planning on retiring at the end of this session. Put the names out to the caucus. (Do not include McCarthy, Scalise, Jordan, Gaetz, or any of that crowd.) Tell everybody to vote off the list. Keep eliminating names until there is only one left. Then hold the public vote.
As soon as there is a Speaker, get rid of the one person to call a vote against the Speaker rule. First thing.
Only if you can find 20 (or even 5) Republicans who are not interested in winning their next primary race.
Yep, I found it-
32 GOPers.
There was the Problem Solvers caucus, but the GOP members were some of the first who started saying that it was the Dems’ fault for axing McCarthy. There were some suggestions in the media that the Problem Solvers were up against a problem they could not solve, and might disband.
Yep. Looks like this whole fiasco revealed Mr Jordan’s true colors to his caucus.
Yep, he’s a nasty scumbag.
The thing is, a reputation for bipartisanship isn’t necessarily an asset in the general election either. The number of genuine independents (as opposed to voters who say they’re independent but consistently lean toward one party) has grown increasingly small. It often makes better sense for Republicans running in a swing district to try to goose turnout among partisans than try to appeal to the small number of voters who may be susceptible to changing their vote based on who’s more “bipartisan”.
Kevin Hern is in! Jack Bergman is in! Austin Scott is in! Pete Sessions is in!
We’ve officially reached the “who?” stage of Republican candidates for Speaker.
Kevin Hearn is McGriddles.
Austin Scott is a pro wrestler, and Jack Bergman was an old vaudeville performer, and Pete Sessions was on Saturday Night Live.
I think, and don’t tell me different.
Re the whole “Democrats are doing this!” thing, it’s like a circular firing squad that has convinced themselves they are shooting at the enemy, so they are gonna continue shooting, harder.
Sounds like they are gonna need a bigger clown car.
In fact, the Missouri Republican Party is eliminating its 2024 presidential primary election in favor of caucuses. This was not done in the interest of democracy or even party harmony. It was done in the interest of having a miniscule minority of voters putting Donald Trump on the ballot without even the minor speed bump of a primary election.
If they ever do elect a Speaker, the first thing the new Speaker should do is ask that the rules be amended so that it takes something like 43 members (10%) to sign a motion to vacate.
And say that if the motion doesn’t pass, he/she will resign and they’re back to square one.
The ship of state is sinking after years of deferred maintenance. There’s water in the bilge, the planks are rotten, and there’s a small leak in the fuel system. But there are barrels of glue and sealant in storage, enough to get us towards port. Faced with these objective problems, 8 members of the crew mutiny and somehow succeed. They are sick of hearing from the bean counters, the cooks, the engine room, the deck officers, the engineers, the electro-technical officers, and the navigators. While others attend to their duties, they put Captain Jordan in charge, who formerly ran the ship’s radio station. Some think the crew needs to focus on keeping the ship afloat, and get the tech crew working on repairs. But that would be business as usual so Team 8 gets to work rearranging deck chairs.
So what do we discuss, the clowns in charge or the ship’s rot? (Why not both?)
There’s a lot of ruin in a nation. Tom Nichols once thought politics was fun and games, since we all jumped around in a big bouncy castle called the US Constitution. Elbows were sometimes sharp and there were occasional ouchies, but nobody really got hurt. Tom Nichols no longer believes that. Richard Nixon understood the importance of tossing raw meat to the base, but in the end adults should be in charge. Adults can be very liberal, very conservative, or very moderate: being an adult involves an understanding that you can’t get everything you want immediately, and sometimes your problem is with the laws of mathematics as opposed to the deep state.
Anyway, at the end of the day budgets need to be penned by something like the AEI-Brookings Joint Center for Regulatory Studies or The National Budget Roundtable. You know, the engineers. Radio DJs have their place, but ships need maintenance.
flurb: good point.
Kent_Clark: Interesting. I’d be happy with a return to the pre-1972 smoke filled room (because democracy happens in November), but that won’t happen. So I turn to other fixes.
On the motion to vacate: we had a one-man-can-make-a-motion rule for over a hundred years, but norms and the power of the party kept things in check. Now the GOP must adapt to rule breakers whose independent funding base relies on breaking rules. This calls for some creative politics, but frankly not that creative - just above McCarthy’s or Jordan’s level.
Calling him a sack of shit is insulting to sacks of shit. Who would have thought?
Calling him a scumbag…
Maybe! There are 15-20 Republican Representatives whose districts went for Biden. Weird fact – George Santos is in one such district!
The next House session will be at 11 AM on Tuesday, which is in line with CNN’s reported timeline of events:
Candidates for Speaker have until noon Sunday to submit their names for a secret ballot of the Republican Caucus.
The candidates will be allowed to address the caucus at a meeting on Monday evening.
There will be a secret ballot to select what I assume will be a single candidate for Speaker on Tuesday at 9 AM.
Keep in mind that this still does not prevent any Republican from voting against this person in the floor vote expected for Tuesday.