Jordan flames out; House Republicans need a clown bus at this point

From CBSNews -

GOP drops Jim Jordan as House speaker nominee after he loses 3rd vote

House Republicans voted to drop Rep. Jim Jordan as their nominee for speaker after he failed to win a majority three times this week, sending the party back to the drawing board and leaving the House leaderless for at least three more days.

The House Republican Conference gathered for a closed-door meeting Friday afternoon, where they voted by secret ballot on whether Jordan should remain the nominee. Eighty-six members said Jordan should stay in the race, and 112 said he shouldn't, according to lawmakers who were in the room.

The race is on to supplant Jordan as the R nominee for speaker.  They'll need either a clown bus or will have to hope their clown car has an extended back seat.

From Axios -

Flood of GOP lawmakers hits the House speaker race

A large group of House GOP lawmakers announced on Friday they are interested in running for speaker, setting up a raucous closed-door meeting on Monday.

Why it matters: Hostilities between GOP factions have escalated since the ouster of former Speaker Kevin McCarthy, followed by House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-La.) bowing out of the race and the conference voting to remove Judiciary Chair Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) as nominee.

As of Friday evening, the following House Republicans had officially announced bids for speaker or expressed interest in the role.

• House Majority Whip Tom Emmer (R-Minn.)
• House Republican Vice Conference Chair Mike Johnson (R-La.)
• Republican Study Committee Chair Kevin Hern (R-Okla.)
• House Budget Chair Jodey Arrington (R-Texas)
• House Small Business Chair Roger Williams (R-Texas)
• Reps. Byron Donalds (R-Fla.)
• Pete Sessions (R-Texas)
• Jack Bergman (R-Mich.)
• Austin Scott (R-Ga.)
• Dan Meuser (R-Pa.)

Personally, I still they should vote for Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries.

They'll each have a different reason, but all of the Rs will hate him equally.

Which won't happen. 

If the Rs decide to hate-vote for Speaker, it'll probably be for Matt Gaetz, whose ego drew them into this mess.

People are dying in Israel and the US federal government is about to stop paying its debts. So the House GOP is running an ideological purity test.

And they've deemed that the person best suited to drive their clown car is someone with a track record of looking the other way at sexual predators. 

From KATU (OR) -

Speaker-designate Jim Jordan seeks to schedule election vote on Tuesday, despite lack of full House GOP support

Rep. Jim Jordan, the designated candidate for Speaker of the House by the House Republican Caucus, is attempting to force a vote in the speaker election Tuesday, according to multiple sources.

Jordan, a hard-right conservative Republican that serves as the chair of the House Judiciary Committee and was the first chair of the House Freedom Caucus, was voted by a majority of his fellow House Republicans to be their pick for the speakership Friday after House Majority Leader Steve Scalise wit8reallyhdrew his name from the race Thursday night.

He *really* wants the gig, maybe to the point of waging a "scorched earth" campaign for it.

From Politico -

Will Jim Jordan bully his way to the speakership?

Back in September 2016, Rep. Jim Jordan was on a crusade: He wanted the House to launch impeachment proceedings against IRS Commissioner John Koskinen over allegations that the agency had targeted conservatives.

But Jordan (R-Ohio) had a problem: GOP party leaders saw impeachment as a political loser and refused to even haul Koskinen in for questioning.Jordan wasn’t about to back down, however. He cornered then-House Judiciary Committee Chair Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.) on the House floor and presented him with a choice: Either you summon Koskinen to the Hill or the Freedom Caucus forces a vote on his impeachment a few weeks before Election Day.

Jordan got his hearing.

That is one of many instances where the Ohio Republican used hardline tactics — or what some of his colleagues would call bullying — to get his way. He was so good at it, in fact, that POLITICO dubbed him the “other speaker of the House” at the time.

Jordan has his critics within the GOP caucus but he and his supporters plan to coerce/force his detractors into supporting him.

From The Hill -

Crenshaw says pressure campaign by Jordan is ‘dumbest way’ to support GOP nominee for Speaker

Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R-Texas) blasted some of his fellow Republicans for planning an online pressure campaign on behalf of Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), saying that they will not get more votes backing him that way.

“So what I would really recommend to Jordan’s allies too, is a lot of them have mounted this high-pressure campaign,” Crenshaw said on CNN’s “State of the Union.” “They’re going to whip up Twitter against the people who are against Jordan.”

Crenshaw is pretty extreme himself but may be what passes for a decent human being in the modern GOP.

The Democrats is Congress are not the party of chaos.

However, they're not going to bail the Rs out of a mess of their own making.

Also from The Hill -

Jeffries suggests Dems won’t help nominate ‘extremist extraordinaire’ Jordan as Speaker

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) on Friday reiterated the need for bipartisanship amid the race for Speaker — but suggested the Republicans’ most recent choice wasn’t the answer.

House Republicans delivered Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) the second GOP nomination for the leadership role on Friday — a day after first choice and Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-La.) withdrew from the race.

The way that I see it, there are two possible ways for Democrats to vote in favor of a speaker candidate.

1. Gym Jordan (or whichever extremist will be nominated by the R caucus after him) stands in the well of the House and publicly kisses the butt of any Democrat who pledges to vote for him.  Or, if that doesn't happen (and it won't)

2.  Get behind Hakeem Jeffries, as in a few of the Republicans and all of the Democrats vote to make him Speaker.  While the Rs wouldn't like him, but they'd all dislike him, and the Rs are unable/unwilling to find someone they all like.

Dislike seems to be the best solution.

Short Attention Span Musing

The "what you get when you put crooks in charge" edition.

...Maybe they can put it next to Ben Carson's $31K dining table.

From AP via Yahoo! -

Scrutiny of Arkansas governor's $19,000 lectern deepens after new records are released

New public records have widened questions over when Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders' office planned to use Republican Party funds to reimburse the state for a $19,000 lectern, which was bought in June using a government credit card.

The Arkansas GOP paid for the lectern in September, but the words “to be reimbursed” were only added later to the original invoice, records released this week show. The undated reimbursement note adds to weeks of scrutiny over the purchase, which has dominated political talk in Arkansas.

...If only the oft-charged Ken Paxton had a sense of irony.

From the Texas Tribune -

Ken Paxton to file criminal complaints against Texas House impeachment managers

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton said Monday he plans to file criminal complaints against the group of state representatives who led the impeachment against him for releasing his personal information.

“The impeachment managers clearly have a desire to threaten me with harm when they released this information last week,” he said in a statement. “I'm imploring their local prosecutors in each individual district to investigate the criminal offenses that have been committed.”

The 12 House representatives being targeted by Paxton led the impeachment trial in the Senate after the House overwhelmingly voted to impeach Paxton in May. Last month the Senate acquitted Paxton of 16 articles of impeachment that alleged corruption and bribery.

...Should we all pitch in to buy Steve Scalise a hair shirt?

From CNN -

Steve Scalise picked as GOP speaker nominee, but struggles to lock down votes to win the gavel

House Republicans picked Rep. Steve Scalise as their nominee for speaker on Wednesday, but the Louisiana Republican lacks the votes needed to win the gavel and it remains unclear whether he will be able to win over holdouts.

Republicans are now worried that Scalise is facing grim prospects of becoming speaker as he confronts opposition within the ranks, a situation that threatens to prolong the GOP’s leadership crisis following Kevin McCarthy’s historic ouster.

Do I believe that Scalise is a better human being than Gym Jordan?  Yes.  If only because he hasn't enabled and protected a sexual predator.

To the best of my knowledge, anyway.

On the other hand, he's still a lousy human being.

...Speaking of lousy human beings...

Does ignoring part of your job and actively working against the interests of your employers count as a voluntary resignation?

In his ads touting school vouchers to siphon money from public schools to private pockets., Arizona's Tom Horne refers to himself as the state's "superintendent of schools."  [edited] Actually, he campaigned for and won the office of "superintendent of public instruction".

Yes, I believe that elected office is a job like any other.

[Note - edited on 10/12 - I heard the spot again.  He said "schools", not "education", as I originally wrote.  Of course, "public" is still not part of his mindset.

The original text - 

]

So who will be Cheeto's running mate in 2024?

Time for some idle speculation.

Current frontrunners:

Kari Lake.   The failed 2022 candidate has traveled the country, serve as Cheeto's surrogate.

    Pluses: Is female and is from a state that Cheeto needs to win in a general election.  Plus she regularly pushes Cheeto's "big lie" and whines almost as he does.

    Negatives: Isn't blonde.  Lost her election.  Won't help in the primary, because Cheeto will win the AZ primary which I expect him to win no matter what.

Greg Abbott.  The current governor of Texas.

    Pluses: Hates people of color and immigrants almost as much as Cheeto.  Wins elections.

    Negatives: Cheeto will win the general election in Texas no matter who's on the ticket with him.

    

Others in the mix :

Kristi Noem, the current governor of South Dakota.  She's as nuts as Cheeto.

Marjorie Taylor Greene.  Currently in Congress.  Makes Noem look sane.

Ron DeSantis, currently Florida's Governor and a presumed presidential candidate in 2024.  He and Cheeto aren't fans of each other, so if this happens, it will be a cynical move by both.

Tommy Tuberville.  Currently in the US Senate.  Cheeto likes to think that he's smarter than others.  In Tuberville's case, that belief might actually be true.

Gym Jordan.  Currently in Congress.  His penchant for looking the other way when facing sexual predators may endear him to Cheeto.

Kyrsten Sinema.  Currently in the US Senate.  A former Democrat who may be as self-centered as Cheeto.

Not gonna happen, either because Cheeto won't have them, or there's no way in hell that they'd take the gig:

Liz Cheney, Adam Kinzinger, and any R who voted to impeach him. Mike Pence.

There will be others in the mix as this early speculation.

Gym Jordan opines that vaccines are a bad thing. He has a different opinion about betraying trust, though

He'd be supportive of vaccines...if there was one that made folks look the other way.  Of course, he doesn't need that one, since he already does that naturally

From Twitter:

By his definition, apparently I attended an un-American elementary school, since I had to take vaccinations for measles, rubella, polio, diptheria, and I'm not sure what else (I think smallpox was all but eradicated in the U.S. by then).