McCarthey out as Speaker of the House - Bozo the clown on deck

[ZiprHead]

What's she going to do if she loses? I don't think you can make a living jacking off guys in a theater. But I could be wrong.

 

[Patooka]

What's she going to do if she loses? I don't think you can make a living jacking off guys in a theater. But I could be wrong.

Giving hand shandies at CPAC. Duh.

 

[starwater]

Lauren Boebert won’t pursue special election nomination to replace Ken Buck after his abrupt resignation

Boebert is still running, however, in the Republican primary to be the GOP nominee for the November election in the 4th Congressional District

coloradosun.com

The good news is that Bobblehead will not be in the special election.

I'm no insider, bur Word on our streets is the she won't be winning any elections any time soon. Jerry Sonnenberg will probably be the GOP nominee, and will probably win the seat. He seems like a reasonable guy for a conservative dickweed. Probably a hair to the left of that district's population.

Bubbles' whole charade - the moving, the pretending to run... she HAD to get away from the embarrassing toxic mess she had made for herself in own town, and in entire communities within her district. She was never going to garner enough support to challenge in the primary.

Word on my street (a bit further north) is that Jerry is very popular there, born and raised was in the state legislature for years. the last poll I saw had her pretty far down.

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

What's she going to do if she loses? I don't think you can make a living jacking off guys in a theater. But I could be wrong.

Maybe she's hoping for a VP nod. I'm sure Melania would be very happy with that arrangement.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Representative MTG (NUT-R) has filed to vacate the Speakership. She did so poorly or intended to do so poorly, as in the manner she did, it isn't important for a bit. Presumably the Democrats will support Johnson.

 

[starwater]

Representative MTG (NUT-R) has filed to vacate the Speakership. She did so poorly or intended to do so poorly, as in the manner she did, it isn't important for a bit. Presumably the Democrats will support Johnson.

She rubbed her two brain cells together really hard to come up with this one, to keep her in the news.

 

[blastula]

Another GOPer leaving early!

Republican Rep. Mike Gallagher will resign early, leaving House majority hanging by a thread

House Republicans lost another member in Rep. Ken Buck, R-Colo., on Friday. Gallagher's departure April 19 will leave Republicans with just one vote to spare on legislation.

www.nbcnews.com

His resignation could cause more headaches for House Republicans. Rep. Ken Buck, R-Colo., who also is not seeking re-election, is resigning from Congress on Friday, cutting the GOP’s minuscule majority to 218-213. When Gallagher leaves, the majority would further shrink to 217-213, meaning Republicans could only afford a single defection on any vote if Democrats vote together.

 

[Worldtraveller]

In Wis, if a senator resigns after April 2, the seat remains vacant until the next election and there is no special election, so this was calculated to mess with the crazy wing (i.e. most of them) of the house GQP.

 

[lpetrich]

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene files motion to vacate speaker's chair - YouTube
Marjorie Taylor Greene Defends Motion To Vacate Against Speaker Johnson - YouTube
"... a warning and a pink slip"

Did she mean "A warning, not a pink slip"?

Greene files motion to oust Speaker Johnson | The Hill

Greene, who has emerged as a top critic of Johnson since he took the gavel in October, said she would not immediately trigger a vote on ousting the Speaker — “this is basically a warning” — but she asserted she may force a referendum on his standing in the House down the road.

“Today, I filed a motion to vacate after Speaker Johnson has betrayed our conference and broken our rules,” Greene told reporters on the steps of the Capitol.

“I respect our conference; I paid all my dues to my conference; I’m a member in good standing, and I do not wish to inflict pain on our conference and to throw the House in chaos,” she added. “But this is basically a warning, and it’s time for us to go through the process, take our time, and find a new Speaker of the House that will stand with Republicans in our Republican majority instead of standing with the Democrats.”

Pressed on when she would force a vote on Johnson’s removal, Greene said she didn’t “have a timeline” and noted it “will be a rolling issue that we’ll be judging and making decisions by.”

“I’m not saying that it won’t happen in two weeks, or it won’t happen in a month or who knows when, but I am saying the clock has started,” Greene said. “It’s time for our conference to choose a new Speaker.”

Her motion is not a privileged ones, meaning that it does not have to be voted on right away, in the next few days.

 

[lpetrich]

Greene threatens to throw House back into chaos with threat to oust Speaker Johnson | The Hill

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene’s (R-Ga.) new bid to oust Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) sent shockwaves through Washington on Friday, infuriating many Republicans who are scrambling to unite ahead of November’s elections, while threatening to throw the House — and especially the GOP conference — into a state of spring mayhem.

Instead of uniting against President Biden, the House Republicans are attacking each other.

It’s a trend many GOP lawmakers say has only gotten worse with the arrival of Greene’s new resolution.

“Speaker Johnson is put in a very difficult situation,” Rep. Greg Murphy (R-N.C.) told The Hill. “We can’t keep the Republican circular firing squad. When this happens, only the Democrats end up winning.”

Republicans lash out at Greene over threat to oust Speaker Johnson | The Hill

“It’s not only idiotic, but it actually does not do anything to advance the conservative movement. And in fact, it undermines the country, and our majority,” said Rep. Mike Lawler, a moderate Republican who’s facing a tough reelection contest in New York.

It’s not only vulnerable centrists who are up in arms. Rep. Clay Higgins (R-La.), a member of the far-right Freedom Caucus, is also rushing to the defense of Johnson, a fellow Louisianan, warning that Greene’s resolution attempts to remove the only House Republican capable of steering the GOP conference “through these very dark and challenging times.”

“I consider Marjorie Taylor Greene to be my friend. She’s still my friend. But she just made a big mistake,” Higgins said in a video posted on X, formerly known as Twitter. “To think that one of our Republican colleagues would call for his ouster right now — it’s really, it’s abhorrent to me and I oppose it.”

 

[lpetrich]

Wisconsin Republican to leave Congress next month, shrinking narrow GOP House majority | The Hill - Mike Gallagher R-WI

Let's see...
 118th United States Congress

• Before: R 222 D 213
• 2023 Dec 1: George Santos NY-03 expelled: R 221 D 213
• 2023 Dec 31: Kevin McCarthy CA-20 resigned: R 220 D 213
• 2024 Jan 21: Bill Johnson OH-06 resigned: R 219 D 213
• 2024 Feb 2: Brian Higgins NY-26 resigned: R 219 D 212
• 2024 Feb 28: Tom Suozzi NY-03 elected: R 219 D 213
• 2024 Mar 22: Ken Buck CO-04 resigned: R 218 D 213
• 2024 Apr 19: Mike Gallagher WI-08 will resign: R 217 D 213

List of U.S. Congress incumbents who are not running for re-election in 2024 - Ballotpedia

Of Senators, 5 D's, 1 R, and 1 I are retiring and 1 R is running for governor.

Of Reps, 12 D's and 13 R's are retiring, 9 D's and 3 R's are running for the Senate, 1 D and 1 R are running for governor, and 2 D's and 1 R are seeking other offices.

 

[lpetrich]

Top Republican Sounds Off On ‘Radical Individuals’ in House GOP ‘Chaos Caucus’ Amid Marjorie Taylor Greene’s Threats to Oust Speaker

In a Sunday interview on CBS’s Face the Nation with Ed O’Keefe, Rep. Mike Turner (R-OH) — who chairs the House Intelligence Committee — slammed those who are standing in the way of Johnson putting a Ukraine aid package on the floor.

“Unfortunately, the Chaos Caucus has continued to want to stop everything that occurs in Congress,” Turner said. “It’s not as if they have an alternative plan. They’re just against those things that are necessary… This is necessary for national security.”

Chaos Caucus?

Referring to the Democrats' House leader, Hakeem Jeffries,

“[Jeffries] has made it absolutely clear that he will not join with rebels in the Republican side to take down Speaker Johnson on this,” Turner said. “And I think, we’re certainly going to see, broad support in Congress to get this job done.”

...
“It shows that we can have radical fringes, even radical individuals — who don’t really have an ideology or an agenda other than chaos — that can cause disruptions,” Turner said. “And that’s what we have seen. That certainly makes it difficult for people who just want to get the job done.”

 

[lpetrich]

Trump attacks resigning GOP Reps as ‘cowards and weaklings’ as majority thins | The Hill

Trump’s barbs against Gallagher echo scorn from much of the GOP, as the congressman appeared to time his resignation to perfectly align with Wisconsin law to avoid a special election. That guarantees his seat will be empty until January, instead of being filled in a few months.

"Never forget": Trump unloads on Republican "cowards and weaklings" in Easter Sunday meltdown | Salon.com - "Retiring Republicans leave the GOP's slim majority in the House vulnerable "

Truth Details | Truth Social - "Never forget our cowards and weaklings! Such a disgrace."

Greene: GOP’s Gallagher should be expelled in time for special election | The Hill

In an interview on Fox News’s “Sunday Morning Futures,” Greene blamed Johnson for allowing Gallagher to leave early and said Republicans should work to ensure they can replace Gallagher, whose seat is “solid Republican” according to the Cook Political Report.

“Speaker Johnson should be forcing Mike Gallagher to leave early so that his district can hold a special election, and any strong Republican Speaker of the House would expel a member for leaving our razor-thin majority in such a delicate, delicate state. We cannot allow — we cannot allow this,” Greene said Sunday.

...
“Speaker Johnson has also failed our majority because he is allowing Mike Gallagher to leave Congress after the deadline date where his district cannot hold a special election and elect a new representative for the rest of this entire Congress,” Greene said.

“Mike Gallagher betrayed all of us. And Speaker Johnson, as the one who’s responsible for our majority, praised Mike Gallagher on Friday after he announced his departure, saying that he’s great and praising him and thanking him for his service in Congress,” she added.

But that did not go very far.

 

[lpetrich]

The Far Right Wants Its Revenge on Speaker Johnson Over Spending Bill - The New York Times - "Bipartisan spending legislation approved by Congress represented a major defeat for ultraconservatives, who immediately turned on Speaker Mike Johnson."

As 2023 opened with Republicans newly in control of the House, the far-right members of the party considered themselves empowered when it came to federal spending, with increased muscle to achieve the budget cuts of their dreams.

But it turned out that many of their Republican colleagues did not share their vision of stark fiscal restraint. Or at least not fervently enough to go up against a Democratic Senate and White House to try to bring it into fruition.

Instead, Speaker Mike Johnson on Friday pushed through a $1.2 trillion bipartisan package to fund the government for the rest of the year, with none of the deep cuts or policy changes that ultraconservatives had demanded. Those on the right fringe have been left boiling mad and threatening to make him the second Republican speaker to be deposed this term.

Right-wingers were outraged, saying things like “The speaker failed us today" (Rep. Thomas Massie, R-KY).

Not only did members of the far right not get the steep cuts and severe border restrictions they had envisioned, they were also unable to secure the conservative policy riders they had sought to stop the “weaponization” of the Justice Department, with most of the truly contentious proposals stripped out because Democrats would not accept them.

And while the entirety of federal spending was split into two big bills instead of one, it was still the sort of huge, last-minute, leadership-driven spending package that Republicans had promised to eliminate when they took charge. To add insult to injury, the debate violated the rule to provide lawmakers with at least 72 hours to review the bill — a standard that is sacrosanct to the right wing after having been jammed for time by Democrats for years.

If they are going to dawdle about spending bills, that's what's going to happen.

 

[Tigers!]

Do you have an ejector seat as your Speaker's chair or does it rotate really fast and throw off the unwary?

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

The ability to fire a Speaker so easily is actually a new thing... invented... oddly enough by the GOP, in 2022. So no, the specs on the Ejecto-Seat are still in committee.

McCarthy could only get over the line to become speaker himself way back less than 18 months ago by allowing fetid pieces of crap like Rep. Greene or Gaetz the ability to single handedly eject a speaker. The Democrats weren't really in a position to give a fuck about a hyper-partisan asshole like McCarthy to save his ass from his own party as he was started to step back on agreements he had already made.

So now we have a lightweight Johnson who is terribly over his head. The Democrats have leverage on him... if he wants to remain Speaker, in the form of passing Ukraine aid for votes to support his speakership. Certainly getting into some weird ass politics, when a simple bill on military aid to an ally shouldn't even be considered a compromise in the first place. The larger irony would be they stopped a bill with the aid already that had concessions on the border... and now he might have to rubber stamp a clean Ukraine aid bill.

 

[Elixir]

The Democrats have leverage on him... if he wants to remain Speaker, in the form of passing Ukraine aid for votes to support his speakership.

He better goddam well do that, and quick.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Do you have an ejector seat as your Speaker's chair or does it rotate really fast and throw off the unwary?

I would think it drops down and tips.

 

[lpetrich]

Greene goes after Johnson on border, says he ‘completely surrendered’ | The Hill

“If Speaker Johnson gives another $60 billion to the defense of Ukraine’s border after he FULLY FUNDED Biden’s deadly open border, the cruel joke would be on the American people,” Greene wrote Monday on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter.

“And it won’t be April Fools.”

...
“Speaker Johnson completely surrendered all power we had in the House to stop horrendous crimes like child rape by illegals when he fully funded Biden’s deadly open border without a fight,” Greene wrote.

But there is not much that the R's can do when they only have the House, and have it by a tiny majority.

“These are not the perfect pieces of legislation that you and I and Marjorie would draft if we had the ability to do it differently,” Johnson said in an interview on Fox News’s “Sunday Night in America With Trey Gowdy.”

“But with the smallest margin in U.S. history, we’re sometimes going to get legislation that we don’t like.”

MTG makes him seem very sober.

 

[lpetrich]

Republican blame game heats up as their majority thins | The Hill
noting
Greene says she won’t take blame if Jeffries becomes Speaker | The Hill

“It’s just a simple math. The more Republicans, like Mike Gallagher, that resign and leave early — guess what, that means we have less Republicans in the House,” Greene said Tuesday on Real America’s Voice, a conservative cable channel. “So, every time a Mike Gallagher or a Ken Buck leaves early, that brings our numbers down and brings us dangerously closer to being in the minority.”

“It’s not Marjorie Taylor Greene that is saying the inconvenient truth and forcing everyone to wake up and realize Republican voters are done with us doing this kind of crap that we did last week,” she added.

Back to the earlier link.

Yet Greene declined to mention a third lawmaker who dashed for the exits prematurely: former Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), a close ally of Greene who resigned his seat in December after conservatives booted him from the Speakership two months earlier.

McCarthy’s high-profile resignation has incensed some of the hard-liners in the GOP conference, who are accusing him of abandoning the party ahead of a high-stakes election cycle when control of the lower chamber is up for grabs.

“After our former Speaker left us,” Rep. Tim Burchett (R-Tenn.) told reporters recently, “it kind of left us a little bit in the lurch.”