Jordan Waffles, Powell Sinks DDT, Etc.

House Republicans can’t find consensus on anything. First, they can’t get enough votes for Jim Jordan (R-OH), possibly because of their intimidation against holdouts and insurrectionist Jordan’s refusal to admit that Joe Biden was legally elected as president in 2020. Then Jordan supporters won’t support the idea that Patrick McHenry (R-NC) could expand Speaker responsibilities until next January before another attempt to elect a Speaker. Chip Roy (R-TX) is on record as being “violently” opposed to the idea. The Republicans can’t even figure out how to carry out the plan. The only way that proposal can fly is with Democratic support which they won’t provide for nothing, and McHenry doesn’t even want the job.

The drama in the House Speaker debacle changes minute by minute. After claiming he won’t immediately run for Speaker in the morning of the third day, Jordan says he will in the afternoon. He met with holdouts, but a participant in the secret meeting said Jordan didn’t make any progress. The idea of an interim Speaker has been scrapped—for the meantime. The remaining House leadership–Majority Leader Steve Scalise, Majority Whip Tom Emmer (MN) and Conference Chair Elise Stefanik (NY)—are all firmly opposed to the idea. One thing all Republicans agree on: they are angry, but not necessarily for the same reasons.

By the evening, Jordan’s office said that he will have a news conference at 8:00 am EST and a House vote at 10:00 am. Until a decision is made, the House has four people with Speaker in their designation:

• Deposed Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), ousted over two weeks ago but still pretends as if he has some powers while he works out his former office and holds news conferences in the place designated for House speaker news conferences.
• Speaker-designate Jim Jordan (R-OH), who can call votes in the full House for Speaker.
• Acting Speaker Patrick McHenry (R-NC) who has no power.
• Former Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), who left the position after Democrats lost the position when Republicans took the House majority and calls herself “Speaker Emerita.”

GOP House members are so pathetic that they blame Democrats for the massive dysfunction in the chamber. How even far-right conservatives can believe this fantasy is hard to believe. Republicans:

• Instigated and executed the coup to remove Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) from being Speaker.
• First nominated Steve Scalise (R-LA) for Speaker and forced him to quit within 24 hours.
• Replaced Scalise with Jordan.
• Couldn’t get the 217 votes to make Jordan Speaker.

Using a talking point from Rep. Mike Collins (R-GA), former Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-UT) tried to push the myth on Fox that House minority leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) was too weak to win the House Speaker if Democrats were in power. Chaffetz said that Jeffries, a Democrat, had now lost 17 ballots for Speaker after host John Roberts ask how fast Jeffries would win Speaker if Democrats controlled the House. In the minority party with 212 members compared to 222 (now 221) GOP House members, Jeffries had the highest total on 13 of those 17 rounds of votes, more than the top Republican.

The House has now been without a Speaker for 17 days, 15 days longer than at any other time. Without a Speaker, the government shuts down in 29 days—although it might shut down even with a Speaker. An election of Jordan would likely guarantee a government shutdown this year.

In more bad news for Deposed Donald Trump (DDT), Sidney Powell, a licensed Dallas-based lawyer, has pled guilty to six misdemeanor charges of conspiracy in Fulton County (GA) in exchange for leniency and her truthful testimony in this case and other ones against DDT. She is the second of 19 co-defendants in the RICO case to flip on DDT by pleading guilty. Her trial had been scheduled in coordination with another lawyer, Ken Chesebro, to begin on October 23. Powell’s attorney had claimed his client had nothing to do with the breach in Coffee County voting machines, but Powell admitted to the conspiracy, including her paying employees to SullivanStrickler to copy voter data in the country “without authority” and to “interfere with, hinder and delay” the duties of the country elections director, Misty Hampton, who is one of the co-defendants.

A key DDT adviser in his inner circle after the 2020 election, Powell was present at an Oval Office meeting on December 18, 2020, where DDT proposed seizing voting machines from key counties, deploying the National Guard to rerun the election, and appointing Powell as a special counsel to investigate the election. In the plea agreement, she didn’t plead guilty to “moral turpitude” so that she can keep her license, but she is writing a letter of apology to Georgia citizens.

Jury selection proceeds Friday for Ken Chesebro, accused of helping orchestrate the meeting of contingent electors in December 2020 to cast electoral votes for DDT after Biden’s victory in the state.

The Supreme Court has agreed to delay the redrawing of Louisiana redistricting maps after GOP legislators gerrymandered Black voters out a district. The court’s unsigned one-sentence order gave no instructions, reasoning, or noted dissents in not putting on hold a 5^th Circuit Court decision. Previously, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson wrote separately, repeating an earlier Supreme Court statement that litigation should be resolved in time for the 2024 congressional elections.

Last year, a federal judge found that Louisiana’s map likely violates the Voting Rights Act for the one-third Black voters in the state with only one of six congressional districts conducive to allowing Black residents to make a choice. Louisiana didn’t follow the order to draw a new map, and the Supreme Court put the case on hold while considering one from Alabama in June 2022, allowing the GOP map to be used for the 2022 election. The state elected five White Republicans and one Black Democrat for Congress. The high court voted 5-4 in June 2023 to require a new map from Alabama, but Lousiana AG—and now governor-elect—Jeff Landry argued that the federal judge’s ruling removed the legislature’s opportunity to draw a new map. The Supreme Court promised to issue a decision by January 2024; this is the result.

The right wing will have a twisted response to the Israel war as long as conspiracy theories spread. Alex Jones, who owes $1.5 billion for his lies about the Sandy Hook school massacre, recently joined DDT’s adviser Steve Bannon to promote a crazy theory. Watch for this one to appear on social media.

The Hamas attack is a globalist plot with China in the center when Biden gave Iran mullahs $6 billion (he didn’t) who gave it to Hezbollah which gave it to Hamas. The U.S., according to Bannon and Jones, gave $80 billion-plus weapons and equipment to Afghanistan two years ago. (It didn’t.) China can then destabilize the U.S. and drive world nations away from a Western uni-power to unseat the dominance of the U.S. Bannon said that China and Iran orchestrated the Israel-Hamas crisis as a continuation of the 10,000-year-long crusade by the “Persians” against the West. He explained that the same unnamed instigators are trying to force Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu out of office in “exactly the same playbook they ran on Trump.”

Bannon finished by advertising the purchase of gold as a “hedge” for “time immemorial” for people to save themselves. Jones went back to his own show to amplify this globalist conspiracy. He claimed that Biden’s administration and military contractors helped engineer the war to provide big profits to corporations, expand surveillance, and control populations around the world by exploiting fear. Globalists failed to “gain control” through Covid, the “climate scam,” or the Ukrainian war, according to Jones, so the plotters “move to war in Gaza.” Therefore, Netanyahu and and Biden are following directions from the New World Order.

To free hostages, Biden had briefly released the sanction on Iran’s $6 billion, to be used only for humanitarian purposes, that Iran made when DDT allowed Iran to sell oil to South Korea.  Iran did not get one cent of the money, and it is no longer available to the country. The U.S. left $7.12 billion in Afghanistan because it couldn’t take the materiel out of the country.

The city of San Marcos (TX) has been charged $175,000 to pay Wendy Davis and three other Democrats because the police refused to stop DDT supporters from harassing a Biden campaign bus on Interstate 35 before the 2020 election. Officers and professional staff are also required to undergo training on responding to violence, voter intimidation, and ways to develop community trust, according to a legal settlement.

Dozens of trucks aggressively surrounded the bus and drove dangerously around it while honking and shouting. Called for help, a city corporal said “we’re not going to escort a bus.” He said that the Biden bus should drive aggressively and they’ll be okay. The 911 dispatcher responded, “Or leave the [campaign] train.” San Marcos is still employing the police officers who failed to rescue people fearing for their safety. A federal judge had already sanctioned San Marcos for failing to preserve phone and email records related to the incident. Earlier in 2023, two of eight defendants in a second lawsuit accusing eight DDT supporters of participating in a “politically-motivated conspiracy” in the episode. The case against the other six is still pending.

More GOP Chaos – DDT Gets Gag Order, McCarthy Loses His Job, Etc.

As Deposed Donald Trump (DDT) tests the waters to see how much violence he can spread (stochastic terrorism), a judge overseeing his civil fraud trial is fed up after DDT attacked one of Judge Arthur Engoron’s staff members. DDT posted his fabrication that Engoron’s law clerk was a “girlfriend” of Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and passing him information. The judge said all parties must not speak publicly about any members of the court staff. The trial, regarding the amount of damages for Engoron’s summary judgment of business fraud began yesterday with a furious DDT present in court.  The gag order ruling was made after several closed-door sessions with DDT, New York AG Letitia James who brought the case, and their attorneys. Engoron said that violating his order would lead to “serious sanctions.” Watch for DDT excessively whining about his victimization.

Engoron may remove DDT’s right to operate properties not only in New York but also in other states such as California, Florida, Illinois, Nevada, and South Carolina. During the trial’s breaks, DDT appears frequently at the courthouse in campaign mode, but CNN has returned to journalism. The network cut off his microphone on the first day of the trial for holding a “campaign event” instead of dealing with a legal proceeding.

Fascism scholar Ruth Ben-Ghiat compared DDT’s rants of “witch hunt/victimhood rhetoric” to language used by authoritarian strongmen including “Mussolini, Hitler, Berlusconi, Erdogan.” She also talked about how the “fusion of the Proud Boys and all these other extremist groups … is part of the GOP’s trajectory to become an autocratic party … dependent on violence and on corruption for its identity.” The third DDT-supporter shooting at Democrats in New Mexico, some of them in their homes, has been arrested. Threats against Democrats has been encouraged by GOP elected officials. The most recent person arrested follows right-wing and conspiracy writings, including the one for MyPillow founded by election-denying conspiracy theorist Mike Lindell.

Another fascism authority, Federico Finchelstein, stated:

“Fascist lies are about the projection onto others of what fascists are/do. Trump today as usually display his wannabe fascist mindset.”

McCarthy No Longer House Speaker:

The U.S. faces a shutdown in 44 days, and the far-right House Republicans removed Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) from his Speaker position. Leader of the vendetta, Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) succeeded in his publicity-seeking stun, creating history: for the first time, the House leader was removed by his own party. The last vote to vacate a Speaker was in 1910, 113 years ago, but the Speaker kept his job. Gaetz’s motion passed with eight GOP votes and all present Democrats by 216-210. An earlier vote to table the motion failed. These eight GOP representatives voted against McCarthy: Andy Biggs (AZ), Ken Buck (CO), Tim Burchett (TN), Eli Crane (AZ), Matt Gaetz (FL), Bob Good (VA), Nancy Mace (SC), and Matt Rosendale (MT).

The far-right purport that McCarthy is insufficiently conservative, and Democrats followed Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) leadership in removing the man who cannot be trusted and refuses “to break from MAGA extremism.” For example, he tried to undermine the House investigation into the January 6 insurrection after minimizing the attack. Almost all of his actions in the past nine months have been to please the far-right Republicans in opposition to Democrats and the welfare of U.S. people.

Rep. Patrick McHenry (R-NC), the acting Speaker pro tempore, slammed the gavel in a recess after the vote. McCarthy selected McHenry according to protocol to ensure continuity developed after 9/11. The House will likely be paralyzed until a new Speaker is elected, probably more difficult than the last debacle in early January that took four days until McCarthy caved in to all the far-right demands.     

Gaetz may have made a big mistake because over 200 Republicans in the House voted against him. He has made Republicans look like fools before the 2024 election, and the country may be tiring of chaos. In addition, the ethics committee is deciding his fate after allegations of sex trafficking, illegal drug use, and public corruption. Some Republicans threaten to expel him if committee members release a negative report. Highly conservative Newt Gingrich, a former House Speaker, advocates Gaetz’s expulsion from the House in a Washington Post op-ed.

The aftermath of McCarthy’s ouster:

The House is in recess until October 11, 36 days until the government shuts down again. At that time, it will try to elect a new Speaker to return to business.

McCarthy announced that he won’t be running for Speaker and blamed Democrats for not supporting him after blaming them for the possible shutdown. (He had blocked Democrats from voting on thee continuing resolution until his desperation during the last few hours. Almost all Democrats voted for the continuing resolution that 40 percent of Republicans opposed.) McCarthy also didn’t say whether he will remain in the House.

The acting Speaker told former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) to immediately vacate her office although it is practice for former Speakers to occupy the office, even GOP child molester, convicted Dennis Hastert. Although the House Speaker is in the line of succession to become president, the acting Speaker is not.

Gaetz has used his shutdown of the House for fundraising.

The “Young Guns,” a trio of male conservatives of the future touted in a book of this name, are gone. Authors Eric Canter, Kevin McCarthy, and Paul Ryan are now all gone, suffering from changes in their base that changed their direction. Although they argued for fiscal restraint, a senior party leader, Canter lost his election in 2014, and Ryan failed to become DDT’s vice-presidential candidate and didn’t run for House reelection in 2018. Now McCarthy is gone.

Other “young guns” highlighted in the book have also disappeared: Lynn Jenkins (R-KS) and Erik Paulsen (R-MN) who either didn’t run or lost in 2018; Aaron Schock (R-IL) who resigned in disgrace in 2015. Sean Duffy resigned in 2019 because of a family health issue; and Cory Gardner lost in 2020. Three other candidates—Charles Dijou (R-HI), Martha Roby (R-AL), and Adam Kinzinger (R-IL)– have disappeared by now.  

Other GOP Problems:

In more GOP angst, the fallout from the GOP presidential candidates’ debate continues as two hopefuls, Chris Christie and Vivek Ramaswamy, told Bret Baier they would debate on his Fox program. The RNC has forbidden the debate during RNC-sponsored debates with other candidates although Ron DeSantis has announced a debate with California Gov. Gavin Newsom on Fox. Instead of a face-to-face debate, Christie and Ramaswamy plan two separate, back-to-back segments, possibly approved by the RNC.   

In his war on the U.S. military, Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-AL) bragged that “there’s nobody more military” than him on the Senate Armed Services Committee. Sen. Mark Kelly (D-AZ), a retired Navy pilot and NASA astronaut, tried to point out the man who never served in the military was wrong when he said that at least four of the members served in the military. He asked Tuberville to “please re-evaluate” what he says and “be a little bit more careful about what you say about the United States military.” Among Senatorial committee members:

• Chair Jack Reed (D-RI) served in the Army.
• Gary Peters (D-MI) volunteered for the Navy and served overseas after 9/11.
• Tammy Duckworth (D-IL) lost both her legs in the Iraq War while she served as an Army pilot.
• Dan Sullivan (R-AK) serves in the Marine Corps Reserve and spent time in the Middle East and the Horn of Africa.
• Tom Cotton (R-AR) served in the Army.
• Roger Wicker (R-MS) served in the AirForce.
• Joni Ernst (R-IA) served overseas in the Army Reserve.
• Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) and Rick Scott (R-FL) served in the Navy.

Tuberville coached the losing football team in the 2014 Military Bowl. He continued to claim that his was more “more military” than all the others because of his father’s service. Tuberville lied about his service, failed to meet his commitments to veterans’ charities, and blockaded over 300 military officers from promotion. He also insisted that the U.S. military is “not an equal opportunity employer” in his opposition to their recruiting minorities.

Opposing the confirmation of Gen. Charles “CQ” Brown as chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Tuberville objected to “some things that he talked, about race and things that he wanted to mix into the military.” Brown is Black. He doesn’t know that the military is actually an equal-opportunity employer, and the Pentagon has an “Office of Equal Employment Opportunity.” Tuberville added, “We’re not looking for different groups.” The military desegregated in 1948 under an executive order from President Harry Truman. The Defense Department promotes a “diverse and inclusive mission-ready total force.”

“[It] “operates to ensure all individuals are provided a full and fair opportunity for employment, career advancement and access to programs without regard to race, color, religion, national origin, disability (physical or mental), gender, age, sexual orientation, [and other categories.]”

Michigan GOP legislators are trying to bring back a rejected independent state legislature [ISL] theory to nullify two pro-voting constitutional amendments approved by voters in 2018 and 2022. Republican lawmakers claim sole authority to set rules for federal elections with no interference from the courts or state votes, a position rejected by the Supreme Court in Moore v. Harper (2023).   

In Arkansas, an anonymous whistleblower claims Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders’ office inappropriately changed and withheld public records about the scrutiny of the office’s spending.