Gym’s roll call vote fell short by 17 votes, as 20 Republicans voted against him. That’s a bigger margin than what McCarthy lost by on his first vote, I believe. It’s unclear what’s going to happen next. I take it Gym expected to either win outright or be short by a much smaller margin. The bullying tactic failed. So Gym and his supporters are off huddling somewhere deciding what to do next. Some sources are reporting that Jordan supporters want to try another roll call today. There are “renewed discussions” of empowering temp Speaker McHenry with more power until the Republicans get their act together.
I’m not familiar enough with all of the GOP House members to know if the not-Gym votes are all from a particular faction or not. The NY Times is reporting that among the holdouts are senior GOP members of the Appropriations Committee and a bloc of Long Island Republicans.
In other news, there are reports that an Israeli air strike hit a Gaza hospital and killed hundreds of people. Israel cannot afford to do things like that. There are also reports of Israeli bombs dropping in the area in south Gaza where Palestinians were told to flee. Again, Israel needs to take care. We may learn these reports aren’t accurate, but I’m seeing the hospital story all over the place. President Biden is heading there tomorrow.
The text of Judge Tanya Chutkan gag order on Trump has been released. Trump’s lawyers have “launched” a notice they will appeal, it says here. The notice of appeal does not include any legal arguments. The lawyers probably are still trying to find some.
Update: Some analysis of the not-Gym Jordan Republicans by Philip Bump at WaPo:
There was a pattern to those rejections. If we consider the House GOP caucus on two measures — ideology and 2020 presidential vote — you can see that the cluster of opponents to Jordan overlapped more with the less-conservative, less-Republican range. (Ideology is measured using Voteview’s DW-NOMINATE score, which ranges from -1 (most liberal) to 1 (most conservative). 2020 vote by district calculated by DailyKos.)
The outlier in the opposing group was Rep. Ken Buck (R-Colo.), who we’ll come back to in a second. His district was less friendly to Donald Trump in 2020 than was Jordan’s, but they are rated similarly on the ideological score.
If we run averages, the point is more obvious still. The opponents of Jordan averaged an ideology score of 0.348; his supporters landed at 0.529. His opponents represent districts that supported Trump over Joe Biden in 2020 by an average of 8.5 points. Jordan’s supporters represent districts that backed Trump by an average of 21.6 points.
Update: They’re saying on MSNBC that the House Republicans have called off holding another vote today. They may give Gym another shot at the speakership tomorrow.
Update: The Israeli military said its intelligence indicated that a misfired rocket from an Islamist group aligned with Hamas was responsible for the explosion.
Update: The Jersusalem Post is reporting that the Gaza hospital was destroyed by rockets fired from factions in the Gaza strip.
Gym can't seem to wrestle enough votes!
"In other news, there are reports that an Israeli air strike hit a Gaza hospital and killed hundreds of people………There are also reports of Israeli bombs dropping in the area in south Gaza where Palestinians were told to flee"
I wonder when Israel will determine that enough Palestinians have died to avenge hama's killing of 1200 Israeli civilians. If past is prologue Israel considers Palestinians be worth around 10-20% of an Israeli life so I guess maybe after 5-6 thousand at best dead Palestinians they may talk about a cease fire? Bibi is a war criminal, he's really not much different than Hama's, neither of them give a shit about killing innocent civilians Bibi just waits till he has some cover to do it. I wish Biden would cancel his trip tomorrow, the fact that Bibi ordered the bombing of a hospital on the eve of Biden's visit should tell anyone who wants see that this is a fucking trap. Bibi wants to drag us into a regional war. I say pull back the Navy, don't send any troops, let them fend for themselves.
Actually, no, it was not Bibi or the Israelis, it was Islamic Jihad.
According to some reports it was Islamic Jihad, others say it was IDF, hopefully the truth will come out soon? I don't put either side in this conflict above fabricating a narrative to fit their desired outcome. Maybe it was Islamic Jihad, but more than 3000 civilians have died in Gaza before the hospital attack, Israel has been bombing Gaza for 10 days, those bombs came from Israel. I understand that they have to go after hama's I'm just not willing to accept thousands of civilian deaths as the cost and I don't think the USA should be empowering it.
IMO, Jordan tried a clever con. He claimed (after a secret vote revealed opposition) that he'd overcome those who don't approve of him. So the folks opposed had the perception that Jordan had a lock on it. Who would want to be on Jordan's shit list after he has the power?
Now he's revealed as weak and vulnerable. Jordan may lose even more votes next time.
Jordan may lose even more votes next time.
Let's hope so!
I take it that Gym's efforts today to stomp on necks in his jackboots failed.
Tonight, I'm sure Gym is spending the evening looking through his little Red notebook to see what info he can use to blackmail the hold-outs.
This scumbag shouldn't even be in the House, let alone be its Speaker.
His district must be full of some real morons. This waste of Oxygen has been in the House since 2007, and in those 16 years, this piece of shite has yet to author a bill.
Jayzoos, 16 years doing nothing but bitching and acting the fool!
How do I get THAT job?!?!?!?!?
GOP rumors indicate more will pull support from TinyJim tomorrow.
the GOP House has yet to surpass the Jeffries Line.
What a C-F! Gym didn't even have the stones to have a second vote much less 15 more like my Kevin! Been seeing a bunch of Ken Buck-R Colorado. I'm sure this dude is a "pro-life" christo-republican so I would never support him., but as a media figure I'm becoming a fan of Ken Buck! He made good fun of the cnn anchor early on which was edited out (of course) but he stands up to Dana's attempt at cheerleading for Gym. Hey Dana, he's a hard no!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O8DcDPbgG0E
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mDNO-H9xTDM&list=RDmDNO-H9xTDM&start_radio=1
The "Israeli militiary" also said the attack on the USS Liberty was an accident.
That would have made the event the best-planned "accident" in history.
Neither side can be trusted to tell the truth. So either claim is possible, IMO.
Tragically, Hamass is capable of murdering hundreds of people gathered in a "safe" zone for the purpose of blaming IDF. And some in IDF would happily kill Palestinians for the sake of racism. SO take your pick which narrative to believe.
I'm no fan of IDF brutality but I want to see some proof. Which is hard to come by because there's nobody in the region who can be impartial.
Jamie Raskin:
“I’ve said from the beginning that there are a number of Republicans that I could support on a principled, power-sharing basis — assuming that our caucus were to endorse that. … Liz Cheney would be a perfect choice herself. She was the chair of the Republican conference; she was the #3 Republican for several years. … Mitt Romney is another name that has been floated as someone we could trust. Angus King, who’s the independent from Maine is another person we could look at.”
McCarthy sounds like a whiny baby blaming the Democrats' display of unity for his removal, Democrats had previously displayed unity in voting against the disastrous rule change that made his ouster possible. I interpret his words to imply Democrats, as the minority, are in effect currently holding the real power in Congress. I am reminded of the old SNL skit "Qien es mas macho?", Republicans have been playing "Qien es mas MAGA?" for several years now and it seems to be increasingly a failing act. That realization is slowly sinking in for some of them but they aren't sure where to go from here, some of them must now know the important question is "How do we govern?" rather than "Who is most MAGA?".
In the vote today (at noon) they accepted the two nominations – Jeffries and Jordan – but did NOT open it up for other nominations. I'm not sure if that's "normal" in a second vote or if the chair was trying to limit things.