Word is that Gym will get another roll call vote this morning. Also, Patrick McHenry is threatening to quit as temp speaker. I’ll be back later to comment.
Update: Jordan is striking out already.
Update: Chesebro got a plea deal, or a partial plea deal. I’ll post details when I know them.
Update: Sorry I haven’t been keeping up. I had some messy personal business to take care of. Now I’m trying to figure out what’s been going on.
Now the Republicans have voted, 112 to 86, to remove Gym Jordan as the nomnee for speaker. Other would-be speakers have until Sunday to step forward. Several possibilies are being named. Gym would have been better off if he’d stopped after two votes and got the caucus behind the plan to give Patrick McHenry enhanced temporary powers. He could at least have kept the status of speaker nominee for a while.
Judge Arthur Engoron has threatened Trump with incarceration if he continues to post smack about court employees and witnesses on socical media.
Chesebro pleaded guilty to a single felony count of conspiracy to file false documents and accepted a sentence of three to five years of probation, a $1,000 fine, $5,000 in restitution to the state of Georgia, an apology letter, 100 hours of community service and a promise to testify truthfully against any other co-defendants in the case, should they go to trial.
I understand Chesebro played a major role in the fake elector scam.
Israel has not yet begun sending troops into Gaza. I understand the U.S. and several other nations are urging Israel to hold off and try to get hostages out. Israel continues to bomb Gaza, I understand.
I think that’s the highlights. Thank you to everyone for all your comments during the day.
Update: One more — Judge Chutkan temporarily froze the gag order she’d placed on Trump.
US District Judge Tanya Chutkan on Friday temporarily froze the gag order she issued on Donald Trump in the former president’s federal 2020 election subversion criminal case.
In a brief order, Chutkan, who is overseeing the case against Trump in Washington, DC, said she was issuing the administrative stay of the gag order entered earlier this week to give the parties more time to brief her on the former president’s request to pause the order while his appeal of it plays out.
Chutkan also said that the Justice Department has until Wednesday to respond to Trump’s request for a longer pause on the gag order and that Trump would have until the following Saturday to reply to the government’s filing.
Context for that second item, from here — the House GOP can't pick a speaker, but if they vote to expand the speaker pro tempore's powers then they're admitting that they can't pick a speaker, which would be embarrassing. Quite the dilemma! So they came up with the brilliant plan to try to pass legislation without formally giving the speaker pro tem the power to do so. McHenry said he would resign before going along with those shenanigans.
re the Powell plea deal –
Was listening to Harry Litman last night (actually one of his surrogates).
She said that Powell took a plea deal because the first defendant to plea, a bailbondsman in Georgia, was very likely going to spill the beans on Powell's activity in Coffee County. She and the bondsman were involved together in that crime, so his cooperation with the Feds put her position in a lot of trouble.
By contrast, she and Ken Chesbro didn't have much contact, in fact Chesebro sought to sever his case from Powell's (motion to sever was denied). And so don't expect Chesbro to also make a deal just because Powell did.
Another not so good day for Stump:
1- his attorney Chesboro pleads guilty to felony election tampering (his second lawyer to plead guilty in as many days).
2- In his NYC fraud trial the judge in charge of the case today:"admonished the former president’s attorneys for a “blatant violation” of a gag order and suggested that violations could result in “imprisonment.”"
3- His hand picked magat congress critter gets rejected a third time by his republican colleges losing three more votes than yesterday!
Three strikes and your out. Didn't Stump once say: "we'll have so much winning, you'll get bored with winning"? We could be in dancing banana territory!
1775: Patrick Henry – "Give me liberty, or give me death!"
2023: Patrick McHenry – "Get me the f*ck outta here!!!!!"
Cheesbro folded. I have to believe that these people (Cheesbro and Powell) have a better vantage point than I on some issues. They did not bet on the move by some in the GA legislature to use a recently passed law to remove the county DA. They did not bet on Jim Jordan using House power to derail the prosecution. They looked at the discovery and decided they could not win in a jury trial. When the defendants (two so far – both lawyers) conceed, that's a metric you can objectively rely on.
In NYC, the judge demanded an explanation why Trump reposted the personal info on the clerk that the judge demanded be taken down. The lawyers said it "automatically" reposted and was a glitch. If I was the judge, I'd demand an explanation by a techie under oath that such a thing is possible. I was a programmer and it smells like fish that's been in the Florida sun for three days. Particularly when coupled with Trump doxing the prosecutor on Monday…
Jordan was not the coach in a team sport like football or basketball. To bring a group of individuals together – people with different traits, priorties and skills, requires a mindset Jordan does not seem to have. But in wrestling, it's all about one person dominating the other, which is a perfect description of Jordan's political style. He will not change and I don't see the dynamics of his election as speaker changing. The play shifts to a minority of Republicans promoting a moderate Republican acceptable to the Democrats. Nobody on the GOP side wants to do that and the Democrats are not putting up the name of a Reublican whenever a vote is called.
I was a programmer for 40+ years, and definitely believe in glitches. The people who code are mostly not geniuses, are under pressure to deliver basic functionality (just get it to work), and only a few think through all the implications of what they're doing, much less track down and fix the flaws in their work.
A beginner programmer is a cowboy ("YEEE-HAAWWWW!"), thrilled at their ability to create something cool, but leaving the hard work of validating + correcting their work (the wreckage) to someone else. They just want to move on to the next shiny thing.
This doesn't mean it wasn't intentional, it's just that the vast majority of work out there is sloppy. I laugh all the time when I use a business or government website, and it leaves me high and dry over some issue the web developer should've recognized and tested, but didn't.
You're dead right about Jordan. He's incapable of anything besides "attack, attack, attack".
Wow, a trifecta: Powell, Chesebro, and Jordan. The latter cornered and crashing into walls like a bewildered (and noisy) roomba, going nowhere.
From the WaPo on Chesbro:
Inquiring minds want to know, does this move up Trump’s trial in Georgia? Regardless, it looks like Fani Willis is moving in for the kill.
Judge McAfee had said that he would not set a trial date for tRump until after the Powell/Chesebro trial concluded. It is 'concluded' so expect court proceedings reasonably soon to set tRump's trial date.
Chesebro and Powell are direct first hand witnesses against The DONald. I hope many others fold their hands (more likely once their trial date is set) and become cooperating witnesses. I do hope that tRump/Ghouliani/Eastman/Meadows/Clark all go to trial.
I hope many others fold their hands
They will! You can bet on it.
The latter cornered and crashing into walls like a bewildered (and noisy) roomba, going nowhere
LMAO…
.
A song for Gym!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ml544oxETI
uncledad,
ROTFLMAO!!!!!
Liz got her well-earned veto power. She needs no plea bargain. In pure terms of the trade that girl CYOAed. Rule number one Cover Your Ass. The bigger rule in times of trouble, COVER YOUR OWN ASS. Liz retains power, unfortunately a reputable conservative political power. Why? Because she knows how to CYA and CYOA.
She won. Jim, Gym, or Jocko lost. He did not CYA or CYOA. This is the way of politics. I hate to quote Bob Dole, but Jim-Gym-Jocko did not heed Bob's admonition: You just don't understand how politics works.
Liz does. She listened.
I found numbers I'd been looking for on Politico:
"In all, 122 Republicans voted to boot Jordan as their party’s nominee, while 86 said he should remain their choice, according to two people familiar with the private discussions. Five members voted present."
I count that as 127 against, 86 for Jordan as Speaker.
At some point do we get to label those in Congress, the Freedom Caucus at least, as welfare moochers? Able-bodied persons living very well off the government teat, receiving free healthcare, while refusing to do any actual work, should they not be subject welfare-to-work requirements until/unless they begin doing some semblance of what they are being paid to do? They can at least pick up trash from the edges of highways, clean restrooms at national parks, etc. until they get their act together. Patrick McHenry seems very capable of hammering a nail.