I need certain people to not misbehave so fast. It’s hard to keep up. And I’ve managed to catch the mother of all head colds and just want to watch old movies and blow my nose a lot. I’ll make a point of writing something tomorrow.

Some House Republicans appear to be making a semi-serious effort to make Trump the next Speaker. This is mostly about burnishing MAGA bona fides, I’m sure. Observers point out that (a) between Trump’s many trials and his campaign, he’d never have time for the job, which he wouldn’t know how to do anyway; and (b) there’s a GOP conference rule that says any leadership member indicted for a felony that carries a sentence of at least two years “shall step aside.” And nobody knows if Trump would accept the position, anyway. If he did, though, President Biden and Vice President Harris would need double security. The Speaker is next in line, you know.

Plus there is always the possibility that if a Trump speakership came up to a vote, Trump would lose. There must be a few Republicans in swing seats whose re-election chances require not being tied to Trump.

The eight Republicans who voted with the Democrats to oust McCarthy are pretty much all hard-right wackadoos from safe districts, I understand.

I have learned that everybody hates Matt Gaetz. There are headlines declaring such. And yesterday so many Republicans were fed up with Gaetz and his grandstanding they wouldn’t let him use the microphones on the Republican side of the room. Newt Gingrich, of all people, is calling for Gaetz to be expelled. Gingrich is from a time when the power of movement conservatism came from all Republicans dutifully marching in lockstep reciting the party’s approved talking points. Those days are mostly gone, although not quite gone enough for my taste.

Josh Marshall writes that Republicans in Congress are livid with Democrats for ousting McCarthy. So sure McCarthy went back on his word who knows how many times, allowed a bogus impeachment inquiry to go forward against President Biden, and lied in a Face the Nation interview that it was Democrats who were trying to shut down the government. The Dems shoulda helped out and voted to keep McCarthy so Republicans wouldn’t look bad, or something. Right. “McCarthy sought Democratic votes to save him from his own refractory members, and in return he offered nothing. Not even politeness,” David Frum writes at The Atlantic. Frum continued,

The only way to produce a stable majority in the House is for the next Republican leader to reach a working agreement with the Democrats to bypass the nihilists in the GOP caucus. But that agreement will have to be unspoken and even denied—because making agreements that show any respect for the other side will be seen by Republican partisans as betrayal. The price of GOP leadership is delivering delusions and fantasies: the delusion and fantasy that Trump won in 2020, the delusion and fantasy that the Republicans did not lose in 2022.

The bottom line is that neither party has a working majority. The Republicans could have such a majority with effective leadership and responsible members. Ain’t gonna happen.

Republicans are so angry about McCarthy that the little neofascist pissant acting as temp speaker, Patrick McHenry, ordered Speaker Emeritus Nancy Pelosi to give up her current hideaway office by today. Even though she’s been in San Francisco attending Dianne Feinstein’s funeral and didn’t have anything to do with yesterday’s vote.

Whoever they end up with won’t be an improvement, of course. Right now I understand the most serious contenders are Gym Jordan and Steve Scalise. Barf.

The best analysis I’ve seen about yesterday’s fiasco is by David Kurtz at TPM. Recommended.

In other news: I doubt you will be surprised to learn that Trump is fundraising off his gag order.

It appears Kevin McCarthy’s speakership is about to go to speakership heaven. But we’ll see.

Okay, they’re starting the vote … and he’s out!

Judge Arthur Engoron, who is in charge of Trump’s real estate fraud trial in New York, has issue a gag order for Trump! Finally!

In a Truth Social post that went up while Trump was sitting in the courtroom Tuesday, Trump targeted Engoron’s principal law clerk — who was sitting just a few feet away — calling her “Schumer’s girlfriend,” that reposted a picture of her alongside Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, a fellow New York Democrat.

It is unclear what connection, if any, Schumer has with the clerk. Schumer’s office has not responded to a request for comment from The Hill.

Trump’s campaign on Tuesday also sent out an email shortly after the Truth Social post while the court was on a lunch break that lambasted the judge himself. …

… Judge Arthur Engoron issued the gag order barring Trump and any party in the case from posting or speaking publicly about members of his staff after Trump released personally-identifying information about his principal clerk on Truth Social while the hearing was underway.

The trial judge, without naming Trump, addressed the court on the matter, saying “one of the defendants” posted a “disparaging, untrue and personally-identifying post” about his staff, and though the judge ordered it deleted, it had been emailed out to “millions of other recipients.”

“Personal attacks on members of my court staff are not appropriate and I will not tolerate it under any circumstance,” Engoron said.

He added that he warned counsel off the record about the former president’s comments yesterday, but the warning went unheeded.

See also Judge Shuts Down Trump’s Claim That He Reversed Himself on Statute of Limitations. Apparently Trump misunderstood something that happened yesterday and left the courtroom thinking that the judge had agreed most of the case against him was past the statute of limitations. This morning he learned otherwise. I bet he’s in a bigger snit now than he was yesterday. Heh.

And I think Engoron would be a great name for a super villain. Just sayin’.

In the J6 federal trial, U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan shut down some crap coming from Trump’s lawyers.

A D.C. federal judge called out the latest bid at endless delay from attorneys for Donald Trump.

Trump’s lawyers had argued that deadlines in his D.C. election reversal case should be delayed because of issues relating to classified material.

It was an obviously bogus excuse to further push the proceedings down the calendar from the start, but federal prosecutors with Special Counsel Jack Smith’s office made it clearer in a Monday filing. Trump attorney John Lauro hadn’t even submitted his paperwork for a security clearance yet, they said, while another, Todd Blanche, had done so more than one month ago. Attorneys in cases involving classified material need a provisional security clearance to review records.

So, Tuesday morning, U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan essentially called the lawyers’ bluff: She ordered Trump attorneys to “initiate and complete all security clearance tasks” by Oct. 10. And she wants proof of compliance by Oct. 11. The next hearing in the case is scheduled for Oct. 16.

The Washington Post and New York Times are both running articles about the shocking decline in life expectancy in the U.S., which is not happening in other prosperous countries. Just here.  These are all without a paywall:

Washington Post, An Epidemic of Chronic Illness Is Killing Us Too Soon

Washington Post, How Red-State Politics Are Shaving Years Off American Lives

New York Times, Without a College Degree, Life in America Is Staggeringly Shorter

This was Trump’s face while sitting in the New York courtroom today.

Clearly, he’s about to explode. I so wish someone would have snuck up behind him and popped a balloon. And then during a break Trump found some television cameras and declared that Judge Engoron should be disbarred. “This is a judge that should be out of office,” he said. “This is a judge that some people say could be charged criminally for what he’s doing.” Yeah, insulting the judge always helps you at trial.

I take it from this CNBC news story that Trump’s lawyers will say the banks who loaned the money made a profit, so there was no fraud. We’ll see how that goes.

I’ve been visiting my family in Brooklyn all weekend and got behind. So Congress managed to put off the shutdown until November. Matt “Son of Chucky” Gaetz immediately began a coup against Kevin McCarthy. But today Josh Marshall wrote,

There are already almost certainly fanciful threats circulating in right-wing media that Republicans will try to expel Gaetz from Congress if the long-simmering ethics investigation into his druggie, teen-dating past finds evidence of wrongdoing. This report started at Fox and got picked up in the New York Post, Daily Mail, et. al. More significant, very few of the hardliners Gaetz will need are coming to his banner. As far as I can tell only Rep. Eli Crane of Arizona has suggested he might be on board.

Don’t hold your breath thinking that Republicans are going to expel Matt Gaetz. That’s BS fed to pliant press. But the attack articles in the right-wing press confirms what is true, which is that a lot of Republicans are seriously pissed at Gaetz for his central role in their latest highwire debacle.

Lots of people have lots of advice about what House Democrats ought to do if McCarthy’s speakership comes up for another vote. I am not one of those people. But if you have any good ideas, trot ’em out.

Margorie Taylor Greene is bragging that she, personally, took Ukraine funding out of the CR.

70% of our budget is passed in our appropriations bills, and we had a BIG win in our defense bill last week.

I was able to get all of the aid to Ukraine taken out so that we can focus on OUR military, our borders, and put America First.

A majority of the majority voted AGAINST… pic.twitter.com/N4GQcDU9Wa

— Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene?? (@RepMTG) October 2, 2023

Max Boot at WaPo is beside himself and calling for a Ukraine funding bill be brought to the House floor immediately.  I have no idea what the chances are that will happen.

Gavin Newsom appointed Laphonza Butler, president of EMILY’S List, to fill Sen. Dianne Feinstein’s Senate seat for the remainder of the term. Butler is known as being a powerhouse fundraiser who also has long-standing ties to organized labor.