UPDATE #3: Wall Street is equally baffled by the Republican leadership vacuum black hole. From Politico:
“We will not mince words — this is the political equivalent of a dumpster fire,” said Chris Krueger of Guggenheim Securities. “We are increasing our odds from 30 percent to 40 percent for some kind of accident that would keep Congress from raising the debt ceiling in time due to brinkmanship, procrastination or political gridlock.”
—–
UPDATE #2: Colorado’s Rep. Ken Buck has possibly never been more right:
“You have probably 240 members walking around right now trying to figure out what’s going on” – @RepKenBuck on leadership fight. #copolitics
— Mark K Matthews (@mkmatthews) October 8, 2015
—–
UPDATE: The Washington Post’s Chris Cillizza, tough to argue with him:
The tendency in the after-action reporting on McCarthy’s stunning collapse — and, make no mistake, it is stunning — will be to pinpoint a single reason for it: whether that reason be rumors of personal problems, an inability to win over the more conservative members of his conference or his recent flub when talking about the Benghazi select committee. But, those single-issue theories all miss the broader point here: There is a revolution happening within the Republican party right now. The establishment’s hold on power is more tenuous than it has been at any time in recent memory. There is no one currently in office that can claim with any credibility that he or she speaks “for” the party as a whole. That’s a remarkable development since, for decades, the GOP was known as the party that, eventually, got in line. As in, Republicans tended to nominate the guy for president who was perceived as the runner up the last time around. And, they might grumble but they eventually acceded to the wishes of Congressional leaders like Tom DeLay and Denny Hastert. The Democrats were always the rebellious party; the GOP was the follow-the-rules party.
—– We’ll be talking about this for a few news cycles, via the AP:
GOP lawmaker: Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy withdraws his candidacy for speaker. — The Associated Press (@AP) October 8, 2015
Stand by for local updates. And look out below!
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They're falling apart. How about a Dem for House Speaker!
Lamborn is the only logical choice.
A dirty, thankless, job that no American is willing to do …
… Speaker of the House Juan Valdez reporting for duty?!?
I hear Chaffetz has calves the size of cantaloupes.
He got ousted for telling the truth about the Benghazi Inquisition.
He didn't tell the truth, it was a stupid thing to say. He got caught up in the politics and paid the price.
Please – the GOP is nothing more than a nonstop scandal mongering machine.
They want to burn down DC and take everyone down with them — just ask Mike Huckabee.
No thanks. If the radical right hasn't figured out that the rest of the country is sick of their crap, after 50 years since Goldwater, they never will. In that case, love it or leave it – get out if you don't like America in 2015.
"Yes, there are some things in Washington we need to burn down but there are some things we need to build back," Huckabee says. "If all we do is burn it down, it's the easiest job in the world. The real challenge is the construction of getting back to a constitutional form of government in which we operate under the very contract we call our constitution and bring liberty, freedom and opportunity for people again."
http://blogs.cbn.com/thebrodyfile/archive/2015/10/07/mike-huckabee-tells-the-brody-file-there-are-some-things.aspx
!?!
bwhahahahahahahahahahahhhahhahahahahahahahahah
really? Two plus weeks and that's all you got, he's a lying idiot and people noticed?
omg. Bwahahahaahahahahahahaha. Good one.
He laid low over the weekend, waiting for the Oregon shooting to fade – then, just like a good lemming, he's back to Benghazi!
Go ahead and laugh Modster. It's your party that can't govern, not even itself. The Reps coming out after the shock announcement weren't laughing. Some were in tears over the chaos they now face. And, BTW, we don’t have to have anything. All we have to do is sit back and watch. Bwaha etc.
What a clueless tool to believe that the heavily edited (11 months) Planned Parenthood videos are "real" but McCarthy wasn't telling the truth when he spilled the beans about Republican motives for the Benghazi Inquisition. Black is white and whit is black for dear Comrade Moderatus who sees only the party's version of every event.. Reminds me of the Superman Bizarro universe episodes. Comrade Moderatus lives in a world of perpetual certainty that everything he sees and hears isn't real except when he decides it is. What a foolish fool. You can't believe a word he says. A total make it up liar.
In addition to the problem of considering leading a cRaZy Cat herd, I caught a Maddow segment last night about this cryptic letter which seems to imply that some of the GOPer Speaker candidates might have some known and soon-to-be revealed(?) indiscretions:
http://jones.house.gov/sites/jones.house.gov/files/10.6.15%20Letter%20to%20McMorris%20Rodgers.pdf
and Maddow reported that many of Trump's staffers have come from Koch-land/AFP.
Some scandal, not wacko conservative enough, the Benghazi gaffe, the fact that he doesn't speak intelligible English or any combination of these? Frankly the not speaking English thing strikes me as the most glaring problem for a… you know… Speaker.
http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow/watch/clumsy-speech-marks-odd-choice-for-speaker-540695619883#sthash.hzbjTKBV.dpuf
Am hearing that it may indeed be because of something of a personal nature. Whatever it is, it hardly matters. No matter who they come with, it's official. The GOP can't govern because a large segment isn't even a tiny bit interested in governing. They are only interested in destruction. This is what happens when you build your support on hating government (among so many other thngs) and gerrymandering that makes safe seats for the block that would rather not govern at all than accept that in our system governing requires compromise. And no… both sides don't do it. Not even the entire GOP does it but the entire GOP created this monster and it's on the entire GOP's head.
Tea Partiers are fine with destruction instead of governance. Gerrymandering means that they can accomplish nothing but bluster and obstruction and still get reelected. They couldn't care less about the benefit of the people. Concern for the general welfare is their idea of being a dirty commie and the good of the country is meaningless to them, the country being the federation whose government they hate.
Anyone interested in a functioning legislature must refrain from voting for any R for any reason until they are busted back to weak minority status in all three branches and have to start on a nice purge and rebuilding program to restore sanity to their party to a sufficient degree as to make the GOP capable of engaging in the task governing again, something they are clearly incapable of at this juncture.
Bingo, BC.
Yet, and to paraphrase one of my favorite lines from Newsroom, why then do Democrats lose so f'n always? Given the legacy of Bush, the infighting and race to the bottom since the creation of the tea party, wtf America?
Because most people have no idea how our government works, pay no attention to issues, think all pols are just as bad and pandering to the lowest common denominator works. Also Reagan made Dems cowards. They went way to the right to survive the zeitgeist of those times and like old generals fighting the last war, have ever since taken it as a given that they had to stay there forever. The tacit admission that Rs had it right (wrong!) implicit in the whole DLC, I'm almost as conservative as a real Republican approach wasn't much of a selling point what with the real thing available.
It's also true that more voters vote for Dem Reps than for R Reps but gerrymandering in red states makes sure disproportionate numbers of Rs are elected. BTW, the same mass redistricting in R favor that happened in Texas woud have happened here the time before last if it hadn't been for good ol' boring, conservative but pro-labor Ken Salazar pretty much single handedly stopping it.
This all has a very 'House of Cards' flavor to the day…Frank?
I can't help it, B.C. Your first point can be shortened to what I call the "Tigger Principle", (my nickname). "People are ignorant, stupid and lazy" They don't know, they don't know how to find out, and they can't be bothered to learn. That explains most of how we got plunged into this mess.
Because Dems don't give middle class voters concrete reasons to vote for them. Low information voters think the Dems will raise their taxes and the GOP will lower their taxes, for one reason.
They continued to think that for the 2010 election even though Dems, over the objections of Rs, had given them the payroll tax break, the only one that benefited pay check workers and the only one objected to by Rs and that Rs insisted on ending in one of the few compromises (and only end to a tax break) Congress got through. All they had to do was look at their own paychecks and returns but they stil believed Obama had raised their taxes and they needed Rs to lower them. And Dems were afraid to 'splain it. They were still in please don't think we're commies against rich people mode avoiding economics and ACA to talk about stuff like reproductive rights.
They also didn't explain that the vast majority of workers pay no Federal income tax. They may pay the state or city, but that the big chunk out of their paycheck is Social Security. It's a huge amount for low-wage workers; I remember it being a quarter of a minimum wage check. They listen to the wealthy office-seekers bitch about high income taxes and think Mr. Moneybags politician is talking to them.
Thanks BC. The really insane part is that these Te Party anarchists get gerrymandered districts so that they can remain ineffectual "government" employees. They make the Pharisees' look pious.
Hey where is the next Mike Coffman "Bring It Pelosi" ad? That sounds kind of good right now.
Is Livingston still in the house? The hooker guy – Vitter? How about the hiking the Appalachian trail guy?
Why don't the R's ever look to the Colorado delegation? Because Speaker Tipton, Coffman, Buck or Lamborn is just too ridiculous. I hope they unite behind the Tea partiest, hard right, nut job they can find. And the voters can decide how they really like defaulting the federal debt, shutting down the government, and defunding the community assets and social safety nets while the rich just move the capital of for bore and pay less and less.
Just two years ago this guy was on the shortlist.
So where is Ken Buck when you need him? Shirker?
As usual the Democratic members of the House of Representatives have to rescue the Republicans from their own disasters. The only thing left was Craigslist:
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/10/08/1429577/-Democratic-Congressman-posts-Craigslist-ad-for-Republican-Speaker-job-on-Facebook-page
My favorite part: Babysitting experience STRONGLY PREFERRED.