Drowning In the River Jordan

The vote to choose a Speaker of the House this past Tuesday went as expected. with Jordan failing to get a majority of the vote  after twenty House Republicans voted for someone else.  Democratic candidate Hakeem Jeffries actually lost two more votes on top of the twenty he'd lost on Tuesday when a second ballot was held yesterday.

There will be a third ballot later today, but whether or not the third time will be the charm for Jordan is anyone's guess.  And the country's pressing concern.  The last thing we need is a guy privy to a sex abuse scandal who also aided an insurrection two places away from the Presidency and running the House of Representatives. 

Democrats are quietly gloating over the Republican dysfunction going on right now, but they'd better not gloat too soon.  Mainly because Trump is still scaring Biden in the polls.  And despite Republican dysfunction and disunion in 2015 and 2016, this is the cover of Time magazine that greeted Democrats in early 2017.

Ya dig?

The House Republican Caucus

Ladies and gentlemen, meet your new Republican U.S. House majority!

After vilifying the Democrats for daring to give Americans nice things like child care, the right to organize, and paid family leave, the Republicans placed the name of one Kevin McCarthy in nomination for Speaker of the House.  After one ballot, House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries got the most votes - 212 votes from the Democrats to McCarthy's 203 and 19 Republican votes against McCarthy.  On the second ballot, the result was the same except that the 19 anti-McCarthy Republican votes were cast for the same man, the same "white knight" candidate that MAGA Republicans presented as a consensus choice - Representative Jim Jordan of Ohio, who had ironically nominated McCarthy for the second ballot.

That was the MAGA Republicans' secret consensus candidate?  

Then 20 Republicans voted against McCarthy on the third ballot.  House Clerk and de facto Speaker Cheryl Johnson - a black woman chosen by former Speaker Nancy Pelosi in 2019 - adjourned the House until noon today.

Kevin McCarthy looked forward to becoming Speaker and moving forward on having President Biden, his family, and his Cabinet investigated to death, but until a Speaker is chosen, the Republicans can't get anything done, they can't set their agenda . . . honey, they and their Democratic counterparts can't even get sworn in.

The Republicans might have to dump McCarthy and find a new candidate.  Theoretically , any American citizen 25 or older can be Speaker of the House - it doesn't have to be a sitting House member.  In that case . . . why not me?

Hey, I could use the work.

And I could meet a lot of members of Congress, like this Republican gentlewoman from Iowa!

The Democrats in the House clearly enjoyed watching the Republicans implode, but Nancy Pelosi must have been especially pleased to see Kevin McCarthy, a man she has absolutely no respect for, be embarrassed over and over.  I may have said that Tim Ryan's ambition likely got him into trouble with Pelosi when he challenged her for the position of House Democratic leader in 2016, leading to his political career's untimely demise when he left the House for an unsuccessful bid for a Senate seat from Ohio, but as humiliating as it must have been for Tim Ryan to go through what he went through . . . at least he can be glad he didn't endure what McCarthy is enduring right now.