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the DON JONES
INDEX… |
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GAINS POSTED in GREEN LOSSES POSTED in RED 10/2/23... 14,881.85
10/2/23... 14,868.55 |
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6/27/13… 15,000.00 |
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(THE DOW
JONES INDEX: 10/9/23... 33,550.27; 10/2/23... 33,614.52; 6/27/13…
15,000.00) |
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LESSON for October 9th, 2023 – “PASS
the KATCH-UP!”
October
8th, the fiftieth anniversary of the Yom Kippur War, brought the world
back to the brink of Hell when Hamas terrorists attacked Israeli civilians by
land and sea and air, killing hundreds, prompted a massive retaliatory
bombardment of Gaza civilians and threatening to involve Lebanon and even Iran. Details are still emerging,
we’ll parse them next week.
September,
however, was a busy month for Don and the Family Jones... busy in the sense that the Chinese use the word “interesting” in
their blessing-that-is-not-a-blessing: “May you live in interesting times.” So,
before the MidEast, possibly the world, goes nuclear,
let’s catch up on the leftover crises of the past week... some resolved, others
not.
There
was the impending government shutdown, halted with forty five
(or forty six if the 12:01 AM deadline is to be used) minutes to zero hour as
noted last week;
there was the retaliatory removal of Speaker Kevin McCarthy by anywhere beteen eight and ninety-eight radical Republicans.
Previously,
seven validated Republicans...some radical, some less so... argued and
overtalked one another at the second Presidential debate
in advance of 2024. Several Excludables whined and pined offstage, while former
President Trump, the elephant not in
the room, went to Detroit. There, he
responded to President Joe Biden’s walking the (picket) line the day before,
showering blessings on the United Auto Workers while earning brickbats for his
appearance at a non-union factory.
President
Joe, himself, had just returned from Delhi where the summit
of the world’s twenty richest and/or most important countries transpired with
two more leviathans... Russia and China... also boycotting. In their absence, India took advantage of
their no-show and their own host-status to enhance their own status as a world
leader in something other than raw population, but stumbled into a catfight
with Canada over accusations of genocide (or theocide)
in Kashmir.
On
the 22nd anniversary of the World Trade Tower attack by Islamic extremists,
world trade was also under attack by labor strife
with mixed results as more unions either joined or departed their picket
lines. Some of the latter who settled
over the course of the month included Hollywood’s writers and directors, but
the actors ended the month still out, joined by thousands of United Auto
Workers and one President (above) and soon, very soon as it seems, a massive
walkout by the healthcare workers at Kaiser Permanente.
And
the month kicked off, after Labor Day, with a cycling back to Djonald UnChained who was,
however, briefly detained in the Georgia vote-fixing fraud imbroglio and was
denied the one object nearest his heart’s desire (after his own reflection in mirrors)... a mugshut. Nonetheless, he took advantage of his fourth criminal indictment
to market (unmugshottable) merch and his status in
the polls rose, enabling and encouraging him to boycott debates with the
peasants straining to usurp His Majecty.
None
of these issues were settled over the course of September, nor are final
resolutions likely to transpire before Halloween, Thanksgiving or Christmas...
maybe not until November, 2024... joining other stubborn perennials like the
slumping, plague-plagued economy, the war in Ukraine and its effects upon the
budget, gas prices and inflation overall, the myriad menacing aspects of
climate change (including wildfires, storms and alligators crawling north in
the warming waters to kill and eat little old ladies and their dogs), the
decline of democracy worldwide and the culture war icons of abortions, race, religion
and “offensive” speech. Maybe the news
out of Gaza and Israel will prompt sensible people to act sensibly and settle
some of these differences. More likely,
not.
So let’s look back at this mostly miserable
month... with a few bright spots: Simone, the can kick and Traylor... and catch
up on developments therein - beginning with the most recent
opportunities/outrages and wending our way backwards.
THE
SPEAKER’S LAST SPEECH
“After
leading a successful, bipartisan effort to avoid a government shutdown
over the weekend, Kevin McCarthy was
abruptly removed from his role as US House speaker, ousted by hard-right
members of his own Republican party less than a year after his election,” the
liberal Guardian U.K. (among many, many others) declared on Tuesday, October
third. (Attachment One)
“The
ousting of McCarthy represented the first time in US history that a speaker of
the House has been removed from office, marking an ignominious end to a short
and fraught tenure for the California Republican.”
In what Catie Edmondson of the New York Times called
“an act of vengeance” to introduce a Times-line of takeaways from the
proceedings (Attachment Two), Representative Matt Gaetz
of Florida... after days of warnings... rose up on Monday evening to bring up a
resolution declaring the speakership vacant. That started a process (one that
McCarthy had agreed to in a deal to gain approval for his election as Speaker on the
15th ballot weeks earlier) that would force a vote within days on
whether to keep Mr. McCarthy in his post. “In doing so, Mr. Gaetz
sought to subject Mr. McCarthy to a rare form of political punishment experienced
by only two other speakers in the 234-year history of the House of
Representatives.”
A team
of Times-servers noted that the move came just days after Mr. McCarthy opted to
avert a government shutdown the only way he could — “by relying on Democratic votes
to push through a stopgap spending bill over
the objections of an unmovable bloc of hard-liners in his own party, including
Mr. Gaetz,” who also accused McCarthy of cutting a
“secret side deal” with Joe Biden on providing additional funding to Ukraine,
which has become a source of outrage on the right; McCarthy denied the
existence of any secret deal.
The Times timeline, beginning with Edmonson’s précis
at 5:01 AM on October second, also solicited takeaways from pro- and anti- K-Mackers from both sides of the aisle.
Representative Tom McClintock, Republican of
California, rose and “chastised Gaetz to his face
without naming him.” Mr. McClintock said he could not “conceive of a more
counterproductive and self-destructive course” than to try to remove the
speaker from one’s own party.
But Representative
Ilhan Omar, Democrat of Minnesota and scion of The Squad, savaged Mr. McCarthy
for his opposition to abortion rights and measures to combat climate change.
She called him “a weak speaker who has routinely put his self-interest over his
constituents, the American people and the Constitution.”
Mr. McCarthy “has made it his mission to cover up a
criminal conspiracy from Donald Trump, and is himself a threat to our
democracy,” she said. “He literally voted to overturn the 2020 election
results, overthrow the duly elected president and did nothing to discourage his
members from doing the same.”
Four minutes later, the Times’ Chris Cameron
explained Gaetz’s manouvre
as a “motion to vacate” whereby “(a)ny single
lawmaker can make such a motion, and the House must hold a vote within two
legislative days on whether to remove Mr. McCarthy from the speakership, which
requires a simple majority. Mr. McCarthy agreed to allow any member to force
such a vote during a protracted floor fight in
January as a concession to right-wing holdouts in exchange for the
speakership.”
Shortly thereafter, the Speaker said he’d “rip the
Band-aid off and bring the motion to vacate (Tuesday) afternoon” and also
dismissed the idea of cutting deal with minority leader Jeffries who ordered
Democrats to vote as a bloc.
Most Republicans were alarmed and angry. Times
takeaway artist Robert Jimison quoted Rep. Stephanie
Bice as saying the motion to vacate was “all about Matt Gaetz,
it’s not about Kevin McCarthy,” and accusing the accuser of “using the American
people as pawns in his narcissistic game of charades, and I think we’ve had
enough.”
As the morning wore on, every donkey from moderate
to squadorate cited K-Mac’s duplicity and untrustworthyness in preferring chaos as the lesser evil
than allowing him to remain in office.
“I think he’s likely the most unprincipled person to
ever be speaker of the House,” said Representative Abigail Spanberger,
a centrist from Virginia who is considering a run for governor. “He’s disdainful,
he lies about us, he lies about the process of governance. It’s not even a
question of whether or not we should take any particular action.”
McCarthy gaveled the House into session at 12:07 PM
and House G.O.P. leaders notified members that a vote on a motion to table, or
kill, Gaetz's resolution would be part of a vote
series starting at 1:30 p.m. Amidst
Democrat tales of deals being broken, broker on the opposite side of the aisle
were brokering names for replacement as if the “vacation” was a foregone
conclusion after a motion to table the ouster failed 208 to 218... “teeing up
the up-or-down vpte to remove McCarthy.”
There was another intermission of
debate – divided equally between the parties – in which Congressthings
not texting or fundraising watched with more than the usual attention as
Democrats “guffawed” when Garret Graves (R-La) called McCarthy “the greatest
speaker in modern history.”
Republicans supporting McCarthy like Bruce Westerman of Arkansas called the motion an “overreaction”
that is “selfish, bad for conservative policy, and bad for America,” and Tom Cole (R-Ok) warned Democrats: “Think long and
hard before you plunge us into chaos.”
“Chaos is Speaker McCarthy,” Representative Gaetz, retorted. “Chaos is somebody who we cannot trust
with their word.”
And some of Gaetz’
gang of “vac8tioners” Rep. Bob Good (R-Va) condemned
colleagues holding out on shutting the government down. One of Good’s
grievances, according to Edmondson, was that when McCarthy was negotiating the
debt ceiling deal with Biden, “he told his G.O.P. members that the
Republican-authored bill that many conservatives grudgingly voted for was a
“ceiling, not a floor” for what Republicans would get in negotiations.”
“Chaos” seemed to be the word of the day on the
House floor, Edmonson counted the references. “My colleagues here today have a
choice: be a chaos agent or get back to work,” said Representative Ashley
Hinson of Iowa, a McCarthy ally. Chaos agent? Agent of KAOS? That’s smart... as in Maxwell Smart. Worth a sequel, when Hollywood gets back to
work.
Finally, the voting
started... two minutes late. After Matt
Rosendale (R-Mt) voted to vacate, takeaway reporter Karoun Demirjian said that:
“McCarthy would need either several of the remaining Democrats not to vote, or
some other surprise, to survive.”
No surprise ensued.
Forty some minutes later, interim Speaker Patrick McHenry of North
Carolina gaveled the vote to a close (216-210), declaiming that” “The office of
the Speaker of the House of the U.S. House of Representatives is hereby
declared vacant.”
The
final vote found Democrats voting unanimously alongside Gaetz
of Florida and seven other GOP members to remove McCarthy as Speaker, reported
Time (no-S, also on October 3, Attachment Three)
Republicans now plan to hold a vote for a new
speaker on Wednesday, following a closed-door meeting on 10 October to discuss
different candidates, Reuters reported.
Some Republican leaders condemned McCarthy’s
removal, with former vice-president and current presidential candidate Mike
Pence suggesting it would undermine the GOP in the eyes of voters. “Chaos is
never America’s strength and it’s never a friend of American families that are
struggling,” Pence said at an event in Georgetown. (GUK, Attachment One, Above)
Former speaker of the House Newt Gingrich dubbed Gaetz an “anti-Republican” and called him “actively
destructive to the conservative movement”, urging Republicans to vote to expel Gaetz from the House Republican conference.
House
Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries explained his reasoning, saying McCarthy had
brought this on himself by using his short tenure as Speaker to cater to
extremists in his party. He pointed to the chaotic 15 rounds of voting that the
House endured back in January to pick McCarthy as Speaker, a process in which
McCarthy made concessions to far-right Republicans, including allowing any one
member to force a motion to vacate.
McHenry’s inaugural act as interim
Speaker was to order Nancy Pelosi to vate her office so it
may could be repossessed for “speaker office use.” Slate’s
Luke Winkie, noting that Pelosi was in California for
the funeral of Dianne Feinstein, editorialized “Yikes!” (See more “soupçons of prickly
pettiness: in Attachment Four)
Former
Speaker, now homeless refugee Nancy Pelosi, also laid the chaos at the feet of
the GOP, and said Democrats had no reason to help McCarthy.
“The
Speaker of the House is chosen by the Majority Party,” Pelosi wrote on X, the
site formerly known as Twitter. “In this Congress, it is the responsibility of
House Republicans to choose a nominee & elect the Speaker on the Floor.
McCarthy,
that evening, told reporters from the Washington Post (October 4, Attachment
Five) that he would not run for speaker again, McCarthy said: “I
wouldn’t change a thing.”
“I leave the speakership with a sense of pride and
accomplishment. And yes, optimism,” McCarthy said, citing Teddy Roosevelt’s
quote about the man who “fails while daring greatly”.
“I made history, didn’t I?” he said.
McCarthy dismissed the eight Republicans who voted
against him, saying: “This country is too great for small visions of those
eight,” and calling them “individuals” who were not “looking to be productive”.
He noted that he had helped many of the Republicans who voted against him get
elected in the first place, quipping to a CNN reporter: “I
should have picked somebody else.”
In the
end, no rank-and-file Democrats felt moved to help McCarthy or his party get
out of a mess of their own making. (Time, above)
“I think
he’s likely the most unprincipled person to ever be Speaker of the House,” Rep.
Abigail Spanberger, a Virginia Democrat, told
reporters ahead of the vote. “He’s disdainful, he lies about us, he lies about
the process of governance.
Following
the vote on the motion to vacate, Rep. Patrick McHenry, a North Carolina
Republican and McCarthy ally, was selected as Speaker Pro Tem.
McHenry immediately called for a recess before the House began the process of
selecting a new Speaker and Congressthings of both
parties scurried home to spend time with their families, play golf and raise
money for 2024.
McCarthy chose not to run for speaker again after
being ousted because he “was not going to negotiate with the Democrats to
become speaker”, Republican congressman Kevin Hern told Reuters.
That left a cage of monkeys, a car of clowns and a
herd of elephants trumpeting and tusking to gain appointment to a job most
actually admitted neither they, nor anybody, would want.
But it seemed to come down to a choice of two...
Jordan, the man from Ohio who was favored by the more hardline members of the
party, or the somewhat more moderate Scalise, survivor of a shooting incident
six years ago and currently battling blood cancer.
He claims that his doctors have greenlit his
continuing political activity.
As
GUK reported it (Attachment Six) both candidates have come out of the box as
healers and unifiers... not the vengeful ideologues some might prefer.
“We are at a critical crossroad in our nation’s
history. Now is the time for our Republican conference to come together to keep
our promises to Americans,” Jordan said. “No matter what we do, we must do it
together as a conference. I respectfully ask for your support for speaker of
the House of Representatives.”
But Scalise argued he had the experience needed to
unite the conference, after serving as part of the House Republican leadership
team for the past decade.
“I have a proven track record of bringing together
the diverse array of viewpoints within our Conference to build consensus where
others thought it impossible,” Scalise said in his own “Dear Colleague” letter.
“We have an extremely talented Conference, and we all need to come together and
pull in the same direction to get the country back on the right track.”
Three House Republicans and Fox News host Sean
Hannity have pitched a different wildcard option: elect Donald Trump as speaker. The
speaker does not have to be a member of Congress, GUK reported, though no
speaker has ever filled the role without holding a seat. But House Republican rules say
anyone indicted and facing two years or more of prison time cannot hold a
leadership role, which would render Trump ineligible.
While a few zealots are now promoting Trump, most of
America’s political delegations are voicing their choice between the two
contenders.
The Nashville Scene reported that, of the three Country
county representatives serving central Tennessee, Rep. Mark Greene, formerly
an ally of K-Macmm, has come out in favor of Jordan,
a co-founder of the House Freedom Caucus.
“Jim Jordan is the fighter we need," a Green
aide texted the Scene.
(Attachment Seven) Andy Ogles — the embattled freshman
representative who beat out more moderate Republicans to win
Tennessee’s redrawn 5th District has formed an alliance with Jordan while Rep.
John Rose claims to be undecided as to who he will support to lead the party in
the House. (Attachment Seven)
And
then, there’s The Donald...
As
Politico tells it, the former President has been plotting and planning his
sort-of-comeback perhaps longer than HAMAS was preparing their attack on Israelies... weeks, if not longer.
It
remains a longshot idea: The House has never elected a speaker who wasn’t a
member of Congress, though it is not technically a constitutional requirement.
Trump could also run into problems with the GOP's own conference rules, which
state a member of GOP leadership is required to step aside "if indicted
for a felony for which a sentence of two or more years imprisonment may be
imposed." (October 5, Attachment Eight)
Still,
the former president has openly flirted with
the idea of becoming GOP speaker in the days since Kevin McCarthy’s fall. And
several members, including Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga), have backed the
idea.
Running
full-steam with the prospect are some familiar factes...
conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, former
Trump adviser Steve Bannon, and
even the far-right cable network Newsmax all floated the idea of Trump taking
over the role Tuesday evening, just minutes after McCarthy’s ejection from
House leadership.
But the prime mover in this quixotic campaign has been Fox
News host Sean Hannity—“who remains incredibly close with
the former president and was likened to a “shadow chief of staff” by White
House staffers during Trump’s tenure.” (The Daily Beast, October 3rd,
Attachment Nine)
And the inside (Congress)man in this latest crusade has been Rep. Troy Nehls, from Texas,
calls Trump ‘the greatest president of my lifetime’ and says he will nominate
him to replace K-Mac. (GUK, October 4th,
Attachment Ten)
This week, when the House of Representatives reconvenes,
my first order of business will be to nominate Donald J Trump... “the greatest
President of my lifetime... for speaker of the US House of Representatives,” Nehls said.
Even
Jordan told Hannity: “He’d be great, but actually I want Donald Trump to
be the next president of the United States. But if he wants to be speaker,
great.”
Lesser
limelighters brought up the Republican rules against felons – which could be
vitiated through a simple (although controversial) resolution to remove.
In the Senate, the Democratic majority leader, Chuck
Schumer, urged the next speaker to embrace bipartisanship, even though
hard-right Republicans will probably feel emboldened following McCarthy’s
ouster.
“You cannot allow a small band of [‘Make America
Great Again’] extremists, which represent just a very small percentage of the
views of the country, to tell the overwhelming majority of Americans what to
do,” Schumer said in a floor speech on Wednesday. “Maga extremism is a poison
that the House GOP has refused to confront for years, and until the mainstream
House Republicans deal with this issue, chaos (yes, that ol
debbil KAOS) will continue.”
The
prospect of Speaker Trump (third in line for a return to the White House, with
an extra sixteen months to make his magic should something uh... untoward...
happen to President Joe and Vice Kamalala) has
bedazzled more than a few elephants.
"We need somebody to unite our conference. And
I honestly believe that he's the only person that can do that," Rep Greg Steube (R-Fl) told "The Story." (Fox News,
Attachment Eleven, October 4th)
"He is the America First agenda. We need the
America First agenda to be displayed in the House of Representatives."
An enticing, yet horrifying (to Republicans)
prospect is that if Republicans splinter too much from a single candidate and
the 212 Democrats remain united behind House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries of New York in
a finalized roll call, “the Democrat could win the speakership of a
GOP-majority house based simply on math.”
Or on perversity.
“‘Every Single Democrat’ Would
Vote for Trump as Speaker ‘to Continue the Chaos’ in Congress,” was a headline
in a recent Wrap (October 5th, Attachment Twelve) according to Steve
Doocy of Fox News.
“You
also know that the White House and the DNC tweeting out all sorts of stuff
about the chaos on the Republican side,” Doocy said.
“The Democrats — and you know this — would love it if somebody would introduce
into nomination Donald Trump, because Donald Trump could probably get every
single Democrat to vote for him to continue the chaos, and he would only need
five or six Republicans — next thing you know, he’s got the hammer!”
But,
throughout Thursday and Friday, Trump, save the occasional exotic tweet,
concentrated on his legal problems while Jordan and Scalise continued garnering
endorsements from endorsers. (Politico,
Attachment Thirteen)
The Ayes
for Scalise included: Ken Calvert (Calif.), Buddy Carter (Ga.), Drew
Ferguson (Ga.), Tom Emmer (Minn.), Tony Gonzales (Texas), Lance Gooden (Texas),
John James (Mich.), Lisa McClain (Mich.), Chuck Fleischmann (Tenn.), Steve
Womack (Ark.), Austin Scott (Ga.)
For
Jordan: Jim Banks (Ind.), Lauren Boebert
(Colo.), Thomas Massie (Ky.), Mark Green (Tenn.), Mary Miller (Ill.), Alex
Mooney (W.Va.), Mike Carey (Ohio), Darrel Issa (Calif.), Ralph Norman (S.C.),
Mike Turner (Ohio)
And for
Former President Donald Trump: Troy Nehls
(Texas), Marjorie Taylor Greene (Ga.), Greg Steube
(Fla.), Barry Moore (Ala.)
The Donald himself put an end to
speculation... maybe... with his own weekend endorsement of Jordan. In a post
on Truth Social shortly after midnight, Friday, Trump said Jordan “will be a
GREAT Speaker of the House, & has my Complete & Total Endorsement!” (CNN, Attachment Fourteen)
Trump’s intervention into
the race came after he expressed openness to temporarily serving in the role
himself and, per a source familiar with discussions, considered a visit to
Capitol Hill to speak with Republicans in the coming days as they weigh a new speaker.
And, as
the chaos within the House Republican caucus devolved into a full-blown
leadership fight, the White House found its legislative agenda for the
remainder of President Biden’s term narrowing to a barebones to-do list,
“sources familiar with the matter” told Time.
(Attachment Fifteen)
Until Saturday night, that list
had just two items on it: “keep the government funded and continue military
assistance to Ukraine.” Now, it has
three.
In his
State of the Union address in February, President Joe had laid out a list of
policy areas where he hoped he could continue to work with Republicans, including
clamping down on “junk fees” businesses charge consumers, expanding mental
health care access for children in schools, restricting what data tech
companies are allowed to collect on users, and providing more job training for
veterans and their spouses.
“Those
aspects of Biden’s agenda are now largely dead in the water, according to
Democrats in the White House and on Capitol Hill,” Time said.
Prior to
the attacks on Israel, the Biden administration believed the security of the
European continent was at stake if Russia wasn’t stopped from overrunning
Ukraine. “If there’s one thing that all Americans, no matter who you vote for,
can get behind it’s the idea of independence,” John Kirby, a spokesman for the
National Security Council, said on Tuesday. “That’s what Ukraine is fighting
for: their right to be an independent state. It’s what we fought for in
1776.”
And what of the perpetrator of all
this KAOS? Time’s top editorialist,
Philip Elliott... never much of a friend to the Grand Old Party... says the
ambitious Florida Congressman has generated a lot of headlines (and a lot of
donations) for his intransigence, but Elliott called his crusade “a
personality-based racket... unlikely to work.}
Still,
that might be the point: chaos begets
coverage. “The more Gaetz and Co. can get on
television, the more money they can raise... (a)nd
Washington simply has not figured out how to adapt or how to work with a major
party that has elements that prioritize demolishing everything that runs afoul
of their fevered dreams of governance by dynamite.”
One
of McCarthy’s rejected gestures to the hard right... his impeachment of
President Joe... has been left twisting in the wind (according to the English
version of El Pais, published in Spain and much of
Latin America) on October 4th (Attachment Seventeen). The impeachment... an olive branch to the MAGAnauts in Congress... seems to have lost all value save
its usefulness as a cudgel, with which to batter the former speaker from the
left side and the right.
McCarthy
ordered the opening of a formal investigation against Joe
Biden as a preliminary
step to a possible impeachment to try to satisfy the extremists in his party
and prevent the closure of the federal government’s non-essential services, but
the Republican hardliners have proven insatiable and also wanted to punish the
president with a shutdown.
A
bipartisan agreement to elect a Speaker of the House from among the pool of
moderate Republicans being extremely unlikely, whoever wishes to succeed
McCarthy will have to jump through the hoops demanded by the radical Republican
minority.
House
Republicans today are now divided into three distinct parties: the Republican
Governance Group (aka, to the rest, the RINOs), the MAGA Republicans
(ardent supporters of former President Trump), and the Freedom Caucus. (The
Hill, October 5th, Attachment Eighteen) Despite being organized
under one banner, they each have entirely different goals. And then, of course,
there are the Democrats and their party’s priorities.
“In a
parliamentary democracy where none of these parties had a majority, a government
would be formed by horse-trading between the parties until they were able to
form a faction that controlled a majority of the seats in parliament. That’s
exactly what you saw earlier this year, when McCarthy found himself forced into
making deals with groups of
his fellow Republicans to secure a House majority and his speakership.”
As was
made clear on Tuesday, noted Hill opinionator Chris Truax, “such ideologically
driven alliances are often doomed to fail.”
We are
stuck with the current Congress until January 2025. Unless something is done,
that means more chaos and dysfunction — and that’s on the good days. More
often, it will mean complete paralysis.
The
alternative is a new coalition. And, for better or worse, that means involving
Democrats. Of course, Democrats are Democrats and it will be hard-going
for them to form a partnership with Republicans — even those in the Republican
Governance Group. Nonetheless, Truax believes they all “have a shared interest
in the basics of governing,” which we saw on Saturday when more Democrats
than Republicans voted for McCarthy’s shutdown-avoiding continuing resolution.
Positing
that Democrats could line up behind a RINO... Truax suggests Rep. Dave Joyce
(R-Ohio), the chair of the Republican Governance Group... and voila: bipartisanship!
Nagonna happen
THE
LAST and the NEXT DEBATES qx
The
chattering in Milwaukee is done, and now the focus moves south to Miami and the
third Presidential scuffle on November 8th... if it even
occurs. First, however, some final words
on the winners and the losers in Number Two whose coroners included the big city
institutional (vaguely liberal) New York Times and WashPost,
the left (Guardian UK, Vox) and right (NY Post and Fox).
Of
these, the Times... who sent an armada of judges to the debate... was the only
medium to assign average numerical values to the candidates’ performances, but
most did separate the winners, the losers and the mehh
candidates.
The
unanimous winner was Donald Trump. Even
the Wall Street Journal ridiculed Trump’s ridiculing of the striving and
struggling candidates “from the comfort of his social media account”. (Attachment Twenty)
And
while the Journal acknowledged the candidates could be “wary of offending MAGA
voters,” it explained how to challenge Trump’s record “without sounding like
the left-wing scolds at CNN or MSNBC” — by
referring to his poor election record and focusing on policy differences.
But,
in the absence of the big elephant, the little elephants... in order of their
standing in the polls, parformed as follows...
Ron
De Santis – Governor of Florida
(NYT
4.8) Governor DeSantis is not an exciting debater, but he remains the most plausible
alternative to Donald Trump. He sticks to his message, respects the other
candidates and makes few mistakes. (Matthew Continetti) “Barely
there” (Jane Coaston) “distracted” (Gail Collins),
“whiny voice”, “more awake” (Michelle Cottle) “flaming out” (Peter Wehner)
DeSantis invoked the former President in a question about abortion when
he argued that “pro-lifers” were not to blame for Republicans’ 2022 defeats. (Time) “Seems to have once entertained sincere delusions that he might become
president, but surely those have long since waned. (GUK_
Loser – WashPost. “A DeSantis ally
remarked to Semafor before the debate, “If he
doesn’t do well here,
in my opinion, he’s gotta drop out — if he doesn’t
want to be embarrassed.”
He
didn’t do particularly well.
Vivek
Ramaswamy – Businessman
(NYT
2.7) He is
clearly very irritating to the other candidates, and to many people in general,
and is aware of that fact, and yet, he goes on. (Coaston)
“youth and inexperience” (Continetti) “obnoxious, wildly over-caffeinated and
aggressive verging on angry” (Cottle) “unctuous fake humility” (Douthat)
“insufferable (Goldberg)
“(C)alled for the elimination of birthright
citizenship and referred to “transgenderism” as “a mental disorder” (GUK) and
said “...just because … Putin is … an evil
dictator does not mean that Ukraine is good. This is a country that has banned
11 opposition parties.” (The Hill)
Nikki
Haley – Former Governor of South Carolina
(NYT 4.9) She battled with Tim
Scott (a lot!) and really, really seemed to dislike Vivek Ramaswamy
(fortunately for her, disliking Ramaswamy seems to be a popular sentiment.)
“Smart, serious” (Joan Coaston),
“disappointing” (Ross Douthat), “talented” (Peter Wehner)
She suggested no money should go toward addressing the root causes of
migration until the border is secure. (Time) “(Spent)
much of her time on the debate stages trying to steer her party away from what
she views as its unelectable fringes, primarily the charismatic incoherence of
Ramaswamy’s breed of “America First” right-populism,” and told Ramaswamy:
“Honestly, every time I hear you, I feel a little bit dumber for what you
say” (GUK) Told Rama that “(a)
win for Russia is a win for China, but I forgot you like China.”
Winner – WashPost... a
serious candidate who could appeal to all parts of the
party. Substantive answers on health care... “inched closer to possibly one day
replacing Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis as the leading, actually
somewhat viable, Trump alternative.”
Mike
Pence – Former Vice President
(NYT
2.4) “hard to see him gaining any traction”
(Continetti) Painfully out of sync” (Cottle) “Zombie Reaganism” (Goldberg) “just there” (McCarthy) “can’t stop focusing on the 1980s” (Wehner)
“(I)n the delicate position of trying to claim credit for all of Donald
Trump’s accomplishments while also condemning the man who tried to get an angry
mob to hang him,” and “...called for the passage of “a federal, expedited death
penalty for anyone involved in a mass shooting so that they will meet their
fate in months, not years”. (GUK)
Chris
Christie – Former Governor of New Jersey
(NYT 4.0) “He
really, really, really wanted to fight Donald Trump, who was not present. So he yelled at him via the cameras. (Coaston)
“Calling Trump Donald Duck was just... dumb.”
“Strong performance” (Cottle) “impressive but hardly dominant” (Wehner). Nobody
liked his Donald Duck joke.
“(A)ttacked Joe Biden for “sleeping with” a
member of the teacher’s union – an evident reference to the first lady, Jill
Biden, who is a community college professor... a suicide mission, an
expenditure of money and effort in the hope of damaging Trump; it is not
working. (GUK)
“Donald
Trump (or Donald Duck), he hides behind the walls of his golf clubs, and won’t
show up here to answer questions like all the rest of us are up here to answer,”
Christie said. (The Hill)
Tim
Scott – Senator from South Carolina
(NYT 3.6) “His
attack on Haley over curtains at the U.N. ambassador’s residence was confusing
and a little sad. Which is a pretty good description of this second G.O.P.
debate. (Continetti) “more mature yet no less passionate”
McCarthy. not breaking through” (Cottle) “What’s the point of running for
runner-up?” (Goldberg)
Because Trump is Old – DJI “Scott’s campaign theme is to project
optimism. It won’t work in a party that thrives on animus, fear and conflict.”
(Wehner)
“As the
U.N. ambassador, you literally spent $50,000 on curtains at a $15 million
subsidized location,” Scott said. (The Hill) “...seeking to reignite the Christian conservative sect of
the party, but that lane is already crowded by the stiff and uncomfortable
presence of Mike Pence,” implied that “slavery had been more bearable for Black
Americans than the Great Society, President Lyndon Johnson’s anti-poverty
program that birthed social welfare programs like Medicare and Medicaid… where
they decided to take the Black father out of the household to get a check in
the mail.” (GUK)
And
he also laid into Rama, using the “H” word: “...you were
just in business with the Chinese Communist Party, and the same people that
funded Hunter Biden millions of dollars was a partner of yours as well,” Scott
said. (The Hill)
Doug
Burgum – Governor of North Dakota
(NYT 2.6) “He is
not a serious contender for the nomination and shouldn’t have been on the
debate stage.” (Continetti)
“train wreck” (Goldberg) “admirable” (McCarthy) “He never should
have gotten into the race;” Wehner “Stop, just … stop.” (Cottle)
“...spent much of his time on stage complaining that
everyone was ignoring him.” (GUK) “...struggled
to get a word in the debate and was repeatedly cut off for trying to get into
the conversation and repeatedly questioned the moderators on why he was not
asked questions on technology and energy, claiming he was the only candidate on
stage with experience in those sectors.
(The Hill)
Alone
amoung Excludables, Asa
Hutchinson vowed to continue his quest for the nomination, no matter how
hopeless. The rest simply sank into the
swamp of history, there to be eaten by the alligators of forgetfulness.
The New York Post (Attachment
Nineteen) brought in a body language expert to scrutinize and pass judgment on
the candidates’ truthiness... DC-based body
language expert Chris Ulrich exclusively telling The
Post that: “At the end of the day, people aren’t always going to remember what
you said... (t)hey’re going to remember how you
spoke, how you showed up, and how your presence was in those particular
moments.”
His
take on the debaters?
Nikki
Haley... “powerful”, “feisty” and her smile was “authentic”.
Tim
Scott... “calmer”, more relaxed in his body language. “He was at ease.”
“Laughing”
Vivek Ramaswamy should be more level-headed and then tilt (his head) when trying to connect with the
American people.”
Ulrich called Ron DeSantis’ smile “strained” and
continued to lack relatability in the Wednesday debate with his “forced” smile.
“It’s not a normal smile — he doesn’t engage the
corners of his mouth, there’s no crow’s feet,” Ulrich said. “He’s got an issue
with it.”
Unlike most of the judges, Ulrich enjoyed Christie’s “Donald Duck” swipe
at Trump and the way he
pointed
his finger decisively at the camera to emphasize his point.
“It’s kind of like if you ever seen those ‘Uncle Sam
wants you’ posters [from World War II],” Ulrich said.
“He is saying to Donald Trump, ‘Show up or shut up.'”
Pence, 64, fumbled over his talking points at times. “Today he was stepping over himself — he couldn’t
even deliver his lines,” Ulrich said. “And so that awkwardness hurts him.”
That awkwardness was made worse during the debates
when it appeared that Pence forced quips to make him seem more likable or trend
on social media.
“When he throws a joke and it’s flat, he waits a
second, and it looks awkward,” Ulrich said. “It undermines him as
presidential.”
And the body language man concluded: ‘Thanks for playing, Doug Burgum’.
Ulrich said that ultimately there were no clear
winners Wednesday night as they failed to present themselves as real threats to
the current Republican and Democratic front-runners.
“You can make the argument there’s no alternative
yet to (President) Biden or Trump,” he said. “At the end of the day, these
folks are trying to ‘survive on the island’ — and the question will be, ‘Do
they resonate with the American people?’ — not only from what they said, but
how they showed up.”
MORE
KETCHUPS...
DOMESTIC
ISSUES - CRIME
The
carjacking of Democratic Rep. Henry Cuellar in DC summoned forth RNC Chair
Ronna McDaniel herself to editorialize that the violence is the fault of
President Joe, a host of Democratic soft-on-crime politicians and the
Democratic-run big (aka black) cities of America. (Fox News, October 5th, Attachment
Twenty)
On Monday, Ronna wrote, Cuellar was carjacked by
three men at gunpoint outside of his Washington, D.C. apartment building. “His
residence is just blocks from the U.S. Capitol, where he lives alongside
"dozens" of House members. This comes after Minnesota Rep. Angie
Craig was assaulted in an elevator earlier this year.
“Let me be clear,” Ronna wrote, weeping wet,
crocodile tears, “no one deserves to be a victim of crime. My prayers are with
Congressman Cuellar as he recovers from such a traumatic incident. But it’s no
surprise that Democrats are experiencing the impact of their soft-on-crime policies
that have run rampant in D.C. and across the country.”
Carjackings in D.C. are up 109%, robberies are
up 68%, theft is up 22% and homicides are up by 38% over
the last year as the city remains on pace for its deadliest year in two
decades.
Democrat-run cities across the country continue to
struggle with skyrocketing crime. Nine out of the top 10 cities with
the highest homicide rates are Democrat-run. During Biden’s first year in
office, at least 12 major cities – all Democrat-run – set new homicide
records.
“Prominent Democrats like Pennsylvania Sen. John Fetterman, Oregon
Gov. Tina Kotek, and New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, have expressed support for pro-criminal policies
like abolishing cash bail, lowering penalties for parole
violations, and decriminalizing deadly drugs,” McDaniel warns, in
what would be the go-to Republican campaign issue of 2024, were they not likely
to be ensmooshed in another recapitulation of one man’s
grievances over 2020.
“Elected Democrats are failing to uphold their most
fundamental obligation: keeping the American people safe. The solution is
simple. Elect Republicans.”
FOREIGN AFFAIRS
Until this weekend, international issues in
the aftermath of the G-20 summit (and resulting catfight between Canada and
India) centered around the war in Ukraine, as Republicans have increasingly
evidenced “fatigue” that manifests in policies ranging from cutting off
military aid to President Zelenskyy to an outright support of Russia’s
territorial grab.
Of the two leading contenders for
Speaker, Jim Jordan, asked about his stance on approving more funding for
Ukraine, said: “I’m against that … The most pressing issue on Americans’ mind
is not Ukraine. It is the border situation, and it is crime on the streets.”
There has been no comeback from Scalise.
The
Biden administration believes the security of the European continent is at
stake if Russia isn’t stopped from overrunning Ukraine. “If there’s one thing
that all Americans, no matter who you vote for, can get behind it’s the idea of
independence,” John Kirby, a spokesman for the National Security Council, said
on Tuesday. “That’s what Ukraine is fighting for: their right to be an
independent state. It’s what we fought for in 1776.” Kirby likened the US
helping Ukraine to American revolutionary forces winning the country’s
independence with help from the French military and naval forces.
The
division among Republicans was evident at the Milwaukee debate, where Haley and
Ramaswamy clashed over keeping or terminating the funding.
How the
sudden crisis in the Middle East will play out among the political classes is,
at this time, anybody’s guess. With the
rise in anti-Semitism in America and its link to neo-Nazi groups, it’s hard to
see anybody lobbying for Hamas, Hezbollah or Iran at the present time.
But
given a longer war... as seems likely... who knows?
THE UNION BLUES
Catching up as the “summer of strikes” transits into an autumn of
discontent, the three-day “demonstration” walkout by Kaiser Permanente Workers,
that is likely to recur again and again, sans settlement, could be the deal
breaker for Don Jones, for democracy and for America. So far the strikers
have been careful not to redlight emergency
procedures, which would result in massive negative publicity due to... say what
it would be... deaths.
As in other strikes, the discrepancy in compensation between the hospital
administration and those who do the hard work has been rising and rising, and
workers are getting angry. “Union
leaders say this could be the largest strike by health care workers in recent
U.S. history. (New York Times, October
Third, Attachment Twenty One - A)
Talks
are ongoing, a Kaiser spokesperson told Axios.
(Attachment Twenty One - B)
The parties "agreed this morning to continue to meet through
midday Tuesday if needed, to reach an agreement," Kaiser said in a
statement Monday, but added that a strike would be “certainly not justified.”
And CNN,
(Attachment Twenty Two, October 4th) wrote
that the strike “comes at a time of heightened labor activity across the United
States, with tens of thousands of workers across multiple industries taking to
the picket lines for better pay and benefits. In the wake of pandemic, however,
health care workers in particular have been fighting for safer and more secure
work environments. They are demanding improved staffing levels, arguing that
current staff shortages are compromising patient care and taking many workers
to a breaking point.”
The past
strike was only temporary, workers returning three days later. However, Axios
reported, a “longer, stronger” strike may come in November if a deal between
the coalition and Kaiser Permanente is not reached after this strike effort,
according to communications from SEIU-UHW, the largest union in the coalition.
Hollywood saw one strike (the screenwriters’) settled, while another, against
the videogame moguls, commenced. Leaders
of Hollywood’s writers union declared their nearly
five-month-old strike over (Time, Attachment Twenty Three) and gave the SAG
hope that the settlement terms might prove a template for the actors.
“For a
hot second, I really thought that this was going to go on until next year,”
said Marissa Cuevas, an actor who has appeared on the TV series “Kung Fu” and
“The Big Bang Theory.” “Knowing that at least one of us has gotten a good deal
gives a lot of hope that we will also get a good deal.”
At issue was, of course, money... specifically the revenues from
auxiliaries to cinema and broadcast material through new modes of transmission
like streaming... and another, more complex issue: the use of artificial
intelligence which has already been proven to create competent (if not
particularly thrilling) content,
The end of the WGA strike means that latenite
comedians can return to the airwaves... although it would seem that late night
(or any) comedy might be a difficult proposition for the present,
Some of
the same issues are at play in the video game negotiations as in the broader
actors strike that has shut down Hollywood for months, including wages, safety
measures and protections on the use of artificial intelligence. The companies
involved include gaming giants Activision, Electronic Arts, Epic Games, Take 2
Productions as well as Disney and Warner Bros.′ video game divisions.
“It’s
time for the video game companies to stop playing games and get serious about
reaching an agreement on this contract,” SAG-AFTRA President Fran Drescher said
in a statement.
In
anticipation of higher labor costs, the studios and distributors are already
taking measures to pass the diffence off to
consumers.
Netflix,
one of the only profitable TV streaming services (along with Hulu), is reportedly planning on increasing the monthly
price of its ad-free subscription, The Wall Street Journal reported
on Tuesday.
(Ars Technica, Attachment Twenty
Four)
But the
“price bump” will not occur for "a few months," as Netflix is waiting
for the actors' and writers' strike to formally end, the publication said, in
order to assess the damages incurred in settlement. The WGA believes its
new contract equates to 0.2 percent ($68 million) of Netflix's annual revenue
($31.6 billion).
Discovery+
announced that it's increasing prices for its ad-free
tier from $6.99 to $8.99 per month, effective immediately. A similar move from
Netflix would follow the broader streaming industry's trend of
jacking up prices.
Netflix's
last price increase was in January 2022, when its ad-free standard plan went
from $14 to $15.49 per month, and its 4K plan went from $18 to $20 per month.
Those prices look a lot different from Netflix's debut monthly pricing ($7.99
or $11.99 for 4K).
And, with the writers’ strike settled, SAG-AFTRA and the studios have returned to the bargaining table to continue negotiating, Four top
media executives — Walt Disney Co. Chief Executive Bob Iger,
Netflix Co-Chief Executive Ted Sarandos, Warner Bros. Discovery Chief Executive
David Zaslav and NBCUniversal Studio Group Chairman Donna Langley — sat down
with the leaders of the 160,000-member performers union, which has been on strike against the entertainment
companies since July 13
after coming in as “closers” in the WGA walkout. (Los Angeles Times. October 2nd,
Attachment Twenty Five)
But
SAG-AFTRA President Fran Drescher, most famous for her role as “The Nanny,” has
sought to temper expectations that the union would rush to accept all of the
provisions of the WGA contract, telling CNN last week that “one size doesn’t
fit all.”
There remain some complications
as to which actors can go to the public to promote which venues... a key issue
with the late night comedy/celebrity gabfests. And “Saturday
Night Live” is coming back to the air next week. Yes, there is still an actors
strike going on, but yes, this is OK. SAG-AFTRA even says so.
But if
you’re still wondering why “SNL” is back on the air, (Indie
Wire, October 4th, Attachment Twenty Six)
your questions are warranted.
“As the guild explains in its statement, SAG-AFTRA
members appearing on “SNL,” whether they’re a host, guest star, or cast member,
are working under what’s called the Network Code Agreement — more commonly Net
Code — “which is not a contract we are striking.”
“Net Code covers everything from morning news shows,
talk shows (both daytime and late night), soap operas, variety, reality, and
game shows, sports, and promotional announcements. The guild upon the Net
Code’s latest ratification in 2022 mentions
shows like “Good Morning America,” “Tamron Hall,” “The Young and the
Restless,” “Jeopardy,” “The Voice,” “So You Think You Can
Dance,” “Last Week Tonight with John Oliver,” the Academy Awards, the
Super Bowl, and yes, even “Saturday Night Live.”
So
performers on these... as also occurred on the Drew Barrymore show, which
raised issues of scabbing... are off the hook.
“It is important to recognize that SAG-AFTRA is
fighting against the studios and not members who are required to go to work
every day under other union contracts or personal service agreements. We
stand with our union siblings across the industry as we also recognize our
obligations under federal labor law.”
And the United Auto Workers’ strike against the Big
Three carmakers (which gained added public interest... or notoriety... last
week as both President Biden and former President Trump made their pilgrimage
to Detroit to show their support fot the working man
(and woman).
But the
automakers are fighting back, too... furloughing or laying off thousands of
non-union employees amid the increasingly bitter standoff. General Motors, which, on Tuesday, reported a 21%
increase in sales for its third-quarter earnings, has laid off more than 2,100
workers across four states while Stellantis (the
parent company of Chrysler, Dodge, Jeep and Ram) has idled nearly
370 workers, including 68 workers in
Perrysburg, Ohio. (CBS, October 3,
Attachment Twenty Seven)
"It
is unfortunate the UAW's decision to call a strike at GM Lansing Delta Township
Assembly continues to have negative ripple effects," GM said in a
statement to CBS News on Tuesday that confirmed the furloughs. "The
impacted team members are not expected to return until the strike has been resolved.
Since we are working under an expired labor agreement, there are no provisions
for company-provided sub-pay in this circumstance."
The
automakers also said that a lengthy strike will lead to more layoffs for people
who work at auto parts suppliers.
The UAW
has criticized the automakers' moves to lay people off, with union chief Shawn
Fain saying last
month that the Big Three are using the layoffs as a tactic "to put the
squeeze on our members to settle for less."
Two days
later, Reuters reported that “progress” was being made in strike negotiations
with the United Auto Workers and Ford Motor narrowing their differences on pay
increases after a new offer from the automaker amid "really active"
talks. (October 5, Attachment Twenty Eight)
In
addition to Ford, talks with Chrysler parent Stellantis (STLAM.MI) and
other automakers and the UAW have been active in recent days, sources said. Stellantis declined to comment.
GM said
in a securities filing it has locked in the new, $6
billion line of credit through October 2024. JP Morgan and
Citibank are listed as joint lead arrangers for the deal.
Ford
secured a $4 billion line of credit in August, ahead of the Sept. 14 UAW
contract expiration.
GM's new
line of credit will bolster its balance sheet against a protracted strike that
could widen to cut off production of its most profitable vehicles: large
Chevrolet and GMC pickup trucks and large SUVs such as the GMC Yukon and
Cadillac Escalade.
Meanwhile,
nearly 30% of auto parts makers surveyed by an industry trade group said they
have laid off some workers due to the UAW strikes. Another 60% expect more
layoffs by mid-October if the walkouts continue, the Motor Equipment
Manufacturers Association said.
It being
the beginnings of World Series time, to use a baseball metaphor: Kaiser was on
deck, but is now on base with a walk (-out) UAW on second, SAG on 3rd. Teachers at bat, Walgreens; pharmacists on
deck.
And it’s
not only American workers, but foreign labor which has been increasingly
walking out... Sky News (U.K.) reporting that unionized workers in the British
rail network... RMT (the Rail, Maritime and Transport union) and drivers’ union
ASLEF (The Associated Society of Locomotive Engineers and Firemen) members
striking in an ongoing dispute over pay and conditions. (Attachment Twenty Nine)
WHILE,
in the COURTS...
Trump
will have little time to hobnob with the proles over the next few months...
given the irritating (and potentially costly) civil suit in New York as well as
his four criminal actions.
Catching
up on these cases, we place the civil fraud case at the head of the line, with Djonald UnSpeakable gagged by
Justice Arthur F. Engoron after he attacked the Court
Clerk in a social media diatribe... posting a picture of Allison Greenfield
with Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, calling her the Senator’s
“girlfriend” and that all cases against him should be dismissed.
“Personal
attacks on my members of my court staff are unacceptable, inappropriate and I
will not tolerate them under any circumstances,” Engoron
said. (New
York Times, October 3rd, Attachment Thirty)
“Personal
attacks on my members of my court staff are unacceptable, inappropriate and I
will not tolerate them under any circumstances,” he said.
The Insider (October 2, Attachment Thirty One) said that the former President was turning his $250 million fraud trial into a presidential campaign event (and, of
course, a fundraising ploy).
He may need more money. Currently, he’s footing legal bills on four
criminal actions... all of which were quiet over the week but will resurface
well before the 2024 elections, perhaps even this year.
On
the criminal front, Trump has defended his innocence in: 1) the Stormy Daniels
matter (asking another New York judge to dismiss criminal charges… defense
attorney Todd Blanche calling a "discombobulated package
of politically motivated charges,"); 2) the Mar-a-Lago documents matter (Special
counsel Jack Smith is pushing back against a bid to delay that trial until
after the 2024 election, saying there's no "credible justification"
to do so; 3) the Capitol Riot case – Smith also seeking a “limited gag order”, a
continuing pattern of incendiary and intimidating statements);
and 4) the Atlanta election fraud matter, which his attorneys have petitioned
to move to a (probably more favorable) Federal court.
And in other legal news, two
Team Trump bros are experiencing the heart of failure and bankruptcy... My
Pillow guy Mike Lindell telling the Associated Press that he does not have enough money to pay his lawyers and understands why they are
dropping the case and lawyer Rudy G.. whose
drinking problem was laid bare by the New York Times. (October 4th, Attachmeny
Thirty Two)
Privately,
Mr. Trump, who has long described himself as a teetotaler, has spoken
derisively about Mr. Giuliani’s drinking, a person familiar with his remarks
told the Times.
Hunter
Biden will have his day in court too.
(Washington Post, 10/3. Attachment Thirty Three)
Hunter
pleaded not guilty to three felony charges in the federal
courthouse in Wilmington, Delaware Tuesday, the next step in a long-running
investigation that has been a focal point for Republicans and could result in a
criminal trial overlapping with President Biden’s 2024 campaign for a second term.
Federal
prosecutors accused the younger Biden in a four-page indictment of making two
false statements in 2018 when he completed paperwork to purchase a gun. Biden
asserted on the form that he was not addicted to or using illegal drugs, the
indictment says, “when in fact, as he knew, that statement was false and
fictitious.” He is also charged with unlawfully possessing the gun.
And,
finally, another member of the Biden family was found guilty of criminal
conduct, removed forcibly from the White House by authorities and also sent to
Delaware... not to face trial, but a lifetime sentence of exile.
Commander,
President Joe’s purebred German Shepherd was found guilty of his eleventh
offense of aggravated assault on a law enforcement officer... biting another
Secret Service agent. The eleventh time
did it... and not even a Presidential pardon was proffered (as in the first ten
crimes).
There
has been no word whether the embarrassed Washington Football Team (formerly
Redskins) will have to drop the name Commanders as insinuating toleration of
lawbreaking and inflicting trauma on survivors of dog attacks.
|
Our
Lesson: October 2nd through October 8th, 2023 |
|
|
|
Monday, October 2, 2023 Dow:
33,433.35 |
It’s National
Breast Cancer Screening Month.
Survivors of the physical risk demolished by the financial cost are
trotted out – experts tell them to beg for medical expense money from
“friends and family.” Stronger
Medicaid, Medicare, Obama guarantees?
We’re at the polar opposite of April Fools’ Day and sick people are
the fools. And it’s also Fat Bear Week. Apropos: former President Donald Trump
faces Judge Erogon in the civil case of his financial toxicity in inflating and moving
around assets as he erected his empire.
He might go to prison if he loses any of the four criminal cases pending (see above) but the guilt-by-decree may
cost him money and real estate... even Trump Tower! The log of justice keeps rolling downhill
for Hunter Biden and Senator Robert Menendez, cryptocrook
Sam Bankman-Fried (subject of biographer Michael Lewis’ “Going Infinite), a
boatload of killers, thieves and rapists: not to mention busloads of
migrants. Queen Bee (aka Beyonce), subject of a
docudrama/concert movie (not covered by SAG strictures) promises a safe space
where “everyone is free and nobody is judged.” Again, the South Pole of foolishness. Other items worth catching up upon include
the sudden rise of Matt Gaetz as Inquisitor
General... vowing to decapitate or defenestrate... de-something... Speaker
Kevin McCarthy for kicking the shutdown can down the road to November. The labor issues... actors, autoworkers,
hospital workers... persist, but optimists hope that “settlements” can be
reached. Distractions? How about U2 in residence at the
off-the-planet $2.8B “Sphere” in Vegas? |
|
|
Tuesday, October 3, 2023 Dow:
33,002.38 |
Gaetz pulls the plug on K-Mac as eight “hard-right”
Republicans join every Democrat in voting to send him off on a permandnet “vacation”.
The iron fist of Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) ensures no doubting
donkeys defect to the Darkside, setting up a Constitutional crisis and GOP
circular firing squad that Dems... Jeffries and President Joe on down to the
masses... can sit back, gloat and plot their 2024 victory parties.
Crime in the streets fingers Congress... Rep.
Henry Cuellar (D-Tx) gets carjacked at gunpoint and Repubs. turn it into a
fundraising tool. Missing 9 year old girl kidnapped near Albany NY is rescued from a
cell where she was being held for ransom by a loser-faced, gerbil-brained
perp who left his ransom note in the parents’ mailbox, but forgot to wear
gloves.
The end of the writers’ strike means that late nite
comedians (given a blanket pass from scabbing) can get back to work, catching
up on the breaking news of the last four months. Steven Colbert compares failed militia
leader Yevgeny Prigozhin to Pope Francis who faces
condemnation and assassination threats after saying that gay marriage isn’t
the abomination conservative clerics say it is. (But it’s still a sin.) Jimmy Kimmel reports breaking news:
explosive diarrhea, Jimmy Fallon displays old photographs. |
|
|
Wednesday, October 4, 2023 Dow:
33,129.58 |
McCarthy,
bitter but defiant, tells reporters Goodbye to All That... he won’t run for
Speaker (setting off a stormy scenario of substitutes and speculations). The gavel passes to Patrick McHenry (a bad
man in a bow tie) but the leading candidates are Reps. Jim Jordan (R-Oh) and
Steve Scalise (R-La) who denies that his blood cancer will affect his
performance. (But it will deter the
vampires.) Strangest of all, Steve
Bannon is lobbying to have Ol’ 45 named Speaker
(which makes him 3rd in line if MAGAssassins
take out President Joe and Kamala. The Wall Street volatility index (VIX)
notes that America’s debt to GNP ratio is now 120%. President Joe responds that we had a few
problems during his administration, so far... plague, war, shutdown, Speaker
squabbles, strikes. All of the latter
of which still exhort “promise” but the Kaiser healthcare walkabouts do say
that they will keep emergency services open, to the benefit of heart attack,
stroke and gunshot victims. And there are plenty of the latter: at a
Homecoming party at Morgan State U’s Thurgood Marshall Hall, adults (a parent
at a Michigan school) and teens (17 year old at a
Pop Warner football game). And a mad
stabber kills a NYC social activist, apparently at random. Bad animals attack, too. White House dog Commander is exiled to
Delaware (with Hunter?) after biting his eleventh
secret service agent. Bedbugs invade
and infest Paris during Fashion Week.
Doctors and merchers collaborate to peddle a
cat Valium that will supposedly keep Pussy from “spraying outside the box.” Thinking outside the box, the rusty
writers for late nite comedy crawling back to
snuff. Colbert shows a video of K-Mac
advising: “take your meds” and calls Trump an abattoir (Avatar) of “the
American tragedy.” Kimmel notes that
if Rudy G. and Hunter B. weren’t political opposites, they could party
together.” |
|
|
Thursday, October 5, 2023 Dow:
33,119,57 |
While the pundits proclaim Congress is “in
a state of peril,” House holders go back to their home states on vacation
until Tuesday with the Speakership still vacant.
New York prosecutor Letitia James orders the former President to
behave and stop threatening witnesses and even the court clerk, inspiring
later lateniter Seth Myers to wisecrack: only
Republicans would conside choosing a Speaker “who is under a gag order.”
Trump will boycott Debate #3 in Miami next month, and some of the
other contenders say the debates are basically useless.
Has anybody wondered what happened to Doug Burgum?
Nobel prizes are handed out in medicine (two Americans who developed
the Covid vax, which qualifies them for execution under Trump’s rules),
literature (a Norwegian) and peace (imprisoned Iranian human rights activist Narges Mohammadi) |
|
|
Friday, October 6, 2023 Dow:
33,507.50 |
The monthly jobs are out and the forecast
is good... 336K new jobs, double the quantity predicted. This sends the Dow soaring upwards, but raises
fears that the Fed will raise interest rates (at their highest in 23 years).
President Joe says he had no choice but to keep building the Wall
because funding had already been approved by Congress. The money might also be spent on
maintenance because of large cracks through which migrants are slipping.
Mad Vlad Putin boasts that Russia has tested the “next generation” of
nuclear missiles while the present generation of ordinary missiles rain down
on Ukraine, killing fifty civilians.
Jeff Bezos is developing a new internet satellite to compete with Elon
Musk’s StarLink.
Amazon is accused of using dark tactics to raise prices and destroy
competition. |
|
|
Saturday, October 7, 2023 Dow: (Closed) |
Gaza militants from Hamas attack Israel on land,
sea and air – firing off rockets that kill 22 after a total failure of
Israel’s vaunted intelligence network.
Treaty talks with Egypt and the Saudis go on hold (although experts
suspect Iran, the Saudis’ chief regional rival. Kaiser healthcare workers end
their 3 day “demonstration” stike but will walk out
again if not offered a better settlement.
WGA settles their issues, the latenite
comedians may return to sniping at society within a week or two. UAW and SAG settle nothing. Unemployment remains at 3.8%
but there are positive signs – for the workers. 330,000 new jobs (double the prediction)
wage growth slightly higher than inflation.
The downside... the Fed is talking about raising interest rates again. It’s broiling hot in the West,
but a cold snap in the East beings floods to the
Midwest that will wander east and hook up with offshore Hurricane Philippe
and give flooded NYC subways a case of déjà u all over again. Darlmess
falls on the Holy Land and Hamas rockets keep falling. The death toll rises above 200 and it is
reported that gunmen on the ground are seizing hostages and taking them back
to Gaza to serve as human shields – which is not prevent Israel from
launching its own barrage of missiles.
All that the baffled spies can report is that it’s the 50th
anniversary of the Yom Kippur War. |
|
|
Sunday, October 8, 2023 Dow: (Closed) |
Not to be outdone by Hamas, Lebanon’s Hezbollah jumps in, making a
dilemma for Israeli defense forces who cannot invade Gaza without leaving
their northern border undefended.
President Joe promises arms, humanitarian aid and, maybe, troops...
from Republicans come – crickets.
Overnight death toll up to 300, including some American tourists. Down East a ways, a small (6.5) but potent earthquake hits
Afghanistan, killing over a thousand and making the Taliban actually do
something other than threaten the West. Maui officials bring back
tourism, but survivors declare that tourists would trample on their grief and
trauma... not to mention the fact that refugees temporarily housed in hotels
are being kicked out into the street to make room for the influx. Sunday talksters
are as confused about the Mideast as are the spies and politicians... there
are concurrances with Netanyah’s
threat of maximum revenge, and also for diplomatic efforts with the likes of
the Saudis. Ona the domestic front,
Scalise and Jordan have equal measures of support and condemnation from the
usual sources... Jordan gets a late bump from Trump who endorses him, but
says he’ll serve if drafted.. Nightfall finds the Israeli
death toll up over 700 – more than 200 at a music festival where audience
members were pushed into cars and driven across the border to Gaza. The West Bank, however, remains quiet. |
|
|
The week, more than any other in years, exposed a serious failing in
assessing the volatility of domestic, numbers-based economic indices against
the subjective social indices... and the detriment is mostly to the
latter. When improvement, however,
significant in the American balance of trade proves more important than the
resumption of Arab-Israeli war after 50 years, there is a problem... and the
problem is the volatility of some sectors of the former against the
conservatism of the latter. Whether
the solution will be either a tightening of the former (which will also
eliminate the need for yearly recalculations owing to the outsized impact of
some chronically positive or negative results or an enhancement of the
volatility of all social indices to
bring them nearer parity with domestic economics... this will have to be
corrected (probably at the end of the year).
Viewers comments will be especially welcome. Also, problems with our
servers (who lied about their providing unlimited storage, making the last
few Indices unavailable) will have to be addressed, either by technical means
or by a costly and time-consuming change in hosting. So we may be down for a while, or even
permanently. |
|
|
|
CHART of CATEGORIES
w/VALUE ADDED to EQUAL BASELINE of 15,000 (REFLECTING…
approximately… DOW JONES INDEX of June 27, 2013) See a further explanation
of categories here… ECONOMIC INDICES (60%)
|
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|
SOCIAL
INDICES (40%)
|
|||||||||||
|
ACTS of MAN |
12% |
|
|
||||||||
|
World Affairs |
3% |
450 |
10/2/23 |
-0.2% |
10/16/23 |
451.64 |
450.74 |
President
Joe promises to continue building Trump’s beautiful wall on the border
because he loses the money if he doesn’t... critics say he should fix the
gaps in it instead. Angry coups and
wars rage from Africa to Azerbaijan, but the mother of all conflicts comes below... |
|||
|
War and terrorism |
2% |
300 |
10/2/23 |
-7.5% |
10/16/23 |
291.42 |
269,56 |
New
ancient threat: Hamas strikes at Israel with rockets and missiles and
kidnappings, as Mideast wars escalae on 50th
anniversary of Yom Kippur and intelligence officials start doling out the
blame. Old threat: Putin sends barrage
of rockets to kill 50 Uke civilians at a funeral, boasts of his “next
generation” of nukes... Ukes warn they’re running out of arms (and then Israel
happens). |
|||
|
Politics |
3% |
450 |
10/2/23 |
-0.7% |
10/16/23 |
484.31 |
480.92 |
“KAOS” is
the word of the week (until replaced by HAMAS) as Republican radicals
“vacate” Speaker K-Mac, setting up replacement battle. Alarmist says democracy is in “a state of
peril” so Congressthings return to their own states
to celebrate the long Columbus Day weekend. |
|||
|
Economics |
3% |
450 |
10/2/23 |
+0.5% |
10/16/23 |
427.46 |
429.58 |
Strong
monthly jobs report tempts Fed to raise interest rates. Occupation most in need: pharmacists. 90% of student debtors prdered
to pay up – or else! Not surprisingly,
scammers proliferate via robocalls, social media. Toy’s R Us rises
from the grave for Christmas, Macy’s to open ministores
in strip malls. Amazon accused of
using a secret algorithm to raise prices and destroy competition. Mike (My Pillow) Lindell joins Rudy G. in
bankruptcy. |
|||
|
Crime |
1% |
150 |
10/2/23 |
-0.2% |
10/16/23 |
247.99 |
247.49 |
Sen. Henry
Cuellar carjacked in DC, active shooter guns down five at Morgan State U. in
Balt., homeless killer stabs man at Safe House Shelter in Georgia; convict
kills prison guard in Alabama; teenage shootouts at Pop Warner football game,
retired California
cop shoots 9, kills three. Wife of
corrupt Sen. Menendez kills pedestrian – Bob buys her a new car with Egyptian
bribe money, But
the week is almost saved when kreepy kidnap suspect in Albany NY captured, 9 year old
girl rescued. |
|||
|
ACTS of GOD |
(6%) |
|
|
||||||||
|
Environment/Weather |
3% |
450 |
10/2/23 |
-0.2% |
10/16/23 |
398.60 |
397.80 |
New York
has wettest September in 140 years.
Heat2ave brings 92° temperatures to Minneapolis and San Francisco,
101° to L.A..
Otherwise, nice day. |
|||
|
Disasters |
3% |
450 |
10/2/23 |
-0.3% |
10/16/23 |
424.25 |
422.98 |
While the
world looks to Israel, a modest 6.5 earthquake kills 2,000 Afghans. With
Fashion Week up in Paris, luxury hotels found infested with bedbugs. Two children die falling into a pool at
Happy Happy Daycare in San Jose. Canadian wildfires
and their smoke are back. White House
dog Commander is sent back to Delaware after biting 11th Secret
Service agent. A thousand migratory birds found dead of mysterious causes in
Chicago |
|||
|
LIFESTYLE/JUSTICE INDEX |
(15%) |
|
|
||||||||
|
Science, Tech, Educ. |
4% |
600 |
10/2/23 |
+0.3% |
10/16/23 |
636.04 |
637.95 |
Starbucks
invents a coffee bean that grows in hotter climates. Musk and Bezos duel on satellite Internet
connectivity tech. |
|||
|
Equality (econ/social) |
4% |
600 |
10/2/23 |
+0.3% |
10/16/23 |
631.11 |
633.00 |
Gov. Newsome of California appoints Laphonza Butler, a gay, black woman, to replace Feinstein
– then vetoes a bill to decriminalize magic mushrooms. Pope Frank blesses
people in gay marriages (but not the act).
|
|||
|
Health |
4% |
600 |
10/2/23 |
+0.2% |
10/16/23 |
472.02 |
472.96 |
Two
American doctors win Nobels for their Covid vax. WalMart cakes
recalled for undeclared peanuts and Apple will “address” burner phones that really burn. 62M Halloween candies recalled for choking
children. Doctors say good
cholesterol will cause dementia. |
|||
|
Freedom and Justice |
3% |
450 |
10/2/23 |
-0.1% |
10/16/23 |
469.16 |
468.69 |
Court City
sees Abercrombie & Fitch execs accused of sordid (but tasteful) sex acts
with employees; Hunter Biden tried for drugs and guns in Delaware; Sen.
Menendez resisting removal in DC, Sam B-F on trial in Brooklyn and New Mexico
judge even revives Baldwin “Rust” trial.
Not to mention The Donald... |
|||
|
MISCELLANEOUS and TRANSIENT INDEX |
(7%) |
|
|
|
|
||||||
|
Cultural incidents |
3% |
450 |
10/2/23 |
+0.2% |
10/16/23 |
504.92 |
506.54 |
Norwegian
Jon Fosse takes Nobel for books nobody has read. In sports, World Series qualifier matches
begin, Simone Biles wins 7th gymnastics gold, NFL goes gaga over
“Traylor” romance, Damar Hamlin returns to Buffalo. U2 will be resident band at $2.8B Sphere in
Vegas. RBD (the Mexican Monkees) reunite... RBG (the judge) still dead. RIP: NFL stars Russ Francis, Dick Butkus of
Da Bears, . |
|||
|
Misc. incidents |
4% |
450 |
10/2/23 |
+0.2% |
10/16/23 |
485.72 |
486.69 |
Book of
the week is Bankman-Fried bio “Going Infinite”. Passport processing delays finally cut to
eight weeks. Felicicat
cat valium claimed to prevent “spraying outside the box.” Momo, the escaped Indiana monkey famous for
invading homes, using the bathrooms and chugging beer, finally captured. 115
corpses found stockpiled in funeral home that promised “green burials” but
just let the bodies rot. No Powerball
winner: prize rises to $1.55B. |
|||
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
||||
The Don Jones
Index for the week of October 2nd through October 8th, 2023 was UP 13.30 points
The Don Jones
Index is sponsored by the Coalition for a New Consensus: retired Congressman
and Independent Presidential candidate Jack “Catfish” Parnell, Chairman; Brian Doohan, Administrator.
The CNC denies, emphatically, allegations that the organization, as well
as any of its officers (including former Congressman Parnell,
environmentalist/America-Firster Austin Tillerman and cosmetics CEO Rayna
Finch) and references to Parnell’s works, “Entropy and Renaissance” and “The
Coming Kill-Off” are fictitious or, at best, mere pawns in the web-serial
“Black Helicopters” – and promise swift, effective legal action against parties
promulgating this and/or other such slanders.
Comments,
complaints, donations (especially SUPERPAC donations) always welcome at feedme@generisis.com or: speak@donjonesindex.com.
ATTACHMENT ONE – From the Guardian UK
Kevin McCarthy ousted
as US House speaker by hard-right Republicans
Now-former speaker
confirms he will not run again as Republicans plan to
hold a vote for a new speaker next Wednesday
·
Kevin McCarthy ousted – live updates
By Joan E Greve in
Washington
Tue 3 Oct 2023 20.44 EDT
After leading
a successful, bipartisan effort to avoid a government shutdown over the
weekend, Kevin
McCarthy, on Tuesday, was abruptly removed from his role as US House
speaker, ousted by hard-right members of his own Republican party less
than a year after his election.
The ousting of
McCarthy represented the first time in US history that a speaker of the House
has been removed from office, marking an ignominious end to a short and fraught
tenure for the California Republican. It comes as Americans’ approval ratings
of Congress and the federal government remain near historic
lows, with a majority saying they have little or no
confidence in the future of the US political system.
The
infighting between Republicans effectively puts a halt to all business in
the House of Representatives until the House, which has only a narrow
Republican majority, elects a new speaker. McCarthy said Tuesday night that he
would not run for speaker again, clearing the way for a new Republican speaker
if the party members can reach a consensus.
Republicans
plan to hold a vote for a new speaker next Wednesday, following a closed-door meeting
on 10 October to discuss different candidates, Reuters reported.
The vote to
oust McCarthy followed a motion to vacate the chair from the Florida Republican
congressman Matt Gaetz. After McCarthy’s
Republican allies failed to block the motion from moving forward, a final vote
was held on Tuesday afternoon. Amid gasps from members in the tense chamber,
eight hard-right Republicans joined 208 Democrats in supporting McCarthy’s
removal, as 210 Republicans tried and failed to keep the speaker in place.
McCarthy needed a simple majority of voting members to keep his gavel but
failed to cross that threshold.
“The
resolution is adopted,” congressman Steve Womack, the Arkansas Republican who
presided over the session, announced after the vote. “The office of speaker of
the House of the United States House of Representatives is hereby declared
vacant.”
McCarthy had
sat stoically with his hands in his lap but when the vote finished, he threw
his head back and chuckled at his own plight, as some members walked over to
shake his hand.
Following the
declaration, congressman Patrick McHenry, a North Carolina Republican, was
designated by McCarthy as the acting speaker until a new House leader is
elected. Upon taking the gavel, McHenry quickly called for a recess.
“In the
opinion of the chair, prior to proceeding to the election of a speaker, it will
be prudent to first recess for the relative caucus and conferences to meet and
discuss the path forward,” McHenry said. House Republicans met Tuesday evening
to regroup and finalize plans to, while Democrats will meet on Wednesday
morning.
Some
Republican leaders condemned McCarthy’s removal, with former vice-president and
current presidential candidate Mike Pence suggesting it would undermine the GOP
in the eyes of voters. “Chaos is never America’s strength and it’s never a
friend of American families that are struggling,” Pence said at an event in
Georgetown.
Former
speaker of the House Newt Gingrich dubbed Gaetz an
“anti-Republican” and called him “actively destructive to the conservative
movement”, urging Republicans to vote to expel Gaetz
from the House Republican conference.
Multiple
Republican members of Congress told CNN that
they expected to discuss whether Gaetz should be
expelled from the Republican conference as a consequence for his behavior,
though they did not say whether they personally would support the measure.
The eight
Republicans who joined with Democrats to vote McCarthy out offered a range of
reasons. South Carolina congresswoman Nancy Mace said McCarthy “has not lived
up to his word on how the House would operate”, and argued that the chaos in
Congress would be worse with McCarthy in charge than without him. “We need a
fresh start,” she said.
Tim Burchett
of Tennessee told CNN that
McCarthy had “said something that I thought belittled me and my belief system”
in a phone call. He said he was open to supporting several “honorable men” as
McCarthy’s replacement, adding: “They’ve never openly mocked me, anyway.”
Speaking to
reporters Tuesday night to confirm that he would not run for speaker again,
McCarthy said: “I wouldn’t change a thing.”
“I leave the
speakership with a sense of pride and accomplishment. And yes, optimism,”
McCarthy said, citing Teddy Roosevelt’s quote about the man who “fails while
daring greatly”.
“I made
history, didn’t I?” he said.
McCarthy
dismissed the eight Republicans who voted against him, saying: “This country is
too great for small visions of those eight,” and calling them “individuals” who
were not “looking to be productive”. He noted that he had helped many of the
Republicans who voted against him get elected in the first place, quipping to a
CNN reporter: “I should have picked somebody else.”
Gaetz had been motivated by a “personal” vendetta
against him, related to the Congressional ethics inquiry into his behavior,
including allegations of sexual misconduct, illicit drug use and misuse of
campaign funds, McCarthy told reporters.
He said the Florida congressman was not a true conservative, and that his goal had
been to attract attention and campaign donations. “We’re
getting email fundraisers from him as he’s doing it,” McCarthy said.
But the
former speaker placed a larger share of the blame for the intra-Republican
battle on the opposing party, saying: “I think today was a political decision
by the Democrats.”
McCarthy
chose not to run for speaker again after being ousted because he “was not going
to negotiate with the Democrats to become speaker”, Republican congressman
Kevin Hern told Reuters.
President Joe
Biden urged the House to move quickly to elect a speaker, with press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre saying in a statement: “The urgent
challenges facing our nation will not wait”.
McCarthy’s
removal capped a tumultuous nine months in the House, defined by clashes
between the speaker and the hard-right flank of his conference. Despite his
repeated efforts to appease them, his willingness to collaborate with Democrats
to prevent economic chaos sealed his fate. With the narrowest of majorities in
the House, Republicans now face the unenviable task of electing a leader who
can win nearly unanimous support across a deeply divided conference.
Gaetz sought McCarthy’s removal after the speaker worked with
House Democrats to pass a stopgap spending bill, known as a continuing
resolution, to extend government funding through 17 November. Gaetz also accused McCarthy of cutting a “secret side deal”
with Joe Biden on providing additional funding to Ukraine, which has become a
source of outrage on the right. McCarthy denied the existence of any secret
deal.
The House and
the US Senate passed the stopgap bill with overwhelming bipartisan majorities,
averting a shutdown that could have left hundreds of thousands of federal
workers without pay for an extended period.
Some
Republican House members had condemned Gaetz in
advance of the vote to oust McCarthy, calling him in interviews with CNN
a “chaos agent”, and “a fool or a liar”, and raising concerns that the maneuver
might cost Republicans their house majority.
Tuesday’s
vote was the first to remove a House speaker in more than 100 years and the
first successful such vote in American history. Other recent House speakers,
including former Republican leader John Boehner, had previously been
threatened with a motion to vacate but never had to endure a full effort to
remove them.
The
referendum starkly illustrated McCarthy’s tenuous grasp on the gavel since
needing 15 rounds of voting to secure the House speakership in January.
McCarthy has never
won the support of many Republicans to his right. Additionally, many of his
fellow Republicans felt McCarthy did not secure their side sufficient
concessions in the deal that averted the shutdown.
“The speaker
fought through 15 votes in January to become speaker, but was only willing to
fight through one failed [continuing resolution] before surrendering to the
Democrats on Saturday,” Bob Good, a Republican congressman from Virginia, said
in a floor speech on Tuesday. “We need a speaker who will fight for something,
anything besides just staying or becoming speaker.”
Before
McCarthy learned his fate Tuesday, the House Democratic leader, Hakeem
Jeffries, indicated his caucus would not help McCarthy save his job. In the
end, every present House Democrat voted in favor of ousting McCarthy.
“House
Democrats remain willing to find common ground on an enlightened path forward.
Unfortunately, our extreme Republican colleagues have shown no willingness to
do the same,” Jeffries said in a “Dear Colleague” letter sent Tuesday. “Given
their unwillingness to break from [Make America Great Again] extremism in an
authentic and comprehensive manner, House Democratic leadership will vote yes
on the pending Republican Motion to Vacate the Chair.”
With the
speaker removed, all work in the House will grind to a halt until a new leader
is elected.
Pramila
Jayapal, Washington state representative and chair of the Congressional
Progressive caucus, said to CNN that under McCarthy and the Republican
majority, the House had “consistently been chaos, not to mention the division,
the polarization, the racism. We don’t take any pleasure in this.”
David
Smith, Leonie Chao-Fong, Hugo Lowell and Lois Beckett contributed
reporting.
ATTACHMENT
TWO – From the New York Times
Speaker Vote:
Far-Right G.O.P. Faction Throws House Into Chaos as
McCarthy Is Ousted
The vote
orchestrated by a group of far-right lawmakers leaves the House without
leadership. The speaker was unable to manage a bitter power struggle within the
Republican Party.
By Catie
Edmondson Oct. 3, 2023, 4:47 p.m. ET17 minutes ago
Here’s
the latest on the speakership fight.
The House on
Tuesday voted to oust Kevin McCarthy from the speakership, a move without precedent
in modern history that left the chamber without a leader and plunged it into
chaos.
Democrats
joined with a small group of hard-liners in Mr. McCarthy’s own party to strip
the California Republican of the speaker’s gavel in a 216 to 210 vote. It was
the culmination of a bitter power struggle between Mr. McCarthy and members of
a far-right faction who tried to block his ascent to the speakership in January
and have tormented him ever since, trying to stymie his efforts to keep the
government funded and the nation from defaulting on its debt.
Before the
vote, a surreal Republican-against-Republican debate played out on the House
floor as members of the hard-right clutch of rebels railed against their own
speaker and verbally sparred with Mr. McCarthy’s defenders. Democrats sat
silently.
A tense scene
played out on the floor as lawmakers voted to oust the speaker the same way
they vote to elect one: by sitting on the House floor and rising one by one in
an alphabetical roll-call by conducted by the clerk.
A vacancy in
the speaker’s chair essentially paralyzes the House until a successor is
chosen, according to multiple procedural experts. That promises to tee up
another potentially messy speaker election at a time when Congress has just
over 40 days to avert another potential government shutdown.
In the hours
before the vote, Mr. McCarthy, an inveterate optimist who prides himself on
never giving up, was characteristically sanguine, saying he was confident about
his ability to survive and defending his decision to work with Democrats
to avert a government shutdown,
which precipitated the bid to remove him.
“If you throw
a speaker out that has 99 percent of their conference, that kept government
open and paid the troops, I think we’re in a really bad place for how we’re
going to run Congress,” he said on Tuesday morning. In a closed-door meeting
underneath the Capitol, he told Republicans he had no regrets about his
speakership, and was interrupted several times by raucous standing ovations.
Here’s what
else to know:
·
Mr.
McCarthy’s critics took to the floor to savage him for what they characterized
as a failure to wring steeper spending cuts out of the Biden administration and
a lack of leadership. “Chaos is Speaker McCarthy,” Mr. Gaetz
declared. “Chaos is somebody who we cannot trust with their word.”
·
In the days
leading up to the vote, Democrats had wrestled with whether to help Mr.
McCarthy survive, or at least to stay out of the effort to oust him. But in a
closed-door meeting on Tuesday morning, Representative Hakeem Jeffries of New
York, the minority leader, instructed fellow Democrats not to do so, citing
Republicans’ “unwillingness to break from MAGA extremism.” Democrats were not
participating in the floor debate over whether to oust the speaker.
·
There
is no clear replacement for Mr.
McCarthy. “I think there’s plenty of people who can step up and do
the job,” said Representative Tim Burchett of Tennessee, one of the rebels who
voted to push Mr. McCarthy out, adding that he did not know who he had in mind
for the job instead.
·
The
proceedings that played out on Tuesday have taken place only once before in the
House of Representatives, in 1910. Back then, progressive Republicans tried to
remove then-Speaker Joseph Cannon, a conservative known as “Uncle Joe,” for
refusing to bring their priorities to the floor for a vote. He survived that
vote, but was weakened as a result.
Luke
Broadwater, Carl Hulse, Kayla Guo, Karoun
Demirjian, Annie Karni and Robert
Jimison contributed reporting.
Oct. 3, 2023,
5:01 p.m. ET2 minutes ago
2 minutes ago
Daniel Victor
The eight
Republicans who voted to remove Kevin McCarthy as speaker were Andy Biggs of
Arizona, Ken Buck of Colorado, Tim Burchett of Tennessee, Eli Crane of Arizona,
Matt Gaetz of Florida, Bob Good of Virginia, Nancy
Mace of South Carolina and Matt Rosendale of Montana. But not MTG! Next speaker?
Oct. 3, 2023,
5:00 p.m. ET3 minutes ago
3 minutes ago
Neil Vigdor
Told that far-right
Republicans in the House had succeeded with their motion to remove Speaker
Kevin McCarthy, former Vice President Mike Pence lamented the outcome. Speaking
at Georgetown University, Pence, a former House member, said, “Well, let me say
that chaos is never America’s friend.” He suggested that most Republicans in
the House would vote to restore McCarthy as speaker.
Oct. 3, 2023,
4:59 p.m. ET4 minutes ago
4 minutes ago
Karoun Demirjian
Some
Republicans do not appear to have given up on Kevin McCarthy just yet. “I’ll
continue to support Kevin McCarthy as long as he’s running,” said
Representative Kevin Hern, Republican of Oklahoma and the head of the House
Republican Study Committee. When asked if he thought McCarthy should throw his
hat into the next speaker’s race, he answered: “That’ll be up to Kevin
McCarthy.”
Oct. 3, 2023,
4:56 p.m. ET7 minutes ago
7 minutes ago
Karoun Demirjian
Kevin
McCarthy, no longer the speaker, exits the House chamber and heads straight
into the speaker’s suite.
Oct. 3, 2023,
4:55 p.m. ET8 minutes ago
8 minutes ago
Carl Hulse
Several
moderate Republicans are lingering on the House floor, looking stricken.
Oct. 3, 2023,
4:55 p.m. ET8 minutes ago
8 minutes ago
Carl Hulse
The two parties
will now hold meetings to choose speaker nominees. The big question is whether
Kevin McCarthy tries to win back his speakership, which seems unlikely given
that eight hardline Republican members just voted against him. It only takes a
simple majority in the Republican conference, however, to put forward a nominee
for speaker.
Oct. 3, 2023,
4:50 p.m. ET13 minutes ago
13 minutes
ago
Catie
Edmondson
The interim
speaker, Patrick McHenry, recessed the House so both parties can find a path
forward. The House floor will be paralyzed until a new speaker is elected.
Oct. 3, 2023,
4:49 p.m. ET14 minutes ago
14 minutes
ago
Carl Hulse
This is an
unprecedented situation, and the House is in understandable turmoil.
Oct. 3, 2023,
4:49 p.m. ET14 minutes ago
14 minutes
ago
Robert Jimison
Representative
Kevin McCarthy, now the former speaker of the House of Representatives, lasted
269 days in the job.
Oct. 3, 2023,
4:49 p.m. ET14 minutes ago
14 minutes
ago
Carl Hulse
Representative
Patrick McHenry of North Carolina is named interim speaker under a law passed
after the Sept. 11 attacks in the event of a vacancy in the office.
Oct. 3, 2023,
4:49 p.m. ET15 minutes ago
15 minutes
ago
Carl Hulse
“The office
of the Speaker of the House of the U.S. House of Representatives is hereby
declared vacant.”
Oct. 3, 2023,
4:47 p.m. ET16 minutes ago
16 minutes
ago
Catie
Edmondson
Kevin McCarthy,
his ouster as speaker complete, is smiling as his allies walk over to shake his
hand.
Oct. 3, 2023,
4:47 p.m. ET17 minutes ago
17 minutes
ago
Catie
Edmondson
“Now what?”
one Republican loudly asks. This has never happened in the House of Representatives
before.
Oct. 3, 2023,
4:46 p.m. ET17 minutes ago
17 minutes
ago
Catie
Edmondson
Hard-right
rebels have succeeded in their drive to oust Speaker Kevin McCarthy. He is out
in a 216 to 210 vote. Eight Republicans voted to dethrone him. The House has no
speaker.
Oct. 3, 2023,
4:45 p.m. ET18 minutes ago
18 minutes
ago
Annie Karni
Nancy Pelosi,
the former speaker, is not here for the vote, because she’s in San Francisco
for the upcoming funeral for former Senator Dianne Feinstein.
Oct. 3, 2023,
4:41 p.m. ET23 minutes ago
23 minutes
ago
Carl Hulse
Kevin
McCarthy, the beleaguered speaker, just voted against the resolution.
Oct. 3, 2023,
4:39 p.m. ET24 minutes ago
24 minutes
ago
Carl Hulse
With the vote
running against him, Speaker Kevin McCarthy has remained seated in the House
chamber, laughing at some moments. But the atmosphere is tense.
Oct. 3, 2023,
4:35 p.m. ET28 minutes ago
28 minutes
ago
Karoun Demirjian
Speaker Kevin
McCarthy has likely lost this vote. With Matt Rosendale, a Republican from
Montana, voting against him, McCarthy would need either several of the
remaining Democrats not to vote, or some other surprise, to survive.
Oct. 3, 2023,
4:34 p.m. ET30 minutes ago
30 minutes
ago
Shane Goldmacher
Former
President Donald J. Trump has been conspicuously quiet as Speaker Kevin
McCarthy’s hold on the gavel is deeply endangered today. Trump has issued no
shows of public support for a lawmaker who has generally been an ally.
Oct. 3, 2023,
4:33 p.m. ET30 minutes ago
30 minutes
ago
Robert Jimison
Much like
during the fight to be elected speaker, McCarthy has sat through this roll call
vote to oust him projecting optimism and occasionally whispering to an aide
beside him. His optimistic disposition has not wavered during his tumultuous
speakership, one that could be over in a matter of minutes.
Oct. 3, 2023,
4:28 p.m. ET36 minutes ago
36 minutes
ago
Kayla Guo
Nancy Mace’s yes
means McCarthy has seven Republicans against him — putting him in a bad spot.
Oct. 3, 2023,
4:25 p.m. ET38 minutes ago
38 minutes
ago
Annie Karni
Representative
Nancy Mace of South Carolina votes yes on the motion to vacate. She’s known as
a flip-flopper, and it would have been in line with her style to vote for the
motion to table and then change her mind. But she didn’t.
Oct. 3, 2023,
4:16 p.m. ET47 minutes ago
47 minutes
ago
Kayla Guo
Bob Good of
Virginia votes to remove McCarthy from his position, the sixth Republican to go
against the speaker.
Oct. 3, 2023,
4:14 p.m. ET49 minutes ago
49 minutes
ago
Karoun Demirjian
Warren
Davidson, Republican of Ohio, voted against removing McCarthy as speaker,
despite having voted earlier to allow the motion to come up for a vote. That is
one more in McCarthy’s camp than on the last vote.
Oct. 3, 2023,
4:10 p.m. ET53 minutes ago
53 minutes
ago
Annie Karni
Representative
Eli Crane of Arizona votes yes on the motion to remove the speaker from office,
bringing the number of Republicans voting yes up to four. So far, Democrats
have stuck together and voted yes all the way down.
Oct. 3, 2023,
4:06 p.m. ET57 minutes ago
57 minutes
ago
Annie Karni
Representative
Ken Buck, Republican of Colorado, votes yes on the motion to vacate.
Oct. 3, 2023,
4:06 p.m. ET58 minutes ago
58 minutes
ago
Catie
Edmondson
Tim Burchett of
Tennessee is a yes, another Republican to back the motion to vacate.
Oct. 3, 2023,
4:05 p.m. ET58 minutes ago
58 minutes
ago
Annie Karni
It’s a “no
for now” from Representative Lauren Boebert of
Colorado on the motion to vacate.
Oct. 3, 2023,
4:05 p.m. ET59 minutes ago
59 minutes
ago
Catie
Edmondson
The first
Republican to vote to oust McCarthy is Andy Biggs of Arizona, the former
chairman of the Freedom Caucus. They might have to call the roll multiple times
if lawmakers are off the floor.
Oct. 3, 2023,
4:04 p.m. ET59 minutes ago
59 minutes
ago
Annie Karni
Speaker Kevin
McCarthy is seated next to his floor director, John Leganski,
who is taking notes. This is all really déjà vu all over again.
Oct. 3, 2023,
4:02 p.m. ET1 hour ago
1 hour ago
Karoun Demirjian
Matt Gaetz, the Florida congressman spearheading the move to
oust the speaker, hedges his predictions for the resolution to remove the spaker from his position, telling the chamber “on this vote, I’m not so sure” of the outcome. But he
defends his crusade to oust McCarthy as just and the debate as valuable.
Oct. 3, 2023,
4:02 p.m. ET1 hour ago
1 hour ago
Catie
Edmondson
The roll call
vote is beginning now.
Oct. 3, 2023,
4:00 p.m. ET1 hour ago
1 hour ago
Karoun Demirjian
Many of the
influential Republicans speaking on McCarthy’s behalf owe their political rise
to the beleaguered speaker and may find their own stature in the party thrown
into jeopardy if he is stripped of his position.
Oct. 3, 2023,
3:59 p.m. ET1 hour ago
1 hour ago
Robert Jimison
Responding to
criticism over fundraising text messages that have gone out during the debate,
Matt Gaetz, Republican of Florida, says he will take
“no lecture” from his colleagues that take money from lobbyists who have
“hollowed out this town.”
Oct. 3, 2023,
3:59 p.m. ET1 hour ago
1 hour ago
Karoun Demirjian
Elise
Stefanik, Republican of New York, spoke of how Speaker Kevin McCarthy has been
courteous to the rank-and-file members, toasting their weddings, celebrating
their children and mourning the loss of loved ones. That personal touch has
been an element of McCarthy’s style and is part of what made him popular among
G.O.P. members — but based on the last vote, it’s likely not going to be enough
to preserve his speakership.
Oct. 3, 2023,
3:58 p.m. ET1 hour ago
1 hour ago
Carl Hulse
McCarthy is
evidently not going to testify on his own behalf.
Oct. 3, 2023,
3:58 p.m. ET1 hour ago
1 hour ago
Carl Hulse
Democrats
guffaw as Graves calls McCarthy “the greatest speaker in modern history.” Nancy
Pelosi and a few others would like a word.
Oct. 3, 2023,
3:57 p.m. ET1 hour ago
1 hour ago
Catie
Edmondson
Many of McCarthy's
allies are just openly accusing the rebels of being attention-seekers. The
debate is getting personal on the House floor.
Oct. 3, 2023,
3:56 p.m. ET1 hour ago
1 hour ago
Annie Karni
Representative
Garret Graves of Louisiana, the Speaker’s unofficial crisis consigliere, is
railing against Gaetz for fundraising off of his high
jinks. “It’s disgusting,” he says, fuming with anger. He’s been angry about
this since the Speaker’s race, when Gaetz did the
same thing.
Oct. 3, 2023,
3:56 p.m. ET1 hour ago
1 hour ago
Catie
Edmondson
Conservative
rebels also plotted to oust then-Speaker John A. Boehner, but he resigned from
Congress and relinquished his gavel before it could come to a vote.
Oct. 3, 2023,
3:55 p.m. ET1 hour ago
1 hour ago
Catie Edmondson
The last time
the House had a vote to oust the speaker like we’re about to see was in 1910.
That vote stemmed from angst among progressive Republicans that the speaker at
the time, Joseph Cannon, a conservative known as “Uncle Joe,” refused to bring
progressive legislation to the floor for a vote. He survived that vote but was
weakened as a result.
Oct. 3, 2023,
3:51 p.m. ET1 hour ago
1 hour ago
Annie Karni
Representative
Matt Gaetz, the Florida Republican leading the charge
to oust Speaker Kevin McCarthy, describes the debt ceiling agreement McCarthy
forged with President Biden as the speaker’s “original sin.”
Oct. 3, 2023,
3:49 p.m. ET1 hour ago
1 hour ago
Annie Karni
The Republicans
defending McCarthy are ticking off their achievements. Representative Stephanie
Bice of Oklahoma, for instance, just brought up the “Parents Bill of Rights.”
It’s worth noting that all of the bills they have passed this year, aside from
the must-pass bills they passed with Democratic support, have had no chance of
passing in the Democrat-controlled Senate or of being signed into law by
President Biden.
Oct. 3, 2023,
3:46 p.m. ET1 hour ago
1 hour ago
Catie
Edmondson
Representative
Patrick McHenry of North Carolina, a close McCarthy ally, asks rebels why they
would hand over “the keys” to a governing majority to Democrats. He correctly
says that the stopgap funding bill McCarthy passed through the House forced the
Senate to accept lower spending levels than what the Senate majority wanted.
“Why do Republicans think that’s a bad thing?” he asked, adding, “We rolled the
Senate.”
Oct. 3, 2023,
3:44 p.m. ET1 hour ago
1 hour ago
Carl Hulse
No matter the
outcome, Speaker Kevin McCarthy virtually assured this day would come when he
gave into hardline conservatives and agreed to allow any member to move to
vacate the speaker’s chair as a concession to be elected in the first place.
Oct. 3, 2023,
3:43 p.m. ET1 hour ago
1 hour ago
Catie
Edmondson
One through-line
in the speeches in favor of McCarthy today: Republicans control only one wing
of government -- the House -- and they are using it to eat each other alive.
Oct. 3, 2023,
3:42 p.m. ET1 hour ago
1 hour ago
Catie
Edmondson
Democrats are
openly laughing on the House floor at a suggestion from one of McCarthy's
allies, Representative Mike Garcia of California, that Republicans should
present themselves to America as the no-drama party.
Oct. 3, 2023,
3:40 p.m. ET1 hour ago
1 hour ago
Carl Hulse
The “live”
roll call vote puts a little extra pressure on members, since the spotlight
will be on. They cannot use a vote card to electronically record their position
or wait until the last minute when the outcome is already decided. It adds to
the seriousness of the event.
Oct. 3, 2023,
3:38 p.m. ET1 hour ago
1 hour ago
Catie
Edmondson
Matt Gaetz, the Florida representative leading the charge
against Speaker Kevin McCarthy, suggests again that his group of rebels will
never vote to pass any stopgap funding bills — the kind that will inevitably be
needed again next month to avoid a government shutdown. “We are here to
eulogize the era of continuing resolutions,” he said. “We will not do it. We
will not pass these bills.”
Oct. 3, 2023,
3:37 p.m. ET1 hour ago
1 hour ago
Catie
Edmondson
About 20
minutes of time is left for debate, nearly equally divided.
Oct. 3, 2023,
3:36 p.m. ET1 hour ago
1 hour ago
Carl Hulse
House floor
staffers say the critical vote will be alphabetical and members will be called
on individually to announce their position publicly, just as when they elected
the speaker in the first place.
Oct. 3, 2023,
3:35 p.m. ET1 hour ago
1 hour ago
Catie
Edmondson
A fundraising
email just went out from Matt Gaetz’s campaign with
the subject line: “Help Vacate Kevin McCarthy.” “This is happening now,” the
email says.
Oct. 3, 2023,
3:30 p.m. ET2 hours ago
2 hours ago
Catie
Edmondson
“Chaos” seems
to be the word of the day on the House floor. “My colleagues here today have a
choice: be a chaos agent or get back to work,” says Representative Ashley
Hinson of Iowa, a McCarthy ally. That’s smart. Maxwell
Smart. Make picture
Oct. 3, 2023,
3:25 p.m. ET2 hours ago
2 hours ago
Catie
Edmondson
Representative
Thomas Massie of Kentucky, a libertarian with a mischievous streak, is the only
member currently serving in the G.O.P. conference who was an author of the
motion to oust then-Speaker John A. Boehner in 2015. He’s vouching for
McCarthy, calling his ouster “a terrible idea.”
Oct. 3, 2023,
3:27 p.m. ET2 hours ago
2 hours ago
Catie
Edmondson
Massie still
has a copy of that resolution to oust Boehner hanging on the wall of his
office, he told me earlier this year.
Oct. 3, 2023,
3:24 p.m. ET2 hours ago
2 hours ago
Catie
Edmondson
Representative
Bruce Westerman, a McCarthy ally, says that the
rebels should “stand before this body and the American people and articulate
your plan," adding “not your grievances or your wishes, but your plan.”
They must convince the McCarthy backers they have a better path. If they can’t
do that, Westerman said, their efforts amount to
nothing more than an “overreaction” that is “selfish, bad for conservative
policy, and bad for America.”
Oct. 3, 2023, 3:22 p.m. ET2 hours
ago
2 hours ago
Karoun Demirjian
It’s rare you see this many
members of the House all seated and listening with rapt attention. Usually speakers
address a near-empty chamber during debates, but this afternoon, nearly every
seat in the House chamber is occupied, reflecting the uniqueness and
momentousness of the vote they are about to take.
Oct. 3, 2023, 3:19 p.m. ET2 hours
ago
2 hours ago
Catie Edmondson
Representative Andy Biggs,
Republican of Arizona, says that he doesn’t believe the House will ever pass
the 12 appropriations bills that Speaker Kevin McCarthy had promised to move.
Someone supporting McCarthy rather loudly muttered: “It won’t now.”
Oct. 3, 2023, 3:13 p.m. ET2 hours
ago
2 hours ago
Carl Hulse
Representative Matt Gaetz of Florida is carrying the load for the floor debate
in support of removing McCarthy, even though he has allies. It is one thing to
vote against the speaker; it is another to stand up in a packed House and
deliver a speech against him. So far just Representatives Bob Good of Virginia
and Andy Biggs of Arizona have been willing to join Gaetz.
Oct. 3, 2023, 3:05 p.m. ET2 hours
ago
2 hours ago
Carl Hulse
It is no doubt paining many
Democrats to be on the same side as Representative Matt Gaetz,
but they just could not bring themselves to rescue McCarthy.
Oct. 3, 2023, 3:05 p.m. ET2 hours
ago
2 hours ago
Catie Edmondson
A key contrast has been laid out here
during the debate between those supporting McCarthy and those opposing him: Bob
Good of Virginia, one of the rebels, says that polling showed that the public
would have blamed President Biden and the Democrats for a government shutdown.
Tom Cole of Oklahoma, a McCarthy ally, gravely — and correctly — replied that
“the vast majority” of House Republicans did not want a shutdown.
Oct. 3, 2023, 3:04 p.m. ET2 hours
ago
2 hours ago
Annie Karni
Representative Tom Emmer, the No.
3 House Republican who serves as the whip, is up to defend McCarthy. His name
has been quietly in the mix as a potential alternative if McCarthy is removed.
Oct. 3, 2023, 3:04 p.m. ET2 hours
ago
2 hours ago
Catie Edmondson
“Chaos is Speaker McCarthy,” Representative
Matt Gaetz, Republican of Florida, retorts. “Chaos is
somebody who we cannot trust with their word.”
Oct. 3, 2023, 3:03 p.m. ET2 hours
ago
2 hours ago
Karoun Demirjian
Representative Tom Cole,
Republican of Oklahoma, defends McCarthy and draws applause for saying he is
“proud” of him, particularly for steering the House through the weekend to
avoid a government shutdown. “He put his political neck on the line knowing
this day was coming,” Cole said on the floor, arguing that McCarthy “did the
right thing.”
Oct. 3, 2023, 3:03 p.m. ET2 hours
ago
2 hours ago
Robert Jimison
Representative Dan Crenshaw,
Republican of Texas, said he doesn’t expect all of the Republicans who voted
against the motion to table, now effectively allowing the vote to oust McCarthy
to come up, will also vote to remove him. He expects some to use the time
between now and the vote to make trips to McCarthy’s office to see what their
support can get them in return. “I think maybe they’re now on a path to maybe
go ask for things from the speaker to gain their vote,” Crenshaw said.
Oct. 3, 2023, 3:01 p.m. ET2 hours
ago
2 hours ago
Annie Karni
Representative Tom Cole,
Republican of Oklahoma, makes a pitch to Democrats: “I recognize that my
friends have a very complex partisan personal and political calculations to
make. I wouldn’t presume to give them any advice about that,” he said. But he
warns them: “Think long and hard before you plunge us into chaos.”
Oct. 3, 2023, 2:55 p.m. ET2 hours
ago
2 hours ago
Carl Hulse
It's hard to overstate how surreal
it is to have Republican members take the floor to excoriate their own speaker.
Oct. 3, 2023, 2:53 p.m. ET2 hours
ago
2 hours ago
Catie Edmondson
Up now is Representative Bob Good,
Republican of Virginia, who begins by saying he “regrets” the House has come to
this, but that Speaker Kevin McCarthy has not used all the tools at his
disposal to block Democrats’ “harmful, radical agenda.”
Oct. 3, 2023, 2:56 p.m. ET2 hours
ago
2 hours ago
Catie Edmondson
One of Good’s grievances is that
when McCarthy was negotiating the debt ceiling deal with Biden, he told his
G.O.P. members that the Republican-authored bill that many conservatives
grudgingly voted for was a “ceiling, not a floor” for what Republicans would
get in negotiations. In the end, McCarthy struck a more moderate deal than the
G.O.P. plan and relied on Democrats to pass it, averting the nation’s
first-ever default on its debt.
Oct. 3, 2023, 2:59 p.m. ET2 hours
ago
2 hours ago
Catie Edmondson
Good says McCarthy undermined his
trust again last week, when he showed that he “was willing to do anything to
avoid temporary discomfort.” That temporary discomfort that Good is referring
to is allowing the government to shut down.
Oct. 3, 2023, 2:51 p.m. ET2 hours
ago
2 hours ago
Carl Hulse
Before the vote, there had been
some suggestion that McCarthy might try to delay the debate on the motion to
remove him from leadership but the House is proceeding.
Oct. 3, 2023, 2:50 p.m. ET2 hours
ago
2 hours ago
Kayla Guo
The House chamber and the hallways
around it fell silent when the tally was announced. Neither party reacted
audibly.
Oct. 3, 2023, 2:49 p.m. ET2 hours
ago
2 hours ago
Catie Edmondson
We’re now entering a period of debate
ahead of that vote. The time will be equally divided between the rebels and
McCarthy allies.
Oct. 3, 2023, 2:48 p.m. ET2 hours
ago
2 hours ago
Catie Edmondson
Speaker Kevin McCarthy has lost the
vote to kill Representative Matt Gaetz’s bid to oust
him, 208 to 218. That tees an up-or-down vote to remove McCarthy.
Oct. 3, 2023,
2:47 p.m. ET2 hours ago
2 hours ago
Annie Karni
Representative
Lauren Boebert of Colorado, one of the Republican
rebels, is finally making her move. She votes YES on the motion to table.
Oct. 3, 2023,
2:46 p.m. ET2 hours ago
2 hours ago
Carl Hulse
One thing to
remember is that Republicans who are opposed to tabling the motion to oust
McCarthy, effectively killing the effort to remove the speaker, might not
ultimately vote for the motion itself.
Oct. 3, 2023,
2:45 p.m. ET2 hours ago
2 hours ago
Catie
Edmondson
Representative
Cory Mills, Republican of Florida, just voted against tabling the motion,
bringing the total of Republican no votes on this to 11.
Oct. 3, 2023,
2:40 p.m. ET2 hours ago
2 hours ago
Annie Karni
Representative
Lauren Boebert, one of the conservative Republican
rebels, is seated next to Representative Matt Gaetz
in the chamber. She has her card in her hand and hasn’t voted yet. She appears
to be waiting until the end to cast her vote.
Oct. 3, 2023,
2:37 p.m. ET2 hours ago
2 hours ago
Annie Karni
So far, it looks
as though no Democrats are breaking with their party and voting against tabling
the measure that would remove Speaker McCarthy from his leadership position.
They are holding together.
Oct. 3, 2023,
2:36 p.m. ET2 hours ago
2 hours ago
Annie Karni
Representative
Nancy Mace, Republican of South Carolina, comes out as a real wild card and
votes against tabling the motion to remove McCarthy from the speakership. She
went on “The View” yesterday and said that McCarthy has broken a lot of
promises he made to her on bringing up legislation she cared about.
Oct. 3, 2023,
2:35 p.m. ET3 hours ago
3 hours ago
Catie
Edmondson
Already nine
Republicans voting against tabling the motion to oust McCarthy.
Oct. 3, 2023,
2:34 p.m. ET3 hours ago
3 hours ago
Catie Edmondson
This is the
first test vote for McCarthy. If he wins the vote to table the motion, he puts
down the revolt for now, and Gaetz can try again
later. If he loses the vote, that queues up a second vote, this time an
up-or-down vote to oust him.
Oct. 3, 2023,
2:33 p.m. ET3 hours ago
3 hours ago
Carl Hulse
Representative
Tom Cole, Republican of Oklahoma, moves to table the motion to vacate the speaker’s
office. Cole is highly regarded member, the chairman of the Rules Committee and
a McCarthy ally.
Oct. 3, 2023,
2:33 p.m. ET3 hours ago
3 hours ago
Catie
Edmondson
Gaetz is on the floor calling up his resolution to
oust McCarthy. Tom Cole, Republican of Oklahoma and a McCarthy ally, is calling
up a motion to table it.
Oct. 3, 2023,
2:33 p.m. ET3 hours ago
3 hours ago
Karoun Demirjian
Speaker Kevin
McCarthy’s fate may come down to the number of absences on the House floor,
since the speaker’s chances of holding on to his post improve if fewer
Democrats cast a vote. There were five Democrats missing on an unrelated vote
the House took just now, and two Republicans in addition to Mr. McCarthy, who
walked into the chamber late. If they don’t resurface before the vote to kill
the resolution to oust McCarthy, then a simple, winning majority is 214 votes.
Oct. 3, 2023,
2:41 p.m. ET2 hours ago
2 hours ago
Catie
Edmondson
Right now, at
least five of the 221 sitting Republicans have said they will vote against
McCarthy. If the two missing G.O.P. McCarthy supporters don’t show, Mr.
McCarthy might just barely be able to kill this challenge to his leadership. If
any more vote against him, then the House will vote on whether to oust him.
Oct. 3, 2023,
2:26 p.m. ET3 hours ago
3 hours ago
Annie Karni
Democrats are
now voting by hand, with paper ballots, in an apparent effort to slow down this
vote on an unrelated bill and buy more time for members to get here before the
vote that matters — a motion to kill a measure that would oust the speaker,
Kevin McCarthy. There were five Democratic absences on the previous vote.
Oct. 3, 2023,
2:23 p.m. ET3 hours ago
3 hours ago
Annie Karni
Kevin
McCarthy has entered the House chamber in a scene reminiscent of the January
speaker’s fight that presaged this moment, smiling through the pain.
Oct. 3, 2023,
2:21 p.m. ET3 hours ago
3 hours ago
Catie
Edmondson
One thing we’re
watching before what we expect to be a tight vote: absences on both sides of
the aisle. Democratic absences could actually help McCarthy by lowering the
threshold of votes he needs to get in order to win a majority.
Oct. 3, 2023,
2:18 p.m. ET3 hours ago
3 hours ago
Robert Jimison
Before
walking into the House chamber, McCarthy was asked if he expected to survive
the vote today. “I am an optimist because I don’t see a point in being anything
else,” he said.
Oct. 3, 2023,
2:16 p.m. ET3 hours ago
3 hours ago
Kayla Guo
“That’s the
most cameras I’ve had on me,” McCarthy said as he broke away from the enormous
scrum of reporters and photographers that were swarming him on his way to the
chamber.
Oct. 3, 2023,
2:15 p.m. ET3 hours ago
3 hours ago
Kayla Guo
A smiling
McCarthy says he's “feeling good” as he walks to the House chamber from his
office.
Oct. 3, 2023,
1:58 p.m. ET3 hours ago
3 hours ago
Luke
Broadwater
Representative
Kelly Armstrong, Republican of North Dakota, said as he was entering the
chamber that if Speaker Kevin McCarthy is ousted, Armstrong believes more than
200 Republican members will fight for him to be reinstated. “Anybody else said
they want the job?” he asked. “Why the hell would they?”
Oct. 3, 2023,
1:47 p.m. ET3 hours ago
3 hours ago
Annie Karni
A group of
hard-right Republican rebels is seated together: Tim Burchett, Eli Crane, Matt Gaetz and Ken Buck. All of them except Buck have stated
definitely that they will vote for a motion to vacate. Buck has been
noncommittal.
Oct. 3, 2023,
1:37 p.m. ET3 hours ago
3 hours ago
Carl Hulse
A group of teenage
Senate pages has filed into the House gallery to watch what could potentially
be a momentous day. The House page program was discontinued years ago after a
series of scandals.
Oct. 3, 2023,
1:34 p.m. ET4 hours ago
4 hours ago
Annie Karni
Quite a day
to be a tourist visiting the Capitol. The visitors
galleries are packed.
Oct. 3, 2023,
1:48 p.m. ET3 hours ago
3 hours ago
Robert Jimison
Tourists and
guides, who likely didn’t plan to be here for a historic vote, have now stopped
their official tour and have joined the journalists and photographers waiting
for Speaker McCarthy to leave his office on the way to the House chamber.
Oct. 3, 2023,
1:27 p.m. ET4 hours ago
4 hours ago
Here’s
the math on the votes that will determine Kevin McCarthy’s fate.
Kevin
McCarthy’s fate could be determined by just a handful of votes. Precisely how
many he needs to survive — or how many his opponents need to oust him — depends
on how many House members show up to vote.
Before the
House votes on the resolution to remove Mr. McCarthy, they will first consider
a “motion to table,” or kill it. That motion will be decided by simple majority
— as will the actual resolution to remove him, if the House moves on to that
step.
There are 433
actively serving members of the House — 221 Republicans and 212 Democrats. If
every last one of them shows up to vote “aye” or “nay,” the threshold for a
victory for either side is 217.
In that
scenario, presuming all Democrats vote against him, Mr. McCarthy can afford to
lose only four Republican votes — and there are already at least five G.O.P.
members who have publicly stated they plan to vote to oust him. So if all members show up to vote, and the Democrats stick
together in opposition to him, Mr. McCarthy is in trouble.
“If 5
Republicans go with Democrats, then I’m out,” he told reporters on Tuesday.
But the math isn’t
necessarily that straightforward.
If fewer than
433 members show up to vote, the threshold for a majority goes down. If two
Democrats miss the vote, for example, Mr. McCarthy would need only 216
Republicans to survive, a potentially achievable goal if he and his deputies
can forestall any further defections beyond the five Republicans who are
already publicly declared against him.
The same
thing would happen if a number of Democrats vote
“present” instead of affirmatively for or against Mr. McCarthy. “Present” votes
do not count for or against the passage of the resolution, so the majority
would be calculated from the ranks of those voting “aye” or “nay.” Four
“present” votes, for example, would mean that Mr. McCarthy could hang on with
215 votes in his favor.
It is also
possible that a wayward Democrat or two might break rank with their party and
vote to preserve Mr. McCarthy as speaker, despite Representative Hakeem
Jeffries, Democrat of New York and the minority leader, having told his members
in a closed-door meeting that they ought to vote as a bloc against keeping him
in the job. Given the margins, even one or two Democratic votes for Mr.
McCarthy could determine the outcome.
Oct. 3, 2023,
1:23 p.m. ET4 hours ago
4 hours ago
Carl Hulse
Speaker Kevin
McCarthy tried to treat Democrats better than he believed he was treated by
Speaker Nancy Pelosi but on the big things — the impeachment of President
Biden, breaking the debt limit deal that Democrats reached with him — he was
seen as violating their trust. So when the moment of
truth arrived, there was no incentive for Democrats to rescue him absent a big
concession, which McCarthy refused to make.
Oct. 3, 2023,
1:22 p.m. ET4 hours ago
4 hours ago
Catie
Edmondson
In a letter
to House Democrats minutes ahead of an expected vote, the Democratic leader,
Representative Hakeem Jeffries of New York, wrote: “Given their unwillingness
to break from MAGA extremism in an authentic and comprehensive manner, House
Democratic leadership will vote yes on the pending Republican Motion to Vacate
the Chair.”
Oct. 3, 2023,
1:24 p.m. ET4 hours ago
4 hours ago
Carl Hulse
The last
straw for many Democrats came Sunday when McCarthy blamed them for wanting a
shutdown during an interview on CBS when it was Democrats who provided the
majority of votes to avoid a shutdown.
Oct. 3, 2023,
1:13 p.m. ET4 hours ago
4 hours ago
Annie Karni
As we wait
for the action to begin, Matt Gaetz is sitting alone
on an otherwise empty House floor, chatting with Representative Darrell Issa of
California, a Republican who is supporting McCarthy.
Oct. 3, 2023,
1:11 p.m. ET4 hours ago
4 hours ago
Robert Jimison
As reporters across
Capitol Hill pile into the House Press Gallery to grab a spot to watch the
effort to oust Speaker McCarthy, a blown fuse has cut power to the extension
cords powering laptop and cellphone chargers.
Oct. 3, 2023,
1:01 p.m. ET4 hours ago
4 hours ago
Angelo Fichera
WHAT WAS SAID
“Look at what
the HouseGOP has passed in just 9 months: ✓ Parents Bill of Rights ✓ Work requirements for welfare ✓ The largest spending cut in
history ✓ The strongest border security
bill ever ✓ Permitting reform so we can build
in America again.”
This needs context.
The House
passed the legislation Mr. McCarthy is referring to, but some of it did not
become law.
Before the
motion to oust him from his position was put forward, Mr.
McCarthy and Republican
colleagues defended his record by sharing lists of purported
legislative victories under his watch. But none of those statements
acknowledged that some of the legislation fell flat in the Democrat-led Senate.
The Parents
Bill of Rights Act, for example, passed the House in March but has
stalled in the Senate. The bill would require schools
to make library catalogs and curriculums public, and require parents to consent
to requests by students to change their pronouns.
In May, the
House also approved a sweeping border security bill, the Secure
the Border Act, which faces similarly steep odds in the Senate.
In reaching a
deal in the spring with Democrats that raised the debt limit,
Republicans did indeed help increase work requirements for food stamps and cash
welfare. Some more conservative members criticized those provisions as not
going far enough. The debt limit deal also included provisions
intended to get energy projects approved more quickly.
Still, Mr. McCarthy’s
contention that the House secured the “largest spending cut in history” is
almost certainly an exaggeration. Republicans have claimed the debt limit deal
cuts spending by $2.1 trillion over a decade, but estimates vary greatly,
in part because the actual amount will depend on the actions of a future
Congress.
Oct. 3, 2023,
1:00 p.m. ET4 hours ago
4 hours ago
Reporting
from the Capitol
No
Republicans have put themselves forward to replace McCarthy.
Image
If not
Speaker Kevin McCarthy, then who?
That was the
question hanging over the Capitol on Tuesday, as it became clear that Democrats
were not going to help Mr. McCarthy survive the vote to oust him.
That there
isn’t an obvious answer to the question was part of Mr. McCarthy’s ability to
win the bruising battle for the job in the first place — he never let a serious
alternative emerge.
Nine months
later, there still isn’t a clear candidate in waiting.
“I think
there’s plenty of people who can step up and do the job,” Representative Tim
Burchett of Tennessee, one of the rebels bent on pushing Mr. McCarthy out, said
Tuesday morning, but he said he did not know who he had in mind for the job
instead.
Representative
Eli Crane of Arizona, another one of the hard-line
holdouts against Mr. McCarthy, said he wasn’t there yet in terms of supporting
someone else.
“I don’t like
to get the cart before the horse,” he said. “For me, right now, this is just
about representing my voters and holding the speaker accountable for deals made
and deals broken."
Some names
were starting to be bandied about, even as all of the potential successors
vowed that they were not looking to replace Mr. McCarthy, whom they said they
still supported.
Representative
Matt Gaetz, Republican of Florida, on Monday night
said he was open to supporting Representative Steve Scalise of Louisiana, the
current No. 2 House Republican and a longtime McCarthy rival who is undergoing
chemotherapy treatment for blood cancer.
“I am not
going to pass over Steve Scalise just because he has blood cancer,” Mr. Gaetz told a horde of reporters as he left the Capitol on
Monday night.
Representative
Tom Emmer of Minnesota, the No. 3 Republican in the House who serves as the
majority whip, has also been mentioned by some of his colleagues as a viable
option. Mr. Emmer, who has hosted many late night
sessions in his office with various factions of the Republican conference,
trying to help the group find common ground, has gained the trust of the
far-right members. But they don’t view him as a particularly strong leader.
“He’s a good
sounding board. He’s got some nice conference rooms. He doesn’t lie to us,” Mr.
Gaetz said of Mr. Emmer in an earlier interview. “We
know he can’t make anything happen.”
Another
logical person to turn to would be Representative Patrick McHenry, the longtime
North Carolina congressman who is close with Mr. McCarthy and has previously
served in leadership. But Mr. McHenry would most likely resist any attempt to
draft him into the role. He chose not to run for a leadership role last year,
opting instead to lead the powerful financial services committee.
In a
scramble, Representative Elise Stefanik, the top woman in leadership whose role
means she works closely with all members of the conference, could emerge as
another potential alternative. Serving as conference chair and overseeing
messaging for all House Republicans, she is widely seen as someone with big
political ambitions outside of the House — like potentially serving in a future
Trump administration.
Representative
Tom Cole of Oklahoma, one of the longest serving Republicans in the House who
leads the Rules Committee, is also respected by both Republicans and Democrats
alike.
Show more
Oct. 3, 2023,
12:48 p.m. ET4 hours ago
4 hours ago
McCarthy’s
journey to the speakership foreshadowed a fractious House.
Back in
January, a fight on the House floor dragged on for the better part of a week as
the Republicans, who were taking control of the chamber, struggled to choose a
new speaker.
Representative
Kevin McCarthy of California was elected to the post early Jan. 7 after a
historic five-day, 15-ballot floor fight, during which he granted major
concessions to right-wing holdouts and weathered a dramatic late-night setback
that underscored the limits of his power over the new Republican majority.
Mr. McCarthy
clawed his way to victory by cutting a deal that won over a sizable contingent
of ultraconservative lawmakers on the 12th and 13th votes earlier in the day,
then wearing down the remaining holdouts in a tense session that dragged on
past midnight. He ultimately won with a bare majority after a spectacle of
arm-twisting and rancor on the House floor.
The
protracted process foreshadowed how difficult it would be for
him to govern with an exceedingly narrow majority and an unruly
hard-right faction bent on slashing spending and disrupting business in
Washington. The speakership struggle that crippled the House before it had even
opened its session suggested that basic tasks such as passing government
funding bills or financing the federal debt would prompt epic struggles over
the next two years.
Yet Mr.
McCarthy, who was willing to endure vote after humiliating vote and give in to
an escalating list of demands from his opponents to secure the post, denied
that the process foretold any dysfunction.
“This is the
great part,” he told reporters. “Because it took this long, now we learned how
to govern.”
Despite the
divisions on display, Mr. McCarthy also emphasized the theme of unity in a
speech after taking the speaker’s gavel, pledging open debate and an open door
to both Republicans and Democrats. “You can see what happens in the people’s
House,” he said.
The floor
fight dragged on for the better part of a week, the longest since 1859, and
paralyzed the House, with lawmakers stripped of their
security clearances because they could not be sworn in as
official members of Congress until a speaker was chosen. Again?
Among the
concessions Mr. McCarthy made to the ultraconservative lawmakers was allowing a
single lawmaker to force a snap vote to oust the speaker at any time.
Oct. 3, 2023,
12:38 p.m. ET4 hours ago
4 hours ago
Catie
Edmondson
House G.O.P.
leaders notified members that a vote on a motion to table, or kill, Gaetz's resolution would be part of a vote series starting
at 1:30 p.m.
Oct. 3, 2023,
12:10 p.m. ET5 hours ago
5 hours ago
Karen Yourish and Lazaro Gamio
Far-right
Republicans have a history of antagonizing McCarthy.
Most of
the House Republicans who voted
against Kevin McCarthy’s stopgap spending bill last week have
been a thorn in his side since before he was elected speaker. They tend to
cluster ideologically on the far-right end of
the political spectrum.
About
three-quarters of the 21 Republicans who voted
against Mr. McCarthy’s temporary spending bill were supported by
the campaign arm of the House Freedom Caucus during the 2022 midterms. Six
members of the group are serving in Congress for the first time. (All 21 of
them ultimately voted against the temporary
spending patch that passed the House on Saturday night. That
bill then passed the Senate and ultimately kept the government open.)
In January,
20 Republicans nearly derailed Mr.
McCarthy’s ambitions to become speaker by voting against him multiple
times. Eleven of them were among those who held out against his stopgap funding
measure on Friday.
Mr.
McCarthy’s five-day, 15-vote floor fight for speaker foreshadowed how hard it
would be for him to corral Republican lawmakers to unify behind basic tasks
like passing funding bills or raising the federal debt limit.
Oct. 3, 2023,
12:07 p.m. ET5 hours ago
5 hours ago
Robert Jimison
Speaker Kevin
McCarthy gavels the House into session. A vote that could oust him from the job
is expected this afternoon.
Oct. 3, 2023,
11:32 a.m. ET6 hours ago
6 hours ago
Kayla Guo
Representative
Steny Hoyer said House Democrats regarded the motion to oust McCarthy as a
“Republican civil war” and that it was up to Republicans to resolve. But he
added that it was “unfortunate” that McCarthy did not come to any agreement
with House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries to save himself, and that he
believed the speaker was “making a mistake bringing it up today.”
Oct. 3, 2023,
11:29 a.m. ET6 hours ago
6 hours ago
Robert Jimison
Democratic
leader Hakeem Jeffries does not answer reporter questions about whether or not
members of his party will vote to save Speaker McCarthy. Instead, he tells
reporters that House Republicans should “break from the extremists, end the
chaos, end the dysfunction, end the extremism.”
We encourage
our Republican colleagues, who claim to be more traditional, to break from the
extremists. In the chaos, in the dysfunction, in the extremism, we are ready,
willing and able to work together with our Republican colleagues, but it is on
them to join us to move to the Congress and the country forward.
Oct. 3, 2023,
11:26 a.m. ET6 hours ago
6 hours ago
Reporting
from the Capitol
Democrats
railed against McCarthy ahead of the vote in which he needs their backing.
The leader of
the House Democrats instructed his caucus to vote to remove Speaker Kevin
McCarthy after a party meeting on Tuesday morning became a bitter venting
session in which Democrats aired their disdain for the top Republican.
Hours before
a vote in which Mr. McCarthy would almost certainly need their support to
survive, there was little sign that any Democrat — even the most moderate — wanted
to save him, according to lawmakers who emerged from the closed-door gathering.
Democrats
watched a video clip of an appearance Mr. McCarthy made on television on Sunday
— the morning after Democrats helped him push through legislation to avert a
government shutdown — in which he blamed them for trying to prompt a shutdown.
The minority
leader, Representative Hakeem Jeffries, Democrat of New York, waited until
after many members had spoken to issue his marching orders to the caucus: that
they should vote against any procedural motion brought to the House floor that
would delay the removal of Mr. McCarthy.
Democrats
said they had plenty of reasons to comply.
“I think he’s
likely the most unprincipled person to ever be speaker of the House,” said
Representative Abigail Spanberger, a centrist from
Virginia who is considering a run for governor. “He’s disdainful, he lies about
us, he lies about the process of governance. It’s not even a question of
whether or not we should take any particular action.”
Democrats,
for the most part, view Mr. McCarthy as a lackey for former President Donald J.
Trump, and someone who has opened up a groundless impeachment inquiry into
President Biden in order to appease the far-right members. They don’t trust him
and regard him as someone who has made so many different promises to so many
different people that his word is meaningless.
“They need to
work this out,” Representative Rosa DeLauro of Connecticut said as she left the
Democrats’ meeting. “This is not for us to get involved.”
Because of
Republicans’ tiny majority and the size of the right-wing band of rebels
pushing to remove Mr. McCarthy, he would most likely need at least some
Democrats to support him or refrain from voting to survive.
Representative
Mark Takano, a progressive from California, said that not one member in the
room rose to make the case for voting “present” on the matter, which would
lower the threshold for Mr. McCarthy to win a majority and stay in his post.
Instead, even
the most politically vulnerable Democrats from swing districts have spoken out
against him.
“If Kevin
McCarthy hasn’t bothered to ask me or other Democrats for support, then why would
we be putting much time into talking about this?” Representative Jared Golden
of Maine, the co-chairman of the conservative Blue Dogs Caucus, said on Monday.
Representative
Marie Gluesenkamp Perez of Washington, who also faces
a tough re-election fight in a conservative district that Mr. Trump carried in
two consecutive presidential elections, wrote on X, formerly Twitter, that “so
far Kevin McCarthy is a lot more interested in appeasing guys like Joe Kent
than talking with independent voices like me,” referring to the Republican she
beat last year. Mr. Kent denied the legitimacy of the 2020 presidential
election and supported defendants charged in connection with the attack on the
Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. She posted a picture of Mr. McCarthy and Mr. Kent
posing together and smiling.
Oct. 3, 2023,
11:23 a.m. ET6 hours ago
6 hours ago
Robert Jimison
So far, every
Democrat leaving the caucus meeting this morning has been clear on their
unified position to let the process to oust Speaker McCarthy go through without
any interference from Democrats to save him. “We’re not here to keep Kevin
McCarthy in power," Representative Jim McGovern said. "This is their
problem. If they have the votes to keep him, then so be it."
Oct. 3, 2023,
11:20 a.m. ET6 hours ago
6 hours ago
Catie
Edmondson
In a taste of
how furious McCarthy’s allies are at Matt Gaetz,
Representative Dave Joyce of Ohio calls the ouster attempt, “nothing more than
a tantrum aimed at personal and political gain. It stands contrary to the deep
conservative values the one — or select few — espousing it claim to ardently
defend.”
Oct. 3, 2023,
11:19 a.m. ET6 hours ago
6 hours ago
Robert Jimison
Representative
Pramila Jayapal tells reporters that there is no plan for Democrats to save the
speaker. “We’re not voting in any way that would help Speaker McCarthy,” she
says, adding, “Nobody trusts Kevin McCarthy, and why should they?”
Oct. 3, 2023,
11:17 a.m. ET6 hours ago
6 hours ago
Annie Karni
“Democrats
have been unified since we came into this conference, and I’m pretty confident
you’ll see that unity again today,” Representative Ilhan Omar of Minnesota said
as she left the meeting. “What we in that room took stock of was that this is
someone who continuously lies, whose word is not bond.”
Oct. 3, 2023,
11:17 a.m. ET6 hours ago
6 hours ago
Annie Karni
She shrugged when
asked if Democrats were worried that the next speaker could be worse for them.
“To me, they’re all the same.”
Oct. 3, 2023,
11:11 a.m. ET6 hours ago
6 hours ago
Luke
Broadwater
Democrats’ closed door meeting went longer than two hours before
ending. Representative Jeffries showed a video of McCarthy attempting to blame
a potential government shutdown on Democrats, angering the room.
Oct. 3, 2023,
10:54 a.m. ETOct. 3, 2023
Karoun Demirjian
Democratic
leaders have refrained thus far from telling their members how to vote on
McCarthy’s future, instead spending Tuesday morning giving members a forum to
air their opinions about the matter behind closed doors. Several comments were
greeted by loud cheers.
Oct. 3, 2023,
10:42 a.m. ETOct. 3, 2023
Robert Jimison
Republicans
supporting McCarthy are sounding the alarm on the potential consequences of
ousting the speaker. Representative Brian Fitzpatrick and others are calling on
their colleagues to table a motion to vacate and immediately start the process
to change House rules that currently allow one person to call for the speaker
to be removed.
Oct. 3, 2023,
10:42 a.m. ETOct. 3, 2023
Robert Jimison
“If we vacate
the chair, the government will shut down,” Fitzpatrick says.
Oct. 3, 2023,
10:36 a.m. ETOct. 3, 2023
Luke
Broadwater
Speaker after
speaker in the Democrats’ closed-door meeting rose to speak against helping
McCarthy, saying he can’t be trusted and Democrats must remain united against
helping him, said Representative Mark Takano of California. “We don’t have an
obligation to save this speaker,” he said.
Oct. 3, 2023,
10:33 a.m. ETOct. 3, 2023
Oct. 3, 2023
Kayla Guo
McCarthy conceded
to reporters that if five Republicans voted to oust him, and Democrats stay
united against him, that he would lose the speakership. Does that seem likely
to happen? “Probably so,” he said. But he added that he remains confident he’ll
ultimately keep the job. “I just don’t give up.”
Oct. 3, 2023,
10:32 a.m. ETOct. 3, 2023
Robert Jimison
Leaving the
Republican conference meeting, Representative Stephanie Bice says the
conversation about ousting Speaker McCarthy is a “distraction” and that
Congress should be focusing on a budget. She says the motion to vacate is “all
about Matt Gaetz, it’s not about Kevin McCarthy.”
Oct. 3, 2023,
10:32 a.m. ETOct. 3, 2023
Robert Jimison
She said that
Gaetz is “using the American people as pawns in his
narcissistic game of charades, and I think we’ve had enough.”
Oct. 3, 2023,
10:28 a.m. ETOct. 3, 2023
Carl Hulse
A vacancy in
the speaker’s chair would essentially paralyze the House until a successor is
chosen, according to multiple procedural experts. Under legislation passed
post-Sept. 11, an interim speaker would be chosen from a list prepared by
McCarthy and his staff at the beginning of the year.
Oct. 3, 2023,
10:28 a.m. ETOct. 3, 2023
Carl Hulse
But staff
intimately familiar with House rules say the role of that person would be to
oversee a speaker election and little more. So the
House would be in suspended animation until a new speaker is chosen at a time
when Congress now has just over 40 days to avert another potential shutdown.
Not to mention that the majority party, in this case Republicans, would be left
without a clear leader.
Oct. 3, 2023,
10:25 a.m. ETOct. 3, 2023
Luke
Broadwater
“They need to
work this out. This is not for us to get involved,” says Representative Rosa
DeLauro of Connecticut as she left the Democrats’ meeting, suggesting that many
Democrats are not inclined to save McCarthy.
Oct. 3, 2023,
10:19 a.m. ETOct. 3, 2023
Annie Karni
During the
other big moments in this Congress, like the debt ceiling vote, House
Democratic leaders told members to vote their conscience. But today Democrats
want to vote as a bloc. That will be a big test for Representative Hakeem
Jeffries, the relatively new minority leader. In the past, he has indicated
that Democrats shouldn’t meddle with how Republicans pick their leaders, and
vice versa.
Oct. 3, 2023,
10:15 a.m. ETOct. 3, 2023
Karoun Demirjian
“I’m confident,”
Speaker Kevin McCarthy said of his ability to survive the vote to remove him,
as he dismissed the idea of making a deal with Democrats. He said he told
Hakeem Jeffries, Democrat of New York and the minority leader: “You guys do
whatever you need to do” on the vote.
Oct. 3, 2023,
10:14 a.m. ETOct. 3, 2023
Kayla Guo
Speaker Kevin
McCarthy said after the House G.O.P. meeting that he plans to rip the Band-aid
off and bring the motion to vacate this afternoon. “Matt has planned this all
along. It didn’t matter what we transpired,” McCarthy said to reporters.
Oct. 3, 2023,
5:05 a.m. ETOct. 3, 2023
Chris Cameron
Here’s
what happens now that Gaetz has moved to oust
McCarthy.
Representative
Matt Gaetz pressed forward on Monday evening to force
a vote on removing Speaker Kevin McCarthy from his post, setting the stage for
a dramatic showdown this week between Mr. McCarthy and his far-right critics.
Mr. Gaetz, a Republican from Florida, made what is known as a motion to
vacate. Any single lawmaker can make such a motion, and the House
must hold a vote within two legislative days on whether to remove Mr. McCarthy
from the speakership, which requires a simple majority. Mr. McCarthy agreed to
allow any member to force such a vote during a protracted floor
fight in January as a concession to right-wing holdouts in
exchange for the speakership.
Here’s what
happens next.
McCarthy can’t avoid a vote.
The
resolution declaring the speakership vacant is privileged, meaning it takes
priority in the House’s legislative agenda and requires action within two days.
The House of
Representatives convenes at 10 a.m. on Tuesday, and legislative business begins
at noon, the earliest that the motion could be acted upon.
Mr. McCarthy
cannot avoid some sort of vote on the question, though he has some options for
trying to divert or at least delay the vote.
McCarthy can try to kill the resolution.
The easiest
and most likely course of action for the speaker is to move to table Mr. Gaetz’s resolution, effectively killing it. That, too,
requires a majority vote of the House. Should he be successful, the fight would
be over and Mr. McCarthy would keep his job.
Should his motion
to table be defeated, the House would move to a vote on the resolution to
remove him.
Another
possible but less likely move for Mr. McCarthy would be to move to refer the
question to a congressional committee, effectively punting it to a group made up
of his allies. He engineered a similar move in June that sidestepped an attempt to
quickly impeach President Biden. That would also require a majority vote.
McCarthy is all but certain to need Democrats
to survive.
The
Republicans’ slim majority and the size of the far-right group pressing to
remove him means that Mr. McCarthy has little chance of winning any one of the
possible votes and keeping his job without at least some help from Democrats.
As of Monday,
House Democrats had not signaled their
intentions, and Mr. McCarthy said Tuesday morning that he would not
offer them anything in exchange for their support.
It is
extremely rare for members of the minority to vote for the opposing party’s
candidate for speaker. Democrats voted in unison for
their leader, Hakeem Jeffries of New York, in each of the 15 rounds of the
speakership fight in January. And Mr. McCarthy’s efforts to appease far-right
members within his party since then, including launching an impeachment
inquiry into Mr. Biden last month, have further frustrated
Democrats.
If some
Democrats did decide to help save Mr. McCarthy, the simplest way would be for
them to vote to oppose Mr. Gaetz’s ouster resolution,
and vote to table it. They could also help the speaker in a more passive way,
either by voting “present” — neither yes or no — or skipping the vote entirely.
Both moves would lower the threshold of votes he needs to survive.
If the ouster fails, McCarthy could face
another one.
Mr. Gaetz has said that he
might keep trying to remove Mr. McCarthy over and over again — even daily.
There is nothing in the House rules to prevent this. His move on Monday was
only the third time in the 234-year history of the House that a speaker has
faced a motion to vacate.
Most
recently, in 2015, Representative Mark Meadows of North Carolina filed a motion
against Speaker John A. Boehner, who resigned from Congress before
the House voted.
If McCarthy is removed, the House would be
paralyzed.
A vacancy in
the speaker’s chair would essentially paralyze the House until a successor is
chosen, according to multiple procedural experts. An interim speaker would be
chosen from a list prepared by Mr. McCarthy and his staff at the beginning of
the year, but staff intimately familiar with House rules say the role of that
person would be to oversee a speaker election and little more.
Oct. 2, 2023,
5:01 a.m. ETOct. 2, 2023
Reporting
from Capitol Hill qx
Gaetz moves to oust McCarthy, threatening
his grip on the speakership.
Representative
Matt Gaetz of Florida moved on Monday to oust Speaker
Kevin McCarthy from his post in an act of vengeance that posed the clearest
threat yet to Mr. McCarthy’s tenure and could plunge the House into chaos.
After days of
warnings, Mr. Gaetz rose on Monday evening to bring
up a resolution declaring the speakership vacant. That started a process that
would force a vote within days on whether to keep Mr. McCarthy in his post. In
doing so, Mr. Gaetz sought to subject Mr. McCarthy to
a rare form of political punishment experienced by only two other speakers in
the 234-year history of the House of Representatives.
The move came
just days after Mr. McCarthy opted to avert a government shutdown the only way
he could — by relying on Democratic votes to push through a stopgap
spending bill over the objections of an unmovable bloc of
hard-liners in his own party, including Mr. Gaetz.
It was a brief
but tense interruption of the day-to-day proceedings of the House. Mr. McCarthy
was not present on the House floor when Mr. Gaetz
made his motion, but scores of Democrats crowded in the aisles to watch the
spectacle. The House adjourned shortly afterward, but under the chamber’s
rules, Mr. McCarthy and his leadership team will need to address it within two
legislative days.
“It is
becoming increasingly clear who the speaker of the House already works for, and
it’s not the Republican conference,” Mr. Gaetz said
earlier Monday, making the case for Mr. McCarthy’s ouster. He added that the
speaker had allowed President Biden to take his “lunch money in every
negotiation.”
Mr. Gaetz cited Mr. McCarthy’s dependence on Democrats to pass
the funding bill — which was necessary to avert a shutdown because Mr. Gaetz and 20 of his colleagues opposed a temporary funding
bill. And he accused Mr. McCarthy of lying to his Republican members during
spending negotiations and making a “secret deal” with Democrats about funding
for Ukraine, which he and dozens of other conservatives have opposed.
The move is a
significant escalation of the long-simmering power struggle between Mr.
McCarthy and a clutch of conservative hard-liners in his party. They have
dangled the threat of dethroning the speaker since he was elected, after they
subjected him to a painful round of 15 votes.
Mr. McCarthy,
a chronic optimist who has shown a remarkable willingness to weather political
pain to maintain his grip on the speaker’s gavel, appeared undaunted. Minutes
after Mr. Gaetz filed the resolution, he wrote on
social media, “Bring it on.”
“I think it’s
disruptive to the country, and my focus is only on getting our work done,” Mr.
McCarthy said earlier Monday. “I want to win the vote so I can finish the job
for the American people. There are certain people who have done this since the
day we came in.”
Mr. Gaetz’s animus toward Mr. McCarthy extends far beyond the
most recent funding skirmish. He emerged as Mr. McCarthy’s chief tormentor
during the speaker’s fight in January, when he suggested on the House floor
that the California Republican had “sold shares of himself for more than a
decade,” and never quite stopped.
Mr. McCarthy
knew that a dramatic about-face to team with Democrats on a spending bill over
the weekend might put his speakership at risk.Credit...Haiyun Jiang for The New York Times
It was to
appease Mr. Gaetz and the 19 other Republicans who
opposed his speakership that Mr. McCarthy agreed to change the rules of the
House to allow any one lawmaker to call a snap vote for his ouster.
After Mr.
McCarthy struck a bipartisan deal with
Mr. Biden in the spring to suspend the debt ceiling, there were
rumblings among the far right about moving forward on a motion to vacate. They
settled for shutting down the House floor instead.
It was
unclear how many Republicans planned to join Mr. Gaetz
in his attempt to dethrone Mr. McCarthy. Some archconservatives who have been
critical of the speaker have said in recent days that they would not support
removing him now.
But Mr. Gaetz told reporters at the Capitol he had sufficient G.OP.
backing to prevail — unless Democrats voted to save Mr. McCarthy.
“I have
enough Republicans,” he said. Four other Republicans, Representatives Tim
Burchett of Tennessee, Eli Crane and Andy Biggs of Arizona, and Bob Good of
Virginia, have said they were inclined to support the motion. More have
signaled openness to it.
It remained
to be seen whether Democrats would help Mr. McCarthy maintain his post. If they
were to vote against Mr. McCarthy — as is almost always the case when a speaker
of the opposing party is being elected — Mr. Gaetz
would need only a handful of Republicans to join the opposition to remove him,
which requires a simple majority vote.
But Mr.
McCarthy could hang onto his gavel if enough Democrats voted to support him,
skipped the vote altogether or voted “present.” In that situation, Democrats
who did not register a vote would lower the threshold for a majority and make
it easier to defeat Mr. Gaetz’s motion.
Some
Democrats representing moderate and conservative-leaning districts have
indicated that they would be hard-pressed to punish Mr. McCarthy for working
across the aisle to prevent a shutdown.
But others
said they saw no reason to bail him out, pointing to the string of concessions
Mr. McCarthy has made to appease his right flank. Those included opening an impeachment inquiry
into Mr. Biden and reneging on spending levels negotiated with
the president during the debt limit crisis.
In a
statement, Representative Ilhan Omar, Democrat of Minnesota, savaged Mr.
McCarthy for his opposition to abortion rights and measures to combat climate
change. She called him “a weak speaker who has routinely put his self-interest
over his constituents, the American people and the Constitution.”
Mr. McCarthy
“has made it his mission to cover up a criminal conspiracy from Donald Trump,
and is himself a threat to our democracy,” she said. “He literally voted to
overturn the 2020 election results, overthrow the duly elected president and
did nothing to discourage his members from doing the same.”
Mr. Gaetz’s antics have infuriated Mr. McCarthy’s allies, who
view the Florida Republican’s campaign as a publicity stunt motivated by
personal animus. As Mr. Gaetz waited to speak on the
House floor on Monday, Representative Tom McClintock, Republican of California,
rose and chastised him to his face without naming him. Mr. McClintock said he
could not “conceive of a more counterproductive and self-destructive course”
than to try to remove the speaker from one’s own party.
“I implore my
Republican colleagues to look past their prejudices, their passions, their
errors of opinion, their local interests and their selfish views,” Mr.
McClintock said.
Even some
Republicans who initially opposed Mr. McCarthy’s speakership indicated on
Monday that they would not back Mr. Gaetz’s drive to dethrone
him. Representative Chip Roy of Texas, an influential conservative, said on
“The Sean Hannity Show” that he believed “the speaker deserves the ability to
finish this year’s process.”
But he hinted
that he would be open to getting rid of Mr. McCarthy if the speaker moved to
approve aid to Ukraine without also securing the southern border.
“The gloves
are off then,” Mr. Roy said.
There are a
number of procedural sleights of hand that Mr. McCarthy and his allies could
use to try to avoid an up-or-down vote on whether to keep him as speaker. He
could hold a vote to table the resolution, which would effectively kill it, or
refer it to a committee made up of his allies.
Still, Mr. Gaetz’s decision pushes the House into rarely tested
waters.
Only two
other speakers have faced motions to vacate: once in 1910, and more recently,
in 2015, when Representative Mark Meadows, Republican of North Carolina, sought
to oust Speaker John A. Boehner. The House never voted on the motion, but it
contributed to Mr. Boehner’s decision to give up his gavel and resign
from Congress.
Luke
Broadwater and Karoun Demirjian contributed
reporting.
ATTACHMENT
THREE– From Time
Why House Democrats Refused To Save McCarthy
BY MINI RACKER OCTOBER 3, 2023 5:39 PM EDT
For the first time in U.S.
history, a motion to vacate the Speaker of the House has succeeded,
with the chamber’s Democrats shrugging as a small group of mostly far-right
Republicans provided the crucial votes to oust Republican Speaker Kevin
McCarthy.
On Tuesday, Democrats voted
unanimously alongside Republican Rep. Matt Gaetz of
Florida and seven other GOP members to remove McCarthy as Speaker. Despite talk
over the weekend that some Democrats might cut a deal with McCarthy to save
him, the Speaker ultimately refused to offer members of the opposition party
any concessions, leaving Democrats united against him. In the narrowly divided
House, only a handful of Republicans needed to join Democrats to create the
majority needed to win the vote.
Even though the effort to oust
McCarthy was instigated by Republicans, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries
urged House Democrats to join them in voting against the Speaker. In a statement
released before the vote, Jeffries explained his reasoning, saying McCarthy had
brought this on himself by using his short tenure as Speaker to cater to
extremists in his party. He pointed to the chaotic 15 rounds of voting that the
House endured back in January to pick McCarthy as Speaker, a process in which
McCarthy made concessions to far-right Republicans, including allowing any one
member to force a motion to vacate.
“It is now the responsibility of
the GOP members to end the House Republican Civil War,” Jeffries wrote. “Given
their unwillingness to break from MAGA extremism in an authentic and
comprehensive manner, House Democratic leadership will vote yes on the pending
Republican Motion to Vacate the Chair.”
Former Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who
was out of town and missed the vote, also laid the chaos at the feet of the
GOP, and said Democrats had no reason to help McCarthy.
“The Speaker of the House is
chosen by the Majority Party,” Pelosi wrote on X, the site formerly known as
Twitter. “In this Congress, it is the responsibility of House Republicans to
choose a nominee & elect the Speaker on the Floor. At this time there is no
justification for a departure from this tradition. The House will be in
order.”
Over the weekend, as talk of Gaetz’s plan to push for a vote to oust McCarthy
intensified, Washington was buzzing with talk of even just a handful of
Democrats making a deal with Republican
leadership to shield the Speaker. Moderate Democrats remained under pressure
through Tuesday afternoon.
In the end, no rank-and-file
Democrats felt moved to help McCarthy or his party get out of a mess of their
own making.
“I think he’s likely the most
unprincipled person to ever be Speaker of the House,” Rep. Abigail Spanberger, a Virginia Democrat, told reporters ahead of
the vote. “He’s disdainful, he lies about us, he lies about the process of
governance. It’s not even a question of whether or not we should take any
particular action.”
In a final, doomed plea ahead of
the vote, it was Rep. Patrick McHenry, a North Carolina Republican and a
McCarthy ally, who suggested that Democrats might be making the right political
move for them.
“With this record of success that
we’ve seen Kevin McCarthy and a Republican majority produce in a Washington run
by Democrats, we’re going to throw that away, resulting in more liberal
outcomes, not more conservative ones,” McHenry told his colleagues. “So I understand why the left is where you are today. You
don’t like an effective conservative majority, and I don’t blame you. But on
the right, rethink this.”
Democrats are running some risk in
that they are gambling that the next Speaker of the House won’t turn out to be worse,
in their assessments. But many Democrats in the chamber felt helping prop up
McCarthy’s speakership carried its own risks.
“This is the Republican’s civil
war and they haven't shown they can govern,” California Rep. Ted Lieu, the vice
chair of the House Democratic Caucus, told TIME immediately after the
speakership vote. “Hopefully the Republicans will be able to put forward
someone that doesn't break his word and we'll see what happens. I am voting for
Hakeem Jeffries.”
Asked what happens if the next
Speaker isn’t Jeffries and refuses to work with Democrats, Lieu said “It’s too
early to speculate.”
Following the vote on the motion
to vacate, Rep. Patrick McHenry, a North Carolina Republican and a McCarthy
ally, was selected as Speaker Pro Tem. McHenry
immediately called for a recess before the House began the process of selecting
a new Speaker. When those votes do happen, McCarthy could continue to put his
name forward. Possible successors include Majority Leader Steve Scalise,
Majority Whip Tom Emmer, and Conference Chair Elise Stefanik, all of whom
backed McCarthy and say that they are not interested in replacing him.
“Right now
I think all of us are just trying to think through what the path ahead is,”
California Rep. Pete Aguilar, chair of the House Democratic Caucus, told TIME
immediately after the vote. “It’s incredibly unfortunate that we're in this
situation, but the reality is Kevin McCarthy ran to the extremes at every
possible turn from the very beginning. That's why it took them 15 votes, he
made a lot of promises.”
Nik Popli
contributed reporting.
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· Want Weekly Recs on What to Watch, Read, and More? Sign Up for Worth Your Time
ATTACHMENT
FOUR – From Slate
Congress Is in Its Eviction Era. I’m Loving Every Salty Moment.
Admit it: The
pettiness is kinda entertaining.
BY LUKE WINKIE
OCT 04, 20233:47 PM
The gears of Washington—as they so
often do in this age of soul-crushing gridlock—have ground to a halt. Kevin
McCarthy, a man whose political career is singular proof that karma is real,
has been stripped of his gavel by the unseemly fringes of his truculent GOP. He
is no longer speaker of the House, nor is anyone else. The position, which is
crucial to marshaling routine bills across legislative arteries, is currently
being filled by pro tempore Patrick McHenry, of North Carolina’s 10th district,
while new leadership is ascertained. Nobody is sure when that will happen, or
who it will be, which means Congress is essentially frozen. In the meantime,
jilted Republicans who were allied with McCarthy are clamoring for whatever
revenge they can find. And because Democrats didn’t bail them out of their own
mess, the first thing on the menu was telling Nancy Pelosi to pack up her
office and kick rocks.
Yes, in one of McHenry’s inaugural
acts as a lame-duck speaker, yesterday—mere hours after his accidental
ascension—his staff informed Pelosi that she must abandon her congressional
hideaway office so it may be repossessed for “speaker office use.” Politico first broke the story,
and reported that the mandate was passed along to Pelosi’s team in the form of
a luridly frosty email. (“Please vacate the space tomorrow, the room will be
re-keyed,” it read. Yikes!) Pelosi is currently in California for the public
mourning of Dianne Feinstein, so she missed the tragicomic fall of McCarthy
entirely. Thankfully, according to Politico, Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries
dispatched his staff to retrieve Pelosi’s belongings for safekeeping. It’s a
good thing he did, otherwise the former speaker might’ve needed to hire a
locksmith.
For the uninitiated,
“congressional hideaways” are secret enclaves on Capitol Hill—usually roomier
and more luxurious than standard offices—doled out to some of the more
esteemed, high-ranking members of Congress; for Pelosi, this certainly applies.
Therefore, her eviction seems to be less a matter of procedural governmental
function and more a soupçon of prickly pettiness unleashed on
a political enemy. McCarthy and his allies are furious that the Democrats
didn’t step in to save the embattled speaker from hard-right Republicans:
Without Democratic support for McCarthy, Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz’s contingency threw the leader to the wolves.
McHenry, who remains an ephemeral
interim speaker in a divided party with a razor-thin majority, has limited
means to voice his displeasure administratively, but forcing Pelosi to haul her
belongings down the hall certainly does get some kind of message across. (It
should also be said that Pelosi is no longer in a Democratic leadership
position, so this is more proof that her resonant legacy is still large enough
to make her public enemy No. 1 in the eyes of the GOP.)
“This eviction is a sharp
departure from tradition,” said Pelosi, in a statement to
NPR. “As Speaker, I gave former Speaker Hastert [who served from 1999
to 2007, right before Pelosi took the reins] a significantly larger suite of
offices for as long as he wished.”
“Now that the new Republican
Leadership has settled this important matter, let’s hope they get to work on
what’s truly important for the American people,” the statement continued.
She’s right that the circumstances
are wild, but Pelosi’s claim that McHenry’s move is totally unprecedented isn’t
entirely true. (Also, why is she name-dropping a kindness she did for disgraced
ex-House Speaker Dennis Hastert?)
And Pelosi knows this better than
anyone. The same NPR story notes an incident in 2019, right after she earned
the gavel back after the midterms, where Pelosi moved back into her old
office—which had previously been bequeathed to Mike Pence by Pelosi’s eternal
Muppet-headed nemesis Paul Ryan. (Pence, of course, was asked to get his shinebox and get out.) Personally, I love
that the rights to office space on Capitol Hill have become a political cudgel.
It’s the ideal terrain for passive-aggressiveness, and perfectly emblematic of
the state of American legislation in general.
We’re living in the age of the
impasse. The constriction of MAGA hyperparity has
made any substantial nation-altering projects untenable by design, and in that
environment, our lawmakers must turn to increasingly arcane regions of the
rulebook to “do politics” on the most vicious, schoolyard scale. Honestly, the
next time the Democrats have the House, the speaker should immediately set up a
cardboard box on Pennsylvania Avenue for McHenry’s new command center. Let’s
see how he likes that! If this is going to get ugly, let’s make it as ugly as
possible.
Regardless, I do hope Pelosi does
find a nice place to shack up when she returns to the District of Columbia,
especially in this housing crunch. Is the former speaker about to enter her
Virginia suburbs era? Only time will tell.
ATTACHMENT
FIVE – From the Washington Post
Speaking to
reporters Tuesday night to confirm that he would not run for speaker again,
McCarthy said: “I wouldn’t change a thing.”
“I leave the speakership
with a sense of pride and accomplishment. And yes, optimism,” McCarthy said,
citing Teddy Roosevelt’s quote about the man who “fails while
daring greatly”.
“I made
history, didn’t I?” he said.
McCarthy
dismissed the eight Republicans who voted against him, saying: “This country is
too great for small visions of those eight,” and calling them “individuals” who
were not “looking to be productive”. He noted that he had helped many of the
Republicans who voted against him get elected in the first place, quipping to a
CNN reporter: “I should have picked somebody else.”
ATTACHMENT
SIX – From GUK
Republicans Jim Jordan
and Steve Scalise launch House speakership bids
Hardline
conservatives confirm intentions to run for the top House job a day after Kevin
McCarthy was ousted by his own party
·
Republicans scramble after McCarthy ouster – live updates
Martin Pengelly and Joan
E Greve in Washington Wed 4 Oct 2023 14.13 EDT
Jim Jordan of
Ohio and Steve Scalise of Louisiana announced Wednesday that they would seek to
succeed Kevin McCarthy as speaker of the US House of Representatives, after the
Californian was brutally removed by
his own Republican party on Tuesday.
Jordan is
chair of the powerful judiciary committee, while Scalise is the majority leader.
Both had been named as potential successors to McCarthy, and they confirmed
their intentions to run for the top House job a day after the speakership was
declared vacant.
Pitching his
candidacy in a “Dear Colleague” letter, Jordan pledged to unify his fractious
conference, which has repeatedly stumbled under the weight of a razor-thin
majority.
“We are at a
critical crossroad in our nation’s history. Now is the time for our Republican
conference to come together to keep our promises to Americans,” Jordan said.
“No matter what we do, we must do it together as a conference. I respectfully
ask for your support for speaker of the House of Representatives.”
But Scalise
argued he had the experience needed to unite the conference, after serving as
part of the House Republican leadership team for the past decade.
“I have a
proven track record of bringing together the diverse array of viewpoints within
our Conference to build consensus where others thought it impossible,” Scalise
said in his own “Dear Colleague” letter. “We have an extremely talented
Conference, and we all need to come together and pull in the same direction to
get the country back on the right track.”
Weighing in
on the speakership race, Joe Biden expressed concern over the “dysfunction” in
the House and emphasized the importance of continuing funding to Ukraine, which
has become a source of outrage among hard-right lawmakers.
Asked for his
advice to the next House speaker, Biden laughed and said: “That’s above my pay
grade.”
Ukraine could
become a central focus of House Republicans’ speaker candidate forum, which is
scheduled for next Tuesday. Asked about his stance on approving more funding
for Ukraine, Jordan said: “I’m against that … The most pressing issue on
Americans’ mind is not Ukraine. It is the border situation, and it is crime on
the streets.”
Another
sticking point for Republicans involves the mechanism that Matt Gaetz used to oust McCarthy, the motion to vacate. Under
current House rules, any single member can force a vote on removing the
speaker, and some of the more moderate House Republicans want to raise that
threshold to avoid a repeat of Tuesday’s spectacle.
“The ability
for one person to vacate the speaker of the House will keep a chokehold on this
body through 2024,” the Republican Main Street caucus, representing the the more centrist House Republicans, said in a statement.
“Personal politics should never again be used to trump the will of 96% of House
conservatives. Any candidate for speaker must explain to us how what happened
on Tuesday will never happen again.”
Jordan and
Scalise are both hardline conservatives who may struggle to attract support
from moderates – a fact not lost on observers after Gaetz
and seven other hard-right Republicans chose to make McCarthy the first
speaker ever removed by his own party.
Scalise’s
hard-right views – which have even seen him linked to the former Ku
Klux Klan leader David Duke – and his personal health
could pose challenges as he seeks the gavel. Scalise, 57, walks with a cane,
having survived a shooting at congressional baseball practice in 2017. He is
also in treatment for mutliple myeloma, an aggressive
form of cancer. He has said the treatment is going well.
As
Republicans weigh their options, hard-right lawmaker Andy Harris of
Maryland suggested Byron
Donalds as the next speaker, but it is unclear whether
the Florida congressman will throw his hat in the ring. Kevin Hern of Oklahoma,
chair of the Republican study committee, was named as another potential
candidate.
“I didn’t
volunteer to do this,” Hern told reporters on Capitol Hill. “People have asked
me about looking at an alternate choice. And so I’m
going around talking about this issue with other groups of people and see if
their votes are there.”
Three House
Republicans and Fox News host Sean Hannity have pitched a different wildcard
option: elect Donald
Trump as speaker. The speaker does not have to be a member of
Congress, though no speaker has ever filled the role without holding a seat.
But House Republican
rules say anyone indicted and facing two years or more
of prison time cannot hold a leadership role, which would render Trump
ineligible.
ATTACHMENT
SEVEN – From Nashville Sceue
Nashville's Reps Stall in a Leaderless Congress
Tennessee
Republicans helped drive Congress into chaos. Now they're struggling to find a
path forward.
·
By ELI MOTYCKA
Nashville’s three U.S. representatives
are struggling to unite on a path forward for their Republican majority amid
ongoing chaos in the party.
Rep. Mark Green — formerly an ally
of former Speaker Kevin McCarthy, who was deposed on Tuesday — has come out in
favor of Ohio's Rep. Jim Jordan, a co-founder of the House Freedom Caucus who
has emerged as a leader of the party’s far-right wing.
“Jim Jordan is the fighter we
need," a Green aide tells the Scene via
text. "I’m honored to support him to be our next Speaker of the
House."
Along with Jordan, Louisiana
Republican Steve Scalise, who has served as McCarthy’s second-in-command, has
announced a bid for speaker.
Rep. John Rose, another of Nashville’s
representatives, chided his party for failing to hold onto the speakership in a
press release after Tuesday’s
vote to oust McCarthy. Rose is undecided as to who he will support
to lead the party in the House.
“Congressman Rose is looking
forward to hearing all of the candidates speak at the candidate forum next
week,” a spokesperson for Rep. Rose tells the Scene in a
statement. “At this point in time, he is keeping his options open as he
considers who best reflects the values of Tennessee’s Sixth District and is
prepared to lead the House of Representatives.”
Tennessee
Delegation Splits as Federal Government Hurtles Toward Shutdown
Rep. Andy Ogles — the
embattled freshman representative who beat out more moderate Republicans to win
Tennessee’s redrawn 5th District — has been silent. In his
short tenure in Congress, Ogles has demonstrated an ongoing alliance with
Jordan and an obvious desire for clout among the party’s extreme right. In
January, Ogles
helped push the vote to install McCarthy to 15 rounds of voting in
an embarrassing display of party disarray. Last week, Ogles
held out again, forcing Congress to the brink of a government
shutdown led by embattled Florida Republican Matt Gaetz,
another close ally.
In the 2022 midterms, Republicans
won a narrow governing majority in the House and lost ground in the
Democrat-controlled Senate. Their governing majority sought to unite far-right
members in deep-red districts with centrist Republicans in states like New York
and Washington, who represent districts won by Joe Biden in 2020. Reps. Green,
Ogles and Rose each won districts with a slice of Davidson County, which was
formerly a single Democratic district represented by Jim Cooper before
being cracked into three seats by the state legislature.
The GOP’s prolonged intra-party
fight to elect a speaker in January was the first ominous sign for Republicans,
who have now lost governing control of the only chamber where they hold a
majority.
ATTACHMENT
EIGHT – From Politico
Trump
considering trip to Congress before speakership election
The former president is open to
pitching himself as a speaker candidate, according to a Republican familiar
with internal discussions.
SARAH FERRIS
10/05/2023,
12:41PM ETUPDATED:
10/05/2023, 1:05PM ET
Former President Donald Trump is considering
a visit to the Capitol next week where he is open to pitching himself as a
speaker candidate, according to a Republican familiar with internal
discussions.
If it happens, Trump would come
speak to the House GOP sometime before lawmakers' internal speaker election,
which is set to happen on Wednesday, that person said. A final decision hasn’t
yet been made. The full GOP will meet Tuesday for an internal “candidate
forum.”
It’s not clear if Trump — the frontrunner
in the 2024 presidential primary — would actually run for speaker. Winning
would require near-unanimity from the House GOP, a difficult hurdle for the
controversial former president. One of his closest Hill allies, House Judiciary
Chair Jim Jordan, is already in the race. (Jordan told NBC that he discussed his speakership
bid with Trump this week.)
It remains a longshot idea: The
House has never elected a speaker who wasn’t a member of Congress, though it is
not technically a constitutional requirement. Trump could also run into
problems with the GOP's own conference rules, which state a member of GOP leadership
is required to step aside "if indicted for a felony for which a sentence
of two or more years imprisonment may be imposed."
Still, the former president
has openly flirted with
the idea of becoming GOP speaker in the days since Kevin McCarthy’s fall. And
several members, including Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga), have backed the
idea.
“A lot of people have been calling
me about speaker. All I can say is we'll do whatever is best for the country
and the Republican Party,” Trump told
reporters Wednesday.
House Armed Services Committee
Chair Mike Rogers, a close ally of Kevin McCarthy, is not only publicly backing
Steve Scalise for speaker, but also pushing more than 80 southern state members
to support the majority leader's bid.
“Scalise is the only candidate who
would unite the conference and raise the kind of resources nationally that we
need to grow our majority large enough to not have to deal with these kinds of
problems in the future,” the Alabama Republican said in a statement first
shared with POLITICO.
ATTACHMENT
NINE – From the Daily Beast
TRUMP BEING NOMINATED FOR HOUSE SPEAKER IS BECOMING A REAL POSSIBILITY
Sean Hannity, who remains close
with Trump, claimed he’s “been told” the former president is open to the idea.
By Chaya Tong and Brett Bachman Updated Oct. 03, 2023 10:44PM
EDT / Published Oct. 03, 2023 7:40PM EDT
Right-wing pundits and lawmakers
are already rallying around the idea of former President Donald Trump as
the next Speaker of the House following Rep. Kevin McCarthy’s
shock ouster Tuesday.
Conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, former Trump adviser Steve Bannon, and
even the far-right cable network Newsmax all floated the idea of Trump taking
over the role Tuesday evening, just minutes after McCarthy’s ejection from
House leadership.
“Donald Trump should be nominated as
a litmus test to all these Republicans,” Jones said emphatically on InfoWars. “With all the fake charges and all the fake
trials, how awesome would it be to make Donald Trump Speaker of the House?”
The phrase “Nominate Trump” was
also trending Tuesday on Elon Musk’s social media site X, formerly known as
Twitter—inspired at least in part by Rep. Troy Nehls
(R-TX) unofficially nominating the former president via a viral tweet.
Rep. Greg Steube quickly
followed with his own suggesting that Trump could fill the role.
Shortly after, Fox News host Sean
Hannity—who remains incredibly close with the former president and was likened
to a “shadow chief of staff” by White House staffers during Trump’s tenure—said
he had been in touch with several Republican members of Congress who planned to
formally pursue the idea. Hannity even went so far as to suggest that Trump may
be open to the idea.
“I have been told that Trump might
be open to helping the Republican party, at least in the short term, if
necessary,” Hannity said.
Later in his program, Rep. Jim
Jordan (R-OH), a Trump ally and potential candidate for the speakership
himself, shrugged off the idea but didn’t rule it out, saying: “I want him to
be the next President of the United States, but if he wants to be speaker,
that’s fine too.”
The potential for a wild-card
outsider campaign for the speakership wasn’t lost on Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL), who submitted the original “motion to
vacate” that led to McCarthy being booted from his position.
The MAGA firebrand told reporters Monday night that though he would support
several current members of Congress for the role, he wasn’t ruling out “other
Americans who wouldn’t necessarily need to be a member of the body to be
considered for the speakership.”
Other potential candidates include
Reps. Tom Emmer (R-MN), who Gaetz suggested would be
a good candidate as recently as last month, and Steve Scalise (R-LA), who
is reportedly favored by
Emmer, the House Majority Whip.
The entire saga began over the
weekend when Gaetz took issue with McCarthy’s
decision to move on a stopgap spending bill to avert an imminent government
shutdown—one that ultimately passed with the support of both Democratic lawmakers
and the White House.
Just eight other Republicans—as
well as all House Democrats—voted to boot McCarthy, giving him the rare
distinction of being the only House Speaker to be removed by their colleagues.
The Republicans who voted against
McCarthy were Reps. Andy Biggs (R-AZ), Ken Buck (R-CO), Tim Burchett (R-TN),
Eli Crane (R-AZ), Bob Good (R-VA), Nancy Mace (R-SC), Matt Rosendale (R-MT),
and Gaetz.
The final tally stood at 216
members in favor of ousting the California Republican, with 210 opposed.
ATTACHMENT
TEN – From GUK
Republican
congressman to nominate Trump for House speaker
Troy Nehls, from Texas, calls Trump ‘the greatest president of
my lifetime’ and says he will nominate him to replace Kevin McCarthy
Martin
Pengelly in Washington
Wed 4 Oct 2023 08.02 EDT
A Texas
Republican said he would nominate Donald Trump to be the next speaker of the US
House of Representatives, after the party completed the
unprecedented removal of
one of its own, Kevin McCarthy.
Troy Nehls said: “This week, when the US House of
Representatives reconvenes, my first order of business will be to nominate
Donald J Trump for speaker of the US House of Representatives.
“President
Trump, the greatest president of my lifetime, has a proven record of putting
America first and will make the House great again.”
The speaker
does not have to be a member of Congress, though no speaker has ever assumed
the role without holding a seat.
Trump’s name
has been floated before, including during the 15-vote marathon rightwingers put McCarthy through in January before
allowing him to take up the gavel.
On Tuesday, Nehls was not among the rightwingers
who voted to remove McCarthy. Another congressman, Greg Steube
of Florida, also said he would back Trump for speaker.
Trump is the
clear frontrunner in the Republican presidential primary, notwithstanding 91
criminal charges (for election subversion, retention of classified information
and hush-money payments) and civil threats including a New York fraud trial and
a defamation trial in the same city arising from a rape allegation a judge said
was “substantially
true”.
Speculation
continues about what it might take to knock Trump out of the presidential race.
In a book published on Tuesday, the author Michael Lewis reported that
the disgraced cryptocurrency billionaire Sam Bankman-Fried considered offering
Trump $5bn to step aside.
On Fox News
on Tuesday, the host Sean Hannity, long close to Trump, said “some House
Republicans” had “been in contact with and have started an effort to draft”
Trump as speaker.
Trump
has said he
does not want to be speaker. Hannity, however, said the former president “might
be open to helping the Republican party, at least in the short term, if
necessary”, while still running for president.
Jim Jordan of
Ohio, a possible candidate for speaker, told Hannity:
“He’d be great, but actually I want Donald Trump to be the next president of
the United States. But if he wants to be speaker, great. That’s where we need
him, at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue [the White House], but if he wants to be
speaker, that’s fine too.”
Observers
were quick to pour cold water.
David Frum, a
former aide to George W Bush, pointed to House ethics rules, saying:
“Why Trump won’t take the speaker job in one Google search.”
Sean Casten, a Democratic congressman from Illinois, pointed to
House Republicans’ own rules,
which say:
“A member of the Republican leadership shall step aside if indicted for a
felony for which a sentence of two or more years imprisonment may be imposed.”
Jake Sherman,
a founder of Punchbowl News, wrote simply:
“This will not happen. We can all move on from this.”
Speaking to
reporters on Wednesday, Trump, who is in New York for a trial involving
allegations of massive fraud at his company, said he was keeping his focus on
his presidential campaign. He also denied encouraging
Gaetz to push for McCarthy’s removal.
In the
Senate, the Democratic majority leader, Chuck Schumer, urged the next speaker
to embrace bipartisanship, even though hard-right Republicans will probably
feel emboldened following McCarthy’s ouster.
“You cannot
allow a small band of [‘Make America Great Again’] extremists, which represent
just a very small percentage of the views of the country, to tell the
overwhelming majority of Americans what to do,” Schumer said in a floor speech
on Wednesday. “Maga extremism is a poison that the House GOP has refused to
confront for years, and until the mainstream House Republicans deal with this
issue, chaos will continue.”
Rule
26—Temporary Step Aside of a Member of Leadership who is Indicted
(a) A member of the Republican Leadership shall step aside if
indicted for a felony for which a sentence of two or more years imprisonment
may be imposed.
(b) If a member of the Republican Elected Leadership is indicted,
the Republican Conference shall meet and elect a Member to temporarily serve in
that position.
(c) If a member of the Republican Leadership resigns pursuant to
this rule, and subsequently during that Congress is acquitted or the charges
are dismissed or reduced to less than a felony as described in paragraph (a),
such Member shall resume the position from which they resigned, unless the
Republican Conference decides otherwise within 10 legislative days.
Rule 27—Removal of a Committee Member who is Convicted
A member of a standing, select, joint or ad hoc committee, or any
subcommittee thereof, who is convicted of a felony for which a sentence of two
or more years imprisonment is imposed, shall be removed from any such committee
within 10 legislative days. The Chair of the Republican Conference shall
take such steps as may be necessary to facilitate the removal from committees
of such Member in the House. Vacancies created by this paragraph shall be
filled pursuant to rule 12.
ATTACHMENT
ELEVEN – From Fox
Calls mount for 'House Speaker Donald Trump,' as lawmaker claims he can
best 'unite' GOP
The House
speaker is not constitutionally required to be a member of Congress
By Charles Creitz Published October 4, 2023 5:50pm EDT
Calls continue
to mount for Donald Trump to
be nominated speaker of the House as some argue that only the former president
could unite divided Republicans.
Rep. Greg Steube, R-Fla., told FOX News on Wednesday that Trump would
be the perfect candidate to coalesce Republicans behind common policy
objectives after Rep. Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., was stripped of the gavel
Tuesday.
"We need
somebody to unite our conference. And I honestly believe that he's the only
person that can do that," Steube told "The
Story."
"He is
the America First agenda. We need the America First agenda to be displayed in the
House of Representatives."
GAETZ TORCHES MCCARTHY AFTER OUSTER:
‘YELLOW BRICK ROAD’ OF WORKING WITH DEMS STARTS WITH KEVIN
Steube said two other individuals floated for the
speakership are respectable lawmakers who would do a good job, but he said the
math may work more in Trump's favor than Reps. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, and Steve
Scalise, R-La.
"The
challenge is going to be you're going to have people that are don't want to
support Jim for whatever reason or don't want to support Scalise for whatever
reasons. And you've seen all of this play out on the floor. You have to get to
218 [votes]. Nobody can lose four votes," he said.
If
Republicans splinter too much from a single candidate and the 212 Democrats
remain united behind House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries of New York in a finalized roll call, the
Democrat could win the speakership of a GOP-majority house based simply on
math.
Jordan
formally dispatched a "Dear Colleague" letter announcing his
intention to run for speaker, while Steube was joined
by a handful of other lawmakers and Republican figures in touting the idea of
"House Speaker Donald Trump."
TRUMP CIVIL CASE COULD AFFECT NY'S
STATUS AS CORPORATE CAPITAL, EXPERT SAYS
Rep. Troy Nehls, R-Texas, pledged late Tuesday to formally nominate
Trump when the House next meets. Rep. Patrick McHenry, R-N.C. — who holds an
acting "Speaker Pro Tempore" role — indicated the chamber will not
reconvene until next Tuesday.
Nehls called Trump the "greatest president of
my lifetime" and touted his record, saying the former president will
"Make the House Great Again."
In a
late-night tweet, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., also pledged to support
Trump, saying he will be the one to fulfill many of conservatives' policy
priorities.
However, one
Democrat alluded to Trump's ongoing legal troubles, citing a House rule passed
by the Republican majority last year that may bar him from attaining the
speakership.
Rep. Sean Casten of Illinois pointed to House Republican Conference
Rule 26(a) for the 118th Congress, which stipulates a member of Republican
leadership must step aside if indicted on a felony charge that could result in
a prison sentence of two or more years.
Asked about
his interest in taking the speaker's gavel, Trump told reporters outside a New
York City courtroom Wednesday that he is focused on his presidential bid,
touting his wide lead over second-place Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis.
"A lot
of people have asked me about it," he said.
ATTACHMENT
TWELVE – From The Wrap
‘Every Single Democrat’ Would Vote for Trump as Speaker ‘to Continue
the Chaos’ in Congress, Fox News’ Steve Doocy Says
(Video)
“[Democrats] would be on record
voting for Donald Trump!” the “Fox & Friends” crew crows
By Josh Dickey October 5, 2023 @ 8:01 AM
The “Fox & Friends” crew
suggested Thursday that House Democrats would unanimously vote for Donald Trump
as speaker — merely to “continue the chaos” that the GOP is currently
experiencing.
And while cohosts Steve Doocy, Ainsley Earhardt and Brian
Kilmeade got a good chuckle out of the idea, it sure seems like they meant it.
Rep. Jim Jordan stopped by the Fox
News morning show to declare, officially, that he was launching a bid to become
speaker after a particularly argy-bargy ouster of
Kevin McCarthy earlier this week.
“You need someone who can unite
the conference, and just as important to unite the conservative movement across
this country,” Jordan said. “I think I’m best equipped to do that. The eight
[Republicans] who voted [to oust McCarthy], we have to bring them in, too.”
The “Fox & Friends” folks
naturally asked Jordan about the drumbeat of chatter that Trump would be nominated and
take the gavel while also running for president. Jordan somewhat danced around
the question, but made one thing very clear about Trump: “I want him to be
president.”
That’s where Doocy
suggested that there was at least one group who would love to see him as
Speaker of the House: Democrats.
“You also know that the White
House and the DNC tweeting out all sorts of stuff about the chaos on the
Republican side,” Doocy said. “The Democrats — and
you know this — would love it if somebody would introduce into nomination
Donald Trump, because Donald Trump could probably get every single Democrat to
vote for him to continue the chaos, and he would only need five or six
Republicans — next thing you know, he’s got the hammer!”
Earhart put an even finer point on
it: “Then they would be on the record voting for Donald Trump!” she said.
Everyone laughed — including
Jordan, who immediately changed the subject as soon as the question was tossed
his way: “Yeah. We need to come together right as a conference, as I said,
because right now, the crime problem… ” he said, going
on to talk about the southern border and inflation.
ATTACHMENT
THIRTEEN – From Politico
Both Steve
Scalise and Jim Jordan continue to accumulate endorsements for
their speakership bids.
Matt Gaetz,
who forced Kevin McCarthy's ouster, called both "excellent choices."
By ANTHONY ADRAGNA 10/05/2023, 12:29PM ET
House lawmakers are out of
Washington, but that hasn’t stopped endorsements streaming in for the two
declared candidates for speaker — Steve Scalise and Jim Jordan.
Both men, as well as any other
entrants, are expected to make their cases Tuesday to a “candidate forum” amid
ongoing raw emotions within the GOP conference after Kevin McCarthy's ouster.
Both declared candidates have
continued to tally new endorsements for their bids. Some of those to endorse
(let us know if your boss has weighed in definitively):
Scalise: Ken Calvert
(Calif.), Buddy Carter (Ga.), Drew Ferguson (Ga.), Tom Emmer (Minn.), Tony
Gonzales (Texas), Lance Gooden (Texas), John James (Mich.), Lisa McClain
(Mich.), Chuck Fleischmann (Tenn.), Steve Womack (Ark.), Austin Scott (Ga.)
Jordan: Jim Banks (Ind.),
Lauren Boebert (Colo.), Thomas Massie (Ky.), Mark
Green (Tenn.), Mary Miller (Ill.), Alex Mooney (W.Va.), Mike Carey (Ohio),
Darrel Issa (Calif.), Ralph Norman (S.C.), Mike Turner (Ohio)
Former President Donald
Trump: Troy Nehls (Texas), Marjorie Taylor
Greene (Ga.), Greg Steube (Fla.), Barry Moore (Ala.)
The word from Gaetzland: Rep.
Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) called both declared candidates “excellent
choices” and said: “Either Jim Jordan or Steve Scalise would be marked
improvement over Kevin McCarthy.”
For what it's
worth: Jordan told NBC News he's discussed his bid with Trump and would
not try to evict Gaetz from the House GOP. He
demurred on whether to continue with the motion to vacate as a matter for the
conference to decide.
ATTACHMENT
FOURTEEN – From CNN
Trump endorses Jim Jordan for House speaker
By Kristen
Holmes, Alayna Treene and Kate
Sullivan, CNN Updated 2:56 PM
EDT, Fri October 6, 2023
Former President Donald Trump endorsed Ohio Rep. Jim
Jordan’s bid for speaker of the House Friday.
In a post on Truth Social shortly after midnight, Trump
said Jordan “will be a GREAT Speaker of the House, & has my Complete &
Total Endorsement!”
Trump’s intervention into the race came after he expressed
openness to temporarily serving in the role himself and, per a source familiar
with discussions, considered a visit to Capitol Hill to speak with Republicans
in the coming days as they weigh a new speaker.
The former president is not expected to go to Capitol
Hill, a source close to Trump said Thursday night. The Messenger first reported the internal discussions
on a potential trip.
Republicans are slated to hear from speaker candidates at
a forum next Tuesday, setting up the next possible House-wide speaker vote on
Wednesday, October 11. House Majority Leader Steve Scalise and Jordan
have announced their candidacies, and others could still enter
the race, but it remains to be seen whether the conference can coalesce around
a viable successor to McCarthy.
In the meantime, the vacancy leaves the House essentially
paralyzed.
ATTACHMENT
FIFTEEN – From Time
Amid House Chaos, Biden Faces Shrunken Legislative Agenda: Avoid
Shutdowns, Fund Ukraine
BY BRIAN BENNETT AND NIK POPLI OCTOBER 5,
2023 6:00 AM EDT
As the chaos within the House
Republican caucus devolves into a full-blown leadership fight, the White House
finds its legislative agenda for the remainder of President Biden’s term
narrowing to a barebones to-do list, according to sources familiar with the
matter.
That list has just two items on
it: keep the government funded and continue military assistance to Ukraine.
Both goals remain under threat
amid the ongoing revolt by a minority of far-right Republicans in the House who
have battled with the chamber’s leadership over those very issues. Biden is so
concerned about the shaky prospects of getting another aid package for Ukraine
through the House that he plans to deliver a speech in the coming days about
why helping the country defend its territory from Russia is in America’s
interest.
"You can't look at the fact
that eight Republicans just took down a speaker and think that you can get
anything through that caucus," says Jim Manley, a former senior aide to
the late Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. “It's ungovernable right now.”
While Presidents rarely pass major
legislation in their final years in office, Biden’s narrow agenda reflects both
the challenges of governing with a divided Congress, as well as the chaotic
nature of the GOP-run House. On Tuesday, Rep. Kevin McCarthy became the first
House Speaker in US history to be ousted from the position. His downfall was
tied to his decision to work with Democrats over the weekend to avoid a
government shutdown by passing legislation to keep the government funded
through Nov. 17, after failing to persuade hardliners from his own party to
support such legislation.
"While we should never have
been in the position in the first place, I am grateful leaders on both sides
came together, including former Speaker Kevin McCarthy, to do the right thing,”
Biden said on Wednesday, while urging the House to select a new speaker and
fund the government “in a timely fashion.”
Earlier this year, Biden signaled
the possibility of getting more done with Congress. In his State of the Union
address in February, he laid out a list of policy areas where he hoped he could
continue to work with Republicans, including clamping down on “junk fees”
businesses charge consumers, expanding mental health care access for children
in schools, restricting what data tech companies are allowed to collect on
users, and providing more job training for veterans and their spouses.
Those aspects of Biden’s agenda
are now largely dead in the water, according to Democrats in the White House
and on Capitol Hill.
“Republican leadership is in such
a dysfunctional state and we need them to be functional in order to take up
things for the American people,” says Rep. Adam Schiff, a California Democrat.
In the coming months, as Biden
ramps up a re-election bid expected to lean heavily on the premise that
he has the experience to make government work for
Americans, more logjams created by the new House leadership could undercut that
message.
During Biden’s first two years in
office, Democrats controlled the House and the Senate, but he also went out of
his way to work with Republicans. He reached across the aisle for Republican
votes to pass $1.2 trillion in infrastructure investment, secure a large
investment in microchip manufacturing and tech research, enact a narrow gun
safety law, and expand treatments for opioid addiction and health care coverage
for veterans exposed to toxic burn pits.
But like all Presidents nearing
the end of a term, Biden has left a lot of his agenda largely unaddressed. He
promised his voters he’d push for laws to rein in police misconduct, expand
voting rights protections, and reform the immigration system to create a
pathway to citizenship for people who entered the country without
authorization.
Biden still “believes in
bipartisanship, of course he does,” said White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre on Tuesday, “but, you know, Congress has
to fix their own problem, their own leadership issue.”
Biden already had a strained
relationship with McCarthy. The two leaders were able to navigate past the US
government defaulting on its debt in June and managed to keep the government
funded through mid-November, but there are years of bad blood between the two
men. In the weeks following the 2020 election, McCarthy refused to acknowledge
Biden’s win over Donald Trump, voted to reject results from some states, and
kept close ties to the former President even after he encouraged a mob of supporters to storm the Capitol Building to
stop the certification of the election.
The next Republican speaker could
have an even frostier relationship with Biden. Two of the leading
contenders—Reps. Jim Jordan of Ohio and Steve Scalise of Louisiana—would both
bring a rightward shift to the Republican leadership. Jordan is currently
leading the effort in the House to impeach Biden over unsubstantiated
allegations that Biden was involved in his son Hunter Biden’s overseas business
deals. He has also vocally opposed additional funding for Ukraine.
The Biden administration believes
the security of the European continent is at stake if Russia isn’t stopped from
overrunning Ukraine. “If there’s one thing that all Americans, no matter who
you vote for, can get behind it’s the idea of independence,” John Kirby, a
spokesman for the National Security Council, said on Tuesday. “That’s what
Ukraine is fighting for: their right to be an independent state. It’s
what we fought for in 1776.” Kirby likened the US helping Ukraine to American
revolutionary forces winning the country’s independence with help from the
French military and naval forces.
Some Republicans in Congress
believe that despite concerns from a vocal minority, funding for Ukraine’s
defense isn’t in jeopardy. Rep. Mike McCaul, a Texas Republican, is the
chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee and a vocal advocate for Ukraine aid.
He says that Republicans won’t know next steps on Ukraine funding until the
House elects a new speaker, but he remains optimistic that Congress will be
able to get it done.
Similarly, Rep. Mike Lawler, a New
York Republican who sits on the Foreign Affairs Committee, says he isn’t
worried about the next Speaker’s position on Ukraine because “the vast majority
of the House shows that it is supportive of it.” So
what?
Others are less confident, as it
remains unclear whether House Republicans will be able to get past their
leadership chaos to get anything done.
ATTACHMENT
SIXTEEN– From Time
Matt Gaetz Hasn’t Thought Any of This Through
BY PHILIP ELLIOTT OCTOBER 4,
2023 1:55 PM EDT
His latest political pelt still
bloody, Rep. Matt Gaetz lumbered down the east steps
of the Capitol just before 5 p.m. on Tuesday. The Florida Republican had just
set an inglorious precedent, ousting the
first Speaker in U.S. history over his audacious transgression of working with Democrats
to keep the government lights on. So outrageous was
this move by Kevin McCarthy that Gaetz convinced
seven other Republicans to join his short-sighted quest to tip one of the
party’s most effective fundraisers from power a mere 10 months in the job.
Gaetz was all smiles and smooth sound
bites. Hair slicked back, the tan as fresh as ever. The sun started to sink
behind the Capitol as reporters crowded around this evangelist for chaos,
hungry for his insight on the carnage he had caused. Gaetz
took his time, giving seemingly every reporter a chance to ask a question and
hear Gaetz explain Gaetz’s
brilliance. Never mind that 210 Republicans—94% of
the chamber’s GOP caucus—wanted to stay the course with McCarthy wielding the
gavel. And it was exactly as Gaetz had hoped: every
shred of coverage from the Capitol put the Florida Republican at the center of
the story, exactly where he thought he should be.
(Democrats stood united and made
exactly zero efforts
to save McCarthy, who kept lobbing barbs at the opposition party in the hopes that
enough of his fellow Republicans would rally around him. Even after
McCarthy launched a
questionable impeachment investigation into President Joe Biden and reneged on
a budget deal he had struck with the White House, McCarthy says it was the
Democrats who betrayed him.)
But it was quickly apparent in Gaetz’s gaggle that he had not really thought through how
any of this ends. He said he would not seek the
Speakership for himself; the job is impossible even under ideal conditions, and
the current balance of power in the House is the narrowest for a first-term
Speaker since 1931.
He tepidly endorsed other contenders’ potential candidacies and stridently repeated allegations of
McCarthy’s double-crossing duplicity. Gaetz also
leveled dings about perceived weak leadership because McCarthy decided to move
spending bills efficiently rather than bring up every
single outlay as stand-alone, single-subject bills.
“We’ve got to move to the next
step. We are not at the end of this process. At most, we’re approaching
halftime,” Gaetz said before displaying a lack of
self-awareness that stood to set a new standard for Washington. “We’ve got to
assemble a governing coalition. We have to build from a place of trust.” This
was rich coming in the wake of Gaetz’s scathing
tirades on the House floor accusing McCarthy and his mainline Republicans of
being pawns of donors and special-interest groups—all while raising cash off
the stunt himself.
The pivot also came without any drip of irony just moments after Gaetz effectively deposed the Republican leader, plunged
the House into chaos for at least another week, and set in motion a fresh batch
of fundraising solicitations for his political purse.
And halftime? Wasn’t
this pretty advanced heading into the second half?
Even a decade ago, the Gaetz rebellion would have been political suicide. When
Newt Gingrich laid the groundwork for his remake of the Republican Party in the
1990s, he drew plenty of criticism—including from President George H.W. Bush’s
team who felt betrayed.
Upon getting too far over his skis and having lost five net House seats in
1998’s elections, Gingrich bowed out of the role and went home early the next
year. Former House Speakers John Boehner and Paul Ryan both felt the burn from
low-grade firebrands; Boehner packed up and went home, while Ryan was the first GOP
Speaker in decades to finish out his term rather than exit early.
But all of that was before Donald
Trump codified that burning your own party carries no penalties, and can even
offer sweet rewards. It’s terrible for good governance but excellent for
building celebrity-based cache. Gaetz, like Trump,
ignited the imagination of some of the GOP base, which sees such disruption as
meritorious and evidence of a fight on the little guys’ behalf. The loyalists
don’t have much use for compromise or even government. Their willful lack of
understanding about what is possible in a divided Washington draws them praise
from the absolutists while leaving the pragmatists rending their
garments.
Trump could bluster his way
through such one-sided fights and declare victory when none existed. Just look
at the 35-day shutdown that
Trump presided over and cost the
economy $11 billion because Trump and fellow Republicans could not agree to
enough money for border security. Trump simply declared he
had won despite an objective absence of fact to back that up.
Gaetz, however, is not as convincing.
Trumpism nurses blind belief—or at least suspension of
facts—to what its leader declares. There is no Gaetzian
corollary, which means running a personality-based racket is unlikely to work.
When Gaetz in January preened through McCarthy’s
protracted, 15-ballot chase of
the gavel, no one outside of his narrow universe saw it for anything more than
a stunt. Which means the half-baked idea at halftime carries some real risk for
the Republicans, who on Tuesday evening declared work done for the week while
they regroup and figure out who will lead them through the next stretch that
includes a presidential campaign. Generally speaking, starting a major
undertaking without clearly defined objectives or articulated definitions of
victory is a losing prospect in Washington; Gaetz
essentially launched the procedural equivalent of invading Afghanistan with no
obvious way to declare victory or to leave.
For his part, Gaetz
does not seem that worried. Where most lawmakers try to shoehorn into history
books based on novel legislation, longevity in their seats, or being masterful
deal makers, Gaetz seemed to be chasing little more
than sheer celebrity. His currency is glitz, not anything printed at the
Government Printing Office. The personal is
supreme to policy. And, in a parting press conference with reporters at the
Capitol, McCarthy had no interest in sparring Gaetz’s
ego. “It was all about getting attention from you,” McCarthy said as the clock
headed toward 8 p.m. “That’s not governing. That’s not becoming of a member of
Congress.”
As for Gaetz’s
co-conspirators who bought the rhetoric that McCarthy had abandoned his pledges
to his right flank and deserved to be punished, the freshly deposed Speaker
used language usually reserved for private chats: “They don’t get to say
they’re conservative because they’re angry and they’re chaotic.”
That might be the point: chaos begets
coverage. The more Gaetz and Co. can get on
television, the more money they can raise. That cash could prove useful for Gaetz, who isn’t expected to slum it in the House forever;
he’s said to be eyeing a
run for Florida Governor as early as 2026, when incumbent Gov. Ron DeSantis hits
a term limit, although Gaetz insists his
only immediate worry is getting Trump back to the White House. And, from afar,
Trump must surely have noticed that the House's disruption looks almost like a
tribute to his legacy of gleefully breaking norms without a plan for what comes
after.
Rep. Kelly Armstong,
a McCarthy ally from North Dakota, diagnosed the
ailment in a perfect 30-second summary: “Let’s be clear why we are here:
because the incentive structure in this town is completely broken. We no longer
value loyalty, integrity, competence, or collaboration. Instead, we have
descended to a place where clicks, TV hits, and the never-ending quest for the
most mediocre taste of celebrity drives decisions and encourages juvenile
behavior that is so far beneath this esteemed body.”
The problem: there is no antidote,
only anecdotes about its success. It seems the malady is only going to mutate
and get more pernicious. Gaetz knows it well. His
colleagues know it begrudgingly. Trump knows it best. And Washington simply has
not figured out how to adapt or how to work with a major party that has
elements that prioritize demolishing everything that runs afoul of their
fevered dreams of governance by dynamite.
ATTACHMENT
SEVENTEEN – From El Pais English
‘And now what?’ McCarthy ouster leaves an ungovernable Congress in
Washington
Legislative
activity is paralyzed until the election of a new House Speaker but the ability
of Republican hardliners to hold Congress hostage threatens a much longer
stalemate
By MIGUEL JIMÉNEZ Washington - OCT 04,
2023 - 11:58 EDT
The historic vote had just ended.
For the first time in history, a Speaker of the House of Representatives had
been removed after a motion introduced, moreover, by a congressman from the
more extreme wing of his own party. At that moment, a cry went up from the
Republican bench: “And now what?” That is the question on everyone’s mind on
Capitol Hill in the wake of
Kevin McCarthy’s ouster. The legislative activity of the House is
paralyzed until the election of a new speaker and there are still no clear
candidates to succeed McCarthy. In addition, the ability of Republican
hardliners to hold Congress hostage threatens a much longer stalemate.
Congress is divided. The Democrats
hold a 51-49 majority in the Senate. The House of Representatives, with two
current vacancies — Democrat David Cicilline and
Republican Chris Stewart — is dominated by the Republicans (221 to 212). It was
previously already very difficult for any legislation to be passed. At two
decisive moments, McCarthy gambled on reaching agreements with the Democrats:
first, to suspend the debt
ceiling and prevent the government from defaulting on its
financial commitments, sparking a rebellion among the radicals in his party.
Secondly, to approve a temporary budget extension to avoid a partial
shutdown of the federal government, which cost him his position.
The House of Representatives must
now elect a new Speaker. In January, at the beginning of the legislature, it
required 15 rounds of
voting to appoint McCarthy, who had to make concessions to overcome
the resistance of the hardline Republican wing. The paradox of the November
2022 legislative elections was that voters often punished the more extreme
candidates, but this has ended up strengthening their influence. The slim
majority that emerged from the polls in the House of 222 to 213 seats left the
decision-making power to the 20 or so congressional members of the Freedom Caucus,
the most radical Republican arm.
McCarthy has already announced to
his supporters that he will not present his candidacy before the new election
of a House Speaker, although he continues to enjoy the highest amount of
support among his followers. His ouster is a warning to anyone who might choose
to replace him: the radical Republicans, strengthened by the turn of events,
will make the same or even greater demands on the new candidate than they
placed on McCarthy. Simply put, the lesson is that the party will not tolerate
any concessions to the Democrats.
McCarthy ordered the opening of
a formal
investigation against Joe Biden as a preliminary step to a
possible impeachment to try to satisfy the extremists in his party and prevent
the closure of the federal government’s non-essential services, but the
Republican hardliners have proven insatiable and also wanted to punish the
president with a shutdown.
A bipartisan agreement to elect a
Speaker of the House from among the pool of moderate Republicans is extremely
unlikely, so whoever wishes to succeed McCarthy will have to jump through the
hoops demanded by the radical Republican minority.
At the same time, it will remain
difficult for the new Speaker to forge agreements with the Democrats and, as
such, the threat of an ungovernable Congress is spreading.
For the time being, North Carolina
congressman Patrick McHenry has assumed the role of House Speaker on an interim
basis, as his was the first name on a secret list of substitutes provided by
McCarthy to the Clerk of the House at the beginning of his term. McHenry chairs
the Financial Services Committee, one of the most important in the House, and
is very close to McCarthy, as evidenced by his appointment. It will be
difficult for him to replace McCarthy permanently after his traumatic
dismissal.
Another potential natural
candidate would be Steve Scalise of Louisiana, number two in the Republican
caucus behind McCarthy, although less of an ally of the former speaker.
However, Scalise is undergoing chemotherapy for leukemia, so he does not
represent a simple solution either. Third on the Republican ticket is Tom Emmer
of Minnesota, who would be another possible choice, but he is not a party
heavyweight nor does he have recognized leadership. Elise Stefanik, the
highest-ranking woman in the caucus, and Tom Cole, who chairs the Rules
Committee, are also in the running.
A candidate requires an absolute
majority of the votes cast on the floor to be elected. Democrats are likely to
back their own leader, Hakeem Jeffries, who won several rounds of balloting in
January when the Republican vote was split. Republicans are likely to try to
reach a consensus on a name before bringing it to the floor, so as not to
repeat the spectacle of January’s 15 votes, but there is no guarantee they will
succeed.
The first consequence of the
paralysis of the House is that the laws authorizing spending for the new fiscal
year will not be processed. The United States does not have one single budget
law, but a dozen. Every year Congress must approve — with a majority in both
the House of Representatives and the Senate — 12 appropriations bills for the different government departments. The last
time it did so within the allotted timeframe was in 1997. Now, an extension has
been agreed to keep the administration operating at full pace, but only until
November 17. If the corresponding laws have not been passed by then, the
partial shutdown, which was
narrowly avoided, will come into effect unless another temporary
measure is passed. Radicals oppose any kind of extension and have made clear
the price to be paid for ignoring their demands.
Democrats voted en bloc to remove McCarthy, who on Tuesday refused to make
any concessions to preserve his position. Several members of Congress had made
it clear that they were not going to bail McCarthy out for free, and even less
so after he ordered the investigation into Biden without much basis for doing so.
But while Democrats may be tempted to rejoice in Republican chaos and division,
congressional gridlock is also backfiring on them. Even when it appeared clear
that the threat of a government shutdown was being propelled by the hardline
Republican wing, many voters held Biden responsible.
Former president Donald Trump, who
had previously pressured the Republican radical wing to elect McCarthy, has
quietly dropped him without doing anything to intervene and was also a
proponent of provoking a federal shutdown. On the day of the motion against
McCarthy, Trump limited himself to complaining on Truth, his social network,
about the infighting: “Why is it that Republicans are always fighting among
themselves, why aren’t they fighting the Radical Left Democrats who are
destroying our Country?” he wrote.
ATTACHMENT
EIGHTEEN – From The Hill
An alternative to the chaos in Congress? Coalition government.
BY CHRIS TRUAX, OPINION
CONTRIBUTOR - 10/05/23 9:00 AM ET
This week, the House of
Representatives made history, voting
out Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) in a 216-210 vote. The
surprise move might have been shocking to many Americans, but it would
have been familiar to anyone who grew up in a parliamentary democracy. If you
want to understand congressional Republican dysfunction, you have to stop
thinking in terms of ordinary party politics and start thinking in terms of
coalition government.
House Republicans today are now
divided into three distinct parties: the Republican Governance Group, the MAGA
Republicans (ardent supporters of former President Trump), and the Freedom
Caucus. Despite being organized under one banner, they each have entirely
different goals. And then, of course, there are the Democrats and their party’s
priorities.
In a parliamentary democracy where
none of these parties had a majority, a government would be formed by
horse-trading between the parties until they were able to form a faction that
controlled a majority of the seats in parliament. That’s exactly what you saw
earlier this year, when McCarthy found himself forced
into making deals with groups of his fellow Republicans to
secure a House majority and his speakership.
As was made clear on Tuesday, such
ideologically driven alliances are often doomed to fail.
We are stuck with the current
Congress until January 2025. Unless something is done, that means more chaos
and dysfunction — and that’s on the good days. More often, it will mean
complete paralysis.
The alternative is a new
coalition. And, for better or worse, that means involving Democrats. Of course,
Democrats are Democrats and it will be hard-going for them to form a
partnership with Republicans — even those in the Republican Governance Group.
Nonetheless, they all have a shared interest in the basics of governing, which
we saw on Saturday when more
Democrats than Republicans voted for McCarthy’s shutdown-avoiding continuing
resolution.
When you think in terms of the
usual party dynamics, that sort of long-term cooperation might be
impossible. But it’s just another day in parliament when it comes to coalition
governments.
What we need in the House is
something called a “confidence and supply” agreement. In a deal like this, one
party agrees to allow another party to form a government by helping them vote
in a prime minister and agreeing to support that prime minister when it comes
to no-confidence motions and funding the government.
Democrats have already been doing
a lot of the confidence and supply heavy-lifting by supporting McCarthy’s
efforts to raise the debt limit and avoid a government shutdown, which McCarthy
was utterly incapable of achieving relying solely on Republican support. So it just makes sense for them to formalize the arrangement.
It would work like this. Instead
of simply nominating Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.)
for Speaker, Democrats would vote, as a block, for a centrist Republican like
Rep. Dave Joyce (R-Ohio), the chair of the Republican Governance Group. If all
Democrats voted for this candidate, it would take only a handful of Republican
votes for him to clinch the speakership. This would either quickly elect a Speaker with bipartisan support or force the Republicans to
get their act together and agree to a compromise candidate. Either way, that’s
a win for America.
And what would the deal be?
Democrats would protect Joyce from a new motion to vacate the chair and, in
return, Joyce would abandon the Hastert Rule — the idea that the Speaker should
prevent any bills from reaching the floor that are not supported by a majority
of the Speaker’s own caucus — when it comes to appropriations bills. That means
that the legislation necessary to keep America’s lights on will get up-or-down
votes in the House and that they will pass if they have majority support,
regardless of what party those votes come from.
Such an arrangement is likely to
be far more stable than McCarthy’s speakership because the new Speaker would
have a much larger working majority (at least when it comes to the nuts and
bolts of governing). Democrats and Republicans could still amuse themselves by
having food fights over social legislation, but a confidence and supply
agreement would keep the lights on until we can elect a new and, hopefully,
more functional House.
Democrats have a choice to make.
The politically wise thing to do is to break out the popcorn and watch Republicans flounder. But the responsible thing to do is to
govern.
Chris Truax is an appellate lawyer
in San Diego and a member of the Guardrails of Democracy Project.
ATTACHMENT
NINETEEN – From the New York Post
Body language expert
breaks down 2nd Republican debate: What Haley’s chop and Vivek’s laugh say
about them
By Caitlin Doornbos Published Sep. 28, 2023,
2:56 a.m. ET
Trump will duck third GOP
debate even after previous no-shows got him ‘Donald Duck’ nickname
·
Trump ‘still in driver’s
seat’ after chaotic ‘circus’ of a GOP debate, experts
say
·
Bottom line of second
Republican debate: Get it down to two non-Trump candidates FAST
·
DeSantis challenges Trump
to a one-on-one debate
WASHINGTON —
A lot was said on the Republican presidential debate stage Wednesday
night — but even more can be gleaned from what wasn’t,
DC-based body language expert Chris Ulrich exclusively told The
Post.
“At the end
of the day, people aren’t always going to remember what you said,” he said.
“They’re
going to remember how you spoke, how you showed up, and how your presence was
in those particular moments.”
Some of the
best indicators of leadership potential have little to do with words spoken.
Instead, candidates at the second Republican debate of the 2024 campaign were challenged to balance two key
factors: confidence and likability, Ulrich said.
“They’re
trying to do two things: One, come across competent and effective like they
could sit in the presidential chair,” he said. “And then in the same vein, the
other thing that voters are looking for is: ‘Are you likable? Can I trust you?’
“What we’re
looking at is openness vs. closed in our body language or an increase of
anxiety or a calmness,” he said.
“What the
body language does is it helps us assess if they are able to handle the
pressure, if they are showing us anxiety or they’re getting emotionally angry,”
he said.
‘Powerful’ Nikki Haley
Nikki Haley’s
Wednesday performance evoked confidence and relatability through her decisive
answers and assertive gestures and postures, Ulrich said.
While making
her points, the 51-year-old used a chopping motion — as if she were cutting
through noise — that the expert said helped her come across as “very focused”
and “powerful.”
Ulrich said
the former UN ambassador also came across as “feisty” with confidence when
attacked by other candidates on the stage, including Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC), 58,
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, 45, and entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, 38.
“One of the
things that she’s willing to do is take them on,” he said. “When she gets
interrupted, she does not stop talking.”
Before giving
her responses, she would face the candidate lobbing the attack, squaring her
shoulders and locking eyes with
him.
“What she
does effectively — she turns her entire body toward that person, and that’s
pretty confrontational,” he said. “When we turn our belly button in the
direction of people and do a full turn, this is much more confrontational. It
increases the stakes.”
Ulrich also
noted that Haley’s smile seemed “authentic,” breaking into a grin after her
name was called — unlike the plastered-on grins of other candidates.
Still, she
showed a bit of trepidation in a pivotal moment when Scott challenged Haley’s
experience, calling her time in the South Carolina governor’s mansion
inadequate.
“Tim Scott
was calling her out a little bit … and you watch her as she’s looking at him
and we see a blink-rate increase,” Ulrich said, explaining that the average
person blinks 15 to 25 times a minute – or upwards of 50 under the lights of
the stage.
“Here comes
this Tim Scott moment and potentially an attack when we see her blink rate
increase. I think within five seconds, she blinked, like, eight to 10 times —
so if we added that up, it’s almost 100 times in a minute,” he added.
A calmer Tim Scott
After getting
the first question of the night, Tim Scott was more vocal during Thursday’s
debate than he had been at last month’s showdown, garnering noticeably more
speaking time.
“Tim Scott
was much more relaxed in his body language. He was at ease,” Ulrich said. “He
was trained, probably, but he came across very comfortable in his body language
and the pace of his speech.”
Still, Ulrich
wondered if Scott’s development in the second debate was too far off the mark
from his stiffer appearance at the first debate.
“I thought it
was a much better debate for
him, but does it get the Goldilocks effect?” he said. “Is it too
much [change] this time from the first debate?”
Scott
struggled when interrupted by other candidates on the stage, who easily
commandeered the conversation, Ulrich said.
“This is one
of the factors that hurt Tim Scott in those moments of interruption — he would
ultimately get quiet,” he said. “We saw that with Jeb Bush when he was battling
with (Donald) Trump, and that hurt him in those times.”
“This was Tim
Scott’s best debate, but at times he would get rolled by DeSantis, Haley,
(Mike) Pence or Ramaswamy and him going back and forth,” he added.
Laughing Vivek Ramaswamy
Vivek
Ramaswamy — who gained a significant jump in polls following the first debate —
was the target of many attacks by his opponents during Wednesday’s debate.
While he
excelled at openness and enthusiasm, Ramaswamy may have made a mistake by
responding too jovially to the other candidates’ repetitive attacks.
Though Ulrich
said candidates are often coached to laugh off attacks by opponents, Ramaswamy
may have benefited from standing up to a slight or two.
“It’s
important to laugh it off, but at a certain moment, it would have been nice to
see him back up and say, ‘Hey, enough is enough,'” he said. “We saw him kind of
do that a little bit, but not enough.”
“And so he got beat up to the point where I think he got hurt a
little bit tonight,” he added.
However, the
38-year-old’s ear-to-ear grin seen in the first debate shone through Wednesday
night, projecting confidence.
Still, Ulrich
had a few pointers for Ramaswamy should he participate in the next debate.
“He would
tilt his head when he was trying to be serious,” Ulrich said. “For him, I would
like to see him more level-headed and then tilt when he was trying to connect
with the American people.”
Ron DeSantis’ strained smile
For Ron
DeSantis, Ulrich said, smiling “is just not his thing.”
The Florida
governor’s strained grin — which has become popular
in internet memes — was back again on Wednesday night as he attempted to appear
more personable after criticisms over his likability.
While
DeSantis was “technically and tactically very effective” in his arguments,
Ulrich said he continued to lack relatability in the Wednesday debate with his
“forced” smile.
“It’s not a
normal smile — he doesn’t engage the corners of his mouth, there’s no crow’s
feet,” Ulrich said. “He’s got an issue with it.”
The governor showed the most strength toward the end of the debate, when he slowed his speech and
addressed issues that appeared to make him more comfortable, Ulrich said.
“The only
time we see that slowdown is literally at the end of the debate. In the last
half-hour, we see a calmer DeSantis, a clearer DeSantis,” Ulrich said. “But
early on, he was swaying back and forth, he never smiled. And he has the
biggest problem — likability.”
When
attacked, Ulrich said, DeSantis and Haley answered with confidence — but their
faces gave away their inner thoughts.
“They would
do this lip compression like they don’t like what they see or what they’re
hearing,” he said. “We often think the eyes are the window to the soul, but
lips are the window to the soul. They reveal much more information — as much,
if not more, information than the eyes.”
Chris Christie’s water-cooler moment
Chris
Christie, 61, appeared very at ease Thursday night, slumping over the podium in
his typical shoot-from-the-hip approach, Ulrich said.
The former
New Jersey governor has suffered in GOP polls for his repeated attacks on
front-runner Trump, but it didn’t stop him from making one of the most
memorable comments of the night — calling the former
president “Donald Duck” for skipping both Republican
debates.
It was at
that moment, Ulrich said, that Christie shined with a powerful hand gesture.
While he delivered his attack on 77-year-old Trump from behind the TV screen,
Christie pointed his finger decisively at the camera to emphasize his point.
“It’s kind of
like if you ever seen those ‘Uncle Sam wants you’ posters [from World War II],”
Ulrich said.
“He is saying to Donald Trump, ‘Show up or shut up.'”
Not-so ‘presidential’ Mike Pence
Former Vice
President Mike Pence’s slowed speaking pace and
serious demeanor played well at the first Republican debate, Ulrich said.
“He’s a known
entity, and at the last debate, he was more presidential,” Ulrich said. “When
he talks, he slows down and delivers his lines.”
But on
Wednesday, Ulrich said, he saw a regression of those characteristics on the
debate stage, as Pence, 64, fumbled over his talking points at times.
“Today he was
stepping over himself — he couldn’t even deliver his lines,” Ulrich said. “And
so that awkwardness hurts him.”
That
awkwardness was made worse during the debates when it appeared that Pence
forced quips to make him seem more likable or trend on social media.
“When he throws
a joke and it’s flat, he waits a second, and it looks awkward,” Ulrich said.
“It undermines him as presidential.”
‘Thanks for playing, Doug Burgum’
North Dakota
Gov. Doug Burgum, 67, did little to elevate his status during Wednesday’s
debate, nearly being squeezed out of the picture as he failed to rack up
valuable screen time, Ulrich observed.
“For Doug,
it’s like, ‘Thanks for playing, Doug,'” Ulrich said, noting that at several
points, Burgum had to wave his hands to get moderators’ attention. “I mean, he
had to literally force himself into the debate as he gets so few questions.”
But when
Burgum did get questions, he failed to come across with confidence because he
“rushes his answers,” Ulrich said.
“He talked so
fast.”
Who won the body language debate?
Though all
the candidates exhibited confidence throughout the debate, Ulrich said that
ultimately there were no clear winners Wednesday night as they failed to
present themselves as real threats to the current Republican and Democratic
front-runners.
“You can make
the argument there’s no alternative yet to (President) Biden or Trump,” he
said. “At the end of the day, these folks are trying to ‘survive on the island’
— and the question will be, ‘Do they resonate with the American people?’ — not
only from what they said, but how they showed up.”
In the
forthcoming debates, the candidates will be challenged to differentiate
themselves from Trump — who has maintained his hefty lead in the polls
throughout the 2024 campaign.
That could be
made more difficult if the former president continues to sit out future GOP
debates.
“Did the folks at this debate show up in a way
that will, at the end of the day, have the American people and Republican
voters say, ‘I’ve seen on this debate stage as an alternative to President
Trump’?” Ulrich asked.
“I’m not
sure.”
ATTACHMENT
TWENTY – From Fox
Biden's crime crisis is so dangerous, even Democrats in Congress aren't
safe. What about you?
Crime is skyrocketing
across the country in cities run by Democrats, yet they won't give up their
soft-on-crime policiesBy Ronna McDaniel Fox News
Published October 5, 2023
2:00pm EDT
On Monday, Texas Rep. Henry Cuellar was carjacked by
three men at gunpoint outside of his Washington, D.C. apartment building. His
residence is just blocks from the U.S. Capitol, where he lives alongside
"dozens" of House members. This comes after Minnesota Rep. Angie
Craig was assaulted in an elevator earlier this year.
Let me be
clear: no one deserves to be a victim of crime. My prayers are with Congressman
Cuellar as he recovers from such a traumatic incident. But it’s no surprise
that Democrats are experiencing the impact of their soft-on-crime policies that
have run rampant in D.C. and across the country.
For most
Washingtonians, Congressman Cuellar’s experience is just one example of
the rising crime that is claiming thousands of victims annually in our nation’s
capital. Carjackings in D.C. are up 109%, robberies are up 68%, theft
is up 22% and homicides are up by 38% over the last year as the
city remains on pace for its deadliest year in two decades.
TEXAS CONGRESSMAN HENRY CUELLAR
CARJACKED AT GUNPOINT IN WASHINGTON, DC
And this
problem isn’t unique to Washington. Democrat-run cities across the country
continue to struggle with skyrocketing crime. Nine out of the top 10
cities with the highest homicide rates are Democrat-run. During Biden’s first
year in office, at least 12 major cities – all Democrat-run – set new homicide
records.
Elected Democrats are failing to uphold
their most fundamental obligation: keeping the American people safe.
Prominent
Democrats like Pennsylvania Sen. John
Fetterman, Oregon Gov. Tina Kotek, and New
York Gov. Kathy Hochul, have expressed support for
pro-criminal policies like abolishing cash
bail, lowering penalties for parole violations,
and decriminalizing deadly drugs. Liberal district attorneys in
cities like Los Angeles are coming under fire for prioritizing the
rights of criminals over the rights of victims and putting violent offenders
back on the streets.
Meanwhile,
there have been over 6 million illegal crossings across our southern
border since January 2021, leading to a rise in illicit fentanyl that has
become the number one cause of death for American adults. Every state
is now a border state, and those crossings represent just the ones who have
been caught – how many more got away? It’s easy to see why six in 10
Americans feel less safe than when Biden took office.
Rising crime
is a problem that is affecting Americans in communities across the country, and
Democrats are out of touch with the mainstream. Elected Democrats are failing
to uphold their most fundamental obligation: keeping the American people safe.
The solution is simple. Elect Republicans.
The Republican
Party is committed to securing the border, reducing crime, supporting
law enforcement officers, and protecting public safety. While President Joe Biden fails to stand up to
the "Defund the Police" fringe of his party
and refuses to back law enforcement when it matters most,
Republicans are delivering results.
When 173
House Democrats voted against overturning DC’s far-left law that
reduced penalties for crimes like carjacking, burglaries, and robberies,
Republicans fought back – stopping the law in its tracks.
During this
Congress, Republicans in the House have passed bills to hire
more border patrol agents, stop the flow of deadly
fentanyl, raise pay for our military servicemembers,
and honor our brave men and women in law enforcement.
The
Republican Party is the pro-law enforcement, pro-border security, and pro-public
safety party. While Democrats waffle, we know that we cannot allow crime to
continue to wreak havoc on our nation’s cities.
There’s a
reason that defund-the-police Democrats like Reps. Ilhan Omar, Ayanna Pressley,
Rashida Tlaib, and Jamaal Bowman still
hire private security to ensure their safety. And if they and members
of Congress like Henry Cuellar still aren’t safe with their ample protection,
how safe are you?
ATTACHMENT TWENTY ONE
(A) – From the
New York Times
Kaiser Permanente Workers Poised to Strike
The health care system provides
care for 13 million people in eight states. Union officials say the job action
— threatened for Wednesday — could be the largest strike by health care workers
in recent U.S. history.
By Reed Abelson and Emily
Baumgaertner
Oct. 3, 2023 Updated 3:22 p.m. ET
More than 75,000 Kaiser Permanente
employees are threatening to walk out Wednesday morning if they cannot agree to
a new labor contract. The previous contract expired on Saturday. Union leaders
say this could be the largest strike by health care workers in recent U.S.
history.
Kaiser, a large nonprofit health
system, provides care for 13 million people in eight states, including
California, Colorado and Washington, and the District of Columbia. The job
action would involve support and other staff, including X-ray and lab
technicians; sanitation workers who disinfect rooms between patients; and
pharmacy workers who help dispense medications. These workers attend surgeries,
run imaging equipment and assist in outpatient clinics. Doctors and many nurses
are not part of the strike, which is set to last three days in some places.
Some nurses, therapists and aides could also walk out.
Kaiser said it was preparing for a
possible strike and would do what it could to minimize any disruptions to
patients. “Our hospitals are going to remain open,” including the emergency
departments, said Michelle Gaskill-Hames, regional president for Kaiser
Permanente in Southern California and Hawaii.
ATTACHMENT
TWENTY ONE (B) – From
Axios
The
largest health care strike in U.S. history could begin this week
By
Emily Peck, author of Axios Markets
Just
as the Hollywood writers get back to work after 148 days on strike, another big
work stoppage is on deck at hundreds of Kaiser Permanente hospitals and medical
office buildings around the country.
Why
it matters: If Kaiser and a coalition of unions representing its workers don't
reach a deal, a four-day strike of about 75,000 employees could begin as soon
as Wednesday morning.
• It would be the largest health care
strike in U.S. history, according to the unions.
• Striking workers would include nurses,
radiology and X-ray technicians, ultrasound sonographers, and hundreds of other
types of positions. Their contract expired Sept. 30.
• Strike locations: California, Oregon,
Washington, Colorado, Virginia and Washington, D.C.
State
of play: Talks are ongoing, a Kaiser spokesperson told Axios.
The parties "agreed this morning to continue to meet through midday
Tuesday if needed, to reach an agreement," Kaiser said in a statement
Monday.
• "A strike is not inevitable, and it
is certainly not justified. "
• The union seemed less optimistic, saying
in a statement Monday afternoon that it "will go on strike."
The
big picture: Since the pandemic, the health care industry has struggled with
labor shortages and worker burnout — and unrest has grown.
• Last year, about 15,000 nurses went on
strike for three days in what was believed to be the largest nursing strike in
U.S. history.
• It's "distressful and
frustrating" that "we don't have the staffing that's required to give
people the quality of care that they deserve and that they need," Michael
Ramey, an ultrasound technician and president of the OPEIU Local 30, told Axios' San Diego reporter Kate Murphy.
• In its statement, Kaiser acknowledged
industry wide shortages and said it's aggressively recruiting to fill more
positions. The company's already reached a deal with
the union coalition to hire 10,000 new employees by the end of October and said
it expects to reach that mark.
• If a strike does happen, the company
said it has contingency plans in place and that hospitals and emergency
departments will remain open.
ATTACHMENT TWENTY TWO – From
CNN
75,000 Kaiser Permanente workers walk off the job. It’s the largest
health care worker strike in US history
By Samantha Delouya, CNN
Updated 10:10 PM EDT, Wed October
4, 2023
CNN —
On Wednesday, more than 75,000 unionized
employees of Kaiser Permanente, one of the nation’s largest not-for-profit
health providers, walked off the job, marking the largest health
care worker strike in US history.
The striking employees, who work
across California, Colorado, Washington, Virginia, Oregon and Washington, DC,
are represented by a coalition of unions that comprise 40% of Kaiser
Permanente’s total staff. The vast majority of the striking workers are in West
Coast states. The strike began at 6 am local time, and will run through
Saturday morning.
Bargaining sessions between the
coalition and Kaiser Permanente ended Wednesday without a settlement, but “a
number of tentative agreements in bargaining” have been reached, Kaiser
Permanente said in a statement Wednesday.
“While we have not reached a
contract settlement, we have been able to reach a number of tentative
agreements in bargaining, and our offers to date address the unions’ priorities,”
the statement says.
Kaiser Permanente says it will
work with union leaders “to reconvene bargaining as soon as possible.”
Caroline Lucas, a spokesperson for
the Coalition of Kaiser Permanente Unions, said in a statement Wednesday night:
“Frontline healthcare workers are awaiting a meaningful response from Kaiser
executives regarding some of our key priorities including safe staffing,
outsourcing protections for incumbent healthcare workers, and fair wages to
reduce turnover. Healthcare workers within the coalition remain ready to meet
at any time. Currently, the strike continues, and there are no sessions
scheduled at this hour.”
The unprecedented strike comes at
a time of heightened labor activity across the United States, with tens of
thousands of workers across multiple industries taking to the picket lines for
better pay and benefits. In the wake of pandemic, however, health care workers
in particular have been fighting for safer and more secure work environments.
They are demanding improved staffing levels, arguing that current staff
shortages are compromising patient care and taking many workers to a breaking
point.
Who is on
strike?
Employees on the picket lines include
nursing staff, dietary workers, receptionists, optometrists, and pharmacists.
The strike effort comes after the workers’ union contracts expired at 11:59 pm
PT on September 30. Negotiations between the union and Kaiser Permanente
continued into Wednesday, according to James Santos, field coordinator for the
coalition of Kaiser unions in Virginia, but he said no deal to avert the strike
had yet been reached.
Picket lines in Virginia and
Washington DC facilities, most of which are not open 24 hours, went at 7 am ET.
In a statement from Kaiser at 9 pm
PT Tuesday, it said “Our team is available 24/7 to continue bargaining with the
coalition until we reach a fair and equitable agreement. We remain optimistic
that there is still time to find agreement before any of the work stoppages
called by the coalition unions begin at 6 am on Wednesday.”
But as 6 am arrived on the West
Coast, there was no word of a deal, and employees headed for the picket lines.
The strike is temporary. Kaiser
Permanente workers will return to work on October 7 at 6 am local time in each
state that joins the strike. However, a “longer, stronger” strike may come in
November if a deal between the coalition and Kaiser Permanente is not reached
after this strike effort, according to communications from SEIU-UHW, the
largest union in the coalition.
What are
workers fighting for?
Striking employees say staff
shortages have left them feeling overworked and burnt out. In a recent
statement, Kaiser Permanente said it has agreed to accelerate hiring, setting a
goal of hiring 10,000 new people for union-represented jobs by the end of 2023.
The union coalition is demanding
higher pay, a strategy by Kaiser Permanente management to tackle chronic staff
shortages, protections against outsourcing, and earlier notice when management
calls remote workers back to in-person work.
According to an update by
SEIU-UHW, negotiating progress was made before the strike began, though
management and the unions are still far apart regarding employee raises.
A plan to
ensure patients care during the strike
Kaiser Permanente operates
differently from the fee-for-service model of most health care providers in the
United States, a system in which a doctor or health care provider is paid a fee
for each service performed. Kaiser Permanente “members” pay dues to the
organization to gain access to Kaiser Permanente’s wide-ranging health care
services.
Though doctors and most registered
nurses are not striking, some patient care may be affected by the temporary
work stoppage. In a statement, Kaiser Permanente said it has made preparations
for the strike, but that patients should expect that some non-emergency and
elective services will be rescheduled during the work stoppage “out of an
abundance of caution.”
“Our hospitals and emergency
departments will remain open. Our facilities will continue to be staffed by our
physicians, trained and experienced managers, and staff, and in some cases we will augment with contingent workers,” a Kaiser
Permanente spokesperson said.
More workers
across industries are going on strike
The multi-state strike comes
during a time of elevated labor activity in the United States. Several
large-scale strikes have paralyzed companies and entire industries in recent
months.
The United Auto Workers are on strike against Ford, General
Motors and Stellantis —
the first time the union has struck all three simultaneously.
The entertainment industry also
contended with dual strikes this summer after Hollywood’s writers’ and actors’
unions went on strike at the same time for the first time since 1960. The
leadership of the Writers Guild of America reached a tentative agreement with
Hollywood studios last month, but the actors’ guild strike is ongoing.
The health care industry has been
particularly affected by rising strike activity. From the start of 2022 through
August of this year, the Bureau of Labor Statistics has tracked 42 work
stoppages of 1,000 or more strikers. Its count shows a third of those strikes
were in health care. That’s up from 24% of major strikes in 2019, the year
before the pandemic. The increased number of health care strikes have happened
despite health care workers making up only about 9% of private sector union
members nationwide.
In January, more than 7,000 nurses at two major New York City hospital systems
went on strike, arguing that immense staffing shortages have led to burnout.
Their complaints echo those of Kaiser Permanente’s employees.
Kaiser acknowledged its staffing
challenges in a statement but argued the issue has affected health care
providers nationwide.
“Every health care provider in the
nation has been facing staffing shortages and fighting burnout. During the
Great Resignation in 2021-22, more than 5 million people left their health care
jobs across the country. Up to two-thirds of health care staff are saying they
are burnt out and more than 1 in 5 are quitting,” the company said in a
statement. “Kaiser Permanente is not immune from these challenges.”
ATTACHMENT
TWENTY THREE – From
Time
Screenwriters Accept Deal to Return to Work but Actors Remain on Strike
BY ANDREW DALTON / AP SEPTEMBER 26, 2023
10:15 PM EDT
LOS ANGELES — Leaders of
Hollywood’s writers union declared their nearly five-month-old strike over
Tuesday after board members approved a contract agreement with studios.
The governing boards of the
eastern and western branches of the Writers Guild of America both voted to
accept the deal, and afterward declared that the strike would be over and
writers would be free to work starting at 12:01 a.m. Wednesday.
The writers still have to vote to
ratify the contract themselves, but lifting the strike will allow them to work
during that process, the Writers Guild told members in an email.
Hollywood actors remain on strike
with no talks yet on the horizon.
A new spirit of optimism animated
actors who were picketing Tuesday for the first time since writers reached
their tentative deal Sunday night.
“For a hot second, I really
thought that this was going to go on until next year,” said Marissa Cuevas, an
actor who has appeared on the TV series “Kung Fu” and “The Big Bang Theory.”
“Knowing that at least one of us has gotten a good deal gives a lot of hope
that we will also get a good deal.”
Writers’ picket lines have been
suspended, but they were encouraged to walk in solidarity with actors, and many
were on the lines Tuesday, including “Mad Men” creator Matthew Weiner, who
picketed alongside friend and “ER” actor Noah Wyle as he has throughout the
strikes.
“We would never have had the
leverage we had if SAG had not gone out,” Weiner said. “They were very brave to
do it.”
Striking actors voted to expand
their walkout to include the lucrative video game market, a step that could put
new pressure on Hollywood studios to make a deal with the performers who
provide voices and stunts for games.
The Screen Actors Guild-American
Federation of Radio and Television Artists announced the move late Monday,
saying that 98% of its members voted to go on strike against video game
companies if ongoing negotiations are not successful. The announcement came
ahead of more talks planned for Tuesday.
Acting in video games can include
a variety of roles, from voice performances to motion capture work as well as
stunts. Video game actors went on strike in 2016 in a work stoppage that lasted
nearly a year.
Some of the same issues are at
play in the video game negotiations as in the broader actors strike that has
shut down Hollywood for months, including wages, safety measures and
protections on the use of artificial intelligence. The companies involved
include gaming giants Activision, Electronic Arts, Epic Games, Take 2
Productions as well as Disney and Warner Bros.′ video game divisions.
“It’s time for the video game
companies to stop playing games and get serious about reaching an agreement on
this contract,” SAG-AFTRA President Fran Drescher said in a statement.
Audrey Cooling, a spokesperson for
video game producers, said they are “continuing to negotiate in good faith” and
have reached tentative agreements on more than half of the proposals on the
table.
So far this year, U.S. consumers
have spent $34.9 billion on video games, consoles and accessories, according to
market research group Circana.
The threat of a video game strike
emerged as Hollywood writers were on the verge of getting back to work after
months on the picket lines.
The alliance of studios, streaming
services and producers has chosen to negotiate only with the writers so far,
and has made no overtures yet toward restarting talks with SAG-AFTRA. That will
presumably change soon.
SAG-AFTRA leaders have said they
will look closely at the writers' agreement, which includes many of the same
issues, but it will not effect
their demands.
—Associated Press video
journalists Leslie Ambriz and Krysta Fauria in Los
Angeles contributed to this report.
ATTACHMENT
TWENTY FOUR – From
Ars Technica
Netflix waiting for strikes to end before jacking up prices
Higher
monthly fees for no ads to start in US, Canada, WSJ reports.
SCHARON HARDING - 10/3/2023, 2:25 PM
Netflix, one of the only
profitable TV streaming services (along with Hulu),
is reportedly planning on increasing the monthly price of its ad-free
subscription, The Wall Street
Journal reported today. However, the price bump reportedly won't
come for "a few months," as Netflix is waiting for the actors' and
writers' strike to formally end, the publication said.
WSJ said "people familiar
with the matter" informed it that Netflix will probably launch its price
hike in the US and Canada. WSJ couldn't confirm how much prices will increase
or when the increases will start. A representative for Netflix could not
immediately be reached by Ars Technica for comment.
Netflix declined to comment to the Journal.
The Writers Guild of America (WGA)
is voting on
a tentative agreement with TV and movie studios this week, while the Screen
Actors Guild is undergoing negotiations.
Streaming
prices keep rising
Today, Discovery+ announced that it's increasing prices for its ad-free tier from $6.99 to
$8.99 per month, effective immediately. A similar move from Netflix would
follow the broader streaming
industry's trend of jacking up prices.
Netflix's last price increase was
in January 2022, when its ad-free standard plan went from $14 to $15.49 per
month, and its 4K plan went from $18 to $20 per month. Those prices look a lot
different from Netflix's debut monthly pricing ($7.99 or $11.99 for 4K).
As subscriber numbers stagnate,
though, Netflix has been looking for other ways to increase revenue. A price
hike is one obvious way to attempt to do that. Netflix also introduced an ad
plan ($6.99 per month) this year and got rid of its mid-tier, ad-free Basic
plan (making the lowest price for ad-free Netflix
$15.49 per month instead of $9.99 per month). The company
also cracked down on
password sharing, charging $7.99 per month
for each user outside the main household.
As noted by WSJ today, Netflix,
as well as streaming rivals Disney and Warner Bros. Discovery, have pointed to
its ad-supported tiers generating higher average revenue per user than ad-free
tiers. Bumping up the prices of its ad-free plan could be beneficial for
Netflix by generating more revenue from ad-free users and by pushing people to
its ad tier. In May, Netflix president of worldwide advertising Jeremi Gorman said Netflix's ad tier has "nearly"
5 million monthly active users, per The Hollywood
Reporter.
Netflix's reported upcoming price
rise could also help the company manage incoming costs associated with its
agreements with writers and actors. As noted by The Verge,
streaming services like Netflix will be required to share performance metrics
with writers and increase writer residuals. The WGA believes its
new contract equates to 0.2 percent ($68 million) of Netflix's annual revenue
($31.6 billion).
In July, during its Q2 2023
earnings call, Netflix CFO Spencer Adam Neumann said that the writers' and
actors' strikes could add some "lumpiness" to Netflix's cash flow
from 2023 through 2024.
Frequent changes in streaming
services' prices, combo packages, and content have turned cord-cutting into a
complicated, pricey endeavor that's reminiscent of cable.
ATTACHMENT
TWENTY FIVE – From
La times
SAG-AFTRA and studios to meet for a second day in talks to resolve
actors’ strike
BY MEG JAMES OCT.
2, 2023 UPDATED 5:29 PM PT
Representatives of SAG-AFTRA and
the major Hollywood studios returned to the bargaining
table Monday for the first time in 2½ months to resolve thorny
issues that prompted the actors’ walkout in mid-July.
The session marked the first time
that top media executives — Walt Disney Co. Chief Executive Bob Iger, Netflix Co-Chief Executive Ted Sarandos, Warner Bros.
Discovery Chief Executive David Zaslav and NBCUniversal Studio Group Chairman
Donna Langley — sat down with the leaders of the 160,000-member performers
union, which has been on strike against the
entertainment companies since July 13.
The four executives came in as
“closers” to help resolve the 148-day Writers Guild of America strike, which
ended last week. Now, they are hoping to quickly bring labor peace and get the
entertainment industry back to work.
The twin strikes — the first joint
work stoppage by actors and the WGA since 1960 — have crippled scripted
television and film production nationwide. The labor action has also caused a
deep fatigue and financial strain for tens of
thousands of Hollywood workers.
“We’re just tired,” actor Parvesh Cheena (“The Mandalorian,” “Sometimes I Think About Dying”)
said Monday while picketing outside Amazon Studios in downtown Culver City.
“We’ve been here every day since Day 1 of the writers’ strike in May and every
day since the actors’ strike began on July 13. ... But we’d rather be going
back to work like everyone else.”
In a joint statement Monday
evening, SAG-AFTRA and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers,
which negotiates on behalf of the major studios, said that after “concluding a full
day bargaining session,” they would meet again on Wednesday.
Monday’s meeting came less than a
week after the WGA ended its strike after reaching a tentative deal with
the studio alliance on a new three-year film and TV contract. WGA leaders
hailed their agreement as a big win because it included numerous gains, such
as increases in minimum
pay, a bonus for successful streaming shows and limits around
the use of artificial intelligence.
WGA members began voting Monday
and will continue through Oct. 9 on whether to ratify the deal.
Studio executives have suggested
the proposed WGA contract could provide a framework to address many of the
issues that prompted actors to join writers on picket lines.
Actors said they were making progress in contract talks,
then they weren’t. What happened?
But SAG-AFTRA President Fran
Drescher, most famous for her role as “The Nanny,” has sought to temper
expectations that the union would rush to accept all of the provisions of the
WGA contract, telling CNN last week that “one size doesn’t fit all.”
Chelsea Schwartz, a SAG-AFTRA
strike captain who was helping coordinate Monday’s protest outside Amazon
Studios, agreed.
“The WGA and SAG-AFTRA are fighting for
different things,” Schwartz said. “The WGA has some great points in their deal
that will really help our negotiations, but we have a lot of other things that the
companies haven’t even talked to us about in 81 days.”
Like the WGA, the union has argued
that outdated contract terms, coupled with shorter seasons and longer hiatuses
between seasons make it increasingly hard for many actors to maintain a
middle-class lifestyle.
SAG-AFTRA, which represents
background actors as well as dancers and recording artists, has a more diverse
membership than the WGA. And the union also has distinct demands, such as
ending the practice of having actors pay for their own self-recorded auditions.
Schwartz said that actors need
better regulations around these self-recorded auditions, including longer
turn-around times when they are required to memorize dozens of pages of a
script.
False starts, secret talks: Insiders tell how the writers’
strike ended with ‘Let’s make a deal’
The use of artificial intelligence
to create background scenes and background actors is expected to be another
major sticking point. Actors are worried that studios will reuse digital
replicas to simulate background actors, squeezing out performers who have long
filled background roles as a route to become working actors.
“The AI terms need to be way more
robust” than what the WGA got, Schwartz said. “This is about our bodies, our
faces and our voices.”
Expectations were high for
Monday’s session.
“I’m feeling hopeful — cautiously
optimistic,” actor Sarah Jane Morris (“Brothers & Sisters,” “The Night
Shift), said on the Amazon strike line. “I hope we continue to stand strong and
fight for the things we need but I’m nervous that we’re going to have to cave
on some stuff.”
The tone of the talks could be
telling.
When the negotiations between the
AMPTP and SAG-AFTRA broke down on July 12, a top alliance negotiator scolded
SAG-AFTRA’s bargaining group, saying the companies would not return to the
table until actors began acting “civilized,” according to SAG-AFTRA Chief
Negotiator Duncan Crabtree-Ireland and others in the room that night.
SAG-AFTRA negotiators were
furious.
The following morning, Disney’s Iger appeared on business network CNBC from the Allen &
Co. investors conference in Sun Valley, Idaho, where he told viewers that
writers’ and actors’ demands were ill-timed and “not realistic.”
Iger’s appearance galvanized writers and
actors on the picket lines, who portrayed the CEOs as privileged and out of
touch. Actors said they could barely afford to live in expensive film hubs like
Los Angeles and New York.
Hours after Iger’s
appearance on CNBC, Drescher tore into company executives in a fiery speech, in
which she accused companies of “disgusting” behavior and said actors were
“being victimized by a very greedy entity.”
Drescher seemed to single out Iger.
“How do you deal with someone like
that who’s so tone deaf?” Drescher asked in follow-up interviews. “Are you an
ignoramus?”
Now, Iger
and Drescher must forge a path together.
What to know about the SAG-AFTRA actors’ strike now that
WGA has a deal
Monday’s pickets were billed as
solidarity marches. WGA members circled perimeters of the various studio
complexes around Los Angeles, along with striking actors and members of the
Teamsters, including casting directors.
“Everyone acts like ‘it’s back,’
but we are still on strike,” Morris said. “Nothing is going back until our deal
is settled.” “
Morris and other actors at the
Amazon picket said they were solidly behind Drescher and Crabtree-Ireland.
“It’s wonderful that the AMPTP has
decided to come back to the table,” said Travina
Springer (Disney+’s “Ms. Marvel”). “I’m hopeful we
will get a favorable resolution in the near future but I’m also very tired. And
it feels a bit disrespectful that we even have to be here and that we are not
getting our fair share in the first place.”
ATTACHMENT TWENTY SIX – From
Indie Wire
Why ‘SNL’ Can Return
to the Air During the Actors Strike
SAG-AFTRA has already given its blessing
and says members appearing on it are working under the Network Code Agreement
that isn't struck.
BY BRIAN WELK
OCTOBER 4, 2023 6:30 PM
“Saturday Night Live” is coming back to the air next week. Yes,
there is still an actors strike going on, but yes, this is OK. SAG-AFTRA even
says so.
But if you’re
still wondering why “SNL” is back on the air, your questions are warranted. “SNL” isn’t
a game show or reality show that just has a celebrity host. It airs on NBC,
whose parent company NBCUniversal is a struck member company with the AMPTP.
And generally, they’re getting hosts who have something to promote, which is a
strike no-no. In fact, Pete Davidson, who will be the host on the season
premiere October 14, was supposed to be the host just before the writers went
on strike and cut “SNL’s” season short.
This is
hardly the first time SAG-AFTRA has had to clarify to members what actors can and can’t work on during
the strike. Because it’s arguably not the performers on those shows who don’t
understand their contractual obligations, but the general public and the media
who might be quick to call them scabs.
SAG-AFTRA
came out in defense of “The Drew Barrymore Show” and its contractual
obligations to return to air during that whole fiasco, it did so when “Dancing with the Stars”
resumed filming, and it has done so again with “SNL,” this time in lockstep
with “SNL” announcing its hosts for the first two weeks.
As the guild
explains in its statement, SAG-AFTRA members appearing on “SNL,” whether
they’re a host, guest star, or cast member, are working under what’s called the
Network Code Agreement — more commonly Net Code — “which is not a contract we
are striking.”
Net Code
covers everything from morning news shows, talk shows (both daytime and late
night), soap operas, variety, reality, and game shows, sports, and promotional
announcements. The guild upon the Net Code’s latest ratification in 2022 mentions
shows like “Good Morning America,” “Tamron Hall,” “The Young and the
Restless,” “Jeopardy,” “The Voice,” “So You Think You Can
Dance,” “Last Week Tonight with John Oliver,” the Academy Awards, the
Super Bowl, and yes, even “Saturday Night Live.”
“They are not
in violation of SAG-AFTRA strike rules, and we support them in fulfilling their
contractual obligations,” the guild said. “The program is a SAG-AFTRA
non-dramatic production under a separate agreement that is not subject to the
union’s strike order.”
The guild
also clarifies that the majority of “SNL” cast members have contractual
obligations and that it’s the producers who are exercising these performers’
options requiring them to return. The guild has a “No Strike Clause” in the Net
Code contract, meaning they have to return to work, they can be held in breach
of contract if they don’t, and the union is prohibited from advising them not
to work.
“It is
important to recognize that SAG-AFTRA is fighting against the studios and not
members who are required to go to work every day under other union contracts or
personal service agreements. We stand with our union siblings across the
industry as we also recognize our obligations under federal labor law.”
“Saturday
Night Live” is coming back to the air next week. Yes, there is still
an actors strike going on, but yes, this is OK. SAG-AFTRA even
says so.
But if you’re still
wondering why “SNL” is back on the air, your questions are warranted. “SNL”
isn’t a game show or reality show that just has a celebrity host. It airs on
NBC, whose parent company NBCUniversal is a struck member company with the
AMPTP. And generally, they’re getting hosts who have something to promote,
which is a strike no-no. In fact, Pete Davidson, who will be the host on the
season premiere October 14, was supposed to be the host just before the writers
went on strike and cut “SNL’s” season short.
This is hardly the first time
SAG-AFTRA has had to clarify to members what actors can and can’t work on during
the strike. Because it’s arguably not the performers on those shows who don’t
understand their contractual obligations, but the general public and the media
who might be quick to call them scabs.
SAG-AFTRA came out in defense of
“The Drew Barrymore Show” and its contractual obligations to return to air
during that whole fiasco, it did so when “Dancing with the Stars”
resumed filming, and it has done so again with “SNL,” this time in lockstep
with “SNL” announcing its hosts for the first two weeks.
As the guild explains in its
statement, SAG-AFTRA members appearing on “SNL,” whether they’re a host, guest
star, or cast member, are working under what’s called the Network Code
Agreement — more commonly Net Code — “which is not a contract we are striking.”
Net Code covers everything from morning
news shows, talk shows (both daytime and late night), soap operas, variety,
reality, and game shows, sports, and promotional announcements. The guild upon
the Net Code’s latest ratification in 2022 mentions
shows like “Good Morning America,” “Tamron Hall,” “The Young and the
Restless,” “Jeopardy,” “The Voice,” “So You Think You Can
Dance,” “Last Week Tonight with John Oliver,” the Academy Awards, the
Super Bowl, and yes, even “Saturday Night Live.”
“They are not in violation of
SAG-AFTRA strike rules, and we support them in fulfilling their contractual
obligations,” the guild said. “The program is a SAG-AFTRA non-dramatic
production under a separate agreement that is not subject to the union’s strike
order.”
The guild also clarifies that the
majority of “SNL” cast members have contractual obligations and that it’s the
producers who are exercising these performers’ options requiring them to return.
The guild has a “No Strike Clause” in the Net Code contract, meaning they have
to return to work, they can be held in breach of contract if they don’t, and
the union is prohibited from advising them not to work.
“It is important to recognize that
SAG-AFTRA is fighting against the studios and not members who are required to
go to work every day under other union contracts or personal service
agreements. We stand with our union siblings across the industry as we
also recognize our obligations under federal labor law.”
It’s possible that some cast
members might choose to stay at home in solidarity with the other striking
actors, but the guild can’t advise them to do so, and they’re taking a risk if
they do. Mayim Bialik stood aside from her “Celebrity
Jeopardy” hosting duties, and “Veep” actor Matt Walsh decided to not
participate on “Dancing with the Stars” until the strike was over. When the writers strike ended, he returned to the competition and
has already been booted after just one Cha Cha.
But Pete Davidson would be in
trouble and violating strike rules if he started talking about his latest
scripted projects like “Bupkis” and “Dumb Money.” An “SNL” rep tells IndieWire he’ll be promoting his ongoing stand-up tour,
while the October 21 host, Bad Bunny, has a new album that came out earlier
this year. If an actor had an interim agreement for a project, they might also
be able to appear but would only be authorized to discuss or promote that
specific project.
SAG-AFTRA did not have an
additional comment for this story.
All this may be moot in a couple
of weeks; SAG-AFTRA is back at the negotiating table with the AMPTP as we speak,
and the industry remains hopeful that a resolution will be reached soon. “SNL”
is likely hoping it can get by with some dual threat musicians, athletes, or
politicians as hosts before anything becomes a real problem.
ATTACHMENT
TWENTY SEVEN – From
CBS
Big Three automakers idle thousands of workers as UAW strike rages on
KHRISTOPHER J. BROOKS
OCTOBER 3, 2023 / 4:16 PM /
Detroit's Big Three automakers are
furloughing or laying off thousands of non-union employees amid a bitter
standoff with striking members of the United Auto Workers.
Ford Motor on Monday furloughed
330 workers in Chicago and Lima, Ohio, adding to the 600 workers the automaker laid off last month at an assembly plant in
Wayne, Michigan. General Motors, which on Tuesday reported a 21% increase in sales for its third-quarter
earnings, has laid off more than 2,100 workers across four states. Stellantis (the parent company of Chrysler, Dodge, Jeep and
Ram) has idled nearly 370 workers, Reuters reported, including 68 workers in Perrysburg, Ohio.
The UAW on Oct. 29 expanded its nearly
three-week-old strike to target GM's Lansing Delta Township Assembly plant in
Delta, Michigan, which manufactures the Chevrolet Traverse and Buick Enclave.
Ford workers at the Chicago plant make the Explorer and Lincoln Aviator.
Automakers say the furloughs and
layoffs are a result of the UAW strike, which has now entered its third week.
"It is unfortunate the UAW's decision
to call a strike at GM Lansing Delta Township Assembly continues to have
negative ripple effects," GM said in a statement to CBS News on Tuesday
that confirmed the furloughs. "The impacted team members are not expected
to return until the strike has been resolved. Since we are working under an
expired labor agreement, there are no provisions for company-provided sub-pay
in this circumstance."
The automakers also said that a
lengthy strike will lead to more layoffs for people who work at auto parts suppliers.
"We understand to date there
are about 2,400 supplier employees that have been laid off," Liz Door,
Ford's chief supply chain officer, said last week, adding that if the strike is
prolonged, there could be "anywhere between 325,000 to 500,000 employees
that could be laid off."
The UAW has criticized the
automakers' moves to lay people off, with union chief Shawn Fain saying last month that the Big Three are using the layoffs
as a tactic "to put the squeeze on our members to settle for less."
The UAW launched a coordinated
strike last month when
nearly 13,000 autoworkers walked off the job at Big Three assembly plants
Michigan, Missouri and Ohio — the first time union members at the companies had
simultaneously stopped work. Another 5,600
workers at 38 GM and Stellantis-owned
parts distribution centers in 20 states walked off the job last month.
The union expanded its work stoppage last Friday, bringing the
total number of striking autoworkers to 25,000, or 17% of the UAW's roughly
146,000 members.
So far, the strike has cost the
auto industry about $3.9 billion, according to an estimate from Michigan-based consulting
firm Anderson Economic Group. That includes $325 million in worker wages, $1.12
billion in losses for the automakers, $1.29 billion in losses for parts
suppliers, and $1.2 billion in dealer and customer losses.
The UAW's demands include
a 36% pay increase over four years, annual cost-of-living adjustments, pension
benefits for all employees, greater job security, restrictions on the use of
temporary workers and a four-day work
week. Along with a wage hike, the union also wants the automakers
to eliminate a
two-tiered wage system the companies adopted after the 2008
financial crisis.
For their part, the automakers say
they have made reasonable
counteroffers, while arguing that the UAW's wage and other demands
would make it hard to compete with other car manufacturers. Both sides have
said they're open to further negotiations.
"We can confirm there was a
meeting today between the GM and UAW leadership teams," GM spokesman David
Barnas said in a statement to CBS News on Tuesday.
"The union did present a counter to our proposal from Sept. 21. We are
assessing, but significant gaps remain."
ATTACHMENT TWENTY EIGHT – From Reuters
UAW, automakers signal progress after days of stalemate, sources say
By Joseph White and David Shepardson
October 5, 20234:43 AM EDTUpdated 12 hours ago
Union, automakers signal progress
in strike talks
DETROIT, Oct 4 (Reuters) -
Negotiators for the United Auto Workers and Ford Motor (F.N) have
narrowed their differences on pay increases after a new offer from the
automaker amid "really active" talks, people familiar with the
bargaining among the Detroit Three automakers and the union said on Wednesday.
UAW President Shawn Fain plans to
update the union's 150,000 members at Ford, General Motors (GM.N) and
Chrysler parent Stellantis (STLAM.MI) on
Friday, a person briefed on the union's plans said. It is not clear whether
Fain will order a fresh round of walkouts, or declare sufficient progress has
been made to delay strikes at additional plants.
In addition to Ford, talks with
Chrysler parent Stellantis (STLAM.MI) and
other automakers and the UAW have been active in recent days, sources said. Stellantis declined to comment.
Ford said on Tuesday it had made a
"comprehensive" new offer that included a "more than 20% general
wage increase, not compounded" with a double-digit increase in the first
year. Ford did not elaborate. That proposal, however, when combined with
cost-of-living adjustments previously offered by the automaker, could bring the
total wage increase offer close to 30% over the life of the contract, people
familiar with the situation said.
However, the UAW and Ford have not
announced agreements on other, significant issues including pay and union
representation at future battery plants, and the union's push for a return to
retirement plans that assure a defined level of benefits.
Ford Chief Financial Officer John Lawler
said Friday the automaker's retirement offer would assure UAW workers could
retire with $1 million in savings.
But in a sign the Detroit
automakers are still bracing for a lengthy struggle, General Motors on
Wednesday secured a new $6 billion line of credit and estimated the cost of the United Auto
Workers strike was $200 million during the third quarter, a company
spokesman said.
The targeted strike against
the Detroit Three automakers
began on Sept. 15 and is now in its 20th day.
GM Chief Financial Officer Paul
Jacobson told CNBC the line of credit was "prudent" given statements
from some UAW officials "that they intend to drag this on for
months." He said GM has made a record contract offer and said it needs a
deal that puts it "on par with our competitors."
The union has struck two
GM assembly plants and 20 parts distribution centers.
The strike cost at GM reflects 16
days in which production was stopped at one
assembly plant in Wentzville, Missouri, for midsized pickup
trucks and vans. It also reflects the strike at GM parts facilities and
knock-on impacts including a production halt at a GM car plant in Kansas due to
a lack of parts.
The indicated average cost of
$12.5 million a day for General Motors from its filing Wednesday could rise
sharply if the UAW shuts down more vehicle production in the weeks ahead.
Against that backdrop, GM said in
a securities filing it has locked in the new, $6
billion line of credit through October 2024. JP Morgan (JPM.N) and Citibank (C.N) are
listed as joint lead arrangers for the deal.
Ford secured a $4 billion line of
credit in August, ahead of the Sept. 14 UAW contract expiration.
GM's new line of credit will
bolster its balance sheet against a protracted strike that could widen to cut
off production of its most profitable vehicles:
large Chevrolet and GMC pickup trucks and large SUVs such as the GMC Yukon and
Cadillac Escalade. GM shares ended down about 1% on Wednesday afternoon.
The additional funds will require
GM to maintain at least $4 billion in global liquidity and $2 billion in U.S.
liquidity. The terms of the credit agreement also restrict GM from mergers or
sales of assets and limits on other, new debt.
The UAW said on Monday it
presented a new contract offer to
GM. GM, in turn, said despite the offer, "significant gaps remain."
The automaker has been forced to lay off 2,100
workers at five plants in four states.
Ford said Wednesday it was laying
off another 400 workers in Michigan starting Thursday because of the strike
after previously furloughing 930 workers, and Stellantis
370 workers in Ohio and Indiana because of the strike.
Meanwhile, nearly 30% of auto
parts makers surveyed by an industry trade group said they have laid off some
workers due to the UAW strikes. Another 60% expect more layoffs by mid-October
if the walkouts continue, the Motor Equipment Manufacturers Association said.
Reporting by Joe White in Detroit
Writing by David Shepardson; Editing by Matthew Lewis, Anna Driver and Chris
Reese
ATTACHMENT TWENTY NINE – From
Sky News
Train strikes: Full list of October 2023 dates and rail lines affected
as Tube action called off
The rail network will be hit by
strikes at the start of October. But planned industrial action on the London
Underground has been called off. Here's what you need to know.
Wednesday 4 October 2023 10:10, UK
Thousands of rail workers and
train drivers are going on strike this month - with an overtime ban which
started on Monday and mass disruption expected today.
But planned industrial action by
London Underground workers has been cancelled, it was announced on
Tuesday.
RMT (the Rail, Maritime and Transport
union) and ASLEF (The Associated Society of Locomotive Engineers and Firemen)
members are striking in an ongoing dispute over pay and conditions.
ASLEF represents drivers, whereas
the RMT represents workers from many different sectors of the rail industry -
including station staff and guards.
Here is everything you need to
know about which services are affected this week.
WHAT'S
HAPPENING THIS WEEK?
Wednesday 4 October
Train driver strike and overtime ban
to cancel or reduce services
Thursday 5 October
Knock-on effect of strikes to
affect early morning services. Train driver overtime ban likely to reduce
services
Friday 6 October
Train driver overtime ban likely
to reduce services
Saturday 7 October
Knock-on effect of strikes to
affect early morning services
London Underground
Tube workers had been planning to
walk out on Wednesday 4 October and Friday 6 October.
The industrial action would have
"severely affected" most underground lines and there would have been
no night tube on 6 October, either.
But on Tuesday unions announced the planned strikes have been called off.
Around 3,000 members of the Rail,
Maritime and Transport union (RMT) had been due to walk out during the two days
of strikes.
The RMT said that following talks
at the conciliation service Acas it has managed to
save jobs, prevent detrimental changes to rosters and secure protection of
earnings around grading changes.
The union said: "The
significant progress means that key elements have been settled although there remains wider negotiations to be had in the job, pensions
and working agreements dispute."
RMT general secretary Mick Lynch
said: "I congratulate all our members who were prepared to take strike
action and our negotiations team for securing this victory in our Tube dispute.
"Without the unity and
industrial power of our members, there is no way we would have been able to
make the progress we have."
Avanti West Coast
Avanti plans to run its normal
timetable during overtime bans, but recommends you check before you travel as
the impact will vary from route to route.
C2C
On days when overtime bans are in
place, there will be a reduced peak time service and a reduced frequency of two
trains per hour during off-peak hours across all routes.
First and last trains will be
unaffected.
Chiltern Railways
Although industrial action on the
London Underground has been suspended, there will be impacts on Chiltern
Railways services at the London end of the route.
On 5 and 6 October no services will
be calling at stations including; Harrow-on-the-Hill, Rickmansworth,
Chorleywood, Chalfont & Latimer and Amersham.
This is until after 8am on Thursday and all day on Friday.
On Saturday 7 October, no Chiltern
Railways services will call at South Ruislip until
after 8am.
Chiltern Railways will be running
an amended timetable during the week of overtime bans, which travellers can check here.
CrossCountry
Some services will be amended during
overtime ban dates. You can view the list of trains affected on each day here.
East Midlands Railway
East Midlands says its journey
planners have now been updated for days where an overtime ban is in place.
Check here for updates.
GTR
GTR, also known as Govia Thameslink Railway, is the UK's biggest railway
franchise and operates Southern, Thameslink, Great Northern and Gatwick
Express.
On days when an overtime ban is in
place, GTR says an amended timetable with fewer services will run.
The usual non-stop Gatwick Express
service between London Victoria, Gatwick Airport and Brighton will not run.
To help customers, extra stops at Clapham Junction and East Croydon have been added, so these
trains will be operating as Southern services.
Gatwick Express tickets will be
valid on Southern and Thameslink at no additional cost.
Find out more about each of GTR's
lines by clicking on their names at the top of this section.
ATTACHMENT THIRTY
– From the New York
Times
Trump Ordered Not to Comment on Judge’s Staff in Fraud Case
The former president attacked Justice
Arthur F. Engoron’s clerk in a social media post that
soon disappeared. He was called to account behind closed doors.
By Jonah E. Bromwich Oct. 3,
2023Updated 4:57 p.m. ET
The New York judge presiding over
Donald J. Trump’s civil fraud trial ordered the former president Tuesday not to
attack or even comment on court staff after Mr. Trump posted a message to
social media targeting the judge’s law clerk.
Mr. Trump attacked the clerk, Allison
Greenfield, shortly before noon on his Truth Social site. His post was a
picture of Ms. Greenfield with Senator Chuck Schumer, the Democratic majority
leader. Mr. Trump mocked Ms. Greenfield as “Schumer’s girlfriend” and said that
the case against him should be dismissed.
The post was taken down during a
lunch break, shortly after a closed-door meeting in the room where Mr. Trump is
being tried.
Justice Arthur F. Engoron explained what had happened after the break, though
he did not name Ms. Greenfield or Mr. Trump, referring to him only as a
defendant. “Personal attacks on my members of my court staff are unacceptable,
inappropriate and I will not tolerate them under any circumstances,” he said.
Justice Engoron
said that his statement should be considered a gag order forbidding any posts,
emails or public remarks about members of his staff. He added that serious
sanctions would follow were he to be disobeyed, but did not elaborate.
The judge, who is known for
keeping a lighthearted atmosphere in his courtroom, spoke gravely. He noted
that while Mr. Trump had taken down the Truth Social post, the former
president’s campaign had sent out a copy of the post in a disparaging email to
millions of people.
“Personal attacks on my members of
my court staff are unacceptable, inappropriate and I will not tolerate them
under any circumstances,” he said.
The former president’s social media
posts have become an issue in several cases against him. Federal prosecutors
who have accused Mr. Trump of seeking to overturn the 2020 election have asked
a judge for a gag order, citing his threatening
statements. In a criminal case against Mr. Trump in Manhattan, which
stems from a 2016 hush money payment to a porn star, the judge has restricted the
former president’s ability to post about some evidence.
In a pretrial ruling, Justice Engoron found that the former president was liable for
fraud and dissolved the companies he uses to run his New York properties.
What remains to be determined at
trial is whether the former president and his fellow defendants are liable for
other illegal acts and whether there will be any further punishment. Ms. James
has asked Justice Engoron to fine the defendants $250
million.
Ben Protess contributed
reporting.
ATTACHMENT
THIRTY ONE – From
AP
Former President Donald Trump is seated in court as civil fraud case
begins
Updated Mon,
October 2, 2023 at 1:30 PM EDT
Former president Trump expected in court Monday in New York
CBS-Chicago
Mon, October
2, 2023 at 7:46 AM EDT
Former president Donald Trump is
expected to appear in court Monday for the first day of a civil fraud trial.
ATTACHMENT
THIRTY TWO – From
the Telegraph
Donald Trump's latest trial will hit him where it hurts – his ego
By
Tony Diver Tue, October 3, 2023 at 1:37 AM EDT
Donald Trump’s latest court battle is by no means the most serious legal
challenge he faces in the run up to the 2024 presidential election.
Several of his criminal
indictments, for allegedly subverting election results, falsifying business
records and mishandling stolen documents – could result in lengthy prison
sentences.
By contrast, the New York attorney
general in the civil fraud suit is seeking a penalty of a mere $250 million
and a ban on operating businesses in the state.
So why did Mr
Trump choose to focus the world’s attention on this week’s trial by attending
it in person?
ATTACHMENT THIRTY THREE – From the Insider
Trump is turning his $250 million fraud trial into a presidential
campaign event
Jacob Shamsian Updated Mon, October 2, 2023 at 6:40 PM EDT·
Donald Trump
has attacked the civil fraud case against him as political.
·
He showed up
to court Monday with his 2024 campaign staffers in tow.
·
He's previously been sanctioned
for bringing political lawsuits.
Former President — and 2024 Republican
presidential frontrunner — Donald Trump has long complained that the legal
cases against him are political.
The New York Attorney General's $250
million civil fraud trial that began Monday morning, he says, is a "witch
hunt."
Showing up to court in lower
Manhattan, Trump sought to make the case appear as political as possible.
ATTACHMENT THIRTY FOUR – From
the New York Times
Giuliani’s Drinking, Long a Fraught Subject,
Has Trump Prosecutors’ Attention
The former mayor’s drinking has become an investigative subplot in
Donald Trump’s federal case over 2020 election interference. But long before
that, friends had grown deeply concerned.
BBy Matt Flegenheimer and Maggie
Haberman
·
Oct. 4, 2023Updated 10:54
a.m. ET
Rudolph W. Giuliani had always
been hard to miss at the Grand Havana Room, a magnet for well-wishers and
hangers-on at the Midtown cigar club that still treated him like the king of
New York.
In recent years, many close to him
feared, he was becoming even harder to miss.
For more than a decade, friends
conceded grimly, Mr. Giuliani’s drinking had been a problem. And as he surged
back to prominence during the presidency of Donald J. Trump, it was getting
more difficult to hide it.
On some nights when Mr. Giuliani
was overserved, an associate discreetly signaled the rest of the club, tipping
back his empty hand in a drinking motion, out of the former mayor’s line of
sight, in case others preferred to keep their distance. Some allies, watching
Mr. Giuliani down Scotch before leaving for Fox News interviews, would slip
away to find a television, clenching through his rickety defenses of Mr. Trump.
Even at less rollicking venues — a
book party, a Sept. 11 anniversary dinner, an intimate gathering at Mr.
Giuliani’s own apartment — his consistent, conspicuous intoxication often
startled his company.
“It’s no secret, nor do I do him any favors if
I don’t mention that problem, because he has it,” said Andrew Stein, a former
New York City Council president who has known Mr. Giuliani for decades. “It’s
actually one of the saddest things I can think about in politics.”
No one close to Mr. Giuliani, 79,
has suggested that drinking could excuse or explain away his present legal and
personal disrepair. He arrived for a mug shot in
Georgia in August not over rowdy nightlife behavior or reckless
cable interviews but for allegedly abusing the laws he defended aggressively as
a federal prosecutor, subverting the democracy of a nation that once lionized
him.
Yet to almost anyone in proximity,
friends say, Mr. Giuliani’s drinking has been the pulsing drumbeat punctuating
his descent — not the cause of his reputational collapse but the ubiquitous
evidence, well before Election Day in 2020, that something was not right with
the former president’s most incautious lieutenant.
Now, prosecutors in the federal election
case against Mr. Trump have shown an interest in the drinking habits of Mr.
Giuliani — and whether the former president ignored what his aides described as
the plain inebriation of the former mayor referred to in court documents as “Co-Conspirator 1.”
Their entwined legal peril has
turned a matter long whispered about by former City Hall aides, White House
advisers and political socialites into an investigative subplot in an
unprecedented case.
The office of the special counsel,
Jack Smith, has questioned witnesses about Mr. Giuliani’s alcohol consumption
as he was advising Mr. Trump, including on election night, according to a
person familiar with the matter. Mr. Smith’s investigators have also asked
about Mr. Trump’s level of awareness of his lawyer’s drinking as they worked to
overturn the election and prevent Joseph R. Biden Jr. from being certified as
the 2020 winner at almost any cost. (A spokesman for the special counsel
declined to comment.)
The answers to those prompts could
complicate any efforts by Mr. Trump’s team to lean on a so-called
advice-of-counsel defense, a strategy that could portray him as a client merely
taking professional cues from his lawyers. If such guidance came from someone
whom Mr. Trump knew to be compromised by alcohol, especially when many others
told Mr. Trump definitively that he had lost, his argument could weaken.
In interviews and in testimony to
Congress, several people at the White House on election night — the evening
when Mr. Giuliani urged Mr. Trump to declare victory despite the results — have
said that the former mayor appeared to be drunk, slurring and carrying an odor
of alcohol.
“The mayor was definitely
intoxicated,” Jason Miller, a top Trump adviser and a veteran of Mr. Giuliani’s
2008 presidential campaign, told the congressional committee investigating the
Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol in a deposition early last year. “But I do not
know his level of intoxication when he spoke with the president.” (Mr. Giuliani
furiously denied this account and condemned Mr. Miller, who had spoken
glowingly of him in public, in vicious terms.)
Privately, Mr. Trump, who has long
described himself as a teetotaler, has spoken derisively about Mr. Giuliani’s
drinking, according to a person familiar with his remarks. But Mr. Trump’s
monologues to associates can betray a layered view of the former mayor, one
that many Republicans share: He credits Mr. Giuliani with turning around New
York City after the high-crime 1970s and 1980s and contends that it has
suffered lately without him in charge. Then he returns to a lament about Mr.
Giuliani’s image today.
Mr. Trump does not dwell on his
own role in that trajectory.
In a statement that did not
address specific accounts about Mr. Giuliani’s drinking or its potential
relevance to prosecutors, Ted Goodman, a political adviser to the former mayor,
praised Mr. Giuliani’s career and suggested he was being maligned because “he
has the courage to defend an innocent man” in Mr. Trump.
“I’m with the mayor on a regular
basis for the past year, and the idea that he is an alcoholic is a flat-out
lie,” Mr. Goodman said, adding that it had “become fashionable in certain
circles to smear the mayor in an effort to stay in the good graces of New
York’s so-called ‘high society’ and the Washington, D.C., cocktail circuit.”
ATTACHMENT THIRTY FIVE – From WashPost
Hunter Biden pleads not guilty to gun, false statement charges
A hearing in Delaware
opens a new phase in the politically fraught prosecution of President Biden’s
son
By Perry
Stein and Devlin Barrett Updated October 3, 2023 at 11:47
a.m. EDT|Published October 3, 2023 at 8:32 a.m.
EDT
WILMINGTON, Del. — Hunter Biden
pleaded not guilty to three felony charges in a federal courthouse here
Tuesday, the next step in a long-running investigation that has been a focal
point for Republicans and could result in a criminal trial overlapping with President Biden’s 2024
campaign for a second term.
Federal prosecutors accused the
younger Biden in a four-page indictment of making two false
statements in 2018 when he completed paperwork to purchase a gun. Biden
asserted on the form that he was not addicted to or using illegal drugs, the
indictment says, “when in fact, as he knew, that statement was false and fictitious.”
He is also charged with unlawfully possessing the gun.
Biden spoke little at the
half-hour hearing before a magistrate judge, Christopher J. Burke, where
Biden’s lawyer Abbe Lowell formally entered the not-guilty plea on his behalf.
Lowell said he plans to ask a
court to throw out the charges, citing a deal Biden reached with
prosecutors this summer in which he would have pleaded guilty to two
misdemeanor tax charges and admitted the facts of the gun case without
being formally charged. That deal collapsed amid a disagreement over
whether it protected Biden from
facing potential additional charges. Lowell has maintained the previous
agreement should still stand.
“Our view is that there is an
agreement in effect,” Lowell told Burke.
The judge said Biden has been
“responsive and fully communicative” with probation officials in his home state
of California and has passed multiple drug tests since the summer, as required
by the release conditions imposed in July. He was released on similar terms on
Tuesday, including informing probation officials in writing if he travels
internationally.
Delaware U.S. Attorney David Weiss
— the prosecutor who has overseen the investigation since it started during the
Trump administration — subsequently asked Attorney General Merrick Garland
to make him a special counsel, a designation that gives him
clearer authority to bring charges outside of Delaware.
Weiss is now weighing whether to
file tax charges against Biden in California, according to people familiar with
the matter who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive case.
Republicans, including former
president Donald Trump, have tried to link President Biden to his son’s alleged
wrongdoing, and make the Hunter Biden investigation a major theme of the
2024 presidential race.
Federal law makes it illegal to
possess a weapon while using illegal drugs.
Hunter Biden has publicly acknowledged being addicted to drugs at the time of the 2018 gun
purchase. He allegedly owned the Colt revolver for 11 days.
According to federal sentencing
guidelines, Biden could face up to 10 years in prison, though in reality, since
he does not have a criminal record and is not accused of a violent crime, he
would probably face far less time.
“Hunter Biden possessing an
unloaded gun for 11 days was not a threat to public safety, but a prosecutor,
with all the power imaginable, bending to political pressure, presents a grave
threat to our system of justice,” Lowell said last month after prosecutors
charged his client.