Seems to me like McCarthy is toast

[EarlG]

Even if they keep voting all night, surely the hardliners aren't going to back down if they've come this far. They just mentioned on CNN that there may be more votes *against* McCarthy that the hardliners are keeping secret for the first round, so that those Reps can come out against him on subsequent rounds, thus making it look like he's losing support as time goes on.

Surely McCarthy will eventually have to drop out and endorse someone else. Is Steve Scalise the end game?

Can Scalise even get the necessary votes?

Can ANYONE?

[hlthe2b]

1. Just a day for schadenfreude.. Snow and schadenfreude...

[Probatim]

52. And beers. Or tequila.

I think they won't elect McCarthy out of spite but I can't imagine they'll go full wingnut and elect one of their howler monkeys. In the end, they'll come to their senses and try to put a sane face to drive the clown car.

Even typing that made me smile - giving them the benefit of the doubt that they aren't as crazy as their most vocal crazies seems crazy.

[Prairie_Seagull]

62. Beers or tequila, later it will be beers AND tequila.

Going to need more popcorn.

[H2O Man]

2. Recommended.

Thoughts & prayers ....... that this continues to damage the republicans.

[Hekate]

31. Oh yes, thoughts and prayers

[madaboutharry]

3. It is more than a little confusing.

It shows a real lack of leadership and ability to unite among republicans. One would think that on a day they take back the House that they would have been at least able to elect their own speaker.

[Hekate]

34. People are sharpening knives

[TNNurse]

68. They have no leadership.

[mercuryblues]

4. I love this saying

If they'll do it with you, they'll do it to you.

republicans in disarray.

[Irish_Dem]

10. They thought they were immune from their rat effing.

[Demobrat]

26. I prefer republicans in chaos.

Cons in chaos for short.

[ShazzieB]

32. "Republjcans in chaos" sound great.

Music to my ears!

[Irish_Dem]

5. Maybe they can drag John Boehner away from his Jim Beam bottle.

[Kennah]

7. House Cryer

[Irish_Dem]

13. For once his tears would be entirely appropriate for the occasion.

[Captain Zero]

18. Funny. They are drunk party.

Maybe Otis from Mayberry is available.

[Joinfortmill]

41. Rofl

[airmid]

51. Johnny has his pot farm now too...he won't be coming back to Washington...

[Irish_Dem]

55. What? Boehner is growing weed now?

Maybe when he looked intoxicated he was on high on weed?

[airmid]

56. Oh yeah...he is knee deep in the lobbying aspect here in Ohio as well as raking it in by

investing in the medical industry. And trust me here…he is stoned 90% of the time. Dude is floating around Liberty Township on cloud nine.

[Irish_Dem]

59. While in office he always looked seriously intoxicated.

I am not surprised if he is stoned all the time too.

[airmid]

64. He's been a lush most of his life.

[Pachamama]

65. Boehner is a wine guy

Whine guy too

But he would be better than McCarthy, Jordan, Biggs, Scalise, Stefanik….

[Irish_Dem]

67. I always pictured him as a whisky/bourbon kind of guy.

He was always so clearly drunk. He must really knock back the wine.

[Hortensis]

80. Lol, not a chance, Irish! At home with him, listening to his wicked

comments on events and people he knows all too well, might be my top choice for watching this play out. With a Scotch, though, and tissues in case I laughed so much I also cried. He's a very funny guy!

I'm sure he expected the RW extremist-oppositional "Freedom Caucus" that tossed his house caucus's efforts under the bus any time they got the chance really still just doing their thing; destroying what 200 other Repubs come together to do is what they are, but they've gotten even crazier since he left.

They weren't officially traitors when he was speaker either, but supporting a coup d'etat and armed insurrection is about the only way they hadn't already been tearing apart the institution they were part of.

[Irish_Dem]

83. Yep he probably knew this day was coming.

Yes I agree, his booze soaked running commentary would be priceless right now.

[FakeNoose]

6. I didn't hear that Scalise was nominated

Can they add names to the list after the first ballot goes down?
I don't usually watch these so I don't know all the rules.

[EarlG]

11. It's my understanding that

on subsequent rounds the process starts again, including the nomination process (and speeches) meaning that anyone can be nominated on each round.

[grantcart]

15. Correct plus you don't have to be nominated

Likely that a replacement candidate from the non nutjobs will get a few votes with no nomination and build momentum from there.

[grantcart]

12. Not nominated

People think he is a likely replacement.

[LetMyPeopleVote]

8. I fear that I will run out of popcorn before this is over

Link to tweet

[malaise]

16. ROFL

[chriscan64]

93. I can't take credit for this joke, but it bears repeating.

Biden will have to tap into the Strategic Popcorn Reserve.

[LetMyPeopleVote]

94. For this thread

Link to tweet

[70sEraVet]

9. House Republicans have a bunch of Radical MAGATS -- no chance of compromise.

[Claustrum]

17. This is probably a preview for the 2 years to come.

We probably won't see anything done but the most crazy right wing BS coming from the house because any seemingly "reasonable" bills won't get passed by these right wing crazies.

[peggysue2]

20. Oh, this is definitely a preview of the next 2 years

These people are not interested in governance. It's all about vendetta and grievance and performative politics. It will be very hard for sane America to stomach but it also will give the American electorate-at-large a vivid picture of the circus that is the Republican Party.

For Dems? Popcorn time!

[Claustrum]

21. I hope you are right.

But 2010 proved them Americans don't care about their obstructions. Instead, Obama/democrats were blamed for not doing enough. I sure hope we have learned our lesson and see through the GoP BS. But I am not as confident as you about American's ability at large.

[Hortensis]

87. :) There've been some changes since then.

Including horribly for the worse. But a significant number of people have also been learning a bit from it, slow curve as it may be.

After 2016, for instance, Senator Sanders finally had to give up 40 years of portraying himself as the alternative to the Republican-Democratic Tweedledum-Tweedledee. A lot of people are less likely to mistake "bs" from anyone for wisdom any more, and that's a real step toward a more competent citizenry.

[Lonestarblue]

35. Republican voters don't care about governance unless it's something to destroy the federal

government or hurts all the people they don’t like, which is pretty much everyone but themselves. They all voted for a clown show, and that’s what we all will get for the next two years. Unfortunately, we face serious global issues like Russia’s illegal war against Ukraine, continued worsening of climate warming and the need to stop subsidizing fossil fuels, the worsening conditions in Central and South America that are driving migrants to our borders, and the possibility of a global recession.

On the domestic front, we face terrorists who are sabotaging power plants, a drug crisis with drug overdoses, and the almost daily occurrence of mass shootings. Congress will not be able to pass any meaningful legislation because Republicans will refuse to do anything that helps people. I suppose this frees the Senate to focus on confirming as many judges as possible to federal courts. Not one vacancy should be left to fill by the end of Biden’s first term.

[Upthevibe]

58. peggysue2.........

I find myself having to explain to my progressive friends that Republicans DON'T want government to work!

I just heard one of the pundits on CNN say that some Dems may get tired and just leave the chamber so McCarthy's number won't need to be as high.

NO DEM. SHOULD LEAVE THAT CHAMBER!!!!

[Cha]

74. Amen & Hallelujah, PeggySue!

[peggysue2]

79. LOL!!

Think we'll going to need a bigger bag, Cha!

The Republicans are really revealing themselves as the feckless politicians they truly are. They talk about all these big bills they're going to pass, and then can't even decide who their frigging Speaker will be.

We're watching the Clown College in living color.

Pass the popcorn!

[Cha]

81. Aloha!

i just got back from running.. I take it nothing's changed?

[peggysue2]

82. They closed it down until noontime tomorrow

But no, nothing has changed.

[Cha]

85. Mahalo, that's good info

for me!

[question everything]

24. Oh, but they so much want to investigate Fauci and Hunter and impeach the president

not sure on what grounds.

Governing? who cares?

[Claustrum]

25. Yup. Those 3 you mentioned are probably what they could unite to do.

Maybe some BS about vax too.

[Joinfortmill]

42. We'll see indictments

[Emile]

14. K&R

[crickets]

19. Pleasepleaseplease let them serve up McCarthy with a side of marmalade.

I so want to see him have to move out of the Speaker's Office. What an asshole move to install himself in an office that way, before the vote even took place. He wants it so bad it's pathetic, and he's so unqualified it should never happen.

[ShazzieB]

36. I hadn't heard that he moved in there already!

That's some chutzpah, all right!

I'll admit that my favorite part of this is watching him try sooo hard to be Speaker, and so far, it's all in vain. Poor Kevvie has a sad!

[Irish_Dem]

22. In stead of one big massive "no" vote, they are going to gradually make it worse?

Round by round?

What is the purpose for doing this?
Except to humiliate McCarthy?

[Joinfortmill]

45. Yup. Brutal. Tells you who these scum are.

[Irish_Dem]

50. So they are deliberately torturing/toying with McCarthy.

To teach him some sort of lesson:
People should not mess with the GOP House power coalition.

And to make him feel humiliated and look powerless.

ETA I wonder who was the brains behind this strategy?

[Xoan]

23. The wild card is ...

Trump.

[ancianita]

27. +1

Yep.

[SCantiGOP]

29. Trump already endorsed McCarthy

What is happening is there are 10-20 Repubs who think Trump is now Establishment and not radical enough.

[BadgerMom]

39. My darkest thought, yes.

[Cha]

28. We're gonna see.. meanwhile..

[getagrip_already]

30. the hardliners won't want it go all night....

If enough dems don't stay on the floor then km will need fewer votes to win. Of course, km may want it to go on.

The speaker is elected by a majority of those present. If 20 dems don't show up to vote......

It will take a majority vote to adjourn I believe, so the dems may control adjournment since more than 5 gops will want to go home.

[Hekate]

37. At this point, I think Dems are "hardliners" themselves & will wait it out

[BumRushDaShow]

33. 2nd ballot underway and McCarthy has lost again and the voting ain't near done yet

So far 9 have peeled away (they are at the "G"s at post time) to vote for the jacketless Gymsuit and he can't lose more than 4 votes (needs 218).

[twodogsbarking]

38. I like toast.

[dobleremolque]

40. The pundits and TV commentators keep saying

"There is no Plan B." And this is just for the election of the Speaker. But this is also the way Republicans would govern ... no Plan B. Chaos after the initial effort fails.

[LaMouffette]

43. Those Repubes are like sharks, with my apologies to sharks everywhere. They smell blood in the water

and are about to feast on McCarthy. Reminds me of how they turned on John Boehner after the rise of the Tea Party.

[LiberalFighter]

47. I doubt there is any blood in him.

[William Seger]

61. I doubt it's red, anyway (nt)

[LiberalFighter]

44. Shouldn't you have stated burnt toast?

[MontanaMama]

46. Gymbo Jordan SAID he didn't want to be speaker...

And the insurrectionists voted for him anyway. It's hilarious at this point.

[True Blue American]

71. Jordan wants that Judiciary

Lead. He wants to wreak revenge on everyone. The Speaker position is lost now, no matter who wins!

[ToxMarz]

48. The "hardliners" have no interest in doing any legislative work.

They have no agenda other than trolling the libs to raise money. They want attention and screen time, for them any publicity is good publicity. I think they would enjoy just doing this for the next 2 years.

[LiberalFighter]

49. I think Speaker Pelosi is gloating.

[NutmegYankee]

57. She should be.

She got this done the first time with the same margin that the repubs have.

[GregariousGroundhog]

72. Boehner and Ryan too

John Boehner and Paul Ryan got screwed over by the Freedom Caucus and are probably very happy to be retired and no longer involved in the GOP shit show.

[djacq]

53. Mr. "David Duke without the baggage"

Anyway this goes down, you're getting someone from the dark side.

[dsharp88]

90. He did say that about himself

[Warpy]

54. Naw, the wingnuts will keep calling votes until he gets in

All conservatives know how to do is the same thing, over and over again.

In the meantime, he'll make enough deals with enough devils that eventually he'll be the most ineffective Speaker in history, succeeding one of the most effective Speakers in history.

Rep. Lieu went in with a box of pocorn.

I think I'd probably need a drink. Or ten. And I don't drink.

Let the Klown Kongress begin!

[Fiendish Thingy]

60. Unless they can pass a motion to elect on a plurality, Scalise seems to be the only option

And even Scalise seems like a long shot at this point.

[Ferrets are Cool]

63. If the repugs are this much out of step, things are REALLY bad for them...

one of the things they are best at is voting as a block. I love this!!!!!

[ECL213]

66. Scalise has a shot!

Too soon?

[area51]

89. I saw what you did there.

[HuskyOffset]

69. Hunter Biden's laptop for Speaker! Vote now! (NT)

[Vinca]

70. Burnt toast at this point.

[Sky Jewels]

73. Buh ... buh ... he already moved his stuff into the Speaker's Office!!!

[Kid Berwyn]

76. LOL!!! He counted the chickens before the check cashed.

Dumb cluck.

[BumRushDaShow]

75. Round 3 lost again while they were in the "Cs" for roll call

Jordan has 8 (with roll call in the "Ds" ).

[Hermit-The-Prog]

77. MIght be a bit of mold on that toast by now.

[SleeplessinSoCal]

78. Speaker Scalise seems about right for this lot

I'm so glad Hakeem Jeffries has a great sense of humor and on the floor training to lead. He will be Speaker sooner or later. I hope.

[roamer65]

84. This is fun! It's like Britain, Canada, etc.

A HUNG PARLIAMENT!

[Skittles]

86. the results of the midterms could not have been better

don't give them a LOT of power, just enough to show what a FUCKING CLOWN SHOW THEY ARE

[CatWoman]

91. pass the marmalade

[DJ Porkchop]

92. The Speaker will be a black woman named Cheryl Johnson. She won't need votes, just chaos.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clerk_of_the_United_States_House_of_Representatives

[LetMyPeopleVote]

95. Getting ready to watch the next round of votes for Speaker

Link to tweet

[Renew Deal]

96. The hard right wants to knock someone off. I doubt they care much who the replacement is.

So it's up to the majority of republicans on if they want to be extorted.