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‘Doesn’t Look Like’ Jordan Will Become Speaker – Here’s How Dems May Help End GOP ‘Civil War’

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Republican Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan‘s failure to win election for Speaker Tuesday afternoon has thrown the House into greater chaos, with one news outlet reporting it “doesn’t look like” he will be able to pull it off if Wednesday morning’s 11 AM vote goes forward as scheduled.

“Jordan is probably done,” reports Punchbowl News Wednesday morning, adding it “doesn’t look like” the far-right Republican will get the Speaker’s gavel.

It could get worse for Jordan if he pushes through Wednesday’s slated vote.

“Jordan’s GOP opponents huddled after the House session Tuesday, and nearly all of them said they were holding firm against the Ohio Republican. Senior GOP lawmakers predicted that Jordan could lose an additional 10 or more Republicans today on the floor,” Punchbowl News reports, adding, “after speaking with dozens of members and aides, it doesn’t look to us like the Ohio Republican has any path to victory.”

READ MORE: Pelosi Delivers Devastating Response to Jim Jordan’s Failed Vote for Speaker

CNN’s Manu Raju reports a “GOP House member opposed to Jim Jordan told me opposition to his candidacy will grow, especially if it goes to a third round — potentially 25 Rs voting against him.”

“’The opposition is organized. We’re in tight comms, unified, and growing,’ the member said.”

It’s been two weeks and a day since U.S. Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) led the uprising that took down Speaker Kevin McCarthy, who
predicted on Tuesday Jordan would win the gavel on the first vote. The ex-Speaker has also continued to blame House Democrats, sometimes angrily, for his ouster, and for the “chaos” that has ensued.

So what’s next?

House Majority Whip Tom Emmer (R-MN) has been floated as the next possible Speaker candidate, but after House Majority Leader Steve Scalise and Jim Jordan both went down in flames after one vote, it’s unlikely that is the path most House Republicans will support.

READ MORE: GOP Senator Blames Israel-Hamas War on ‘Bit of a Weenie’ Biden

As Punbchbowl News explains, “frankly, if you’re Emmer, why get in a speaker race you are likely to lose with a conference this divided?”

Several lesser-known House Republicans names have been floating around as well, but “no Republican is getting 217 votes for speaker at this point. And why run for the mayor of a city that’s just been nuked?”

For the time being, it appears the next step may be a bipartisan vote to hand Speaker Pro Tempore Patrick McHenry (R-NC), the Speakership on a temporary and limited base. McHenry was chosen by McCarthy, per House rules, to the role, which allows him only to make decisions to assist the House in electing a new Speaker.

“McHenry can be elected speaker pro tem for a limited period of time in order to help the House move past this current stalemate — provided he has Democratic support,” Punchbowl News adds.

House Democratic Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries – who has the unanimous support of all 212 House Democrats and could become Speaker if just five Republicans threw their support to him, is not opposed to the possibility of a McHenry temporary and limited Speakership.

Punchbowl’s Max Cohen reports U.S. Rep. David Joyce (R-OH) “is expected to file a motion today to elect Patrick McHenry as a permanent speaker pro tem.”

Asked about empowering McHenry, Leader Jeffries told Cohen, “All options are on the table to end the Republican civil war.”

Watch the video above or at this link.

READ MORE: Christian Nationalist GOP Lawmaker Cites the Book of Genesis to Explain Her Vote

 

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HATE CRIMES

Leaders of White Supremacist Group Terrorgram Charged, Face Up to 220 Years in Prison

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Dallas Humber and Matthew Allison, the leaders of the white supremacist terrorist group Terrorgram Collective are facing up to 220 years in prison on charges of soliciting hate crimes, conspiring to provide material support to terrorists and soliciting the murder of federal officials.

The Justice Department announced Monday that Humber, 34, and Allison, 37, were arrested Friday. The pair were indicted on 15 charges. The charges include one count of conspiracy, four counts of soliciting hate crimes, three more of soliciting the murder of federal officials, three counts of doxxing federal officials, two counts of distributing information on making bombs, one count of conspiring to provide material support to terrorists and a count of making threatening communications.

“Today’s indictment charges the defendants with leading a transnational terrorist group dedicated to attacking America’s critical infrastructure, targeting a hit list of our country’s public officials, and carrying out deadly hate crimes—all in the name of violent white supremacist ideology,” Attorney General Merrick Garland said in a statement. “Today’s arrests are a warning that committing hate-fueled crimes in the darkest corners of the internet will not hide you, and soliciting terrorist attacks from behind a screen will not protect you.”

READ MORE: CNN Host Debunks Mike Johnson’s False Hundreds of ‘Known Terrorists’ Claim in Real Time

The Terrorgram Collective is based around the messaging app Telegram, and promotes the idea of white supremacist accelerationism, the Justice Department said. Accelerationism is an ideology that uses terrorism and political violence in hopes of speeding up a collapse of the government, which can then be replaced with a new system. In Terrorgram’s case, that new system would be a white ethnostate. In order to cause this destruction, Humber and Allison allegedly provided advice for committing crimes and disseminated a list of “high-value targets” of government officials and business leaders to be assassinated.

The Justice Department says it has linked Terrorgram with a shooting outside of an LGBTQ bar in Slovakia, a mass stabbing in Turkey near a mosque and a person who planned to attack New Jersey’s power grid. Terrorgram called those who had made attacks “Saints,” and the indictment includes a graphic explaining a five point criteria for “sainthood.” First is to “be White… obviously”; the incident must be deliberate; the motive must align with the white supremacist cause; there must be a body count, or “score,” of one or more; and the attacker must share a similar worldview to the group. Another graphic depicted the “Path to Sainthood”: Starting at “Grievance,” moving to “Violent Ideation,” to “Research and Planning”, to “Preparation,” to “Probing and breaching”, ending in “Attack.”

“Hate crimes fueled by bigotry and white supremacy, and amplified by the weaponization of digital messaging platforms, are on the rise and have no place in our society,” said Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division. “Make no mistake, as hate groups turn to online platforms, the federal government is adapting and responding to protect vulnerable communities.”

The case will be heard in federal court, in the Eastern District of California.

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Tim Walz Mocks Anti-LGBTQ Book Bans During HRC Speech

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Democratic vice presidential candidate and Minnesota Governor Tim Walz mocked the recent increase in anti-LGBTQ book bans during a speech for the Human Rights Campaign.

Delivering the keynote Saturday evening at the HRC’s National Dinner, Walz made fun of recent attempts to ban children’s books like And Tango Makes Three, according to LGBTQ Nation. That beloved kid’s book is based on the true story of two gay penguins in a zoo who raised a chick on their own.

“[In Minnesota], we banned banning books, especially banning LGBTQ books,” Walz said. “This is what these folks are focusing on, spending all their time. Like reading about two male penguins who love each other is somehow going to turn your children gay, and that’s what you should worry about.

READ MORE: Drag Queen Story Hour Interrupted by Neo-Nazis Seen in Terrifying Video

“But here’s what I’ll tell you, it’s a fact of life: Some people are gay. But you know what’s not a fact of life? That our children need to be be shot dead in schools. That’s not a fact of life. Folks are banning books, but they’re okay with weapons of war being in our schools.”

On Thursday, Ohio Senator JD Vance addressed the September 4 shooting at the Apalachee High School in Winder, Georgia. Walz’s opponent in the vice presidential race was criticized for characterizing school shootings as a “fact of life.”

“I don’t like that this is a fact of life,” Vance said, according to the Associated Press. “But if you are a psycho and you want to make headlines, you realize that our schools are soft targets. And we have got to bolster security at our schools. We’ve got to bolster security so if a psycho wants to walk through the front door and kill a bunch of children they’re not able.”

Attempts to block children from accessing LGBTQ-themed children’s books have ramped up in the last few years. In July, a law went into effect in Idaho that bans “obscene materials” from being seen by people under 18. While that may sound on its face to be unobjectionable, the law defines the term broadly. One of the types of content flagged as “obscene” is portrayals of “homosexuality.” There is no additional clarification to determine if this means sex acts, or the mere existence of gay people. If a library violates this law, it is hit with a $250 mandatory fine. If a patron should sue, there is no cap to the amount of money a judge could award them in damages, according to LGBTQ Nation.

LGBTQ-themed books are also frequently challenged and banned. In 2022, over half of the top 13 most-challenged books had queer themes or characters, LGBTQ Nation reported.

Walz has not made a secret of his support for the LGBTQ community. When he was a teacher, he was the advisor to his school’s Gay-Straight Alliance, according to the New York Times.

 

 

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JD Vance Causing ‘Surge’ In New Democratic Volunteers and Donors, House Minority Whip Says

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GOP vice presidential candidate and Ohio Senator JD Vance is responsible for a “surge” of new Democratic Party donors and volunteers, the House minority whip said on Monday.

Rep. Katherine Clark (D-MA) was interviewed on CNN Monday morning by Kate Bolduan about the November election. During her interview, she talked about what voters “in purple, red and blue districts” thought about Vance.

“They don’t trust JD Vance to order doughnuts. They certainly don’t trust him to order American families on IVF, when and how they can have children. So we’re seeing a surge of volunteers, a surge of first time donors, and we know that Kamala Harris is the underdog going into this, but momentum remains on her side,” Clark said.

READ MORE: ‘Bullying Needs to Stop’ Says Ex-Beauty Pageant Winner After JD Vance Refuses to Apologize

The line about ordering doughnuts refers to an August stop by Vance to Holt’s Sweet Shop in Valdosta, Georgia that was broadcast by C-SPAN and went viral. In the awkward clip, Vance ends up asking for “just whatever makes sense,” instead of ordering a specific type of doughnut. Vance later expressed sympathy for the doughnut shop clerk who served him in an interview with NBC News.

“I just felt terrible for that woman,” Vance said. “We walked in, and there’s 20 Secret Service agents, and there’s 15 cameras, and she clearly had not been properly warned, and she was terrified, right? I just felt awful for her.

“We don’t want to have these scripted events — I don’t want to go and do three takes of buying Doritos at a Sheetz. I like to get out there and talk to people, and we want to make sure we’re doing it but definitely make sure that people are at least OK with being on camera, or we’re going to walk in and you’re going to have a person who has, practically, a panic attack because she’s got 15 cameras in her face.”

Vice President Kamala Harris’ presidential campaign has made headlines for the amount of funding it’s raised. During August alone, her campaign raised three times more money than former President Donald Trump’s campaign, according to the Guardian. And in July, at the very start of the Harris campaign, over 170,000 volunteers joined with her, according to Axios.

Current polling shows Harris and Trump in a dead heat. A New York Times poll published Monday shows Trump leading Harris by only 1%, with 48% of polled voters saying they’d pick the former president.

 

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