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Jay Kuo's avatar

Correction: Paragraph 4 should be “Johnson” and not “McCarthy.” The two have such similar trajectories it’s easy to mistake them!

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Betsy L's avatar

What about the GOP representative nobody even noticed was missing, found in a memory care home? Is she considered a member of the House? Has she been replaced?

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Will Rogers's avatar

That would be 81-year-old Rep. Kay Granger (R-TX) - who has been absent for months. Granger did not run for re-election.

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Betsy L's avatar

Ahhh! Thank you. That answers my question.

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Jocelyn B's avatar

Does that mean she’s no longer in congress?

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Will Rogers's avatar

That's correct. She did not run for re-election, and the new Congress was seated today. She is no longer a member.

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Becky Daiss's avatar

How is that newsworthy? (sarcasm)

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Maria K.'s avatar

I was wondering about that too.

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NJ Osborne's avatar

My first thought 🤘🏾

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magistra's avatar

'If he weren’t such a spineless, toothless man ...'

You forgot 'unprincipled,' Jay

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Hannah B's avatar

OK, this may be wishful thinking, but is there a chance we could end up with Speaker Hakeem Jeffries? If the GOP is too dysfunctional to elect their own Speaker, and Jeffries makes some deals, and the Dems are all united behind him, he'd only need a few Republicans to defect. Because right now, he's got the most united coalition, and if he agrees to some deals, appointments, even to certifying the election (although I know some Dems want to try to invoke the 14th Amendment, which they should have done months ago), maybe he could pull it off?

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Linda Weide's avatar

More likely speaker Musk, or Ramaswamy, as it has been mentioned that the Speaker does not need to be a member of the House. I think we should all send our resumes and clamor to be speaker just to throw a wrench in the works. One thing that I read yesterday was to force the Republicans to slow walk everything and we can help to do that. Here is Kathleen Weber telling us how Resistance is Silent.

https://kathleenweber.substack.com/p/resistance-is-silent

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Colleen McGloughlin's avatar

I didn’t see places where non-Deep State simple interference is mentioned. Do I need to read the Field Manual for those suggestions? Thanks for your guidance.

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Linda Weide's avatar

Colleen, I did not open the link. If you do I would love to hear what you find.

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Colleen McGloughlin's avatar

It will take me a bit to get through it. Will let you know if I figure anything out!

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Linda Weide's avatar

Thanks.

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Maria K.'s avatar

That would be awesome, but I don't think even moderate Republicans have it in them.

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Hannah B's avatar

Sadly, you're probably right, but it just seems like all bets are off now.

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NJ Osborne's avatar

Despicable ? Oh hell, yeah !

Any party that kill testing for childhood Cancer ain’t worth spit!

And that’s who they are

These greedy bastards sleep well at night and grin as they look at themselves in the early morning mirror!

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Diane Ekern's avatar

“could seek to leverage their ability to block McCarthy in exchange for more power” Johnson?

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Jay Kuo's avatar

This has been corrected. Thanks.

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Debbie's avatar

Jay, weren’t you the one who postulated this recently? Such a mind blowing scenario

….If Johnson doesn't get elected as Speaker, then there is no certification for POTUS and VP so typically it goes to the Speaker but since there is none, it would go to 92 YO Grassley since he is the "president pro tempore of the Senate" so he would be the "Acting POTUS"

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NEAL O'CONNOR's avatar

An experienced fellow...

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Colleen McGloughlin's avatar

🤣

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Judith Swink (CA)'s avatar

Until noon on Jan. 20, Joe Biden remains as POTUS and Kamala Harris remains V-P and President of the Senate. It's unlikely that it would take 2 weeks to elect Speaker of the House and, at this point, the issue is moot bcz Johnson was elected Speaker earlier today.

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Martha Jane's avatar

I believe "McCarthy" should read "Johnson" here:

"...their ability to block McCarthy in exchange for..."

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Patrick McConeghy's avatar

haha. Same script, different players!

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Martha Jane's avatar

(paragraph 3)

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Peter Friedman's avatar

You say Jim McGovern's epic Twitter thread is worth reading in full but only Twitter members can see it, so consider posting it in your next update. (I deleted my Twitter account when Musk bought it.)

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Colleen McGloughlin's avatar

Not on X either but found some more stuff on Axios (not exactly answering your comment). https://www.axios.com/2025/01/02/mike-johnson-democrats-motion-to-vacate-rules

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Alec's avatar

Same! I straight up lost a ton of old screenshots from my PSN and Switch accounts when I did it and I don't even care, I hate what he's done to it that much.

(Okay I do SLIGHTLY care, my Let's Go Tammy run of Let's Go Pikachu earned me some great followers. But only slightly.)

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Elizabeth Carroll's avatar

Sorry he doesn’t even get thoughts and prayers from me.

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Lisa's avatar

Exactly! I was going to say something evn worse like, he can go f*** himself! I am already exhausted by them and they haven't even taken office!

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Jane in NC's avatar

Republicans are under pressure to elect Johnson as speaker because DonnySilverSpoon doesn't want his prom postponed. But even if Johnson manages a squeaker today, he'll be sleeping with one eye open from now on. The one-vote to vacate the speakership rule was ridiculous, but changing the rule to nine is an open invitation for the Shiv Caucus to form an alliance and threaten his speakership if Johnson doesn't dance to their tune. 🕺🍿🍿🍿

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Yara's avatar

Where's my popcorn 🍿?

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Maria K.'s avatar

Had this only impacted people guilty of this mess, this would be fun to watch with popcorn. Sadly, this affects all of us.

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VT_Maid's avatar

With the GOP majority in the Senate well below the 60 Senator threshold, I guess the question is whether they are confident (or arrogant, or sycophantic) enough to use their slim majority to chip away at the need for 60 votes. If they do this to pass an extreme agenda, there is no (logical) reason the Dems shouldn't do the same when (fingers crossed) they take back control. The GOP has been very very eager to point the fingers at the Dems and claim (often frivolously) "Well THEY did it! We HAVE to do this because they're forcing us too!". Dems might as well stop pretending it's not going to happen and just go ahead and do it.

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Katharine Hill's avatar

Thank you, Jay, for always taking time to keep us updated. Fascinating to learn how government works—or should I say doesn’t. In any other job the previous Congress would have been fired for not producing anything substantial.

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Linda Weide's avatar

Kathleen Weber tells us that Resistance is Silent, taking a page from the playbook of the CIA.

https://kathleenweber.substack.com/p/resistance-is-silent

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Alec's avatar

"Thoughts and prayers, Speaker Johnson."

ABSOLUTELY SAVAGE. I think they felt that burn on the surface of the sun!

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Lynette Mason's avatar

Thoughts. Not kind ones. No prayers.

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