Our House IS In Total Meltdown

It’s been fifteen days since Representative Matt Gaetz took the floor and began his tyrants to oust Speaker McCarthy.

It’s been fifteen days since the House of Representatives has done anything. No, let me correct myself. It’s been ten months! Ten long months since this House passed legislation of any kind. Yes, they actually did two budget extensions. The last being within one hour of a total government shutdown. Within ONE HOUR!

Now, we are repeating January, 2023 all over again. I need not remind you that it took fifteen ballots for Kevin McCarthy to be able to fulfill his life’s dream. Parking his backside in the Speakers chair, and being able to slam the gavel on the podium. Let’s face the facts, now. Kevin McCarthy is no leader. He wasn’t a leader before he took the gavel, and he still isn’t a leader.

Now, again we start the rounds of votes. The search for someone on the Republican side of the chamber that can assume the throne of being a Speaker of the House of Representatives. This bunch has spent the last two weeks in caucus meetings to come to a consensus on just that one thing. First, after a few days, they emerge with a choice. Steve Scalise , Majority Leader of the United States House of Representatives.

Now, let’s face it. I’m not sure that the Republicans have anyone capable of taking the gavel, being the Speaker of the House of Representatives, and being able to actually conduct business. That said, Steve Scalise was at least a choice that might have worked. But, after a couple of days of his lobbying the rest of the Republicans, he knew he wasn’t going to get the votes to become the Speaker. So, he did the manly thing. He withdrew his name.

But, this puts them back to square one, again.  This puts the caucus back to the behind the door meeting to select another candidate. This time, the extreme group gets their choice. They select a Representative who, in the venture time he has been on Capitol Hill, has not accomplished one thing. He hasn’t sponsored one Bill that’s passed to law. He’s not written one piece of legislation that has passed the House to be moved to the Senate. He has been, and was, a major player in the pre-planning, organizing, and assisting in carrying out the January 6, 2021 attempted coup. The attempt to overthrow our government. The attempt to stop the certification of the election results. He has been part of one of the biggest coverups of our history in the sexual scandal at Ohio State University. He has tried, since January, 2023, to impeach President Joe Biden. He hasn’t done anything else but the bidding of one Donald J. Trump.

Jim Jordan getting instructions from Matt Gaetz during a hearing, no doubt being passed along from Trump.

Let’s regress just a moment. Let’s look at Jim Jordan and his connection to Donald Trump. Donald Trump has endorsed Jordan in his bid to be re-elected to his seat in Ohio. He has been pulling his strings ever since. Whatever Donald Trump says do, Jim Jordan has been the sheep he is and followed instructions.

As it is, though, the Republicans selected Jim Jordan as their candidate to become Speaker of the House. But, he didn’t have the magic number. He didn’t have the 217 votes from his caucus to accomplish his, and Donald J. Trump’s goal.

Let’s do a ‘deep dive’ on Jordan. Jim Jordan is currently serving in his ninth term in the U. S. House of Representatives as the representative for Ohio’s 4th Congressional District since 2007. A member of the Republican Party, he is a former collegiate wrestler (winning two NCAA National Championships) and college wrestling coach. Jordan is currently the nominee of the House Republican Conference for the October 2023 Speaker of the House election.

Jordan is a founding member of the Right-wing populist House Freedom Caucus, serving as its first chair from 2015 to 2017, and as its vice chair since 2017. He was the ranking member of the House Oversight Committee from 2019 to 2020. He vacated that position to become the ranking member of the House Judiciary Committee, of which he became chair in 2023.

Jordan is a close ally of former president Donald Trump. During Trump's presidency, Jordan sought to discredit investigations into Russian interference in the 2016 election and staged a sit-in to prevent a Trump impeachment inquiry hearing over the Trump-Zelenskyy telephone controversy. After Joe Biden won the 2020 presidential election and Trump tried to overturn the, Jordan supported lawsuits to challenge the election results and voted not to certify the Electoral College results. He refused to cooperate with the U. S. House Select Committee on the January 6th Attack, which subpoenaed him on May 12, 2022.

Jordan was one of Kevin McCarthy’s closest allies and supported him during the January 2023 Speaker of the House election. After the removal of McCarthy and a failed bid by Steve Scalise, Jordan secured the Republican nomination for the October 2023 Speaker of the House election. Jordan failed to win the speakership in the first and second round of the House vote.

As of 2023, Jordan, who has served in the House of Representatives for over 16 years, has never sponsored a bill that later became law.

On May 2, 2014, Jordan introduced House Resolution 565, Calling on Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr., to appoint a special counsel to investigate the targeting of conservative nonprofit groups by the Internal Revenue Service.” It passed on May 7, 2014. Holder, who had previously been found to be in contempt of Congress, failed to appoint a special counsel to investigate the alleged procedural abuses of IRS employees, including Lois Lerner.

In March 2017, Jordan criticized the newly introduced American Health Care Act, the Republican replacement bill for the Patient Protection and Affordable Care, calling it an unacceptable form of "Obamacare Lite". On May 4, 2017, he voted to pass a revised version of the legislation.

On June 13, 2018, Jordan and Representative Mark Meadows filed a resolution to compel the Department of Justice to provide certain documents to Congress relating to the ongoing congressional investigations of Russian interference in the 2016 election. The resolution asserted that the DOJ was stonewalling congressional oversight and sought to give the DOJ seven days from its enactment to turn over documents related to both Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein’s appointment of Special Counsel Robert Mueller as well as various decisions made by the FBI during the 2016 presidential election. Jordan issued a press release that stated:

This resolution gives the DOJ seven days to turn over the documents that they owe Congress. Rod Rosenstein threatened congressional staff. When the bully picks on your little brother, you have to respond. It's time for House Leadership to stand up and pass this resolution.

On July 25, 2018, Jordan and Meadows introduced articles of impeachment against Rosenstein, whom they accused of "intentionally withholding embarrassing documents and information, knowingly hiding material investigative information from Congress, various abuses of the FISA process, and failure to comply with congressional subpoenas". Jordan stated that impeachment was necessary because:

The DOJ is keeping information from Congress. Enough is enough. It's time to hold Mr. Rosenstein accountable for blocking Congress's constitutional oversight role.

Jordan and Representative Warren Davidson were the only members of Ohio's congressional delegation and two of 60 members of Congress to vote in October 2019 against a bipartisan resolution that passed the House 354–60 condemning Trump's unilateral withdrawal of U.S. military forces from Syria.

In my research on Representative Jim Jordan, I read the following in Wikipedia. I’m copying it here, so I know I get this all correct. It’s extremely important to the scenario I put forth to you afterward.

Jordan has been a stalwart supporter and close ally of Trump. Asked by Anderson Cooper in April 2018 whether he had ever heard Trump tell a lie, Jordan said "I have not" and "nothing comes to mind". He also said, "I don't know that [Trump has ever] said something wrong that he needs to apologize for."

In December 2017, Jordan sought to discredit the FBI and Special Counsel Robert Mueller's investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election. He questioned Mueller's impartiality, and called on Deputy Attorney General Rod J. Rosenstein to use his authority to disband Mueller's investigation or create a second special counsel to simultaneously investigate Mueller himself.

Rosenstein rejected the request, saying that he could not appoint another special counsel as there was no credible allegation of a potential crime. The New York Times reported that Republicans were increasingly criticizing Mueller's investigation after it "delivered a series of indictments to high-profile associates of the president and evidence that at least two of them are cooperating with the inquiry".

In July 2018, Jordan led efforts to impeach Rosenstein as a way to shut down Mueller's investigation. During a hearing on July 12, 2018, Jordan repeatedly interrupted FBI agent Peter Strzok while Strzok tried to explain that he couldn't answer specific questions to preserve the confidentiality of an ongoing investigation. Democrats protested Jordan's behavior and urged their fellow representatives to allow Strzok to respond. They also objected to Jordan's exceeding his allowed time for questioning. House Judiciary Committee chairman Bob Goodlatte admonished Jordan for his repeated interruptions of the witness.

In July 2018, Jordan and Mark Meadows called on the Department of Justice to "review allegations that Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein threatened to subpoena phone records and documents from a House Intelligence Committee staffer". In their written request, the two wrote that in his use of investigative powers, Rosenstein had retaliated "against rank-and-file (congressional) staff members", thereby abusing his authority. To John Catsimatidis on WNYM, Jordan said he would force a vote on Rosenstein's impeachment if the DOJ did not deliver documents Congress requested.

In March 2019, House Judiciary chair Jerrold Nadler criticized Jordan for allegedly using anti-Semiticmessaging by spelling the name of the 2020 presidential candidate Tom Steyer, whose father is Jewish, with a "$" in place of an "S" on Twitter while urging Nadler to resist calls for Trump's impeachment.

During Mueller's testimony to two congressional committees on July 24, 2019, Jordan asked Mueller why he never charged Joseph Mifsud with lying to the FBI while George Papadopoulos was charged for lying about Mifsud. Jordan said: "Mifsud is the guy who told Papadopoulos [about Russian dirt]. He was the guy who started it all. Yet when the FBI interviews him, he lies three times; you don't charge him." Mueller responded, "Well, I can't get into it and it's obvious, I think, that we can't get into charging decisions."

On October 23, 2019, Jordan and two dozen other Republicans staged a protest that delayed a Trump impeachment inquiry hearing. The coordinated action disrupted the United States House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence where Republican and Democratic congressional members planned to take testimony from Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense Laura Cooper. The group staged a sit-inoutside the Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility (SCIF) hearing room. Some of the Republicans who participated already had access to the hearings since the members of the House Oversight, Intelligence and Foreign Affairs committees were welcome to attend and ask questions.

Describing the sit-in, Jordan said, "The members have just had it, and they want to be able to see and represent their constituents and find out what's going on." The next day, he said on Fox News, "Adam Schiff is doing this unfair, partisan process in secret and our members finally said, 'Enough'... We're so frustrated. They reached a boiling point and these guys marched in and said 'we want to know what's going on.'"

House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Bennie Thompson wrote to the House sergeant-at-arms about Jordan, Representative Bradley Byrne, and others, requesting that he take action regarding their "unprecedented breach of security". Senator Lindsey Graham admonished his House colleagues for their tactic, calling them "nuts" for having made a "run on the SCIF".

As the ranking member of the House Judiciary Committee, during a July 2020 hearing with Attorney General Bill Barr, Jordan presented a video montage that took statements by CNN reporters out of context to create the impression they were characterizing violent protests as "mostly peaceful".

In December 2020, Jordan was one of 126 Republican members of the House of Representatives to sign an amicus brief in support of Texas v. Pennsylvania, a lawsuit filed at the United States Supreme Court contesting the results of the 2020 presidential election, in which Joe Biden defeated Trump. The Supreme Court declined to hear the case on the basis that Texas lacked standing under Article III of the Constitution to challenge the results of an election held by another state. House Speaker Nancy Pelosiissued a statement that called signing the amicus brief an act of "election subversion" and an attempt to "subvert the Constitution and undermine public trust in our sacred democratic institutions." New Jersey Representative Bill Pascrell, citing section three of the 14th Amendment, called for Pelosi to not seat Jordan and other amicus brief signers, arguing that they had tried to "overturn a democratic election and install a dictator", while "the 14th Amendment expressly forbids Members of Congress from engaging in rebellion against the United States."

When the Supreme Court in October 2020 permitted counting Pennsylvania mail-in ballots collected three days after the 2020 election, Jordan declared: "Democrats are trying to steal the election, after the election." In December 2020, Jordan said: "I don't know how you can ever convince me that President Trump didn't actually win this" 2020 election. On January 5, 2021, Jordan alleged: "There was fraud on top of the unconstitutional way they ran the election [with pandemic voting laws] … they added fraud on top of it … And that's why President Trump wasn't elected president". On January 12, 2021, Jordan claimed: "I've never said that this election was stolen".

On January 6–7, 2021, Jordan cast a vote to prevent the certification of the Electoral College in at least one state. He was one of the 139 representatives who voted to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election in Congress on January 7, 2021, the day after the storming of the Capitol. At a later virtual committee meeting, Jordan said the storming of the Capitol "was as wrong as wrong can be".

On January 11, 2021, Trump awarded Jordan the Presidential Medal of Freedom in a closed-door ceremony.

Cassidy Hutchinson, a former aide to Trump chief of staff Mark Meadows, testified before the House Select Committee on the January 6 Attack that Jordan had talked to the White House about presidential pardons for Republican members of Congress who participated in attempts to overturn the 2020 United States presidential election.

Now, hoping you have read, and understood, this above, I’m going to close with this scenario.

As we all know, the Speaker of the House of Representatives is 3rd in line for the presidency, directly behind the Vice President.

We also know that the previous President, Donald J. Trump, has been indicted 4 times, facing 91 Felony counts in 4 different jurisdictions. Three of these indictments are at the Federal level while one is at the state level. We also know that other states are investigating their 2020 election results, etc, and thusly more indictments from states may be forthcoming in the future.

With all this in mind, I am going to lay out what I believe is Donald J. Trump’s “playbook” for his battle to rid himself of all his charges. He has been pulling every stall tactic in the book to hold off criminal prosecution on all these charges. Now, he has gotten Matt Gaetz to remove Kevin McCarthy from the Speaker of the House. This is because McCarthy didn’t follow Trump’s orders and shut the government down. It’s in his (Trump’s) mind that if the government is shut down, he won’t be prosecuted. But, that plan didn’t work so he has had McCarthy removed. He is wanting Jim Jordan in the Speaker of the House chair. Then he will put his plan in motion to move him to the presidency. To do this, he will have to eliminate the two prior to him so Jordan can get sworn in before the election in November, 2024. Once Jordan is sworn in, the federal charges against him (Trump) will be abolished.

Donald J. Trump is not beyond having President Biden, and Vice President Harris eliminated. He is a classic ‘mob boss’, and being the narcissistic sociopath that he is, you can just about bet that he has his playbook with him all the time. He, no doubt, has people in place to take care of what he needs done to get where he needs to be.

Food for thought!