If Trump Loses In November, What Do You Think Happens Next

[PilotMan]

Originally Posted by Ksyrup

I'm posting this here because of his clear ties to, and attempts to emulate, Trump.

It appears Matt Bevin is going to run for KY Governor this year. The GOP field is especially crowded, and this guy was so unpopular he was the only GOPer to lose statewide office in 2019 (thank God). What a POS. I hope he comes in dead last in the primary.

Bevin would be great for getting Andy reelected.

[Ksyrup]

Harris flipped and looked like he just announced that his mom died.

[Swaggs]

Looks like Perry flipped to McCarthy on the 12th vote and did not vote on the 13th. I wonder if the plan is for enough people to drop out to make the majority lower?

[Ksyrup]

Donalds also didn't vote.

[Ksyrup]

That might be the play since for the first time, he's got more votes than Jeffries. And if there's some surprise, those 2 (or others) can come out of the shadows and vote when their names are called at the end.

[cuervo72]

If the Democrat party doesn't help Republicans to elect a Speaker, I'm going to become an even bigger libertarian.

— New York Times Pitchbot (@DougJBalloon) January 6, 2023

[Edward64]

Watching Joe honoring the law enforcement, election workers.

He looks old but he reads (teleprompter) & speaks really well. I told the wife if my eyes were closed and I heard him speak, I’d think the speaker was younger than 80.

You go Joe, keep popping those omega-3 pills

[Edward64]

Originally Posted by thesloppy

I don't give Isaacs or Johnson the benefit of any doubt, but I do appreciate the work/references you provided, for whatever that's worth.

Holy shit. This is the first time I’ve gotten appreciation for my research (outside of HoN).

Thanks!

[Edward64]

I am looking forward to McCarthy meting out slow, sweet "justice" to Gaetz & Boebert.

And hoping MJT and Boebert continue their cat fight.

[GrantDawg]

Reek has already had his balls cut off. He has no power to mete out justice.

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[Atocep]

Originally Posted by Edward64

Does it need to be a congressional investigation? No, but doubt a special counsel/prosecutor is forthcoming

What's the last GOP led investigation that went anywhere though? Benghazi, Fast and Furious, her emails, Durham and many others were busts. 23 separate investigations into Obama's administration totaled 8,400 days and turned up jack shit. That doesn't mean I'm suggesting that all investigations into dems are pointless and need to stop, but I do think the GOP has to readjust their sights and go after real potential crimes rather than insignificant shit like Hunter Biden's laptop.

The gun charge he's accused of is never used. People using drugs shouldn't be buying fire arms. Imagine the number of times this law is broken, know that this charge is used about 100 times per year, and that tells you all you need to know if you're digging that far into someone to find a crime.

As I said at the beginning of this, if he committed a crime then put him in jail. I don't care. I just think the House getting involved is stupid and a waste of time and resources.

[Ksyrup]

Originally Posted by PilotMan

Bevin would be great for getting Andy reelected.

In an even more ridiculous " look at me" move. Bevin teased his announcement earlier in the day, told everyone he was going to speak at the Capitol, showed up, gave a speech, got in his van and left. All that for nothing. But I'll take it as a sign he knew he had no chance.

[Edward64]

Originally Posted by Atocep

What's the last GOP led investigation that went anywhere though? Benghazi, Fast and Furious, her emails, Durham and many others were busts. 23 separate investigations into Obama's administration totaled 8,400 days and turned up jack shit. That doesn't mean I'm suggesting that all investigations into dems are pointless and need to stop, but I do think the GOP has to readjust their sights and go after real potential crimes rather than insignificant shit like Hunter Biden's laptop.

Interesting question. Had to look it up, see link for GOP led

10 of the best and worst congressional investigations of the last 100 years | WJLA

2014-2015 - VA Scandal. Led by Rep Jeff Miller
2005-2006 - Hurricane Katrina. Led by Rep Tom Davis
2001-2004 - 9/11. Led by Rep McCain and Dem Leiberman
1998-1999 - Clinton's Impeachment. Led by Rep Henry Hyde (chairman)

[Edward64]

Originally Posted by GrantDawg

Reek has already had his balls cut off. He has no power to mete out justice.

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I had forgotten about Reek.

I guess he and his trials are still lurking deep in your subconscious. No thanks for sharing and reminding me.

[Edward64]

Happened this morning. Just interesting but short on details. Article didn't share what was discussed etc. Also note Chip Roy below, he went McCarthy today (after the meeting).

My guess was the GOP old guard met with the Young Turks and asked them what it would take to get in line.

House members blocking McCarthy speaker bid meet at offices of ex-Trump chief Mark Meadows

Several Republican House members fighting to stop Rep. Kevin McCarthy from becoming speaker met Friday morning at the offices of the Conservative Partnership Institute, an organization run by Mark Meadows and Jim DeMint.

Other Republican members observed walking into CPI included Byron Donalds of Florida, Paul Gosar of Arizona, Ralph Norman of South Carolina, Scott Perry of Pennsylvania and Matt Gaetz of Florida. Chip Roy of Texas was seen in the passenger seat of a car sitting outside the CPI offices and appeared ready to go in.

[Galaril]

Originally Posted by Edward64

Happened this morning. Just interesting but short on details. Article didn't share what was discussed etc. Also note Chip Roy below, he went McCarthy today (after the meeting).

My guess was the GOP old guard met with the Young Turks and asked them what it would take to get in line.

House members blocking McCarthy speaker bid meet at offices of ex-Trump chief Mark Meadows

I wouldn’t say “old guard” those guys are long gone from the R house by now. I would call this meeting with the real “secret cabal” meeting with a shadowy think tank Super PAC hmm they don’t even hide that they are all owned men.

[Brian Swartz]

I'd be in favor of having a non-operational House for two months if that's what it took to find a better Speaker.

[JPhillips]

We're just guaranteeing a crisis over the debt limit and a shutdown over the budget. Glad I'm not about to retire.

[PilotMan]

This really sums up the moment for me. As soon as all this is over with the R's they will never have ever uttered a bad word about the other ever.

Winston well knew, it was only four years since Oceania had been at war with Eastasia and in alliance with Eurasia. But that was merely a piece of furtive knowledge which he happened to possess because his memory was not satisfactorily under control. Officially the change of partners had never happened. Oceania was at war with Eurasia: therefore Oceania had always been at war with Eurasia. The enemy of the moment always represented absolute evil, and it followed that any past or future agreement with him was impossible.

[bronconick]

McCarthy didn't do the math, again. Mike Rogers from Alabama almost hit Gaetz

[kingfc22]

Hahah. GOP getting everything it deserves. What a clusterfuck

[Jas_lov]

Maybe Gaetz played him. Told him he'd vote yes and voted present instead.

[PilotMan]

This was pretty funny....

The vote has ended essentially deadlocked, with Kevin McCarthy at 216 votes, and the entire drama unfolded with Florida’s Matt Gaetz as the key vote. He needed vote for McCarthy to put him over the top, but instead voted “present.” McCarthy and his top allies rushed over to Gaetz, who is sitting next to Colorado’s Lauren Boebert and a dramatic showdown is happening. At one point a McCarthy ally, Mike Rogers of Alabama, stormed into the huddle and seemed on the brink of violence, but he retreated to a cloakroom off the floor.

[PilotMan]

Why were you surprised when the snake bit you and you died? It's a fucking snake.

[kingfc22]

And now they want to adjourn until Monday. Great job working for the people GOP

[Jas_lov]

Now voting to adjourn until Monday. What a cluster. They were supposed to vote on rules tonight so Kevin must have thought he had Gaetz.

[bronconick]

He was so confident earlier today. If he couldn't get it now, McCarthy might be done.

[PilotMan]

If only Gaetz had been forced to resign by his colleagues for his you know, fucking underage girls. But that's cool for R's now, cause he votes right.

[JPhillips]

At any time McCarthy or someone else from the GOP could cut a deal with some Dems and move on, but they all prefer this madness.

[Ksyrup]

I was looking for CSPAN and ran across Live PD.

[bronconick]

Gaetz is getting McCarthy's underage nieces or something

[JPhillips]

Looks like McCarthy thinks he now has Gaetz's vote and they are going to try again.

[Ksyrup]

Please do the Lucy football thing again, Gaetz.

[Edward64]

Gaetz is such a drama queen.

[Ksyrup]

The most sickening part is when (if) Gaetz votes yes, he's going to get some huge ovation like he's a big hero or something. What a fucking joke.

[Edward64]

Originally Posted by bronconick

McCarthy didn't do the math, again. Mike Rogers from Alabama almost hit Gaetz

Is this the pic?

[RainMaker]

In fairness to McCarthy, it sounds like Gaetz grudge is over McCarthy not backing him when he was exposed for fucking minors.

[Ksyrup]

So this going to be a win by extra present votes, I guess.

[Ksyrup]

MTG posted a tweet of her handing a phone to Gaetz and it says: "It was a perfect phone call." And you should read the comments from MAGA. She's now a RINO they want to primary. Hilarious

[JonInMiddleGA]

Based on the AP summary of things, some good some bad from the horsetrading I suppose

Other wins for the holdouts are more obscure and include provisions in the proposed deal to expand the number of seats available on the House Rules Committee, to mandate 72 hours for bills to be posted before votes and to promise to try for a constitutional amendment that would impose federal limits on the number of terms a person could serve in the House and Senate.

[CrimsonFox]

[stevew]

I’m pissed my Congressman didn’t hold out for favors if everyone else was getting a fkn pony

[GrantDawg]

So, the clock ticked off the vote to adjourn and the "yeas" had won by two votes. Then I woke up to get my pork butt started on the smoker, and somehow they had overturned that vote, and McCarthy is Speaker. Congress is crazy.

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[Edward64]

Originally Posted by JonInMiddleGA

Based on the AP summary of things, some good some bad from the horsetrading I suppose

I like the 72 hour rule, I like the try for term limits.

The 1 vote to oust speaker could get interesting, but willing to let it play out over the next 2 years. Arguably, it would force more bi-partisanship wheeling & dealing with the opposite side. When the Dems eventually win back the House, they can rollback, change etc. the compromises they don't like.

[Ksyrup]

It's the other stuff that's going to be awful. Like letting Congressmen who are being investigated investigate their own investigations. Getting rid of or curtailing the ethics committee, because several of them ignored valid subpoenas and were referred. It's hard to take any of them seriously, even if I generally support a couple of the things mentioned above, when they just authorized a 24 hour a day sideshow into conspiracies and shutting down valid inquiries into their own behavior.

[GrantDawg]

Originally Posted by Edward64

I like the 72 hour rule, I like the try for term limits.

The 1 vote to oust speaker could get interesting, but willing to let it play out over the next 2 years. Arguably, it would force more bi-partisanship wheeling & dealing with the opposite side. When the Dems eventually win back the House, they can rollback, change etc. the compromises they don't like.

Can you explain to me how it will force more bi-partisansjip? Because my understanding on the affect of that rule is if the Speaker agrees to allow a vote with Democrats, one of the Freedom Caucus nut bags are going to demand the Speaker be ousted. It means only the only negotiations allowed is from the far right extremist to the moderate Republicans. It is the least bi-partisan rule that could possibly be put in place.

[Edward64]

This post is in response to Brian & Miami_Fan's posts below.

I thought to bold and number the specific questions/statements that I am commenting on.

Originally Posted by Brian Swartz

Serious question: to what end? If it wasn't obvious before, I think the(1) Jan 6th investigations demonstrated conclusively that congressional investigations no longer serve a purpose. It didn't move public opinion at all. What good does it do to spend money investigating something when nothing will be done about it? (2) Let the agencies that have the power to prosecute do the investigating. Unless it's a prelude to a possible impeachment of a public official, Congress is just spinning it's wheels.

There was a time when it was useful of course, but I think it's clear that time has long since passed.

Originally Posted by miami_fan

To Brian's point, I invite you to go back in this thread almost two years ago to the day and take a look at things that you wanted answers to that had to come from a congressional investigation about January 6th. (3) Most if not all of those answers have been provided by the January 6th committee.

And?

What is the best case scenario now that this investigation has happened is what? Especially when you consider how the forming of the committee and the hearings etc. all played out.

(4) Why does it matter?

Here is a quote from one of our exchanges.

Everything is documented though a significant portion of the country don't believe what is documented. We know who called whom, we know the timeline, we know all the other failures. The final report is out. It is 845 pages long. Cool

Now what?

Specific to the question of congressional investigations as a whole per statement (1) I had already responded to Atocep's separate but related question in #6963. Basically, here's the list of key/big congressional investigations. There are some old ones but let's use the ones since 2000s.

10 of the best and worst congressional investigations of the last 100 years | WJLA

2014-2015 - VA Scandal. See The VA scandal of 2014, explained - Vox
2005-2006 - Hurricane Katrina. See https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/...109hrpt377.pdf
2001-2004 - 9/11. See 9/11 Commission - Wikipedia

Each have their findings & recommendations. Arguably, you may not agree with the findings and/or recommendations, and an argument can be made if they were implemented with the desired results. But they were made and recording lessons learn is always good.

For (2), that may work but when it reaches the level of congressional investigation, it's because the "issue" is too big/important for an agency; crosses multiple agencies; there is concern the agency won't do a good job; or there is political theatre. I'm going to generalize here. In my profession, I've worked with government & state agencies. I have little faith most can do a good introspection when they are they ones in the hot seat.

If you really meant having special counsel/prosecutors do these investigations instead of Congress, I'm all for it. But there is still a role for congressional investigations if something is too big (e.g. 9/11). Also, special counsels are appointed (or not) by the AG so there may be some bias there.

For (3) & (4), miami_fan is asking "so what".

A little detour so you know where I'm coming from ...

My background is implementing ERP systems for Fortune 500 companies. It is not unusual that $20B+ companies have several, disparate systems that contains the same basic info (e.g. number of employees) but may NOT match each other because one system(s) isn't updated regularly or there are different definitions of what an employee is etc.

As part of what I do, I implement systems with agreed upon "single source of truth" for different pieces of data. Every company wants to get their information from the "source of truth". It saves confusion, ultimately money, and provides timely & accurate reports for management

So specifically for the Jan 6 investigation - a "single source of truth" has been established and in the history books. It really doesn't matter there are still some deniers. The victors write the history books and unless MAGA takes over Congress and writes something that supersedes the Jan 6 report, these findings & recommendations are here to stay.

And yeah, this will be half-a-page or a full page in the high school American History books, and more in college Political Science books in 10 years. Movies will be made. With Jan 6 out there in books & society, hopefully the (majority of) younger generation will take their voting responsibilities seriously, future politicians will warn of parallels etc.

Jan 6 investigation also stands out as the key recommendations are somewhat toothless (e.g. recommending Trump to be barred). However, in my above list of 3 other congressional investigations, I don't think those recommendations were toothless.

I will also contend the Jan 6 did have an impact on the mid-terms. Maybe not directly but certainly in the psyche of independent voters. Also, it's impact is yet to be seen in 2024 if Trump stays in it.

[Edward64]

Originally Posted by Brian Swartz

There's little difference between the poll you linked and the Monmouth one. It shows a 3% movement among voters overall with a 2% margin of error. Even among independents it's only 7%, and there is some natural variance over time. Also of course that 7% is the point of greatest impact, with plenty of time to erode before the vote.

If you look the tracking poll on 538 for generic ballot over the election: National : Generic ballot : 2022 Polls | FiveThirtyEight, you can see that the generic ballot lead for Republicans peaked early May, and reached it's low point in mid-late September, months after the press coverage of the hearings had receded.

I agree that Dems/GOP probably did not change that much. I am talking about Independents. And yes, admittedly those stats from my prior article are not immediately before/after midterms.

Here's another poll just before. PA, GA, AZ all battleground states.

Independents broke for Democrats by 4 points in midterms: AP survey | The Hill

In key battleground states, independents supported Democrats by an even wider margin than on the national level, according to polling numbers reported by The Wall Street Journal, a recipient of the national NORC survey.

In Pennsylvania, independents broke for Democrats by 18 points, and they supported the party over the GOP by 28 points in Georgia and 30 points in Arizona.

Here's another article as a whole

https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/yout...ry?id=92993573

In strong Republican years, ABC exit polling shows, independents typically break for the GOP -- by 7 points in 2016, 14 in 2014 and 19 in 2010. This year, according to exit polling, independents voted for Democratic House candidates over Republicans by 2 points.

This trend comes as 93% of Democrats said Biden was legitimately elected, as did 64% of independents -- a margin closer than the 28% of Republicans who said the same and an indication that Donald Trump's lies about the 2020 race have been somewhat widely rejected.

Among independents who accepted Biden as legitimate, 68% voted Democratic for the House.

I will continue to question the Monmouth poll and its definition of "Independent". If you have insights let me know. In my other post, I said below. I did not see an analysis/breakdown of Independents in the Monmouth poll?

1) The Monmouth poll methodology section said self-reported demographics below. I don't know the question/phrasing they used, but 45% Independent automatically brings questions of its validity.

26% Republican
45% Independent
29% Democrat

It's more comfortable to imagine that investigations like this move the needle, but unfortunately all we can do is imagine it. The most we can say about the hearings is that they possibly contributed in a very small way to larger trends, but there's nothing that resulted from them that stands out from the normal political noise.

I won't push this any further - if you don't agree I accept that, but I don't see any good reason to think the hearings had a noticeable impact.

We'll agree to disagree, especially when discussing Independents

[Edward64]

Originally Posted by GrantDawg

Can you explain to me how it will force more bi-partisansjip? Because my understanding on the affect of that rule is if the Speaker agrees to allow a vote with Democrats, one of the Freedom Caucus nut bags are going to demand the Speaker be ousted. It means only the only negotiations allowed is from the far right extremist to the moderate Republicans. It is the least bi-partisan rule that could possibly be put in place.

This is how it would work.

(Note its not likely to be an immediate vote, there'll be time for backroom discussions)

A member would have to introduce the resolution on the floor. If they introduce it as a "privileged" resolution, it would force the House to take it up at some point.

Most likely, there wouldn't be a quick up-or-down vote on removing the speaker. It could be delayed for a certain period of time, and there could be a number of procedural votes as well -- on whether to refer it to a committee or on whether it is considered appropriate.

If it does come to the floor for a vote, the motion needs a simple majority to pass. Thus, if all members are present and voting, it would need just 218 votes to pass in this Congress, the same number of votes McCarthy needs to become Speaker of the House.

McCarthy should want to make some friends with Dems who could give him some breathing room to offset a GOP revolt from Drama Queen Gaetz or Miss Universe Boebert. It gives him Dem votes if it comes down to a motion of vacate.

If he POs the entire Dem caucus, then he'll know he can't count on their votes. If he appears "reasonable" and willing to deal, I'd think the Dems would prefer him.

But yes, he can't get too cozy with the Dems. A 2-edge sword here for sure.

If Democrats did vote to remove the speaker, that would give McCarthy a cushion of four votes. He would be removed if five or more Republicans voted with all Democrats.

However, the last time this came up, in 2015, Democrats signaled they wouldn't go along with any plan to remove then-Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, largely because they feared a more conservative speaker would emerge.

[GrantDawg]

I don't buy at all that is how it will work.