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The GOP Is in a Revolution

October 8, 2015 at 9:36 pm EDT By Taegan Goddard 47 Comments

Chris Cillizza: “There is a revolution happening within the Republican party right now. The establishment’s hold on power is more tenuous than it has been at any time in recent memory. There is no one currently in office that can claim with any credibility that he or she speaks “for” the party as a whole.”

“That’s a remarkable development since, for decades, the GOP was known as the party that, eventually, got in line… No longer. McCarthy’s demise comes hard on the heels of Boehner bowing out of the speakership as a sort of human sacrifice to the tea party right. And it happens as Donald Trump is in the midst of his fourth consecutive month as the Republican front-runner for the party’s presidential nomination — and with Ben Carson and Carly Fiorina, two other people who have never held elected office before, running in second and third place, respectively.”

Inside the Great Recession

October 8, 2015 at 9:20 pm EDT By Taegan Goddard 2 Comments

Michael Kinsley says Ben Bernake’s new memoir “is undoubtedly the best account we will ever have of how government and financial institutions dealt with what has come to be known as the Great Recession.”

Another Sign Points to Biden Running

October 8, 2015 at 9:01 pm EDT By Taegan Goddard 19 Comments

Aides to Vice President Joe Biden “held a meeting this week with Democratic National Committee staffers. They briefed Biden’s aides on arcane but crucial rules that the Vice-President would need to understand if he decides to run,” the Ryan Lizza reports.

“It was the most significant sign the source had seen to indicate Biden’s intentions.”

Said one source: “I think it means he’s running.”

Was Ben Carson Really Held at Gunpoint?

October 8, 2015 at 8:59 pm EDT By Taegan Goddard 37 Comments

Ben Carson claimed that he once encountered a gunman in a Popeyes restaurant in Baltimore, CNN reports, but when the Daily Beast “pressed Carson’s advisor for more information, he first pointed to a retelling of the stickup in one of Carson’s autobiographies that does not exist, and later attempted to revise when and how the robbery occurred.”

“The stick-up story came days after the retired neurosurgeon came under intense criticism after a Monday interview with Fox & Friends, where he seemed to suggest the victims of the Oregon school shooting could have done more to stay alive.”

Carson Gains on Trump Nationally

October 8, 2015 at 8:50 pm EDT By Taegan Goddard 17 Comments

A new Fairleigh Dickinson poll finds Donald Trump leading the GOP presidential field with 26%, followed by Ben Carson at 22%, Marco Rubio at 8%, Jeb Bush at 7%, Carly Fiorina at 7%, Mike Huckabee at 6% and Ted Cruz at 5%.

In the Democratic race, Hillary Clinton leads with 45%, followed by Bernie Sanders at 23% and Joe Biden at 17%.

Bonus Quote of the Day

October 8, 2015 at 7:24 pm EDT By Taegan Goddard 38 Comments

“It is total confusion — a banana republic. Any plan, anything you anticipate, who knows what’ll happen. People are crying. They don’t have any idea how this will unfold at all.”

— Rep. Peter King (R-NY), quoted by the Washington Post, as he recounted seeing a handful of House Republicans weeping over the downfall of Kevin McCarthy and the broader discord within the Republican party.

GOP Pleads with Paul Ryan to Run for Speaker

October 8, 2015 at 7:22 pm EDT By Taegan Goddard 39 Comments

Speaker John Boehner “personally asked House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-WI) to run for speaker over two long phone conversations… Boehner has told Ryan that he is the only person who can unite the House GOP at a time of turmoil,” the Washington Post reports.

Politico: “The Wisconsin Republican is getting bombarded with calls and one-on-one appeals from GOP lawmakers urging him to be the party’s white knight. Boehner has had multiple conversations with the Ways and Means chairman. Even before he dropped his own bid, McCarthy told Ryan he should do it.”

Did McCarthy Quit Race Over Affair Rumors?

October 8, 2015 at 7:20 pm EDT By Taegan Goddard 7 Comments

“In the hours before House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) abruptly withdrew his candidacy to be the next speaker of the House, he was sent an email from a conservative activist threatening to expose an alleged affair with a colleague,” the Huffington Post reports.

The subject line: “Kevin, why not resign like Bob Livingston?”

Trump Quote of the Day

October 8, 2015 at 5:47 pm EDT By Taegan Goddard 12 Comments

“It’s bedlam in Washington right now. It’s a mess.”

— Donald Trump, quoted by MSNBC, taking credit for pushing Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) out of the Speaker’s race.

We All Get ‘Free Stuff’

October 8, 2015 at 5:44 pm EDT By Taegan Goddard 32 Comments

Bryce Covert takes issue with Jeb Bush’s comments that Democrats use “free stuff” to win voters and points out that there’s “a whole treasure trove of government handouts that aren’t dispensed through spending, but rather through the tax code.”

“So while low-income Americans are more likely to get health insurance through Medicaid, well-off Americans are the ones who reap the benefit of health insurance tax breaks. Poor families might be able to get Section 8 apartment vouchers or spots in public housing, but the mortgage interest deduction overwhelmingly helps people who make more than $100,000 a year buy their homes.”

“What the government loses to tax expenditures dwarfs spending on welfare programs. Each year, it spends about $17 billion on assistance to needy families and more than $70 billion on food stamps, compared with more than $900 billion that flows out through the tax code. It expends nearly three times as much on tax subsidies for homeowners as it does for rental assistance for the poor.”

Bush Opposes Re-authorizing the Voting Rights Act

October 8, 2015 at 5:37 pm EDT By Taegan Goddard 37 Comments

Jeb Bush said he does not support reauthorizing the Voting Rights Act, adding that there’s been “dramatic improvement” in access to voting in the past half century, CNN reports.

Said Bush: “If it’s to reauthorize it to continue to provide regulation on top of states as though we’re living in in 1960 — because those were basically when many of those rules were put in place — I don’t think we should do that.”

McCarthy Never Told Boehner He Would Drop Race

October 8, 2015 at 2:07 pm EDT By Taegan Goddard 63 Comments

House Speaker John Boehner “seemed to have no inkling on Thursday that his deputy, Rep. Kevin McCarthy, was preparing to withdraw from the speaker’s race,” the Cincinnati Enquirer reports.

Said Boehner, a few minutes before the vote: “I’m confident he’ll win today and I’m confident he’ll win on Oct. 29.”

“But even as he reflected on his 25-year congressional career and what he might do next, his House Republican conference was thrown into a fresh round of turmoil—one that might even delay the Ohio Republicans departure… Boehner immediately postponed the election, as he and his stunned colleagues scrambled to figure out their next move.”

A Republican Party in Total Chaos

October 8, 2015 at 2:03 pm EDT By Taegan Goddard 110 Comments

Matt Lewis: “The GOP’s presidential primary race legitimately risks nominating Donald Trump and descending into a parody. And now the Republican-controlled Congress is in total chaos. No one wants to be Speaker… All of this comes with the backdrop of a coming debt ceiling deadline in November that comes before another big budget vote in December.”

“What a mess. Could Republicans have imagined a more nightmarish series of political events a year out from a presidential election? Sadly, I doubt it.”

Time for a Bipartisan Speaker?

October 8, 2015 at 1:28 pm EDT By Taegan Goddard 69 Comments

Rep. Charlie Dent (R-PA) said that Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) withdrew from the Speaker’s race “because although he could have won a majority of the Republican Conference, he would not have had 218 votes on the House floor,” the Washington Post reports.

Dent also said it might be necessary to form a “bipartisan coalition” with Democrats to elect the next speaker and avoid having to appease the “rejectionist wing” of his own party, which he said has made the House ungovernable by insisting on “unreasonable demands.”

Quote of the Day

October 8, 2015 at 12:55 pm EDT By Taegan Goddard 23 Comments

“I had this terrible nightmare last night that I was trying to get out and I couldn’t get out. And a hand came reaching, pulling me.”

— Speaker John Boehner, quoted by The Hill.

McCarthy Drops Speaker Bid

October 8, 2015 at 12:38 pm EDT By Taegan Goddard 214 Comments

Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) has withdrawn from the race for House speaker and the election for the top post has been postponed, Politico reports.

New York Times: “As shocked members left the room there was a sense of total disarray, with no clear path forward and no set date for a new vote… A group of about 40 hard-line House conservatives announced Wednesday night that they would support Representative Daniel Webster of Florida, making it unclear whether Mr. McCarthy could assemble the 218 votes on the floor that he would need to be elected later this month.”

Koch Brothers Eye Marco Rubio for $1 Billion Prize

October 8, 2015 at 8:51 am EDT By Taegan Goddard 63 Comments

New York Daily News: “Slowly but surely, the GOP is narrowing down its list of presidential candidates. The big prize — aside from the presidency itself — is still the nearly $1 billion contribution the kingmaking Koch brothers, Charles and David, will reportedly throw behind the conservative agenda next year. According to a political insider who ran into David Koch at a recent event in Manhattan, Florida Sen. Rubio is the front-runner for dough now that Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker is out of the race.”

Lessig Waits for Debate Invite

October 8, 2015 at 8:48 am EDT By Taegan Goddard 25 Comments

“The Democratic nominating contest is getting lonely for Lawrence Lessig. Mr. Lessig, the Harvard law professor who rails against unfairness in campaign finance, shifted his message to the unfairness in the debate selection process and the fact that he had not been invited to next week’s gathering in Las Vegas,” the New York Times reports.

Said Lessig: “I’m surprised by the lack of recognition from the Democratic Party. It’s unclear how if you’re not a politician or a billionaire you get to a place where you are able to participate.”