Last Call For Losing The Clown Show

House GOP Speaker Kevin McCarthy has now fully lost control of his own caucus, with Rep. Lauren Boebert now trying to force an impeachment vote on President Biden as well as a second censure vote for Democratic Rep. Adam Schiff.

Speaker Kevin McCarthy urged House Republicans to vote against the resolution brought forward by GOP Rep. Lauren Boebert of Colorado forcing a vote to impeach President Joe Biden this week, arguing now is not the right time, multiple sources in the closed door meeting told CNN.

House Republicans are divided over Boebert’s resolution, with a number of members emerging from the meeting expressing frustration with the conservative congresswoman’s push to force a vote on the politically contentious issue.

McCarthy argued that Republicans should let committee investigations play out and warning that jumping to impeachment now could threaten their slim majority, the sources said. The speaker noted that House Republicans have taken back the House five times in the last 100 years, and two of those times lost the majority the next cycle.

“What majority do we want to be,” McCarthy asked his conference, according to a source in the room “Give it right back in two years or hold it for a decade and make real change?”

McCarthy said he asked Boebert to speak during the closed door conference meeting and she declined, a source familiar told CNN. Boebert did not attend the Wednesday meeting, the source said. CNN has reached out to Boebert’s office for comment.

McCarthy told reporters on Wednesday he does not support the resolution.

“I think to prematurely bring something up like that, to have no background in it, it undercuts what we’re doing” at the committee level, he said.

A number of House Republicans have filed articles of impeachment against Biden since the party took the House majority, but Boebert made a specific procedural move on Tuesday that would force the chamber to vote on the impeachment of Biden this week.

It’s not clear when the vote will happen, if at all. Boebert told CNN she would not force the full House to vote Wednesday night, and it’s still possible a vote to kill the impeachment resolution could happen later this week.

Now, it's 100% clear that Boebert doesn't have the votes, but McCarthy is now juggling bottles of nitroglycerin during an earthquake. If he kills the vote, he's going to have a revolt on his hands. If he allows the vote, he's also going to have a revolt on his hands.  He's survived so far, but less than six months into his term as House Speaker, he's already looking at a moment that could break his circus tent poles in half and bring the whole mess down on his head.

There's not much left for McCarthy to give away to keep Boebert sweet, and it'll only take one furious Republican to call for a vote of no confidence in McCarthy's ringmaster performance.

Get the popcorn, folks.

 

Last Call For Bringing Down Boebert

After barely missing beating GOP Rep. Lauren Boebert last November, she's at the top of the list of flippable seats for Dems going into 2024 House races.

Democrats are gearing up to challenge Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.) again after nearly unseating her in one of the biggest surprises of last year’s midterms.

In a sign of her perceived vulnerability, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) this week highlighted Boebert’s district as one of 31 targets next year, even after former President Trump handily won it in the past two presidential elections.

For Democrats, Boebert’s high-profile media antics and close ties to Trump’s MAGA (Make America Great Again) movement make her a prime foil.

“One of our most effective comments that we talked about in the district was she’s not focused on the job, she’s focused on herself,” said Adam Frisch, the Democrat who nearly defeated Boebert last year and who is running again to unseat her in 2024. “I can’t believe she had almost the most embarrassing loss in 20 years and she hasn’t changed one iota. She’s actually doubled down on crazy.”

That sentiment is one that Frisch, a businessman and former city council member in Pitkin County, will continue to hammer home in the run-up to the general election next year.

Boebert’s firebrand style has resulted in a long list of controversies in her short congressional career, including a Democratic push to have her removed from House committees after her Islamophobic attacks on Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) and her staunch support of Trump’s claims that the 2020 election was stolen from him.

She emerged from her first election victory, defeating 10-year Republican incumbent Rep. Scott Tipton in the primary, as a star of the right wing of the GOP, tying herself closely to then-President Trump. Former Chair of the Colorado Republican Party Dick Wadhams remembered Boebert’s rabble-rousing speaking appearances ahead of the election, focusing on issues like gun rights and cultural issues.

“She took that very combative style to her everyday work in the U.S. House of Representatives,” Wadhams said. “I think it started the people in the third congressional district thinking that she wasn’t paying enough attention to the district as she was paying more attention to national politics.”

But the behaviors that Wadhams said may have pushed away some voters in the district also made her a national conservative media star and turned her into one of the GOP’s powerhouse fundraisers in Congress. She raked in nearly $8 million for the 2022 cycle.

“She’s always been a fundraising machine so she’s certainly going to have enough money,” Wadhams said.

But with national Democrats identifying the race as one of their priorities in 2024, Frisch, who in part self-financed his campaign with more than $2.2 million in loans in 2022, might be able to stock a campaign chest comparable with Boebert’s. Through the first quarter of 2023, Frisch raised more than $1.7 million in just over a month after announcing his campaign. Boebert has yet to release her fundraising numbers for the first quarter.

Frisch has pitched himself as an unabashedly moderate Democrat, focusing on agricultural and energy production issues. As the debate over an approaching debt ceiling rages in Washington, many Democrats have taken the stance that cuts to entitlement programs — like Social Security and Medicare — should be off the table as Republicans angle for spending slashes. Frisch ventured into territory that only a select number of Democrats have, arguing that while Congress should raise the debt ceiling, it does need to take a look at the long-term viability of entitlement programs.

“There are three or four big programs that control the vast majority of the budget, and then there’s everything else,” Frisch said. “So I think it’s hard to say we’re going to keep 85 percent of the budget off the table … even if you get rid of 600 percent of the 15 percent that’s left over, you might have a math problem.”

But Frisch will have to walk a tightrope in the run-up to 2024 in a district that Trump won by 12 points in 2016 and 6 points in 2020. Republicans have already tried to tie Frisch to what they say are the reckless crime policies of the Democratic Party.

“Extreme House Democrats lost the majority because they hammered families with crime, chaos and skyrocketing costs,” said Jack Pandol, communications director for the National Republican Congressional Committee. “Why would voters change their minds after Democrats spent their time in the minority coddling violent criminals and opposing relief?”

 

"Extreme Democrats" almost kept the majority. With Trump on the ballot in 2024, Republicans are in dire trouble, and they know it. Trying to convince voters that Republicans are somehow the sane ones after the events of the last seven days, well, good luck with that.

 

Don't get me wrong, tens of millions of Americans will still vote for Republicans nationwide, and of course for Trump.

 

But they'll be outnumbered.

Welcome To Gunmerica, GOP House Edition

Less than two weeks after GOP Rep. Lauren Boebert was barely reelected by the thinnest of margins, her hateful homophobic rhetoric has resulted in a deadly shooting at a gay nightclub in her Colorado Springs district.

 

A 22-year-old gunman opened fire in a gay nightclub in Colorado Springs, killing five people and injuring 18 before he was subdued by “heroic” patrons and arrested by police who were on the scene within minutes, authorities said Sunday.

Two firearms, including a “long rifle,” were found at Club Q after the Saturday night shooting, said Police Chief Adrian Vasquez.

Investigators were still determining a motive, and the attack was being investigated to see if it rises to the level of a hate crime, said El Paso County District Attorney Michael Allen.

Police identified the gunman as Anderson Lee Aldrich, who was in custody and being treated for injuries. A man with the same name and age was arrested in 2021 after his mother reported he threatened her with “a homemade bomb, multiple weapons and ammunition,” according to authorities.

Police did not confirm whether it was the same person, saying they were investigating whether the suspect had been arrested before.

Authorities were called to the Club Q at 11:57 p.m. Saturday with a report of a shooting, and the first officer arrived at midnight.

“At least two heroic people” confronted the gunman and stopped the shooting, Vasquez said, adding: “We owe them a great debt of thanks.”

Attorney General Merrick Garland was briefed on the shooting, Justice Department spokesman Anthony Coley said. The FBI said it was assisting but said the police department was leading the investigation.

The violence is the sixth mass killing this month and comes in a year when the nation was shaken by the deaths of 21 in a school shooting in Uvalde, Texas.

 

Yet another example of how a mass shooter's deadly rampage was prefaced by known violence against a woman in his life. 

And while America debates whether or not Boebert's previously homophobic and hateful statements are responsible for the shooting, at least one right-wing social media star is absolutely taking credit for inciting murder of LGBTQ+ Americans.

This is 9 hours apart. Chaya Raichik (@LibsofTikTok) is bragging about inciting the attack. She knows she’ll get away with it. The last time she posted about Colorado was weeks ago. This is not a coincidence but open gloating that she’ll never face accountability for her actions. pic.twitter.com/okio0zoBQE

— Eli Erlick (@EliErlick) November 20, 2022

 

The violence I've been predicting would come after the 2022 midterms is already here.

 

More will follow.