West makes insightful comment then crumbles into the truth in it - Cornel West returns donation from Harlan Crow
"Jim Jordan is the Michael Jordan of Not Getting Elected Speaker"
by Tara Suter - 10/20/23 4:38 PM ET
Independent presidential candidate Cornel West said Friday he returned a controversial donation from Harlan Crow — the billionaire with controversial links to Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas.
“How sad that perceptions so quickly triumph over truth in our decadent culture,” West said in a post on X, formerly known as Twitter. “This holds in our major catastrophe in the Middle East where the rich humanity of Palestinians is rendered invisible. It also holds at home in the minor scandal about Harlan Crow’s donation to my campaign.”
“He is a staunch anti-Trump Republican who has ‘Never Forget’ collections of tyrants (Stalin, Mao, Hitler, and many others) and patriotic collections of Washington, Jefferson, and Lincoln,” West continued. “Does this disqualify him from contributing to my campaign? Most people holler yes, I say no.”
Still, he said, he decided to return the money.
West defended his acceptance of the contribution, despite criticism.
“As an independent candidate and a free Black man, I accept donations within the limits of no PACs or corporate interest groups that have strings attached,” West said in a Thursday post on X. “I am unbought and unbossed.”
“Despite my deep political differences with brother Harlan Crow (who is an anti-Trump Republican), I’ve known him in a non-political setting for some years and I pray for his precious family,” West’s post continued. “I find it hypocritical for those who highlight his $3300 donation to my campaign but can’t say a mumbling word about the PAC-driven billion dollars to support the genocidal attack in Gaza sponsored by their candidate!”
Crow also donated to former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie’s 2024 campaign.
The billionaire has been in the spotlight most recently for providing flights and gifts to Thomas, which were undisclosed until a ProPublica report made it public. Crow also paid for a house in Georgia for the justice’s mother.
Republicans Heads' EXPLODE As Hakeem Jeffries Speaker Truth Crashes Down
The Damage Report
46,822 views Oct 23, 2023 #TheDamageReport #JohnIadarola #TheYoungTurks
House Republicans continue to blow up their own party as House Speaker chaos continues and Hakeem Jeffries calls out potential of Democrats and Republicans working together against Donald Trump supporter Republicans to select a new Speaker of the House. Rayyvana and Sen. Nina Turner break it down on The Damage Report.
"Top House Democrat Hakeem Jeffries confirmed Sunday that “informal conversations have been underway” for a bipartisan solution to the leadership crisis in the US House of Representatives.
The legislative chamber has been without a speaker since 5 October when Republican right-wingers voted to remove California’s Kevin McCarthy from his position and Democrats did not step in with votes to secure him, effectively paralyzing the body.
Since then, Steve Scalise of Louisiana has failed to get enough support from his own party to win a vote to get the role. Next up is set to be Donald Trump ally Jim Jordan of Ohio, but it remains doubtful whether he too can garner enough votes to succeed."
One GOP suggestion: Bring on the booze. Only drunkenness can solve this. Emmer Drops Speaker Bid After Right-Wing Backlash
"Anyway, the Speaker Games resume next Tuesday. Announced or rumored candidates include Tom Emmer, Byron Donalds, Harvey Dent, Pete Sessions, Humbert Humbert, Kevin Hern, Jack Bergman, James Woods, Jodey Arrington, A Teddy Ruxpin Doll Containing a Recording of Strom Thurmond Yelling at a Hispanic Waitress, Mark Green, and the guy Lauren Boebert jacked off at Beetlejuice. https://www.vox.com/politics/2023/10/20/23925624/house-speaker-jordan-emmer-hern-bergman"
Tom Emmer, the House G.O.P.’s No. 3 leader, narrowly won his party’s nomination but drew an immediate backlash from right-wing colleagues and former President Donald J. Trump.
Representative Tom Emmer’s narrow nomination suggested that Republicans are far from breaking the deadlock of picking a new speaker. Haiyun Jiang for The New York Times
By Luke Broadwater Reporting from the Capitol
Oct. 24, 2023 Updated 7:15 p.m. ET
Representative Tom Emmer of Minnesota, the No. 3 House Republican, dropped his bid for speaker on Tuesday hours after securing his divided party’s nomination, following a swift backlash from the right, including former President Donald J. Trump, left his candidacy in shambles.
Mr. Emmer’s abrupt exit signaled that Republicans were as far as ever from breaking a deadlock that has left Congress leaderless and paralyzed for three weeks. It made Mr. Emmer the third Republican this month to be chosen to lead the party, only to have his bid collapse in a seemingly endless cycle of G.O.P. grievances, personality conflicts and ideological rifts.
Republicans have now succeeded in repudiating all three of their top leaders over the past few weeks. The chamber has been frozen for the better part of a month as Republicans feud over who should be in charge, even as wars rage overseas and a government shutdown approaches.
By late Tuesday afternoon, they were back to the drawing board. Republicans huddled behind closed doors for the second evening in a row to hear from five potential nominees and choose a candidate. They were prepared to go to the floor for a vote of the full House as soon as Wednesday if anyone could muster a majority, but it remained unclear if that was possible amid the current strife.
“It’s a pretty sad commentary on governance right now,” said Representative Steve Womack of Arkansas, adding: “The American public cannot be looking at this and having any reasonable confidence that this conference can be governed. It’s sad. I’m sad. I’m heartbroken.”
Tuesday’s breakdown was the latest evidence of the seemingly unending Republican dysfunction. Mr. Emmer began the day with a scant victory, winning an internal party nominating contest by a vote of 117 to 97 over a right-wing rival, Representative Mike Johnson of Louisiana. But the margin reflected that House Republicans were still deeply at odds.
What Congress Can’t Get Done Amid the Speaker Fight .. links inside ..
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A legislative standstill. Republican disunity in the House over who will be the next speaker has left the chamber hobbled at a time of international and domestic crises. Here is a look at the big tasks Congress faces as G.O.P. infighting continues:
An aid package for Israel. There is a broad bipartisan consensus on the need to rush additional military support to Israel for its war against Hamas. But the speakership vacuum means there is no certainty about how soon any aid could be approved and delivered.
More assistance for Ukraine. A White House request for $24 billion in additional funding for Ukraine’s war against Russia is on hold during the speaker fight. Republican opposition to continued aid for Kyiv, once confined to the far right, has been growing recently.
Avoiding a government shutdown. Congress, which is operating under a temporary extension of last year’s spending bills, has until Nov. 17 to fund the government. The stopgap measure cost Kevin McCarthy his speakership; it is not clear how his successor might avoid a similar fate.
Then immediately after Mr. Emmer’s nomination, about two dozen right-wing Republicans indicated that they would not vote for him on the floor, denying him the majority he would need to succeed in a vote of the full House. And as he met with holdouts to try to win them over, the former president issued a scathing statement on social media expressing vehement opposition to Mr. Emmer, calling him a “Globalist RINO” — short for “Republican in name only” — whose elevation would be a “tragic mistake.”
“I have many wonderful friends wanting to be Speaker of the House, and some are truly great Warriors,” Mr. Trump wrote on Truth Social. “RINO Tom Emmer, who I do not know well, is not one of them. He never respected the Power of a Trump Endorsement, or the breadth and scope of MAGA—MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!”
[Insert: A majority of Americans never wanted an ethics-free, mentally unstable, power-hungry megalomaniac as president, yet American conservatives gave them one. Now he is doing Putin's work better than even Putin would ever have imagined he would. The Trump Cult is about the worst illness contemporary America has experienced. Many of us labelled Trump a virus in 2016. That seven years ago no one could have anticipated that virus would be as destructive as it have turned out to be. See: The Trump Virus: How to Constrain Its Spread http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=124117361 linked bottom here - He’ll Take the Low Road: Trump’s Tortured History With Scotland https://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=126310013]
A majority of those opposed to Mr. Emmer were members of the ultraconservative House Freedom Caucus and loyal to Mr. Trump. Any candidate for speaker can lose only a handful of votes and still win the speakership because Republicans hold such a small majority in the House.
Only hours later, Mr. Emmer told Republicans in a closed-door meeting that he was dropping his bid, according to a person familiar with his decision who divulged the private discussion on the condition of anonymity. He then quickly left the room, avoiding reporters’ questions.
By Tuesday evening, five more Republicans, none with a national profile, had put their names forward as potential nominees: Mr. Johnson; Representative Byron Donalds of Florida, a member of the Freedom Caucus; Representative Mark E. Green of Tennessee, the chairman of the Homeland Security Committee; Representative Chuck Fleischmann of Tennessee, who heads an Appropriations subcommittee; and Representative Roger Williams of Texas, chairman of the Small Business Committee.
The Republican disarray underscored a new ethos that has gripped the House G.O.P.: Dozens of members have abandoned the old norms of respecting the winner of the party’s internal elections, and instead are acting according to their individual preferences, ideologies and allegiances.
Some hard-right Republicans consider themselves a distinct political party from their more mainstream, business-minded colleagues, whom they accuse of being in a “uniparty” with Democrats.
The House has been in a state of uncertainty and chaos since Oct. 3, when rebels forced a vote to oust Kevin McCarthy .. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/03/us/politics/kevin-mccarthy-speaker.html .. as speaker. Eight Republicans backed that move along with Democrats, who remained united behind their own leader, Representative Hakeem Jeffries of New York. Republicans have cast aside two previous winners of their closed-door nominating process — Representative Steve Scalise of Louisiana and Representative Jim Jordan of Ohio — before settling on Mr. Emmer.
[LOYALTY TO MR. TRUMP. Man, that is SICK AMERICA.]
Mr. Emmer had attempted to mollify Mr. Trump by calling him over the weekend and praising him, according to the former president. But Mr. Trump made clear he had not been won over.
“I believe he has now learned his lesson, because he is saying that he is Pro-Trump all the way, but who can ever be sure?” Mr. Trump wrote. “Has he only changed because that’s what it takes to win? The Republican Party cannot take that chance, because that’s not where the America First Voters are. Voting for a Globalist RINO like Tom Emmer would be a tragic mistake!”
Old rivalries also helped to tank Mr. Emmer’s speakership bid. Feelings remained raw from a contentious race for his current post against Representative Jim Banks of Indiana.
“I can’t go along with putting one of the most moderate members of the entire Republican conference in the speaker’s chair,” Mr. Banks said. “That betrays the conservative values that I came here to fight for.”
The current free-for-all left more mainstream members of the party fuming.
“Our conference has been essentially at war with itself,” said Representative Brandon Williams of New York, who represents a district won by President Biden. He called the situation “disheartening” and reminiscent of the movie “Groundhog Day.”
“Most of the country’s concerned about inflation, what they’re experiencing at the grocery store, and they would like to see Congress stand up and act like adults,” Mr. Williams said.
A former college ice hockey player and coach, Mr. Emmer, 62, currently holds the job of “whip .. https://www.nytimes.com/live/2023/10/24/us/house-speaker-vote#tom-emmer-house-speaker ,” the chief vote counter for the party. He served two terms as the chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee, helping Republican candidates around the country win elections and making inroads across the conference in the process. But that was not enough for the party’s right flank.
Republicans were growing increasingly frustrated with the spectacle of their own chaos. Late Tuesday afternoon, Representative Thomas Massie of Kentucky suggested that the only way to bridge the party’s divisions was to get everyone drunk.
“I think they’re going to have to bring alcohol in there to solve this,” he said. “There’s some angry drunks that can fight it out. There’s some friendly drunks like me. But I don’t see this happening without alcohol.”
Catie Edmondson, Robert Jimison and Kayla Guo contributed reporting.
Luke Broadwater covers Congress. He was the lead reporter on a series of investigative articles at The Baltimore Sun that won a Pulitzer Prize and a George Polk Award in 2020. More about Luke Broadwater
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