Republicans Are In Complete Chaos

In both Washington DC and Austin, Texas, the GOP seems incapable of running their own party, let alone the government.

After 14 days of waiting for Congress to vote for the Speaker of the House, they finally held a losing vote for Jim Jordan. There are 30 days left until the government shuts down again. Congress still doesn’t have a speaker and cannot move forward with anything until they do.

After the losing vote today, it’s rumored that Jordan will lose support. But maybe they’ll go back to the floor tomorrow and try again. It’s remarkable that the GOP in our nation’s capitol is so divided and can’t come together even to pick a leader. It mirrors the chaos we’ve been seeing in Texas this year.

Four Texas House members have banded together to cause chaos within the House Republican Caucus. Those members are Tony Tinderholt, Steve Toth, Nate Schatzline, and Brian Harrison. (I wanted to call them the carpetbagger caucus, but Harrison is from Dallas.)

Yesterday, Tinderholt, Toth, and Harrison banded together to call for the suspension of the House Parliamentarian Hugh Brady.

They’re saying Conservative priorities were killed because Brady didn’t rule in their favor when Democrats called points of order after GOP bills broke House rules.

There are two House Parliamentarians. Why this group has chosen to target one and not the other probably lies in his voting record or his associates. In other words, culture war bullshit. Hugh Brady is not an elected official. He’s a House employee, which makes their attack more despicable.

Tinderholt appears to be the leader of this group and is still aching over Speaker Phelan shutting him down. He sent the Speaker a letter yesterday about vacating the chair.

In case you missed it, or in case you need a reason to laugh, here is when Phelan bitchslapped Tinderholt on the back mic:

That clip may never get old.

Tinderholt started his letter with, “Your actions last Thursday were the most tyrannical actions I have ever witnessed during the entirety of my service in the Texas House.”

I hope someone tells Tony we’re laughing at him and not with him. He went on to ask:

• Is the proper term for a motion to remove a sitting Speaker from a motion to vacate the chair?

• If a member wanted to lay out such a motion, what would be the proper way to do that?

I expect Dade Phelan will not answer this letter. I also suspect that Tinderholt will not have the support in the House to remove Tinderholt.

Also, yesterday, the four group members took it upon themselves to meet with Steve McGraw from DPS about the border. As members of the Legislature, they can meet with any Texas official at any time. However, it’s interesting that these four have consistently banded together on issues and were in this meeting yesterday.

To be clear, Tony Tinderholt’s career as a legislator is over. Even if he is re-elected (and I hope he’s not), he’s alienated every Democrat and most Republicans. He will never get another bill or amendment passed as long as he’s in office.

The three Republicans chasing his coattails are headed for the same path. A few things that should be noted.

• All four members took money from either the Defend Texas Liberty PAC or Jonathan Stickland. (I thought Toth was the exception, but he took money from Stickland and Empower Texas in 2018.)

• All four members have refused to denounce white supremacy or Nazism on the heels of Nazigate.

• All four members have prioritized culture war over kitchen table issues.

• All four members have voted on and advocated for racism and bigotry.

• Aside from Brian Harrison, the other three are not Texas natives.

Meanwhile, in DC, three Texas Republicans broke rank and voted against Jim Jordan.

Jake Ellzey, Kay Granger, and Tony Gonzalez voted for someone else. Jim Jordan is a fucking terrible pick. It just proves that the GOP is incapable of functioning.

Jordan is an insurrectionist, a man who refused to stand up for his sexually abused students, and a sponge on American taxpayers’ monies who has never passed one piece of legislation in his 16 years in office.

So, why did Republicans choose him?

Texas State Senator Paul Bettencourt has called those three Republicans out and is attempting to release the hounds on them to get them to change their votes.

Is there anything serious Republicans are doing?

Not in Washington, DC. In Austin, they’ve been holding hearings for some awful border legislation. If you follow me on Twitter, you’ll probably see some clips. Yesterday’s hearing was over six hours long, and they have another hearing on Thursday.

There are 15 days left in the special session, and things aren’t moving along as you would expect. The House still hasn’t even scheduled any hearings for vouchers. Several border bills are terrible and will add more than $1 billion to the Texas budget. The border bills will likely go to the full House, where Democrats will try and kill them before the clock runs out.

It may turn out to be a very unproductive special session. We’ll see. I’ll give you a more in-depth report on these bills after the Thursday hearing, which will focus on Colony Ridge. Far-right media has labeled this community in Liberty County an “undocumented safe haven.” However, residents and developers have denied that claim. It is likely a Hispanic community targeted by propaganda and fear campaigns.

Are we watching the death of the Republican Party? Let’s hope so, and maybe something more reasonable and less insane will rise from the ashes. Stay tuned.