Kevin McCarthy withdrew his bid for House Speaker, further cementing John Boehner's role as the personification of an exasperated sigh that the House deserves as its leader. Newt Gingrich said he would take the job, likening himself to George Washington, who also left politics after accruing $4 million worth of debt in a failed presidential bid. And the speaker mess is proving that Republican talking point about there being jobs available but not enough skilled workers to fill them. This is HUFFPOST HILL for Thursday, October 8, 2015:
MCCARTHY MELTDOWN - Mike McAuliff, Ryan Grim, Sam Levine: "House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) sparked shock, tears and chaos in the GOP Thursday by declaring he was withdrawing his name from the election to replace House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio), just moments before the party was supposed to vote. McCarthy was the strong front-runner for the position, but pulled his candidacy when it was clear he could not get enough conservative supporters to reach 218 votes -- the number needed to ensure election on the House floor in two weeks, when Democrats would also vote. Boehner, who has said he will resign from Congress at the end of the month, summed up the feelings of his soon-to-be-former colleagues in one line: 'Well, that was a surprise.'... 'We're stunned. His strongest supporters were stunned,' said Rep. Tim Huelskamp (R-Kan.), a member of the conservative House Freedom Caucus that opposed McCarthy. 'His strongest supporters were crying,' he added, saying the sudden announcement was emblematic of the House Republican Conference. 'It's run with chaos, it's seat of the pants, there's no long-term plans and there's no principles,' he said. 'What was the principle here? The only principle here was I can't get 218.' McCarthy seemed to realize the effect his withdrawal would have. 'I think I shocked some of you,' he told reporters afterward." [HuffPost]
At least the Benghazi Committee finally got somebody.
JOHN BOEHNER SAW THIS IN A DREAM - Scott Wong reported earlier this week: "Speaker John Boehner, who plans to leave office a day before Halloween, told a group of Republican colleagues last week he had an awful nightmare. 'I had this terrible nightmare last night that I was trying to get out and I couldn’t get out,' the Ohio Republican joked, according to one of his longtime friends, Rep. Tom Cole (R-Okla.). 'And a hand came reaching, pulling me.'" [TheHill]
NOBODY WANTS TO BE SPEAKER - Jen Bendery: House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) stunned everyone Thursday by dropping out of the race for speaker. Now, the question is: Who's next in line to run the House and assume the third-most powerful position in the country? Nobody knows." [HuffPost]
HOUSE NEARING ROCK BOTTOM? Eliana Johnson, Rich Lowry and Alexis Levinson report: "In a phone call, McCarthy tells National Review he wants Ways and Means Committee chairman Paul Ryan to run, but Ryan issued a statement Thursday ruling out a bid. So right now, McCarthy says, the conference may be ungovernable. 'I don’t know,' he says. 'Sometimes you have to hit rock bottom.'" [National Review]
@deirdrewalshcnn: Paul Ryan's spox says "he's a hard no." Multiple House Rs tell CNN his name still out there but he stull says he hasnt changed his mind
NOT EVEN JASON CHAFFETZ, WHO SAID HE WANTS THIS JOB, WANTS THIS JOB - "Chaffetz said what happened was 'stunning' and a lot of discussion still needs to happen, but he thinks it gives him an opening. 'I don't know if I'm the right person,' Chaffetz told reporters. 'I put my name in the hat because I do want to unite this party internally.'" [HuffPost]
BUT NEWT DOES! - Former House speaker and Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich says he would come off the bench, you know, if his partymates need him: "If you were to say to me 218 have called you up and given you their pledge, obviously no citizen could ever turn down that kind of challenge. This is why George Washington came out of retirement -- because there are moments you can't avoid." [Washington Examiner]
There is a hot rumor alleging some kind of relationship between McCarthy and Renee Ellmers. In light of today's events, this weird quote from Ellmers about how she's "not high on his priority list" is looking even weirder.
CHARLIE CHIMES IN - @cbrangel: Made myself a smoothie in my office & watching news about GOP mtg to elect next Speaker not going smoothly
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VW IN DA HAUS - How about that German engineering? Kate Sheppard: "The chief executive of Volkswagen Group of America faced a skeptical House panel on Thursday, despite his promises that the company is doing its best to get to the bottom of an emissions scandal that has rocked the world's biggest automaker. CEO Michael Horn appeared before the House Energy and Commerce Committee's Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee, where he told members that the company became aware of 'possible emissions noncompliance' issues in the spring of 2014. But he said he was not aware until early September that a 'defeat device' had been installed in nearly 500,000 VW diesel vehicles in the U.S. ..."To my understanding, this was not a corporate decision, this is something individuals did," said Horn. He also said that to his "best knowledge today," no one in company's U.S. operations knew about the defeat device until last month, after a group of scientists at West Virginia University brought the issue to light. Subcommittee Chair Timothy Murphy (R-Pa.) told Horn he found it 'amazing' that the university's testers discovered the defeat device while VW's 'army of brilliant engineers and mechanics didn't know something was amiss.'" [HuffPost]
VALOR IN THE FACE OF DEATH - Amanda Terkel: "GOP presidential candidate Ben Carson said Wednesday that he once came face-to-face with a gunman, but instead of taking him down -- as Carson said he would have if he had been present at a recent school shooting in Oregon -- he directed him to a different person. 'I have had a gun held on me when I was in a Popeye's organization,' Carson told host Karen Hunter on Sirius XM Radio Wednesday, referring to the fast food chain. 'Guy comes in, puts the gun in my ribs. And I just said, "I believe that you want the guy behind the counter,"' the candidate continued. 'He said, "Oh, okay," and moved on.'" [HuffPost]
A rich Republican donor sued Mother Jones and it took them two years to win.
GUY WHO THINKS AMERICA'S ALREADY LIKE NAZI GERMANY THINKS ARMED POPULACE WOULD HAVE THWARTED HITLER - Nick Baumann: "Ben Carson, a candidate for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination, blamed the Holocaust on Nazi gun control in an interview on CNN Thursday….'I think the likelihood of Hitler being able to accomplish his goals would have been greatly diminished if the people had been armed,' Carson elaborated in the interview. 'There's a reason these dictatorial people take the guns first.' The Anti-Defamation League, which monitors and responds to anti-Semitism and other forms of bigotry, has long opposed the use of Nazi comparisons in the U.S. gun control debate. 'The idea that supporters of gun control are doing something akin to what Hitler’s Germany did to strip citizens of guns in the run-up to the Second World War is historically inaccurate and offensive, especially to Holocaust survivors and their families,' Abraham Foxman, the ADL's national director at the time, said in 2013." [HuffPost]
Forty percent of Americans say someone they know has been killed with a gun, according to a new HuffPost/YouGov poll.
I ASSURE YOU, WE DON'T JUST BOMB HOSPITALS WILLY-NILLY - "The general who oversees the American operation in Afghanistan said at a congressional hearing on Thursday that the U.S. does not automatically launch airstrikes whenever Afghan forces request them. Gen. John Francis Campbell made his comments at a House Armed Services Committee hearing in the wake of a U.S. strike on a Doctors Without Borders hospital that the organization has called a 'war crime.' The military has said that Afghan forces called in the strike. Afghan officials have variously claimed that the Taliban were using the hospital as a base -- a claim the hospital disputes, and for which there is no evidence -- and that the facility regularly treated wounded insurgents. However, Campbell said, such a strike would not be warranted merely because the hospital treats all combatants, as is encouraged by the laws of war. [HuffPost]
BECAUSE YOU'VE READ THIS FAR - Are you surprised that some vegetarians eat meat when they're drunk?
JEB BUSH NOT IN LOVE WITH VOTING RIGHTS ACT - Igor Bobic: "Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush (R) said Thursday that he opposes reauthorizing the Voting Rights Act, the landmark civil rights law whose protections the Supreme Court watered down in 2013. 'There's been dramatic improvement in access to voting. I mean exponentially better improvement,' the presidential candidate said in Iowa. 'And I don't think there's a role for the federal government to play in most places, there could be some, but in most places where they did have a constructive role in the '60s. So I don't support reauthorizing it as is.'" [HuffPost]
COMFORT FOOD
- Inside the squirrel nursery at D.C. City Wildlife.
- Area man has too much time on his hands.
- Great explanation of the Fermi paradox, which is a thing about aliens.
TWITTERAMA
@jbendery: "Fuuuuuuck." -- John Boehner alone in his office right now, probably
@joshpetri: somewhere in the house, an intern is raising his hand
"i'll do it, i guess."
@JohnDingell: Dingell for Speaker.
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