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Speaker Debacle: Dusty Says Gaetz Hurts America; Trumpist Gaetz Says McCarthy Untrustworthy

Representative Dusty Johnson says his Florida colleague Matt Gaetz has hurt America with his childish ouster of Kevin McCarthy from the Speaker’s chair:

Rep. Dusty Johnson of South Dakota told reporters Gaetz’s push for a motion to vacate showed there are “middle school grudges” against McCarthy.

“I think that Matt (Gaetz) is making a huge error,” Johnson said. “I think America is gonna be less well off because of his efforts. I think chaos has not served this country” [Jennifer Shutt, Ariana Figeuroa, and Ashley Murray, “U.S. House Votes to Remove McCarthy as Speaker; SD’s Johnson Calls Move a ‘Huge Error’,” South Dakota Searchlight, 2023.10.03].

Ever the projectionist, Gaetz said on the House floor that McCarthy created chaos by not meaning what he said:

As McCarthy’s allies urged calm during Tuesday’s debate, saying a vote to vacate the speaker could “plunge [the House] into chaos,” Gaetz was quick to turn blame around.

“Chaos is Speaker McCarthy. Chaos is somebody who we cannot trust with their word,” Gaetz said [Gabriel J. Sánchez and Juana Summers, “4 Takeaways from the Historic Ousting of House Speaker Kevin McCarthy,” NPR, 2023.10.04].

Gaetz says a man who creates chaos and sows distrust can’t lead the House of Representatives, yet he voted in January to make Donald Trump Speaker and he wants Trump to lead this nation.

87 Comments

  1. larry kurtz 2023-10-04 07:10

    Some of you know that back in 2018 this interested party declared that Hillary Clinton threw the 2016 election so Donald Trump could destroy the Republican Party.

    I believe she knew had she won, the Republican House would have impeached and removed her before the 2018 midterms, a President Tim Kaine would have met an untimely end before naming a Veep and Paul Ryan would become POTUS.

    Now, watching the entire GOP circling the drain while they drown their comrades trying to flounder from the maelstrom is the schadenfreude we Democrats crave. Trump’s installation and downfall is the biggest political sting in the history of the United States. He and the GOP were set up by superior forces and given enough rope to hang the entire cabal. He knows he’s caught and will do anything to save his ass including inciting civil war.

    Today, America is watching the disintegration of the Republican Party. Not only is Donald Trump disqualified from holding office ever again his lieutenants in both the Senate and the House, including former Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy and his tormentor Matt Gaetz, will face Section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment coming very soon.

  2. larry kurtz 2023-10-04 07:14

    Since the Speaker of the House doesn’t have to be a member of Congress both Liz Cheney and Arnold Schwarzenegger are being considered for the the seat.

  3. Mike Lee Zitterich 2023-10-04 07:44

    Only in America can you be sued, or charged with a crime for QUESTIONING a Federal Election. That is a tyrannical government. Sad, sad, sad, that the Democrat Party today has become to emotionally charged on political blurred lines. The Republicans never got mad, nor upset when Democrats named Al “the earth wizard” Gore or Hillary “The Scammer” Clinton challenged the 2000 and 2016 Elections. BUT, as we know Democrats can challenge results when they lose, but Republicans cannot challenge results when they lose. TRUTH is, the Establishment is scared SH****LESS and they know they are caught.

    NOW, they are suing Donald Trump in NYC over so called financial fraud, and they know they have NO CASE…and their case in Georgia is falling part faster than S****T.

  4. larry kurtz 2023-10-04 07:54

    Mr. Zitterich is a liar.

    The Supreme Court of the United States caused 9/11.

    Al Gore would have retained Bill Clinton’s security apparatus as the intelligence community was connecting the dots Mossad and IDF were leaving ahead of the event.There is little doubt in my mind that damning evidence linking the Trump Organization to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and beyond was destroyed on 9/11. It’s impossible the Obama Administration didn’t know Donald Trump was being installed by a hostile government. The Trump Organization is an equal opportunity money launderer doing it for CIA and other Deep State actors for decades.

  5. larry kurtz 2023-10-04 07:55

    Clinton sat in with the most sophisticated intelligence community on the planet, fereffsake! She and her campaign knew the Russians, the Trump campaign and the Republican Party were hacking the election and the battle over her private emails proves it. The tarmac meeting between Bill Clinton and Attorney General Loretta Lynch was to deliver a thumb drive containing the Steele Dossier to the Justice Department. It was likely an open secret Trump was already under the microscope. Hillary’s campaign was phoned in at best so they gave Trump and the GOP all the rope they’re using right now to hang themselves.

  6. Fed Up 2023-10-04 08:09

    These comments. Just WOW. Could the split in the country be more apparent? When did we become so single minded? The party system has created power mongers, anger and irrational thinking. To hell with the people and the country (said sadly).

  7. M 2023-10-04 08:09

    Mike, EVERYONE who knew Donald Grump the Pervert before he ran for office, knew he was a fraud. What planet and century are you from?

    As to Dusty Johnson, he said the house is ungovernable. So at least we have some common sense still left in the fascist Republican party. Liz Chaney deserves the role, although I think Arnold could bash a few heads together to get things done. But I’d prefer any Democrat, especially a woman to CLEAN the house out and keep it that way. Pelosi passed more legislation that never got attention because of the Big Fraudster and Pervert, Donald Grump sucking up all the oxygen. What did he do for any of us?

    We need a Speaker of the House who can unite our elected officials so they can earn their paycheck by passing legislation that helps the American people.

  8. M 2023-10-04 08:20

    There is too much testosterone is politics today.

  9. Loren 2023-10-04 08:55

    Even Johnson knows the Republican House is in disarray, but the pols making the rounds this morning are trying to blame Democrats because they didn’t vote to retain McCarthy. I have to ask, why is it that it is always up to Democrats to do the cleanup?
    Repub – tax cuts. Dem – must always balance the budget.
    Repub – separate refugee families. Demo – attempt to put families back together.
    Repub – drill, baby, drill. Demo – expected to fund cleanup and disaster relief… while balancing the budget, of course.
    Repub – defund the FBI. Demo – WTF?
    Repub – support Trump for President. Demo – think laws should pertain to everyone EQUALLY.
    etc, etc, etc…

  10. Ryan 2023-10-04 08:58

    donald trump is the biggest crybaby in the history of american politics, and the people who keep crying about him being treated unfair are the most hilarious group of simps i have ever seen in my life. it will be a glorious day soon when trump dies from multi-organ failure due to chronic prescription drug use, but it will also be a little sad, because i will lose 60% of my daily entertainment of watching him walk like A HUMAN BEING, and TALK like a smart person… man… woman… camera…teevee… hahaha and watching the losers who all pretend to be tough guys and smart ladies kissing his diapered bottom… oh man… so few things in life make me feel this good hahaha

  11. O 2023-10-04 09:02

    The GOP is chaos. Any vote to elevate the GOP is a vote for chaos. Goetz (and the insanity caucus) would have NO voice of matter if the Democrats controlled the House.

    Mike, your revisionist “both sides do it” history ignores that Democrats who lost elections accepted that result when it came to the peaceful transfer of power — then laid the matter to rest. Trump not only did not accept the results, or the legal appeals certifying the results, but also ignited an insurrection to stop the peaceful transfer of power. Gore accepted a partisan Supreme Court decision with grace.

  12. e platypus onion 2023-10-04 09:05

    Only in America can you be sued, or charged with a crime for QUESTIONING a Federal Election. That is a tyrannical government.

    You have to be the dumbest sob to ever touch a keyboard and it shows every time you spew word salad. You are disgusting, deplorable, despicable and demented!, These heroes of yours colluded to foment an armed insurrection to steal an election lost by 7 million votes. People died. The capitol was trashed and only a certified dumbass would pass it off as questioning an election.

  13. Donald Pay 2023-10-04 09:20

    I listened to the entire “debate” on the motion to vacate yesterday. Democrats were silent on the matter. They voted correctly, but I don’t think one Democrat said a bad word on the record about anyone. It was an all-Republican sh*tshow. I have to say I agreed with both sides on this debate. McCarthy was a horrible Speaker. He lied to everyone in a job that requires credibility. In the end he did the bare minimum to keep the country afloat, which gets him a cigar and a seat on the back bench.

    I have to say Gaetz is correct about the appropriations process. It’s been broken for decades, and it’s time to get back to putting out smaller appropriations bills, rather than these lobbyist-laden gigantic CRs or Omnibus monstrosities. Of course, all of those bills would have been subject to negotiation between the House, Senate and White House. It still probably would have come down to a messy process, but at least people would have some buy-in.

  14. John 2023-10-04 09:30

    The Fourth Turning is Here . . . Neil Howe lays out significant parts of what is unraveling now. Similar arguments are made by Peter Turchin (End Times), George Friedman (The Storm Before the Calm), Ray Dalio (Principles for Dealing with the Changing World Order), Peter Zeihan (The End of the World is Just the Beginning), Tony Seba, Peter Diamandis (The Future is Faster Than You Think), and Mustafa Suleyman (The Coming Wave).

    Tiny Johnson and his self-destructing rhino caucus could have prevented the Speaker’s downfall IF they practiced statesmanship by timely disciplining the rouge nuts in their nutty party. But they failed. They are reaping what they sewed. They have lost the middle. When they lose the middle, the nut fringes on the right and left arise. Populists do not compromise. Democracy requires compromise. Democracy also requires strength to hold the middle. Johnson and his band of go-alongs-to-get-alongs failed statesmanship.

    One thing is certain — things can and very likely will get a lot worse. Imagine Jim Jordan as Speaker. Never forget that a rouge, small, noisy, uncompromising minority of national socialists slowly gained power in the Bundestag – or as Dalio reminds us: in the 1920s -1930s democracies chose to become fascist regimes (Germany, Spain, Italy, Japan).

  15. All Mammal 2023-10-04 09:35

    Meanwhile, genocide and mass diaspora plagues the planet and refugees have no place to go because all the countries who think they are too good to offer safe haven are too busy b!tching over a capitalized letter in front of names. (D) vs (R) is seriously looking like a hair contest while we turn our backs on desperate people as they drown and sink to the bottom of the 100° ocean.

    Azerbaijan, Morocco, Syria, Turkeye, Ukraine, Texas, Yemen, Niger….it’s about time to realize how stinkin good we have it and if you think any of us are getting into heaven, you’re sadly mistaken. We done shot the planet in the guts when we elected a reality TV rapestar from Queens as POTUS. He is just an excuse for racists to participate out in the open. Harrison Ford says it is incalculable for us not to push to the front of the line to get the first punch when there is a nazi. I agree.

    On a lighter note, you know why DT buried his ex-wife under his golf course?
    Because he didn’t want to stop cheating on her!

  16. P. Aitch 2023-10-04 10:38

    Claiming to be a “victim” is addictive. Losing gracefully is a lost art.

  17. Tom 2023-10-04 10:56

    y’all keep sidestepping the fact in your faces that a two party system cannot govern effectively…ever! the entire system needs to be junked and the constitution amended…won’t lose any sleep over this non-starter…the end is neigh…

  18. larry kurtz 2023-10-04 11:15

    Representative democracy allows for unaffiliated candidates to win elections.

  19. O 2023-10-04 11:17

    ” . . . political parties must be restrained in a popularly elected government because of their tendency to distract the government from their duties, create unfounded jealousies among groups and regions, raise false alarms among the people, promote riots and insurrection, and provide foreign nations and interests access to the government where they can impose their will upon the country.” George Washington 1796

  20. larry kurtz 2023-10-04 11:18

    What we Americans are witnessing is the engineered destruction of the Republican Party set in motion at the 2013 White House Correspondents Dinner when President Obama set the hook.

  21. John 2023-10-04 11:39

    O, beautiful quote. Thank you.
    Through the nation’s founders, we’ve seen this before here or abroad. The US courts failed to protect US democracy. US justices and judges don’t do math, or refuse doing math. Hence, they allow gerrymandering which ruins the necessary conversation imperative in democracy.

  22. M 2023-10-04 12:29

    There is nothing in the Constitution about a 2-party system. There is nothing that states a person has to belong to a party to run for office.

    The Republicans and their courts claim they are originalists, however the run for office has been hijacked from the underdog that does not have corporate backing and money.

  23. John 2023-10-04 12:55

    Don’t think that it cannot get worse?
    Trump advised he’s open to being appointed as the Speaker of the House. Recall the Speaker does not have to elected to congress.
    That would put trump 3d in line to be POTUS. It does not require an active imagination to envision trumps ascendancy to POTUS.

  24. O 2023-10-04 13:03

    M, I’d take your analysis one step further: political parties are not government entities; they are organizations that create their own rules and standards outside even the requirements for democratic process.

  25. Arlo Blundt 2023-10-04 14:15

    We need further explanation from Congressman Johnson, South Dakota’s sole Representative who represents every South Dakotan, not just Republicans. I believe he tried to save McCarthy because he knows that in the present void, all kinds of mischief, and stupid decision making, can occur. He has rejected the Gaetz Nut Case cadre (but so have Greene and Boebert). He needs to nbe up front about who he supports for Speaker and why.

  26. jerry 2023-10-04 14:19

    Rule 26(a) of the Republican House Conference Rules: “A member of the Republican Leadership shall step aside if indicted for a felony for which a sentence of two or more years imprisonment may be imposed.” [So you’re cool if you’re a Republican who has been indicted for a felony with only a one year sentence]

  27. Richard Schriever 2023-10-04 14:48

    There is nothing in the Constitution that says there must be a speaker of the House. It’s just a “tradition”.

  28. grudznick 2023-10-04 14:57

    Lar, it’s like grudznick has said often in regard to Mr. Trump:

    I blame Hillary.

    Some of your shallower thinking libbie friends have never pieced the pieces together the way grudznick and his good friend Lar have.

  29. larry kurtz 2023-10-04 15:02

    How is calling someone a “libbie” not name calling?

  30. jerry 2023-10-04 15:23

    Nancy Pelosi didn’t have this problem, ever. She had the same majority as Charlie did and she ran the place just fine. Democrats know how to govern, republicans know how to grift and be mean girls.

  31. jerry 2023-10-04 15:33

    Marion Rounds had this to say to Dirty and the dummies “House Republicans “simply haven’t figured out a mature way to recognize that you’re not going to get everything done immediately, it takes time,” Sen. Mike Rounds said. “And the perfect should not be the limitation to getting something good done. Unfortunately, a lot of the folks over there want to be perfect, or not at all.”

  32. grudznick 2023-10-04 16:22

    Speaker Scalise, Speaker Jordan, or Speaker Dusty?

  33. e platypus onion 2023-10-04 17:24

    Jordan has proven over and over he can’t find his butt with either hand. Just the kind of no-lead leader magats need. Dusty is too wishy washy and panty waisted to stand up to the savage attacks by the alleged female members of magat caucus. Face it, goatzilla, magats have done all this damage to themselves and deserve to disappear off the face of Planet Earth and take your imaginary goats with them. You and Zit the wanna be domestic terrorist, imho..

  34. Mike Lee Zitterich 2023-10-04 17:44

    Look for Donald Trump to become the next U.S House Speaker for the ensuing Congressional Session January 2025 to December 2025, and he may actually be installed here in the looming days ahead. There is strong support by my fellow Republicans to make Trump their leader, and our leader, and the leader of the U.S House. HOW fine will that be, to have TRUMP operating Congress as well as campaigning for the Presidency all at the same time. HE can control legislation, he can manage the Impeachment of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, and we can best Become the President sooner than later, and get a head start ahead of January 2025. THANK GOD !!!

    LONG LIVE “THE SOVEREIGN STATE REPUBLICS” and folks, WE are taking back Control of the Country, and doing exactly what Trump promised in January of 2017 – TRANSFERRING the full power of the Government back to the “STATES” just as it should be.

    The Confederacy of Member-States is Stronger than Ever. And the Democrats are losing their minds.

  35. larry kurtz 2023-10-04 17:55

    Mike Zitterich is a semiliterate mooncalf suffering from delusions of relevance.

    Trump is walking casualty of his own kleptublican madness destined to stumble into to a grave of his own digging.

  36. M 2023-10-04 18:08

    Most female Republicans are sick of Trump and can’t stand what he represents. They may tell a pollster or their hubbies that they’ll vote for him but they really find him despicable. Once again, the great Hillary Clinton was right when she called Mike Z and the rest of Trump’s lemmings to be despicable.

  37. jakc 2023-10-04 18:10

    while it is perfectly constitutional for a non-member to be Speaker, there are 200+ Rs who want to be Speaker (even if they don’t say it aloud) and unlike Trump, they have a vote on the matter.

    In 2018 some folks even suggested that the House Ds ought to campaign on making Obama the next Speaker. Didn’t happen but it would have beem interesting.

  38. Bob Newland 2023-10-04 18:14

    Mikey Lee, I’ll put up $100 against yours that Trump is not next Speaker.

  39. Arlo Blundt 2023-10-04 18:33

    In other news TWINS WIN.

  40. P. Aitch 2023-10-04 18:47

    “Ruh-roh–CONNY!!!” – Scooby-Doo

    Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), a top contender for speaker, told reporters he opposes putting a new Ukraine aid package on the floor: “The most pressing issue on Americans’ minds is not Ukraine,” he said.

    House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-La.), the front-runner for the job, voted in favor of a $300 million Ukraine funding package last week — but like any other candidate, his path to 218 votes will be extremely fraught if he publicly names Ukraine a priority.

    Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), one of the most vocal opponents of the war effort, has vowed not to support any speaker candidate who supports aid to Ukraine.

    A new poll out today shows 63% of Americans still favor arming Ukraine — even as Republican support has dropped from 68% to 50% since July 2022.
    – AXIOS SNEAK PEAK 10/04/23

  41. John 2023-10-04 19:32

    Meanwhile, trumpee borrows words from Mein Kampf.
    Speaking of immigrants: “Nobody has any idea where these people are coming from, and we know they come from prisons. We know they come from mental institutions [and] insane asylums. We know they’re terrorists. Nobody has ever seen anything like we’re witnessing right now. It is a very sad thing for our country. It’s poisoning the blood of our country. It’s so bad, and people are coming in with disease. People are coming in with every possible thing that you could have.”
    https://www.yahoo.com/news/trump-echoed-hitler-remark-migrants-213500714.html

    Adolf’s versions of ‘undesirables’ poisoning the blood of his nation . . .
    For example, this sentence from the first chapter of the first volume mentions “the poison of foreign races”:
    In the north and in the south the poison of foreign races was eating into the body of our people, and even Vienna was steadily becoming more and more a non-German city.

    In chapter four, Hitler wrote about “poison,” “blood” and “self-preservation”:
    It seemed as if some all-pervading poisonous fluid had been injected by some mysterious hand into the bloodstream of this once heroic body, bringing about a creeping paralysis that affected the reason and the elementary instinct of self-preservation.

    In chapter 10, Hitler wrote the following in regard to his distrust of works published by Jewish journalists:
    And so this poison was allowed to enter the national bloodstream and infect public life without the Government taking any effectual measures to master the course of the disease.

    In chapter 11, Hitler once again mentioned both “poison” and “blood”:
    [“The Jew”] occasionally bestowed one of his female members on an influential Christian; but the racial stock of his male descendants was always preserved unmixed fundamentally. He poisons the blood of others but preserves his own blood unadulterated.

    In a fifth example of how Trump’s “poisoning the blood of our country” remark echoed Hitler’s writing, we turn to chapter two of volume two. In this passage, Hitler wrote of “the poison of miscegenation” as being “detrimental.” (The word “miscegenation” is defined by Merriam-Webster as “marriage, cohabitation or sexual intercourse between a white person and a member of another race.”)
    The present State, for instance, may continue to exist in a mere mechanical form, but the poison of miscegenation permeating the national body brings about a cultural decadence which manifests itself already in various symptoms that are of a detrimental character.

    Thus the indispensable prerequisite for the existence of a superior quality of human beings is not the State but the race, which is alone capable of producing that higher human quality.

    Later in chapter two, in the passage that’s perhaps most relevant to this fact check, Hitler mentions “poison,” “blood,” “foreign blood” and “open frontiers,” the latter being an apparent reference to the borders of Germany:

    Unfortunately the German national being is not based on a uniform racial type. The process of welding the original elements together has not gone so far as to warrant us in saying that a new race has emerged. On the contrary, the poison which has invaded the national body, especially since the Thirty Years’ War, has destroyed the uniform constitution not only of our blood but also of our national soul. The open frontiers of our native country, the association with non-German foreign elements in the territories that lie all along those frontiers, and especially the strong influx of foreign blood into the interior of the Reich itself, has prevented any complete assimilation of those various elements, because the influx has continued steadily.

    More mentions of “poison” and “blood” can be found by searching the full text of “Mein Kampf” on the Project Gutenberg website.”

  42. larry kurtz 2023-10-04 19:49

    So, not running someone, anyone, against Republican At-large US Representative Howdy Doody Dusty Johnson in 2020 and again in 2022 are more embarrassments for the South Dakota Democratic Party who hasn’t won a statewide race since 2008. Johnson has never stopped raising money so the

    SDDP needs to hound the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee for cash and start running opposition ads on every commercial radio station in South Dakota. My party can recruit some respected Democrats to record radio spots then bombard the airwaves paving the way to 2024.

    Johnson needs to be held accountable for coddling a would be dictator and building a war chest on the Big Lie, for his failures to support Medicaid, for voting against marriage, for not moving on immigration reform and for his culpability in driving talent from South Dakota.

  43. grudznick 2023-10-04 19:59

    Mr. Kloucek, no doubt, is warming up his face for some TV spots you can put him on, Lar.

  44. P. Aitch 2023-10-04 20:42

    Thank you kindly for that post, John.
    – Along that thread, the majority of South Dakota residents believe the largest heritage in SD is Norwegian. Not even close.
    Here’s the top three states for German and top three states for Norwegian. This is why Trump is King in SD. You’re either German or you’ve been around Germans your whole lives.
    – German heritage Americans make very unpopular leaders. Guess how many Presidents out of 46 have had German heritage? Two. Eisenhauer who didn’t even want to be President and Trump who couldn’t even get re-elected. Two out of 46. That’s not fox hole material. baybee.
    #1 Wisconsin = 37.26 German heritage
    #2 North Dakota = 36.11 % German heritage
    #3 South Dakota = 34.82 % German heritage
    #1 North Dakota = 22.76% Norwegian heritage
    # 2 Minnesota = 13.38% Norwegian heritage
    #3 South Dakota = 12.05% Norwegian heritage
    https://zipatlas.com/us/state-comparison/percentage-german-population.htm
    https://zipatlas.com/us/state-comparison/percentage-norwegian-population.htm

  45. PWK 2023-10-04 22:24

    Why are so many of these comments littered with spelling errors, poor grammar, scant punctuation, incomplete sentence structure and dangling participles? Did any of these pundits progress past eighth grade?

  46. Mike Lee Zitterich 2023-10-04 23:05

    Yes, the entire region of Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa, North Dakota, South Dakota, Wyming, Montana, Idaho are all Germanic Tribes tracing their Heritage from a country called POMMERN — we are pretty much pommerian farm states, coming to America between 1830 to 1890 from the area that one was POMMERM – german speaking people … East Germany or Mecklinburg, Poland, Hungary, Austria, Denmark, Baltic States, Norway, Sweden…”WE” are proud GERMANIC PEOPLE

  47. P. Aitch 2023-10-04 23:14

    That’s incorrect, Mike Zitterich. You are pretty much descendants of Volga Germans who’d lived in Russia for free land, removed from Germany for a century before the Russian government changed and the liberties given to the Volga Germans were revoked. At that time USA was offering free land and the emigration began en masse.
    The Volga Germans were a stubborn and poorly educated lot who brought those traits to South Dakota where the culture remains today.
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volga_Germans

  48. leslie 2023-10-05 02:37

    it just occurred to me today that perhaps Putin, while trying to wipe out a nation of 37,000,000 (of which 17% are Russian, actually, really, really is in charge of Trump whose rank stupidity and narcissism are perhaps faux distractions and the political divisiveness, the white supremacists and the embedded militia fools from Gen Mike Flynn on down to Proud Boy Elmer Rhodes, defrocking lawyer John Eastman, John Thune, Mike Rounds, the rodeo standard bearer/flame-thrower, the House Freedom Caucus and the McCarthy debacle are all more orchestrated distraction of propaganda?

    I know Rachel Maddow took us through an earlier time when congress was compromised, the special prosecutor of the Dept of Justice failed, the court system was crooked, and the right wing radicals were successful. https://www.npr.org/2022/12/12/1142245288/rachel-maddow-on-the-wwii-era-plot-against-america

    Hilarious, not really!

    But we are surely witnessing the death of the GOP, the death-dive, or whatever Sen Mike Rounds insisted the Democratic Party was supposedly experiencing, for the last several years, until very recently when he finally capitulated that Trump was not good for the American Constitution, or whatever spin he put out to that effect.

    That the 250,000 registered Republicans in this state would and likely will do what ever the SD GOP tells them to vote for is certainly no consolation as the National GOP is on track to burn it all down, and so far is succeeding, having the 6-3 SCOTUS and all.

    Pretty big stuff.

  49. P. Aitch 2023-10-05 04:53

    Notable Volga Germans
    * Recruited as immigrants to Russia in the 18th century, they were allowed to maintain their German culture, language, traditions and churches (Lutheran, Reformed, Catholics, Moravians and Mennonites).
    * Philip Anschutz (born 1939), American billionaire businessman.[39]
    * Harold W. Bauer (1908–1942), American USMC fighter pilot.[40]
    * Tom Daschle (born 1947), American politician.[41]
    * Sergio Denis (1949–2020), Argentine singer-songwriter
    * Jean Bethke Elshtain (1941–2013), American political philosopher and academic.[42]
    * Joe Exotic (born 1963), American former Zoo owner.[43]
    * Helene Fischer (born 1984), German singer, dancer and entertainer.[44]
    * Tim Gaines (born 1962), American musician.[45]
    * Sir Andre Geim (born 1958), Russian-born Dutch-British physicist and 2010 Nobel laureate.[46]
    * Jim Geringer (born 1944), American politician, 30th Governor of Wyoming.[47]
    * Sonja Graf (1908–1965), German chess player who became woman’s champion of the US.
    * Gabriel Heinze (born 1978), Argentine football player.[48]
    * Óscar Ibáñez (born 1967), Argentine-born Peruvian football player.[49]
    * Viktor Kress (born 1948), Russian politician, governor of Tomsk Oblast, Russia.[50]
    * Randy Meisner (born 1946), American musician, original bassist with the Eagles.[51]
    * Roman Neustädter (born 1988), Russian-German football player.[52]
    * Peter Neustädter (born 1966), Kyrgyz-born German football player and coach.[52]
    * Boris Rauschenbach, (1915–2001), scientist, physicist in Russia.[53]
    * Eduard Rossel (born 1937), Russian politician.[54]
    * Cher Scarlett (born 1984 or 1985), American software engineer and labor activist.[55]
    * Alfred Schnittke (1934–1998), Russian composer.[56]
    * Kendall Schmidt (born 1990), American singer of Big Time Rush.
    * Robert Shwartzman (born 1999), Russian racing driver.

  50. Richard Schriever 2023-10-05 05:26

    Most of the “Germans” around the SE part of SD are Frisian, not Volga, not any other sort of “German” mentioned here. Note, Germany did not exist as a state prior to 1873. It was a family of languages with regional variability in similar fashion to the “English” spoken in the US, but with even wider differences (English, or Angelish is a Germanic language).

  51. M 2023-10-05 06:32

    Many Germans from Russia are Ukrainians.

  52. P. Aitch 2023-10-05 07:40

    @Richard – You’re correct. There are two distinct genres of German heritage people in SD. That’s why some aren’t so bad. It’s easy to spot the simple, stubborn ones, though. You know. Like your Governor and her family from Castlewood.

  53. P. Aitch 2023-10-05 07:54

    BTW Richard – There are very few Frisian Americans. Not nearly as many as there are Volga Germans in the Dakotas. The most notable Frisian American is the fictional Rip Van Winkle.
    – Because there is no modern united Frisian state, Frisian Americans are often included within Dutch Americans, German Americans or Scandinavian Americans.
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frisian_Americans

  54. O 2023-10-05 08:45

    The MAGA Republicans hell-bent on disruption get elected with their flaming rhetoric; then in Washington they keep themselves in the public eye by disruption — not governance. Now that their ENTIRE party is chaos, what is left to disrupt? Mission Accomplished, the GOP has destroyed governance.

  55. larry kurtz 2023-10-05 09:03

    “Hang Mike Pence! Hang Mike Zitterich! Hang Mike Rounds!”

  56. P. Aitch 2023-10-05 09:42

    Back Story SD History:
    The reason I know more about Volga Russian Germans, Germans from Germany, and stray Germans in SD (than most) is familial local knowledge. It was just me and Mom as a kid and Mom’s best friend was the daughter of a Jewish family who’d moved to Watertown in the 40’s. Her dad loving called himself a “New York rag merchant”. He still traveled back to the city every year for fashion week. As a women’s clothier he was friends with every family in town and eventually did business with every farm family, too. For his family’s safety he made it his business to know the background story of every German family from Sioux Falls to Pierre to Sisseton. My mom’s friend traveled the territory with her dad and knew who disrespected them and where their families came from, which she said explained a lot. As a curious kid all I had to was keep my ears open at parties and dinners and I learned more about the hidden nuances of German heritage in South Dakota than you’ll find in any history books. Every German family in SD has a story or an alibi, don’t they?

  57. jakc 2023-10-05 11:45

    regardless of the distinction between the Volga/Ukrainian Germans and Frisians, even considered together, the majority of South Dakotans are not of Germanic descent Mr Z.

    And while I haven’t done a deep into the demographics, I suspect the percentage is higher in East River than West River and that the Lakota in West River might be first, or at least second.

  58. P. Aitch 2023-10-05 15:00

    Wrong, Jakc. Germans are the majority heritage in South Dakota. Wanna bet?

  59. P. Aitch 2023-10-05 15:19

    In actuality. There are three times more German ancestry people in South Dakota than the second place Norwegians. I have three source links I can show. If you don’t believe me, that is. #grins

  60. P. Aitch 2023-10-05 15:41

    Now, here’s where my research into why SD votes the way it votes gets legs. The vast majority of SD voters are of German ancestry but believe SD is a Scandinavian state. But few to none have ever taken the time to see if it’s true. They just lead their lives living a falsehood oblivious to the truth. Now. If that’s not a German trait and a Republican trait I don’t know what is.
    Like I say, “The majority of SD voters are of German ancestry and every German ancestry voter in SD has a story or an alibi.”

  61. larry kurtz 2023-10-05 15:51

    Bill Kristol:

    Straightforward from here:

    1. Trump is suckered into announcing for speaker.

    2. House GOP conference endorses him.

    3. Jeffries is quietly in touch with moderate Rs (in Biden districts!) who don’t want to vote for Trump.

    4. They agree to support Jeffries.

    5. Speaker Jeffries.

    https://x.com/billkristol/status/1709937379791052958?s=46

  62. M 2023-10-05 16:17

    Jeffries is the best person and most qualified compared to ALL the others in the house.

  63. larry kurtz 2023-10-05 16:22

    Trump said he would accept the position on a temporary basis.

  64. O 2023-10-05 16:32

    Trump will not do it because it would require work. There are procedural duties that the Speaker has, HAS to carry out. Trump wants titles, not responsibilities.

    Jeffries is a fool. His Biden impeachment and weaponized DOJ fiascos spotlighted that. He cannot govern; he is all about partisan grievance. The GOP needs a new face. One will emerge on about ballot 8.

  65. larry kurtz 2023-10-05 17:20

    Trump would do it just long enough to have Joe and Kamala meet untimely ends so he could emerge as America’s savior.

  66. e platypus onion 2023-10-05 18:48

    O must be speaking of Gym Jordan, not Jefferies.

  67. jakc 2023-10-05 18:55

    P Aitch I’m not saying in SD; I’m saying in West River considered by itself. I may be wrong but the total population of West River is under 300,000 with perhaps 60,000 Lakota tribal members (not even considering the systemic undercounts of the Census on the reservations – Colorado State estimated the population of Oglala Lakota county as double the census figures, or the number of people of Lakota descent below the blood quantum for tribal membership, such as an RC friend who is a tribal member while his six children and grandchildren are not).
    I did grow up with Volga/Ukrainian Germans in RC and it is possible they are the largest group in West River. But the settlement patterns between East River and West River are different

  68. jakc 2023-10-05 19:13

    The main reason for the GOP to elect Trump as Speaker is to own the libs. Which is enough reason for them I suppose as they don’t seem interested in governing.

    Trump doesn’t seem well suited to the art of deal making (despite the book) required of the Speaker and strikes me as the kind of guy who would blow up deals his deputies make. Still, if he gave up the presidential run and ran for Speaker instead, he might help elect enough members in marginal districts to keep the House GOP majority, and have his ego stroked by a Desantis or Haley loss. After all, if Biden can run at 82, Trump can run at 82 in 2028.

  69. Arlo Blundt 2023-10-05 20:37

    P. Aitch…where I grew up the Germans were Catholic, primarily Luxembourgers….with a group from northwestern Germany, mainly Catholic, as well. These folks drank beer on Sunday…great people who raised large families and generally had a smile on their face. They loved to visit, to poke fun at the stuffed shirts, and loved to go to the dance or the ballgame, or watch the boxing match in the bar. I’m very fond of Luxembourgers.

  70. jakc 2023-10-05 21:17

    P Aitch

    Also, when you write vast majority you mean plurality. The numbers you use (and I do accept those numbers) show that about 1/3 of South Dakotans have German ancestory, meaning about 2/3 of South Dakotans do not.

  71. O 2023-10-06 08:43

    My apologies: I mean Jordan. Thanks Larry and e.

  72. O 2023-10-06 08:50

    Now let me give the Devil his due. Here is what Gaetz had to say during a recent fundraiser:

    “They’re trying to engage in a, like, ‘forever war’ of impeachment,” Gaetz told Bannon, according to NBC News. “And like many of our forever wars, it will drag on forever and end in a bloody draw.”

    “I just don’t get the sense that it’s for the sake of impeachment,” Gaetz added, “I think it’s for the sake of having another bad thing to say about Joe Biden.”

    That doesn’t sound supportive of Jordan.

  73. Donald Pay 2023-10-06 09:20

    Arlo is correct. There are all sorts of “Germans,” because for many years Germany was more a bunch of duchies that were never consolidated into a nationality. That happened relatively recently. The thing they had in common was that the language was similar, though even that is up to interpretation. My Grandparents spoke Low German, which, they told me was looked down on by what they called “the Germans.” And, of course, there were the Russian Germans. It was the whole idea of consolidating Germany during the Bismarck era that spurred my grandparents’ families to migrate. They didn’t like the militarization of the country.

  74. John 2023-10-06 10:51

    Little Johnson received an education in appeasement this week. As a McCarthy enabler, Tiny Johnson helped, or did nothing (same effect), when McCarthy repeatedly appeased the republican’s chaos caucus. Guess what? They predictably stabbed McCarthy in the back. [Insert Gomer Pyle’s, Suprise! Surprise! Surprise!] “An appeaser, as Winston Churchill memorably suggested, is someone who feeds a crocodile in hopes that it will eat him last.” Kate Tumulty

    Now 8 zealots run the House, or hold hostage the House. Those 8 represent 1.8% of the US population. The 8 come from wildly unrepresentative districts when compared to the ethnic background of Americans.

    “Matt Gaetz didn’t even win office with a majority. Gaetz won his seat in Congress in 2016 with just 36% of the vote – and merely 35,689 votes – in a crowded Republican primary. He has won re-election since then thanks to the power of incumbency and a district wildly gerrymandered to ensure a Republican victor.
    Gaetz, in other words, represents the fringe of the fringe – a plurality winner in a district rigged to be uncompetitive from the get-go. This is yet another problem that a ranked-choice election would solve.” The Gaetz Caucus wouldn’t be able to win election simply by appealing to a far fringe that values confrontation and chaos without any concern for the consequences. We have a Congress filled with members responsive only to a radical minority. If we want a different Congress, one responsive to majorities, one where the people rule and not the far fringe, we need to remake the rules.”
    https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/oct/06/matt-gaetz-republicans-radicals-us-house

  75. Arlo Blundt 2023-10-06 21:12

    Donald–Dick Kniep was a Luxembiurger.

  76. grudznick 2023-10-06 21:26

    Mr. Blundt is righter than right on that last blogging. A luxembierger indeed.

  77. John 2023-10-07 08:33

    Johnson further is receiving an imperative lesson on the, Tyranny of the Minority: Why American Democracy Reached the Breaking Point.
    Read the Introduction here: https://www.amazon.com/Tyranny-Minority-American-Democracy-Breaking/dp/0593443071/ref=sr_1_1?crid=377REEJ8URUY4&keywords=tyranny+of+the+minority+book&qid=1696684534&sprefix=tyra%2Caps%2C289&sr=8-1&asin=0593443071&revisionId=&format=4&depth=1

    The authors show that the US democracy backslid for decades, empowering minorities. Too much minority empowerment was built into the compromises required to secure the US Constitution. More were unconstitutional and created later through legislative rules (the filibuster, etc.,), laws, norms, and practices. The authors show how and that modern democracies practice a much more democratic systems than does the US. It’s sobering. Don’t preach to me about freedumb here. We live in the tyranny of the minority and the tyranny is so baked in that it’s hard to see how voting matters in a deep red state.

    Johnson’s education continues via Heather Cox Richardson. She writes. ““Democracies die more often through the ballot box than at gunpoint.”
    She’s “a history professor at Boston College, has been described by the New York Times as “the breakout star” of the newsletter platform Substack, where her Letters from an American has more than a million subscribers.” . . . “Readers welcome Richardson’s ability, like Ken Burns, Rachel Maddow and Jon Meacham, to make sense of Trump-era chaos by assuring us we have been here before and survived. She is the cohost of Now & Then, a Vox Media podcast, and author of award-winning books about the civil war, Reconstruction, the Gilded Age and the American west. Now she offers Democracy Awakening: Notes on the State of America, a thoughtful study of how the world’s wealthiest democracy came to teeter on the precipice of authoritarianism with an assist from Donald Trump.”

    https://www.theguardian.com/books/2023/oct/07/american-democracy-heather-cox-richardson-trump-biden

  78. O 2023-10-13 13:08

    It looks like Dusty has chosen to go along with Trump’s candidate to back for Speaker:

    Melanie Zanona
    @MZanona
    Rep. Dusty Johnson, head of Main Street and close w/ leadership, will give Jim Jordan’s nomination speech whenever the GOP regathers to elect a new speaker nominee, I’m told.

    What’s a little insurrection among friends?

  79. Donald Pay 2023-10-13 13:35

    In more ways than one Dusty bears a resemblance to Rolf Gruber, the Nazi delivery boy in the movie “Sound of Music.” You think he’s just a nice, if overeager, teenager falling in love with Liesl , but all through his story line there are little hints of his growing affinity for fascism. Let’s be honest, even if Jim Jordan wasn’t a morally reprehensible enabler of gay rape and treason against the United States, he’s an incompetent clown. The guy running against Jordan is Austin Scott, who opposed Trump’s various insurrection plots. Licking his way up the anus of Jim Jordan is a bad career move for Dusty, let alone demonstrating that it demonstrates that he has no character.

  80. jerry 2023-10-13 14:02

    Dirty Johnson has already proven he has no character by hanging around with his gal pal, Russian spy, Maria Butina. You don’t have to make any effort to see how Gym Jordan, putin and trump are all linked. No character indeed.

  81. O 2023-10-13 14:55

    I had foolishly thought the “problem solvers caucus” might be players in choosing a candidate that announces a new direction for the party: one that focuses on governance over spectacle, that recognizes the responsibility of being the majority party. Just as the presidential primary is showing, the House is showing that the GOP is the party of Trump.

  82. e platypus onion 2023-10-20 16:11

    Gym Jordan has officially been removed as candidate for SOH. magats plan to go home for the weekend and return monday for more magats aren’t capable of governing follies. Imagine magats wanting a certified insurrectionist leading their party to ruin. Maybe Zit is available as the next laughingstock to toss his name and shame into the arena.

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