Update: Jim Jordan Lost a Second Vote for House Speaker

By Dustin Rowles | Politics | October 18, 2023 |

By Dustin Rowles | Politics | October 18, 2023 |

1 p.m. — In the final tally in the second ballot, Jordan lost 22 Republicans, two more than the first ballot (two Reps who voted against him yesterday voted for him today, and two Reps. who voted for him yesterday voted against him today).

12:30 p.m. — The second ballot for the nomination of Jim Jordan is underway in the House. He could only lose four votes. There have been 18 GOP votes against Jim Jordan, and they’re only in the Ps. Votes can change, so it’s possible things can shift, but it appears as though Jordan will lose again. Two of the 18 voted for Jordan yesterday, so Jordan appears to be losing votes.

Original Article

In two countries, Elon Musk has rolled out a $1 per year fee to users who want to perform the basic functions of X (formerly Twitter), like post and retweet. The fee, so far, only applies to new users in New Zealand and the Philippines. If it rolls out wide — and applies to existing customers — it’ll almost certainly mean the erosion of more users on the service.

In fact, there has been a significant decline in revenue and traffic year-over-year since Elon Musk bought Twitter. Traffic is down over 15 percent globally, although traffic to Elon Musk’s personal Twitter profile has spiked 98 percent. These numbers are from September and do not consider what I suspect has been another fairly steep decline in October when the Israel-Hamas war made it apparent that the social media network was useless for the one function in which it still had some utility: Breaking news.

Twitter will not die a quick death. It will just increasingly become less and less relevant.

Elsewhere, the Republican House of Representatives is no closer to finding a Speaker of the House after Jim Jordan fell 20 votes short in yesterday’s vote. If there’s a second vote, there’s a good chance he may lose more support. There are a number of factions in the Republican party, a lot of petty grievances, and a lot of narcissists, which makes it next to impossible to rally the entire party around one person.

Jordan’s biggest holdouts are intractable Steve Scalise supporters, who feel like Jordan stabbed him in the back, and members of the Appropriations Committee, which determines annual government funding. Jim Jordan shut down the government 10 years ago. The Appropriations Committee remembers. The Armed Services Committee, which supports Ukraine, is not a big fan of Jordan, either.

Should Jim Jordan fail to secure the Speaker after a second vote, there’s a decent chance that the Republicans will give the interim Speaker, Rep. Patrick McHenry, more power to oversee the House, at least temporarily. The Democratic Minority Leader, Hakeem Jeffries (who received 12 more votes than Jim Jordan), is also signaling that the Democrats might be willing to help Republicans out if they move off of extremist candidates like Jordan. Jeffries didn’t name any Republicans he might support for Speaker, but Democratic Rep. Jamie Raskin said that Liz Cheney, Mitt Romney, and Angus King were people he imagines Democrats might get behind (none of the three are currently House members, although that is not a requirement to be Speaker). It’s bonkers to think that Liz Cheney is a moderate Republican, but here we are.

Finally, while a pop-culture site is equipped to write about the reality television drama in the House of Representatives, it is not equipped to talk about a war and a humanitarian crisis in the Middle East with worldwide implications. The situation in Israel/Gaza is bleak, upsetting, and devastating. It’s also inflaming a lot of Islamophobia and antisemitism around the world and in the United States. It’s a mess. To our Jewish and Muslim friends, we love you. Please be careful.