With the world lighting on fire in the Middle East, America needs a Congress that’s ready to take swift action to help Israel if need be. Unfortunately, what we have is a GOP House that is still hamstrung by having no Speaker. The latest candidate, Jim Jordan, is having trouble rounding up the necessary 217 votes, so the election has been put off until Tuesday. He has to flip 55 Republicans who are playing Goldilocks (“This one is too liberal, and this one is too conservative, and I demand someone who’s juuuuuust right!”)

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/jordan-aims-schedule-speaker-vote-tuesday-unite-conference

Meanwhile, there are rumors that some moderate Republicans are considering joining with all the Democrats to elect a “bipartisan” Speaker. That could mean that a handful of purist Republicans kicked out Kevin McCarthy and rejected Steve Scalise and Jim Jordan for not being conservative enough, and paved the way for losing control of their own House to a Democrat-backed Speaker. It’s like a circular firing squad with bazookas.

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/some-republicans-talks-cut-deal-with-democrats-house-speaker-fight

That’s not likely, but the fact that we’ve even talking about the possibility shows what a short-sighted and poorly-thought-out maneuver the ouster of McCarthy was. Maybe he didn’t deliver everything some wanted, but he was doing what he could (committee investigations, major fundraising) with a Democrat Senate and White House that would block any real conservative bills he might have gotten passed. Unfortunately, too many still don’t get that. I've seen a lot of comments from Republicans who call everyone who falls short in any way a “RINO” claiming there’s no difference between the parties and we might as well give the Democrats the House and they just won’t vote again, and I can’t repeat any more of this self-defeating nonsense.

I ran for President twice and didn’t make it. Since then, there has never been a candidate who was more completely in agreement with my views than myself. But that didn’t keep me from working hard to elect other Republicans and voting for them, even if they couldn’t meet the impossibly high standard of being me.

Now, as Derek Hunter of Townhall.com points out in this brutal assessment, the talk about Biden being too old and incompetent that was boosting the Republicans’ poll numbers has been replaced by a self-created crisis that makes it look as if the GOP is incapable of leading, or even behaving like adults. I’ll warn you in advance: the word “idiots” pops up more than once.

https://townhall.com/columnists/derekhunter/2023/10/15/the-party-of-idiots-n2629849