Mike Johnson Completely Blindsided by Resignation in His Own Party

MicroWave@lemmy.world to politics @lemmy.world – 401 points – Mike Johnson Completely Blindsided by Resignation in His Own Party
newrepublic.com

House Speaker Mike Johnson had no idea Representative Ken Buck is quitting, as the GOP is in complete shambles.

Representative Ken Buck took to social media to announce his near-immediate leave from Congress, resigning so fast that even his party leaders were caught off guard by the decision.

“Today, I am announcing that I will depart Congress at the end of next week,” Buck said in a statement on Tuesday. “I look forward to staying involved in our political process, as well as spending more time in Colorado with my family.”

The less-than-two-weeks notice took practically everybody by surprise, including (or maybe especially) House Speaker Mike Johnson.

“I was surprised by Ken’s announcement,” Johnson told a crush of reporters inside the Capitol building. “I look forward to talking to him about that.”

“I didn’t know,” he added.

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“It is the worst year of the nine years and three months that I’ve been in Congress,” Buck elaborated to CNN, describing the current iteration of the lower chamber as “dysfunctional” and the “worst year in 40, 50 years.”

“Instead of having decorum, instead of operating in a professional manner, this place has just devolved into this bickering and nonsense and not really doing the job for the American people.”

They buried the lead, as do most American media outlets. Who gives a shit about what Mike "Accountability Partner for his" Johnson thinks? The MAGAt party is collapsing. Report on that!

"The Freedom Caucus member originally announced his intention to retire in November"

PLUS:

“It is the worst year of the nine years and three months that I’ve been in Congress,” Buck elaborated to CNN, describing the current iteration of the lower chamber as “dysfunctional” and the “worst year in 40, 50 years.”

Member of the Leopards Eating Faces Party swears he never thought the leopard would eat his face.

When I saw Mike Johnson and 'resignation' in the same sentence I got a little excited but it was just Ken Buck, which I'd heard reported earlier that didn't beat around the bush.

I had to reread that headline a few times.

The first way I read it was that Mike Johnson was surprised that he was resigning. Which could be an entertaining conspiracy.

FYI, because I learned this the same way: It's buried the lede. As in the first sentence of the article.

I’m sorry to be this way, but both are acceptable. Lede has never been formally or universally adopted, and is more a remnant of an industry effort toward low-context clarity due to the word being a homonym. There are countless records of journalists using the traditional spelling when using in the context of writing an article.

Again, I hate myself for being like this.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with being pedantic. In my case, it bugs me really bad that people say 110/220 for USA mains voltage. The standard has been 120/240 volts but there is a tolerance on both sides so the older 110/220 are still within specs. But the tolerance is defined from the nominal values of 120/240.

I work with electricity constantly, and never could figure out the discrepancy. I do see 115 quite a bit on elecronics as well. Tbh it always confused me. I guess i learned something today.

Devices probably designed to work with both 110 and 120 mains?

That is unless it's a system that is wye three phase, in which case it's 120/208..... While we're being pedantic.

Even more pedantic, the proper writing convention (rarely used) would be 208Y/120 🤓

Most if not all media outlets have factored the competitiveness of the presidential horse race into their bottom dollar. The media are the main ones propping them up at this point.

Buck's reason for leaving seems stupid to me (paraphrasing) "I believe our election system is broken so I want to join a group to fix it".

Dude, you're in the legislature!! Introduce legislation changing it!

Man is also a member of the party responsible for the dysfunction, don't forget that.

Exactly. This may just open the door for yet another idiot, making things worse for all of us. They need to fix gerrymandering.

Good news, 4 states will have new, fairer maps this upcoming election cycle.

I mean, this is darkly foreshadowing to me. I don't understand how he could have more subversive influence outside of Congress than in, but I'm sure something is fucky.

My guess is that he sees a massive loss for the GOP coming up and figured it was smarted to leave now then get crushed in the landslide.

Of course, it could be something completely outside politics, but I know how I'd bet.

He already announced a while back he wasn’t running for re-election, but who knows maybe he just didn’t see the point to keep going.

A quick search tells me that a Congressional seat can remain vacant for up to six months because there has to be an election. The Governor of a State appoints a new Senator if the current one resigns. It's nine months until November. I don't know what his plan was, but he's created quite the pickle for the rest of the local power structure.

Governor called a special election to coincide with the date of the primary in June. So the parties will pick two candidates and then CO-4 will pick a house rep for 6 months and then another election for a full term in November. The real question is if it means bobo the clown will leave her current seat to run which would mean two special elections. But first the party has to nominate her

Silly me. I assumed it was a Super Tuesday state that had already had their primary.

To me, it sounds like the one who resigned is doing some real fancy footwork behind the scenes. If he'd already said he was stepping down he almost certainly had a successor in mind.

If you enjoy pure nut cutting politics, may I introduce you to Washington reporter turned crime novelist Ross Thomas. "The Fools In Town Are On Our Side" is about a disgraced CIA operative who is hire to make a small Southern city so corrupt that "even the pimps will vote for reform."

"The Porkchoppers" is about a Nixon Era union election. It has characters ranging from Mafia hit men to sleazy political operators to White House consultants.

Are you a bot lol. Colorado is weird but it votes for president primary during Super Tuesday but other positions have their primary in June. I do think Ken buck resigned to make it as inconvenient as possible for boebert. The party gets to pick the candidate for the primary, and she has to resign to run. They could manipulate her into resigning and not pick her to run lol I do feel like he is intentionally trying to sabotage her

I'd like to chat with some Rocky Mountain State political junkies about the whole Bobo vs. Buck deal.

Even if I were a hard core Tea Party MAGoo I'd be ashamed of Bobo's antics, and would want her out.

In general totally agree. That particular quote is odd however. Probably there to pique interest with folks just as it did me.

Edit I'm a fucking idiot guy.i replied to wrote "(paraphrasing)"

Or Hell, even just voting with the Democrats would help.

While I agree, the nutters out there would have started death threats daily. I don't blame him for not wanting that treatment.

But maybe congress could be in a position to change that.

Except he's part of the reason people feel safe to make death threats.

He is running from the consequences of his actions.

He was elected by that system! They're as dumb as a pocket full of lint.

less useful, though. Lint can be used as a firestarter.

Well, they are doing a pretty good job burning down their own house.

“Only you can prevent wildfires. Vote Democrat”

Considering climate-change-induced drought, that's not even metaphorical.

Are you insinuating that Ken Buck is inflammable?

Being inflammable would give him at least one use.

Inflammable means flammable? What a country!

not necessarily. it specifically means easily set on fire.

This guy is useless, which means he sucks as a fuel source (to difficult to set on fire, too little energy returns), but is flammable enough that he can't be used as a fire resistant material, either.

I don't buy it. Ken "Dipshit" Buck is one of the reasons Congress is dysfunctional. And he already announced that he wasn't running for reelection. He could literally phone it in for the next 9 months, and holding a special election doesn't do him or his party any good.

Maybe they used kompromat to get him to do something he didn't want to do, and he thinks they won't expose him if he resigns? It will be interesting if Boebert resigns to try to win the special election, because then her district will have to hold a special election, too.

Maybe he's trying to give some sort of advantage to a MAGA successor (e.g. by giving him a better shot in a low-turnout special election so that he'd have an "(incumbent)" next to his name during the imminent real one)?

Edit: or maybe it's less about giving an advantage to a particular successor, and more about just screwing over Boebert, who is running for his seat because she knows she's unelectable in hers.

I think it's very likely the GOP is trying to oust bobo. Thought that from the moment Buck announced his departure and she announced a district change. Seems they encouraged her to change, knowing she couldn't win.

Though now I wonder if they want to keep her and think that a low turnout special election would be a safer bet for her.

I remember when #GetTheBuckOutOfColorado was trending in 2016. Glad he's finally gone.

Not that I'm complaining, but he's technically returning to Colorado. You know. from representing colorado in DC...

Most of them don't actually spend very much time in DC. A lot of them spend half the week back in their districts or more on average.

And the Republican lead in Congress grows more needle thin by the day.

One seat! Good god this is a nailbiter. Will they make it to November?!

It’d be a shame if republicans lose their majority before the elections. Though, democrats would probably be entirely unprepared to take advantage of it.

At least we could be sure they would certify the legitimate results of the presidential election, which is more than we can say of the Republican House.

Sadly democrats have shown time and time again they do not ever take advantage of any majority.

They are paid by donors to be as milquetoast and ineffective as possible.

For all his posturing against the horror that is the GOP (which he helped make), anyone else wonder if there's some scandal pushing him out? Knowing the GOP....

That's my bet. He's a toady but he seems like he might be capable of feeling some shame. One of the very few Republicans that I think that about. There are no scandals capable of affecting most of the party.

So who has the blackmail, and what do you think it is?

Mentioned elsewhere that there’s a good chance of criminal charges coming.

God struck him blind for playing with himself

I guess he couldn't get ahold of him, so he left a voice message on his phone.

Johnson doesn't have cell service because he didn't pay the bill, as he doesn't have any bank accounts.

Serious though, Congress provides phone service through office expense accounts. So yeah, he has one he doesn't pay for.

I figured he would have something, just didn't wanted to pass up the opportunity that him not having bank accounts is sketchy af, making him a liability for this country, and potentially an asset to another.

He was too busy sharing his porn habits with his son.