Jim Jordan As House Speaker? The End Does Not Justify the Means – Top 3 Takeaways – October 5th, 2023
- The end does not justify the means. My top takeaway today is a message for my conservative friends who’ve continued to place more (misguided) faith in what Matt Gaetz has to say (which belies his actual voting record) than what Donald Trump, Mark Levin or I have to say about his actions. Let’s say that Donald Trump wins the next presidential election. And let’s say that it’s evidenced that he actually benefitted politically from the indictments (thus far in the Republican primary process it has been the case that he has experienced both significant polling advances and fundraising gains due to the indictments). Would you say that it was right and justified for the DOJ, the New York City prosecutor, and Fulton County prosecutor to have brought all of the charges they brought against Trump? To have handled Trump and his cases the way they’ve handled them? After all, he’s president at that point, right so who cares? Well, I have a feeling for starters Trump would still care. I also believe those who’re concerned about the precedent being set for attempting to imprison one’s political enemies might care. The point is this. Even if Trump is elected president next year on the back of the DOJ and Democrat prosecutorial overreach – the end does not justify the means.
- Wrong is wrong. The reason I mention this is due to having heard from several listeners touting Jim Jordan’s candidacy for Speaker of the House. There has been a bit of “see I told you so” effect from some of these folks. Now, independent of other factors would I prefer to have Jim Jordan as Speaker of the House in lieu of Kevin McCarthy? The answer is yes. However, it’s not that simple. For starters, Jim Jordan didn’t want the job and backed McCarthy originally because he wanted to dedicate his time to crafting legislation, investigating the Biden Crime Family, and DOJ abuses as opposed to running the House of Representatives – which he’s been highly effective in doing to date. So, am I happy about the prospect of losing Jim Jordan’s tenacity and expertise on the House Judiciary Committee and Oversight role? No, I am not. But I bet you Joe Biden and Merrick Garland are happy. Yet, that’s still secondary. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy advanced the most conservative spending bill in the history of the United State House of Representatives Friday. A piece of legislation crafted by the House Freedom Caucus that would have funded the government but with a record 30% cut in discretionary spending. Matt Gaetz and his small gang of malcontents voted against it. Which btw, is something he’s been doing to actual congressional conservatives this entire year (it’s just been lightly covered previously). What’s Jordan going to do as House Speaker that’s more conservative than what he already crafted as a leader in the House Freedom Caucus? The fact of the matter is that Speaker McCarthy put every single Jordan-backed spending bill up for a vote this year. How will Jordan do better than that? So now the “A” plan is to lose the top investigative and oversight member in the House and lose his ability to dedicate his additional time towards being the architect of conservative legislation so he can take over for Kevin McCarthy. The speaker who gave Jim Jordan everything he wanted. And the speaker who Jordan not only supported until the end but said was the most open and honest he’d dealt with in the House. But yes, Gaetz will take a victory lap and lean on the ignorance of others who still don’t know or don’t want to account for why he has spear headed a yearlong effort to circumvent the conservative agenda all because his top concern isn’t a conservative agenda. It isn’t what’s in the best interests of this country. It hasn’t been serving his constituents. It’s been about the House ethics investigation that’s ongoing into Gaetz for alleged bribery and sex-trafficking. The investigation that he blackmailed McCarthy into attempting to end and that resulted in a personal vendetta against him. This country is potentially spending hundreds of billions of dollars more than it should this year on the Democrat agenda because of Matt Gaetz’s vendetta. Our southern border persists to be as open as it is in part due to Gaetz’s vendetta. And now, even if Jim Jordan is the next Speaker of the House, the conservative agenda, including oversight, will have been weakened as a result. And just to get there we’re to lose a minimum of a week’s worth of oversight and investigative work. And btw, there’s no guarantee that Jordan wins the vote. Steve Scalice, McCarthy’s #2 didn’t jump into the race because he expected to lose. And yes, I know many are excited about the rumors of Trump gaining support for House Speaker...that might be fun to think about but it’s not going to happen. Switching gears...
- We’ve gone from jobs, jobs, jobs to just...jobs. Last month the news was of the weakest jobs growth in over two years and a surprise rise in the unemployment rate. Yesterday’s ADP Private Sector jobs report showed something even weaker. With just 89,000 jobs added in September, ADP’s Chief Economist had this to say: We are seeing a steepening decline in jobs this month. Additionally, we are seeing a steady decline in wages in the past 12 months. Yeah, not exactly the best economic news. The question now is whether the decline continues to decline to the point where we’re in a recession...or if it’s bottoming out around here. With 22-year high interest rates – it's already a good idea to not be taking on new debt. That said if you can, it could be an important time to start paying down some debt...just in case. There’s not much further for employment trends to fall without much bigger economic concerns arising.