Chaffetz to seek speaker spot against McCarthy

Despite speculation that Democrats would boycott the committee’s future proceedings, Rep. Elijah Cummings (R-MD), the top Democrat, said he will be there to defend Clinton from Republicans’ “political attacks”.

During his first House term, Chaffetz made a mark as a media-savvy politician and a close ally of Boehner, a position that helped him earn the coveted chairmanship of the Oversight Committee.

Chaffetz scolded McCarthy this week to apologize for suggesting the House’s investigation into the Benghazi scandal was politically motivated to hurt Democratic frontrunner Hillary Clinton. Rep. Ron DeSantis, R-Fla., said he’d like to select an outsider such as 2016 Republican presidential candidate Ben Carson to replace Boehner.

It will be a hard sales job.

“I just want to point out”, Blitzer said, “of that half-a-billion dollars, about 75 percent are Medicaid reimbursements for critically important things that Planned Parenthood does for especially poor women who have no alternatives”. “Right now, there isn’t a lot of evidence that if you just shift people up from one position to the next that you’re going to get the change you need in this conference”. Many members are satisfied with the current leadership team, and McCarthy has earned a reservoir of goodwill within the caucus, having been instrumental in successfully recruiting and supporting numerous party’s newer members.

“The forum invitation was extended to the two individuals now announced as running for Speaker”, Huelskamp said in the statement.

McCarthy is still expected to win election as speaker, given the absence of a strong challenger. But what’s clear is that going through with a no-confidence vote would have put many House Republicans in a bad spot. “Her numbers are dropping”, McCarthy said on Fox News Tuesday.

Gowdy, whose district includes Spartanburg and Greenville counties, heads the House committee investigating the September 11, 2012, attack in Benghazi, Libya, that left four Americans dead.

House members angry with the leadership could play a major role in the contest.

McCarthy’s admission once again ratified the writer Michael Kinsley’s long-ago but still brilliant observation that a gaffe occurs “when a politician tells the truth – a few obvious truth he isn’t supposed to say“. If lawmakers keep this up, voters may deal with it with the only power they have: at the polls.

“I felt that was the direction that people wanted me to go”, said DesJarlais, noting how he had numerous phone calls, emails and letters from many of his 700,000-plus constituents urging him to oppose keeping Boehner as speaker.

Chaffetz told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer that McCarthy gave an “absolutely inappropriate statement”.

Republican House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy of California still appears to be on track to become the next speaker of the House.

The second dispiriting story involves the scandal-plagued Secret Service and one of its congressional critics, Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, chairman of the House Government Oversight Committee.

Thus far, Webster lacks widespread support among conservatives and is not considered much of a threat.

“Everybody thought Hillary Clinton was unbeatable, right?” said eager beaver McCarthy.

House Republicans will hold their leadership elections behind closed doors next Thursday. Karen Tumulty and Anne Gearan included a substantial mention of McCarthy’s remarks in an October 1 print article on Hillary Clinton’s campaign, in which they explained that due in part to McCarthy’s remarks, “Democrats also believe that Republicans stand a big chance of overplaying their hand when Clinton goes behind the witness table before the Benghazi committee”.