Hakeem Jeffries

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries is shocked, shocked, that President Taco Bowl is using memes online to mock his comportment during the government shutdown. Jeffries calls the memes, which depict Jeffries and Chuck Schumer wearing sombreros and sporting handlebar mustaches “racist” and has tough-guyed Trump to “say it to my face.”   Cockburn enjoys a good troll-meme and suddenly finds himself in a world where Republicans are the ones with a sense of humor. House Speaker Mike Johnson told “my friend Hakeem” to “just ignore it.”   “These are sideshows. People are getting caught up in – in battles over social media memes,” Johnson said in the Hill. “This is not a game. We’ve got to keep the government open for the people.

Are the Democrats on the verge of their own Tea Party? This question is dogging the Democratic Party, as Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer figures out how to handle an increasingly rambunctious base that declared open season on him this week. Months of frustration from the Democrats’ activists has boiled over after Schumer announced that he would vote to move forward with a bipartisan plan to avoid an imminent government shutdown. Schumer’s ultimate vote against passing the bill is of no consolation to Democrats, many of whom reportedly urged Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to primary Schumer. The Democrats’ problems stemmed from their underestimation of Speaker Mike Johnson, as Schumer told the Washington Post.

Former congressman Matt Gaetz kicked off the 119th Congress by not showing up and taking the Capitol Hill press corps to school. After weeks of drama, Mike Johnson was reelected as speaker of the House on the very first ballot — exactly as Gaetz predicted. Some Hill reporters, such as Punchbowl’s Jake Sherman, and even Congressman Thomas Massie, had tweeted in response to Gaetz’s declarative prediction that he was wrong. Heading into the vote, everyone knew that Massie was implacably opposed to Johnson — but everyone else’s opposition proved to be quite placable. The drama kicked off almost immediately, when Democratic congressman Hank Johnson failed to show up before roll was called.

Once again a mostly peaceful protest has inexplicably ended up in violence — this time outside of the Democratic National Convention headquarters in Washington, DC. Ironically, this latest batch of protesters were calling for a ceasefire in Israel as they initiated their own violence on the streets of the nation’s capital.   A pro-Palestine protest was held Wednesday night outside the DNC headquarters as Democratic lawmakers gathered in the building for a fundraiser. During the melée, Capitol Police evacuated the top House Democrats from the building, including House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, House Minority Whip Katherine Clark and Representative Pete Aguilar.  The night began with a candlelight vigil down the street from the DNC before turning violent.

Will today be the day we get a permanent speaker of the House? It’s tough to say. House Republicans huddled this morning to figure out who they will put forward as their speaker-designee in the hopes that someone — perhaps, anyone! — can steer the rowdy House at a time of growing international strife. They eventually settled on Minnesota representative Tom Emmer. There’s no guarantee that Emmer will even get the required votes from the full House, however. To minimize that possibility, Representative Mike Flood circulated a “loyalty pledge” of sorts that all current speaker candidates signed, which requires them to support whoever the conference selects. Flood noted to me, though, that even Jesus Christ would struggle to get to 217 votes in this House GOP conference.

When Barack Obama set out to fundamentally transform the country, he took for granted that it could be transformed back — and could only look on as America sent a populist billionaire to do just that. The aspiring media mogul has only now discovered that part of a politician's legacy is the successors he leaves behind. It has dawned on Obama that his chief legacy from eight years in office will not be healthcare reform but Joe Biden — and now he is scrambling to cultivate a new champion. Politico is reporting that America's first black president is holding closed-door meetings with the likes of House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries, socialist darling Alexandria Ocasio Cortez and moderate Michigan representative Haley Stevens to try to find an heir worthy of the crown.