I might be willing to keep Hakeem Jeffries on as house majority leader.
It might be harder to purge that white asshole next to him
House minority leader Hakeem Jeffries, poised to become majority leader, said on Sunday that he strongly supports impeaching defense secretary Pete Hegseth as a Republican lawmaker prepares to force a House vote.
The top Democrat made his position clear during an appearance on ABC’s This Week, declaring himself a “hard yes” on the impeachment resolution targeting Hegseth.
“I’m a hard yes on the Hegseth resolution. The so-called secretary of defense has abused his power, undermined our national security, and engineered this reckless and costly war of choice in Iran, which has skyrocketed prices on the American people and made the country less safe,” Jeffries said. “Pete Hegseth has got to go.”
But Chuck Schumer still has to step down from leadership of the senate.
Yes.
… Hakeem Jeffries, poised to become majority leader, …
Actually poised to become Speaker – not sure who will (hypothetically) become majority leader.
Common Dreams reported this morning:
Petition Calling for House Speaker Other Than Hakeem Jeffries Hits 1 Million Signatures
Burn. He prefers to think of himself as Secretary of War.
I’ve written to both of my Senators and my Rep to demand they sit both of them down. Neither of these men have the spine or fire for what needs to be done, and seem unable to think outside the box to do anything differently. “I won’t confirm Trump’s judicial nominations if they’re too conservative“? How about not confirming any of his nominations, like McTurtle did to you?
What I see is Jeffries reading the tea leaves spilled all over his desk and trying to save his ass by going after someone everybody hates, including Rs. It just doesn’t feel like a move he’s making out of any convictions about accountability or competence.
Dems win the house and senate. Immediately fire up the infighting.
Your Senators and your Rep must be full of spine, no? Upstanding, not sitting.
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What, you imagined they were in lockstep before this election? Heh.
The more united the front is, the better.
I think there is some merit to what Colom said the other day that the house and senate leaders both hail from the same borough.
The left wing is gonna get really mad when they learn of Colom’s positions on many things, like ICE, but you literally can’t do better in Mississippi. He’s likely gonna be Manchin 2.0. Just hope people understand that’s the best we can do in Dixie.
@4 That’s not how the game is played.
Saying “I won’t confirm any of Trump’s nominees no matter what” puts even more pressure on Thomas and Alito to resign, while their replacements can still get confirmed. (It also causes problems in the timeline where Trump has an Ebenezer Scrooge-style epiphany and starts nominating qualified candidates.)
If it had been me, I would have said “too radical for the American people” instead of “too conservative”. It means the same thing but it plays better in the corporate-controlled media.
The Hegseth move is just plain old common sense. A Republican (Tillis) is spearheading impeached, so it doesn’t cost anything for him to sign on. No need to read tea leaves for something that easy.
I believe that ‘Current Affairs’ has a devastating case against both Jeffries and Schumer.
https://www.currentaffairs.org/news/democrats-victory-will-be-wasted-without-new-leadership
Would that be the same Hakeem Jeffries who took the George Wallace quote about segregation(!) and used it as a template to say: “Israel now, Israel tomorrow, Israel forever”? Nah, fuck him. Jeffries needs to go, Schumer needs to go, Democrats in Congress need to do the easiest thing possible to do with their newfound power and elect proper leadership as a show of good will to their electorate — as a promise that they actually intend to represent ordinary people and not the Epstein class.
Good grief! Zero credit is given for the win.
Blamed when the party loses, blamed when the party wins.
You mob sure are a bunch of ingrates. Zero credit given.
(I am a bit bemused, but hey)
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Behold:
Well, the electorate sure did not show good will, other than via a generational wave of support for the party.
When Trump won in 2024, it was all ‘The Democrats lost it’, and now they’ve won in 2026, it’s all ‘The Republicans lost it’.
Remarkable.
So the people that lead that Democratic party to a huge Blunami win are the ones that need to now step down? Huh?
Seems odd to me. Why? Don’t they get any credit for achieving this whopping thumping of Trump and haven’t they thereby proven worth keeping on as having this success?
@10. Trump supporting troll who is still unwilling to say anything good about the Democratic parties win or the Democratic party full stop here Quelle surprise criticising them here even after this huge win.
BTW. Seems that quote is waaaaaaaay out of date from back in 2014.
@12 StevoR
I won the bet. Pay up.
Hegseth is low hanging fruit. He is a dead man walking in the administration. Hakeem coming out in favor of impeaching him is nothing because he opposes any other impeachments and progressive policies.
F**k no.
Schumer is gonna stay. No one has thrown their hat into the ring and the process for selecting the Senate leadership is just weeks away. We can sign all the petitions we want and write all the letter we want and it won’t make a bit of difference because there is no other candidate. That is the reality of the situation.
@12, SteveR, who wrote,
The people who led the democratic party to a huge “Blunami” were not the party leaders. The democratic wins had a lot to do with candidates who vowed to not only fight Trump but also offered hope for change in the US system which would help the average citizen.
As for the so-called leaders, Schumer was against electing El-Sayed and has only offered milquetoast resistance to Trump over the last two years. Schumer wanted Nikki Haley who was a pro-Israel, ‘business-as-usual’ democrat. A lot of democrats are fed up with the neo-liberal democratic party agenda which encourages de-regulation as if the invisible hand of the market will make everyone wealthy. Jefferies hasn’t been publicly as weak a leader as Schumer, but does not have a reputation of fighting the republican agenda very hard. Both of them are trying to make compromises with opponents who will not compromise. For the past two years, the most effective force stopping the republican agenda has been other republicans. That is the problem and that is why they are being asked to go.
There is no liberal party in the US. The democratic party has a progressive wing, which is liberal-centerist. The leaders of the democratic party are conservatives, they want to continue the status quo. And the citizens are fed up with the status quo. The reason a lot of Obama voters ended up voting for Trump is because they see the status quo as bankrupting them, and they are right. Obama promised change, so they voted for him. Obama was unable to deliver very much. Trump promised change, so they voted for him. Biden did make some changes, but was promoted by the democratic party leaders as maintaining the status quo, so he did not generate any enthusiasm and so Trump was elected again.
I didn’t say anything about your continual “vote blue no matter who” messages, but I also found them somewhat annoying. Not because I disagree with your sentiment, but because I fear that the democratic party leaders will think that the reason they saw a blue wave was because people were rejecting MAGA. That’s the wrong lesson for the democratic party, or the pundits who comment on the election to take. The US citizens see health care costs rising, see social security being pillaged, see high inflation, see all their expenses rising and their incomes not keeping pace. They find it harder to schedule medical appointments, there are too few doctors. Emergency rooms take hours to admit a patient because insurance has to be checked. Even minor things, like that between the tariffs and the immigration enforcement the quality of the fresh food at the local grocery store has degraded. They are constantly interrupted by people trying to sell them something, and every once and a while they slip up and purchase something they don’t need from someone pushing that purchase down their throat.
The citizens see their lives getting ensittified, and they want changes to stop that from happening.
If the lesson from this election that the democratic party takes away is that the citizens were voting against fascism, that is the wrong lesson. If that is the lesson the democratic party takes away, then they will offer a ‘stay-the-course’ democrat for the 2028 presidential election, and they may lose. The democratic party needs to at least attempt to regulate business, provide single-payer health care, put better controls on the use of natural resources, fight climate change, etc. Even if they don’t win at any of those actions, they must be seen to have fought for them. If they think the citizens will vote for them again if they try once and give up, they are mistaken. That is the mood of the population, and the longer it takes before real reform the more likely a fascist will be elected again.
If we want any of the reasons progressives won to be implemented, first, dump incompetent zionist schumer.
Then, @2 Pierce R. Butler points out, Petition Calling for House Speaker Other Than Hakeem Jeffries Hits 1 Million Signatures. @9 joelgrant documents ‘Current Affairs’ has a devastating case against both Jeffries and Schumer.
And, here is another article that supports dumping jeffries, too:
10 Reasons Hakeem Jeffries Should Not Be the Next Speaker of the House
Elections have consequences. One should be keeping an AIPAC-backed war-mongerer like Hakeem Jeffries from becoming Speaker of the House.
https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2026/11/10-reasons-hakeem-jeffries-should-not-be-the-next-speaker-of-the-house.html
Jeffries already signaled his intention of “just moving ahead” without investigating anything that Republicans have done, even the actual crimes. We can’t have them do that again- Democratic leadership that refused to put effort into going after Trump and MAGA is how we got a second round of Trump in office in the first place.
It’s my understanding that no other Democrat has thrown their hat in the ring to run for either of these leadership positions. If that’s the case then rather than sign a petition, people should be calling their representative and urging them to either run themselves or convince someone else to. Petitions are fine and I don’t oppose this one, but it won’t mean anything if Jeffries and Schumer are unopposed.
Just seen a Zeteo YT short that’s pertinent to this thread Can Democrats Stop Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries?
@ the lying Trump troll “beholder” : Huh, you like changing subjects and bringing up your false claims about past events don’t you?
No. You refused to accept a bet. :
https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2026/08/28/its-another-incitatus-moment/#comment-2311239
You did not reply to that and take the bet so you left it. Your choice.
Bad faith Trumpist troll “beholder” you refused to take that bet.
Plus as noted see my #423 here :
https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2026/09/29/infinite-thread-xxxxi/comment-page-1/#comment-2314047
noting all the rigging attempts that failed because enough people actually did VBNMW this time. So the election was rigged but that Repug rigging fell far short of being enough given the overwhelming numbers of people who did the right thing and actually voted blue no matter who!
I will admit the mid terms weren’t cancelled as I’d feared and that I am surprised that they weren’t rigged much more. But, as I noted at the time, you lost that bet before it was even made. So, good for you for weaselling out of it at the time, I guess?
I am so elated that the blue tsunami occurred.
You, OTOH, don’t seem that happy about it, do you? Why not I (don’t) wonder?
PS. How do you think Gaza is going right now under Multiple Genocides Don Trump? Have you even bothered to look since Trump won & therefore the real human Gazan people were no longer any use as a rhetorical weapon for ya in your dishonest sophistry here? Bet ya never answer this question! Certainly not honestly.
Italics fix for readability foir folks here :
So the election was rigged but that Repug rigging fell far short of being enough given the overwhelming numbers of people who did the right thing and actually voted blue no matter who!
I will admit the mid terms weren’t cancelled as I’d feared and that I am surprised that they weren’t rigged much more. But, as I noted at the time, you lost that bet before it was even made. So, good for you for weaselling out of it at the time, I guess?
I am so elated that the blue tsunami occurred.
You, OTOH, don’t seem that happy about it, do you? Why not I (don’t) wonder?
PS. How do you think Gaza is going right now under Multiple Genocides Don Trump? Have you even bothered to look since Trump won & therefore the real human Gazan people were no longer any use as a rhetorical weapon for ya in your dishonest sophistry here? Bet ya never answer this question! Certainly not honestly.
Before continuing this discussion, I recommend reading < a href=”https://emptywheel.net/2026/11/05/on-congress/”>On Congress.
It goes into detail about what the role of House Speaker is, and what the various roles in the House are. The Speaker needs to unite the caucus in order to make it most effective. Thus an effective Speaker will always promote a mid-line agenda that Progressives, BlueDogs, and all the rest can unite around. For a Progressive in Congress, the best way to promote their ideas is not by being Speaker, but by being on a committee where they can work on implementing these ideas. (Some of my friends want Pramila Jayapal as Speaker, but that’s not what she wants, she wants to be head of the Immigration Subcommittee of the Judiciary Committee, because that’s where she can do her best overseeing ICE.)
Also, the blog post goes into Jeffries’ preparations for implementing the Democrats’ 100 day plan. To me it looks like he is doing a great job getting his caucus ready to fight, both on legislation and investigating the Trump administration.
Schumer, on the other hand, should go spend more time with the Baileys.
Ack! Messed up the link: On Congress
[Related]
A bit of jocularity:
https://youtu.be/bcXMg4bjevA?t=1790
From PBS Newshour :
Source : https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/the-time-is-now-for-change-bernie-sanders-wont-support-schumer-for-senate-democratic-leader