Pence's chief behind closed doors: pessimistic about '18, mulling "purge" on Hill https://t.co/gTNuvP8alk @AndrewRestuccia @MatthewNussbaum
— Scott Bland (@PoliticoScott) October 3, 2017
Even to other Republicans / conservatives, because theirs is a clan of cannibals serving a zombie ideology:
… In remarks at a Republican National Committee event at the St. Regis Hotel in Washington on Tuesday morning, Nick Ayers also warned that Republicans are “on track to get shellacked” in next year’s midterm elections if GOP lawmakers don’t pass Trump’s legislative priorities.
But Ayers reserved his harshest criticism for congressional leaders and members who have not offered full-throated support for the president….
One attendee later asked how the donors could “rally the congressional delegation that does support the president and vice president, and rally them and push them to change the current leadership in both the Senate and the House.”
“I’m not speaking on behalf of the president or vice president when I say this,” Ayers responded. “But if I were you, I would not only stop donating, I would form a coalition of all the other major donors, and just say two things. We’re definitely not giving to you, No. 1. And No. 2, if you don’t have this done by Dec. 31, we’re going out, we’re recruiting opponents, we’re maxing out to their campaigns, and we’re funding super PACs to defeat all of you.”
He continued, “Because, look, if we’re going to be in the minority again, we might as well have a minority who are with us as opposed to the minority who helped us become a minority.”
The crowd laughed and burst into applause.
The remarks are some of the most extensive to emerge from Ayers, who joined the White House over the summer after initially opting to remain on the outside. A longtime adviser to Pence and a top aide on the 2016 campaign, he’s widely respected in Republican circles as a sharp-elbowed and strategic operative…
And in the Washington Post, news of another would-be cannibal king “Roy Moore’s disruption of Washington has already begun, and more is on the way”:
… Moore didn’t meet with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) or stop by the White House to make nice with the forces that tried to defeat him. Instead, he huddled with Stephen K. Bannon, President Trump’s former chief strategist and one of Moore’s most outspoken advocates, and spent time in the office of a House Republican from Alabama.
The latest skirmish in the escalating war for the soul of the GOP was more than awkward: It was a window into what might be coming for Republicans next year, when hard-right conservatives emboldened by Moore’s runoff victory last week against Sen. Luther Strange (R-Ala.) are likely to target still more establishment incumbents.
It also has immediate and potentially dire implications for the GOP’s slim working majority in the Senate. Although Moore still faces a general election on Dec. 12, he is widely seen as the front-runner in that race, given Alabama’s heavy conservative tilt.
The growing hostilities threaten the effort by Senate GOP leaders to foster enough unity in their ranks to pass a sweeping rewrite of the nation’s tax laws — which they are wagering is the only thing left that can reverse the political damage the party has sustained this year. Moore is seen as a wild card who could complicate, if not derail, that task.
The controversial former judge’s Washington debut as the Alabama GOP nominee was highly unusual. His trip was a surprise to many party officials, who said they did not hear from him or his team in advance…The growing hostilities threaten the effort by Senate GOP leaders to foster enough unity in their ranks to pass a sweeping rewrite of the nation’s tax laws — which they are wagering is the only thing left that can reverse the political damage the party has sustained this year. Moore is seen as a wild card who could complicate, if not derail, that task.
The controversial former judge’s Washington debut as the Alabama GOP nominee was highly unusual. His trip was a surprise to many party officials, who said they did not hear from him or his team in advance.
One of the reasons Republicans spent so much money to defeat Moore was a fear that his views would make it harder to strike compromises needed to pass legislative priorities such as tax cuts.
“Good luck moving President Trump’s growth agenda forward,” Scott Reed, the senior political strategist for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, said last week after the election. “The deadline for tax reform just became December 12th.”…
Normally I’m in favor of any scenario where the Repubs eat their own, but there’s an old Asia proverb about bringing in a tiger to kill the rats infesting your house: Once the rats are gone, how do you get rid of the tiger?
.
Do you like Gladiator movies, Nick? pic.twitter.com/semhBoym52
— Schooley (@Rschooley) October 4, 2017
joel hanes
Kak vui?
Horror show
lgerard
Ayers is a genius
1. Support the unpopular policies
2. Of an unpopular leader
3. Win!!
SWMBO
I’ve tried to post something twice and it keeps telling me it’s a duplicate. It just doesn’t show the comment. Am I in moderation hell?
Villago Delenda Est
These people are simply evil. They need to be destroyed.
Villago Delenda Est
@SWMBO: It’s probably FYWP behaving badly.
Mike in Pasadena
Is Nick Ayres Mr. Pence’s catamite? Look at the white v-neck t shirt and Pence’s leer in the last photo.
SWMBO
@Mike in Pasadena: I just threw up in my mouth a little…
lgerard
@Mike in Pasadena:
I have a friend who is an incessant reader of gossip sites. She tells me that there have been a few oblique references in the last 6 months to Pence being wide stance curious in the past. I’m certainly dubious, but then again. he seems the type
Maybe mother should keep a closer eye on him.
westyny
Injuries, hoping for . , ,
Mary G
That hand on the shoulder and the smirk on their faces just gives me the creeps. Something nasty goes down, they pray for forgiveness on their knees and unlock the office door.
barb 2
@Mary G:
The photo struck me that way as well. Those holy wingnuts seem to have secrets. Lots of examples — have been in the news. It is their business UNLESS the creeps want to intrude into my human rights.
MisterForkbeard
@lgerard: I think Ayers understands that if Trump and the Republicans succeeded at literally anything, the media would say they were doing well and push a ‘success story’.
This is turn would boost turnout. It takes a LOT of disaster to even get the media to call a republican spade a republican spade, and even then the media will try to say Democrats were a worse result overall. And since people like to be on the winning side and they’d see that “Trump is having a successful presidency”, this would boost support for Trump policies at large.
F
ohpleaseohpleaseohpleaseohpleaseohpleaseohpleaseohplease
OzarkHillbilly
@Mary G: @barb 2: Something tells me they’re not in the library for the books.
Ian G.
There is no way a guy who looks like Nick Ayers does isn’t into some deeply weird sexual stuff, like dressing in a tutu while a dominatrix whips him and tells him to clean his room.
Alternative Fax, a hip hop artist from Idaho
@Ian G.: I think he looks like a guy with his older boyfriend. Who’s very pleased and proud to have such a youngster to play with.
RedDirtGirl
That is one punchable face!
ETA: I mean TWO punchable faces!
SFAW
@Mike in Pasadena: @lgerard: @Mary G: @barb 2: @Ian G.: @OzarkHillbilly:
Isn’t it IRRESPONSIBLE to speculate regarding whatever it is you jackals seem to be suggesting?
Besides, in both pictures, Ayers looks like Hitlerjugend, and Pence looks like his Schutzstaffel “friend” in the second one
SFAW
@RedDirtGirl:
I was about to suggest Mnuchin to make it a Trifecta, but then you’d also have to add Uday, Qusay, Malevolent Elf, Pruitt, ZEGS, McConnell …. pretty soon, we’d have to rent the Rose Bowl to fit them all in. And I don’t have that kind of cash available. Maybe set up a GoFundMe page?
Steeplejack (phone)
@SWMBO:
Moderation always tells you you’re in moderation. Sometimes FYWP just eats a comment. Sometimes you can get it to repost if you change the wording a little so it’s not a duplicate.
SiubhanDuinne
That second photo is a selfie, which makes it that much creepier.
@SFAW:
You forgot Jared. How could you forget Jared?
Caphilldcne
Just stop. You heteros own them. Stop trying to make us gays less cool by tarring us with Pence and co. Also Roy Moore is on team straightboi. ya’ll have a lot to answer for.
Woodrowfan
@Mike in Pasadena: his gunsel. ;)
SFAW
@SiubhanDuinne:
I didn’t. There’s only so much time in the day, and those others are ahead of him on the list. I’d put Bannon ahead of him, too, for example.
Of course, on the plus side (so to speak), if he got pummeled, and I did the pummeling, then maybe Ivanka would decide I was the guy for her!! That would be all kinds of awesome!!!!!!!
[Note: I think it’s a testimonial to my inner strength that I wrote the preceding two sentences without laughing loudly, nor throwing up in my mouth.]
Woodrowfan
@lgerard: I knew him in college and have gay college friends who knew him then. They say “no.”
debbie
Reading that top tweet in my Jean Luc Piccard voice: “Make it so>”
rikyrah
@Villago Delenda Est:
Can’t disagree with you
SFAW
@Woodrowfan:
So, all these years, having seen Maltese Falcon, I had been thinking the term meant something like “hired gun.” Having just looked it up, it seems I was mostly wrong. Especially considering why Hammett used it in Falcon. ETA: That is one of the current uses, of course, but only because of Hammett’s “misdirection” when he used it.
I have no idea whether Applejinx still reads this blog, but considering I gave him a ration of shit about it, I want to apologize to him.
Etymology lessons — one of the reasons I come here.
rikyrah
@lgerard:
I have heard rumblings of this too.?
randy khan
@lgerard:
Maybe he needs to stop having one on one meetings with men.
Steeplejack (phone)
@SFAW:
You don’t owe Applejinx shit. He was the only one who brought up Wilmer from The Maltese Falcon and the alleged slur on Bernie Sanders. Jim, Foolish Literalist, who coined the usage as a nym for Sanders, made no such connection. (Link upon request.)
And, since I’m feeling slightly crabby this morning—like every morning lately, for some reason I can’t quite put my finger on—I will repeat my position that the whole Bernie/Wilmer thing is idiotic. Any troll who set up an alert for mentions of Bernie Sanders on this blog has long since set up an alert for “Wilmer” as well. At this point it’s just some cool-kids in-group marker. Or this year’s “also, too.”
ETA: Maybe you had some side argument with Applejinx about the definition of the word gunsel, in which case ignore everything I wrote above. Kthnxbai.
randy khan
It’s an empty threat, at least to the Tea Party wing of the party.
sherparick
@lgerard: You forgot one between 2 and 3: “Ratfuck and suppress the vote of the opposition like hell!”
Pence and Ayers are like from Central Casting for souless, so-White, political villains. Ayers himself appears to be primarily a political operator of the Millennial generation, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nick_Ayers. But a sinister link to Michael Yousseff suggests a militant anti-Muslim agenda and thirst for Middle Eastern War as well. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Youssef The belligerence of Trump and the joining of White Supremacy with fundamentalism in the Trump administration seems to forming the militancy of non-libertarian Right.
jonas
@sherparick:
If there’s anything we know energizes millennial voters, it’s racial bigotry and the prospect of endless Middle East wars. I’m sure this will be a total long-term winner for Republicans.
NorthLeft12
So let me see if I have this right, you are saying that there are even more radical, crazy, bigoted, and ignorant Repubs out there who can actually get elected to national office? I mean people who are worse than the absolute shit show they have in Congress now? YIKES!
Lurking Canadian
Looking at that smirking picture of this Ayers guy, I can’t be the only one wishing Daniel-san had kicked him even harder in the face with the Crane Technique.
kindness
Nick Ayers trying on Lee Atwater’s old mantle. What do you know? Fits like a glove.
Matt
That sums up the GOP perfectly: they’re going to loot & pillage every goddamn thing they can get their hands on now, while simultaneously preparing to continue the sabotage from the sidelines once they’re finally evicted from power. They will fuck us every way they can for no other reason than they hate this country and everything it ostensibly stands for.
stinger
Criminy. From now on, whenever I read or hear the term “empty eyes”, I will recall that photo of Ayers at the top of the post.
Librarian
Yes, by all means enact Trump’s agenda. Take away health care from millions of people. See what happens in the election. Go ahead, I dare you, you fucking imbeciles.
Shalimar
@lgerard: I saw what Ayers said more as tell them the bad cycle that is obviously coming is going to happen if they don’t pass legislation you know is going to get bogged down. Which is pretty smart, for someone working for Mike Pence.
Mike in NC
Ayers must be a far right evangelical. There isn’t a dimes worth of difference between these “establishment” Republicans and the crackpots trying to succeed them in Congress.
SFAW
@Steeplejack (phone):
I appreciate the thought/comment. I agree that AJ was being an asshole about the whole “Wilmer/catamite” thing. And although I may not have used “gunsel” during those conversations, I had certainly considered it — except it would have been for it’s “secondary” meaning. I almost said “incorrect,” because technically, it is. But in a world where all sorts of words get (incorrectly, but popularly) used in place of their opposite meaning, I know longer know what “incorrect” means when you whippersnappers use them.
/rambling
And, no, I didn’t have any side chats with him; I found him insufferable enough here. And I still think of Elisha Cook as a gunman, not a boy toy, but that doesn’t matter.
As far as calling Sanders “Wilmer”: I may have done that once, but it seems silly to me. And our BernieBot “friends” — some who are Native Russian, some not — are going to show up anyway, as you noted.
Kenneth Kohl
@Mike in Pasadena: It does look like they are both “enjoying the moment” quite a bit.
Steeplejack (phone)
@SFAW:
Just noting that I circled back and saw this.
J R in WV
I’ve said this before, and this thread is dead, but what the hell…
These folks have taught me how to spell “despicable” correctly every time. I used to have trouble with Des vrs Dis starting the word out, but after typing it two or three times a day for the past year or so, it is engraved on my fore-lobes as well as installed on the muscle memory of my typing fingers…
These people are all dictionary examples of despicable. All of them. UnAmerican pieces of excrement. They hate everything this country was founded upon, and are also thieves and scoundrels. Some of them are gunsels, as well. Grrrrr.