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Second rate reporter says what?

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T R E 4 5 O N

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Mitticisms (Open Thread)

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Politico got an advance copy of Mitt Romney’s upcoming book and reports that Romney dumps on lots of fellow Repubs, not just the preening right-wing douchebags Hawley and Vance, who were criticized in a widely discussed excerpt released a while back:

Mitt on RON DeSANTIS: “There’s just no warmth at all.” On DeSantis posing for selfies with Iowa voters: “He looks like he’s got a toothache.” More: “He’s much smarter than Trump … You might point out, ‘Mitt, DeSantis is real smart — do you want an authoritarian who’s smart or one who’s not smart?’ … I realize there’s a peril to having someone who’s smart and pulling in a direction that’s dangerous.”

On NEWT GINGRICH: “A smug know-it-all, smarmy, and too pleased with himself” … TED CRUZ: “Frightening,” “scary,” “a demagogue” … MIKE HUCKABEE: A “huckster,” a “caricature of a for-profit preacher” … BOBBY JINDAL: A “twit” … RICK SANTORUM: “Sanctimonious, severe and strange” … RICK PERRY: “Republicans must realize that we have to have someone who can complete a sentence.” … JOHN KASICH: “Lack of thoughtfulness, lack of attentiveness, ego. No wonder he and CHRIS [CHRISTIE] spark.”

Well, he’s not wrong. But it sounds like the Romney book lacks the verve of John Boehner’s political memoir. Another traditional Repub bagman who was driven out by his party’s feral wing, Boehner claimed in his book that Nancy Pelosi “gutted Big John Dingell like a halibut she found floating around San Francisco Bay.” Sounds like Mitt just piles up stacks of adjectives instead of painting a picture. What a pity.

Open thread.

Reader Interactions

182Comments

  1. 1.

    Suzanne

    Sounds like Mitt is taking that Mormon Nice and lighting it on fire. Good.

    “Turn it off, like a liiiiight switch, just go CLICK! It’s our cool little Mormon trick!”

  3. 3.

    MattF

    Did he find any Republicans who aren’t shitheads? If  he did not, did he draw any conclusions from that?

  5. 5.

    patrick II

    He may be a colorful writer, but I can’t stand John Boehner.  When I have a little time I will bore you with the reasons why.

  6. 6.

    eversor

    Boehner has a sense of humor and was ready to drink wine and spew fire.  I remember the freak out when he did the fun video on retiring with Obama and the right lost their shit.

    I’m sure Boehner is watching all this chaos with a smug grin on his face.

  7. 7.

    Jeffro

    ah man, I was JUST about to order the book and now all of these surprise hot-takes from the Mittster are spoiled!

     

    ;)

  8. 8.

    NobodySpecial

    Mitt managed to soak the US government while working with these people he hated rather than showing a conscience. Fuck that guy forever. Hope his garage falls on him.

  10. 10.

    Suzanne

    @eversor: I still think back to the day he announced his resignation and he jumped up to the podium whistling “Zip A Dee Doo Dah”. A total asshole, but that was funny AF.

  11. 11.

    Ken

    @MattF: I’m wondering the same thing. Just what kept him working with these people all those years?

    I’m guessing a different section of the book has his opinions on Democrats, possibly with illustrations taken from Doré’s engravings for The Inferno.

  12. 12.

    E.

    Sure, but “caricature of a for-profit preacher” is pretty good, and it definitely lands. I’ll allow it.

  14. 14.

    patrick II

    Holy fuck! Does everyone already know that Sidney Powell has taken a plea deal? Six years of probation, $6,000 in fines, and full cooperation.  Wow.

    Never mind.  I just looked two threads down.  I will go read comments there.

  15. 15.

    Juju

    I find the fact that Mitt Romney, of all people, finds Rick Santorum strange, both humorous and a bit scary.

  20. 20.

    scav

    For all his having been infected with the Defendant in Chief’s tic of constant nick-naming putdowns, In wouldn’t say he’s got the same flair.  Couldn’t rap either.  Ah well.  Man does want even more butter on his toast.

  23. 23.

    MazeDancer

    According to GOP stenographer Jake Sherman, the GOP is not going to bring McHenry idea to the floor.

    Scalise and Emmer are against it.

    There have to be 5 non-idiots willing to make a deal with Mr. Jeffries.

  25. 25.

    Chris

    Has Romney ever looked at, y’know, himself in the mirror?  He’s still a goddamn Mittastrophe.  Him calling out a politician’s lack of warmth is especially rich from a guy who spent all of 2012 as a robot who was never less convincing than when he tried to pretend he shared the little people’s pain.

    That he’s still noticeably better than 99% of elected Republicans today is an indictment on them rather than a compliment to Mittens.

  28. 28.

    Frankensteinbeck

    @MazeDancer: ​

    There have to be 5 non-idiots willing to make a deal with Mr. Jeffries.

    I don’t think they’re desperate enough yet. They’re getting desperate even faster than I expected, though, and I knew it would happen.

    EDIT – And whatever a deal, it won’t be anything they can’t pretend is a Republican win.  No Jeffries for Speaker.

  30. 30.

    mrmoshpotato

    Mittens insulting people?  Meh.

    How about that vulture capitalist bastard sells all of his houses but one and liquidates all of his investments except for say $500K and distributes that money to the laid off workers of all of the businesses he destroyed.

    Go fuck yourself, Willard.

  36. 36.

    Kent

    One thing that Romney was damn right and prescient about.

    Remember the debate with Obama when he said Russia was our biggest enemy?  And was mocked mercilessly for it?  The exact quote from the debate is:  “Russia, this is, without question, our number one geopolitical foe,”

    Unlike say Trump, he is smart enough and articulate enough not have said Russia is our biggest geopolitical foe as some sort of mist-statement.  So what did he actually know back in 2012 that the rest of us didn’t?  One wonders.

  37. 37.

    Ryan

    That reminds me, whatever happened to Kasich being a contributor on MSNBC?  I haven’t seen him in months.

  38. 38.

    JPL

    From Newsweek

    Donald Trump’s team has lashed out at Sen. Mitt Romney over an excerpt from the retiring Utah senator’s new biography that claimed the former president once bragged of his plans to “drop” his then girlfriend Melania.

    In an extract from Romney: A Reckoning by McKay Coppins, obtained by Rolling Stone, The Atlantic staff writer wrote of the Republican Utah senator’s encounter with the former president when they both attended a New England Patriots game as guests of owner Robert Kraft.

    “Trump sidled up to Romney’s son Josh and pointed at a leggy brunette across the room. ‘Have you seen my girlfriend, Melania?’ he asked, smirking. ‘When I drop her, the phone is gonna ring off the hook. Every guy in New York wants to go out with her,'” Coppins writes in the book, set to be released on October 24.

    Trump’s team hit back, calling Romney “a loser” who was “creating false stories to stay relevant.”

  39. 39.

    Scout211

    The latest on the CNN live updates: Jordan is meeting with the 22 GOP rebels to try to strong-arm work things out. He’s moving forward with his Speaker election.  Link

    Wasn’t one of the plans to switch out the holdouts so that there wouldn’t  be the same ones each time?

    Also, asked what he gained from vacating the speaker, Gaetz said:

    We’re shaking up Washington, DC. We’re breaking the fever. And, you know what, it’s messy. But the only reason people think there’s chaos in this town right now is because the special interests aren’t in control any more. I think we’re going to have an upgrade on the position of speaker of the House,” Gaetz told CNN.

    And then he said some other equally nonsensical words.   

  40. 40.

    Chris

    @NobodySpecial:

    Mitt managed to soak the US government while working with these people he hated rather than showing a conscience. Fuck that guy forever. Hope his garage falls on him.

    Mitt so far is following the standard path of right-wing shitheads, which is to mellow out, lament what happened to their party, even start making vaguely liberal-sounding talking points… years and years after they’ve left the spotlight and it no longer matters.

    Barry Goldwater denounced the GOP’s alliance with the religious right… long after anybody stopped caring what he had to say, twenty years after he ran for president, during which time his biggest achievement was to turn the Dixiecrat forerunners of that same religious right into the new Republican base.  Colin Powell spoke up for gay rights in the military and denounced nativism in politics… long after he’d left public service, even longer after he’d left the military, during which time he did everything he could to sabotage his commander-in-chief’s efforts to normalize gays in the military, even taking him on in a very public battle.  George W. Bush spoke out about the appalling dangers to democracy brought in by the Trump era… years after he’d left the presidency, a presidency he gained through vote suppression and poll riots, during which he repeatedly sicced the DOJ on phantom “voter fraud” cases that were so transparent most of the people doing it threatened to quit.

    Yes, Romney did the bare minimum of voting to convict somebody who tried to overthrow the government.  And then quickly ran from public office with his tail between his legs.  This after a presidential run in which he did everything he could to stoke proto-Trumpian nativism and count on vote suppression to make the difference.  This after he spent all four years of Trump pathetically begging for a position in his administration.  What does he want, a cookie?

  44. 44.

    trollhattan

    One big difference between Willard Throckmorton McMittens VII and Boehner: never pulled any stints as bartender (can you imagine?).

    He’s free to swat at any 21th century Republican he cares to. I’ll hold his Pepsi.

  46. 46.

    Anonymous At Work

    Does Mittens use as his cover or back jacket photo, that photo of him groveling to Trump at dinner?  Are we talking about that Romney?

  47. 47.

    piratedan

    @Ryan: could be that enough people complained that if they want to see the GOP lie to them on TV they could just go to Fox.

  51. 51.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    Much as I’m enjoying post-2017 Mittbot, and I hate Newt’s guts and liver, I think he is one of the worst political villains of my adult lifetime, maybe number 2 after trump, a charlatan, a scumbag, a grifter… and I could go on and on, even bearing that in mind:

    On NEWT GINGRICH: “A smug know-it-all, smarmy, and too pleased with himself”

    Willard…. um…. your handlers ever show you some game footage from the trail?

  53. 53.

    mrmoshpotato

    @Dorothy A. Winsor: She was a coffeeboy.  And I hope her singing puts every canary who ever existed to shame.

    It’s still a shame she won’t be seeing any time behind cellbars.

  54. 54.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Ryan: Kasich was on MSNBC just the other day pompously bloviating about how Democrats should be ashamed of themselves for letting the House Republican Caucus be such an incompetent clown car

    ETA: How many times did Kasich vote for the aforementioned Newt for leader and/or Speaker? At least three or four, as I recall

  57. 57.

    Ocotillo

    @MazeDancer:

    There have to be 5 non-idiots willing to make a deal with Mr. Jeffries.

    That will be a last resort.  The so called moderates are all at risk of losing their seats in the coming ’24 election.  If they deal with the Dems, they will be primaried.  If they switch parties, they will be primaried by a real Dem.  They have to be ready to commit Hari Kari for their election chances before they can do something “for the good of the country”.

  60. 60.

    JPL

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: Yup not a friend.   Hispanics in the back of a pickup truck were pelting eggs at those holding signs up for his opponent.   I do have to say that I did learn that if someone rolls down their window and says fuck off, as long as you wave and act excited, the cars behing have no idea.

  61. 61.

    Chris

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:

    Much as I’m enjoying post-2017 Mittbot, and I hate Newt’s guts and liver, I think he is one of the worst political villains of my adult lifetime, maybe number 2 after trump, a charlatan, a scumbag, a grifter… and I could go on and on, even bearing that in mind:

    Without redoing my whole “Romney = Trump” spiel in full, I’ll just summarize: they’re both people whose biggest achievement was being born to privilege, they both used that privilege to the hilt to dodge their civic obligations, they both spent their corporate careers leaving a long string of broken businesses behind them, and they both thought that career of privilege, impunity, and destruction qualified them to be President.

    They have way more in common than not, as much as they’d both be nauseated by it.

  62. 62.

    mrmoshpotato

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:

    I hate Newt’s guts and liver, I think he is one of the worst political villains of my adult lifetime, maybe number 2 after trump, a charlatan, a scumbag, a grifter… 

    Couldn’t have put it better.

  63. 63.

    Eunicecycle

    @Ryan: ugh he was on there Tuesday asking where are the Democrats and why aren’t they helping elect Jim Jordan basically.

  65. 65.

    Citizen Alan

    @Kent:  That is true only in hindsight. Because IMO, at that time Obama had Russia sufficiently under control that it wasn’t our biggest threat. And in 2016, Hillary and Putin had practically declared  blood feud against each other. It is a testament to how blind to the GOP’s failings Mitt was that he failed to foresee a large portion of his own party becoming pro-Putin by every meaningful measure.

  67. 67.

    HumboldtBlue

    Watching the right-wingers melt down on Twitter due to the shitshow that is the House GOP makes for some fun reading. RINOs are EVERYWHERE!

  72. 72.

    sab

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: Kasich’s whole congressional career was being a bullying aggressive asshole just like Jordan.

    Then he ran for governor, won and did the same behavior with scrutiny. He bullied a wildly anti-union ( government unions) bit of legislation. It was anti teacher, anti general government employees, anti cops, and anti first responders (including firemen.)

    He probably could have gotten away with it, but everyone loves first responders and firemen.

    We did a citizens revocation of bad legislation (Ohio still has such a thing. I don’t know the technical jargon)  and Kasich got clobbered. Revoke SB 5 is still a rallying cry for those of us who worked on that campaign. Proud moment.

    He was bright enough to learn his lesson. His ideology was the same but he became much more circumspect (lying)  about his intentions.

  73. 73.

    smith

    So now the GQP holdouts won’t even take Jordan’s calls. Great persuasive ability, there, Gym. You should go into politics.

  74. 74.

    Citizen Alan

    @Ocotillo: Aren’t there at least 2 or 3 out of that group who have already announced their retirement? If I were one of them, I would announce my retirement after this term and also that for the remainder of it, I would be an independent who caucused with the Dems. And then, I would spend most of the time between now and Nov 2024 on a golf course.

    If, that is, I were a GOP asshole. I don’t actually play golf, but I assume most Republicans come out of the womb swinging a 9-iron.

  76. 76.

    Ken

    @Old School:

    Truth Social seems to have closed off viewing accounts to non-users.

    President Biden’s campaign has surpassed former President Trump’s in followers on Truth Social.

    Am I the only one who thinks these things may be related?

  78. 78.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @JPL: didn’t that first wife have to sue him for back child support while she was being treated for cancer?

  79. 79.

    What Have The Romans Ever Done for Us?

    @Juju: Or that he finds DeSantis lacking in warmth. Mitt is not exactly a paragon of human warmth and compassion.

  80. 80.

    JPL

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: I don’t remember that, but I do remember the press corp catching Newt in a car with the soon to be 2nd wife in the parking lot for Congressional members.   They ignored it because of Clinton/Monica news.

  81. 81.

    Geminid

    @Frankensteinbeck: If there are potential defectors, I think their Plan A is to elect a non-Freedom Caucus Speaker out of their own caucus. If they defect, it will likely be after that has proven impossible. At the rate this thing is going that wouldn’t be until next week.

    I suspect a small group of Republicans have discussed this though. One or more of them may even have have approached a trusted Democratic colleague about a plan.

    If this group actually exists, I don’t think they’ll show their hand until they know their Plan A won’t work. The guy to watch here is Don Bacon, I think. He was talking about a Plan B back in January.

  82. 82.

    sab

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: Also the second wife. Get sick and Newt will dump you. My evil side wants Newt to get one of the degenerative diseases that my family deals with, and see if his third wife ( former mistress) hangs around to be caregiver.

  84. 84.

    JWR

    @Frankensteinbeck:

    I don’t think they’re desperate enough yet.

    Early on in this clusterf*ck, I heard a reporter ask some GOP pol about the prospects of just turning the position over to Jeffries and being done with it. GOP guy made a motion indicating writing on his forehead while saying “what, do I look like a moron?” So yeah, they’re still not there. Yet.

  85. 85.

    rikyrah

    @eversor:

    Boehner has a sense of humor and was ready to drink wine and spew fire.  I remember the freak out when he did the fun video on retiring with Obama and the right lost their shit.

    I’m sure Boehner is watching all this chaos with a smug grin on his face.

     

    Boehner, the original orange man, was an old-time, old-school Republican. He was Chamber of Commerce Republican.

    He was always out of his depth with the kooks and crazies. He just wanted to have fun and get paid. And do as little work as possible. Which is why he left.

     

    These current crazies just want to break everything. That’s a different mindset from those who want to do as little work as possible.

  88. 88.

    Martin

    @Kent: I think Romney would have been right had Russia been able to succeed in this war. But their failure has shown what a paper tiger Russia really is. Their economy is tiny and shrinking. Militarily, they’re depleted, aside from their nukes, which may or may not be, and we don’t want to test that concern.

    China is clearly a much bigger concern.

  90. 90.

    Betty Cracker

    @Old School: & @Ken: I’m not a Truth Social user and am still able to view the Trump and BidenHQ accounts. You can’t search from the home page, but if you have their account URLs, you can access their pages.

  91. 91.

    hitchhiker

    Mitt’s big issue was being Mormon. Like, really, really, passionately Mormon. It’s the defining characteristic of his life, and among other Mormons he makes perfect sense. Big money, personal fastidiousness, 7 sons, active in his ward — he’s the whole package.

    In Mormon-world, he’s perfect.

    But he couldn’t translate any of that to regular people-world. If he’d been a passionate Catholic or Methodist or something, he’d probably have been elected. He wasn’t. He couldn’t talk about his “faith” in the way that he would have needed to (because it’s so goddamn weird!) so he just came across as a stiff rich guy. I wonder if he knows this, even today.

  92. 92.

    Geminid

    @MazeDancer: Or a member who does not intend to run next year. And maybe Valadeo and Duarte of California. That’s a jungle primary state, and those two might benefit by splitting from this chaotic caucus. Valadeo already survived voting to impeach Trump.

    As for the substance of a deal, I think Democrats want the House reorganized so that vital legislation with majority support makes it to the floor for an up or down vote. They don’t neccesarily need Jeffries to be Speaker to effect that, and might even prefer a solution where Jeffries remains Minority Leader.

  93. 93.

    trollhattan

    This fuckin’ guy, AGAIN.

    Nearly a month after he overturned California’s ban on large-capacity firearm magazines for the second time, U.S. District Court Judge Roger Benitez doubled down on his opposition to the state’s assault weapons ban, declaring in an opinion that the law “has no historical pedigree and it is extreme.”

    The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals remanded the case, Miller v. Bonta, back to the district court level after the U.S. Supreme Court’s Bruen decision, which established a new framework for consideration of such laws. Benitez opened his decision by comparing the assault rifle to the Bowie knife, saying that both are “dangerous, but useful.”

    “But unlike the Bowie Knife, the United States Supreme Court has said, ‘there is a long tradition of widespread lawful gun ownership by private individuals in this country,’” Benitez wrote. [Everybody recalls Stephen Paddock hurling bowie knives as the music festival crowd, before becoming tired and resorting to his stacks of automatic rifles.]

    The judge, known for his fiery opinions, [batshit crazy ≠ fiery] wrote that the state was discriminating against assault rifles because of how they looked. “They have the same minimum overall length, they use the same triggers, they have the same barrels, and they can fire the same ammunition, from the same magazines, at the same rate of fire, and at the same velocities, as other rifles,” he wrote. [Please, it’s “clip.”]

    Benitez wrote that while people have heard [Heard? How about learned their child was blasted to meat bits?] about mass shootings like the ones that took place in Uvalde, Texas, Parkland, Florida, or Sandy Hook, Connecticut, “they do not hear of the AR-15 used in Florida by a pregnant wife and mother to defend her family from two armed, hooded, and masked home intruders.” [The hoods were the first tell.]

    “California’s ‘assault weapon’ ban [scare quote!] takes away from its residents the choice of using an AR-15 type rifle for self-defense. Is it because modern rifles are used so frequently for crime? No,” Benitez wrote. The judge said that more is needed to justify the state’s ban on assault weapons than “disarming some mass shooters.” [Mass shooter here, mass shooter there, pretty soon you have a mass shooter club.]

    https://www.sacbee.com/news/politics-government/capitol-alert/article280748240.html#storylink=cpy

  95. 95.

    Suzanne

    @Kent:

    Remember the debate with Obama when he said Russia was our biggest enemy?  And was mocked mercilessly for it?  The exact quote from the debate is:  “Russia, this is, without question, our number one geopolitical foe,” 

    The reason we all mocked Romney is that ISIS/ISIL, essentially created by our completely evil invasion of Iraq, was our biggest geopolitical foe at the time. None of that was to say that Russia was A-OK.

  96. 96.

    Suzanne

    @hitchhiker: I actually think Mitt might not have been on the Mormon up-and-up. Remember when Harry Reid said that Romney didn’t pay enough in taxes? I suspected that we would find that Romney paid typical rich man taxes….. but wasn’t genuinely tithing. And that would be…. a significant issue in that community.

  98. 98.

    jonas

    @West of the Rockies:  I hope she loses her law license.

    After having responded to the Dominion lawsuit by claiming that no “reasonable person” would believe anything she was saying, I’m not sure it’s worth the paper it’s written on anymore in any case.  Who on earth would hire someone who has admitted in a court filing that they’re completely full of shit? (Which, as people have been noting, would also make Powell a rich target on cross-examination if she eventually testifies in this case, but I’m sure Willis has gamed that out.)

  99. 99.

    sab

    @Suzanne: I used to live in Nevada. I worked for a Mormon (lovely man) and I really like Mormons. I never discuss religion with them, and I never trust them in  business. Not because they are bad  but bedause they are sharp.

  100. 100.

    Betty Cracker

    From the NYT:

    Laphonza Butler, who was appointed 18 days ago to fill the Senate seat left vacant by Dianne Feinstein’s death, said on Thursday that she would not run for the office next year, clearing the way for a truly open race in California that features three Democratic congressional members and a former Major League Baseball star.

    In an interview with The New York Times, Senator Butler said that she intended to be “the loudest, proudest champion of California” in the 383 days remaining in her term in office, but that she had realized “this is not the greatest use of my voice.”

    That probably makes Newsom’s life easier.

  101. 101.

    Kent

    @Martin:

    @Kent: I think Romney would have been right had Russia been able to succeed in this war. But their failure has shown what a paper tiger Russia really is. Their economy is tiny and shrinking. Militarily, they’re depleted, aside from their nukes, which may or may not be, and we don’t want to test that concern.

    China is clearly a much bigger concern.

    You are forgetting that Russia was responsible for giving us Trump in 2016.

  102. 102.

    Chris

    @Martin:

    More to the point, it was clearly just a gotcha point that was meant to be discarded the second it was no longer needed.

    I mean, what the hell was his big idea for confronting Russia?  Building more ships because we had less of them than we did in World War One?  Yeah, that would’ve made a big difference.

  105. 105.

    Chris

    @hitchhiker:

    I don’t even think that’s true.

    His big issue was being rich.  He was never more earnest and sincere than in that video where he’s explaining to his donors that 47% of the country are just lazy ungrateful moochers who don’t appreciate that they owe everything in their life to their betters on Wall Street.  And that’s not something he could have translated to the average voter, much less at the height of a recession, even if every last one of us was Mormon.

  106. 106.

    Geminid

    @Betty Cracker: It will make Senator Butler’s life easier too; now she can concentrate on her job. Ms. Butler is fairly young, and if she decides that holding public office is for her there will be plenty more opportunities.

  107. 107.

    Betty Cracker

    @HumboldtBlue: Because now the very ambitious governor hasn’t alienated the supporters of the people who were already in the race by bigfooting them with an appointed incumbent.

    Elsewhere — Phuck the Phils!!! 😂

  108. 108.

    Redshift

    @MazeDancer:

    There have to be 5 non-idiots willing to make a deal with Mr. Jeffries.

    There’s no way any of them are going to elect Jeffries. The more plausible scenario is Democrats agree to vote for a less extreme GOPer (non-extreme not being an option) in return for rules changes like any bill that has sufficient support in the House overall (rather than a majority of Republicans) gets brought to the floor.

  109. 109.

    Scout211

    @Betty Cracker: features three Democratic congressional members and a former Major League Baseball star.

    Plus the new entry: Former LA area news anchor Christina Pascucci discussed in the early morning thread.

    But seriously, this is a relief.  We need a Senator right now and two elections in a year when she’s still learning her job would be a huge lift. The article doesn’t state whether she will run for her current seat through January 1, though

  110. 110.

    jonas

    @Chris: To be fair, Romney did actually serve a term as governor of Massachusetts, where his signature accomplishment was the country’s first state-wide health insurance program that later served as the inspiration for the ACA. He had to disavow it as Total Nazi Communism™ once Democrats expressed interest in it, but not all bad.

    That doesn’t excuse the horribleness of Bain’s private equity stuff, or his general comfort with the notion of plutocracy, but it’s still a far cry from Trump’s mob-like corruption and general loathsomeness.

  111. 111.

    Barbara

    @Redshift:

    There’s no way any of them are going to elect Jeffries. The more plausible scenario is Democrats agree to vote for a less extreme GOPer (non-extreme not being an option) in return for rules changes like any bill that has sufficient support in the House overall (rather than a majority of Republicans) gets brought to the floor.

    That’s existential for Republicans.  The so-called Hastert Rule is a huge part, if not in fact the most important part, of how they enforce minority rule — it keeps their more “moderate” members from being able to defect and undercut the most rabid RWNJs.  I don’t think they would agree to change it, in other words.

  112. 112.

    Old School

    @Betty Cracker:

    if you have their account URLs, you can access their pages.

    Hmmmm.  I used to pull it up from Google searches, but it doesn’t come up there anymore.

  113. 113.

    Matt McIrvin

    @jonas: He tried so hard to find some weird trick to keep same-sex marriage from happening when the courts legalized it on his watch, but he failed.

  114. 114.

    Scout211

    @Betty Cracker: I’m shocked they haven’t been banned yet!

    They likely need the ad revenue that Biden’s popular account is bringing in. That hellhole has a crazy amount of ads and they are huge.

  117. 117.

    Geminid

    @Redshift: Regarding a new Speaker+ new Rules deal, this could be a chicken/egg sutuation: Dems might have to trust the defectors to vote for the rules change after they’ve gotten the Speaker they want.

    That’s why I think that if there are 5 defectors, there could be a deal to elect someone like retired Pennsylvania Rep. Charlie Dent as Speaker, if Democratic leadership decides he can be trusted to bring vital legislation to a floor vote.

    Last January, Don Bacon hinted at this solution. Dent could give the “Independent Republicans” a nice office where he and they can sip bourbon after work and talk about grandkids and retirement options.

    They might even meet in the morning for an “eye-opener,” Harry Truman style. Reporters would call them the “Old School” Caucus.

  118. 118.

    smith

    I wish one of the major news outlets would put up a countdown clock to the day the government runs out of money. Add a little more sweat to the copious amounts streaming from the right side of the aisle now. It would also help people who aren’t paying close attention to see that there are serious consequences to the GQP’s monumental dysfunction.

  120. 120.

    Old School

    @Betty Cracker: Worked for me too.  I was trying to get to Trump’s page earlier to see if he had any comments about Sidney Powell pleading guilty.

    I don’t see that he’s mentioned her lately.

  122. 122.

    Old Dan and Little Ann

    I had a dream last night I was sitting at a bar when Ron DeSantis walked in and came over to our table.  Fortunately, I immediately began making fun of him.

  124. 124.

    Ceci n est pas mon nym

    @Scout211: Here’s more from the NYTimes.

    Probably paywalled, so here are some quotes.

    Instead, he said he would back a plan floated by some centrist Republicans and Democrats to explicitly empower Mr. McHenry — whose role is primarily to hold an election for a permanent one — to conduct legislative work through Jan. 3.

    But during a contentious closed-door meeting of Republicans, his backers demanded he fight on.

    “We made the pitch to members on the resolution as the way to lower the temperature and get back to work,” Mr. Jordan said. “We decided that wasn’t where were going to go. I’m still running for speaker. I plan to go to the floor and get the votes and win this race.”

    He said he wanted to speak with the 22 Republicans who opposed his nomination on Wednesday before scheduling a third vote.

    The idea was met with intense backlash during a raucous closed-door meeting of House Republicans with several members emerging and declaring the proposal dead on arrival. Some members waved pocket-size copies of the U.S. Constitution and suggested the plan violated the country’s founding principles.

    “Just reading the room, I think it’s dead,” said Representative Vern Buchanan of Florida.

    Tempers at the meeting ran hot as members aired grievances and lamented the chaotic state of the chamber.

    We’ve heard reports before of Republicans coming close to fist fights. Could this be the issue that finally pushes somebody’s temper over the line?

  125. 125.

    Urza

    They all think this about each other.  And they all save it for after retirement and usually a book deal when it no longer matters to the nation, just their bank account.

    Also this Republicans in disarray is likely to keep them pissed off at each other for years, which can only be good for the country if the hate each other to much to fall into their usual  goose step mindset.

  129. 129.

    mrmoshpotato

    @Cliosfanboy:

    I saw them both in a restaurant in McLean a few years back. Dear God. She looks even more plastic in person. 

    What was the Pope doing stateside? 😁

  130. 130.

    JWR

    Before I forget, Romney was part of the Bain Capital crew that raided Guitar Center and loaded it up with debt while transforming it into what we mockingly used to refer to as “banjo depot”, before walking away from the rotted corpse.

    (Okay, GC was never that bad, but those early Squier’s really were the pits.)

  131. 131.

    Betty Cracker

    @Ceci n est pas mon nym: CNN says Jordan is trying to contact the hold-outs, and they won’t take his calls. IIRC, there hasn’t been a serious Rep-on-Rep assault in the House since before the Civil War, but maybe it’ll come to blows for real.

  134. 134.

    eversor

    @Ocotillo:

    I don’t think that many GOPers really care about staying in congress.

    Their problem is they have true believers now.  They have a mix of people who truly believe that libertarianism, white nationalism, or (the biggest group and the one calling the shots now and the worst group) Christianity must control the nation or the nation should be burned to the ground.

    There’s no negotiating with that.  Peeling off any of those groups means giving them what they want.  As all those groups hate each other and view the others as getting in the way of utopia or burning the nation.   Since we aren’t going to give those groups what they want the only thing they can agree on is to burn the nation to the ground.

    Negotiating with moderates roughly translates to giving the libertarian/rich Republicans everything they want now.  What we get in exchange is a pinky swear that they won’t try to give away everything to their Christian base the moment they can while they also fully promise to Christian the fuck out of things the moment they have enough power to do it.

    There’s no negotiating with an ideology or (even worse) a religion.  There is only submission to it or the destruction of it.

  135. 135.

    Scout211

    @Betty Cracker: The holdout meeting (a “handful” of them) is over and it was not a win for Gym Jordan.

    Jordan left a meeting with a handful of the GOP holdouts against him and said they had a “good discussion.”
    But some of those Republican lawmakers who left the meeting room, including Reps Carlos Gimenez, R-Fla., Mario Diaz-Balart, R-Fla. and Mike Kelly, R-Pa., said their minds have not changed. The meeting seems to have done little for Jordan’s pursuit of the speakership.

    ETA: edited for clarity.

  137. 137.

    Betty Cracker

    Is anyone reading Maddow’s “Prequel,” which is an expanded look at the material covered in her “Ultra” podcast? I just started it. Don’t often read political books these days, but the podcast was fascinating and ultimately uplifting because this country has faced determined, powerful and well-funded fascists before and beat them back.

  138. 138.

    smith

    @Barbara: The so-called Hastert Rule is a huge part, if not in fact the most important part, of how they enforce minority rule

    In addition to the pathology brought on by the Hastert Rule and its descendants, in the present moment they are severely handicapped by a refusal to acknowledge that their majority is tiny, and allows no margin of error.

  139. 139.

    Barbara

    @smith: To be honest, I think many of them — or some nontrivial number at least — wish they weren’t the majority.  They would get the benefit of sanity while still being able to try to persuade Conservadems to go along with specific priorities.

  142. 142.

    mrmoshpotato

    @Geminid:

    Nancy Mace to reporters:

    “Ready? Got good sound? Ok….I had to leave, because I’M A LOVER NOT A FIGHTER!”

    Did that kook actually say that?

  145. 145.

    Frankensteinbeck

    @jonas:

    his signature accomplishment was the country’s first state-wide health insurance program that later served as the inspiration for the ACA

    His signature accomplishment was a Democratic supermajority passing the country’s first state-wide health insurance program that later served as the inspiration for the ACA.  He tried and failed to stop it.  No credit for Romney there.  None.

  148. 148.

    Mai Naem mobile

    @sab: she will because Newt’s probably got really good insurance which probably covers long term care and he’s probably has a large enough net worth to not go broke on medical care. She would stick around for whatever is left over which will still be enough to have a very nice life style. Bonus brownie points in the Village for being the long suffering wife now widow of an ill guy.

  151. 151.

    JWR

    @Frankensteinbeck:

    No credit for Romney there. None.

    But, but, but I was told by somebody over at LG&M that Romney was way more progressive than BHO, an opinion informed by the passage of his state’s full coverage health care program. You know, just like Nixon was so much more Liberal than today’s Dems because he signed the ADA. ///s

  152. 152.

    Geminid

    @mrmoshpotato: No, I’m goofing. Anyway the Republicans haven’t brawled yet.

    I’m joking about Rep. Mace because she has not grabbed much attention lately, and she’s due. No one’s ever gonna accuse Nancy Mace of hiding her light under a bushel.

  154. 154.

    Ken

    @smith: a refusal to acknowledge that their majority is tiny, and allows no margin of error.

    Which is a problem for a party that’s nothing but error, and glories in it.

  156. 156.

    Kent

    @JWR:But, but, but I was told by somebody over at LG&M that Romney was way more progressive than BHO, an opinion informed by the passage of his state’s full coverage health care program. You know, just like Nixon was so much more Liberal than today’s Dems because he signed the ADA. ///s

    Not to mention the clean air act, clean water act, endangered species act, and NEPA.

    All passed by a Democratic Congress of course.

  157. 157.

    Geminid

    From Haaretz: the Pentagon said US warships shot down down missiles fired from Yemen towards Israel.

    The warships may have been in the Red Sea.

  158. 158.

    eversor

    @Eolirin:

    Not really.  Though there is a lot of overlap.

    The Christian branch is mostly concerned about the sexual revolution.  The Old Testament, New Testament, Church, and Jesus himself demand extreme patriarchy, heirarchy, gender roles, submission and more.  That is the core of Christianity, no matter how much people lie like crazy that those things aren’t in it so they can pretend it’s not an absolute horror they are supporting.  White nationalists agree with it but toss race into it.  White Nationalism + Christianity (that doesn’t run from the nasty parts of it or lie like crazy that they don’t exist, which is worse than the actual fascists at least they are honest about the nasty parts making them better humans than the liars) is Christian Nationalism.

    We are either going to deal with this or not.  If we are not going to deal with Christianity than lets full speed ahead to The Handmaidens Tale and American Taliban full stop and get REAL Christianity until we are ready to deal with it.  I for one will proudly march to my mass grave and look at the liberal Christians who are also being marched and smile at them and say “Well, they got part of Jesus wrong but they admit the parts you don’t.  So they earned this and we deserve this!  Don’t get mad, VOTE!” and die with a smile on my face knowing they all went as well.

  159. 159.

    hueyplong

    @JWR: You mean that health care system that Mitt denied three times before the cock crowed during the debates?

  160. 160.

    Frankensteinbeck

    @Geminid:

    I don’t know how the civil war there is going, but the Yemeni rebels were happy to hide and protect some of the most violent and active anti-American Islamic terrorists.  Those groups would presumably be greatly motivated to take advantage of the chaos in Israel and make things worse.

  162. 162.

    JWR

    @Kent:

    Not to mention the clean air act, clean water act, endangered species act, and NEPA.

    And there you have it. In the game of liberal politics, Nixon wins hands down. /s /s /no srsly /S!

    @hueyplong:

    You mean that health care system that Mitt denied three times before the cock crowed during the debates?

    Yep, that’s the one. Boy, that Mittster. Such a lib

    ETA ;)

  165. 165.

    Geminid

    @Frankensteinbeck: The Yemeni Civil War has been in hiatus for almost a year now, and Saudi Arabia and the Houthis have been making progress towards a settlement. Yemen really needs peace, even if it becomes divided indefinitely. Those people have suffered terribly the last 10 years.

    The Houthi government is vehemently anti-Israel, but if they fired missiles they probably did it with Iranian approval and assistance. The US shot them down to protect Israel physically, but also so Israel doesn’t have start fighting the Houthis too.

    We’ll probably do the same if Hezbollah starts shooting missiles at Israel. In that case Israel would definitely attack Hezbollah.

  166. 166.

    dnfree

    @Kent: I thought Romney was right about Russia way back in 2012.  Both GW and Obama were trying to improve the relationship by pretending it was normal or could be, but even then Putin was taking advantage of their attempts at good will.

  167. 167.

    Uncle Cosmo

    @sab: …I never trust [Mormons] in business. Not because they are bad but because they are sharp.

    IIRC, when the LDS were gathered in force at Nauvoo IL, one of the main gripes held against them was that at Mormon businesses, there was one price for the Saints and another (higher) price for the “Gentiles.”** Which led in short order to the arrest of founder Joseph Smith, his murder at the hands of a mob, and the subsequent migration of the faithful en masse to the environs of the Great Salt Lake.

    ** I.e., anyone not LDS. The Mormons are the only group I know of who’d call an Orthodox Jewish rabbi a “Gentile.”

  173. 173.

    Uncle Cosmo

    @Dorothy A. Winsor: I think Romney actually said the USSR, not Russia.

    If he did his geopolitical acumen was a full 20 years out of date, since the Sovietsky Soyuz vanished into “the dustbin of history”** as of midnight on 25 December 1991.

    ** Lev Davidovich Bronstein, bka Trotsky: “Go where you belong from now on – into the dustbin of history!” as the Menshevik faction walked out of the All-Russian Congress of Soviets on 25 October 1917 in Petrograd. (You could look it up…)

  174. 174.

    Geminid

    @Jay: I am sure that is the case. But the Iranians have missiles with much longer ranges than that, and those are probably what the U.S Navy shot down.

  175. 175.

    Jay

    @Geminid:

    The Houthi’s don’t have them.

    ISIL et al, however has the north, which cut’s 800km off the missiles paths, has Scud II’s from the UAE, and aircover from the Sawdi’s.

    They also hate Israel.

    The Houthi’s hate the US, Israel, Sawdi Arabia and to a lesser extent, Britain, because back in the 1960’s, when they were fighting Nasser, the PRSY and getting doused with poison gas. once the Sawdi’s got what they wanted, (a defined border), the US, Sawdi’s, Israel and Britain, pulled their support and hung them out to dry.

  176. 176.

    kalakal

    @Suzanne:

    The reason we all mocked Romney

    I found it a little difficult to take him seriously, when in the 2nd? debate he warned in apocalyptic terms that “Syria was Iran’s route to the sea”.

    A  statement, the accuracy of which was only marred by the facts that a) Iran and Syria do not share a land border and b) Iran has over 1,700 miles of coastline.

    Instead of binders full of women in his office he should have invested in an atlas

  177. 177.

    jlowe

    My suspicion currently without evidence is that Boehner understood he wasn’t a writer so he worked more closely with a ghostwriter. Mitt had a much higher opinion of his abilities (he’s rich so he’s good at everything, right?) and tried to hammer it out by his onesies. He must have been a lot of fun for his editor.

  178. 178.

    Geminid

    @Jay: Well, other people say the Houthis do have missiles that can reach Israel from Sanaa. Or rather, that the Iranians have missiles in Yemen that can reach Israel. Military tech-blogger Patarames (@Pataramesh) listed three different ones. CNN and the New York Times seem to think the intercepted missiles quite possibly were aimed at Israel. I have seen only one military expert who says this could not be so, and that was on an almost top 10,000 blog.

  179. 179.

    Chris

    @kalakal:

    Yeah.  It was ridiculous.  His Russia comment was just him spitballing and hyperbolizing; there was no substance to it other than oogo booga, Weak Democrat Making Us Weak, insert enemy country here.

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