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You are here: Home / Open Threads / Let Them Fight.

Let Them Fight.

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Maybe I’m just petty, but I love this feud Kevin McCarthy has with the people who booted him out of the House. I hope it’s the gift that keep son giving.

It appears that McCarthy maybe played a role in the Rep. Good’s race.  Did he lose, or is it still too close to call?

I’m generally in favor of anything that pits Republicans against Republicans.

Totally open thread.

Reader Interactions

78Comments

  3. 3.

    Cacti

    I saw that charges were dropped against all the Columbia students and the two faculty who were arrested in the anti-Gaza war protests.

    Good.  Suck it, AIPAC!

  4. 4.

    RaflW

    While so far most things seem to be holding together over in that other party, I do feel a strong swirl that the GOP could really devolve into explosive infighting. And that’s fine with me.

  6. 6.

    MattF

    Matt Gaetz is a spectacularly awful, creepy person. Add to that his rich and influential daddy, who has bailed the bad boy out over and over and over again. There may actually be a limit to what little Matty can get away with, but we shall see.

  7. 7.

    Jackie

    Good is still behind, but barely and there’s sure to be an automatic recount. Good has also shifted into “rigged election!!!” mode. 🎻 (enlarged so y’all can see)

  9. 9.

    Ryan

    Just to be clear, Matt Gaetz F****s 17 year olds.  That I can’t prove it doesn’t mean it isn’t true.

  10. 10.

    Suzanne

    Maybe I’m just petty

    I am definitely petty. I like to think it’s part of my charm.

  15. 15.

    Jeffro

    @Jackie: #ProudToBeOneOfThe300  =)

    (VA-05 Dems who crossed over to get Good booted)

    It is just sooo sweet to see yet another MAGAt making all kinds of crazy allegations instead of just…losing gracefully.  Keep reinforcing that perception with the public, dimwits!

    ETA: McGuire was supported by Kevin McCarthy as revenge for Good’s support of his (McCarthy’s) ouster.  Jail-bound Steve Bannon also supported Good, so there’s some karma kicking in there as well.

  17. 17.

    Jackie

    @Ryan: This, from today:

    The constant “drip drip drip” of information about questions about Rep. Matt Gaetz’s conduct filtering out of the House Ethics Committee should be cause for concern for both the Florida lawmaker and the Republican party he represents.

    This past week it was revealed that the committee is continuing its inquiry into allegations that Gaetz paid for sex with underaged women and attended drug-fueled parties, and former Rep. Dave Jolly (R-FL) claimed that should be setting off alarms.
    Writing for MSNBC, Jolly asserted the accusations “should not be ignored. For one thing, the various accusations have always been serious, many following him from his bachelor days as a Florida state legislator.”

    Noting the Republican majority-dominated committee is going where a previous DOJ investigation did not go, he explained “We do not know how the House Ethics Committee’s investigation will end. The committee’s potential actions range from closing the matter without comment to recommending censure or even expulsion from the House.”

    With that, he noted Gaetz’s “angry denials’ and pointed out that, if that sounds familiar, we are experiencing something completely similar to Donald Trump’s legal travails.

    “Their proven ability to offend norms, shatter convention and defy political gravity. Trump is literally a convicted criminal, and yet he is also a contender to again control the White House. Gaetz flexed his political might during the speaker debacle, and may now be eyeing a run for the Florida governorship in 2026,” he wrote before continuing, “Today, Donald Trump is 78 years old. Matt Gaetz is 42. The GOP is truly in trouble if it allows a full transfer of power and momentum between this old and new guard. Hopefully, the House Ethics Committee will ensure justice is done, certainly if the allegations against Gaetz are confirmed. It’s been a depressing decade for the GOP.”

    “Enough is enough,” he added.

    https://www.rawstory.com/matt-gaetz-misconduct/

  18. 18.

    smith

    The Goober-on-Goober violence looks like it could escalate to nuclear levels in Milwaukee:

    Trump campaign seeks to head off convention revolt from its right flank

    PHOENIX — Arizona delegates to the Republican National Convention gathered this month in a Phoenix suburb, showing up to get to know each other and learn about their duties.

    Part of the presentation included a secret plan to throw the party’s nomination of Donald Trump for president into chaos.

    The instructions did not come from “Never Trumpers” hoping to stop the party from nominating a felon when delegates gather in Milwaukee next month. They instead came from avowed “America First” believers hatching a challenge from the far right — a plot to release the delegates from their pledge to support Trump, according to people present and briefed on the meeting, slides from the presentation and private messages obtained by The Washington Post.

    I chuckled all the way through this one. People who have pickled their brains in conspiracy theories find it a huge uphill climb to trust one another to get anything done.

  20. 20.

    japa21

    @trollhattan: I love that.  Now, if just Republicans and Republicans could get along like that. //​
     

    ETA: Of course, since all Republicans are asses, that wouldn’t work.

  21. 21.

    E.

    The local GOP party in my purple county in Red Tennessee is in the process of splitting in two, maybe permanently. A young hot shot came in stirring up accusations of RINOism in the state party (old guard too soft on LGBTQ and abortion) and now they are all screaming at each other. The young hot shot publicly refuses to shake hands with the party chair. The “True” conservative newcomers now have rival websites, FB pages and their own meetings, and they endorse or at least promote very different candidates from the old party. These are deeply unpleasant people and it’s nice to see they recognize this and all hate each other so much.

  24. 24.

    mrmoshpotato

    I’m generally in favor of anything that pits Republicans against Republicans.

    Especially when it involves an absolutely toe-headed, alleged pedophile.

  25. 25.

    mrmoshpotato

    @smith:

    The Goober-on-Goober violence looks like it could escalate to nuclear levels in Milwaukee: 

    Yes please!  Enjoy the shitshow, Milwaukee!

  27. 27.

    E.

    @Chet Murthy: It’s nice to see any state GOP disintegrate but most of the truly helpless ones are in solidly blue states like CA. Maybe now we will see some more chaos in the red state parties too. One “wedge” issue here seems to be the rape and incest exception for abortion. It seems they are bitterly, and very publicly, divided over this issue.

  28. 28.

    bbleh

    Did he lose, or is it still too close to call?

    IIRC mailed ballots could arrive as late as yesterday, so I can’t imagine they’ve got a final count yet, and in any case it’s sure to be subject to a recount, and then court challenges, and then outright refusal to acknowledge the results at all.  I mean, this is the head of the Freedumb Crazies Caucus being challenged from the right …

  29. 29.

    Redshift

    @Jackie: There’ll be a recount, but based on how these things usually go, it’s still very unlikely Good will win. So it’s the best of both worlds – the nasty fight drags out, and Good (probably) still loses.

  30. 30.

    Geminid

    @Jackie: I think Good was trailing by around 350 votes going into the weekend, and it’s very unlikely he can make that up in the cew mail in ballots not yet counted. McGuire declared victory election night.

    Bob Good’s claims of various irregularities don’t hoĺd water. He’s just a sore loser. My takeaway is that Good took his seat for granted and never engaged with his constituents the way most new Representaves do even if their district is relatively favorable to their party. Good’s DeSantis endorsement wouldn’t have sunk him if he’d built up a store of “Good” will in his district.

    Another factor: in 2020, Good unseated Rep. Riggleman through a caucus/convention process, and that’s how he won his renomination in 2022. But Virginia’s General Assembly changed the rules for Congressional races and Good had to face voters in a primary for the first time.

  31. 31.

    Chet Murthy

    @E.: I sure don’t expect these state G(r)OP to fall apart enough to help our side, but still, it’s funny to read about!  In this case, Michigan, and BOY HOWDY too funny!  MI Dems must be rolling in the aisles watching this shit.

  32. 32.

    bbleh

    @Geminid: 324 votes = 0.52% a/o this afternoon, per VA SecState website

    And let’s not forget, this is also a TCFG grudge match, cuz Good originally backed DeSantis.

  33. 33.

    Tony G

    Ha ha ha.  However, in fairness, the evidence indicates that when Matt Gaetz engaged in “horizontal refreshment” with that seventeen year old girl, there wasn’t much sleeping going on.

  34. 34.

    smith

    @Chet Murthy: It’s especially fun to watch it in the swing states. The GQP really can’t afford that kind of disarray when they’re hanging by a thread already.

  35. 35.

    NotMax

    FYI.

    Prime video has put up a Remembering Donald Sutherland category with 15 of his films.

  37. 37.

    hueyplong

    Probably too much to hope for helmeted Milwaukee cops cracking Republican heads at the GOP convention in the 1968 Chicago replay for which the NYT has openly prayed when discussing the upcoming Dem convention.

  38. 38.

    Geminid

    @E.: Virginia Republicans won the control of the House of Delegates in 2021, and after Dobbs they and Governor Youngkin made a lot of big talk about a “15 week” abortion ban.

    They even passed it in committee, but when it came time to put it on the floor they chickened out. Their alibi was that that Senator Louise Lucas’s “Brick Wall” would prevent the bill from reaching Youngkin’s desk, but that didn’t stop the House of Delegates from passing all kinds of other stupid bills.

    One obvious motivation here was a fear that the bill would hurt them among moderate voters in the upcoming General Assembly elections. But I think another was that hard core abortion foes felt they were being sold out.

  39. 39.

    David 🌈 ☘The Establishment☘🌈 Koch

    Qevin is too stopped be Speaker.

    He could have released the dirt to the press early in his term and ousted gaetz.  Instead Qevin got rolled by a two bit coke head.

     

    As Gore Vidal once wrote:

    Now, I am here to tell you this, that power is not a toy that we give to good children. It’s a weapon, and the strong man takes it and he uses it. And if you don’t go down there and beat Joe Cantwell to the floor with this very dirty stick, then you’ve got no business in this big league.

  40. 40.

    Betty Cracker

    @E.: A similar thing happened to Repubs in my deep red region. The county-level party split in half because one big shot decided it was insufficiently Trumpy. DeSantis’s run exacerbated the tension. They have separate meetings and events, etc.

    Unfortunately, the split is unlikely to benefit Dems anytime soon. There’s not a single elected Democrat in this county, despite chronic Republican corruption and mismanagement.

  41. 41.

    Geminid

    @bbleh: It would be hard to forget that Bob Good endorsed Ron DeSantis. That’s probably the best-known aspect of this race.

  42. 42.

    Torrey

    WTH? At 12 seconds in, McCarthy responds to the interviewer’s claim that he made lots of concessions to get the speakership with “that is such a misnomer in life.” What is “in life” doing there? It’s like he started his mouth working and it just filled in a random phrase.​

    Sounds like something AI would generate.

  45. 45.

    dexwood

    @NotMax: ​
     Thanks for the tip. We watched his ’87 film The Rosary Murders last night. We had never heard of that one before. Wasn’t bad. Not great, but an as usual solid performance from him.

  46. 46.

    mrmoshpotato

    @hueyplong:

    Probably too much to hope for helmeted Milwaukee cops cracking Republican heads at the GOP convention in the 1968 Chicago replay for which the NYT has openly prayed when discussing the upcoming Dem convention. 

    FUCK THE FUCKING NEW YORK TIMES!

    I look forward to mostly peaceful protests here compared to the shitshow at the Rethuglican convention in Milwaukee.  And it will be the party members causing the shitshow.

  48. 48.

    karen marie

    @Jackie:   If Florida elects Gaetz as governor, I say we all chip in to rent some heavy equipment to dig a wide and deep trench at the top of the wang and hope it floats off.

  49. 49.

    E.

    @Betty Cracker: Who knows though. I foresee a cascading kind of Peter Principal Hopscotch where the party gets more and more insane and incompetent with every new grifter seeking the crown, each one a shade less normal than the one before. This stuff can’t be hurting us and it’s such fun to watch as long as you do it with the sound off.

  50. 50.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Torrey:

    I thought he said “That is such a misnomer and lie.” But I went back and listened to it, and it might very well be “in life.” Either way, kind of a weird formulation.

    But then, look who we’re talking about.

  55. 55.

    Odie Hugh Manatee

    @E.:

    I’m absolutely loving this shit. I have been saying for years that one day that they would turn on each other in a huge purity purge and now it’s here. Idaho is going through the same thing and it’s a state under complete control of the Republicans. Their only play in their playbook is some perceived enemy, usually someone/something on the left that they claim will destroy America. Now they are claiming that only they can purify the party and save it so it can save America!

    Add to this their mistrust of anything at all now and they are even not able to trust each other any more…lol! I am absolutely loving that they are now at each others throats.

  56. 56.

    tomtofa

    @David 🌈 ☘The Establishment☘🌈 Koch:

    Now, I am here to tell you this, that power is not a toy that we give to good children. It’s a weapon, and the strong man takes it and he uses it. And if you don’t go down there and beat Joe Cantwell to the floor with this very dirty stick, then you’ve got no business in this big league.

    That quote is from the political play/film ‘The Best Man’, about a presidential nomination. Kevin McCarthy had a supporting role.

    OK, a different Kevin, but still…

  57. 57.

    mrmoshpotato

    @MagdaInBlack:

    I’m not terribly worried about Chicago. I fully expect that Milwaukee WILL be a total shit show. And I’m here for it. 

    Same here!

  60. 60.

    Bruce K in ATH-GR

    @Odie Hugh Manatee: I’ve been saying for close to ten years that there’s no future in which both the GOP and American democracy survive, that one of them would be dead in twenty years, and if the GOP ends up collectively Darwin-Awarding itself over the next couple or three election cycles, I’m all for it because it’d mean better odds that America as we know it will survive.

  61. 61.

    smith

    @mrmoshpotato: People keep thinking about the 1968 convention, and forget that the DNC was in Chicago in 1996, and nothing out of the ordinary happened. No reason for it to be anything but ordinary this year either.

  64. 64.

    David 🌈 ☘The Establishment☘🌈 Koch

    @tomtofa: Gore wrote the movie.   He had an interesting career as a  screenwriter including writing the best parts of “Ben Hur“

  65. 65.

    Nukular Biskits

    @Betty Cracker:

    I keep hoping that something like that will happen here in MS; i.e., Republican infighting will rip the state party apart.

    Sadly, though, I see nothing like that on the horizon.  From top to bottom, nearly the entire state’s party membership is 100% MAGA.

  66. 66.

    Odie Hugh Manatee

    @Nukular Biskits:

    They need some new kids on the block to rock their boat. Hopefully some opportunistic reich-wing nuts realize that they too can profit fro turning on their party and purging it of the olds.

    One can hope…

  67. 67.

    Mai Naem mobile

    @MattF: my feelings exactly. Gaetz has no business being in a position of any power. The guy is an arrogant frat boy sleazeball who at some point  I fully expect at to be caught up in some illegal under age scandal.

  70. 70.

    Odie Hugh Manatee

    @Nukular Biskits:

    I’d rather pick a border state so that if things go sideways all I would need to do is cross the state line to travel back 50 years. ;)

  71. 71.

    David 🌈 ☘The Establishment☘🌈 Koch

    @dexwood:

    Lew Wallace’s 1880 novel, Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ, ran to about 550 pages. Zimbalist hired a number of screenwriters to cut the story down and turn the novel into a script. According to Gore Vidal, more than 12 versions of the script had been written by various writers by the spring of 1958.[27] 

  73. 73.

    KM in NS

    OT: observation from travelling thru Maine and New Hampshire… no Trump bumper stickers en route to NH… saw one RFK sticker with an accompanying “ conduct voter fraud “ sticker. In Portsmouth, one Trump Make America Great Again sign with 2020 painted over with 2024. I guess likes the “cause” but not enough to spend money on a new sign with “official “ date. lol

  75. 75.

    Geminid

    @dexwood: Governing the New Mexico Territory was not a very demanding job those days. I think the Army did most of the heavy lifting. So Lew Wallace had the time to write what became a best-selling novel.

    Lew Wallace’s Civil War career eas not so duccessful. In the Spring of 1862, Wallace got on Ulysses Grant’s bad side at the battle of Shiloh. When the battle began Grant was several miles downstream from the battlefield, waiting to greet Buell’s army, when the Confederates attacked. Wallaces division was posted along the Tennessee River, closer to the battlefield.

    When he heard the Confederate cannons, Grant immediately boarded a Navy ship and headed to the battlefield. He stopped along the way to tell Wallace to bring his division to the battle ASAP, but Wallace took the long way and did not reach the battlefield for 10 hours. Grant and Sherman held on, but they really missed Wallace’s division.

    That was it for Wallace in the Western theatre. Wallace redeemed himself in July of 1864 when he and a scratch force met Jubal Early’s army in Maryland, at the Battle of the Monocacy. Early eventually shoved Wallace’s smaller force aside, but it cost him a day. By the time Early arrived at Washington’s outer defensive ring, the Sixth Corp had arrived from the Richmond/Petersburg front and Early had to skedaddle.

  76. 76.

    wjca

    @Mai Naem mobile: Gaetz has no business being in a position of any power. The guy is an arrogant frat boy sleazeball who at some point  I fully expect at to be caught up in some illegal under age scandal.

    Somehow, when I read/hear “arrogant frat boy sleazeball”, the name that leaps to mind isn’t Gaetz.  It’s Kavanaugh.

  78. 78.

    Miss Bianca

    @dexwood: I read The Rosary Murders years and years ago. It was by a Detroit author, as I recall. I had totally forgotten that they made a movie out of it, and with Donald Sutherland too!

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