All Lies In Jest

Trump teases a lot of weird shit, and he does it for a coupla reasons.

• He's a shock jock. It's all just a show - a WWE Promo 
• He needs affirmation - he has to hear people cheer for him and boo his adversaries
• He "floats the idea" to normalize it - to make it part of everyday conversation

Don't think for a minute he has any intention of following the constitution. He's said he's willing to shit-can the Constitution:

“A Massive Fraud of this type and magnitude allows for the termination of all rules, regulations, and articles, even those found in the Constitution,” Trump wrote in a Truth Social post in December 2022.

The only reason he kept it more or less between the lines last time is because there were enough people around him telling him not to fuck with things too badly.

Project 2025 promises to remove those guard rails altogether.

Trump at NRA convention floats a 3-term presidency

The former president has more recently shut down the proposition of seeking a third term, which is barred by the Constitution.

Former President Donald Trump on Saturday floated the idea of a third term if he wins in November.

“You know, FDR 16 years — almost 16 years — he was four terms. I don’t know, are we going to be considered three-term? Or two-term?” Trump quipped at the National Rifle Association annual meeting, speaking before a crowd of gun rights supporters.

Some in the crowd shouted in response: “Three.”

It’s not the first time Trump has mentioned extending his stay in the White House, an idea he suggested while on the campaign trail in 2020. His latest remarks provide more fodder for the Biden campaign, which seized on the comments as it tries to paint Trump as a threat to democracy and institutional norms.

But Trump has more recently shut down the proposition of seeking a third term, which is barred by the Constitution. And he told Time magazine in an April interview that he wouldn’t be in favor of challenging the 22nd Amendment, enacted after FDR’s presidency:

“I wouldn’t be in favor of it at all. I intend to serve four years and do a great job. And I want to bring our country back. I want to put it back on the right track. Our country is going down. We’re a failing nation right now. We’re a nation in turmoil,” he said.

During a meandering speech in Dallas, Trump addressed thousands of gun rights supporters on Saturday. The former president spoke about guns and the Second Amendment, but also tackled immigration, foreign policy, the economy and abortion. He at one point slammed Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as “radical left,” while continuing his attacks on Biden and CNN about the debates.

His trip to Dallas comes as his criminal trial in New York heads toward the finish line, with closing arguments expected as soon as Tuesday. By this time next week, the former president could be a convicted felon or newly acquitted on charges of concealing a 2016 hush money scheme. Trump on Saturday railed against his indictments and also complained about the gag order issued under Justice Juan Merchan.

Trump, intermittently pivoting back to the gun issue, spoke before a vastly different NRA than the one that threw its support behind him just eight years ago. In May 2016, the organization backed Trump and would go on to spend more than $30 million to help send him to the White House. On Saturday, the NRA endorsed Trump again, support that comes as both the former president and the nation’s top gun group face mounting legal challenges, raising questions about how much money the organization will be able to put behind Trump’s 2024 bid to return to power.

“The endorsement of the proud patriots of the NRA. These are great patriots. These are great people. We’re going to do things like nobody can believe,” Trump said.

He also urged gun owners, who he said he’s heard “don’t vote,” to turn out in November to ensure his victory.

“Let’s be rebellious and vote this time, OK?” Trump said.

Trump used Saturday’s speech — his ninth time addressing the nation’s top gun lobby — to gin up enthusiasm among some of his staunchest supporters, a key constituency for fundraising. The NRA cheered Trump during his first term in office, as he appointed three conservative Supreme Court justices and took steps pushed by the gun lobby, including his designation of gun and ammunition retailers as critical infrastructure during Covid.

Trump also used the venue to rail against President Joe Biden’s restrictions on gun ownership and vowed to roll back gun safety provisions passed by his administration.

Biden has taken a number of steps to tackle gun violence, issuing a slew of executive actions and establishing the first-ever federal office of gun violence prevention — moves that have angered the gun lobby. The president most recently moved to expand background checks for gun purchases, in an effort to eliminate a loophole that has allowed sales of guns without background checks outside of brick-and-mortar stores.

“If the Biden regime gets four more years, they are coming for your guns,” Trump said. “Crooked Joe Biden has a 40-year record of trying to rip firearms out of the hands of law abiding citizens.”

As Trump headlined the event, the weight of the NRA’s backing and its relevance in the country’s politics this cycle is increasingly murky. The group has been embattled with scandals, internal power struggles and lawsuits that have emptied its coffers, spurring uncertainty about how much cash it can put forward to support Trump at a time his own war chest lags behind Biden’s.

“No matter what you’ve heard, we are strong. We are healthy. We are resolute, committed and united as ever,” said Andrew Arulanandam, interim CEO and executive vice president of the NRA, before Trump’s speech.

The politics around guns has shifted in recent years, as gun violence continues to plague the country. After the Uvalde school shooting in 2022, Democrats and Republicans voted for the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, the first gun safety legislation in 30 years. Candidates from both parties didn’t pay an electoral price in the midterms, which gun safety advocates attribute to what they see as a seismic shift in the politics around the issue that’s been underway for years now.

Timed with Saturday’s event, the Trump campaign and the Republican National Committee launched the “Gun Owners for Trump” coalition, led by Olympic athletes, firearms industry leaders and public advocates. The release said the coalition will “push back against Biden and the gun-grabbing Democrats’ attempts to erode the Second Amendment of the United States Constitution.”

The Democratic National Committee, for its part, had a mobile billboard in Dallas, attacking Trump’s NRA speech. The billboard cycled through headlines about the former president, his gun policies and past comments amid mass shootings. One screen showed the words “get over it” — a reference to Trump’s comments after a school shooting in Iowa earlier this year — while another highlighted the former president saying that mass shootings are not “a gun problem.”

“Donald Trump puts the NRA above Americans’ safety,” the mobile billboard said.

Must See

Sometimes all you need is to kill something just to watch it die.

Today's GOP Fuckery

Because Republicans are assholes who won't hesitate to throw your ass off the train if they think that might get them a spot on DumFux News tonight so they can bitch about "broken government".

By Dr Thomas K Lew, assistant clinical professor of Medicine at the Stanford University School of Medicine and attending physician of Hospital Medicine at Stanford Health Care Tri-Valley.

Congress voted against funding a cure for cancer just to block a win for Biden

Some Republicans, refusing to give President Joe Biden a 'win,' voted against the renewal of funding for cancer research. Vote for those who do not politicize Americans' health.

I’m afraid I have some bad news.

As a hospital doctor, I’ve gotten pretty good at delivering bad news. Still, it never gets any easier. It certainly was not easy the day I told my 53-year-old patient, a devoted father of two, that his stomach pains were not from gallstones as everyone had assumed. Whenever a doctor says “bad news,” our minds often jump to that terrible “C”-word we fear: cancer. Unfortunately for my patient, I diagnosed him with a deadly form of cancer: cholangiocarcinoma. Over the next year, I would watch him deteriorate as he was readmitted with complication after complication.

Cancer affects everyone in some way, shape or form. Whether personally or through a family member or friend, the stress and heartbreak of a cancer diagnosis is immeasurable. Which is why I was so surprised when I read that Congress would not be renewing investments in the “Cancer Moonshot” initiative dedicated to curing cancer.

While there are many different forms of cancer and likely as many different research endeavors to treat them, the Moonshot program was the largest, organized effort by the U.S. government to find cures. Formed in 2016 by then-Vice President Joe Biden, after his own son was killed by brain cancer, the program has enjoyed bipartisan support and praise.

Initially funded in 2016 at $1.8 billion for seven years, with the aim to reduce cancer deaths by half by 2047, the program has made strides in expanding access to cancer detection screenings, especially to veterans, increased support for programs aimed at preventing cancer in the first place and provided funding to groundbreaking cancer cure research.

Biden's Cancer Moonshot initiative is Congress' latest partisan casualty
However, with the ever-present dysfunction of Congress, maybe predictably, the program has been stalled. Some Republicans, refusing to give Biden a “win,” voted against the renewal of funding.

Even though this would be a win for all Americans – and humanity – it apparently did not outweigh the politics of making a Democrat look good. This is the definition of party over country.

Republicans have stated budget cuts need to be made with an ever-growing debt. But where was this attitude when tax cuts for the wealthy were on the table in 2017? They don’t have to look at patients in the eye and break the devastating news that they have cancer. They don’t have to treat cancers that block intestines or drown a patient’s lungs in fluid.

Cancer claims more than 600,000 American lives a year. In economic terms, it has been estimated that the annual financial burden of cancer care in this country is about $200 billion.

If throwing some government money at this will expedite a cure, then it’s still a bargain.

I cared for my patient with cholangiocarcinoma through crises of pain, bowel obstructions, chemotherapy, kidney injury and, unfortunately, when he could no longer continue the fight of his cancer, his death. Besides the nurses and doctors supporting him, our patient had his family by his side.

Until recently, one could have argued that the government was also on his side, but Republicans and those who voted against funding the Moonshot Cancer initiative have made it clear that he, and other cancer patients like him, are not their priority.

But we, as voters, need to keep our priorities straight and focus on the health of our fellow Americans. Keep in mind who voted against the Moonshot Cancer initiative in the upcoming elections. Keep in mind those who continually vote against scientific progress, against funding for cancer research, against pandemic vaccines roll-outs or even against climate change, which is not just an existential crisis in the future but today exacerbates chronic health conditions such as asthma.

Keep this in mind and vote for those who do not politicize Americans’ health. Otherwise, the country’s prognosis is bad news for all of us.

What They Are Now

The Republican Party has completely degenerated. They're not good at anything but being assholes and making enemies.

Wingnuts Gonna Wingnut

So if Ronna McDaniel suddenly starts acting like she's "one of the not-so-fucking-crazy" Republicans for her new gig at NBC, what are we supposed to take from that?

• That she was play-acting at RNC, and not really the Trump sycophant she appeared to be?
• That she's play-acting now, and she really is the scum bucket she's appeared to be?
• Will she be able to get Trump's dick out of her mouth so we can understand what she's saying, or will she have a whole new set of dicks in her mouth now, or what?

I honestly don't get it, and I'm more convinced I did the right thing by dumping my cable subscriptions that carry MSNBC. Fuck 'em - fuckin' Press Poodles.

Maybe she's ready to do a Nicolle Wallace and turn into a more or less decent human being, and spill some beans on just how fucked up the GOP is now, but c'mon - what the fuck was all that back there, Ronna?

Ronna McDaniel joins NBC News as contributor

Ronna McDaniel, the former head of the Republican National Committee (RNC), will join NBC News as a contributor.

McDaniel will appear on “Meet The Press” this Sunday, giving her first interview since resigning as head of the RNC earlier this year.

McDaniel is expected to be featured as part of election coverage on NBC and on the network’s sister cable channel, MSNBC.

“It couldn’t be a more important moment to have a voice like Ronna’s on the team,” Carrie Budoff Brown, who leads political coverage at NBC, wrote in a memo shared with The New York Times.

McDaniel became RNC chair with Trump’s backing in 2017 and won reelection four times, but she has recently clashed with the former president, who is expected to be the party’s nominee for president this fall.

Trump has attacked NBC and MSNBC in recent weeks, accusing the network of being a tool for Democrats and suggesting he would crack down on the network if elected president.

A Slightly Different Thing

Invasion? Damn straight, skippy. But wait - who's doing the invading?

Are They Waking Up?

This popped up on my Twixter feed this morning:

The rhetoric coming from the MAGA leaders is still pretty vehemently about "voter fraud", and wanting to do nothing but paper ballots, and only one day for voting, and hand counting, and announcing the results that evening. Which, of course, when taken together all but guarantees failure - which, of course again, is probably the point. Kill everybody's confidence in the process, and you can do away with all that inconvenient democracy stuff.

Then this was down the page in the replies:

It may not be so much that the rubes are being fooled, though some certainly are. It seems more like a lot of them have become thoroughly conditioned to accept the contradictions - or they're so caught up in the power game that they've decided to take a full part in it, passing the bullshit on to whoever might buy it, and reinforcing their own commitment to it (?)

Like they know what they're being told is bullshit, but they have to internalize it and rationalize it in order to make it through the day without their heads imploding.

It's a puzzlement, and I have to feel some encouragement that Ayn Rand's rule about contradictions is playing itself out.

Contradictions can and do exist, but they don't prevail, because they can't.

Toxicity

She could just as easily be talking about Republicans.

Where We're At

Generally, people are kinda tired of Trump's drama queen antics, and some are starting to understand they're not getting much out of it.

We're getting more confirmation it was never really about "economic anxiety". Maybe that anxiety helped fuel the rage, but it was always about the rage itself, and, as is typical of Wingnut Populists, Republicans channeled that rage into the basic fascist ploy of amping up the rubes and telling them who to blame.

The Koch PAC pulling their funding from the Haley campaign is not a sign of her crumbling.

I think it has more to do with the Plutocracy Project's main supporters looking to quiet things back down a bit, while they shift their emphasis back to the state and local levels.

Remember, one of the main objectives is to be in a position to call for a States' Constitutional Convention. They need ⅔ of the states (34) to agree to calling the convention, and in the last few cycles, they've lost some ground - Republicans had full control of the legislatures in 28 states, and now it's down to 23.

So it makes a lot of sense for them to refocus on trying to buy up those 11 states, since they're losing pretty badly at the national level.

Willfully Useful Idiots

Republicans are conditioned to keep doubling down, and at this point, after several rounds of it, they don't think they can pull back.

I see it as a combination of Sunk Cost Fallacy and SOP for propagandists.

And then, Press Poodles like Alex Wagner can't seem to grasp the concept of calling this shit out for the fascist shit that it is.

Even after Goldman explains it to her, she softens it and ends the segment with wording that I guess is meant to soothe us - to keep us from panicking.

Maybe a little panic is what we need - to get some of these fucking idiots up off their asses and into the goddamned fight.

The only way this shit ends

is by stomping the GOP

until there's nothing left

but a greasy spot on the rug

What Do They Mean?

I think I know the answer to my question, but sometimes, like an idiot goat trying to get somebody to explain a typewriter to him, I find myself trying to make sense of something that isn't meant to make sense to me or anybody else.

Shutting down the borders is a pretty classic Daddy State type move. And when you can couple it with some good old-fashioned racial scapegoating - hey - why not?

They have yet to articulate what exactly "shutting down the border" would look like.  What does Mike Johnson mean as he calls for "... transformational policy change to secure our border, enforce our laws, and deter even more illegal immigration"?

I'm afraid it's not a big stretch to think it means machine guns, razor wire, and land mines.

And let's remember that a closed border serves to keep people in too.

Border dispute could force partial government shutdown

Far-right House Republicans are threatening to block legislation to keep the federal government operating without sweeping changes to immigration laws

Far-right Republicans in the House are threatening to force a partial government shutdown unless Congress enacts strict new changes to immigration law, imperiling crucial government services — and U.S. aid to Ukraine — over a long-fraught issue that could be critical in this year’s elections.

Dozens of GOP lawmakers toured a portion of the U.S.-Mexico border at Eagle Pass, Tex., on Wednesday to push House-passed legislation that would significantly limit migrants’ ability to claim asylum, restart construction of a border wall and cut into President Biden’s power to grant humanitarian parole to migrants. Members of the Republican conference’s most conservative flank demanded that legislation become law in exchange for their votes to approve federal spending for the rest of the 2024 fiscal year, though the GOP-led House already rejected such a trade in September.

“H. R. 2 needs to be the unflinching House policy because all of it’s important to securing the border,” Rep. Bob Good (R-Va.), chair of the archconservative House Freedom Caucus, told The Washington Post. “The president and Senate majority leader have no interest in securing the border, and so therefore, we as a House majority should say, ‘We’re not going to fund a government that is going to continue to facilitate this border invasion.’”

Federal agents recorded nearly 250,000 illegal crossings along the southern border in December, the highest total ever in one month, according to preliminary Customs and Border Protection data obtained by The Post.

That crisis is complicating efforts in Washington to head off a partial shutdown. Funding for roughly 20 percent of the federal government — including for essential programs such as some veterans assistance and food and drug safety services — expires on Jan. 19, and money for the rest of the government runs out shortly after that, on Feb. 2. But lawmakers have not yet agreed on how to pass full-year spending bills or more temporary funding. Without action by the first deadline, a partial government shutdown would begin. Congress returns next week with little time to work out the details.

The White House’s top budget official told reporters Friday that the GOP tactic significantly increased the risk of a shutdown.

“I wouldn’t say pessimistic, but I’m not optimistic [about the odds to avert a shutdown],” Shalanda Young, director of the Office of Management and Budget, said at a breakfast sponsored by the Christian Science Monitor. “Earlier this week, their border trip left me with more concerns about where they’re headed.”

House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) did not formally back the demands to link immigration restrictions with federal spending, but with a narrow GOP majority in a bitterly divided chamber, he relies on the Freedom Caucus, a group that has been a persistent thorn in the side of Republican leadership, to maintain power. He called that immigration bill, H.R. 2, a “necessary ingredient” to any immigration policy.

“Let me tell you what our top two priorities are right now,” Johnson told reporters Wednesday. “In summary, we want to get the border closed and secured first, and we want to make sure that we reduce nondefense discretionary spending.”

Republican lawmakers and political operatives say immigration issues work to their advantage, and hope to capitalize on the porous border to maintain control of their narrow House majority, retake the Senate and propel former president Donald Trump back to the White House.

“I would prefer the Senate Democrats found enlightenment and said, ‘H.R. 2 is what we want to do.’ Turns out I live in the real world and that’s not going to happen,” Rep. Kelly Armstrong (R-N.D.) said. “But if we can get a substantial win on the border, I think it is one of those rare cases where it actually really helps the country and helps us politically.”

That strategy has at least some support in the Senate, where Democrats control the chamber by a single vote, requiring help from Republicans to get around potential filibusters to pass new spending legislation.

“I think that we have a real fiscal crisis in our country, but I think the most significant crisis we have is what is going on at the southern border,” Sen. J.D. Vance (R-Ohio), a regular interlocutor between hard-right lawmakers in the House and more pragmatic Senate Republicans, told The Post on Friday. “And I encourage my Republican friends in the House to use all the negotiating leverage they can to solve this problem politically.

A bipartisan group in the Senate — Sens. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), James Lankford (R-Okla.) and Kyrsten Sinema (I-Ariz.) — has been negotiating border legislation for weeks in connection with a separate spending bill that would devote more than $100 billion in U.S. aid to Ukraine and Israel and to the U.S.-Mexico border, among other priorities. That bill would include $14 billion in border security provisions. Senate Republicans have demanded immigration policy changes, as well as the security funding, before they’d vote to approve additional money for Ukraine.

But House Republicans are far more skeptical of Kyiv than their Senate counterparts, and demands to link immigration policy to ongoing government funding, instead of to the Ukraine aid, could mean the House won’t pass any assistance for the war in Ukraine.

This round of budgetary negotiations wasn’t supposed to be so complicated. In the spring, President Biden struck a deal with then-Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) to suspend the nation’s debt limit in exchange for limiting discretionary spending to $1.59 trillion in 2024, with 1 percent growth in 2025. Because that represented a cut when taking inflation into account, Biden and McCarthy agreed to spend another $69 billion each year in a side deal, with some of that offset by repurposing existing funds.

But House Republicans, led by members of the Freedom Caucus, were unsatisfied with that arrangement. A few months later, they ousted McCarthy from the speakership when he turned to Democratic votes in September to maintain those spending levels and avert a government shutdown. In a sign of stark internal divisions, though, the GOP-led House also rejected a stopgap funding measure with steep budget cuts that included the sweeping border changes the far right now seeks. (McCarthy resigned from Congress at the end of 2023.)

After taking over as speaker, Johnson in November also needed support from Democrats to pass another stopgap funding bill, which staggered expiration dates between Jan. 19 and Feb. 2.

The $69 billion side deal that McCarthy struck has been a sticking point through the fall and winter. Rep. Scott Perry (R-Pa.), then chair of the Freedom Caucus, told reporters just after Thanksgiving that his group would support the $1.59 trillion spending total that the debt ceiling law set — even though that was the amount that led some members to boot McCarthy from the speakership and drive the government to the verge of a shutdown — but only if it didn’t include the side agreements.

By early December, Johnson echoed the sentiment, declaring that the additional funding was not codified in law, but merely a handshake deal between his predecessor and Biden.

“This budget agreement was not a handshake agreement,” Young, from the White House OMB, said Friday. “It was a vote of Congress. It is not optional. They have to keep their word.”

“That group has got sway over Johnson. They’ve toppled McCarthy. They’re the reason why nothing’s got done in the last 12 months,” Rep. David Trone (D-Md.), a member of the House Appropriations Committee, told The Post.

Good, the Freedom Caucus’s new leader, said he has told Johnson that the speaker would “be a hero to the American people” if he threatened a government shutdown over border security.

“I think that’s a fight the American people will reward Speaker Johnson for waging,” Good said.

Today's Beau

Run away now, BoHo.

Ready, set, nope.

On GOP Fuckery - Immigration

• In 2013 Dems passed a bi-partisan immigration reform bill in the Senate
• House Republicans refused to allow it on the floor for debate
• Obama asked Republicans to propose their own immigration bill
• Republicans refused
• Republicans then demanded Obama do something about illegal immigration
• Obama used Executive Order authority to put some reforms in place
• Republicans were outraged, and called Obama a tyrant for doing what they demanded of him

Republicans don't want immigration reform - or much of anything else - they want to maintain the problem so they have an "issue" they can use to scare the rubes and tell them who to blame for it.

Don & Kev & Lil Matty

This one kinda slipped by me.

You wanna friend? Buy a dog.

McCarthy privately recounts terse phone call with Trump after ouster

During the call, former president detailed the reasons he hadn’t intervened during the effort to remove McCarthy as speaker

In the weeks after the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol, then-House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) traveled down to Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago Club and threw a lifeline to the former president, who was under a cloud of controversy for provoking the historic assault.

Keeping up with politics is easy with The 5-Minute Fix Newsletter, in your inbox weekdays.
The fence-mending session between the two Republican leaders ended with a photo op of the two men, grinning side by side in a gilded, frescoed room. The stunning turnabout of the House GOP leader, who had previously blamed Trump for the deadly attack, paved the way for the former president’s return to de facto leader of the Republican Party.

When the tables were turned almost three years later, however, Trump did not return the favor.

Wait - Trump stiffed him? Whooda thunk it, huh?

During a phone call with McCarthy weeks after his historic Oct. 3 removal as House speaker, Trump detailed the reasons he had declined to ask Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) and other hard-right lawmakers to back off their campaign to oust the California Republican from his leadership position, according to people familiar with the exchange who, like others, spoke on the condition of anonymity to disclose a private conversation.

During the call, Trump lambasted McCarthy for not expunging his two impeachments and not endorsing him in the 2024 presidential campaign, according to people familiar with the conversation.

“F--- you,” McCarthy claimed to have then told Trump, when he rehashed the call later to other people in two separate conversations, according to the people. A spokesperson for McCarthy said that he did not swear at the former president and that they have a good relationship. A spokesperson for Trump declined to comment.

The transactional — and at times tumultuous — relationship has seemingly endured despite McCarthy’s ouster. The two continue to speak and text, according to people with knowledge of the relationship.

McCarthy has previously grappled with discrepancies between his private, disparaging comments about Trump to others and his continued fealty to the former president. In her new book, former congresswoman Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) accused McCarthy of repeatedly lying about his relationship with Trump after the Jan. 6 attack. Cheney writes that when she pressed McCarthy about why he visited Trump at Mar-a-Lago, McCarthy claimed that he was summoned by the former president’s staff out of concern for his well-being.

“They’re really worried. … Trump’s not eating, so they asked me to come see him,” McCarthy told Cheney, according to CNN.

During McCarthy’s prolonged fight for the speakership in January, Trump assisted him in clinching the gavel by leaning on some of the holdouts, which he later claimed credit for on social media. But during the Gaetz-orchestrated ouster effort, Trump remained relatively quiet. After McCarthy was removed as speaker, Gaetz indicated in an interview that Trump was supportive of his actions.

“I would say that my conversations with the former president leave me with great confidence that I’m doing the right thing,” Gaetz said.

And now the knives are out for Mr Gaetz.

McCarthy has not endorsed Trump or any other candidate for president. But he had always planned to endorse Trump around the Iowa caucuses next year, at a time McCarthy thought the endorsement mattered, according to people familiar with his plans. He told Trump during the call that he was unable to endorse him earlier because he feared that some of his donors would have rescinded their support if he put his thumb on the scale early in the 2024 presidential race, according to a person briefed on the conversation. McCarthy indicated to others that he also withheld his endorsement to protect some of the more vulnerable members of the House Republican conference, another person added.

Whether McCarthy will remain in public office is unclear, as he has privately indicated to allies that he has started exploring a career beyond the halls of Congress, according to people familiar with his thinking. The former speaker faces a Dec. 8 filing deadline, with a five-day leniency period offered to incumbents, to decide whether he will seek another term in 2024.

“If I decide to run again, I have to know in my heart that I’m giving 110 percent. I have to know that I want to do that,” McCarthy said at an event Wednesday. “I also have to know if I’m going to walk away, that I’m going to be fine with walking away.”

Since his ouster, he has taken a no-holds-barred approach to the people who facilitated his removal from leadership, unloading on individual lawmakers in public interviews. McCarthy and his allies have at times used their power and deep coffers to weed out Republican incumbents who caused headaches in Washington, or were misaligned with McCarthy’s interests. This month, McCarthy said in an interview with CNN that Gaetz should face consequences for his actions and predicted that Rep. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.), one of the eight lawmakers who joined Gaetz, would lose reelection for her “flip-flopping.”

McCarthy, a prolific fundraiser, has said he’d continue to assist with the party’s fundraising efforts as the new speaker, Rep. Mike Johnson (R-La.), establishes himself in the role. On Thursday, McCarthy’s top fundraiser and confidant, Jeff Miller, will host a fundraiser for the Johnson Leadership Fund, charging $10,000 to attend, according to a copy of the invitation obtained by The Washington Post. Miller, who has raised hundreds of millions of dollars for House Republicans since McCarthy became House minority leader, previously told The Post that he would start fundraising for Johnson’s team.

But it’s unclear to what extent McCarthy will personally be involved with fundraising for the House GOP conference going forward. And concerns remain about whether Johnson will be able to re-create McCarthy’s fundraising juggernaut that helped win back the House in 2022 — and will be necessary for Republicans to retain power going into the 2024 election season. To date, McCarthy has funneled $35 million in direct contributions to the House GOP campaign effort since January and has sent a total of $23.8 million to the National Republican Congressional Committee and state parties this cycle.

Trump, meanwhile, has in part dragged down the party’s fundraising efforts as he maintains front-runner status in its presidential primary. The Post previously reported that big-dollar donors have cut back on issuing big checks to the NRCC in recent years because they did not want the money being used to help Trump.

Taylor Swift

I've never heard a Taylor Swift recording. All I know about her is that she consistently sells out 70,000 seat concerts, she's sold over 100 million album units, she's a legit billionaire, and she's dating an NFL star.

Oh yeah - and she's moved many many thousands of 18-to-34-year-olds to get registered.

All of  which is making the MAGArubes crazy - crazy enough (I guess) to think that attacking her and trying to tear her down won't piss off all those newly registered voters to the point where they'll never vote Republican. Ever.

MAGAdorks are so addicted to contrarian horseshit, they need their "thought leaders" to turn everything upside down and inside out so they can get a good red pill fix before they Jones out. It's like whoever comes up with the craziest Shutter Island-style fantasy is the one everybody follows - today - it'll be different tomorrow - or in an hour or two.

And I'll harp on it some more - this shit fits with the Daddy State mold perfectly.

It Goes Around

... and then it comes around.

The Non-Debate Debate

Again - it's not a debate. It's a series of prepackaged ads and sound bites, punctuated by the occasional shout fest - basically, an episode of The Real Wives Of MAGAville.

Key takeaways from the fourth Republican debate

As the 2024 GOP primary field narrows, four contenders sparred on gender-affirming care for minors, fentanyl, military aggression toward China and more

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. — Four Republican presidential contenders clashed in Wednesday’s presidential primary debate, as former U.N. ambassador Nikki Haley and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis sought to solidify their second-place position with less than six weeks left before the Iowa caucuses. Former president Donald Trump once again skipped the showdown.

Keeping up with politics is easy with The 5-Minute Fix Newsletter, in your inbox weekdays.
Haley, who has surpassed or tied DeSantis in early state public polling, found herself the target of attacks early on, and at one point former New Jersey governor Chris Christie came to her defense. Haley and DeSantis continued to tussle on China, while Christie used his airtime to hit Trump for skipping the debates. Christie accused his opponents onstage of being hesitant to cross Trump, who holds a dominant polling lead in the primary race. Meanwhile, tech entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy espoused conspiracy theories and leveled personal attacks on his rivals.

The winners and losers of the fourth Republican debate

While moderators asked a range of questions from border security to gender-affirming care to Trump’s fitness for office, the candidates were not asked about abortion — an animating issue for conservatives and one of the most divisive issues of the 2024 cycle.

The debate, held here Wednesday at the University of Alabama, may be the final forum sanctioned by the Republican National Committee, as the party considers releasing the candidates to face off in other events.

Here’s what else stood out last night:

Trump’s absence overshadows the debate

The former president’s dismissal of the debates has continued to deny any of his rivals the opportunity to challenge him directly and diminished the events’ draw. Though considered risky at first, there is no sign Trump has paid any political price for skipping the debates — Wednesday he picked up the endorsement of host state Sen. Katie Boyd Britt (R).

Christie used his first chance to speak, which didn’t come until roughly 17 minutes into the debate, to go straight for Trump, and argue that his 2024 rivals’ failure to attack Trump directly was the problem. Christie called Trump unfit for office, echoing alarms that the former president would govern as an autocrat based on his recent threats to send the Justice Department after his critics.

“They don’t want to talk about the fact that when you go and you say the truth about somebody who is a dictator, or bully, who has taken shots at everybody,” Christie said of his rivals. “I’m in this race because the truth needs to be spoken. He is unfit.”

Toward the end of the first hour, Haley said Trump deserved some blame for adding to the national debt during his administration. DeSantis then agreed that Republicans were responsible for deficit spending, but he did not single out Trump.

Moderator Megyn Kelly teased opening the second hour with more discussion of Trump, but she kicked it off by asking the candidates to respond to Trump’s proposals on blocking migrants based on ideology or religion. Christie took another opportunity to turn back to Trump’s character, drawing a mix of cheers and boos from the audience despite their being instructed to watch quietly. DeSantis offered a mix of critiques, from Trump’s age and electability to his conduct during the pandemic.

While Trump sought to upstage those gatherings with his own counterprogramming, he treated this one as not even worth competing with, spending the evening at a private fundraiser instead. Viewership declined over the course of the previous debates, and because last night’s debate was hosted by an upstart network and sponsored by an alternative video-hosting site, it was likely to draw a still-smaller audience.

Haley faces an onslaught and holds her ground

During the Republican primary debate on Dec. 6, businessman Vivek Ramaswamy held up his notebook that said “NIKKI= CORRUPT.” (Video: NewsNation)
Since the last debate about a month ago, Haley’s star has risen as the leading Trump alternative in the race, surpassing DeSantis for a distant second place in the three early states. Strong debate performances have fueled her ascent, earning second looks and powerful endorsements from both donors and voters.

That momentum has provoked fresh attacks from DeSantis, Christie and Ramaswamy that were all on display Wednesday night. Out of the gate, DeSantis accused Haley of caving to pressure from the left, the media and donors. Ramaswamy criticized her for taking donations from Democrats, including LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman, and for her proposal that all social media users should be verified, which she later walked back.

Haley appeared unruffled and hit back hard, calling the other candidates jealous of the support she’s gaining. “I love all the attention, fellas, thank you for that,” she said.

Christie came to Haley’s defense after Ramaswamy insulted her intelligence. Christie said he and Haley disagreed on policy but “what we don’t disagree on is this is a smart accomplished woman.” Both former governors have made inroads with the same group of independents and anti-Trump Republican voters in New Hampshire. Haley polls second behind Trump in the state, but Christie is pulling more than 10 percent of potential primary voters — a share that could prove essential to GOP consolidation efforts against Trump. Leading up to the debate, Christie called out Haley for shifting positions and accused her of trying to have it both ways on Trump.

Everybody hates Ramaswamy

During the Republican primary debate on Dec. 6, former New Jersey governor Chris Christie slammed businessman Vivek Ramaswamy for making personal insults. (Video: NewsNation)
Ramaswamy repeatedly used his time for outrageous provocations, promoting conspiracy theories that the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol was staged and that the 2020 election was stolen. As in previous debates, he made personal attacks on the other candidates, including calling Haley a “fascist,” drawing clear exasperation from them, the moderators and the audience.

After Ramaswamy insulted Haley’s intelligence, Christie came to her defense and seemed to capture the collective animosity onstage toward the political newcomer, engaging in a heated exchange.

“This is the fourth debate that you would be voted, in the first 20 minutes, as the most obnoxious blowhard in America,” Christie said. Ramaswamy swiped back with a dig at Christie’s weight.

Later, Ramaswamy held up his notepad where he’d scrawled in large print: “NIKKI = CORRUPT,” drawing boos from the crowd.

Asked by moderators whether she would like to respond, Haley replied, “No. It’s not worth my time.”

Christie goes on offense

After struggling to get words in during earlier debates, Christie established a clear role for himself in demanding accountability from Trump, as well as the other candidates.

Other than a detour to scrap with Ramaswamy, Christie was disciplined in finding ways to bring his answers back to Trump. In response to a question about restoring public confidence in federal law enforcement, Christie drew on his own experience as a U.S. attorney and proposed appointing an independent, well-respected attorney general and keeping politics out of prosecutions — a striking contrast to Trump’s threats to respond to his prosecutions by turning federal power against his political opponents.

Christie twice dinged DeSantis for dodging questions, first for not specifying what steps he would take to rescue American hostages in Gaza, and later for avoiding a clear answer on whether Trump is too old to serve.

The receptivity for such answers in today’s GOP remains unclear. Christie narrowly met the polling threshold to be included in the debate.

In the end, they're all down with fucking over brown people, and playing to the overall bigotry that's come to dominate GOP politics.

Candidates voiced hostility toward immigrants and foreign powers

Haley joined Trump in supporting a ban on migration from Muslim countries. Of Iran, she said, “You’ve got to punch them, you’ve got to punch them hard,” but said she didn’t mean bombing the country at this time. DeSantis also supported restricting Muslim immigrants and accused European countries of “importing” antisemitism. He even referred to traditional Arab clothing as “man dresses.” Ramaswamy threatened to “smoke the terrorists” on the southern border, repeated his proposal to provide the Taiwanese people with firearms, and suggested the United States should change its long-standing policy of “strategic ambiguity” in favor of committing to defend the island nation from China. He also gave credence to the “great replacement theory,” a racist conspiracy theory that posits that Jews, racial minorities and immigrants are seeking to replace White Americans through higher fertility rates and migration.

They Got Nuthin'

Gay nutcrackers

Satanic trees

90-dollar turkeys

Living in the Age Of Poe

Where's That Money Going?

First - the modern iteration of a made-for-reality-TV "debate" thing is nonsense. They're not debates at all. They're platforms for a series of empty platitudes, and sound bites, and live 90-second campaign ads.

If somebody wants the debate to be a real debate, then they put the candidates in a studio with no live audience, and wire up about 10,000 remote viewers with those little opinion tracker thingies, so you can gauge their responses in a more objective way.

Second - there may be something telling that can be divined from the falling levels of donations, WaPo, but when you quote a few insiders and leave it at that, you're not doing that journalism thing we're paying you to do - not all of it anyway.

Might there be some other avenue for those donations to travel?

The $9 million in the RNC's bank account is the money we can see, but Dark Money is no secret, so maybe we could get you to look a tiny bit harder(?) Just a thought.

Donations to GOP drop as worries mount about the party’s finances

Donors have not cut as many large checks to the RNC in recent years, and the party’s small-dollar program has also suffered

The Republican Party’s finances are increasingly worrisome to party members, advisers to former president Donald Trump, and other operatives involved in the 2024 election effort, according to 10 people familiar with the matter.

The Republican National Committee disclosed that it had $9.1 million in cash on hand as of Oct. 30, the lowest amount for the RNC in any Federal Election Commission report since February 2015. That compares with about $20 million at the same point in the 2016 election cycle and about $61 million four years ago, when Trump was in the White House.

The Democratic National Committee reported having $17.7 million as of Oct. 30, almost twice as much as the Republican Party, with one year before the election.

“It’s a revenue problem,” Tennessee RNC member Oscar Brock said. “We’re going through the same efforts we always go through to raise money: the same donor meetings, retreats, digital advertising, direct mail. But the return is much lower this year. If you know the answer, I’d love to know it. The staff has managed to tighten down on expenses to keep the party from going into the red.”

Donors have not cut as many large checks to the RNC in recent years, and the party’s small-dollar program has also suffered, according to people familiar with the party’s finances, who, like others, spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal party details. Some donors aren’t giving to the RNC because they think that will help Trump, which they don’t want to do, these people said, while others have said they prefer to wait until 2024 to give. Some have grown frustrated with the party’s leadership, people close to major donors said.

The party cut certain expenditures this year after projected money did not come in, according to people familiar with the decisions.

An RNC spokeswoman said the party has nonetheless deployed staff in 15 swing states to start working on get-out-the-vote efforts and election monitoring. The party is also pursuing 70 lawsuits in 19 states challenging voting rules and is encouraging Republicans to use early voting and mail ballots — methods Trump and his allies have disparaged, even as McDaniel repeatedly touts the importance of the “Bank Your Vote” initiative.

All federal party committees — Democratic and Republican — have seen downturns in revenue since 2021, a trend that operatives usually attribute to inflation and donor fatigue. And occasionally during the Trump presidency, the DNC had about as much money on hand as the GOP has now, records show.

In an interview, RNC Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel said that donors are currently more focused on giving to individual candidates during the presidential primary and that the party’s fortunes will improve once there’s a nominee.

“I think there’s more donors just fully committed to their candidate right now, saying I am all in, and once the nominee is set, I’ll be there. That’s what I hear more than anything. And they’re really solidly in the camps of their candidate, which is normal,” McDaniel said. “There’s nothing unusual about this, because they know that once their candidate gets in that we will merge and that we’ll be working together to win the White House.”

There's no way McDaniel believes that - not with kind of internal structural problems that keep boiling to the surface. And certainly not when the probable GOP candidate is shit-talking the party almost daily.

The party’s spending buttresses the Republican presidential nominee’s campaign along with down-ballot races in the Senate and the House of Representatives. In 2020, the party was flush with cash, while the Trump campaign pulled advertisements because of a cash crunch. RNC officials say the party currently has no debt.

Still, the RNC’s dwindling cash position — combined with Republican losses in this month’s off-year elections, frustrations over the 2022 midterms and grousing over the chaotic presidential primary debates — has caused renewed questions about the committee’s effectiveness and McDaniel’s leadership.

“The RNC’s electoral record since 2017 speaks for itself,” said Virginia RNC member Patti Lyman, who opposed McDaniel when she was reelected to another term in January. “The damage from that chair election goes far beyond the drop in donations. Our base was demoralized.”

McDaniel, who took over as RNC chairwoman in 2017, is the party’s second female leader and has been reelected three times. Outside her office, portraits of the 61 men and one woman who led the party before her adorn the walls. She has tried to walk a tightrope, sticking close to Trump while also keeping anti-Trump members close, her allies say, earning majority support among the committee’s 168 members.

The Wisconsin and Iowa GOP chairs sent unsolicited statements to The Washington Post praising McDaniel’s leadership of the party.

“She has strong support within the RNC. She won 110-plus votes during the election in January, and I think she has stronger support now than in January,” said Michael Whatley, the North Carolina state chairman. “I think her and the RNC team are focused on what they need to be focused on right now.”

Whatley said that the party needs “to raise more money” but that he believes that will be remedied next year.

Maybe most important for McDaniel, Trump continues to back her — although more tentatively than in the past — and associates her with his 2016 win, advisers said. In an Oct. 28 speech, Trump said that McDaniel has “done a fantastic job” and called her “a real good friend.”

Still, he has publicly and privately expressed disappointment with the RNC holding presidential debates over his objections. His team believed that McDaniel would not continue with debates after his statements, and he expressed surprise when she announced new ones.

“RNC must save money on lowest ever ratings debates. Use it against the Democrats to STOP THE STEAL! If not, REVAMP THE RNC, NOW!!!” Trump wrote on Truth Social last week.

And Trump has also voiced doubts about the RNC’s readiness for the 2024 campaign and commitment to fighting what he insists, without evidence, is voter fraud.

Some of his senior advisers have continued to complain to him about McDaniel, though she has a defender in Susie Wiles, Trump’s chief adviser. “He doesn’t like [that] she says she is ‘neutral,’” a Trump adviser said of McDaniel.

Donors sometimes complain to Trump about McDaniel, and Trump has been asking people what they think of her, which is often an ominous sign that someone is losing their standing with him, according to three people close to the former president, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to reveal internal discussions. People close to both McDaniel and Trump say they have frequent and friendly conversations.

A Trump spokesman did not respond to requests for comment.

Republican frustrations burst into the open this month after GOP losses in races for the Virginia legislature, the Kentucky governorship, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, and on an Ohio ballot initiative on abortion rights.

In October, the RNC rejected a request for additional funding for the Virginia GOP this fall, said the state party chairman, Rich Anderson. RNC officials said they had budgeted based on a meeting earlier in the summer with Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s team in which they didn’t ask for money.

Other state party officials have grown frustrated when they’ve asked the RNC for money to pay legal bills and been turned down, according to people familiar with the discussions.

In TV and podcast interviews after the elections, McDaniel repeatedly defended the RNC’s refusal to pay, arguing that federal campaign finance laws limit the national committee’s involvement in state elections. In fact, there are no limits on RNC transfers to state parties.

McDaniel has also faulted Republican campaigns for avoiding the subject of abortion instead of adopting a message she has encouraged, to prevent abortion after 15 weeks and allow for a range of exceptions. And her allies say that many of the election losses she has been blamed for were elections in which Trump was widely viewed as the main issue on the ballot.

Numerous conservative organizations have ginned up online attacks on McDaniel, questioning the party’s spending and preparedness — and her loyalty to Trump.

During the third GOP debate, candidate Vivek Ramaswamy went so far as to call on McDaniel to resign. An online video showed Ramaswamy talking before the debate with right-wing influencer Benny Johnson, workshopping an attack on McDaniel and deciding to use it as his opening salvo in the debate.

The chairwoman said she believes other groups and critics have a financial interest in attacking her.

“When you have the RNC and when you’re in this position, there’s always going to be outside groups criticizing because it helps them raise money. They have to have a foil, right? So you’re going to go against the RNC because it helps your organization raise money and do things,” she said.

While Trump has been demanding that the RNC cancel future debates, Ramaswamy and other trailing candidates have complained about the qualifications, format, scheduling and moderators. Trump has grown agitated that the RNC is having them at all. The RNC took over organizing the debates in 2015 because of campaigns’ dissatisfaction with the media-run free-for-all forums in the 2012 primary.

“I think we’ve taken it a step further by having a small-dollar donor component and also reasonable polling thresholds that I think are very, very reasonable, but also eliminating that double debate stage,” McDaniel said, referring to the situation in 2015 when lower-ranking candidates in the large field debated separately. “The RNC is always going to be a bit of a punching bag.”

But that approach this year has made the RNC the target of criticism, and some top Republican Party officials have privately conceded that the debates have often gone off the rails.

“Who in the world would schedule a debate on the same night as the Country Music [Association] Awards unless you were actually trying not to reach Republican primary voters?” said former RNC executive director Scott Reed, referring to the Nov. 8 debate. “I don’t believe the party should be in the debate business. Let the conservative marketplace decide, and let the campaigns decide where they want to show up. It’s been a colossal failure.”

The attacks have take a personal toll on McDaniel. People close to her said she has not been enjoying the job this year. They said she assiduously monitors criticism online and has frequently complained about the difficulties of her job.

“Republicans have the infinite capacity to eat our own and participate in circular firing squads as opposed to attacking the real culprits for America’s decline,” said Steve Hantler, an adviser to megadonor Bernie Marcus, who supported McDaniel’s opponent in January’s election for party chair.

McDaniel appeared unfazed during her visit to a meeting of the South’s RNC members this month, according to Jonathan Barnett, an RNC member from Arkansas who supported McDaniel’s challenger in January.

“Ronna is going to take the punches, no problem at all,” he said. “It doesn’t do any good for anyone on the RNC to do anything to remove her. We all just have to focus on our states and the presidential primaries and move on.”

Today's Republican Fuckery

Gettin' real tired of these dog-ass Republicans spinning this shit - that they can hide every shitty thing they do behind "My right to free speech."

"Your Honor, even though we have nothing but QAnon bullshit and my client's own fantasy version of the events in question, the defense will establish that the gun used to murder the deceased was merely expressing its God-given right to speak freely, and that my client - as a public official - was duty-bound to assist ... and blah blah fucking blah."  

I understand we have to sort this crap out carefully, because we're setting precedent with every court decision. But Jeezus H Fuq, these idiotic "philosophies" have to be squashed, and they have to be squashed posthaste and with prejudice.

Tina Peters files federal lawsuit to block criminal investigations, prosecutions against her

Peters, a Republican who ran unsuccessfully for Colorado secretary of state last year, was indicted on 10 counts by a Mesa County grand jury. Her trial begins Feb. 7.

Former Mesa County Clerk Tina Peters filed a federal lawsuit Tuesday seeking to halt local, state and federal criminal investigations and prosecutions against her in a security breach of her county’s election system in 2021.

The 43-page lawsuit was filed against U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland, Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold and Mesa County District Attorney Daniel Rubenstein. It claims their continued investigations into Peters violate her constitutional rights to free speech, freedom of association and right to petition the government to redress her grievances.

The lawsuit comes as Peters is scheduled to go to trial Feb. 7 in Mesa County. A grand jury indicted her in March 2022 on 10 counts stemming from her actions during an election software update in May 2021. Peters is facing felony and misdemeanor charges, including attempting to influence a public official and criminal impersonation.

Belinda Knisley, Peters’ deputy clerk at the time, was also indicted in the case. Knisley pleaded guilty in 2022 to three misdemeanors and agreed to testify against Peters.

Peters’ new lawsuit claims she was performing her duty to preserve records as an elections official when she had a consultant make a “forensic image” of the elections software before the update completed by Denver-based Dominion Voting Systems. Two months later, passwords used during the update were posted online by a conservative website.

The lawsuit claims the investigations and prosecutions by state and federal authorities constitute retaliation and harassment of Peters.

Rubenstein, a Republican, said Wednesday he hadn’t been served with the lawsuit.

“I … am aware that one has been filed,” he told The Sun. “Having been elected as the district attorney for the 21st Judicial District, I have a constitutional, statutory, and ethical obligation to represent this community in criminal matters.”

Griswold, the Democratic secretary of state said in a statement: “Tina Peters compromised her own voting equipment in an attempt to prove the Big Lie and risked her constituents’ constitutional right to vote. Her attempts to evade accountability with this frivolous lawsuit will not work.”

Peters, who claims without evidence that the 2020 election was stolen, ran unsuccessfully for secretary of state last year, losing the Republican primary by nearly 90,000 votes. She also ran unsuccessfully earlier this year to be chair of the Colorado GOP.

Peters was separately sentenced to home detention and community service earlier this year for trying to prevent authorities from seizing an iPad she used to make a prohibited recording of one of Knisley’s court hearings. The sentence was stayed pending an appeal. Peters was also held in contempt of court for making the recording and fined $1,500.