I was thinking more of the treasonous conservative/America Hating/Republicans going to war with each other for leadership positions. And agree the party is still chained to Trump like a millstone around their necks. And Trump is getting more insane and destructive by the day because he feels reality closing on him.

But I also expect a political war if DeSantis openly challenges Trump. Most all the dirt on Trump is already in the open and his treasonous conservative/America Hating/Republicans just ignore his criminality. But Trump has already said he's got a ton of dirt on DeDantis and will destroy him with it. And it will split the party even further because Trump's supporters will accept no one but him. So no matter who tries to challenge Trump his cult followers will turn on them like rabid dogs.

And there is always a chance if the Republicans reject him Trump will start his own party just for spite to make sure they can't win elections.

 

I take a slightly different perspective. Although the idea of Trump starting a third party is intriguing. But again Trump IS the repuke party. That's the major problem for any potential candidates in 2024. The 2022 midterms showed that Trump supported candidates were pretty much rejected. We don't even know if Desantis will run. As he will have to stand up to Trump, or be buried like all of Trump's previous repuke challengers. But being that Desantis is just an acorn from the Trump tree. I don't see how he can even challenge Trump. So Trump IMO must step aside for Desantis to even run.

But even then. If DeSantis wants support from Trump and his trumpenkrigers, and the trumptards in congress. Desantis can't disavow Trump in any way. Which includes going along with Trump's "big lie." Again the 2022 midterms saw most of the top election officials who backed Trump's election fraud, beaten. And the ones that resisted Trump's schemes were reelected. Trump's "Big Lie" is finally turning into an albatross around the repuke parties neck.

 

You could be right. But the reason I think Trump could start his own party just for spite and take his cult followers with him is because he already threatened to do it. Thant's why phony cowards like McCarthy and Graham rushed down to Mar a Lago to kiss his ass after denouncing him for J6 on the floors of Congress only a short time before. He was threatening to start his own party which would mean they couldn't win 2022 elections if he took his cult followers with him.

And just look at what being cowards got them. They essentially lost the mid terms anyway.

 

I love the smell of treasonous conservative/America Hating/Republican cannibalism.



Kevin McCarthy labeled a 'punk' after he lets Matt Gaetz humiliate him following caucus meeting

Tom Boggioni
December 11, 2022




During an appearance on MSNBC's "The Sunday Show," former Republican National Committee head Michael Steele couldn't contain his laughter at how Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL ) treated current House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) who is battling to become the House speaker after the midterm election handed the chamber over to the GOP.

The object of his amusement was Gaetz taking to Twitter after a recent GOP House caucus meeting and posting an unflattering picture of the presumptive Speaker and labeling him "Cavin' McCarthy."

According to Steele, McCarthy was being treated like a "punk" as he tried to assert himself as a leader in the party.

Speaking with host Jonathan Capehart, Steele laughed and said, "Everybody knows a punk when they see one. That's -- I'm sorry -- that's the tweet after the meeting?"

As the MSNBC panel dissolved into laughter, Steele continued, "No, you ain't got nothing, you hold nothing. You've got nothing, right?"

RELATED: 'Love it': Former RNC head applauds plan by Democrats to fire back at GOP investigations

Continuing in that vein, he added, "Can I punk you in your face enough? Can I look at you and just go 'Man -- nah, I aint' going to deal with it, caving Kevin.' It's, it's the groveling. What type of leader do you think he's going to be if that's in your caucus? A member of your caucus thinks that about you?"

Watch below or at the link:



https://www.rawstory.com/kevin-mccarthy-matt-gaetz-2658949184/

 

See, here you have two trumptards trying to prove who's the bigger trumptard.

 

This is going to be fun to watch. Even if Kevin the Coward does manage to become speaker and that's no sure thing he will be neutered and impotent. The nutcases are in control and he will never be able to please all of them. There are several factions and anyone of them will have enough votes to stop anything he tries to do.

After the Democrats lost the majority in 2010 Nancy Pelosi was still the most powerful person in Congress because she could get her caucus to hold ranks every time. While both John Boehner and Paul Ryan were constantly having to pull bills that would have easily passed with Democratic support but they had to follow the pervert rule and only pass bills with Republican support. And the warring factions wouldn't let them. So they didn't just quit being speaker. The both quit Congress.

 

I am betting most treasonous conservative/America Hating/Republicans are hoping Trump gets indicted and put in prison and they can try to blame the progressive/liberal/Democrats. Trump's cult follower base is actually pretty small. Maybe about 30% of so called Republicans. But if Trump started his own party and took them with him, or goes to war with the Republican party that is enough to prevent treasonous conservative/America Hating/Republicans from winning elections.

It really does remind me of the tight rope walker scene in Friedrich Nietzsche's Thus Spoke Zarathustra where the majority of the crowd isn't cheering his courage and skill but instead actually cheering hoping they would see him fall.



Republicans fear Trump civil war could cost them in 2024

Al Weaver
Tue, December 13, 2022 at 4:00 AM



The rising animosity between pro-Trump and anti-Trump forces is creating the prospect of something no Republican wants: a GOP civil war that could split the party in two and leave the path clear for Democrats to win big in 2024.

The fear is that two years of infighting won’t just put the White House at risk. Republicans worry it could also hand Democrats the House and Senate and at least two more years of united control over Washington.

Former Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) raised that possibility last week, saying his “greatest fear” involves the possibility of a repeat of 1964, when the party split between Barry Goldwater and Nelson Rockefeller.

“I can imagine a Trump-anti-Trump war over the next two years that just guarantees Biden’s re-election in a landslide and guarantees that Democrats control everything,” Gingrich told The New York Times.




Top Republicans are not ready thus far to hit the panic button and say a repeat of 1964 is far from assured as former President Trump and other would-be candidates stake their ground.

“You’ve got tensions in the Democratic Party. You’ve got tensions here, but no,” Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) said. “Dysfunctional political parties is the norm. It’s not the exception on both sides.”

But the battle over Trump also spilled further into public view on Monday as Republican National Committee Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel was questioned on Fox Business repeatedly about the ex-president’s impact on the 2022 midterms and the Georgia Senate runoff.

Several candidates the former president had pushed across the primary finish line failed to secure wins in key Senate races, including in Arizona, Pennsylvania and Nevada. In Georgia, Sen. Raphael Warnock (D) defeated Trump-backed Republican candidate Herschel Walker in last week’s runoff.

“I’m not into the blame game right now. I think we have to do an analysis. I think it is too quick,” McDaniel told host Stuart Varney, who laid the blame at Trump’s feet. “Most importantly, how do we get independents to support Republicans and how we get Republicans to support other Republicans?”

“This infighting within our party is never going to help that. We need Trump voters, we need McCain voters, we need Romney voters and then some in order to beat the Democrats,” she added.

Republicans are still picking up the pieces from a disastrous 2022 midterm cycle, in which the party expected to win a substantial House majority and retake the Senate after a two-year hiatus. Neither of those things happened, leaving the GOP to plot the future while working out just how much influence Trump will have.

Republicans point out that, regardless of the outcome of the presidential primary, they’ll have a favorable map in 2024 — and that the presidential contest has barely begun.

Democrats hold 23 of the 33 Senate seats that will be up in 2024, including several that in ruby-red states like West Virginia, Montana and Ohio.

“In ’24, we’re going to have a spirited contest for the nomination to be president. We have a very favorable map, and after being disappointed in 2022, I think people are going to up their game [because] they don’t want to do this twice,” Graham said.

While the Senate races offer hope, however, the looming presidential primary fight is likely to get bloody no matter how it’s sliced. And Trump has remained squarely in the headlines since announcing last month he would run for president.

The first month of Trump’s presidential bid was full of moments that made even some of his allies wince. That initial stretch was headlined by hosting Ye, the rapper formerly known as Kanye West, and white supremacist Nick Fuentes at his Mar-a-Lago resort for dinner and his call to terminate parts of the Constitution in order to overturn the 2020 presidential election results — both of which resulted in rebukes from across the GOP.

Some top GOP figures believe it would behoove the party to look outward and keep the attention on President Biden, just as it tried to do during the midterms.

According to the most recent Reuters-Ipsos poll, only 38 percent of Americans approve of Biden’s job in office.

“Not as long as we keep Joe Biden in focus. We are united around Joe Biden. We are less united around other personalities and people,” Sen. Kevin Cramer (R-N.D.) said with a chuckle. “I don’t worry about ‘civil wars.’”

“One of the things I always try to not do is be disrespectful to the rank-and-file Republicans because we’re not sheep. It’s our greatest strength and our greatest weakness, and in politics it can be a weakness,” Cramer said.

For others, the overall message has to change. A number of Republican candidates who lost in November did so after falsely peddling for months that the 2020 election was stolen, showing that voters have little tolerance for that talk moving forward — especially in Arizona and Georgia, two states that both voted against high-profile candidates supported by Trump.

Sen. Todd Young (R-Ind.), who previously chaired the National Republican Senatorial Committee, told reporters when asked for takeaways from the Georgia runoff, “Don’t scare the children.”

“We need to come up with a vision that appeals to at least 50 percent plus one of the electorate and communicate it to people,” Young said when asked to expound on the comment. “Don’t get caught appealing to a narrow segment of the electorate, which is something we have a tendency to do from time to time.”

https://www.yahoo.com/news/republicans-fear-trump-civil-war-110000936.html

 

Kevin McCarthy foes appear 'impervious to negotiation' and even Trump's lobbying isn't helping: NYT

Brad Reed
December 13, 2022





Kevin McCarthy on Facebook.


House Republican leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) has reportedly received help from former President Donald Trump to lobby holdout Republican lawmakers on his behalf to secure his bid to become Speaker of the House.

However, as the New York Times reports, Trump's lobbying efforts have so far not budged members who appear, in the Times' words, "impervious to negotiation."

Although the Times notes that Trump is "not entirely sold" on McCarthy as Speaker, he nonetheless believes that he's the only feasible option, as centrist Republicans could break off and join with centrist Democrats to deliver a "consensus" candidate.

Despite Trump's pleas, McCarthy's foes appear ready to end his House leadership dreams.

IN OTHER NEWS: Trump ally vowed 'high ranking' source would prove fraud -- then delivered a Romanian YouTube channel: texts

“This is why we came to Congress,” Rep. Bob Good (R-VA) explained in justifying his opposition to McCarthy. “This is why we’re here. We’ve got a chance to tip over that apple cart here on Jan. 3, when we elect a new speaker."

The Times also notes that McCarthy does not seem to have a plan to win over holdovers and he has completely shut out members of his own leadership team.

“I don’t think he has a plan, other than to hope that conservatives fold,” Russ Vought, the president of the right-wing Center for Renewing America, tells the Times. “And this is not the part of the Republican conference that folds.”

https://www.rawstory.com/kevin-mccarthy-2658960906/

 

The Guardian, December 14, 2022

Ron DeSantis leads Donald Trump by 23 points in Republican poll

In a new poll regarding potential Republican nominees for president in 2024, the Florida governor, Ron DeSantis, led Donald Trump by a whopping 23 points.

Republican and Republican-leaning voters dealt the significant blow to the former president’s ego in a survey carried out by USA Today and Suffolk University and released on Tuesday...

David Paleologos, director of the Suffolk University Political Research Center, told USA Today: “Republicans and conservative independents increasingly want Trumpism without Trump.”...

That much has been clear in the rise of DeSantis, a former US military lawyer and hard-right congressman who has pursued distinctly Trumpist hardline, theatrically cruel policies as governor of Florida, in particular on immigration and education.

Last month, DeSantis marked a crushing re-election victory with a confidant speech, declaring his state “where woke goes to die” to chants of “two more years”...

Trump is also in extensive legal jeopardy, over his attempted election subversion, the retention of White House records and his business affairs. --------------

The fact that a man with Trump's glaring deficiencies of personality, character, and intellect could be elected president demonstrates that there is an opening for a leader like DeSantis, who lacks those deficiencies. Meanwhile, the Democrats lack an obvious front runner for 2024. Biden, who I like and voted for, will be too old. Kamala Harris has never been popular.

 

An awful lot can happen until 2024. But the key phrase in your post is "hard-right." It will be very difficult far a hard right candidate to win in a national election. Trumpism resulted in a one term presidency. I find it hard to believe the country will want a return of trumpism.

Desantis is just an acorn off the tree. He's yet another election denier. That will haunt him in any national election. Especially if Trump stays in the race, as he spouts his 2020 election fraud lies. As DeSantis is guilty of supporting Trump's lie.[/QUOTE]

 

What exactly is Trump's lie that DeSantis is supporting?

 

@stumbler
And speaking of treasonous conservative/Americans.....watch this.

 

In the years since the 2020 election. Desantis has stayed clear of Trump's big lie. And for good reason. In 2022, denying Biden's legitimacy is no longer a viable position. Hindsight is always 20/20

But when asked directly by reporters back in 2020 if he accepted Biden's win, DeSantis said, “It’s not for me to do." Classic Non denial, denial.

By GARY FINEOUT

12/03/2020 06:16 PM EST

Updated: 12/03/2020 09:12 PM EST

TALLAHASSEE — Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis on Thursday told a private gathering of political donors and corporate executives that he has urged President Donald Trump to “fight on” to overturn November’s election results.

In wide-ranging remarks made in person behind closed doors at a meeting of the Associated Industries of Florida, DeSantis dismissed the risks of the coronavirus, contradicted science and targeted U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts. He also defended Trump’s attempt to fight the results of the election.

“I told the president to fight on,” DeSantis told the group gathered at the JW Marriott Grande Lakes resort hotel in Orlando."

Desantis also claimed that the Republican-controlled Legislatures in Pennsylvania and Michigan should overturn results in those states.

 

Thanks for posting this I enjoyed it. And I have been following this. Because for one it is coming from Talking Points Memo which is a little site I follow that came up with the scoop. And I am happy for them. And as you and the video you posted points out they really are treasonous conservative/America Hating/Republicans b who know the election was not really stolen but are coning up with all kinds of ways top try and over through the results of a free and fair election. Up to including just declaring martial law.

And maybe I can update you with one of the latest developments in case you haven't heard. The reporter who broke the story, Hunter Walker, has been hitting the TV shows. Where of course they want to ask him about the just shocking revelations in the texts, Which of course he answers. But then add that the more he digs into the actual texts the more shocking they are. But what has become the most shocking to him is not the texts that Meadows handed over to the J6 Committee and the DOJ. Its all the gaps between. He says one ting you can't help but notice is Meadows was a serial texter. Just constantly. And you get used to that pace and rhythm.. Then hit places where there are gaps. Some of them extending for hours or a day. Its painfully obvious Meadows did not hand over all the text messages he has claiming they are covered by executive privilege


So holy fucking shit when we read what he did hand over what the fuck is he still hiding?

I have been staying up on Meadows text messages and even knew about the gaps. But Walker and TPM are coming up with stuff I have not heard.

 

Like I said a lot of fun to watch.


Despite Trump's Lobbying, McCarthy's Speaker Bid Remains Imperiled on the Right

Catie Edmondson, Maggie Haberman and Annie Karni
Wed, December 14, 2022 at 12:20 PM



Rep. Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.) listens during a news conference on the Republican investigation into Hunter Biden, at the Capitol in Washington on Nov. 17, 2022. (Al Drago/The New York Times)

WASHINGTON — Former President Donald Trump has been working the phones, personally pitching right-wing lawmakers on voting to make Rep. Kevin McCarthy, the Republican leader he has called “My Kevin,” the speaker of the House.

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., the most outspoken far-right member of his conference, is publicly vouching for McCarthy. The California Republican has made private entreaties and public promises to win over his critics, including floating the impeachment of a member of President Joe Biden’s Cabinet.

And yet, McCarthy, who is toiling to become speaker next year when the GOP assumes the majority, has so far been unable to put down a mini-revolt on the right that threatens to imperil his bid for the top job.

- ADVERTISEMENT -

Sign up for The Morning newsletter from the New York Times

McCarthy has embarked on the kind of grueling campaign that lawmakers in both parties jockeying for the post have sometimes been forced to perform. But some of the hard-right lawmakers with whom he is attempting to bargain do not appear to have a price, and most care less about legislating than shrinking the federal government — or upending it completely.

“This is why we came to Congress,” Rep. Bob Good, R-Va., said. “This is why we’re here. We’ve got a chance to tip over that apple cart here on Jan. 3, when we elect a new speaker.”

Their top demand has been that McCarthy agree in advance to a snap vote to get rid of the speaker at any time, something he has refused to accept.

John Boehner, R-Ohio, who was run out of the speaker post by the far right, famously described the approach of this faction as “legislative terrorism.” And with a razor-thin majority that only allows him to lose a few votes in the election for speaker, it could be a recipe for disaster for McCarthy.

Even Trump, perhaps the most influential voice in the hard-right faction of the party, has had little success to date in moving lawmakers over to McCarthy’s side. Trump, who has announced he is running for president again in 2024, has been calling members who are ambivalent, at best, about McCarthy’s bid for the speakership and trying to persuade them that it is the best option, according to three people familiar with the calls.

Trump, according to people close to him, is not entirely sold on the notion of McCarthy as a strong speaker. But he considers McCarthy better than the alternative, including improbable scenarios in which the job instead might go to a moderate who can draw some votes from Democrats, or in which a handful of Republicans defect and help to elect a Democratic speaker.

A spokesperson for Trump did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment.

There is little evidence that the former president has swayed any skeptics.

Thirty-six lawmakers voted against McCarthy in a secret ballot vote last month nominating him for the speakership, and at least four have already vowed to oppose him during the official vote on the House floor on Jan. 3, in which he needs to win a majority of those present and voting — 218 if every member participates.

McCarthy has expressed confidence in his ability to secure the votes, pointing out that a plausible challenger has yet to emerge.

“We’ve been making a lot of progress,” he told reporters Tuesday, adding: “I think people are in a much better place, and I think we’ll all find a place to get together.”

Should he fail to win a majority when the new Congress convenes, members would take successive votes until someone — McCarthy or a different nominee — secured enough supporters to prevail.

But Republicans agitating against him have insisted that McCarthy would not be able to win election on the floor, warning that more defectors would emerge in the coming weeks.

“I don’t think he has a plan, other than to hope that conservatives fold,” Russ Vought, president of the right-wing Center for Renewing America, said of McCarthy in an interview. “And this is not the part of the Republican conference that folds.”

If McCarthy does have a plan, he has not shared it with members of his leadership team, whom he has cut out of his deliberations about the speakership race in what some regard as a display of paranoia. Instead, he has been spotted in recent days around the Capitol and the Republican National Committee headquarters nearby with Jeff Miller, a Republican lobbyist who is among his closest confidants.

It was not clear whether McCarthy enlisted Trump to help his campaign, or if Trump was simply working on his own. The former president has spoken with Eli Crane, an incoming Republican member of Congress from Arizona, and Rep. Ralph Norman, R-S.C., among others. Crane was part of a group of seven current and incoming Republican lawmakers who signed a letter with a list of concessions they are demanding from their leaders in the next Congress, including making it easier to force a vote to remove the speaker — something that McCarthy has so far resisted.

Norman, who has described himself as a “hard no” against McCarthy, declined to discuss his call with Trump, describing it as a “private conversation.” He said he was still undecided about whom he would support for speaker. Crane did not respond to requests for comment.

When Nancy Pelosi in 2018 found herself about a dozen votes short of what she would need to secure the speaker’s gavel, she quietly picked off defectors, methodically cutting deals to capture exactly enough support to prevail. Pelosi, renowned for her ability to arm-twist and coax, won seven votes by agreeing to limit her tenure, picked up another eight by promising to implement rules aimed at fostering more bipartisan legislating, and won over her sole would-be challenger by creating a subcommittee chairmanship for her.

For McCarthy, there are likely fewer deals to be made.

The California Republican has already made a series of pledges in an effort to appease the right flank of his party. He traveled to the southern border and called on Alejandro Mayorkas, the homeland security secretary, to resign or face potential impeachment proceedings. He promised Greene, who was stripped of her committee assignments for making a series of violent and conspiratorial social media posts before she was elected, a plum spot on the Oversight Committee.

He has threatened to investigate the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack at the Capitol, promising to hold public hearings scrutinizing the security breakdowns that occurred. He has been quietly meeting with ultraconservative lawmakers in an effort to win them over. And on Monday night, he publicly encouraged his members to vote against the lame-duck spending bill to fund the government.

Those entreaties have fallen flat for some of the ultraconservative members of his conference.

In an opinion essay, Rep. Andy Biggs, R-Ariz., who is running as a protest candidate in the speaker race, noted that McCarthy had said before the midterm elections that he did not see grounds for impeaching any Biden administration officials. Biggs dismissed McCarthy’s more recent threat against the homeland security secretary.

“That’s adding at least a little thickener to weak sauce,” Biggs wrote, “but it’s not good enough.”

Four lawmakers have said they would oppose McCarthy: Matt Rosendale, R-Mont., who called him a “weatherman” rather than a leader; Good, a self-described “biblical conservative” who defeated a Republican member of Congress in 2020 in part by capitalizing on outrage after the incumbent officiated at the same-sex wedding of two of his former campaign volunteers; Biggs, the former Freedom Caucus chair; and Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla.

More could be on the way, including the seven sitting and incoming lawmakers who last week issued McCarthy a list of old demands, warning that “any GOP speaker candidate must make clear he or she will advance rules, policies and an organizational structure” that would ensure a “‘check’ on the swamp and reform the status quo.”

On his podcast, Gaetz said the changes were needed “because we don’t trust Kevin McCarthy to deliver on any changes to the rules that he promises.”

“There is an amazing redline reticence on the part of Kevin, because he doesn’t want to be held accountable,” Biggs replied.

Securing conservative buy-in was going to be hard, Vought said.

McCarthy “is symbolically the definition of the cartel speaker,” he added. “He’s not making it easy for them, and he’s making it hard on himself.”

https://www.yahoo.com/news/despite-trumps-lobbying-mccarthys-speaker-192050859.html

 

BLAH BLAH BLAH.

I asked you, "What is Trump's big lie?"

 

[/QUOTE]

"Hard right" was a term used by the journalist to discredit DeSantis. It was used the way journalists call European political parties "extreme right" just because they oppose third world immigration to Europe. When I think of extreme right I think of a neo Nazi who hates Jews, or a reactionary who wants to restore laissez faire capitalism. Most of the European "extreme right" want to preserve a generous public sector paid for by steeply progressive taxation - like I do - but they want to prohibit the immigration of blacks and Muslims - like I also do.

 

It is the lie that Trump won the election of 2020.

 

DeSantis knows that Trump lost the election of 2020. By pretending otherwise he is appealing to the folks in the cheap seats. When Trump runs a dirty campaign against DeSantis, DeSantis will not keep pretending.

DeSantis's main issues now are restricting third world immigration and prohibiting the teaching of students that whites are responsible for black problems, and that we should feel collectively guilty about the way blacks have been treated. I agree with him on these matters. If the Democrats nominate Kamala Harris as presidential candidate I will think hard about voting for DeSantis. It will depend on stands he takes on the economy and the environment. I will not vote for Harris.

 

If you want to look forward to something, at least look forward to something that is worth it and has a chance to actually happen.