Donald Trump

[stevebrooks]

Oh they are so fucked....fucked, fucked, fucked.

Jordan wants to give the interim speaker, who is currently only allowed to call members to vote on the new speaker position, the power to put forward legislation, appoint committees and etc, so all the power of the speaker, and he wants that to last until, wait for it, January 2024! Yes he wants a interim speaker for 3 months while he gathers support. Meanwhile the radical left, the mad MAGA's are actually all coming out against that, the Dem's are just sitting back watching it all in bemusement. It's likely any vote to do anything will require the Democrats support in a major way so they will want huge concessions because, well, why not? Even his supporters are complaining that he shouldn't be holding up the house by just sitting on his designated nominee status, because they can't call another vote to pick a new nominee until he declares he's no longer running. So yes, they are fucked big time and any bad things that happen, government shutdown etc, will all be on their heads, they can't spin this to blame the Dem's, I simply can't see any way to do that.

[pipbarber]

.... they can't spin this to blame the Dem's, I simply can't see any way to do that.

Want a bet? You're using that rational analysis tool you seem to have and applying it to America and its electoral politics. Of course it's the Dems fault, this is why we need to start (ahem) dictating terms to the mad left and do away with this unworkable democracy thing. Look at it, it doesn't work! Nobody can deny it.

The breathtaking moment is the realisation that they're right, it doesn't work. It looks like drastic reform or a fascist revolution and neither party is interested in drastic reform, so....

[stevebrooks]

Latest news, the effort to give more power to the interim speaker has failed, to much opposition from other Republican's, so Gym Jordan has decided to take it to a 3rd vote. I have heard some of the voice messages the family members of those who opposed Gym have received, this isn't going to work!

Want a bet? You're using that rational analysis tool you seem to have and applying it to America and its electoral politics. Of course it's the Dems fault, this is why we need to start (ahem) dictating terms to the mad left and do away with this unworkable democracy thing. Look at it, it doesn't work! Nobody can deny it.

Yeah I meant they can try, and they surely will, but it won't work because this is essentially on public display for everyone, only the extreme MAGA's will believe it, the Dem's, the Independant's, and more importantly the moderate Republican's are going to be watching this live and this will just push more of them away.

[stevebrooks]

Just watched the 3rd vote for speaker live, Jordan lost another 3 Republicans with 25 against him, looks like he is going nowhere but down!

[stylofone]

And now Jordan is dumped as the nominee. It's more good fun but if they are serious about this then they realise it is a fight to the death. You can't compromise with MAGA, if you show any half-measures they will turn on you. You have to become one of them. The goal is that Trump will be President for Life, and a range of extreme laws will be introduced - things like the death penalty for having an abortion or being gay, correction camps for Liberal teens, whites-only suburbs and apartheid style pass laws. Of course there will be exemptions to those laws for any white conservatives with the right connections to the chosen ones of MAGA.

https://www.politico.com/live-updates/2 ... s-00122781

[stevebrooks]

Yes it is indeed astonishing, and now we know why secret ballots are used where intimidation can occur, he got 25 votes against him in open congress where everyone can see what they are voting, and 122 voted against him where they couldn't be publicly identified, which means 97 Republicans where scared to vote against him due to the death threats and intimidation they and their families might receive from the MAGA crazies!

If this doesn't tell the rest of the US what the Republican party is all about nothing will. The Republican's won't recover even a modicum of governability until Trump and the MAGA crowd are long gone and forgotten, and that may take decades!

As I said earlier, fucked, well and truly fucked. I suspect there is no-one in the Republican party in congress at the moment who can get the votes. With this secret ballot being so overwhelmingly against the MAGA crazies maybe some other Republicans may feel emboldened to step up and oppose them, but I doubt it will help.

[stylofone]

Does anyone remember the John Waters film "Serial Mom", about a conservative, well-off suburban woman who goes crazy and rampages through the suburbs on a murder spree. Her initial victims were targeted because "you don't wear white shoes after Labor Day", but she ends up becoming a sort of celebrity, especially in a scene paying tribute to "The Blow-up".

Apologies to anyone not familiar with all the popular culture references, but the bottom line is that a few decades ago, an alternative black comedy would exaggerate aspects of American life for laughs and for art. Wind the clock forward, and what seemed fantastically absurd and darkly funny in 1994 is pretty much the norm in the Republican Party these days.

[stylofone]

Even if you're not into the legal minutiae, there is an interesting element to this story, asking how a previously sane lawyer who had worked on cases representing Democrats including Al Gore, could flip and become a full-on MAGA believer. Apparently Kenneth Chesebro's conversion coincided with him making millions of dollars in a Bitcoin investment. Like Trumpism, cryptocurrency is based on bullshit, but hey, there's nothing like a few million dollars in the bank to turn you into a believer.

Now he's turned against his fellow cultists and we should see how well his de-programming is going as the trials progress.

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/21/us/p ... trump.html

[Irrev-Black]

Calling insurrection things like "insurrection"... well, I never!

Brandi_Buchman@mstdn.social
Brandi Buchman
@Brandi_Buchman@mstdn.social

Trump has yet again failed to convince a judge in CO to toss a lawsuit against him brought by voters who want his name removed from the ballot in the 2024 election due to his “insurrectionist” activities leading up to and on Jan. 6, 2021.

https://lawandcrime.com/high-profile/vo ... next-week/

[stylofone]

The speaker drama goes to the next stage. One article I read suggested Johnson is too inexperienced to be any more successful than the losers in his wake. Comments on Mastodon emphasise that he is more like a Gilead commander than we've seen in a position like this, and if he succeeds, it could be a portent of a new and worsening stage in the slide to American tyranny, which would continue even after Trump exits the scene. The Orange clown is not one of them, he's just tool of the Lord.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/202 ... i-abortion