Yeah, can’t figure out where this is going. AIUI, there must be at least 218 (?) votes for one candidate and the Democrats can’t muster that number of votes, so yet again, the US is being held hostage by extreme right nutters.

Unfortunately the democrats recent experience will be the inspiration. With politic having become so polarised and the house and senate being so closely balanced – it has been the outliers that hold the power. Joe Manchin and Kyrstin Sinema have dominated democrat policy by being the one or two votes needed to make anything happen and not being prepared to toe the party line. So thats what this bunch of republic**ts want to do – signal that without a concession to them nothing the party tries to do will succeed. Which is funny really as most of what the Republican Party does is try and not do anything.

We’re in the same boat obviously. Thats why Braverman has a job.

It’s back to the voting public. These utter shysters would just be turgid irrelevant pub bores (or crooked businessmen, or both) without the electorate giving them the power to do damager. Over 30% of American voting adults still being members of the GOP….with the track record of what they have done in recent years (Inc Jan 6th) is frankly sign of a toxic nation. They are either morons or actually approve of their shit – not sure what is more terrifying.

UK is no better mind you. There are 81,336 members of the conservative party that gave Truss a chance to **** us all over that need a damn good thrashing too!

Joe Manchin and Kyrstin Sinema have dominated democrat policy by being the one or two votes needed to make anything happen and not being prepared to toe the party line.

Sinema seems to only be interested in promoting her own career, she doesn’t seem to have any coherent package of policies that she wants to implement. She would not be able to win another primary as a Democrat so she’s going to run as an independent. She has no hope of winning as an independent, the question is whether she hurts the Democratic or Republican nominee more in the general election.

Manchin is a senator from West Virginia, which is deeply conservative coal country. Many of the left-wing policy platforms would be political suicide for him, he can only survive by being a pragmatic centrist (which makes him relatively right-wing compared to the left-wing of the Democratic Party.) In order to maintain a senate majority, the Democratic Party has to retain senate seats like the one that Manchin holds, which means that they need to avoid forcing him into a choice of voting for policies that his conservative constituents won’t accept. If the Democrats imposed a left-wing purity test to throw out centrists like Manchin, they would lose their senate majority and be much worse off than they are with Manchin giving them a majority, but killing some policies. They have no realistic choice other than letting him vote how he chooses.

And now the 10thvote has failed. He even seems to be losing votes as this time he is down one to 200

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/live/2023/jan/05/house-speaker-vote-republicans-kevin-mccarthy

I’m wondering if there is an upside to this in that they won’t be able to get a speaker who can force through the most toxic stuff as he won’t have a strong enough base.

The twist could be nominating a reasonable republican by the Democrats and then they vote for him.  End up not with a loon in charge

Oh that would be a twist

Shows how unreasonable these people are. If you fail to achieve something ten times in a row, at what point do you foxtrot-oscar?

DISCLAIMER I have no clue about the actual machinations of this vote.

I’m wondering if there is an upside to this in that they won’t be able to get a speaker who can force through the most toxic stuff as he won’t have a strong enough base.

Is it the speaker that forces stuff through? I thought the President has his plans & the house votes. Now the Reps have the majority most will be stymied anyway?

Is it the speaker that forces stuff through? I thought the President has his plans & the house votes.

The speaker controls the agenda in the House, but legislation also needs ratification in the senate, plus a signature from the president to become law. It’s a very complex system. Biden spent decades in the senate, Nancy Pelosi decades in the house. Between them, they achieved a huge amount because they understood how the system works.

The clowns holding up the speaker confirmation aren’t interested in actually passing any legislation, they’re just mugging for the camera to get votes back home in Backofbumsarse.

My money is on McCarthy holding on for at least 20 votes but quitting before 30. He obviously has zero self respect, but eventually it will dawn on him that the humiliation will never have a pay-off. Still, his name will be a major footnote in history.

How many times will Kevin McCarthy lose House Speaker votes? pic.twitter.com/5fJsmEXEvm

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) January 5, 2023

a reasonable republican

Not many candidates for that in the House of reps any more.

What’d be really interesting is to see exactly what each of the flipped rebels has been promised.

One of the better outcomes now is that it gets to the point where the proper loons- Gaetz and Boebart and scum like that- are still holding out for whatever insanity it is they want, free guns for preschoolders or if you’re gaetz free preschoolers for him, and then just 3 democrats tactically flip and make them irrelevant and they can both **** off with nothing

and then just 3 democrats tactically flip and make them irrelevant and they can both **** off with nothing

Depending what he’s promised the rebels, might have been in the Democrats interests to vote him in sooner. Which would have really made the headbangers heads explode

Depending what he’s promised the rebels, might have been in the Democrats interests to vote him in sooner.

Thats the problem isn’t it. These fruit loops are going to get themselves on some fairly important committees and immediately decide the most important thing to do is investigate Hunter Bidens ‘selfies’ or something.

decide the most important thing to do is investigate Hunter Bidens ‘selfies’ or something.

Sadly a lot of those already supporting him are already planning on that. The holders out probably just want to skip investigation and move straight to execution of all “liberals”.

Depending what he’s promised the rebels, might have been in the Democrats interests to vote him in sooner.

Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake.

I think the Democrats are doing the right thing in just letting the Republicans come to terms with their own stupidity. The holdouts don’t really want anything policy-wise, they’re just showing off to their voters back home that they can cripple the government anytime they want. Having done that, they can’t back down now. The Democrats should just let them keep on doing stupid until they’re so desperate that moderate Republicans go begging to the Democrats to bail them out of the mess.

Oh dear, Republicans at each others’ throats.

Rep. Hudson, R-N.C., left, pulls Rep. Rogers, R-Ala., as he confronts Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., during the 14th round of voting for speaker as the House meets for the fourth day to try and elect a speaker in Washington, Friday, Jan. 6, 2023. ( @AP Photo/@andyharnik) pic.twitter.com/ok3K8ERtfU

— Andrew Harnik (@andyharnik) January 7, 2023

My money’s still on the lettuce.

House elects McCarthy the nation’s 55th speaker after days of defeats and concessions to win over hard-line Republicans https://t.co/tDgCUUQkQ1

— The Washington Post (@washingtonpost) January 7, 2023

LOL (assuming its true)

Marjorie Taylor Greene has been locked out of her Twitter account and her new video has been removed after Dr. Dre took legal action against her for using his music without permission.

His letter is amazing. pic.twitter.com/Vk12JSRByK

— No Lie with Brian Tyler Cohen (@NoLieWithBTC) January 9, 2023

I think it’s true but she doesn’t appear locked out any more.  Man the US politics is toxic on social media

From guardian

Donald Trump is scheduled to venture out of his Mar-a-Lago resort and conduct a swing of presidential campaign events later this month

Lotsa pointin’ and waggle-dancin’. Yay!

He had an element of novel curiosity last time, now he’s just a **** arsehole.

Hopefully this will deter lawyers from filing frivolous lawsuits.

JUST IN: A federal judge in Florida has sanctioned Donald Trump's attorneys *$938,000* for what he says is a pattern of abusing the court system for political purposes

It's Judge MIddlebrooks' second blistering sanctions order against Habba et alhttps://t.co/P8un0eU5Kj pic.twitter.com/CQ1RF1uSwL

— Kyle Cheney (@kyledcheney) January 20, 2023

Lovely footage popping up on YouTube of Donald’s touching eulogy for ‘Diamond’ – half of the republican commentator double act ‘Diamond and Silk’ – cartwheeling gracefully from complaining that its taking too long and he has places to be, via rambling about inflation and what the price of a gallon of gas means to a hospital through to Arnold Swartzneger getting terrible ratings when he took over on the Apprentice, and how Martha Stewart was even worse.

Beautiful – I only wish she could have been there, if only for the the couple of occasions it occurring to him to mention her – in order to say that he knew who she was – and to comfort her sister and co-host ‘Silk’ by saying he has never heard of her though.

I only open this thread nowadays to see if he’s dead

For fear of getting the thread locked I can’t say whether I’m disappointed or not…….

Lovely footage popping up on YouTube of Donald’s touching eulogy for ‘Diamond’

I see he won a golf tournament at his club even though he missed the first round due to attending the funeral!

Fake news!
He did do the first round just a couple of days in advance with no independent witnesses.
I cant believe anyone would question his honesty about the score he achieved.

He did do the first round just a couple of days in advance with no independent witnesses.

Surely George Santos was there to adjudicate. His grandmother was Old Tom Morris and his grandfather was Young Tom Morris. It was George who gave Shaun Ryder the idea of inventing the Ryder Cup.

Fake news!

It’s a fair cop sir! I intentionally left out that piece of information to paint an unfair picture of the worlds greatest leader! I’ll hand myself in once I putt my 18th hole in one!

Lovely footage popping up on YouTube of Donald’s touching eulogy for ‘Diamond’ – half of the republican commentator double act ‘Diamond and Silk’ – cartwheeling gracefully from complaining that its taking too long and he has places to be, via rambling about inflation and what the price of a gallon of gas means to a hospital through to Arnold Swartzneger getting terrible ratings when he took over on the Apprentice, and how Martha Stewart was even worse.

Just watched it.

He really is the most narcissistic, sociopathic car crash of a human being.

It’s nice that he has set his children on the path to riches.
I owe everything to my Dad
If he is as business minded as his old man,Eric will have a cunning plan.
Apologies to RNP if I got his hopes up. 😉🙃

It’s nice that he has set his children on the path to riches.

Poor Eric

“Brexit has impacted our business as supply chains have been impacted by availability of drivers and staff, reducing deliveries and the availability of certain product lines,” he wrote.

Eric Trump also said staff availability had been a “challenge” due to wage inflation caused by “increased business levels” in the retail and logistics sectors, adding the “staffing pool” had been indirectly affected by Brexit “with lack of access to European staff for businesses in general resulting in greater demand for the individuals previously available at the resort”

It’s nice that he has set his children on the path to riches.
I owe everything to my Dad
If he is as business minded as his old man,Eric will have a cunning plan.
Apologies to RNP if I got his hopes up.

It is a shame the BBC didn’t remind everyone that it is usual practice for Trumps businesses to report losses for tax reasons, while inflating profits and value to secure finance, and for that reason any report of a loss should be assumed to just be another lie.

Poor Eric

Och,he will be fine,his old man can make 4 million in an afternoon*.
I am sure Eric is just as slick 😉
* from the Trump book of easy business

Trump worried he might be arrested, so urges protectors onto the street…

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-65000325

I think Trump has misheard the DA refer to him as a “See you next Tuesday” and assumed wrongly.

Lol😁

so urges protectors onto the street…

I wonder what the turnout for this rallying call will be. And whether any horn-wearing QAnon shamans will be there.

I think his supporters should take note of how he quickly jumped to their aid, when they were accused, arrested and imprisoned the last time they acted on his words.

Mind you, they aren’t the brightest of buttons in the box.

And whether any horn-wearing QAnon shamans will be there.

Isn’t he in prison? As with others who turned up to the Donald’s call for protest.

I wonder what the turnout for this rallying call will be.

It’s gonna be yuge.

Indicted…now get him in court before the election.