|
Mitt Romney just announced that he is ending his political career and will retire from the Senate after one term. There were no declared Republican candidates for his seat as of today, but there will likely be a series of announcements in the next week. quote:Mitt Romney says he will not seek a second term in the Senate https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/09/13/mitt-romney-senate-reelection/?utm_campaign=wp_main&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter
|
# ? Sep 13, 2023 18:45 |
|
|
# ? May 28, 2024 14:44 |
|
https://twitter.com/PhilipRucker/status/1702014451866628177 Mitt's retiring from public life. Normally I'd cynically say something about "guess those internals are real bad" but I also think that Romney can win any Utah election he wants so I'm inclined to believe him when he says it's because he's sick of the bullshit. Also, his style of Republican doesn't really have a constituency anymore.
|
# ? Sep 13, 2023 18:45 |
|
Josef bugman posted:War criminals shouldn't get column inches in major periodicals no matter how "rare" their interventions are. That’s what Netflix deals are for!
|
# ? Sep 13, 2023 18:48 |
|
selec posted:That’s what Netflix deals are for! That's struck work at the moment I think.
|
# ? Sep 13, 2023 18:52 |
|
Gotta give it to Romney and that Mormon clean livin'. He still looks very good for someone pushing 80. That full head of hair has to be plugs or some miraculous genes.
|
# ? Sep 13, 2023 18:52 |
|
Probably an egregiously stupid question, at the least considering Mittens just announced his retirement, but just thinking: Let’s say Mitt wants to get one more shot in at Trump by running for President as an independent. Does Mitt get a plurality of the vote in Utah? Trump, Biden?
|
# ? Sep 13, 2023 18:55 |
|
Judgy Fucker posted:Probably an egregiously stupid question, at the least considering Mittens just announced his retirement, but just thinking: Evan McMullen got 21% of the vote in 2016. I would expect Romney to do better than that in Utah, but I doubt he would get a plurality or win. He is retiring from public life, so not likely to be running for President again. Unless this is an incredible fake-out to build hype for his secret campaign.
|
# ? Sep 13, 2023 18:57 |
|
Republicans appear to be beginning their own pressure against Tommy Tuberville's military promotion blockade, since it's (A) stupid and (B) a political loser. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/13/us/politics/military-promotions-tuberville.html The practical effects of the blocks are that military families can't do family planning because they don't know when they're moving, people with prospects outside of the military and a full pension will just start leaving, and acting heads are apparently quite limited on what kind of policy they can enact. quote:Even as criticism of the delays grows louder — including from the Republican Senate leader, Mitch McConnell, who on Tuesday called the holds a “mistake” — Mr. Tuberville has refused to back down. He denies that the holds are hurting the military and insists that Democrats could put each job to a vote on the Senate floor, a process that would take hours per nomination.
|
# ? Sep 13, 2023 18:58 |
|
Is one of Mitt's 5 sons gonna just try to slide into that seat now? One of them is named "Matt" so it's close enough to just be a typo. Though Tagg would continue the "are we electing baseball?" thoughts.
|
# ? Sep 13, 2023 18:59 |
|
Leon Trotsky 2012 posted:lol They do mock Republicans a bit so I imagine that's why she was acting up
|
# ? Sep 13, 2023 18:59 |
|
zoux posted:https://twitter.com/PhilipRucker/status/1702014451866628177 I just hear Lex Luthor saying "Do you have any idea how much power I'd have to give up to be president?" Guy is what, a tens-millionaire, hundred millionaire from his time being a vulture capitalist? He's got connections and $STUPID in his bank account. He can buy the any outcome he wants from US politics.
|
# ? Sep 13, 2023 18:59 |
|
Sax Mortar posted:Is one of Mitt's 5 sons gonna just try to slide into that seat now? One of them is named "Matt" so it's close enough to just be a typo. The Attorney General of Utah (Sean Reyes) was rumored to be considering trying to primary Romney, but he hasn't announced anything. If he was considering it, then he will probably jump in soon.
|
# ? Sep 13, 2023 19:01 |
|
I hear some guy named Pierre Delecto is considering a run
|
# ? Sep 13, 2023 19:01 |
|
Romney was the only Republican to vote for Trump's removal. He probably sees how things are going and rightfully wants off the insanity train same as Boehner.
|
# ? Sep 13, 2023 19:05 |
|
Actually, according to ABC news, there is one random nobody who is the Mayor of a small town that is already in the race.quote:Riverton Mayor Trent Staggs is the only Republican officially in the race so far, though state House Speaker Brad Wilson has launched a Senate exploratory committee, former Rep. Jason Chaffetz is weighing a campaign and state Attorney General Sean Reyes is thought to be considering a bid, too. (Reyes declined to comment.) The Utah state House Speaker, former Rep. Jason Chaffetz, and the Attorney General of Utah are all considering running. I'm only familiar with Chaffetz, but he is a generic bad Republican. I'm guessing the other two are likely similar. Whoever replaces Romney will probably be technically worse because they won't periodically vote to confirm a Democratic nominee or oppose Trump. I doubt any of the replacements would have voted to convict Trump during the impeachment. But, overall, it probably won't make a huge difference one way or the other. https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/mitt-romney-face-dogfight-republicans-2024-trump-criticism/story?id=102058347
|
# ? Sep 13, 2023 19:06 |
|
zoux posted:I hear some guy named Pierre Delecto is considering a run Sam Stein beat you to this joke by just three minutes! https://twitter.com/samstein/status/1702018841675448548
|
# ? Sep 13, 2023 19:08 |
|
bird food bathtub posted:I just hear Lex Luthor saying "Do you have any idea how much power I'd have to give up to be president?" Guy is what, a tens-millionaire, hundred millionaire from his time being a vulture capitalist? He's got connections and $STUPID in his bank account. He can buy the any outcome he wants from US politics. Tell that to Michael Bloomberg.
|
# ? Sep 13, 2023 19:10 |
|
bird food bathtub posted:I just hear Lex Luthor saying "Do you have any idea how much power I'd have to give up to be president?" Guy is what, a tens-millionaire, hundred millionaire from his time being a vulture capitalist? He's got connections and $STUPID in his bank account. He can buy the any outcome he wants from US politics. Mitt Romney is currently worth ~$300 million And I'm not sure that's actually true, seeing as Michael Bloomberg ($96 billion and the 11th richest person in the world) didn't have much of an effect on the 2020 presidential elections
|
# ? Sep 13, 2023 19:10 |
|
Leon Trotsky 2012 posted:Sam Stein beat you to this joke by just three minutes! gently caress!!! https://twitter.com/mattbruenig/status/1702007379292766230?s=46&t=A_iY-gupVf13dcIJPetZhQ This is legit dark Brandon poo poo, actually arresting a mom and pop for violating the board’s ruling. Be like if that North Texas hair salon owner was arrested for defying mitigation ordinances instead of her using that as a springboard to launch a statehouse campaign
|
# ? Sep 13, 2023 19:12 |
|
haveblue posted:Mitt Romney is currently worth ~$300 million The largest part of Mitt Romney's wealth comes from Bain capital buying Dominos when it was going bankrupt in 1999, telling them to soak their crust in garlic butter and use better ingredients for the dough, then run an ad campaign saying "Dominos used to be lovely, but we aren't anymore!" That took Dominos from a $190 million company to a $13 billion company. Still one of the funniest things about Mitt Romney. Leon Trotsky 2012 fucked around with this message at 19:20 on Sep 13, 2023 |
# ? Sep 13, 2023 19:15 |
|
Name Change posted:Republicans appear to be beginning their own pressure against Tommy Tuberville's military promotion blockade, since it's (A) stupid and (B) a political loser. It's nice to see them having to rage uselessly at a manchin, not gonna lie.
|
# ? Sep 13, 2023 19:21 |
|
Byzantine posted:It's nice to see them having to rage uselessly at a manchin, not gonna lie. Unfortunately, this isn't really stifling any GOP policy priorities. They are just worried it is making them look bad because about 600 members of the military are not getting their raises or sold their home/broke a lease to transfer for a promotion and now are stuck in limbo spending a bunch of money to wait it out.
|
# ? Sep 13, 2023 19:28 |
|
A functioning military used to be a GOP priority but I guess that's less important than culture war bullshit nowadays
|
# ? Sep 13, 2023 19:30 |
|
haveblue posted:A functioning military used to be a GOP priority but I guess that's less important than culture war bullshit nowadays To be fair to Tuberville, he is right that it isn't actually hampering the ability of the government to function right now. It will when the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and about a hundred commissioned officers are forced to retire by law in a few weeks and they legally can't replace them. But, right now, it is just financially hurting about 600 random people who are getting their raises withheld and have to figure out what to do about their housing for [???] more months when they were supposed to move in July
|
# ? Sep 13, 2023 19:35 |
|
The NYT has a decent summary of how this has been playing out for the last six months and how it is going to really start spiraling to affect thousands of people if it is still going on after October 1st. The earliest holds have been in place for 6 months, so there are people who sold their houses or broke their lease because they were supposed to move in March that are still in limbo. They also haven't been receiving their raises for the last 6 months. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/13/us/politics/military-promotions-tuberville.html quote:For more than six months, Senator Tommy Tuberville, Republican of Alabama, has held up military nominations in protest of a Pentagon policy created to ensure that service members have access to abortions and other reproductive medical care. Hundreds of promotions have now been delayed in a battle that has it all. quote:The U.S. military is an all-volunteer force. The officers most affected by the holds are top performers who could easily find more lucrative jobs in the private sector — captains, majors, colonels and generals who have already met the 20-year service requirement that allows them to retire with a full military pension. The military manages to keep many of these people by promoting them to more senior and challenging positions. Leon Trotsky 2012 fucked around with this message at 19:45 on Sep 13, 2023 |
# ? Sep 13, 2023 19:41 |
|
Dang it's almost like they want to drain the government of its resources and allocate them to the private sector to justify further outsourcing of vital government functions
|
# ? Sep 13, 2023 19:44 |
|
Romney also handed McKay Coppins his burn book where he names names https://twitter.com/jrubinblogger/status/1702030096809291930?s=46&t=A_iY-gupVf13dcIJPetZhQ
|
# ? Sep 13, 2023 19:44 |
|
Judgy Fucker posted:Let’s say Mitt wants to get one more shot in at Trump by running for President as an independent. Does Mitt get a plurality of the vote in Utah? Trump, Biden? My eyes and brain are tired, I read this as Mitch and started imagining him at the debates, just blankly staring at audience. And still getting 48-50% of votes probably.
|
# ? Sep 13, 2023 20:02 |
|
Romney and the paleocon part of the party he represents are by no means good, of course, but he's a self-interested oldschool business Republican with a degree of basic sanity, institutional knowledge and competence. Romney and his backing constituency in the LDS business cancer have goals and incentives that align with fundamental ongoing political stability and a slow, grinding harm to public commonweal that can sometimes be manipulated into common cause with actual good policy. His hate for the MAGAs is sincere, and even outside of public office he's likely to continue to try to keep Utah relatively resistant to their influence. I'm not clear on how successful he's going to be.
|
# ? Sep 13, 2023 20:02 |
|
Every time someone goes "Mitt Romney is a reasonable, classic Rockefeller Republican; we can work with him!" I think of this photo, of him so pleased with himself and being able to make political hay out of Vilerat's death. That little smirk as he walks away from the stage, secure in the knowledge that he's dealt a devastating blow to Obama's foreign policy bona fides while Sean's body is still warm. Psychopaths, all.
|
# ? Sep 13, 2023 20:04 |
|
zoux posted:Romney also handed McKay Coppins his burn book where he names names Here's a preview excerpt from the book: https://twitter.com/seungminkim/status/1702031318241124788 I haven't read all of yet (it is a very large preview), but the things I've hit so far: - It is very funny that Romney recounts some wild stories about the shamelessness and cynicism of J.D. Vance, Josh Hawley, and Mitch McConnell and basically says, "I cynically reinvented myself twice and said a ton of stuff I didn't believe, but even I am amazed at the oily shamelessness of these guys!" - Romney and his staff called him "the turd in the punch bowl" when they first came to D.C. because nobody liked him and wouldn't hang out with him. Republicans didn't want to be seen hanging with someone critical of Trump and Democrats didn't like him. Angus King and Joe Manchin were the only people who were nice to him. - Several other Senators admitted to him that "there are about 20 senators here who do all the work, and there are about 80 who go along for the ride" and most of the Republican caucus deferred to Mitch McConnell for 90% of things and spent the other 10% trying to get their pet issues money/attention. - Josh Hawley thought he might actually die on January 6th and was confused as to how it had boiled over into a real riot, but once it became clear that Trump wasn't going to admit fault, Hawley went back to defending him and told his aides to scrap any statements until it was clear where the winds were blowing. - One Republican Congressman told Romney that he was considering voting for Trump's impeachment, but decided against it because it wouldn't change the outcome and he feared for his family's safety if he did. - Romney has been paying $5,000 per day for private security after a Trump supporter threatened to kill him. - Romney had a no guns policy at all of his Utah public appearances because he thought that "there are deranged people among us, and in Utah, people carry guns.” He started to completely lose faith in politics when he didn't even feel safe among Utah Republicans and nobody in the Senate seemed to care. - Romney felt like a loser for selling out multiple times and having nobody appreciate him or vote for him because of it. He wanted to use his Senate career, and briefly considered running for President in 2020, to try to salvage his reputation and be considered a bold truth teller instead of a phony. He fantasized about telling Trump off in a debate and getting his self-respect back from when he had to beg Trump for an endorsement in 2012. quote:Romney relished the idea of running a presidential campaign in which he simply said whatever he thought, without regard for the political consequences. “I must admit, I’d love being on the stage with Donald Trump … and just saying, ‘That’s stupid. Why are you saying that?’ ” He nursed a fantasy in which he devoted an entire debate to asking Trump to explain why, in the early weeks of the pandemic, he’d suggested that Americans inject bleach as a treatment for COVID-19. - Romney approached Manchin about starting a new third party in 2020 that had the slogan "Stop the Stupid" and Manchin turned him down. - Romney says that nobody in the Senate wants to retire, even if it becomes physically difficult to do the job, because they were used to the routine and feared fading into irrelevance if they retired from public life. quote:Job preservation, in this context, became almost existential. Retirement was death. The men and women of the Senate might not need their government salary to survive, but they needed the stimulation, the sense of relevance, the power. Leon Trotsky 2012 fucked around with this message at 20:24 on Sep 13, 2023 |
# ? Sep 13, 2023 20:13 |
|
If the bits about other GOP members have abouy the safety of themselves and their families is true, there's this very big level of "I never thought the lepords would eat MY face" going on as well.
|
# ? Sep 13, 2023 20:16 |
|
https://twitter.com/lpdonovan/status/1702039207986778494?s=46&t=A_iY-gupVf13dcIJPetZhQ These politicians are sick fucks man
|
# ? Sep 13, 2023 20:28 |
|
Not a Children posted:Dang it's almost like they want to drain the government of its resources and allocate them to the private sector to justify further outsourcing of vital government functions I want to believe Tuberville is just being a stupid, obstinate rear end in a top hat. And he is being a stupid, obstinate rear end in a top hat. I'm unfortunately not comfortable saying he is "just" doing that. The further (though by no means comfortably far enough) reaches of the right wing nut-o-sphere are currently creaming their jeans at the idea of hollowing out as much of the government as they possibly can and restocking everything with Trump loyalists willing to enact outright "the Democratic party is now illegal" single party rule. https://www.project2025.org/policy/ Cruise through that for some horrifying goals that would make Steve Bannon proud. This poo poo is bubbling up all over the place in the Republican party. I don't claim to know Tuberville's heart of hearts on this issue, but some poo poo is rhyming between the two and I'm not comfortable saying it's accidental.
|
# ? Sep 13, 2023 20:28 |
|
PostNouveau posted:Gonna be seeing this one in some campaign ads I was thinking about this post today and my head to a weird place. Child poverty rate was drastically lowered by government action but, well, most people think that caused all this loving inflation (true or not) and that now that all that poo poo is rolled back, the poverty rate went up again. Ok. So doesn't that speak to a couple of things? 1. If giving people enough money to lift themselves out of poverty causes rampant inflation, doesn't that mean that capitalism unapologetically needs poverty stricken people (kids) in order to function? 2. If we're being clearly shown that giving people money directly lifts people out of poverty, isn't that an example of government being able to do something about it? 3. If what the government did about it created rampant inflation, isn't that an argument for price controls and even nationalizing certain parts of the economy? AFIAK, they didn't spend that poo poo on luxury items. The people who didn't need the help rat holed the money (and many poo poo eating swine took advantage of PPP loans that they didn't need) but the people who DID paid their loving rent and bought food. 4. Assuming that this financial help "increased demand" and created "rising prices", what does that tell us, exactly? Because, whatever it is, it seems pretty grim from an income distribution standpoint. I can tell you with 100% accountability that the money I got went to food, child support, gas, bills, etc. I just can't shake the idea that people being able to afford things makes people unable to afford things is a canary in a coal mine situation. That's a perfect argument for how our supply side, upside down economic system works. Especially given the record profits that companies raked in during the time when the aid was offered. RIght? I mean, again, one has to assume that "people having too much money spiked inflation" is a true statement and I do not.
|
# ? Sep 13, 2023 21:28 |
|
BiggerBoat posted:I mean, again, one has to assume that "people having too much money spiked inflation" is a true statement and I do not. People believing they can make more money off of people having more money spiked inflation
|
# ? Sep 13, 2023 21:41 |
|
astrology is hilarious and owns because it makes a certain kind of really obnoxious guy lose their absolute loving minds about it
|
# ? Sep 13, 2023 21:45 |
|
BiggerBoat posted:I was thinking about this post today and my head to a weird place. https://twitter.com/NewRiverInvest/status/1701697584262418726
|
# ? Sep 13, 2023 21:54 |
|
B?
|
# ? Sep 13, 2023 21:58 |
|
|
# ? May 28, 2024 14:44 |
|
BiggerBoat posted:I was thinking about this post today and my head to a weird place. 1. In a sense but that maybe isn’t the best example of that. Capitalism needs people to have to work to not starve. It probably doesn’t need those people to have kids. 2. Yes, clearly. 3. This is incredibly complicated but the idea that the spending even caused most of the inflation needs to be examined. If megacorporations were still turning record profits while also charging more then the spending wasn’t the problem. There were real actual problems that caused some of it (like the famous expensive eggs) but it seems like most of it just came from corps charging more because they don’t have enough competition. Because mergers and buyouts and uncompetitive practices have led to a huge consolidation of wealth and power. That’s a reason to do trust-busting the likes of which the country has never seen. Sure, nationalize things like utilities. I don’t know enough to know if price controls would help. 4. It tells you people will spend more money if they have more money. I think this would probably be the case even if there weren’t rampant poverty. But it would go into different sectors.
|
# ? Sep 13, 2023 22:19 |