June 17, 20223 yr 36 minutes ago, Dave Moss said: Does someone convince these guys that they’d be a good candidate for U.S. senate? I thought the same thing when Lynn Swann ran in PA. A game show host was elected President, so...
June 20, 20223 yr Texas GOP is off the rails. Incomprehensible ! https://www.cnn.com/2022/06/19/opinions/texas-gop-convention-obeidallah/index.html
June 20, 20223 yr 12 minutes ago, Talkingbirds said: Texas GOP is off the rails. Incomprehensible ! https://www.cnn.com/2022/06/19/opinions/texas-gop-convention-obeidallah/index.html Despicable
June 20, 20223 yr Republicans in the south crawling over each other to see who can put out the most insane unhinged campaign ads while working in their undying loyalty to a reality game show host.
June 20, 20223 yr Hmm, next for the GOP? Hobnailed sole Crocs Koncealed Karen: concealed carry vaginal holster for women, and GOP pussbags.
June 20, 20223 yr Just now, Dave Moss said: All the secession stuff is truly unhinged. it sure is. that being said...i'm in favor of it! get f'n lost, texas!
June 20, 20223 yr 7 hours ago, Talkingbirds said: Texas GOP is off the rails. Incomprehensible ! https://www.cnn.com/2022/06/19/opinions/texas-gop-convention-obeidallah/index.html Incomprehensible? Not really.
June 20, 20223 yr 1 hour ago, we_gotta_believe said: Republicans in the south crawling over each other to see who can put out the most insane unhinged campaign ads while working in their undying loyalty to a reality game show host. He seems very normal.
June 20, 20223 yr 1 hour ago, we_gotta_believe said: Republicans in the south crawling over each other to see who can put out the most insane unhinged campaign ads while working in their undying loyalty to a reality game show host. Insane.
June 20, 20223 yr 15 minutes ago, mr_hunt said: it sure is. that being said...i'm in favor of it! get f'n lost, texas! If you try to secede twice there should be a rule that you can’t come back.
June 20, 20223 yr 1 hour ago, Dave Moss said: If you try to secede twice there should be a rule that you can’t come back.
June 20, 20223 yr GOP Senate Candidate Eric Greitens Blasted for ‘RINO Hunting’ Campaign Ad: ‘This Is, Unmistakably, Fascism’ (Video) https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/gop-senate-candidate-eric-greitens-182325879.html Charna Flam Mon, June 20, 2022, 2:23 PM Eric Greitens, the former Missouri governer and a former U.S. Navy Seal, released a shocking new political advertisement Monday in his bid for a U.S. Senate seat. The Republican candidate in the ad called on viewers to go "RINO hunting,” in reference to "Republicans in name only” who, in the 38-second video, he said "feed on corruption.” Greitens claims RINOs are "marked by the stripes of cowardice” and those who join in the hunt will "join the MAGA crew.” In a disturbing turn, the ad then shows a small, well-equipped military unit storm into a house to illustrate the proposed "hunt.” The ad was flagged by Twitter hours after its posting. "This Tweet violated the Twitter Rules about abusive behavior,” the Twitter flag read, atop the post. "However, Twitter has determined that it may be in the public’s interest for the Tweet to remain accessible.” It also stirred up a negative user response, to put it mildly. See below for a sample.
June 20, 20223 yr 10 hours ago, Talkingbirds said: Texas GOP is off the rails. Incomprehensible ! https://www.cnn.com/2022/06/19/opinions/texas-gop-convention-obeidallah/index.html In Texas it's now permissible to murder gays without criminal penalty and for Convicted Criminals to buy guns. Deplorable.
June 21, 20223 yr I think the article is worth posting in its entirety. Ya'll Qaeda is at it again... Yes, ladies and gentlemen, the age of American Christofascism is here. Quote Opinion: Texas Republicans want to secede? Good riddance. By Dana Milbank Columnist|Follow June 20, 2022 at 6:36 p.m. EDT The Lone Star State does not have the best track record as a sovereign power. The Republic of Texas survived only 10 years from independence to annexation by the United States in 1845. Texas seceded during the Civil War — and, with the rest of the Confederacy, was crushed. But, as the saying goes: If at first you don’t secede, try, try again. The Texas GOP now wants the state to vote on declaring independence. And the United States should let Texas go! Better yet, let’s offer Texas a severance package that includes Oklahoma to sweeten secession — the Sooner the better. Over the weekend, while many Americans were celebrating the 167th anniversary of Juneteenth (when Union Gen. Gordon Granger, in Galveston, Tex., delivered the order abolishing slavery) the Texas Republican Party voted on a platform declaring that federal laws it dislikes "should be ignored, opposed, refused, and nullified.” The proposed platform (it’s expected to be approved when votes are tallied) adds: "Texas retains the right to secede from the United States, and the Texas Legislature should be called upon to pass a referendum consistent thereto.” It wants the secession referendum "in the 2023 general election for the people of Texas to determine whether or not the State of Texas should reassert its status as an independent nation.” Yee-haw! Of course, protections would have to be negotiated for parts of Texas that wish to remain on Team Normal. Dallas, Houston, Austin, San Antonio and parts of South Texas would remain in the United States, and they will need guaranteed safe passage to New Orleans or Santa Fe, along with regular airlifts of sustainable produce, accurate textbooks and contraceptives. But consider the benefits to the rest of the country: Two fewer Republican senators, two dozen fewer Republican members of the House, annual savings of $83 billion in defense funds that Texas gets. And the best reason? The Texas GOP has so little regard for the Constitution that it is calling for a "Convention of the States” to effectively rewrite it — and so little regard for the United States that it wishes to leave. In democracy’s place, the Republican Party, which enjoys one-party rule in Texas, is effectively proposing a church state. If you liked Crusader states and Muslim caliphates, you’ll love the Confederate Theocracy of Texas. The Texas GOP platform gives us a good idea what such a paradise for Christian nationalists would look like. Texas would officially declare that "homosexuality is an abnormal lifestyle choice.” It would redefine marriage as a "covenant only between one biological man and one biological woman,” and it would "nullify” any court rulings to the contrary. (The gay Log Cabin Republicans were banned from setting up a booth at the convention.) It would fill schools with "prayer, the Bible, and the Ten Commandments” but ban "the teaching of sex education.” It would abolish all abortions and require students to "learn about the Humanity of the Preborn Child.” The Texas Theocracy, which maintains that President Biden "was not legitimately elected,” would keep only traces of democracy. It wants the Voting Rights Act of 1965 "repealed,” and it would rewrite the state constitution to empower minority rule by small, rural (and White) counties. It would rescind voters’ right to elect senators and the Constitution’s guarantee of birthright citizenship. The Texas Theocracy would probably be broke; it wants to abolish the federal income tax, "Axe the Property Tax” and do away with the estate tax and various business taxes. Yet it is planning a hawkish foreign policy! The platform argues that Texas is currently "under an active invasion” and should take "any and all appropriate measures the sovereign state defines as necessary to defend” itself. It imagines attacks by a "One World Government, or The Great Reset” — an internet-born conspiracy belief — and proposes "withdrawal from the current United Nations.” The Theocracy would put the "wild” back in the West, abolishing the minimum wage, environmental and banking regulations, and "red-flag” laws or waiting periods to prevent dangerous people from buying guns. Above all, the Confederate Theocracy of Texas would be defined by thought police. It would penalize "woke corporations” and businesses that disagree with the theocracy over abortion, race, trans rights and the "inalienable right to refuse vaccination.” Government programs would be stripped of "education involving race.” Evolution and climate change "shall be taught as challengeable scientific theories subject to change.” There would be a "complete repeal of the hate crime laws.” The Texas Revolution "shall not be ‘reimagined’” in a way the theocracy finds "disrespectful.” Confederate monuments "shall be protected,” "plaques honoring the Confederate widows” restored, and lessons on "the tyrannical history of socialism” required. In their platform, the Texas Republicans invoked "God” or the "Creator” 18 times and "sovereignty” or sovereign power 24 times. And the word "democracy”? Only once — in reference to China. https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/06/20/texas-gop-platform-secession-theocracy/ Fascists gonna fascist...
June 21, 20223 yr Texas passed a resolution denying Biden won the election. Next they will make Pi = 3 because it makes the math easier.
June 21, 20223 yr 12 minutes ago, Gannan said: I'm in favor of letting Texas go. They can annoint Trump as their first emperor! Fixed.
June 21, 20223 yr 1 hour ago, Gannan said: I'm in favor of letting Texas go. They can elect Trump as their first president! I think it would be even more bizarre, it would be Ted Cruz.
June 22, 20223 yr 47 minutes ago, DEagle7 said: Steve King does his own yard work? He must be one of those poors.
June 22, 20223 yr Quote As Ye Sow, So Shall Ye Reap Let's take a look at what happened to ten of the most extreme leaders of the last century, in chronological order by date of death: Benito Mussolini: Executed by firing squad; body defiled Adolf Hitler: Committed suicide to avoid Mussolini's fate Hideki Tōjō: Executed by hanging Idi Amin: Died in exile Mohammad Reza Pahlavi: Died in exile Nicolae Ceaușescu: Executed by firing squad Pol Pot: Died in prison Slobodan Milošević: Died in prison Saddam Hussein: Executed by hanging Muammar Gaddafi: Captured and killed by Libyan militants The point here is that he who lives by the sword often dies by the sword. Once a politician, or a political movement, commits to the notion that rules don't matter, that might makes right, and that all that counts is that you feel you're entitled to power, then Pandora's Box has been opened. Because, at that point, if you're not going to play by the rules, then why should your opponents do so? Or, for that matter, the more fanatical members of your own movement? Even those folks who avoided joining this list—Joseph Stalin, Francisco Franco, Hugo Chávez, etc.—had to be constantly on the lookout for threats, often to the point of paranoia. This is the life that Vladmir Putin is leading right now. The Republican Party has grown consistently more extreme, sometimes daily it seems, over the last 25 years or so. In fact, if you want to extend that to 50 years (Richard Nixon), we wouldn't argue much, though things really started to pick up speed with the ascendancy of Newt Gingrich to the Speakership of the House. The impeachment of Bill Clinton, in particular, was an abuse of power that, we would guess, history will deem to have opened the floodgates to all sorts of subsequent abuses, from the Valerie Plame scandal to the firing of U.S. Attorneys under George W. Bush to the theft of the Merrick Garland Supreme Court seat to "stop the steal" and the 1/6 insurrection. And note, because it will be important later, that the trend hasn't been completely one-sided. Democrats usually aren't willing to go first, but they will sometimes step into the breach once it's already opened, as with Harry Reid ending filibusters for federal judges. We bring this up because the Republicans took another giant lurch rightward this weekend. We refer specifically to Texas Republicans, at their annual state convention. They voted on a variety of resolutions and changes to the state party platform that can only be described, in the aggregate, as frightening. Among them: A declaration that the election of Joe Biden was not legitimate A rebuke of Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) and the other Republican senators who are negotiating on gun control A call to repeal several existing gun laws, like the Gun Control Act of 1968 A declaration that homosexuality is "an abnormal lifestyle choice" Another one decreeing that trans people suffer from "a genuine and extremely rare mental health condition" A call for a law requiring schoolchildren "to learn about the humanity of the preborn child" A proposal to repeal the Sixteenth Amendment (federal income tax) Another one to repeal the Seventeenth Amendment (direct election of senators) Yet another one to abolish the Federal Reserve Opposition to any and all "clean energy" programs An affirmation of Texas' right to secede from the Union The votes on the resolutions and changes to the platform still have to be counted, but it is unusual for any proposal to be rejected. Here is what the Texas Republicans' platform will look like, assuming everything is approved, if you would like to see it for yourself. It is true that events like state conventions tend to attract the most extreme partisans and also that the platform is not, in and of itself, binding on anyone or anything. Nonetheless, this document speaks to a political faction that is, to be blunt, out of control. And while it might be a minority of Texas Republicans that agrees with the above planks, it's a minority that is very loud, and that donates money, and that a Republican politician must have if they hope to win statewide. And, truth be told, we're not so sure it's a minority. Before the Texans got to work on their platform, some of them provided an object lesson in the dangers of a party out of control. Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R-TX) is a decorated war veteran, and he toted plenty of water for Donald Trump over the course of the past several years. However, the Representative was unwilling to declare the 2020 presidential election to be illegitimate. He was slurred by Fox's Tucker Carlson as "Eyepatch McCain," and on Friday, the first day of the Texas GOP convention, Crenshaw and some of his staff were assaulted by Republican partisans who were shouting—what else?—"Eyepatch McCain." How about a second example? This one isn't from Texas, but it is from a state not too far away, namely Missouri. U.S. Senate candidate Eric Greitens (R) released a campaign commercial that is every bit as frightening as the Texas Republican platform: If you want to watch it, you should do so ASAP, because it's already been banned by Facebook, and YouTube may soon follow. If you don't want to watch it, it starts with Eric Greitens offering to send his supporters a RINO hunting permit (what a clever pun!) and then shows the would-be senator and a bunch of guys dressed in camouflage breaking into the house of... some Republican, presumably. Greitens promises that the "permit" will not expire until "we save our country." We have no doubt that the people who have encouraged this lawless, violent behavior—starting with Donald Trump—care not one whit if Democrats are targeted. But once you go where the modern Republican Party has gone, you can't guarantee that it will only be "the other side" that is targeted. These days, Republicans who aren't sufficiently extreme enough are the enemy, too—just as bad as Democrats. Or maybe worse. And would anyone be the slightest bit surprised if, one of these days, a Rep. Liz Cheney (R-RY) or a Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-IL) is assassinated by some MAGA fanatic? And when we consider the extremists listed above—Mussolini, Hitler, etc.—they operated in systems where their will was absolute. Sometimes they found the government that way, sometimes they remade it. And all of them were willing to do... whatever it took to retain their hold on power. The folks who lead the Republican Party today are still constrained by American law, and none of them has the steel of an Idi Amin or a Saddam Hussein. Regaining control of the Party will be difficult. Perhaps impossible. And finally, let's just say a word or two about the Democrats. There are 150 million of them, give or take, in the United States. And it just takes one or two of them to decide that they are entitled to get violent. Think of the person who shot Rep. Steve Scalise (R-LA), or the person who was plotting to assassinate Brett Kavanaugh. We doubt that many Democrats will go down that road. Maybe no more will. But, more broadly, Democratic voters and officeholders are not likely to sit idly by and let "fu** the rules" be unilateral. Imagine a world in which, for example, Donald Trump runs for reelection in 2024 and wins Kansas. The former is a possibility and, if it comes to pass, the latter is a certainty. Do you think that Gov. Laura Kelly (D-KS) is a slam dunk to sign the election certification? "I have examined the text of the Fourteenth Amendment, have concluded that Donald Trump was not eligible to run for office, and so cannot put my signature to a document I consider to be unlawful." And if it's not Kelly, then maybe it's Gov. John Bel Edwards (D-LA) or Gov. Andy Beshear (D-KY) or Gov. Roy Cooper (D-NC). The upshot is that when people like Donald Trump and Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) run roughshod over the laws and the rules and the customs that protect the folks on the other side of the political aisle, they run the risk of losing those protections for themselves at such point that they might need them. And again, it's not just the other side that's a threat, it's also the more radical folks on your side. Maybe the Republicans will hold it together for the 2022 cycle, and maybe they'll even hold it together for the 2024 cycle. But it won't be easy and, even if they do, they day will likely come when the piper will have to be paid. You could ask Saddam Hussein or Muammar Gaddafi about that, but they've already been compelled to cash that particular check. (Z) Pence Makes Clear Where He Stands (or, Really, Where He Kneels) Just in case you were under any illusions that Mike Pence might have turned over a new leaf, and that he might help pull the Republican Party back from the brink, the former VP helpfully disabused us of that notion yesterday. He gave a speech at the University Club in Chicago, and while he was there, he sat for an interview with former Trump economic adviser Larry Kudlow. The interview and speech took a total of about an hour, and during that time Pence said some eyebrow-raising things. To start, Pence praised Donald Trump's record as president. The former VP said he will "always be proud" to have served alongside the 45th president, and that Trump "never stopped fighting every day to deliver on the promises that we had made to the American people." This would be the same Donald Trump who encouraged mobs to seek out the vice president, and who spoke approvingly of the possibility of Pence being hanged. Pence also had some thoughts about the current president. He accused Joe Biden of "squandering" the gains made during the Trump years. The former VP offered up the standard Fox-style attack on Biden: Joe Biden has always been a liberal but, in a very real sense, he has embraced the politics of the radical left that are crushing this life under this economy, stifling American energy, eroding American credibility on the world stage, and the only antidote to that is to elect freedom-loving majorities to the Congress and to statehouses around the country and I believe we will. One wonders if Pence's speechwriter wrote that themselves, or if they just copied and pasted from a transcript of Hannity. That wasn't all that Pence had to say about Biden, either. It's not bad enough that the 46th president is doing a terrible job, as it turns out. Adding insult to injury is that the current president is also an inveterate liar. In response to a (very leading) question from Kudlow, the former VP decreed that no president has ever uttered more falsehoods than Biden has, and that "there has never been a time in my life where a president was more disconnected from the American people than we see today." Again, this is a man who spent 4 years serving as VP to Donald Trump, who lied at least 30,000 times while in office. As to the 1/6 Committee, in particular, Pence made quite clear that he does not support what they are trying to do. He explained to Kudlow that he (Pence) will not allow the Democrats to use 1/6 to "distract" from "their failed agenda." He also made clear that he thinks the 2020 election was fishy, and that he had hopes the courts would step in and fix things, but that he was just not in a position to fix the election on his own authority. In the end, the word that came to mind when we read about all of this was "pathetic." First of all, if Pence thinks he has any shot of being president—and, in particular, if he thinks he can heal his relationship with the Trumpers—he is absolutely delusional. Read the item above; if Pence had showed up at the Texas Republican convention this weekend, he most certainly would not have been greeted warmly, and he might well have been assaulted or killed. There's no coming back from that. Beyond that, Pence spent 4 years licking Trump's boots, and his reward was to be slurred as a traitor and a RINO and to face a real threat against his very life. And how does the former VP respond to that? He goes right back to licking Trump's boots. Dear God, man, even if you don't care about democracy, don't you have at least a little respect for yourself? Apparently not. (Z) https://www.electoral-vote.com/evp2022/Senate/Maps/Jun21.html#item-3
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