August 26, 20223 yr 15 hours ago, Shepard Wong said: Seems pretty normal to me for a Republican in Congress
August 29, 20223 yr https://nypost.com/2022/08/29/ben-shapiro-gop-cruising-for-a-bruising-if-it-nominates-trump/ "Ben Shapiro: GOP ‘cruising for a bruising’ by sticking with Trump"
August 29, 20223 yr Author 3 minutes ago, Boogyman said: https://nypost.com/2022/08/29/ben-shapiro-gop-cruising-for-a-bruising-if-it-nominates-trump/ "Ben Shapiro: GOP ‘cruising for a bruising’ by sticking with Trump" that snowball is starting to grow a bit. to be fair, Shapiro was always a reluctant Trump supporter.
August 29, 20223 yr Just now, JohnSnowsHair said: that snowball is starting to grow a bit. to be fair, Shapiro was always a reluctant Trump supporter. Saying it loud and clear like this makes it feel different. I dunno, maybe wishful thinking on my part.
August 29, 20223 yr 8 minutes ago, Boogyman said: https://nypost.com/2022/08/29/ben-shapiro-gop-cruising-for-a-bruising-if-it-nominates-trump/ "Ben Shapiro: GOP ‘cruising for a bruising’ by sticking with Trump" finally, a true benny bombshell !!!
August 30, 20223 yr I know it's easy to laugh at this and dismiss it because Trump himself is so ridiculous but this is also quite scary. A full Trump embrace of Qanon.
August 30, 20223 yr 3 hours ago, mayanh8 said: I know it's easy to laugh at this and dismiss it because Trump himself is so ridiculous but this is also quite scary. A full Trump embrace of Qanon. He's also now apparently all in on "Janz 6fth wuz Antifazzzzz!11!!!!11!". Just when I think he couldn't possibly reach a new level of mental retardation, he manages it.
August 30, 20223 yr Just now, Gannan said: He's also now apparently all in on "Janz 6fth wuz Antifazzzzz!11!!!!11!". Just when I think he couldn't possibly reach a new level of mental retardation, he manages it. This all but guarantees Trump gets @Ipiggles vote to be emperor of America.
August 30, 20223 yr 34 minutes ago, Boogyman said: This all but guarantees Trump gets @Ipiggles vote to be emperor of America. A natural tipping point for true independent minded voters. 😂
August 30, 20223 yr On 8/24/2022 at 2:15 PM, Alpha_TATEr said: so now every loss by a trumpcuck will be a claimed as fraud. even their own primaries. let them take each other out. And please, please remember that these are the same people who have spent the last decade decrying the participation award generation who can't take losing.
August 30, 20223 yr 3 minutes ago, Gannan said: But it's not a cult or anything... Chinese and Russian bots, I’m sure are flooding the site. 😇
August 30, 20223 yr 1 hour ago, mayanh8 said: I like how they are going to hang the "Deep State" as if that's a person. The GOP is really something these days.
September 1, 20223 yr First Thing: Sarah Palin loses Alaska race to Democrat Mary Peltola https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/sep/01/first-thing-sarah-palin-loses-alaska-special-election-to-democrat-mary-peltola Quote The Democrat Mary Peltola has won the special election for Alaska’s only US House seat, becoming the first Alaska Native to serve in the House after beating candidates including the Republican Sarah Palin. Peltola, 49, who is Yup’ik, is also the first woman to hold the seat and the first from her party to gain the seat in more than half a century. During the campaign, she emphasized her support for such issues as abortion rights. She will serve the remaining months of the late Republican US Representative Don Young’s term until a general election in November. What's next? More losing!!!
September 1, 20223 yr 12 minutes ago, Toastrel said: First Thing: Sarah Palin loses Alaska race to Democrat Mary Peltola https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/sep/01/first-thing-sarah-palin-loses-alaska-special-election-to-democrat-mary-peltola What's next? More losing!!! This election was obviously stolen bro.
September 1, 20223 yr Quote DeSantis Is a Test Case for Democracy Thomas Edsall is another columnist who usually makes good sense. This week's column is how Donald Trump's legacy may be getting many Americans to tolerate, if not embrace, authoritarian leaders. After Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) took office in 2019, the first thing he asked his general counsel was to make a list of all the things he could do as governor without the legislature or the courts or anyone else checking him. He wanted to know those areas where he had unbridled authority. Then he knew his starting point and worked from there. For example, he banned public schools from using 54 math textbooks because they had "social-emotional learning content." He told a reporter: "Math is about getting the right answer. It's not about how you feel about the problem." As another example, during the pandemic, he threatened the Special Olympics with a $27.5 million fine is they insisted the athletes be vaccinated. After all, his base just lapped up the idea of forcing vulnerable people to take a potentially fatal risk to engage in sports they loved. The Special Olympics caved. Then DeSantis threatened to "Tax the Mouse" over Disney's position on his pet "Don't say gay" law. The list goes on and on. It's all about riling up the base. There is no evidence that DeSantis cares a whit about any of these things. A poll by Democratic pollster Peter Hart in May in seven battleground states showed the depth of feeling DeSantis clearly understands and is exploiting. For example, a message saying schools must stop teaching kids that biological sex is a myth and there are many genders got strong support. So did one saying schools should stop teaching about race and focus on readin', writin', and 'rithmetic. Other culture wars subjects also got strong support. DeSantis (and Donald Trump) understand this. Edsall asked N.Y.U. political science professor Arturas Rozenas, who studies backsliding democracies, what authoritarians do to get maximum bang for the buck (or zloty or forint). He says using the "salami technique" is popular. Make small changes that fly under the radar, like changing election laws, strengthening political control over the civil service, and weakening the judiciary. If done in small steps, they may not be noticed until it is too late. Stealth is the key here. Political elites might notice, but the average voter won't. Taxing the Mouse is a good example. It makes clear that even multibillion-dollar corporations had better knuckle under to the authoritarian or they will be hit hard in a way they hurts them badly but nobody else will notice. After all, if the Reedy Creek Improvement District were abolished, how many Floridians would care? Prof. Rick Hasen, a top election-law specialist who recently was upgraded from UCI to UCLA, says the test of democracy could come as soon as 2024 if some Republican becomes president. What will matter is how the victory was achieved. If it was by genuinely winning more electoral votes than the Democrat, fine, but if it is due to some form of election subversion, the U.S. will then cease to be a democracy. The new president's agenda would surely be focused like a laser on solidifying and maintaining power, such as using the president's powers over the military and reformulating election rules so the regime would be self-perpetuating. This would lead to massive street protests that would be put down with violence. Media outlets that dared to report the situation honestly would be hit hard using the full power of government. How about an executive order saying the reporters must have a license from the newly created Dept. of Information? Would that be legal? We haven't had a chance to ask Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito so we don't know. Sorry Another professor of law specializing in elections and politics, Richard Pildes of NYU, envisions some of the things Trump or DeSantis might do. One would be to dramatically expand the courts and appoint hundreds of judges loyal to the president. Another is to implement "Schedule F," to allow the president to fire all high-level civil servants and replace them with toadies. Another is to use government power to pressure businesses and states to toe the line. During the pandemic, for example, Trump said that governors who were nice to him would get desperately needed life-saving equipment and supplies. Governors who weren't were on their own. Bidding rules on lucrative government contracts could be changed to give cabinet officials far more discretion. They could then let it be known that CEOs who publicly praised their actions would be more "likely" to get big contracts than CEOs who opposed the regime or who were silent. In China, everyone has a "social credit" score, like a FICO score. Except that it doesn't deal with finances. It deals with how often you have praised (or opposed) the regime on social media. The higher your score, the better the apartment and job you get. Surely Facebook and Twitter could implement that pretty easily. Donald Moynihan, a professor of public policy at Georgetown University, said that democratic backsliding would affect different constituencies differently. Conservatives would believe that their rights were not threatened and life would be normal. Historically marginalized groups, including Black and LGBTQ+ people would suddenly fear new restrictions and voting laws could be changed to make it harder for them to vote. One could imagine state laws saying that each county must have exactly 5 polling places, no more and no less, which would mean massive lines in urban counties but have little effect in rural ones. It would not be hard to imagine the Supreme Court ruling that if that is what the people's chosen state legislators want, that is up to them. Moynihan also believes DeSantis better represents these threats than Trump because he has shown his interest and ability to do a long list of authoritarian things. Trump talked a lot, but did little. DeSantis both talked and acted. If he is reelected—especially if it is by a substantial margin over a strong candidate (Charlie Crist)—that will show that Americans don't object to authoritarians. They even like them. And if that works in a demographically mixed state with many minority voters like Florida, it will certainly go over in Nebraska or Idaho. Edsall believes that the right-wing populism that DeSantis and Trump are exploiting has two causes. The first is essentially an outgrowth of Richard Nixon's Southern strategy, which was a not-so-subtle appeal to white racists in the South (and later, nationally) who were none too happy with the Civil Rights Movement and enfranchisement of millions of Black voters. The second is economic uncertainty for millions of working-class voters, in part due to outsourcing of jobs to China and in part due to the economic crisis of 2008. To this list, we would add immigration and the changing demographics of the country. (V)
September 1, 20223 yr 1 hour ago, Boogyman said: This election was obviously stolen bro. If a Dem can win Statewide in Alaska, Repubs are in trouble. Except for the school boards where they dominate locally.
September 1, 20223 yr Nice country you got there. Be a shame if something happened to it https://www.nj.com/opinion/2022/09/nice-country-you-got-there-be-a-shame-if-something-happened-to-it-sheneman.html Quote All elections are rigged, unless the Republican wins. All investigations are fixed, unless they clear Trump. Blue lives matter, defund the FBI. Lock her up, set him free. Cognitive dissonance is quickly becoming the bedrock of conservative American thought. Today’s Republican party, aided by a propagandist right-wing media, has shown a Scarlet Witch-like ability to shape reality to their liking. The party of law and order hates it when those laws apply to them. The response to Trump possibly suffering consequences for storing highly classified Top Secret documents in the basement of Mar-A-Lago next to a freezer full of sub-prime beef and Sara Lee frozen cupcakes is to threaten widespread violence. No chants of "Lock him up!” as you might expect from a political base that in the past has shown a remarkable level of concern for the handling of classified government documents.
September 1, 20223 yr 22 minutes ago, Toastrel said: Nice country you got there. Be a shame if something happened to it https://www.nj.com/opinion/2022/09/nice-country-you-got-there-be-a-shame-if-something-happened-to-it-sheneman.html You can't even have a rational discussion with them. There's just no logic. Trumpbots: "Rheeee Hillary had classified documents too rheeeee" Logic: Then why didn't Trump lock her up like he promised? Trumpbots: Comey protected her rheeeee!!!!! Logic: Yes, but then Trump fired Comey and hand picked his replacement (who authorized the Maralago raid), why didn't Trump go after Hillary then?" Trumpbots: something something deep state rheeeeee!
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