Corporate Halt to Political Donations Highlights Value of Private Funding

found online by Raymond

 

Corporate America halts political contributions     [Image from CNBC Television]

From libertarian Michael A. LaFerrara:

Private funding of political campaigns is one of the best ways for citizens to keep politicians accountable to those they seek to govern. Politicians should have to go to the citizens, hat-in-hand, to ask for money to finance their campaigns. The Democrats’ want to take that accountability away, and give politicians free reign to grab their money away without their consent.

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Real Unity

found online by Raymond

 

Woman shot, at least one explosive found during pro-Trump riot at Capitol     [Image from KHOU 11 – Houston]

From Dave Dubya:

The pattern of history is clear. The monster has risen again and again. Evil has been piled upon evil.

Nixon failed to cover up his crimes, resigned, and was pardoned.

The Republican Party was somewhat unrepentant. Authoritarian Nixon loyalists stood by their guy, and one named Roger Stone would be rewarded for his loyalty to a future criminal president.

The Reagan Revolution handed the levers of power to Wall Street and the military industrial complex. The Reagan Administration was rife with crooks and corruption. The Iran/Contra criminals evaded justice and were pardoned. They got away with it. Ollie North became a media celebrity.

The Republican Party was unrepentant. And Bill Clinton chose unity, joined the Republicans in cutting safety nets and said, “The era of big government is over”.

Then the Party of Cheney started a war based on lies, detained people without charges and counsel, and tortured them. The Republican Party’s march against democracy was goose-stepping towards their triumph of the will…and they got away with it.

The Republican Party was unrepentant. Obama chose unity and to “look forward”.

Then Trump said he would bring back torture, called for the imprisonment of his opponent, and invited Russia to help him attack Hillary.

Trump’s racist birtherism and nationalism united racists, white nationalists, and uneducated gullible white people into the largest cult in our history. Trump’s corrupt and criminal cronies were pardoned and coddled.

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Marjorie Taylor Greene:
Republican Role Model

found online by Raymond

 

Marjorie the role model     [Image from Mother Jones Magazine]

From tengrain at Mock Paper Scissors:

She’s not the fringe, she’s reflecting the party itself, and she’s not alone:

  • Rep. Andy Biggs (R-AZ) is linked to the “Stop the Steal” campaign, ie, the Stupid Coup.
  • Rep. Lauren Boebert (Q-CO) gave tours of the capitol complex the day before the Stupid Coup.
  • Sentient hair gel Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) appeared at an event with the Proud Boys who, you know, were there to provide security.
  • Rep. Paul Gosar (R-AZ) hangs out with the Oath Keepers militia (whose members later attacked the Capitol during the Stupid Coup), and told the group,

“We’re in [a civil war]. We just haven’t started shooting at each other yet.”

What can we deduce from all of this?

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Consciousness of Guilt

Representative Lauren Boebert posts several tweets revealing location of Speaker Nancy Pelosi during Trump riot     [Image from Denver7 – The Denver Channel]

I thought of the incident when I read years ago about Texas Governor Rick Perry. He had been too lazy to glance through a report proving the innocence of a man on death row. He allowed that innocent man to be executed. He blocked a later report about the fatal miscarriage of justice.

I thought about it again after President Obama, in a ceremony with the Prime Minister of Japan, made a few innocuous remarks about respect for human diversity. Donald Trump, just elected, not yet President, reacted with anger at what he called Obama’s “inflammatory comments.” Trump apologists were apoplectic. How dare he attack the incoming President!

And I’ve been thinking about it a lot this month.

The incident itself happened decades ago, when I was much younger.
Continue reading “Consciousness of Guilt”

Vile Greene, Order & Executive Orders, Public Approval, 2022, GOP Violence

As the scheduled January 6 Capitol riot was preceded by the election, Representative Majorie Taylor Greene explained on video to hesitant right-wingers, that they had to vote, because if they lose the election they will need to join with her in political violence:
The only way you get your freedoms back is it’s earned with the price of blood.

  • Best headline of the week goes to Steve Benen at MSNBC. Steve reports that Republicans are furious that they are not allowed to veto a COVID economic relief package desperately needed by the nation. That fury might strike a reasonable person as weird. The headline is perfect: Republicans outraged by Dems’ willingness to govern without them.
     
  • Ted McLaughlin at jobsanger looks through the polls. Seems the public, by an overwhelming margin is optimistic about President Biden. Also interesting is the approach they would like the Republican Party to take.
     
  • John Scalzi at Whatever stomps all over The New York Times for their criticism of too many executive orders by our new President. He points out that most of those orders have simply revoked the harmful meanderings of the bigoted mind (guess whose) that disguised themselves as executive orders in the previous administration.
     
    Having brutalized the Times he offers a mitigation of sorts that reminds me of Eugene McCarthy a couple of generations back. McCarthy noted news columns were, by design, rash statements. He suggested that two to three rash statements every week were too much to require from any columnist.
     
  • Wisconsin conservative James Wigderson puts a cautious, Mona Lisa style, happy face on Republican chances in the state’s 2022 Senate race. James links to Sabato’s Crystal Ball, ranking Wisconsin as leans Republican.
     
    Well, maybe. Off-year election and all. But there are some national trends just starting.
     
  • M. Bouffant at Web of Evil is no fan, nor should we be, of the vile Majorie Taylor Greene. Does she really chase after and harass high school shooting survivors? Well, yes she does. Does she endorse right-wing political violence? Video says uh huh.
     
  • To those preparing for a civil war within the Republican Party, Infidel753 says forget about it. The war is already over. This does give me the opportunity to boast, a sad boast to be sure, about my own observation over a decade ago that the Republican Party was doomed even then.
     
  • In Letters from an American, Heather Cox Richardson describes a national effort to prepare for more violent incidents of domestic terrorism. It is caused by the same extremism taking over the Republican Party.
     
  • In Scotties Toy Box we find some pictures worth thousands, all illustrating the courageous reaction of the GOP to Trump, post officium. Okay, courageous could be the wrong word.
     
  • CalicoJack in The Psy of Life suggests that the January 6 Trump-riot that killed several police, injured a couple hundred more, took the lives of a few participants, and involved the attempted mass assassination of lawmakers should be more than a flashbulb memory.

Continue reading “Vile Greene, Order & Executive Orders, Public Approval, 2022, GOP Violence”

Reporter Ejected for Asking Greene About Her Assassination Fandom

found online by Raymond

 
From Tommy Christopher:

Reporter Meredith Aldis of local NBC station WRCB was threatened with arrest and ejected from a town hall for asking Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (Q-GA) about recently-reported social media posts showing approval for the assassinations of prominent Democrats, as well as videos of the congresswoman harassing Parkland massacre survivor David Hogg following that attack.

Aldis and hew crew covered Greene’s Wednesday night town hall in Dalton, Georgia. In a Twitter thread, Aldis noted that she was told beforehand that the press would not be allowed to ask questions of Greene, or “anyone in the building.”

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It Wasn’t Just Trump. The Republican Party is A National Threat

found online by Raymond

 

     [Image from HuffPost]

From John Pavlovitz:

Evil dies hard.

Right now, we’re finding out just how hard.

For the last four years good people told ourselves a necessary story.

Because we wanted to believe the best about humanity, many of us clung to a false narrative of otherwise decent people hopelessly swept up in the fervor of the moment: good human beings intoxicated in the bloody water of a feeding frenzy power-grab, eyes rolled back and unable to do anything but consume.

We wanted to believe it was a temporary condition.

We imagined that if he were gone, that once this messianic monster was removed and severed from them, that those around him would begin to come to their senses and the thick haze of their sycophantic adoration would lift and they would slowly but certainly revert to their better natures.

But now we’re realizing the most painful truth of all the lessons of these years: this is simply who they are.

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Camp Auschwitz

found online by Raymond

 

Capitol rioter in ‘Camp Auschwitz’ sweatshirt identified     [Image from WAVY TV 10 – Norfolk, VA]

From Batocchio, the Vagabond Scholar:

During the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol on 1/6/21, a man later identified as Robert Keith Packer was photographed wearing a “Camp Auschwitz” t-shirt. The front also said “Work brings freedom,” one translation of the infamous “Arbeit macht frei” slogan atop the entrance to Auschwitz and other concentration camps. The back of the shirt said “Staff.”

Packer, a resident of Newport News, VA, who apparently has a history of extremism, was arrested, but later released without criminal charges or paying any fines. He was merely ordered to stay away from D.C. unless summoned there.

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Truly, Madly, Deeply

found online by Raymond

 
From driftglass:


Whatever they say, however they make their lips move to mouth the right ritual phrases for public consumption, we will know that in their hearts, until they day they die, Republicans from the very top of the party right down to the street where you live will always be American-hating fascists.

From Forbes:

McConnell Votes To Dismiss Trump Impeachment Trial As Only Five Senate Republicans Side With Democrats

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By the Time I Get Vaccinated, Will it Even be Cool Anymore?

found online by Raymond

 

     [Image from CDC on Unsplash]

From Dima Kronfeld at Reductress:

Right now everyone is talking about the covid vaccine, and I think that’s awesome. Cultivating a culture of enthusiasm for this life-saving vaccination is so important, but with the flame of vaccine fervor running hot, I can’t help but worry: Is this public safety excitement built to last, or destined to burn out? And specifically, by the time I get vaccinated, will it even be cool anymore?

I’m always the last to find out.

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