US Politics

[Tracker]

3 minutes ago, HardCoreBlue said:

Well little do they know if what they want becomes reality we'll all be hit but they'll be hit the worst.

'My situation continues to get worse and worse but boy did we own the libs!'

This completely baffles me and my major was sociology. The impoverished rural areas in the US are completely devoted to supporting the worst slates of GOP candidates who openly display racism, misogyny, pedophilia, and corruption who do little or nothing to help the people in their ridings, The purest form of sanity we were taught is the will and ability to act in one's best interests, and, by that definition, insanity has seized much of America and they are proud of it.  In one area of West Virginia, the average male life expectancy was 59 and the healthcare was so poor and the need was so great that Doctors Without Borders actually went in and established medical services. And they were verbally attacked by locals and local politicians. That is America today in a nutshell.

[HardCoreBlue]

9 minutes ago, Tracker said:

This completely baffles me and my major was sociology. The impoverished rural areas in the US are completely devoted to supporting the worst slates of GOP candidates who openly display racism, misogyny, pedophilia, and corruption who do little or nothing to help the people in their ridings, The purest form of sanity we were taught is the will and ability to act in one's best interests, and, by that definition, insanity has seized much of America and they are proud of it.  In one area of West Virginia, the average male life expectancy was 59 and the healthcare was so poor and the need was so great that Doctors Without Borders actually went in and established medical services. And they were verbally attacked by locals and local politicians. That is America today in a nutshell.

Yup, fellow Sociologist here. Back to the drawing board. 

[TrueBlue4ever]

Replace “white man” with “Republican” and “coloured man” with “Democrat” and you have the same sentiment today as you did 60 years ago with this quote:

“If you can convince the lowest white man he's better than the best colored man, he won't notice you're picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he'll empty his pockets for you.”

Lyndon B. Johnson

Point being, it’s all about feeling superior to someone to give your ego a boost and wipe away your feelings of self-failure and isolation by giving you a like-minded group to identify with. 

Edited January 28, 2022 by TrueBlue4ever

[Wanna-B-Fanboy]

Huh... one of the most flag humping, i love democracy spewing, poster child for democracy countries in the world is sliding into authoritarianism/fascism because of Facebook and Fox news... 

[FrostyWinnipeg]

https://boingboing.net/2022/01/28/national-butterfly-center-in-tx-forced-to-shut-down-after-qanon-folk-make-credible-threats.html

[Tracker]

‘Quick Reaction Forces’ And The Lingering Mysteries Of The Plot Against The Capitol.  The Oath Keeper “QRFs” show how things could have been a lot worse, and how much more there is to learn.

The Comfort Inn location just off the interstate has three stars on Yelp, where reviewers noted it had free parking and free breakfast, but poor WiFi. It did well on TripAdvisor too, although one person reported they found a dead roach in the shower.

As a staging ground for an alleged seditious conspiracy, however, it was a pretty solid choice. The Comfort Inn Ballston had rooms available for members of the right-wing Oath Keepers organization at a reasonable rate. The hotel’s luggage carts were strong enough to lug the bins of weapons, ammunition and supplies that they wheeled in to prepare for Jan. 6, 2021. Its location right off the ramp to Route 66 eastbound, outside of rush hour, can get you to the U.S. Capitol in a hurry. Critically, it was located in the state of Virginia, where the alleged co-conspirators wouldn’t have to worry about those pesky D.C. gun laws until it was time to take over the federal government. Then the laws wouldn’t matter.

The indictment of Oath Keepers founder Elmer Stewart Rhodes III, who was integral to the plot that unfolded in Ballston, on seditious conspiracy charges this month has once again drawn national attention to how supporters of President Donald Trump plotted to help stop the certification of President Joe Biden’s election victory on Jan. 6. Even after more than 700 arrests, and the hundreds of potential cases that remain, the latest indictment indicates there is much more we still don’t know about the most high-profile conspiracy case to emerge from the Jan. 6 investigation — and how much worse things could have been.

Part of the Oath Keepers’ conspiracy was standing up “Quick Reaction Forces” (QRFs) just outside of D.C. that were on standby to deliver guns into the capital on Jan. 6. The “base of operations,” according to the indictment, was the Comfort Inn Ballston, where the North Carolina QRF team leader reserved three rooms: one for their North Carolina team, another for the Arizona QRF team, and the third for the Florida QRF team. The indictment alleges they used those rooms to store and guard the firearms, although the four men on the North Carolina QRF team “kept their rifles ready to go in a vehicle parked in the hotel lot” according to a court filing.

“While certain Oath Keepers members and affiliates inside of Washington, D.C., breached the Capitol grounds and building, others remained stationed just outside of the city in QRF teams,” the indictment states. “The QRF teams were prepared to rapidly transfer firearms and other weapons into Washington, D.C., in support of operations aimed at using force to stop the lawful transfer of presidential power.”

‘Quick Reaction Forces’ And The Lingering Mysteries Of The Plot Against The Capitol | HuffPost Latest News

[Tracker]

Trump Calls On Massive Protests If Prosecutors Go After Him And Offers Pardons To Jan. 6ers

Former President Donald Trump Saturday night called on his followers to stage massive protests in multiple cities should prosecutors act against him. He also said he would offer pardons to those charged in the Jan. 6, 2021, assault on the Capitol that he incited in a last-gasp attempt to remain in power.

“If these radical, vicious, racist prosecutors do anything wrong or illegal, I hope we are going to have in this country the biggest protests we have ever had in Washington, D.C., in New York, in Atlanta and elsewhere, because our country and our elections are corrupt,” he said to a rally audience in Conroe, Texas, reading from teleprompters set up on either side of his lectern.

A few minutes later, he claimed his followers who stormed the Capitol, assaulting police as they entered, were not being treated “fairly” and that should he run for the White House again and win: “If it requires pardons, we will give them pardons.”

Trump Calls On Massive Protests If Prosecutors Go After Him And Offers Pardons To Jan. 6ers | HuffPost Latest News

[FrostyWinnipeg]

 

[FrostyWinnipeg]

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/jan/30/georgia-county-purges-democrats-from-election-board-and-cancels-sunday-voting

[Tracker]

59 minutes ago, FrostyWinnipeg said:

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/jan/30/georgia-county-purges-democrats-from-election-board-and-cancels-sunday-voting

Yet another step towards an anocracy. 

[bustamente]

Trump sees that he is losing his grip on the Republican party and will now resort to saying crazier and crazier things.

[Tracker]

Trump Incriminates Himself In Seditious Conspiracy Targeting Pence

Trump admitted in writing to the entire world that he tried to make Mike Pence overturn the 2020 election.

Trump railed against changing the Electoral Count Act, but it is the last part of the statement that is damning:

Donald J. Trump Incriminates Himself In Seditious Conspiracy
Trump is threatened by losing the ability to steal the next election to such a degree that he admitted that the point of all of the pieces of the puzzle the 1/6 attack, the forged election documents, the fake slates of electors, the pressure on swing states to claim fraud were all intended for a singular purpose.
The goal was to get Mike Pence to refuse to certify the election. The point has been stated by other people who were part of Trump’s conspiracy, but the man at the top of the plot is admitting that he wanted his vice president to trash democracy and overturn the election for him.  Trump admitted the motive for his conspiracy.

The 1/6 Committee, the Department of Justice, and any other law enforcement agency, state or federal that might be investigating Trump has a huge piece of the puzzle confirmed.

Donald Trump can’t stop talking. His constant need for attention may end up getting him criminally charged for election crimes.

Trump Incriminates Himself In Seditious Conspiracy Targeting Pence (politicususa.com)

[bustamente]

Any other person would be in jail with all the crime both in private business and as President but for some ungodly reason he continues to do rallies and essentially say that he is a criminal and you can't do nothing about it and in fact if when I'm president again I will do it again and this time nobody will stop me.

[Tracker]

   
Former President Donald J. Trump and his Republican allies are using three tactics in a nationwide, state-by-state strategy to control the outcome of future elections. All are on display in Arizona.

Tactic #1: Keep voters from voting

Arizona's latest voter restriction law will remove an estimated 100,000 eligible voters from its early voting mailing list. It won't begin deleting voters from the list until after the 2024 election. But Republicans have proposed new restrictions that could have a profound impact sooner, including new voter-ID requirements, severe limitations on the use of drive-up voting and ballot drop boxes, and requiring all voting to be in person on Election Day.

"We need to get back to 1958-style voting," Arizona State Rep. John Fillmore said, defending his proposals in a committee hearing on Jan. 26, 2022.

Ah, the good ol' days of 1958, when Arizona with its large Native American population imposed literacy tests as a prerequisite to voting, and about half of the Navajo voting-age population couldn't pass them.

Tactic #2: If the opposing candidate wins the popular vote, disregard It

Trump recently told the Pennsylvania GOP, "Sometimes the vote counter is more important than the candidate... We have to get tougher and smarter."

He's putting those words into action.

In 2020, Secretary of State Katie Hobbs—a Democrat—was Arizona's top "vote counter." Now that she is running for governor, Trump has endorsed state Rep. Mark Finchem to replace her. Finchem addressed Trump's crowd at the "Stop the Steal" rally in Washington, D.C., on January 5, 2021, and attended the January 6 insurrection.

Gov. Doug Ducey, who is term-limited, signed the state's official certification of Biden's victory. To replace him, Trump has endorsed former Fox news anchor Kari Lake. She claims falsely that Trump won the election, advocates the imprisonment of Hobbs for unspecified election crimes, and demands that Arizona "decertify" Biden's electoral victory, which is impossible.

Republicans in Arizona are also working on a backup plan. They have proposed a law that would empower the state's legislature to "accept or reject the election results." If rejected, any voter could sue to request a new election.

Tactic #3: Bogus audits and investigations

After Trump lost in Arizona, his allies focused on Maricopa County, which accounted for 60 percent of the state's total. To its credit, the Republican-dominated Maricopa County Board of Supervisors withstood the pressure and certified Biden's 45,000 vote victory.

Nevertheless, in March 2021, the state senate's Republican president hired Cyber Ninjas to lead an outside audit of Maricopa County's 2.1 million ballots. The inexperienced firm's owner had touted Trump's election conspiracy theories and provided the ominous voiceover in "The Deep Rig"—a movie claiming that Trump had won the election.

The state promised to pay Cyber Ninjas $150,000. Millions more poured in from outside sources, including pro-Trump fundraising groups led by his former national security adviser Michael Flynn, Trump's election conspiracy-peddling lawyer Sidney Powell, and correspondents for the One America News Network.

The "audit" became a farce.

"It's clearer by the day: The people hired by the Senate are in way over their heads," said the Republican chair of the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors in May. "This is not funny; this is dangerous." In June, another Arizona GOP election official blasted the audit as "insane from a competence standpoint."

Now every day in Arizona is January 6 - Alternet.org

[Tracker]

Gov. Ron DeSantis' press secretary's sickening tweet denies Nazi protest
   
Ever since a racist, washed-up reality tv show host was able to exploit racial and cultural tensions by hoodwinking millions of uninformed working-class whites into thinking he gave a damn about them, our country has descended into a cauldron of hate and antisemitism. Case in point, a neo-Nazi rally took place in the open in Orlando, Florida, on Saturday in which radical white nationalists waved Nazi flags and shouted anti-Semitic and anti-Black slogans, including the"Jew is the devil" and "Jews rape children and drink their blood."

This type of radical anti-Semitism has been on the rise ever since Trump usurped the oval office in 2016 and, worse yet, only seems to be metastasizing now that he's gone. And while any sane and decent human in the public sector would vociferously condemn this disgusting and naked anti-Semitism, white nationalists are pretty much Republicans voting base these days. Case in point, Florida Republican Governor Ron DeSantis' Press Secretary Christina Pushaw appeared to question whether the obvious nazi rally was actually being put on by Nazis. Allow me to repeat that for those of you who may be bleeding from the eyes, a public official doubted photos and videos of white nationalists in nazi uniforms were actual nazis.

In a since-deleted tweet, Press Secretary Christina Pushaw responded to Twitter outrage over an Orlando Nazi demonstration by asking, “Do we even know they’re Nazis?”

Gov. Ron DeSantis' press secretary's sickening tweet denies Nazi protest - Alternet.org

[Tracker]

Bomb Threats Reported At Historically Black Colleges For Second Day

Campuses were shut down and classes moved to remote learning following the latest wave of threats taking place on the first day of Black History Month.
Howard University in Washington, D.C., is pictured. The historically Black university, founded in 1867, was the target of bomb threats this week. 
For the second day in a row, historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs) were the target of bomb threats across the country, with this latest wave coming on the first day of Black History Month.

Campuses were shut down and classes moved to remote learning following the threats impacting more than a dozen schools as of Tuesday morning.

Bomb Threats Reported At Historically Black Colleges For Second Day | HuffPost Latest News

(Just 'Muricans being 'Muricans)

[Tracker]

Trump: Pence Should Be Investigated for Not Reversing My Election Loss

Former President Donald Trump has urged congressional Jan. 6 investigators to open up a probe against his former vice president, Mike Pence, over his refusal to help Trump overturn the 2020 election result.

Pence and Trump haven’t been on speaking terms since last year, when the then-VP went against Trump’s orders and fulfilled his duty to certify Joe Biden’s election victory in Congress. But their relationship plumbed new depths Tuesday, when Trump released a statement saying that Pence should be under investigation for not reversing the 2020 election result.

In a furious statement posted by Trump spokeswoman Liz Harrington on Tuesday, the former president once against attacked the House committee investigating the Capitol riot, and said the panel should be focusing on Pence and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, rather than himself.

The ex-president wrote: “The Unselect Committee should be investigating why Nancy Pelosi did such a poor job of overseeing security and why Mike Pence did not send back the votes for recertification or approval, in that it has now been shown that he clearly had the right to do so!”

Trump Says Pence Should Be Investigated for Not Reversing His Election Loss (thedailybeast.com)

[bustamente]

As goofy and stupid as he was Michael Cohen warned everyone that this was what Trump was going to do if he lost

[FrostyWinnipeg]

 

[Tracker]

One in 10 Americans say they're OK with violence now against government: poll

The poll found Republicans more likely (71 per cent) versus Democrats (62 per cent) to say violent protest is justified right now against the federal government.© Provided by National Post The poll found Republicans more likely (71 per cent) versus Democrats (62 per cent) to say violent protest is justified right now against the federal government.
Nearly a quarter (23 per cent) of Americans say it’s sometimes OK to use violence against the government — and 1 in 10 say violence is justified “right now.”

The COVID States Project, a team effort by researchers at Northeastern, Harvard, Rutgers and Northwestern universities, has been polling Americans since April 2020 to determine their feelings about COVID. Having recently become aware of the growing number of “armed protests, threats, and violence against government officials following mask mandates, COVID-19 related closures, and the 2020 election (including, most notably, the deadly Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol),” the team instead focused their latest survey on respondents’ feelings about the violence.

Rather than their typical questions, such as whether one mask filters better than another and what they think of vaccine mandate, this time the authors asked 23,000 people across the country whether it is “ever justifiable to engage in violent protest against the government.”

Nearly 1 in 4 said violence was either “definitely” or “probably” justifiable, and the answer was not dependent on political leanings — responses were equally balanced between liberals and conservatives.

As astonishing as that result may seem, project co-director David Lazer told NPR.org it shouldn’t be — that it may actually be a result of the way American history is taught.

“You know, we begin with the American Revolution against an illegitimate government and so we are, in a sense, taught from grade school that it is at some points in history justifiable to engage in violent protest,” he said.

Donald Trump’s bid to keep Capitol riot records secret spurned by U.S. Supreme Court
Is democracy dying? After hopeful end to 20th Century, the institution withers worldwide
Of the 1 in 10 Americans who said violence is justified right now, Republicans and ideological conservatives were most likely to respond that way, the report found. Among Republican men, the response was nearly 1 in 5. Sixty-two per cent say violent protest right now is definitely not justified.

Two-thirds of those who believe violent protest is justified say the federal government is an appropriate target, while about one-third say it’s state government. Local government was seen as an appropriate target by 21 per cent.

Republicans are more likely (71 per cent) versus Democrats’ (62 per cent) to say violent protest is justified right now against the federal government. Violence against their state’s government right now is approved by more Democrats (43 per cent) than Republicans (26 per cent). Independents logged the highest approval at 38 per cent.

Of those who believe violent protest against government is justified right now, 37 per cent of Republican respondents said violence is justified when their state is controlled by a Democratic governor than the 18 per cent who say it’s OK against one from their own party.

 Rioters surround the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.© Amanda Voisard Rioters surround the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
The Project’s findings have been seen in other survey as well.

NPR noted that a University of Chicago poll found almost 1 in 10 Americans believed the use of force was justified to restore Donald Trump to the presidency after he lost. And in December, The Washington Post and University of Maryland together found that 1 in 3 Americans think violence against the government is sometimes justified.

The number of Americans who support violent political protests has doubled over the last decade, Rachel Kleinfeld, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, told NPR. (She was not involved in the survey.)

Kleinfeld believes there need to be repercussions, not just for those who would go so far as to storm the Capitol, but for those who threaten election workers, school boards and the like — “the warp and weft of our democratic system.”

Men, younger Americans and ideologues (liberals and conservatives) are more likely than women, older Americans and ideological moderates to say it is “definitely” or “probably” justified to ever engage in violent protest against the government.

A 12 percentage point gender gap appeared in the results. Just 17 per cent of women, compared with 29 per cent of men, said violent protest is “definitely” or “probably” ever justifiable.

The 5 per cent gender gap separating men (13 per cent) and women (8 per cent) on whether it is currently justified to violently protest against the government compared with an 11 point gap for whether it is ever justified.

 Supporters of then-President Donald Trump fight with riot police outside the Capitol building on Jan. 6, 2021 in Washington, D.C.© ROBERTO SCHMIDT / AFP Supporters of then-President Donald Trump fight with riot police outside the Capitol building on Jan. 6, 2021 in Washington, D.C.
Younger Americans (ages 18 to 29) were more likely to say violent protest is justifiable, with nearly 2 in 5 (36 per cent) agreeing it is “definitely” or “probably” justified to protest violently. This compares with 23 per cent of 30 to 49-year-olds, 18 per cent of 50-to-64-year-olds, and 14 per cent of those 65 and older.

While there was a 22 percentage point gap between the youngest and oldest Americans in whether it is ever justified to protest violently, that gap shrinks to just 11 percentage points in whether violent protest is justified right now (16 per cent of 18-29-year-olds say yes versus 5 per cent of seniors).

Views on the justifiability of violence did not differ significantly by race, the poll found.

Republicans are only four points more likely than Democrats to say that violence is justifiable. Republican men and Independent men posted a 32 per cent approval for violence ever being justifiable, while Democratic men logged 23 per cent. A significantly smaller portion of the latter group said violence was justifiable right now.

 Trump supporters invade the U.S. Capitol building on Jan. 6, 2021.© Roberto Schmidt/AFP via Getty Images Trump supporters invade the U.S. Capitol building on Jan. 6, 2021.
NPR notes that some researchers, who weren’t involved in conducting the survey, worry that the findings may overstate American support for political violence. Sean Westwood, a professor of government at Dartmouth College, is attempting to correct for survey errors in measurement that come about when people are questioned about political violence.

“When trying to measure violence, there’s this tendency to try to be as general as possible to try and capture as much support as possible,” Westwood told NPR. And people who are indifferent — who haven’t thought much about political violence or protests — may randomly pick between the options, which could lead to an over-counting of people who support political violence, he said.

One in 10 Americans say they're OK with violence now against government: poll (msn.com)

[Tracker]

(Just when you think the idiots couldn't display their stupidity any further, here is one who believes God instigates rape and approves_)

 

 

GOP gubernatorial candidate says women should be forced to carry pregnancies to term because the fetus 'may be the next president'
   
A Republican candidate for governor of Michigan is being highly criticized for comments he made around his desire to implement a Texas-style vigilante abortion ban, even for victims of rape.

Chiropractor Garrett Soldano, who has no experience in government, says he wants to “defend DNA” by forcing women who have suffered the horrific experience of rape to carry the fetus and give birth to their rapist’s child.

“They don’t know that little baby inside them may be the next president, may be the next person who changes humanity,” Soldano said on a podcast in January, as The Washington Post reports Tuesday. 

After relaying a story of a woman who was “gang-raped by five guys,” Soldano, one of the top Republican contenders, said: “What we must start to focus on is not only to defend the DNA when it’s created, but however how about we start inspiring women in the culture to let them understand and know how heroic they are,” to give birth after being raped.

“God put them in this moment,” he added. “We must always, always protect that DNA and allow it to have a voice.”

On his campaign website, Soldano says he is the author of “God’s True Law, a parent’s guide to raising successful children.” He has been permanently banned from YouTube.

GOP gubernatorial candidate says women should be forced to carry pregnancies to term because the fetus 'may be the next president' - Alternet.org

 

[JCon]

41 minutes ago, Tracker said:

 

Chiropractor

 

Say no more. 

[TrueBlue4ever]

So some may have noticed that I am not a fan of hypocrisy, so I always enjoy those who call it out, and use receipts to emphasize that point intelligently and without means to refute it. So Biden’s press secretary Jen Psaki has been a breath of fresh air, especially on the heels of the rogue’s gallery that preceded her. This question and answer almost looks like a softball set-up by the news reporter, but the answer is simple, fantastic, and throws shade at the perfect target. 

 

[Tracker]

10 minutes ago, TrueBlue4ever said:

So some may have noticed that I am not a fan of hypocrisy, so I always enjoy those who call it out, and use receipts to emphasize that point intelligently and without means to refute it. So Biden’s press secretary Jen Psaki has been a breath of fresh air, especially on the heels of the rogue’s gallery that preceded her. This question and answer almost looks like a softball set-up by the news reporter, but the answer is simple, fantastic, and throws shade at the perfect target. 

 

The GOPers? Hypocritical? Surely you jest! And I'm not calling you Shirley.

[Mark F]

On 2022-01-28 at 10:12 AM, wanna-b-fanboy said:

Huh... one of the most flag humping, i love democracy spewing, poster child for democracy countries in the world is sliding into authoritarianism/fascism because of Facebook and Fox news... 

Dont forget Rush Limbaugh. I once heard him say that Hitler was a communist, cause the Nazi party was the National socialist party. 

lol, being an idiot actually helped his career.

 

Edited February 1, 2022 by Mark F