Republican Assault on Democracy and March Towards Fascism

[pnwguy]

Apr 12, 2022 0:16:35 GMT goldenvalley said:

Apr 12, 2022 0:14:35 GMT LFC said:

Here are one, two, three articles that clearly show that Republicans have moved more strongly into the demonization phase of fascism. They seem to have decided their "Jews who control everything" will be pedophiles (gay and straight) who aren't. And KBJ's confirmation gave the the excuse to accelerated their evil lies.

Does this pedophile thing have more resonance than CRT did with their target audience?  I'm wondering why we aren't hearing much howling about CRT...maybe that was so February and the outrage machine must be refueled frequently with new fodder.

Any subject that involves "the children" gets more irrational paranoia than most topics.  Add in sex, and you've got the best mix for manufactured outrage.

[LFC]

John Eastman’s Out Here Still Coupin’ Even While Being Investigated For Coupin’

You Almost Have To Admire The Commitment To Destroying Democracy

Former Trump legal adviser John Eastman went to Wisconsin last month, where he and a few other Trump allies privately met with Wisconsin Assembly Speaker Robin Vos (R) to try to convince him to somehow undo Biden’s 2020 election win in the state, according to ABC News.

Vos’ meeting last month with election deniers seeking to decertify the election (which isn’t legally possible) has previously been reported; the fact that Eastman, who’s under scrutiny for drawing up blueprints for Trump to steal the 2020 election, had attended the meeting was not.

• Eastman urged Vos to start “reclaiming the electors” and either hold some kind of “do over” or have “a new slate of electors seated that would declare someone else the winner,” Jefferson Davis, a leader in the decertification push who was at the meeting, told ABC News.

• Eastman confirmed to ABC News that he had attended the meeting with Vos, but he refused to say what they’d discussed in their “confidential” discussion.

[goldenvalley]

Apr 12, 2022 14:15:55 GMT LFC said:

John Eastman’s Out Here Still Coupin’ Even While Being Investigated For Coupin’

• Eastman urged Vos to start “reclaiming the electors” and either hold some kind of “do over” or have “a new slate of electors seated that would declare someone else the winner,” Jefferson Davis, a leader in the decertification push who was at the meeting, told ABC News.

Seriously, the guy's name is Jefferson Davis?!?  Guess he's been "groomed" since birth to destroy the country.

[LFC]

Here's another player in the Trump administration's question to overthrow the election.

During the frantic period between the 2020 election and the Jan. 6, 2021 assault on the US Capitol, a young White House aide named Garrett Ziegler served as a conduit of information from a network of teams led by lawyers Rudy Giuliani and Sidney Powell to President Trump, as the operatives generated unfounded and specious claims in an attempt to delegitimize the 2020 presidential election.

Ziegler has spoken openly about using his pass to let attorney Sidney Powell and retired Lt. General Michael Flynn into the White House for a Dec. 18, 2020 meeting with President Trump and contributing to a report authored by his boss, trade advisor Peter Navarro, that was used to undermine confidence in the election. But Raw Story has confirmed that Ziegler played a much more significant role than has been previously understood. Working directly with a team that reported to Rudy Giuliani, Trump’s personal lawyer, Ziegler helped create a seamless information chain that was mobilized in the effort to overturn the election.

As previously reported, Ziegler let Powell and Flynn into the White House for an impromptu meeting with Trump, in which the trio reportedly urged the president to invoke the National Emergencies Act so that he could use the National Guard to seize ballots and appoint Powell as a special counsel to investigate the election. Patrick Byrne, the former Overstock.com CEO, has said that he contacted Ziegler to arrange the meeting. The visit caught Chief of Staff Mark Meadows and White House counsel Pat Cipollone by surprise, according to Ziegler, and Ziegler’s visitor access privileges were subsequently revoked.

The following day, Trump tweeted a link to the report authored by Navarro produced in collaboration with Ziegler, while calling his supporters to come to Washington, DC on Jan. 6 for a “wild rally.”

Ziegler also said he attempted to arrange a separate meeting between Powell and Trump, Raw Story has found.

“I walked Sidney over to the residence one night to try to get the president a binder full of evidence,” Ziegler asserted in a YouTube interview after he had left the White House. Powell was blocked from meeting with the president, he said, contending that Trump’s more cautious staff prevented the president from taking bolder action.

Ziegler disclosed on his Telegram channel last month that he received an invitation to speak with the staff and members of the January 6th Committee. The House cited Navarro, Ziegler’s former boss, for criminal contempt for defying subpoenas from the select committee and referred him to the US Department of Justice for prosecution on April 6.

While gathering information and drafting the Navarro report, Ziegler worked with a research team that reported to Giuliani, according to Giuliani associate Michael Trimarco. A Long Island businessman with a background in finance and tech, Trimarco told far-right conspiracy theorist Ann Vandersteel in a recent video that he had been helping Giuliani analyze the contents of Hunter Biden’s laptop in October 2020, and then hastily switched over to researching alleged election fraud after the election.

The Westin hotel in Arlington, Va. served as the initial hub for the teams collecting affidavits to support the legal challenges, Raw Story has found. Those teams promoted a fount of specious claims that would fuel the violent effort to prevent Congress from certifying the election. Byrne said in a video posted earlier this year that Trimarco “rented some rooms” for Powell “and a few other people” at the Westin. The video was removed from Byrne’s channel on the alternative video streaming platform Rumble, but a copy was republished by the news site One News Page, crediting Rumble as the original source.

“All of this would have fallen apart on that side of the river had it not been for [Trimarco] showing up and not just with a credit card, but trying to provide some adult supervision,” Byrne said. “He’s a real champion, and the MAGA crowd should know that when push came to shove, this fellow came up out of nowhere and was very valuable in helping corral all these forces and keep things from just spinning apart in the early days.”

[LFC]

Josh Marshall has some thoughts on the Republican obsession with pedophilia and its almost endless false accusations of anybody they don't like being a pedophile (paywalled). Welcome to the Q-Republican Party, now the wing in control.

One of the things mainstream American media does a particularly bad job of is communicating to a larger public the campaigns of incitement and predation animating Republican alternative media. Over recent weeks Republicans have been pushing a new line equating any policies that support or express openness to the concerns of transgender youth to “grooming” and sexual predation. Clearly there are a lot of unsettled ideas in the society at large over how to approach, treat, support transgender youth and gender dysphoria generally. There are people who have a good faith belief that teaching kids about transgender issues or having a more open and supportive approach to kids experiencing gender dysphoria actually encourages gender identity confusion. But I want to be clear: this is different. This is the specific claim that teachers especially are “grooming” children to become transgender as part of a large plot of sexual predation. “Grooming” isn’t a neutral word. It’s part of the vocabulary of pedophilia and sexual exploitation. Thus we’ve had a growing confluence of messaging about any discussion of transgender issues in schools with claims that Ketanji Brown Jackson is “soft” on pedophiles and thus President Biden and Democrats generally are pro-pedophilia.

Are you shaking your head wondering how these things have anything to do with each other? And that’s not surprising because they don’t have anything to do with each other. But they are being combined in evolving Republican messaging. Over the weekend one of the pro-Trump stars of the far right news channel OAN dubbed President Biden “the groomer-in-chief”.

“He’s open to the language of fellow groomers, but sympathy for groomers only enables them further. Look at their newly nominated Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, America’s queen of child porn apologists.”

I noticed how far this had advanced when I noticed this Twitter exchange: a phony statistic about the growth in the number of transgender youth was put forward by this widely read right-wing Twitter account as prima facie evidence of “grooming” in schools across the country.

“If it isn’t grooming, what’s it called when girls are socialized into a transgender identity by teachers?”

What this really represents is the increasing normalization of Qanon-style messaging among purportedly mainstream Republican politicians, though the connection is almost lost on mainstream media. The idea that Democrats and liberals are being a conspiracy of pedophilia and child sex trafficking has become entirely mainstream. And in fact any support for transgender youth is now on its face evidence of “grooming”, which is of course a highly charged word tied to pedophilia and sexual predation.

If you didn’t know this that’s not surprising. But it’s ubiquitous now in Republican alternative media. It’s the wind and energy now driving the Trump/Tea Party GOP ship.

[LFC]

Glenn Trumpkin, Republican governor of VA, is proving himself to be a petty fascist in a smoother, folksier package.

Virginia’s GOP Guv Vetoing Bipartisan Legislation To Own The Libs

Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R) vetoed 25 Democrat-sponsored bills this week that had bipartisan support in the state legislature while also signing some of the bills’ companion legislation that was identical to the legislation he had vetoed.

Once again we see that near total obstruction is the Republican way, even when it's popular and good for the country. They'll do ANYTHING rather than look like they're cooperating with Democrats to, you know, actually solve people's problems.

[LFC]

TDB's pet conservative is facing accusations of supporting pedophiles. We're seeing full out weaponization of these lies. They're holding it up as a magic amulet to hide their real lies and sins.

The promiscuous use of the term “groomer” in political conversation is the latest escalation in our already toxic political environment. I know, because I have firsthand knowledge.

On Wednesday, I called the term a “slur,” which led to many people (or bots) in the MAGA twittersphere hurling it at me. I’m hardly the only one, and the taunting is not reserved for nameless trolls. (Author and anti-Critical Race Theory thought leader James Lindsay called David Frum, David French, and conservative writer Nate Hochman groomers, for similar reasons.)

In other words, MAGA maniacs are saying to conservatives, you’re either with us all the way, or you’re a groomer.

This is Blue Lives Matter on steroids. That was created just to attack police accountability. The "groomer" epithet has been created to attack anybody who points out the multitude of fascist, un-American, and flat out false things Republicans are doing. (It also makes me wonder more and more about DeSatanist. His fixation is huge.)

[LFC]

Durham's bullshit case moves forward.

Special Counsel John Durham will get to proceed with his prosecution of a lawyer that he’s accused of being in cahoots with the global Hillary Clinton conspiracy, after a federal judge denied a motion to dismiss the case.

U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper for the District of Columbia found that it would be up to a jury to determine the validity of arguments from attorney Michael Sussmann, who says that the lie he is accused of telling was not material to the FBI.

The ruling offered a look at how Judge Cooper regards the case, which former DOJ officials have described as an attempt to realize in prosecutorial form what President Trump long claimed rhetorically: that the 2016 Trump-Russia scandal was in fact the product of malefactors in federal law enforcement, all working at the behest of the Clinton campaign.

As Republican fascists take over expect this to become the norm. The "deep state" will become a reality.

[Bact PhD]

Supreme Emperor is at it again. This time it’s a (supposedly) unplanned stop in Lakeland, where he spouts off on lotsa stuff. School Board races here are supposed to be “nonpartisan,” but that definition has increased in elasticity for the last decade or so. Supreme Emperor is merely saying the quiet part out loud now.

www.gainesville.com/story/news/politics/elections/2022/04/18/ron-desantis-blasts-wokeness-vows-role-school-board-races-video/7316144001/

In full due to paywall (bold mine).

During a recent visit to a barbecue restaurant in Polk County, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis gave a talk that seemed to satisfy the appetites of an enthusiastic group of supporters.

DeSantis warned that “woke ideology” threatens to destroy the country, vowed to get involved in local school board races and smiled in response to an audience member’s suggestion that citizens should shoot undocumented immigrants.

The Winter Haven 9-12 Project, a conservative political group, posted a video of DeSantis' talk on its website and on YouTube. The 30-minute video captures DeSantis speaking informally but in campaign-rally mode during an April 1 visit to Blackburn’s Southern Barbecue in Eagle Lake.

As of Friday morning, the video had been removed from both sites, two days after The Ledger asked DeSantis' office and a leader of the Winter Haven 9-12 Project about it. The Ledger has an audio recording and text transcript taken from the video.

DeSantis held a news conference April 1 at the Polk County Sheriff’s Operations Center in Winter Haven, at which he announced the signing of a bill that provides new financial incentives for law-enforcement officers.

J.C. Martin, chair of the Polk County Republican Party, said DeSantis’ appearance later at the restaurant was a “last-minute” visit and not scheduled in advance. Martin, who attended, said the audience included local Republicans and regular customers of the restaurant, not just members of the Winter Haven 9-12 Project.

In the video, DeSantis — who is seeking reelection this year and is considered a likely Republican presidential candidate in 2024 — covers many of the issues he emphasized during the recent legislative session and in the weeks since it ended. He lambastes “woke” companies, bemoans the alleged pushing of transgender identities in schools and blasts President Joe Biden, whom he repeatedly calls “Brandon.”

DeSantis, wearing tan khakis, a blue blazer and a tie, stands at the front of the dining area, beside a soft-drink dispenser and before a wall mural showing cows in a field. An audience that appears to number about 30 sits at tables in front of him.

The video opens with DeSantis tossing campaign hats reading “Keep Florida Free” to some in the audience. A woman soon calls out to thank him for “standing up to Disney.”

That was a reference to the belated entry of The Walt Disney Company’s executives into a debate over the Parental Rights in Education Bill, which opponents dubbed the “Don’t Say Gay” bill. The measure, adopted by the Legislature and signed by DeSantis in late March, bars public schools from providing classroom instruction on sexual orientation or gender identity in kindergarten through third grade “or in a manner that is not age-appropriate or developmentally appropriate for students in accordance with state standards.”

Critics charge that the law means young students with gay parents won’t be able to mention them or that teachers won’t be able to acknowledge families with members who aren’t heterosexual. Proponents say that Democrats and the media have inaccurately portrayed the law.


In discussing the legislation, DeSantis tells a story whose accuracy has been called into doubt.

“I had a lady that came on Monday,” DeSantis says on the video. “Her daughter was going to school in Tallahassee, and the school was telling the daughter that she's really a boy. And so they changed her name to a boy’s name, and they tried to change her to identify as being a boy. And they never told the parents that this was going on.”

DeSantis seemed to be referring to the child of January Littlejohn. As multiple media outlets have reported, emails exchanged between Littlejohn and Leon County Schools tell a different story.

Littlejohn wrote to her child’s school in 2020 to notify a teacher that the student wanted to change pronouns, the Tallahassee Democrat reported in November. Littlejohn wrote that she would not stop the child from using male pronouns or a male name while at school.


The teacher asked if she should share the information with other teachers, and Littlejohn replied, "Whatever you think is best or [redacted name] can handle it herself."

Littlejohn and her husband, Jeffrey, later filed a lawsuit against the Leon County School Board and the superintendent and assistant superintendent over the district’s handling of the student’s gender identity.

The Ledger contacted DeSantis’ office on Wednesday to ask if he was referring to Littlejohn's family when he spoke in Polk County. As of Friday afternoon, the office had not responded to that or other questions about the video.

DeSantis rails against Disney during the talk, drawing frequent cheers, applause and laughter. Disney, known for having many LGBTQ employees and being welcoming to sexual minorities, drew criticism during the legislative session for not publicly condemning the Parental Rights in Education Bill. (Polk County’s eight legislators, all Republicans, voted for the measure.)

After the bill had passed, Disney CEO Bob Chapek expressed criticism and asked DeSantis to veto it. In the video from Eagle Lake, DeSantis accused Disney of hypocrisy for not saying “a blip” about human rights abuses in China, where it operates a resort, and for having its cruise ships make port in Caribbean countries “that criminalize homosexuality.”

“It’s not the role of one company to come in and think they run the state,” DeSantis tells the restaurant audience, to rousing approval. “They may have run this state in the past; they do not run this state now.”

DeSantis spends several minutes pledging to combat what he calls “woke ideology.” He talks of halting instruction on critical race theory in Florida schools, though the subject was not part of the state’s approved curriculum. Critical race theory, usually taught at the college level, is a complex concept exploring the historic influence of racism on American law and institutions.

The governor also says that legislation passed this year gives parents more control over the material used in public schools.

“There are library books in these middle school libraries that have pedophilia in them, where you have — like, they’re cartoons, not real pictures, but you'll have, like, 8-year-olds, 9-year-olds, doing sex acts in these pictures," DeSantis says. "That is just fundamentally wrong.”

DeSantis' office did not respond to a request for examples of books in middle-school libraries that portray pedophilia or children under 10 engaging in sex.

Polk County has been a flashpoint for debates over what books are appropriate in schools. Members of County Citizens Defending Freedom, a local conservative group formed last year, have alleged that some books on school library shelves are pornographic, prompting Polk County Public Schools to remove books and form panels to determine whether the titles should remain available to students.

DeSantis also talks about his symbolic awarding of a national title to a swimmer from Florida who finished second in an NCAA competition to the University of Pennsylvania’s Lia Thomas, the first transgender woman to win a national championship. While arguing against allowing transgender minors to use medications known as puberty blockers, DeSantis refers to the treatment as the “castration” of young boys.

“This CRT is an example of this woke ideology, and the gender ideology is woke ideology,” DeSantis says. “And there's other components to it. And let me tell you this, if this woke ideology is allowed to run our societies, it will destroy this nation.”

At one point, a woman in the audience calls out, “I just want everyone to remember that LGBTQ is only 1% of the population, and gays is only 3%.”

DeSantis silently nods to both assertions.

A Gallup poll released in February found that 7.1% of adult Americans identified as LGBT. Gay Americans would make up a smaller portion of that population, which includes people who are bisexual, transgender and non-binary.

DeSantis also touts the Stop WOKE Act, a measure he signed last month that, among other provisions, restricts the diversity training that private companies can offer to employees.

“Some of these big corporations are forcing the employees to go through CRT training,” DeSantis says. “They will take you, based on your race, and they will make you apologize for being white or something like that. It’s just ridiculous, and honestly, it’s a civil-rights violation.”

DeSantis' office did not respond to a request for examples of companies that have forced employees to apologize for being white.

Patrolling Georgia border?

DeSantis also mentions a bill passed in this year’s legislative session that reestablishes the Florida National Guard, a force that existed in the 1940s. He mocks critics who suggested that it will be his personal military unit, instead saying he expects the guard to respond to natural disasters, though he says it also could be deployed to help combat rioting.


After joking that he won’t use the guard to invade the state of New York, DeSantis says, “However, I will mobilize border security between Florida and Georgia if Stacey Abrams is elected.”

Abrams, a Democrat, is running for governor in Georgia. DeSantis' office did not respond to an email asking what he meant by the comment.

In the video, DeSantis directs repeated criticisms at Biden, referring to him instead as “President Brandon.” That evokes the slogan “Let’s Go Brandon,” adopted by many Republicans as code for the phrase “F--- Joe Biden.”

The slogan emerged from a TV clip last October showing an announcer interviewing Brandon Brown, the winner of a NASCAR race in Alabama. As many in the crowd chanted the vulgar phrase, the announcer suggested that they were actually saying, “Let’s go, Brandon.”

By the way:'Let's go, Brandon' is code for something vulgar. Why the cryptic phrase, with sports origins, is trending

During his Polk visit, DeSantis tells the audience that Biden deserves the mocking nickname because he has treated Florida unfairly. The governor cites the federal government’s limits on the supply of monoclonal antibodies Florida received to treat COVID-19 patient and claims that FEMA denied disaster aid following tornadoes in South Florida last year because Florida is “a red state.”

DeSantis also identifies a rise in illegal immigration and $4-a-gallon gas as reasons for giving Biden the derisive nickname.

“But, you know, he's not really in charge,” DeSantis says of Biden’s immigration policies. “You’ve got other people in charge there pushing this agenda.”

DeSantis also criticizes Biden for "dumping illegals into Florida."

Soon after that, a man who can’t be seen on camera calls out, “And if you repeal the red-flag law, we’ll shoot them.”

DeSantis, looking in the man’s direction, spreads his hands and smiles before replying.

“That was before my time, and if I were governor I would have vetoed that law,” DeSantis says. “But you don't even need to worry; you have the right to defend.”

The Florida Legislature passed a “red-flag” law in 2018, following the massacre of 17 people at Marjorie Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland. Former Gov. Rick Scott signed the bill, which allows law enforcement to petition a judge to remove guns from someone deemed a threat to themselves or others.

DeSantis' office did not respond to an email asking if he condoned the audience member’s suggestion of committing violence against undocumented immigrants.

Near the end of the video, DeSantis mentions school board elections and encourages supporters to get involved in local races. He acknowledges that such elections are nonpartisan but laments that such conservative counties as Brevard, Lee and Polk have school board members “who are fighting against the community and fighting against the values of parents.”

DeSantis adds, “That has to end this year. So, we’re going to be involved in school board races. We’re going to make sure we’re going to be able to support the candidates who are going to be reflective of our values.”

DeSantis doesn’t mention any local candidates. The Polk County Republican Party is promoting four candidates in Polk County School Board races.

Previous Florida governors have rarely made endorsements or gotten involved in school board campaigns.

[LFC]

A retiring Republican states the f***ing obvious. What he doesn't understand is that good people not running for office is exactly what the GOP wants today.

Retiring Rep. Fred Upton (R-MI) on Sunday warned that death threats could be a “detriment getting good people to run” for Congress, drawing from his personal experiences of receiving threats following his vote for the bipartisan infrastructure bill last year.

Appearing on MSNBC, Upton pointed out that the bipartisan infrastructure bill (BIF) was at one point a Republican bill when discussing his experience of receiving death threats last year. Upton broke ranks alongside 12 other Republicans to help pass BIF last year.

“(Death threats) never were like we had this last year, but it was pretty crazy. And remember, that was a Republican bill,” Upton said. “I mean, literally, a year ago this week, (Maryland GOP) Governor Hogan brought a bunch of us up to his place in Annapolis, Republicans, Democrats, senators, governors, House members, both sides of the aisle. We defined what infrastructure ought to be, and we decided how to pay for it, and it passed 69-30 in the Senate.”

Upton pointed out that Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) was among the 19 GOP senators who voted for BIF.

Upton then anticipated that people would be hesitant to run for Congress due to the risk of death threats.

“It’s going to be a detriment getting good people to run, it really will be,” Upton said. “Because I’ve got a school board member that lives on my street, I think he got death threats too, just over the mask mandate.”

[goldenvalley]

Apr 18, 2022 13:27:34 GMT Bact PhD said:

Supreme Emperor is at it again. This time it’s a (supposedly) unplanned stop in Lakeland, where he spouts off on lotsa stuff. School Board races here are supposed to be “nonpartisan,” but that definition has increased in elasticity for the last decade or so. Supreme Emperor is merely saying the quiet part out loud now.

www.gainesville.com/story/news/politics/elections/2022/04/18/ron-desantis-blasts-wokeness-vows-role-school-board-races-video/7316144001/

In full due to paywall (bold mine).

Buzz words, lies, distortions.  Is this the ideal Republican candidate these days?

[goldenvalley]

And from the land called Texas:

A Texas legislator warned Citigroup on Friday that he would introduce a bill to prevent the bank from underwriting municipal bonds in the state unless it rescinded its policy covering travel expenses for employees who go outside their state to seek an abortion.

State Representative Briscoe Cain, a Republican from the Houston area, wrote on Facebook and Twitter that the bill would bar local governments from doing business with any company “that pays abortion-related expenses of its employees or that provides abortion coverage as an employee benefit.” He said he had sent a cease-and-desist letter to Citigroup’s chief executive, Jane Fraser, calling the policy a “misuse of shareholder money.”

Citigroup stated in a filing on Tuesday that it would provide travel benefits to employees seeking abortions outside their state, “in response to changes in reproductive health care laws in certain states.” Last year, Texas enacted a law that bans abortion after about six weeks of pregnancy. The law took effect in September.

Citigroup has 8,500 employees in Texas. Other companies, including Salesforce and Uber, have also announced policies in opposition to the abortion law.

Since when does a legislator have the power or authority to send a cease and desist letter?  I'd think the Attorney General's office is the only entity that could that on behalf of the state and by the way, that wouldn't be on behalf of share holders of Citigroup.  BS all the way around with this one...posturing to get headlines.

[Bact PhD]

Apr 18, 2022 15:47:21 GMT goldenvalley said:

And from the land called Texas:

A Texas legislator warned Citigroup on Friday that he would introduce a bill to prevent the bank from underwriting municipal bonds in the state unless it rescinded its policy covering travel expenses for employees who go outside their state to seek an abortion.

State Representative Briscoe Cain, a Republican from the Houston area, wrote on Facebook and Twitter that the bill would bar local governments from doing business with any company “that pays abortion-related expenses of its employees or that provides abortion coverage as an employee benefit.” He said he had sent a cease-and-desist letter to Citigroup’s chief executive, Jane Fraser, calling the policy a “misuse of shareholder money.”

Citigroup stated in a filing on Tuesday that it would provide travel benefits to employees seeking abortions outside their state, “in response to changes in reproductive health care laws in certain states.” Last year, Texas enacted a law that bans abortion after about six weeks of pregnancy. The law took effect in September.

Citigroup has 8,500 employees in Texas. Other companies, including Salesforce and Uber, have also announced policies in opposition to the abortion law.

Since when does a legislator have the power or authority to send a cease and desist letter?  I'd think the Attorney General's office is the only entity that could that on behalf of the state and by the way, that wouldn't be on behalf of share holders of Citigroup.  BS all the way around with this one...posturing to get headlines.

Whatever happened to “the Good Old Days” when “private businesses should be able to operate as they see fit *without* onerous gubmint regulations”??
(merely a rhetorical question)

Similar BS is going on here in Flori-DUH—legislators are going after Disney after the latter spoke out.

[goldenvalley]

Apr 18, 2022 16:15:07 GMT Bact PhD said:

Apr 18, 2022 15:47:21 GMT goldenvalley said:

And from the land called Texas:

Since when does a legislator have the power or authority to send a cease and desist letter?  I'd think the Attorney General's office is the only entity that could that on behalf of the state and by the way, that wouldn't be on behalf of share holders of Citigroup.  BS all the way around with this one...posturing to get headlines.

Whatever happened to “the Good Old Days” when “private businesses should be able to operate as they see fit *without* onerous gubmint regulations”??
(merely a rhetorical question)

Similar BS is going on here in Flori-DUH—legislators are going after Disney after the latter spoke out.

That's only if the corporation spouts the appropriate right wing talking point.

[pnwguy]

Apr 18, 2022 16:18:42 GMT goldenvalley said:

Apr 18, 2022 16:15:07 GMT Bact PhD said:

Whatever happened to “the Good Old Days” when “private businesses should be able to operate as they see fit *without* onerous gubmint regulations”??
(merely a rhetorical question)

Similar BS is going on here in Flori-DUH—legislators are going after Disney after the latter spoke out.

That's only if the corporation spouts the appropriate right wing talking point.

The offenders could be CINOs - Corporations In Name Only.   Those can just be broken up by Patriotic Republican politicians at will.

[LFC]

JD Vance failed a purity test and another GOPer is using it to torpedo him even though he's since become a top bottom class Trumpsucker.

The newly Trump-endorsed Ohio GOP Senate candidate J.D. Vance allegedly feared that the former president could be “America’s Hitler,” Vance’s former college roommate and Georgia Senate candidate Josh McLaurin (D) claims in a tweet posted Monday of a text exchange they allegedly had in 2016.

McLaurin, who currently serves as a Georgia state representative, shared a screenshot of a text that he claims shows Vance’s “unfiltered explanation from 2016” on Republican politics.

The text Vance allegedly sent to McLaurin calls Trump “the fruit of the party’s collective neglect,” referring to the GOP. Vance allegedly wrote that he goes “back and forth thinking Trump is a cynical asshole like Nixon” or “that he’s America’s Hitler.”

Vance’s past life as an anti-Trumper is no secret. Prior to Trump announcing his official endorsement of Vance, the “Hillbilly Elegy” author and former Trump critic spent the past several months repenting for his previous swipes at the former president.

Vance’s past criticisms of the former president did not go unnoticed either when Trump announced his endorsement of Vance in a statement.

“Like some others, J.D. Vance may have said some not so great things about me in the past, but he gets it now, and I have seen that in spades,” Trump said, before quipping that Vance is “our best chance for victory” in the Ohio Senate GOP primary.

“This is not an easy endorsement for me to make because I like and respect some of the other candidates in the race—they’ve said great things about ‘Trump’ and, like me, they love Ohio and love our Country,” Trump continued, before calling Vance’s rivals as pretenders and wannabes.”

Trump Translation: "JD Vance sucked my shiitake better than those other guys."

[pnwguy]

Apr 19, 2022 14:13:27 GMT LFC said:

JD Vance failed a purity test and another GOPer is using it to torpedo him even though he's since become a top bottom class Trumpsucker.
Trump Translation: "JD Vance sucked my shiitake better than those other guys."

There is such a line of Trumpsuckers at Mar-a-Lago that Dumpster will need to be included in Tuckum's documentary on testosterone.  Who knew one shiitake could keep putting out so much spawn?

[goldenvalley]

Apr 19, 2022 15:56:26 GMT pnwguy said:

Apr 19, 2022 14:13:27 GMT LFC said:

JD Vance failed a purity test and another GOPer is using it to torpedo him even though he's since become a top bottom class Trumpsucker.
Trump Translation: "JD Vance sucked my shiitake better than those other guys."

There is such a line of Trumpsuckers at Mar-a-Lago that Dumpster will need to be included in Tuckum's documentary on testosterone.  Who knew one shiitake could keep putting out so much spawn?

Shoot I can't find it now, but somewhere I read that a Trump endorsement gets you $5000 and a piece of paper that says Trump endorses you.  Annnddd...an opportunity to run a fundraiser at the palace in Florida but of course you pay for the facility and catering.  (I doubt the place allows you to bring in an outside catering firm.)

[LFC]

Apr 19, 2022 17:11:24 GMT goldenvalley said:

Shoot I can't find it now, but somewhere I read that a Trump endorsement gets you $5000 and a piece of paper that says Trump endorses you.  Annnddd...an opportunity to run a fundraiser at the palace in Florida but of course you pay for the facility and catering.  (I doubt the place allows you to bring in an outside catering firm.)

I call bullshit. There's no way Trump would part with $5 much less $5,000. I'd assume that a donation to Trump's PAC was a requirement. All the rest sounds about right.

[pnwguy]

Apr 19, 2022 17:43:40 GMT LFC said:

Apr 19, 2022 17:11:24 GMT goldenvalley said:

Shoot I can't find it now, but somewhere I read that a Trump endorsement gets you $5000 and a piece of paper that says Trump endorses you.  Annnddd...an opportunity to run a fundraiser at the palace in Florida but of course you pay for the facility and catering.  (I doubt the place allows you to bring in an outside catering firm.)

I call bullshit. There's no way Trump would part with $5 much less $5,000. I'd assume that a donation to Trump's PAC was a requirement. All the rest sounds about right.

Dumpster could give him $5K.  But the valet parking charge when they go to leave is $6K.

[LFC]

Dictator DeSatanist continues to pull ever lever he can find to punish his perceived political enemies. And he's no longer searching for fig leaves, he's admitting it right up front as a fascist political strategy.

Florida GOPers Establish University Tenure Limits For Blatantly Political Reasons

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) signed a bill on Tuesday that requires a review of tenured university professors at state universities every five years, and free speech lovin’ Republicans didn’t bother to hide the fact that the measure was to crack down on politics they don’t like being taught in schools.

• DeSantis himself said at the bill signing that the purpose of the bill was “all about trying to make these institutions more in line with what the state’s priorities are.” Oh, and “quite frankly of the priorities of parents throughout the state of Florida.” Yes, of course. “Parents.” That’s who this is for.

• Florida House Speaker Chris Sprowls (R) claimed that there are professors who “come to indoctrinate, and they shouldn’t have a lifetime job.”

• University of Florida faculty have already been feeling the pressure to fall in line with DeSantis’ politics, which included a (now-reversed) ban on professors from testifying against the governor’s anti-voting law.

At this point there's no doubt that he's in an all out war to crush the voting rights and free speech of anybody who will question him. He's Donald Trump with better focus and the Republicans love him.

[LFC]

Trump knows how to get people to do his dirty work. It helps having a bunch of unthinking people who are just itching for an excuse to do exactly what they want to do. All you need to know how to do is push them over the edge.

As you can see here, pre-Jan 6th text from Oath Keepers paramilitaries show they were actually afraid a massive Antifa army of feral Portlanders descending on Washington, D.C. It’s a fascinating prism into the Trump/alt-right/fascist paramilitary world. But we should remember that this is par for the course with coups, fascist takeovers, genocidal violence. It’s how incitement works. You can seldom get large numbers of people to do really bad things without getting them to believe that those people are getting ready to do something similar to them.

This isn’t exculpatory and it’s not simple. It’s just human nature. A lot of Germans really believed, at some level, that the Jews were an existential threat to them. But belief is a funny thing. We choose to believe things that make it easier to do what we want to do. As we’ve seen in the Trump Era, “belief” often becomes a form of aggression in itself. I choose to believe you run a pedophile sex ring because my professed belief damages you and it lays the groundwork for me to hurt you more.

So it’s funny at some level. They ramp up their lies so hard they get freaked out by their own lies in a sort of fun house mirror blowback. But it’s also how this stuff works. It’s not the exception but the rule.

What’s illuminating here is the impact of the campaign of incitement that was part and parcel of the whole Trump presidency but took on a more focused form in 2020 after the beginning of the COVID pandemic and the protests in reaction to the murder of George Floyd. As we all remember clearly, it was Trump’s constant refrain, the mobs of Antifa murderers and wreckers marauding through the cities and suburbs, terrorizers innocents, torching innocents. Remember Sen. Tom Cotton’s demand for regular military to be deployed in cities to defeat the Antifa mobs. That was all part of prepping Trump’s willing paramilitaries for what happened on January 6th and what may happen again. People do bad things and they should be punished for doing bad things. But you need to pump people up to get large numbers to do bad things in an organized way. And that’s something Trump has been and continues to be good at.

[LFC]

More views that the Republicans will take control of the government in 2024 whether they win or lose. I believe that's true and that 2020 will be the last remotely free and fair election in my lifetime.

We have all heard about Trump's followers in various states making moves to strike Democrats from elections boards and run for secretaries of state to oversee future elections. We know that Trump himself is still obsessively pushing the Big Lie that he actually won the 2020 election — and that nearly 70% of Republicans believe him. We have learned recently that members of Congress were actively involved in helping him do that, even in one case, asking the White House chief of staff for talking points to help make the case. The result of all this is to make the majority of Republican voters accept election results, as Trump openly declared back in 2016, only if the GOP wins.Additionally, I think everyone is rightfully concerned that there will be another insurrection and that it will be much worse if that happens. It's the sword of Damocles hanging over our entire democracy at this point and it's hard to see how that problem can easily be fixed.

Unfortunately, that's not all. The New York Times reported this week that Trump's failed coup of 2020 is ongoing with action in various states to decertify the 2020 election and re-install Trump into the White House. Yes, it is preposterous, but it's happening in a number of states with tremendous pressure being brought to bear on candidates and legislators to back up the idea that this is a legitimate process. The reporting indicates that many of these state officeholders understand that it is ridiculous but they are signing on to the idea as another way to curry favor with Trump and his henchmen.

Everyone is rightfully concerned that there will be another insurrection.

This effort is being led by John Eastman, the lawyer who proposed that the vice president can simply refuse to accept the electoral college votes and send it to the House of Representatives where a quirk in the Constitution would allow Trump to be certified for a second term. The judge who is overseeing the production of emails subpoenaed by the January 6th Committee referred to Eastman's plan as "a coup in search of a legal theory" and proclaimed that the documents show Trump and Eastman "more likely than not" engaged in a criminal conspiracy to obstruct Congress. Apparently, Eastman remains undeterred and is still at it. According to the Times:

The fringe legal theory that Mr. Eastman and Mr. Epshteyn are promoting — which has been widely dismissed — holds that state lawmakers have the power to choose how electors are selected, and they can change them long after the Electoral College has certified votes if they find fraud and illegality sufficiently altered the outcome. The theory has surfaced in multiple states, including several that are political battlegrounds.

The Times characterized this project as being a way for some of the Trump grift crew, like Steve Bannon, Boris Epshtyn and Michael Flynn to remain relevant, but also as a way to keep the fervid True Believers agitated and engaged. All this handwringing over the 2020 election serves to reinforce the notion that the election system is entirely corrupt and untrustworthy, which is a real problem.

But that isn't the most concerning aspect of this project.

The article quotes formerly highly respected conservative judge Michael Luttig making the most salient observation about what this is all about: "Trump and his supporters in Congress and in the states are preparing now to lay the groundwork to overturn the election in 2024 were Trump, or his designee, to lose the vote for the presidency." He calls it "the clearest and most present danger to our democracy." Lutting is anything but a "hardcore liberal" so you would think that the Republican establishment would be a bit nervous to hear something like that from a bonafide arch-conservative like him. But they aren't. They are letting this happen because it benefits them.

There are many things they may not like about Donald Trump, but this isn't one of them. After all, if for some reason, Donald Trump doesn't legitimately win in 2024 and therefore has no coattails, the congressional elections in all those battleground states could be very close. If people believe that presidential elections can be overturned by state legislatures, there's no reason that other races shouldn't have the same privilege. So sure, Democrats should be worried about 2024 but they need to worry about what the Republicans will do if they lose just as much as what they'll do if they win.

[goldenvalley]

Apr 20, 2022 17:37:27 GMT LFC said:

More views that the Republicans will take control of the government in 2024 whether they win or lose. I believe that's true and that 2020 will be the last remotely free and fair election in my lifetime.

I wholeheartedly agree.  Throughout the past 5 years I thought the fever would break, and then I thought losing 60 cases alleging election fraud would do it, and then I thought that 1/6 would show people the malignancy and dangerousness of the folks that allied themselves with Trump. After 2 weeks, the rats in Congress forgot how they were shitting in their britches during 1/6 and started to make political hay out of it.  Antifa did it, FBI infiltrators did it, just tourists viewing the capitol did it and people swallowed it all up. And the Big Lie continues and state legislatures are stripping election running and credentialing from anyone they cannot control. This is really, really bad and no amount of televised Select Committee findings will help. 

[LFC]

Tennessee has voted to effectively make homelessness illegal. In fact camping on state land is already a felony so they get those people off the voter rolls. It sounds a lot like what the Nazis did to the Roma.

Tennessee Republican lawmakers passed legislation Monday to make camping on public property a crime, which critics say effectively criminalizes homelessness.

Under HB978, if a person camps on the shoulder, right-of-way, bridge, overpass or underpass of a state or interstate highway, they could face a misdemeanor offense and a $50 fine or community service requirement.

The bill also makes it a felony to camp on all public property, unless otherwise specified. Current law, makes it a felony to camp on all state property.

Tennessee House Republicans on Monday advanced the legislation, which cleared the Senate last week after a lengthy debate. The legislation will now go to Gov. Bill Lee's desk.

I saw this presented by Beau who did a good job explaining it and why it's the more expensive option to the problem. Be sure to at least pick up at 3:48. It's all about giving the base somebody to look down on and kick, the centuries old tried and true strategy of conservatives. "If you are in TN and you are a voter allow me to just help you with this. Those people with less institutional power than you have, less money, less resources, less everything than you have are never the source of your problem. You're looking in the wrong direction. Stop looking under the bridge and start looking up at that capitol. That's where your issue lies."