Following in Victor Orbán’s neo-fascist goose-steps, Trump, DeSantis, and the GOP are imposing his Hungarian brand of Christian nationalism on America. In power since 2010, Orbán — now a fabulously wealthy kleptocrat — turned Hungary from a functioning democracy into a corrupt, single-party, authoritarian oligarchy and provided a beacon for the MAGA Republican sedition caucus.
The LNP is well known for importing GOP policies to Australia for little more than political gain while having minimal support of the Nation. They have stolen the ground from right-wing minorities like One Nation, and have declared Muslims Africans, unwanted and Chinese spies.
Nazi Germany is well known for its treatment of Jews. The United States is becoming well known for its treatment of the LGBTQ+ community, people of color, and other minorities. A pity that.
Of course, that hatred of democracy is why Republicans are less worried than they should be about their ballooning unpopularity. Republicans are already dependent on gerrymandering and voter suppression to give them power way beyond what they actually earn at the ballot box. They clearly expect, or hope anyway, that they can corrupt the system even further, so that voters never have a real say in who their leaders are again. But if this progressive backlash keeps growing, voters may actually have a chance to throw Republicans out before the GOP fires the kill shot on American democracy.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis on Monday signed a law allowing Floridians to carry a gun without a permit, a measure that aims to appeal to gun-loving GOP primary voters even as Democrats warned it would increase violent crime.
In 1987, President Ronald Reagan told Mikhail Gorbachev and the Soviet Union to “tear down this wall.” Today’s Republicans and “conservatives” would have told them to keep the wall up, build it higher – and we will help you do it. In the Age of Trump, the Republican Party has fully jettisoned the Cold War-era rule that “politics stops at the water’s edge.”
Three days after the nation honored Martin Luther King Jr.’s leadership in the Civil Rights Movement, a spokeswoman for the Florida Department of Education announced that no Florida public high school would be allowed to teach the nation’s first and only Advanced Placement or AP African American Studies course at the college level. She asserted that the “course lacks educational value and is contrary to Florida law.”
Rep. Bennie Thompson, who is the ranking Dem on the Homeland Security Committee, yesterday blasted Kevin McCarthy for handing over tens of thousands of hours of riot footage from Jan. 6, 2021, to Fox News host Tucker Carlson. How the hell does this happen? Via The Hill:
They want to Privatize the Planet but then so did the East India Company which started the ball rolling. It resulted in America’s war of independence. Now the Republicans want to turn back the clock on Independence,
Former Vice President Mike Pence, a possible 2024 presidential candidate, has voiced support for a Social Security privatization scheme that the George W. Bush administration unsuccessfully pushed nearly two decades ago.
The farce occurring in the US House of Representatives, where a small group of far-right Republicans are seeking to veto the overwhelming choice of their colleagues for the party’s congressional leadership, may well be resolved by the weekend in the traditional American parliamentary way, with bribes, deals, committee placements and stiff-arming.
It’s fair to say that the Republican Party of 2022 is a much broader coalition than it used to be. Once upon a time it was defined as the party of Main Street and the country club: white middle-class and upper-middle-class guys in gray flannel suits. But in recent years they’ve opened the doors and invited in a whole bunch of other Americans who don’t fit that mold. Starting in the 1960s they willingly veered into overt racism mantle and with their embrace of the Christian right in the ’80s, all the anti-gay, anti abortion flock began to move their way as well. The new Trump majority within the party captured a chunk of the previously nonvoting public that believes in fringe conspiracy theories and far-right ideologies and worships at the altar of vapid TV celebrity.
That said, the Republican coalition still isn’t very diverse. It’s nearly all white, of course, with only a tiny fraction of racial and ethnic minorities. It’s almost all Christian and most are non-college-educated and rural. And since virtually everyone who now votes Republican is indoctrinated with lies and propaganda, by watching and listening to the same information sources, there isn’t an independent idea to be f
They want to shift their rhetoric from support for corporations and the morbidly rich to pretending they care about working people. This new organization will, they say, “think differently about labor vs. capital than Republicans have in recent generations.”
Republican leaders are under fire for their silence on former President Donald Trump’s dinner with antisemitic rapper Ye and white supremacist Nick Fuentes at Mar-a-Lago.
The three hundred anti-gay pieces of proposed legislation and the rhetoric against gay people have largely come from Republican lawmakers, therefore bear some of the blame for whipping up this kind of hate.
As you’ve probably heard by now, Donald Trump’s stranglehold on the Republican Party is currently on life support in the wake of the midterm elections, during which his endorsement became the kiss of death in a number of key races. As a result, many Republicans want him to stay as far away from the state of Georgia as possible until after the runoff between Herschel Walker and Raphael Warnock, lest his stench push voters to cast their ballots for the incumbent Democrat, who won his runoff in the state against the Trump-backed Kelly Loeffler in January 2021. And we’ll give you one guess as to how he’s coping with the rejection.
Prominent right-wing commentators are condemning Sen. Lindsey Graham’s (R-SC) proposed national abortion ban. But their concern isn’t that they oppose threatening doctors with up to five years in prison if they perform an abortion on a patient who has been pregnant for more than 15 weeks. It’s that they know Graham’s bill endangers the GOP’s chances of gaining power and thus having the opportunity to ban abortions.
The reality of Trump’s conniving to subvert the republic cannot be recognized by leading Republicans. Doing so would create a dilemma for them. They would then have to explicitly declare themselves in favor of or opposed to this Trumpian war on democracy. They realize an outright expression of support for autocracy would not be good for the GOP, yet a declaration of opposition to the Trumpist assault on the Constitution would alienate any Republican from the party’s cult-like base. (See Liz Cheney.) To survive within the GOP, they must deny. They must say black is white. War is peace. Authoritarianism is democracy. That is the only way the party can now exist. The logic of their position demands it.
Nonpartisan election law experts agreed that the trend could cause chaos on a larger scale.
“Had this unfolded on this kind of timeline in 2020, it really could have created problems, because there would have been questions about whether the state could have actually named a slate of electors,” Robert Yablon, a law professor at the University of Wisconsin Law School, told the Times. “You could imagine there being disputed slates of electors that were sent to Congress, and it could have been a big mess.”
After Russia invaded Ukraine, the neutral countries of Sweden and Finland filed applications to join NATO in May.In a vote taken by The House, which is mostly symbolic, 394 congresspeople voted to support their induction while a small team of Republicans voted against the two Nordic countries.
We know that Republicans want schoolchildren and other Americans to keep dying in mass shootings, because preserving easy access to AR-15s is much more important than preventing massacres. We know that Republicans want women who are experiencing ectopic pregnancies not to have access to appropriate care, because women’s deaths are the inevitable collateral damage that comes from banning all abortions. We know that Republicans hate vaccines now. But they never stop trying to find new ways to hurt people, because when they do, we howl in outrage, and there’s no sweeter sound to a Republican voter.
Despite Republican opposition, Democrats passed a bill to affirm the right to cross state lines for abortion care in response to attempts by anti-choice lawmakers to ban such travel.
A couple of nights ago, Ohio’s Attorney General thought that it was his duty to cast doubt on the story by going on Fox News with Jesse Watters, calling it likely “a fabrication.” “This young girl, if she exists and if this horrible thing actually happened to her, it breaks my heart to think about it, she did not have to leave Ohio to find treatment,” Yost said. Also, another lie, as Ohio’s so-called “Heartbeat Law” makes no exceptions for rape or incest. That was unfortunate as it turned out, as less than 24 hours later a Columbus man was charged with impregnating the 10-year-old Ohio girl.
The Murdochracy is what failed it was the gristle the grout that failed to keep the Conservatives in America, UK and Australia together
Republicans seem to have reached that conclusion before, only to reverse course. This time, however, they have an example directly in front of them, not only of how it can be done, but, crucially, that it can be done with finality. If, as Johnson said himself, “In politics, no one is remotely indispensable,” surely then that is as true of former presidents as it is sitting prime ministers.
Republicans, let’s learn from our British political brethren.
The Australian LNP is up close and personal with the GOP the world’s largest white suprmecist organisation.
The contemporary Republican Party has become the world’s largest white supremacist organization, and now also explicitly supports the use of political violence and terrorism to advance the goal of ending multiracial democracy. Donald Trump’s coup attempt, culminating in the Capitol attack of Jan. 6, 2021, was the literal embodiment of those values, beliefs and goals. World’s largest White Supremicists
Patriot Front needs to be understood as a part of the militant wing of the Republican Party’s revanchist campaign to erase trans people from public life and push queer people back into the closet. When the right uses eliminationist rhetoric about LBGTQ people, it can’t then feign shock when straight-up fascists show up to support its cause.
From Arizona, where state Sen. Wendy Rogers spoke approvingly of hanging political enemies at a white nationalist rally, to Oklahoma, where the GOP chair and candidate for Congress talked about putting Anthony Fauci in front of a firing squad, Republicans are frequently musing about committing violence against their political opponents.
A new opinion poll by Shibley Telhami and Stella Rouse at the University of Maryland finds that Republicans dislike President Joe Biden more than Vladimir Putin by a margin of more than 2 to 1.
Republicans rooting for Putin and Trump…” Just Give Up”
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) on Wednesday slammed President Joe Biden for sending more military aid to Ukraine, and said that things would be better off if Ukrainians just gave up their efforts to resist the Russian invasion.
By contrast, the plan unveiled by Republican Sen. Rick Scott would not increase taxes on the top 1% by a single penny. Jake Johnson March 7, 2022 The policy agenda that Republican Sen. Rick Scott of Florida unveiled last month—and has continued to promote despite mounting backlash—would hike annual taxes on the poorest 40% of people in the United States by $1,000 on average while not raising taxes on the richest 1% by a single penny.
What would Senator Joe McCarthy and J E Hoover have said and done with a Putin loving Trump?
Trump’s fawning admiration of Vladimir Putin is well known, but it has often been brushed off as a quirk. We should have known how dangerous Putin was when he praised Trump as “impressive.” Trump is impressive the way spoiled butter left out too long is, rancid and foul-smelling. Now Trump is calling Putin “smart” and “savvy” and a “genius” for his brutal invasion of Ukraine.
Donald Trump and his former secretary of state Mike Pompeo are heaping praise on Vladimir Putin as the Russian president openly moves combat troops into Ukraine. “Here’s a guy who’s very savvy,” Trump said of Putin in a recent media appearance. “We could use that on our southern border.”
It’s really hard to ascertain who among the US Republicans is the biggest ostrich. Cruz with his head buried firmly in the ground or up Trump’s A-Hole?
Ted Cruz (R-TX) is saying that Joe Biden is the best thing that ever happened to Russian President Vladimir Putin.
If that same rejection rate were extrapolated to the 2020 race, more than 38,000 votes would not have been cast in a presidential contest decided by just over 11,000 votes.
A detailed analysis published Thursday shines further light on the Republican Party’s sprawling assault on voting rights and the democratic process nationwide, an effort that includes legislation that would “politicize, criminalize, and interfere” with elections.Upending Democracy,
The Republican assault on free and fair elections instigated by Donald Trump is gathering pace, with efforts to sabotage the normal workings of American democracy sweeping state legislatures across the US. A year that began with the violent insurrection at the US Capitol is ending with an unprecedented push to politicize, criminalize or in other ways subvert the nonpartisan administration of elections. A year-end report from pro-democracy groups identifies no fewer than 262 bills introduced in 41 states that hijack the election process. Of those, 32 bills have become law in 17 states.
Come 2024 these quiet custodians of democracy will have been replaced with loyalists and hacks ready to muddy the waters or supply the votes to secure a Trump win. The 2024 election will not witness a repeat of the events of 6 January. By the time Congress tallies the electoral votes on 6 January 2025, the putsch could be complete. And if it is, it will have been staged in the small offices of the election officials in the key swing states. And it’s all being scripted now.
And then, of course, there is the 2024 presidential election. Trump may or may not run again, but whoever the Republicans run, they will be looking for him to follow Trump’s example and act as a pardon machine. If you are a Republican and you are charged with any crime in connection with electing other Republicans, or even with committing violent crimes against the government of the United States, you won’t have anything to worry about. They already own enough judges, and if they get the White House back, it will be ollie-ollie-in-come-free for every Republican conspirator there is.
As Winston Churchill said about appeasing a power-hungry authoritarian ruler, “Each one hopes that if he feeds the crocodile enough, it will eat him last.”
It is part of multibillion-dollar Republicans for Voting Rights campaign, which calls on state lawmakers to ‘reject frivolous audits of 2020 election results’
Anyone who knows the history of abuse in the Congress’s prerogative of subpoenaing witnesses and holding people in contempt for declining to testify is a little uneasy about the vote today to refer far-right gadfly Steve Bannon to the Department of Justice on charges of contempt of Congress. Mary Clare Jalonick at AP reports that the vote was 229-202. Of the 213 Republicans, all but 9 voted “no” on the motion to hold Bannon in contempt. That is, the 202 “no” votes were all Republican representatives.
The United States has crossed the threshold of 700,000 Americans dead from COVID-19 according to data from Johns Hopkins University. Some 43 million Americans have contracted the deadly disease, which can have long-term health consequences.
Trump gave Republicans permission to be themselves. It “worked” for a time at the expense of the country, and it couldallow them to dominate politics for decades to come. But the party may face a high price for allowing the cruelest and most vicious elements of American society to run rampant. It might take some time, but the Trump effect could very well backfire on them in surprising ways.
The LNP would do the same if it weren’t for Compulsory Voting. The ALP is the only party that actually respects the right of all people to vote and sets out to serve us all. Yes, they make errors and Pink Bats may have been considered one but compared to the errors made by the current LNP, and where they have brought us today, the ALP’s mistakes have been trivial. The LNP’s errors, on the other hand, have been deliberate and have rippled across not just the domestic landscape but the planet and in the worst possible of ways.
More than 40 years ago, Republican political operative Paul Weyrich told a right-wing gathering, “I don’t want everybody to vote. Elections are not won by a majority of people. They never have been from the beginning of our country, and they are not now. As a matter of fact, our leverage in the elections quite candidly goes up as the voting populace goes down.”
It has long been assumed that as America heads toward a future in which people of color comprise a majority of the population, it will grow increasingly difficult for the Republican Party to win elections by appealing to a shrinking base of conservative white voters.
So : Trash the notion of the REPUBLIC
As Texas becomes more diverse, conservatives have held on by shaping the electorate to their advantage.
For citizens to grasp how public policy matters they must experience it as a part of their daily lives—the bridges they cross, the schools their children attend, the rural hospital that saved their life. Only then is there hope of them favoring collective enterprise. “Build Back Better” is not only a plan to revitalize the country but an opportunity to build back trust. Fried and Harris’ book gives us the knowledge and tools we need to shoulder this task—to build back better a commitment to the public good.
olddogthoughts 