That is not dead which can eternal lie, and with strange aeons bring us some web forums whereupon we can gather
http://www.octopusoverlords.com/forum/
By my count, the Superspreader In Chief may only have 2-3 months of Immunity left, and w/o Gov't Health Care, he wouldn't have survived the last time:
People who have been infected with Covid-19 are likely to be protected against catching it again for at least five months, according to a new study led by Public Health England (PHE).
The study -- which has not yet been peer reviewed
Oh, I strongly agree that we need a strong conservative party, even Biden came out last week and said so. I've voted for both parties in the past and would like to again. My point, perhaps not made very clearly, is that this is not going to happen any time soon. The Republicans are going to have to go away into the wilderness as a viable party for Trumpism to be purged. As long as they can win elections with that disease, it will never be purged from the body politic. And to do my part, I have taken a personal vow to never vote Republican until Trumpism is purged and not to vote for any Republican in the least supported Trump, until they publicly recant and admit they were wrong.Kurth wrote: ↑Fri Jan 15, 2021 12:40 pm
I don't think that's the best thing for the Democrats at all. The best thing for the Democrats - and our republic - would be to have two functional, sane political parties. Even if you disagree with core principles of the GOP platform (or, at least, what that platform used to be), it's vital that we have options and alternatives. We all benefit from hearing competing viewpoints and ideas. The Democratic party is a big tent, and there are certainly different voices within that tent, but it's not the same as having a competing viewpoint from another party. I fear for what the Democratic party will become if it's operating in a vacuum.
I don't want to see the GOP crippled or dead. I want to see it purged of the Trumpaloos and rebuilt from the ground up, returning to principles of limited government, free market capitalism, fiscal conservatism and strong national defense.
I'm not optimistic that's going to happen at this point, but I do believe that's what we need.
I think you're vastly underestimating the curative powers of the Colonel's 11 herbs and spices.Pyperkub wrote: ↑Fri Jan 15, 2021 2:34 pm
By my count, the Superspreader In Chief may only have 2-3 months of Immunity left, and w/o Gov't Health Care, he wouldn't have survived the last time:
Yep, this.Grifman wrote: ↑Fri Jan 15, 2021 3:04 pmOh, I strongly agree that we need a strong conservative party, even Biden came out last week and said so. I've voted for both parties in the past and would like to again. My point, perhaps not made very clearly, is that this is not going to happen any time soon. The Republicans are going to have to go away into the wilderness as a viable party for Trumpism to be purged. As long as they can win elections with that disease, it will never be purged from the body politic. And to do my part, I have taken a personal vow to never vote Republican until Trumpism is purged and not to vote for any Republican in the least supported Trump, until they publicly recant and admit they were wrong.Kurth wrote: ↑Fri Jan 15, 2021 12:40 pm
I don't think that's the best thing for the Democrats at all. The best thing for the Democrats - and our republic - would be to have two functional, sane political parties. Even if you disagree with core principles of the GOP platform (or, at least, what that platform used to be), it's vital that we have options and alternatives. We all benefit from hearing competing viewpoints and ideas. The Democratic party is a big tent, and there are certainly different voices within that tent, but it's not the same as having a competing viewpoint from another party. I fear for what the Democratic party will become if it's operating in a vacuum.
I don't want to see the GOP crippled or dead. I want to see it purged of the Trumpaloos and rebuilt from the ground up, returning to principles of limited government, free market capitalism, fiscal conservatism and strong national defense.
I'm not optimistic that's going to happen at this point, but I do believe that's what we need.
We need the parties (both, but currently a far larger percentage of the GOP, to stop doing this for power):Zaxxon wrote: ↑Fri Jan 15, 2021 3:43 pmYep, this.Grifman wrote: ↑Fri Jan 15, 2021 3:04 pmOh, I strongly agree that we need a strong conservative party, even Biden came out last week and said so. I've voted for both parties in the past and would like to again. My point, perhaps not made very clearly, is that this is not going to happen any time soon. The Republicans are going to have to go away into the wilderness as a viable party for Trumpism to be purged. As long as they can win elections with that disease, it will never be purged from the body politic. And to do my part, I have taken a personal vow to never vote Republican until Trumpism is purged and not to vote for any Republican in the least supported Trump, until they publicly recant and admit they were wrong.Kurth wrote: ↑Fri Jan 15, 2021 12:40 pm
I don't think that's the best thing for the Democrats at all. The best thing for the Democrats - and our republic - would be to have two functional, sane political parties. Even if you disagree with core principles of the GOP platform (or, at least, what that platform used to be), it's vital that we have options and alternatives. We all benefit from hearing competing viewpoints and ideas. The Democratic party is a big tent, and there are certainly different voices within that tent, but it's not the same as having a competing viewpoint from another party. I fear for what the Democratic party will become if it's operating in a vacuum.
I don't want to see the GOP crippled or dead. I want to see it purged of the Trumpaloos and rebuilt from the ground up, returning to principles of limited government, free market capitalism, fiscal conservatism and strong national defense.
I'm not optimistic that's going to happen at this point, but I do believe that's what we need.
Historically, you tend toward a bit more conservative than me, IIRC, but this is almost exactly where I am. I actually need a bit more than the Trumpism purge (I need the legal gamesmanship and doubletalk toned back many degrees from where it had led us) and I need a bit of sustained change in that bit more but I do long for being able to vote against democrats (or more preferably for their alternative) I don't want in good conscience.Grifman wrote: ↑Fri Jan 15, 2021 3:04 pm Oh, I strongly agree that we need a strong conservative party, even Biden came out last week and said so. I've voted for both parties in the past and would like to again. My point, perhaps not made very clearly, is that this is not going to happen any time soon. The Republicans are going to have to go away into the wilderness as a viable party for Trumpism to be purged. As long as they can win elections with that disease, it will never be purged from the body politic. And to do my part, I have taken a personal vow to never vote Republican until Trumpism is purged and not to vote for any Republican in the least supported Trump, until they publicly recant and admit they were wrong.
I think you might be surprised. Big business is abandoning Republicans wholesale. But it's not like capital power players are just going to exit politics entirely - that's money that is going to be rerouted into Democratic coffers instead. Republican voters are leaving the party wholesale. Most of these people aren't going to stop voting. They're going to start voting for Democrats instead...particularly in Democratic primaries.Grifman wrote: ↑Fri Jan 15, 2021 3:04 pmOh, I strongly agree that we need a strong conservative party, even Biden came out last week and said so. I've voted for both parties in the past and would like to again. My point, perhaps not made very clearly, is that this is not going to happen any time soon.
Correction: big business has promised to abandon Republicans wholesale, suddenly, in what is probably the worst week for the GOP brand since Watergate.Little Raven wrote: ↑Fri Jan 15, 2021 5:00 pm I think you might be surprised. Big business is abandoning Republicans wholesale. But it's not like capital power players are just going to exit politics entirely - that's money that is going to be rerouted into Democratic coffers instead. Republican voters are leaving the party wholesale.
But that's not actually the most important thing for big business. Sure, they enjoy loose regulation and oversight, but by far the most important thing to big business is stability. And that's something the Republicans can no longer promise.
She ignores the religion extremism.Grifman wrote:I think Terry Kanefield has the best view of what lies ahead for the Republican Party in this twitter thread:
Could this be a start of an official 'Cult of Trump' in Mar-A-Lago? He could use religious freedom, Desantis would be all for it. Police, militia and his cultists would flock to him to set up their own pseudo-government in Florida. Be like Scientologists but more crazy.Holman wrote: ↑Sat Jan 16, 2021 5:22 pm Speaking of QAnon, in case you were wondering where the goalposts were now that Biden's Inauguration looks inevitable...
The new theory is that Trump will be inaugurated in March (the original Inauguration date), and that he will not be receiving a new term as the 45th president but will in fact be the 19th president.
This is because after Ulysses S. Grant, the original Republic ceased to be and the U.S. became a corporation. Trump's next inauguration will be a restoration of the actual Republic.
(Presumably this theory derives from the Electoral College difficulties involved in the election of Hayes after Grant, but I dunno.)
So January 20th doesn't matter at all, guys. Trust the Plan!!1!
So tell me, Mitch, in these, your final hours as Senate majority leader: Were the judges and the tax cuts worth it?
Were they worth the sacking of the Capitol? The annexation of the Republican Party by the paranoiacs and the delusional? The degradation, possibly irremediable, of democracy itself?
Those close to him say that Mitch McConnell has his eye on his legacy, now more than ever. But I wonder whether he already understands, in some back bay of his brain where the gears haven’t been ground to nubs, that history will not treat him well.
McConnell may think that the speech he gave on the Senate floor on Jan. 6, objecting to the election deniers, will spare him history’s judgment. It will not. It did not make him a hero. It simply made him a responsible citizen.
If McConnell ultimately votes to convict Donald Trump in his second Senate impeachment trial — he has suggested he’s open to the idea — that won’t make him a hero, either. He will simply have done the right thing and likely not for the right reasons: As Alec MacGillis makes plain in his excellent book “The Cynic,” Mitch McConnell never does anything unless it serves the interests of Mitch McConnell.
Not in my neck of the woods. One GOP member up for re-election in Maine was touting his involvement with cleaning up an essential waterway earlier in his career as a selling point. Curious, I went to dig up some info. Apparently, thanks to zero regulation on corporations, the river had become so polluted that it was toxic - like the surface was almost flammable. There was a big movement from Democrats to fix this, and I found a lot of GOP opposition to it originally because it was going to be expensive and force businesses out. This guy only signed on when it was going to pass one way or another without him. Yet here he was, 30+ years later, claiming to be part of the cleanup effort.
Paingod wrote: ↑Tue Jan 19, 2021 10:44 amNot in my neck of the woods. One GOP member up for re-election in Maine was touting his involvement with cleaning up an essential waterway earlier in his career as a selling point. Curious, I went to dig up some info. Apparently, thanks to zero regulation on corporations, the river had become so polluted that it was toxic - like the surface was almost flammable. There was a big movement from Democrats to fix this, and I found a lot of GOP opposition to it originally because it was going to be expensive and force businesses out. This guy only signed on when it was going to pass one way or another without him. Yet here he was, 30+ years later, claiming to be part of the cleanup effort.Prior to the GOP’s currrent demonization of the sciences, environmentalism was actually a cause many Republicans supported.
Today, this river is seen as a pristine wilderness and draws a lot of tourism dollars from people looking for clean outdoors fun. It's become a valuable resource in itself, without mills dumping chemicals into it.
My view on GOP 'environmentalism' is that it only extends until it butts up against corporate profit. For as long as I can remember, if an environmental control or regulation has a chance of dipping a small percentage out of the till, they oppose it.
I agree with The Meal.The Meal wrote: ↑Tue Jan 19, 2021 11:58 amStill a bad attribution to the original quote.LordMortis wrote: ↑Tue Jan 19, 2021 11:39 amPaingod wrote: ↑Tue Jan 19, 2021 10:44 amNot in my neck of the woods. One GOP member up for re-election in Maine was touting his involvement with cleaning up an essential waterway earlier in his career as a selling point. Curious, I went to dig up some info. Apparently, thanks to zero regulation on corporations, the river had become so polluted that it was toxic - like the surface was almost flammable. There was a big movement from Democrats to fix this, and I found a lot of GOP opposition to it originally because it was going to be expensive and force businesses out. This guy only signed on when it was going to pass one way or another without him. Yet here he was, 30+ years later, claiming to be part of the cleanup effort.
Today, this river is seen as a pristine wilderness and draws a lot of tourism dollars from people looking for clean outdoors fun. It's become a valuable resource in itself, without mills dumping chemicals into it.
My view on GOP 'environmentalism' is that it only extends until it butts up against corporate profit. For as long as I can remember, if an environmental control or regulation has a chance of dipping a small percentage out of the till, they oppose it.
Didn't used to be that way in Michigan. Once upon a time into the 80s and the early 90s there were was a huge "protect our natural resources" faction of the GOP here. Now it's all 2a lip service to keep the hunter vote. The rest of it is completely gone. They attack the carp problem as pork spending, support fracking, strip logging, deny waterway problems until it affects their districts, deny climate change as our biomes shift, etc... This is only a dominant GOP juggernaut since Koch became a household recognized name, since keystone became a recognized name, since DeVos and Engler started attacking the education system from within. It's been a 20 year journey of watching the drain circle.
[edited to fix original bad attribution of quote]malchior wrote:The greatest takedown of McConnell I have ever read. The quote below is just a warm up for a thrashing that rips back McConnell's endless hypocrisy. I learned things I didn't know. McConnell was pro-choice for Pete's sake way back when. He abandoned that position like so many for power at the cost of his legacy and his humanity.
———————————————//——//So tell me, Mitch, in these, your final hours as Senate majority leader: Were the judges and the tax cuts worth it?
Damn I hate working with quotes on forums. HATE!!
Great op-Ed, thanks. I got lost reading the mostly insightful comments.
I would also say that yes, he probably DOES think the judges and massive tax cut for the rich (himself) were worth it.
One of the better comments:
“It took barbarians to bring down Rome, but now we've created our own home-grown variety, as we saw on January 6th. Keep wages low, decimate education, healthcare, infrastructure, and the taxes to fund them, and you get the troglodytes we saw rampaging through the Capitol. McConnell will be hurled to them as a human sacrifice by those who seek to supplant him.”
Not really. It depends on your metric. If the "good" solution means more people agree with it, then yes, a second party can help. If a metric was "fix the problem as fast as possible", then perhaps not. Given that the Democratic party is not at all monolithic, I would think it could go it alone just fine.
And just to toss the obvious in--the existance of a second party doesn't necessarily imply that their competing solutions will be working toward an objective improvement, made in good faith, or, indeed, even that a competing solution will be brought forth (see eg GOP governing platforms in the past years). Further, in a 2-party system competing solutions often tend toward 'the opposition's ideas (or the opposition itself) are bad' moreso than 'our solutions are better.'stessier wrote: ↑Tue Jan 19, 2021 12:41 pmNot really. It depends on your metric. If the "good" solution means more people agree with it, then yes, a second party can help. If a metric was "fix the problem as fast as possible", then perhaps not. Given that the Democratic party is not at all monolithic, I would think it could go it alone just fine.
I agree. The rub is it is likely that'd require reform on a scale outside our capability to deliver. Especially since we seemingly have two groups with widely different values now. How would we get them to agree on the changes required?
Exactly. In pining for a more functional two party system with two non-crazy parties, I'm not offering my version of the ideal.
The scary part I can't think of one example of an illiberal authoritarian movement at this scale moderating itself. I won't say it has never happened or impossible to accomplish but it seems far more likely it'll get worse than get better. The conditions that satisfy them are essentially achieving total control over the government. This is fundamentally antithetical to the requirement in a democracy for power sharing. Even if McConnell /McCarthy et. al. surrender a bit to Joe and accept some power sharing in the upcoming Congress, I think the base will be just rip them limb from limb metaphorically. We're now well past the tipping point where they are pretending to believe in traditional American "big d" Democratic values.
I disagree to a degree. The issue is that while elections are zero-sum games, governing does not have to be one. However, the GOP has gone all in on Governing as a Zero Sum game so that they can win elections.