Re: Defining the 21st Century Republican Party?
Posted: Tue May 04, 2021 1:23 pm
That is not dead which can eternal lie, and with strange aeons bring us some web forums whereupon we can gather
https://www.octopusoverlords.com/forum/
https://www.octopusoverlords.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=83495
It is sad and also darkly ironic that we're seemingly depending on her for any chance of saving the GOP as a sane political party. But I will say, obviously I'm not a fan of hers in general BUT she's doing the right thing and putting her neck on the line to stand up for our democracy.
ehhhhh, certainly not *everything*.Scraper wrote: ↑Tue May 04, 2021 1:23 pmI'm actually really surprised that he hasn't been more verbal about the current state of the GOP. They basically go against everything he stands for.
This. Fully this.El Guapo wrote: ↑Tue May 04, 2021 1:24 pmIt is sad and also darkly ironic that we're seemingly depending on her for any chance of saving the GOP as a sane political party. But I will say, obviously I'm not a fan of hers in general BUT she's doing the right thing and putting her neck on the line to stand up for our democracy.
Yup. There's an alternate timeline in which the GOP (plus electorate) rejects Trump and immediately looks respectable and balanced for doing so.El Guapo wrote: ↑Tue May 04, 2021 1:25 pmehhhhh, certainly not *everything*.Scraper wrote: ↑Tue May 04, 2021 1:23 pmI'm actually really surprised that he hasn't been more verbal about the current state of the GOP. They basically go against everything he stands for.
Yep. They were mean, corrupt, stern oligarchists but they knew they needed to generally take care of people. Now they are mean, corrupt, and malignantly aggrieved oligarchists despite having almost all the levers of power firmly in their grasp.
The harassment began soon after a report by a 19-year-old intern, who alleged an Idaho lawmaker raped her, became public.
One state representative sought a copy of the police report and made inquiries into how the young woman herself could be referred for criminal charges for reporting the alleged rape.
Another shared links to a far-right blog post that included the intern’s name, photo and personal details about her life with thousands of people in a newsletter and on social media.
And members of a far-right, anti-government activist group tried to follow and harass the young woman after she was called to testify in a legislative public ethics hearing.
...
The Idaho probe began in March after the intern reported that the lawmaker raped her in his apartment after they went to a Boise restaurant. Von Ehlinger has denied all wrongdoing and maintains they had consensual sex. The Boise Police Department is investigating.
A legislative ethics committee voted unanimously last week that Von Ehlinger engaged in “conduct unbecoming” a lawmaker. He resigned before the full House could vote on whether to remove him from office.
But the harassment faced by Doe did not stop. Members of the far-right are still attacking, some calling her disparaging names and posting her photo.
“You know that photo everyone is posting? I’m 12 years old in that photo. I’m not even a teenager in that photo, and they’re sharing it calling me nasty,” Doe said. “But the truth cannot be altered.”
Doe first began working in the Idaho Statehouse a year ago, helping with legislative committees under the Legislature’s high school “page” program.
She came back this year as an intern, hoping to prepare for a future career in government. She said she agreed to von Ehlinger’s dinner invitation because she was hoping to network and was excited to go to a restaurant that cost far more than what she could afford on her near-minimum wage salary.
After dinner, von Ehlinger brought her back to his apartment rather than her car because he said he’d forgotten something. Once there, Doe said, he pinned her down and forced her to perform oral sex, despite the fact that she said “no” in several ways and froze. Doe is petite, and von Ehlinger is bigger, she said.
“He has a collection of guns. Fight or flight was never an option,” she said.
During the alleged sexual assult, Doe said she tried to focus on something else.
“I got fixated on his curtains because they were bright red — I named them ‘American red’ in my head, because it was bright like the stripes in the flag,” she said. “I just stared at it ... I will never forget how disgusting I felt.”
She reported the incident two days later. Next came forensic exams, reports to the Idaho attorney general and interviews with the ethics committee. The committee eventually announced a public hearing would be held, making Doe’s complaint public on April 16.
Within hours, von Ehlinger’s supporters began publicizing Doe’s identity. One of his attorneys released a letter to the media that included Doe’s real name. Two far-right websites posted Doe’s name and details about her life, and one included her photo.
“I respected them enough not to keep it a secret,” Doe said of von Ehlinger’s fellow lawmakers, “and they destroyed me.”
Rep. Priscilla Giddings, a Republican from the tiny community of White Bird, shared the link with Doe’s name and photo in a newsletter to constituents and said the allegations were nothing more than a “liberal smear job.”
She also shared the blog post with thousands of followers on social media, making the intern’s identity widely known. Giddings has not responded to repeated requests for comment from the AP.
Rep. Heather Scott, a Republican from the community of Blanchard, filed a public record request with the city of Boise seeking a copy of the young woman’s police report.
John Brakey, an official helping oversee the audit of the 2020 Arizona election, says auditors are looking for bamboo fibers because of a baseless accusation that 40K ballots from Asia were smuggled here.
NEW: News media is barred from entry at Gov. Ron DeSantis’ signing of controversial elections bill, SB 90. DeSantis spokeswoman Taryn Fenske says bill signing is a “Fox exclusive”
This is almost certainly illegal. But there is no practical way to stop it. The worst part is this feeds him negative attention - which is what he seeks. Outrage is the currency of the GOP. It's a race to the bottom.Remus West wrote: ↑Thu May 06, 2021 1:21 pm Is that even legal? Can the rest of the media outlets sue him/his office/Florida? Please say they can. Please. Without lying.
Exactly, this was DeSantis "Owning the Libs" and his followers will eat it up. My hope is that the majority of the country continues to see it for what it is like they did with Trump (At least the 7 million more who voted for Biden did anyway).malchior wrote: ↑Thu May 06, 2021 2:16 pmThis is almost certainly illegal. But there is no practical way to stop it. The worst part is this feeds him negative attention - which is what he seeks. Outrage is the currency of the GOP. It's a race to the bottom.Remus West wrote: ↑Thu May 06, 2021 1:21 pm Is that even legal? Can the rest of the media outlets sue him/his office/Florida? Please say they can. Please. Without lying.
Backed by the Democratic Party’s lawyer Marc Elias, the League of Women Voters of Florida, Black Voters Matter Fund, Florida Alliance for Retired Americans, and three voters filed a lawsuit calling the new law a Republican response to unprecedented turnout last year and Trump’s “dangerous lie” of election fraud.
...
The groups also seek rulings calling the drop-box restrictions, line warming bans, vote-by-mail repeat request requirement, and voter assistance prohibition an undue burden on the right to vote.
The five-count complaint also bases other challenges upon free speech and association grounds.
I'd hazard they are part of something and they don't see themselves as being used. Use whatever psychology term and an analogy you like but as long as the the expression of misogyny takes place out of ear shot, these women are examples of either overcoming misogyny or misogyny being a myth. That's how closed door business is always done. As long as you can point to your [fill in the blank] example then there is no animus toward [fill in the blank]. I mean electing Obama president proved that racism and racial discrimination is a thing of the past in America, didn't it?YellowKing wrote: ↑Fri May 07, 2021 7:55 am Do these women and minorities of the Republican party not realize they're being used as tokens, or do they fully realize, and just not care?
The stupid, it burns!Thanks for making The Tyranny of Big Tech a best seller all week on Amazon! You can get your copy here (Amazon link)
After intervention from the Justice Department, the Arizona Senate has halted plans to proceed with a controversial election auditing measure that would have allowed contractors to visit voters door-to-door and interrogate them about their voting record. ... As part of the process, officials contracted a conspiracy-prone firm called Cyber Ninjas, which started work to “statistically identify voter registrations that did not make sense, and then knock on doors to confirm if valid voters actually lived at the stated address.”
But in a letter to Senate President Karen Fann, the DOJ said the process could target minority communities and have “significant intimidating effect” on voters. If the canvassing continued, the DOJ warned it might violate several civil rights laws against voter intimidation, and the DOJ might sue. Fann wrote back on Friday, noting the Senate would “indefinitely defer” that part of the program.
Would you do that if you knew Republicans controlled the county sheriff's department? Or if your employer were a connected GOP donor?
I guess the threat to arrest DOJ officials didn't work out.Isgrimnur wrote: ↑Sat May 08, 2021 5:47 pm The Daily Beast
After intervention from the Justice Department, the Arizona Senate has halted plans to proceed with a controversial election auditing measure that would have allowed contractors to visit voters door-to-door and interrogate them about their voting record. ... As part of the process, officials contracted a conspiracy-prone firm called Cyber Ninjas, which started work to “statistically identify voter registrations that did not make sense, and then knock on doors to confirm if valid voters actually lived at the stated address.”
But in a letter to Senate President Karen Fann, the DOJ said the process could target minority communities and have “significant intimidating effect” on voters. If the canvassing continued, the DOJ warned it might violate several civil rights laws against voter intimidation, and the DOJ might sue. Fann wrote back on Friday, noting the Senate would “indefinitely defer” that part of the program.
May 7, 2021 (Friday)
Josh Marshall at Talking Points Memo articulated today what many have been reluctant to say: What is at stake in the Big Lie and all the Republican efforts to keep it in play—the shenanigans in the secret Maricopa County, Arizona, recount; the censuring of Republicans who voted to impeach the former president; the expected removal of Wyoming Representative Liz Cheney from a leadership role in the party; and so on—is not the past election of 2020, but the upcoming election of 2024.
The Republican Party has demonstrated that it intends to control the government in the future, no matter what most Americans want. Iowa, Georgia, Montana, and Florida have already passed voter suppression laws, while other states are considering them. (Governor Ron DeSantis signed Florida’s bill yesterday live on the Fox News Channel.)
As Marshall points out, though, making sure that states return only Republicans to Congress is also about controlling the White House. Republican lawmakers are purging from state election machinery members of their own party who refused to change the outcome of the 2020 election and give a victory to Trump. The former president has fed speculation that he still hopes to overturn the 2020 election, but Marshall looks forward: Is it really possible to think that in 2024, members of the new Trump party will protect the sanctity of any election that gives a victory to a Democratic candidate? If Republicans capture the House in 2022, will they agree to certify electoral votes for a Democrat? In 2020, even before the current remaking of the party in Trump’s image, 139 House Republicans contested them.
Trump is systematically going after leading members of the Republican Party, determined to remake it into his own organization. Several former senior White House officials told Ashley Parker and Josh Dawsey of the Washington Post that “[t]he defeated ex-president is propelled primarily by a thirst for retribution, an insatiable quest for the spotlight and a desire to establish and maintain total dominance and control over the Republican base.” Republican strategist Brendan Buck noted that Trump seems to relish fighting, rather than victory to achieve an end. “Usually,” Buck said, “a fight is the means to an end, but in this case fighting is the end.”
The Republicans are consolidating their control over the machinery of government in a way that indicates they intend to control the country regardless of what Americans actually want, putting Trump and his organization back in charge. Democrats have proposed the For the People Act (H.R. 1 and S. 1), which would start to restore a level playing field between the parties. The For the People Act would sideline the new voter suppression bills and make it easier to vote. It would end partisan gerrymandering and stop the flow of big money into elections permitted after the 2010 Citizens United decision.
But Republicans are determined to stop this measure. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) is especially engaged in its obstruction. He has called it a “partisan takeover” that would “give Washington Democrats unprecedented control over 50 states’ election laws.” He recognizes that restoring a level electoral playing field would hamstring the Republicans’ ability to win elections. Defeating the act is McConnell’s top priority.
The story of how Republican leaders embraced voter suppression and gerrymandering starts back in the 1980s, though the mechanics of overturning a presidential election are new to 2020. Still, their undermining of our democratic system begs the question: Why are leading Republicans surrendering their party, and our nation, to a budding autocrat?
Two days ago, when asked if he is concerned about the direction of his party, McConnell told reporters that he is not paying attention to it because the Democrats are trying “to turn American into a socialist country,” and that “[o]ne-hundred percent of our focus is on stopping this new administration.”
In his April 28 address before a joint session of Congress, President Biden indicated he intended to reverse the course the government has been on since the Reagan years. “My fellow Americans,” Biden said, “trickle-down… economics has never worked, and it's time to grow the economy from the bottom up and the middle out.”
Republicans have tied themselves to the idea that, as Reagan said, “government is not the solution to our problem, government is the problem” (although in 1981 he prefaced that statement with the words: “In this present crisis”). Since the 1990s, they have focused on tax cuts and deregulation as the key to building a strong economy, even though that program has moved wealth dramatically upward.
Today, Republicans interpreted a jobs report that showed job growth slowing in April as a sign that Biden’s American Rescue Plan, which pumped $1.9 trillion into the country to help it heal from the coronavirus recession, has failed. Rather than speeding up growth, they say, it is slowing it down. Biden pointed out that the nation has added 1.5 million jobs since he took office and that the recession will not end overnight, but Republicans insist that the federal $300 weekly unemployment checks included in the law are keeping people from going back to work.
The top Republican on the House Ways and Means Committee, Representative Kevin Brady of Texas, issued a statement saying: “This is a stunning economic setback, and unequivocal proof that President Biden is sabotaging our jobs recovery with promises of higher taxes and regulation on local businesses that discourage hiring and drive jobs overseas.”
Citing help wanted ads, Republican governors in South Carolina, Montana, and Arkansas are ending the unemployment benefit in their own states to get people back to work. Other Republican-led states are suing the administration to force it to let them use the money provided in the American Rescue Plan not to offer help to workers, but to subsidize tax cuts. Meanwhile, still others at home are touting the benefits of the American Rescue Plan to their constituents without mentioning that they voted against it.
Americans appear to like the new direction of the country. Seventy-seven percent liked the American Rescue Plan and 56% like Biden’s proposed American Jobs Plan for infrastructure, while 65% want to tax people making more than $400,000 a year to pay for it. At the same time, a new Pew poll suggests that the divisiveness of the Trump years is easing and that young people in particular are not interested in the culture wars.
Faced with the prospect of voters rejecting their economic policies, Republican leaders are undermining democracy.
Representative Liz Cheney of Wyoming delivered a defiant last stand hours before facing a vote to purge her from House Republican leadership for her outspoken repudiation of former President Donald J. Trump’s election lies, declaring Tuesday night on the House floor that she would not sit back quietly as her party aided Mr. Trump’s attempts to undermine democracy.
Ms. Cheney, who is facing a vote Wednesday morning that is almost certain to succeed in ousting her from House Republicans’ No. 3 post, declared on Tuesday that the nation was facing a “never seen before” threat in a former president who provoked the Jan. 6 Capitol attack and who “has resumed his aggressive effort to convince Americans that the election was stolen from him.”
“Remaining silent and ignoring the lie emboldens the liar,” Ms. Cheney said. “I will not participate in that. I will not sit back and watch in silence, while others lead our party down a path that abandons the rule of law and joins the former president’s crusade to undermine our democracy.”
The Wyoming Republican’s remarkable broadside illustrated her unrepentant response to the effort to dethrone her. She has cast her almost certain expulsion from the leadership ranks as a “turning point” for her party and told allies that the leadership post is simply not worth having if it requires her to lie.
I'm definitely not a fan. However political courage is in incredibly short supply so I have to give her credit for that at least.