Senate Republicans will not issue any sort of a platform before next year’s midterm elections. At a meeting of donors and lawmakers in mid-November, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) said that the Republican Party’s 2024 nominee would be responsible for deciding on an agenda. The Republican senators in 2022 will simply attack the Democrats.
Let’s coin a new phrase: “junk Politics.” Like junk food and junk bonds. Cheap and addictive. Engineered to taste good but offering no nutrition. Junk Politics stimulates addictive receptors in the brain - particularly the reptilian brain - that drown out higher powers of thought and reasoning. Purveyors of Junk Politics stir up emotions that offer a kind of emotional gratification while dooming their consumers to ultimate enslavement as their health deteriorates and they become unable to distinguish what’s good for them from what they are addicted to. We stood up against the tobacco companies and held them accountable. Can we defeat Junk Politics? Part of defeating an evil is by naming it for what it is. Democrats need catchy phrases like “fake news.” Why not “Junk Politics!”
The GQP will have no platform, no ideas, no agenda for the 2022 elections according to Mitch “no progress” McConnell; but rather will leave all “what we stand for” planks to the authority of one man, whoever gets the GQP nomination in 2024
Doesn’t that kinda describe how dictatorships work?
What a magnificent tying together of history and actualities! This is an excellent iteration of the basic premises of democracy, socialism, and communism. Rep. Greene is deranged in her understanding, and Gov. Desantis has crossed a line. Thank you for sharing the clarity of a sound mind and your profound understanding of the historical forces that have shaped and continue to inform our hope.
If Governor DeSantis doesn't scare you, nothing will. Are we really going to pay for a private militia???? (I have the dubious fortune to live in Florida, working in the news industry for more than 30 years.) He is trying to separate the state from federal oversight e.g. last month in special session the legislature approved creating a state-run Occupational Safety & Health Administration (which would need federal approval). To date our Republican-controlled legislature has rubber-stamped everything he has done to impede protections against Covid-19 infection, legislate criminal penalties for peaceful protest, distribute vaccines on the basis of PAC contributions, etc. Is there a point at which my Republican neighbors and legislators will say "Enough already?" Even well-informed citizens are becoming frightened.
The Republican Party has had no official policies for years. For the first time in my memory
The ‘Republican Party’ (which was the Trump party by time time of the 2020 nominating convention,) ‘chose’ not to include a policy platform in its formal proceedings. Instead, they acquiesced to Trump’s ‘policy by tweets.’ Nothing on our traditional alliances including NATO, nothing on our traditional alliances, including NATO, nothing on the Middle East, including the 6-nation nuclear agreement with Iran, nothing on economic, social, and infrastructure. NOTHING!
This remains the ‘Republican’ non-policy today and through the 2024 ‘Republican’ presidential convention. They haven’t a clue what they stand for as they await for Trumpimania to play out. Instead, they are intent on fear mongering and opposition to whatever the Democrats do. While President Biden and his professional team iare building an impressive portfolio of success domestically and globally, the ‘Republicans’ are a party of NYET. I believe that this makes them vulnerable in the 2022 elections and during their subsequent ‘stand for nothing’ mishmash.
When Eastman, Clark, and others plead the Fifth Amendment before a congressional committee, they exercise their constitutional right not to engage in self-incrimination. However, if they are granted partial or total immunity, they can then be obliged to testify fully or face criminal charges. Back during Watergate, when Jim McCord, John Dean, and Jed McGruder sought a deal with the prosecutors, the White House wall of take-no-prisoners resistance swiftly crumbled. In the grand jury investigations in New York, there is a possibility of the same occurring. I would not be surprised to see a save-my-own-skin decision by one or more of the Trumpites subpoenaed by congressional committees.
These points about socialism and communism cannot be made often enough, so thank you for this. FL Gov. DeSantis gets scarier by the day. He has no compassion for the unemployed; shows no concern for seniors, students, school employees or the public at large in implementing his disastrous Covid policies, and now wants to create his own private paramilitary group accountable only to him. He is seemingly a classic example of the rising autocratic ideology that is becoming much to prevalent and, in some cases, too powerful.
I grew up in the 50s, etc. loved Ike and thought most republicans were honorable brokers. However it appears that Ike was an anomaly. He certainly would piss on republicans today if he wasn’t stunned speechless that they are the same as the fascists that he fought in WW2. They may have pretended to sign on to parts of the FDR program, but there is plenty of evidence that that too was an anomaly. The Coup of 1933 (See Gen. Smedley Butler); FDR “We must be especially beware of that small group of selfish men who would clip the wings of the American Eagle in order to feather their own nests.” FDR: “The liberty of a democracy is not safe if the people tolerated the growth of private power to the point where it becomes stronger than the democratic state itself. That in it’s essence is racism: ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or any controlling private power.” HST: Republicans approve of the American farmer, but they are willing to help him go broke. They stand four-square for the American home-but not for housing. They are strong for labor-but they are stronger for restricting labor’s rights. The favor minimum wage-the smaller the minimum wage the better. They endorse educational opportunity for all-but they won’t spend money for teachers or for schools. They think modern medical care and hospitals are fine-for people who can afford them. They consider electrical power a great blessing-but only when the private power companies get their own rake-off. They think American standard of living is a fine thing-so long as it doesn’t spread to all the people. And they admire the government of the United States so much that they would like to buy it. Henry Wallace in 1944: American fascists claim to be super patriots, but they would destroy every liberty guaranteed by the Constitution. They demand free enterprise, but are the spokesmen for monopoly and vested interest. Their final objective is to capture political power so that, using the power of the state and the power of the market simultaneously, they may keep the common man in eternal subjection.” A. Stevenson: “I have been thinking that I would make a proposition to my republican friends…that if they will stop telling lies about the Democrats, we will stop telling the truth about them. I rest my case!
BTW, Majorie three names is really Marjorie Joe McCarthy. As has already been established, she has absolutely no shame.
What are we going to do about gun violence in this country? WE WE WE, the people, what are we going to do about guns sales in this country? So what if a president cried about it? So what about the grieving families of the victims and the shooters? So what if I could fill this comment with information about suicides by guns -- shootings in the streets -- in the schools -- through the windows of homes... and fill another 100,000 comments with news and statistics about gun violence in the USA? What if elected representatives won't do anything about this? What about our children scared to death because they know that they could be shot dead at anytime?
Hegel remarks somewhere that all great world-historic facts and personages appear, so to speak, twice. He forgot to add: the first time as tragedy, the second time as farce.
- Karl Marx: The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte
We could say: the American revolution is our history; the Civil War is our tragedy: and the ReaganTrump sedition is our farce - but truly the Republican regnum is tragedy all the way.
As with Walter Benjamin's comment on the angel of history: Where we perceive a chain of events, he sees one single catastrophe which keeps piling wreckage upon wreckage and hurls it in front of his feet.
The Republican party of god, guns, and greed is instituting a dystopia of apocalyptic irrationality, unregulated violence, and unconscionable greed, which threatens our democratic nation, our most vulnerable neighbors, and our fragile planet.
Sometimes I must recall that despair is another form of voter suppression which only serves the GOP - its plutocrat paymasters and populist puppets. And there is too much work to be done.
'I Was the Governor of Montana. My Fellow Democrats, You Need to Get Out of the City More.'
Excerpts follow from Steve Bullock's Opinion in today's New York Times. He has important advice for the Democratic Party, will it listen?
'The warning signs were already there in 2020 when Democrats fell short in congressional and state races despite electing Joe Biden president. I know because I was on the ballot for U.S. Senate and lost. In the last decade and a half, we’ve seen Senate seats flip red in Arkansas, Indiana, North Dakota, and more. Democrats have lost more than 900 state legislative seats around the country since 2008. And in this year’s governor’s races in Virginia and New Jersey, we saw the Democratic vote in rural areas plummet, costing the party one seat and nearly losing us the other. It was even worse for Democrats down ballot, as Democrats lost state legislative, county, and municipal seats.'
'The core problem is a familiar one — Democrats are out of touch with the needs of the ordinary voter. In 2021, voters watched Congress debate for months the cost of an infrastructure bill while holding a social spending bill hostage. Both measures contain policies that address the challenges Americans across the country face. Yet to anyone outside the Beltway, the infighting and procedural brinkmanship haven’t done a lick to meet their needs at a moment of health challenges, inflation and economic struggles. You had Democrats fighting Democrats, letting the perfect be the enemy of the good, and desperately needed progress was delayed. It’s no wonder rural voters think Democrats are not focused on helping them.'
'It’s never easy for Democrats to get elected in Montana, because Democrats here are running against not only the opponent on the ballot, but also against conservative media’s (and at times our own) typecast of the national Democratic brand: coastal, overly educated, elitist, judgmental, socialist — a bundle of identity groups and interests lacking any shared principles. The problem isn’t the candidates we nominate. It’s the perception of the party we belong to.'
'To overcome these obstacles, Democrats need to show up, listen, and respect voters in rural America by finding common ground instead of talking down to them. Eliminating student loans isn’t a top-of-mind matter for the two-thirds of Americans lacking a college degree. Being told that climate change is the most critical issue our nation faces rings hollow if you’re struggling to make it to the end of the month. And the most insulting thing is being told what your self-interest should be.'
What a Letter today!!! McConnell stating that the Republiqan Party has no platform but for what their eventual "leader" will tell them they will have is one thing. Their platform is indeed that of culture wars. Tim Ryan calling out the Republiqans by saying "“What you’re seeing here before the United States Congress is two clear, different visions of America and where we want to go and what we want to do"". Then the historical context, from Reconstruction to where Reagan and Gingrich took us. Then the exercise of 5th Amendment Privilege by those who realized that there could be some criminal culpability for their actions leading up to 6 January and what that might mean. The scary thing is what the Floriduh governor wants to do; have is own militia that is loyal to him. I do believe that this may be a harbinger of things to come.
Thanks, as always, to the LFAA community for the other conversations this morning.
“ Clark tried to involve the Justice Department itself in overruling the results of the 2020 election. Today he announced that he has a medical condition that will not allow him to testify before the January 6th committee tomorrow as planned.”
Jeffery Clark has a “medical condition”, it’s nots so rare, a common side effect from exposure to demagoguery. He’s Suffering from both an acute cranial/rectal inversion, compounded by a self inflicted testicularectomy, the syndrome presents first as a total loss of moral courage, and progresses to uncontrolled dishonesty, and ends with district orange or striped suits behind bars.
"Socialism is a system of government in which the means of production are owned by the government and, through the government—theoretically—by the people. Communism is the final stage of that form of social organization. It abolishes private ownership of land, farms, and factories, giving control of all those things to the state, which, in turn, provides everyone with jobs, housing, education, and medical care."
How pathetic that people who are so-called leaders of these United States -- in the guise of senators and representatives belonging to the party of the Grand Old Phonies -- don't have a clue about the definitions of the terms communism and socialism! They bandy these ideological labels around like swear words, hoping they will stick to the Democrats like stigmas of dishonor. They have no clue how uneducated they sound!
Let’s coin a new phrase: “junk Politics.” Like junk food and junk bonds. Cheap and addictive. Engineered to taste good but offering no nutrition. Junk Politics stimulates addictive receptors in the brain - particularly the reptilian brain - that drown out higher powers of thought and reasoning. Purveyors of Junk Politics stir up emotions that offer a kind of emotional gratification while dooming their consumers to ultimate enslavement as their health deteriorates and they become unable to distinguish what’s good for them from what they are addicted to. We stood up against the tobacco companies and held them accountable. Can we defeat Junk Politics? Part of defeating an evil is by naming it for what it is. Democrats need catchy phrases like “fake news.” Why not “Junk Politics!”
The GQP will have no platform, no ideas, no agenda for the 2022 elections according to Mitch “no progress” McConnell; but rather will leave all “what we stand for” planks to the authority of one man, whoever gets the GQP nomination in 2024
Doesn’t that kinda describe how dictatorships work?
What a magnificent tying together of history and actualities! This is an excellent iteration of the basic premises of democracy, socialism, and communism. Rep. Greene is deranged in her understanding, and Gov. Desantis has crossed a line. Thank you for sharing the clarity of a sound mind and your profound understanding of the historical forces that have shaped and continue to inform our hope.
If Governor DeSantis doesn't scare you, nothing will. Are we really going to pay for a private militia???? (I have the dubious fortune to live in Florida, working in the news industry for more than 30 years.) He is trying to separate the state from federal oversight e.g. last month in special session the legislature approved creating a state-run Occupational Safety & Health Administration (which would need federal approval). To date our Republican-controlled legislature has rubber-stamped everything he has done to impede protections against Covid-19 infection, legislate criminal penalties for peaceful protest, distribute vaccines on the basis of PAC contributions, etc. Is there a point at which my Republican neighbors and legislators will say "Enough already?" Even well-informed citizens are becoming frightened.
The Republican Party has had no official policies for years. For the first time in my memory
The ‘Republican Party’ (which was the Trump party by time time of the 2020 nominating convention,) ‘chose’ not to include a policy platform in its formal proceedings. Instead, they acquiesced to Trump’s ‘policy by tweets.’ Nothing on our traditional alliances including NATO, nothing on our traditional alliances, including NATO, nothing on the Middle East, including the 6-nation nuclear agreement with Iran, nothing on economic, social, and infrastructure. NOTHING!
This remains the ‘Republican’ non-policy today and through the 2024 ‘Republican’ presidential convention. They haven’t a clue what they stand for as they await for Trumpimania to play out. Instead, they are intent on fear mongering and opposition to whatever the Democrats do. While President Biden and his professional team iare building an impressive portfolio of success domestically and globally, the ‘Republicans’ are a party of NYET. I believe that this makes them vulnerable in the 2022 elections and during their subsequent ‘stand for nothing’ mishmash.
When Eastman, Clark, and others plead the Fifth Amendment before a congressional committee, they exercise their constitutional right not to engage in self-incrimination. However, if they are granted partial or total immunity, they can then be obliged to testify fully or face criminal charges. Back during Watergate, when Jim McCord, John Dean, and Jed McGruder sought a deal with the prosecutors, the White House wall of take-no-prisoners resistance swiftly crumbled. In the grand jury investigations in New York, there is a possibility of the same occurring. I would not be surprised to see a save-my-own-skin decision by one or more of the Trumpites subpoenaed by congressional committees.
These points about socialism and communism cannot be made often enough, so thank you for this. FL Gov. DeSantis gets scarier by the day. He has no compassion for the unemployed; shows no concern for seniors, students, school employees or the public at large in implementing his disastrous Covid policies, and now wants to create his own private paramilitary group accountable only to him. He is seemingly a classic example of the rising autocratic ideology that is becoming much to prevalent and, in some cases, too powerful.
Could Jeffrey Clark's medical condition be Fear?
I grew up in the 50s, etc. loved Ike and thought most republicans were honorable brokers. However it appears that Ike was an anomaly. He certainly would piss on republicans today if he wasn’t stunned speechless that they are the same as the fascists that he fought in WW2. They may have pretended to sign on to parts of the FDR program, but there is plenty of evidence that that too was an anomaly. The Coup of 1933 (See Gen. Smedley Butler); FDR “We must be especially beware of that small group of selfish men who would clip the wings of the American Eagle in order to feather their own nests.” FDR: “The liberty of a democracy is not safe if the people tolerated the growth of private power to the point where it becomes stronger than the democratic state itself. That in it’s essence is racism: ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or any controlling private power.” HST: Republicans approve of the American farmer, but they are willing to help him go broke. They stand four-square for the American home-but not for housing. They are strong for labor-but they are stronger for restricting labor’s rights. The favor minimum wage-the smaller the minimum wage the better. They endorse educational opportunity for all-but they won’t spend money for teachers or for schools. They think modern medical care and hospitals are fine-for people who can afford them. They consider electrical power a great blessing-but only when the private power companies get their own rake-off. They think American standard of living is a fine thing-so long as it doesn’t spread to all the people. And they admire the government of the United States so much that they would like to buy it. Henry Wallace in 1944: American fascists claim to be super patriots, but they would destroy every liberty guaranteed by the Constitution. They demand free enterprise, but are the spokesmen for monopoly and vested interest. Their final objective is to capture political power so that, using the power of the state and the power of the market simultaneously, they may keep the common man in eternal subjection.” A. Stevenson: “I have been thinking that I would make a proposition to my republican friends…that if they will stop telling lies about the Democrats, we will stop telling the truth about them. I rest my case!
BTW, Majorie three names is really Marjorie Joe McCarthy. As has already been established, she has absolutely no shame.
What are we going to do about gun violence in this country? WE WE WE, the people, what are we going to do about guns sales in this country? So what if a president cried about it? So what about the grieving families of the victims and the shooters? So what if I could fill this comment with information about suicides by guns -- shootings in the streets -- in the schools -- through the windows of homes... and fill another 100,000 comments with news and statistics about gun violence in the USA? What if elected representatives won't do anything about this? What about our children scared to death because they know that they could be shot dead at anytime?
Hegel remarks somewhere that all great world-historic facts and personages appear, so to speak, twice. He forgot to add: the first time as tragedy, the second time as farce.
- Karl Marx: The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte
We could say: the American revolution is our history; the Civil War is our tragedy: and the ReaganTrump sedition is our farce - but truly the Republican regnum is tragedy all the way.
As with Walter Benjamin's comment on the angel of history: Where we perceive a chain of events, he sees one single catastrophe which keeps piling wreckage upon wreckage and hurls it in front of his feet.
The Republican party of god, guns, and greed is instituting a dystopia of apocalyptic irrationality, unregulated violence, and unconscionable greed, which threatens our democratic nation, our most vulnerable neighbors, and our fragile planet.
Sometimes I must recall that despair is another form of voter suppression which only serves the GOP - its plutocrat paymasters and populist puppets. And there is too much work to be done.
Florida State Militia? DeSantis wants his own Proud Boys?
'I Was the Governor of Montana. My Fellow Democrats, You Need to Get Out of the City More.'
Excerpts follow from Steve Bullock's Opinion in today's New York Times. He has important advice for the Democratic Party, will it listen?
'The warning signs were already there in 2020 when Democrats fell short in congressional and state races despite electing Joe Biden president. I know because I was on the ballot for U.S. Senate and lost. In the last decade and a half, we’ve seen Senate seats flip red in Arkansas, Indiana, North Dakota, and more. Democrats have lost more than 900 state legislative seats around the country since 2008. And in this year’s governor’s races in Virginia and New Jersey, we saw the Democratic vote in rural areas plummet, costing the party one seat and nearly losing us the other. It was even worse for Democrats down ballot, as Democrats lost state legislative, county, and municipal seats.'
'The core problem is a familiar one — Democrats are out of touch with the needs of the ordinary voter. In 2021, voters watched Congress debate for months the cost of an infrastructure bill while holding a social spending bill hostage. Both measures contain policies that address the challenges Americans across the country face. Yet to anyone outside the Beltway, the infighting and procedural brinkmanship haven’t done a lick to meet their needs at a moment of health challenges, inflation and economic struggles. You had Democrats fighting Democrats, letting the perfect be the enemy of the good, and desperately needed progress was delayed. It’s no wonder rural voters think Democrats are not focused on helping them.'
'It’s never easy for Democrats to get elected in Montana, because Democrats here are running against not only the opponent on the ballot, but also against conservative media’s (and at times our own) typecast of the national Democratic brand: coastal, overly educated, elitist, judgmental, socialist — a bundle of identity groups and interests lacking any shared principles. The problem isn’t the candidates we nominate. It’s the perception of the party we belong to.'
'To overcome these obstacles, Democrats need to show up, listen, and respect voters in rural America by finding common ground instead of talking down to them. Eliminating student loans isn’t a top-of-mind matter for the two-thirds of Americans lacking a college degree. Being told that climate change is the most critical issue our nation faces rings hollow if you’re struggling to make it to the end of the month. And the most insulting thing is being told what your self-interest should be.'
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/03/opinion/democrats-rural-america-midterms.html
What a Letter today!!! McConnell stating that the Republiqan Party has no platform but for what their eventual "leader" will tell them they will have is one thing. Their platform is indeed that of culture wars. Tim Ryan calling out the Republiqans by saying "“What you’re seeing here before the United States Congress is two clear, different visions of America and where we want to go and what we want to do"". Then the historical context, from Reconstruction to where Reagan and Gingrich took us. Then the exercise of 5th Amendment Privilege by those who realized that there could be some criminal culpability for their actions leading up to 6 January and what that might mean. The scary thing is what the Floriduh governor wants to do; have is own militia that is loyal to him. I do believe that this may be a harbinger of things to come.
Thanks, as always, to the LFAA community for the other conversations this morning.
“ Clark tried to involve the Justice Department itself in overruling the results of the 2020 election. Today he announced that he has a medical condition that will not allow him to testify before the January 6th committee tomorrow as planned.”
Jeffery Clark has a “medical condition”, it’s nots so rare, a common side effect from exposure to demagoguery. He’s Suffering from both an acute cranial/rectal inversion, compounded by a self inflicted testicularectomy, the syndrome presents first as a total loss of moral courage, and progresses to uncontrolled dishonesty, and ends with district orange or striped suits behind bars.
"Socialism is a system of government in which the means of production are owned by the government and, through the government—theoretically—by the people. Communism is the final stage of that form of social organization. It abolishes private ownership of land, farms, and factories, giving control of all those things to the state, which, in turn, provides everyone with jobs, housing, education, and medical care."
How pathetic that people who are so-called leaders of these United States -- in the guise of senators and representatives belonging to the party of the Grand Old Phonies -- don't have a clue about the definitions of the terms communism and socialism! They bandy these ideological labels around like swear words, hoping they will stick to the Democrats like stigmas of dishonor. They have no clue how uneducated they sound!
What I find interesting here is the DeSantis note. All we need is governors like him with personal military forces. I want to vomit.