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THE MAGA PARTY!,,, the GOP is dead, republicans are going down with the dems,, get ready for THE MAGA PARTY lefty's
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2021-05-18 at 1:54 AM UTC
these guys seem a bit frazzled -
2021-05-18 at 2 AM UTC
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2021-05-18 at 5:33 AM UTCNewsweek
Ex-Trump Adviser Alyssa Farah Explains Why She Would Never Vote for Him Again
Daniel Villarreal
Alyssa Farah, former White House Director of Strategic Communications under former President Donald Trump, has said that she won't be supporting Trump again, even if he decides to run again for president in 2024.
"If he's a Republican candidate in 2024, yes, I will not be supporting Donald Trump in 2024," Farah said on the Sunday evening instalment of the MSNBC's The Mehdi Hasan Show.
Farah said that she supported Republican Wyoming Representative Liz Cheney speaking out against Trump's baseless claim that widespread voter fraud caused his 2020 election loss to President Joe Biden. She also said the GOP's "complete loyalty" to Trump is "fundamentally un-conservative," "strategically unwise" and "also morally reprehensible."
Additionally, Farah voiced concern that the Republican Party's continued loyalty to Trump will cause the party to lose voters, particularly older people and women. She also claimed that supporting Trump will push away Republican legislators who are more interested in discussing legislative policy.
Hasan, the show's host, noted that Farah had previously called the January 6 insurrectionists "terrorists." In response, Farah stated, once again, her belief that Trump "played a role in inciting the violence on the Capitol" on that day.
She said that despite GOP efforts to downplay the riots, voters will remember the day's events. The issue will stay in people's minds, especially as Trump begins publicly campaigning for Republican midterm candidates, Farah warned.
"I believed in about 90 percent of [Trump's] agenda. I'm still a Republican. I still didn't vote for Joe Biden. Do I think it's probably better following January 6 that he's in office? Absolutely," Farah added.
Farah resigned from her White House position on December 3 after working for more than three years in his administration. During that time, she also worked as Vice President Mike Pence's press secretary and the Defense Department's press secretary.
Asked by Hasan why she continued to work for so long under Trump, Farah said that she pushed back against Trump's views and tried to influence his policies behind the scenes. She also praised Trump's record for reducing unemployment for people of color, as well as for negotiating the Abraham Accords—the September 2020 peace agreement between Israel, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain.
Farah told Hasan that she thought Republican New York Representative Elise Stefanik was a good replacement for Cheney as chair of the Republican House Conference. Last week, House Republicans ousted Cheney from the chair position.
Hasan noted that while Stefanik has a "more moderate" voting record than Cheney, she also has repeated Trump's baseless claims of voter fraud in the 2020 elections. Farah praised Stefanik as "a highly educated serious policymaker," but called such voter fraud claims "absolutely ridiculous." -
2021-05-18 at 8:16 AM UTCCongratulations to Frank Eathorne for being reelected as Chairman of the Republican Party of Wyoming. It was my honor to work with you so that your great achievements can be continued. The people of Wyoming are special, and so are you!
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2021-05-18 at 10:13 AM UTCnewsmax sold out to the deep state,, u wanna quote shit well quote OAN
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2021-05-18 at 10:13 AM UTCor lin wood
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2021-05-18 at 2:48 PM UTCMaking
America
Guaranteed to never learn the truth...
Again
ABC News
McCarthy rejects proposed commission to investigate Jan 6. Capitol assault
House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy on Tuesday broke his silence on the bipartisan Jan. 6 commission proposal negotiated by one of his key lieutenants, saying in a new statement that a new commission would be "duplicative" of federal law enforcement efforts and "potentially counterproductive."
MORE: Lawmakers announce long-sought deal on bipartisan commission to probe Jan. 6 riot
While the proposed panel would give both parties equal representation in appointees to the commission and require bipartisan agreement for subpoenas, McCarthy said he wants the effort to expressly include a review of "political violence" in American cities last summer amid racial justice protests.
But Rep. John Katko, R-N.Y., said the panel could decide to investigate or review such episodes if the appointees agreed to do so, even if not explicitly stated in the legislation.
McCarthy’s statement comes after Rep. Liz Cheney suggested in an interview with ABC News that he testify before any commission regarding his conversations with Trump on Jan. 6 and attempts by several conservatives to whitewash the events of that day.
The bill is expected on the floor this week and can still pass without GOP votes. But McCarthy’s opposition could give cover to more Republicans in the House and Senate to oppose the proposal and try to depict it as partisan.
"Given the political misdirections that have marred this process, given the now duplicative and potentially counterproductive nature of this effort, and given the Speaker’s shortsighted scope that does not examine interrelated forms of political violence in America, I cannot support this legislation," McCarthy said in a statement. -
2021-05-18 at 2:54 PM UTCNancy Pelosi instructed Capitol Police to wave demonstrators through into the building.
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2021-05-18 at 2:54 PM UTC
Originally posted by POLECAT newsmax sold out to the deep state,, u wanna quote shit well quote OAN
I quoted NEWSWEEK.
You know, that organization that has been around for 88 years. But of course, according to you, I'm sure it has no credibility.
History of Newsweek
https://www.newsweek.com/history-newsweek-103593
Oct 10, 2007 · History: Founded by Thomas J.C. Martyn, a former foreign editor at Time magazine, Newsweek was first published on Feb. 17, 1933. That issue, called "News-Week," featured seven photographs from the... -
2021-05-18 at 2:59 PM UTCLaissez Faire capitalism is the only way to fix America
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2021-05-18 at 4:15 PM UTCThe following users say it would be alright if the author of this post didn't die in a fire!
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2021-05-18 at 4:22 PM UTCI'm more creditable than newsmax or Joey Bribes
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2021-05-18 at 6:09 PM UTCPoley, read this one and weep. Trump's "audit" is proving he's an idiot.
The Washington Post
In Arizona, Republicans accidentally created a robust demonstration of the shoddiness of their fraud claims
Philip Bump
Bill Gates is vice chairman of the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors, one of four Republicans on that body. On Monday afternoon, he made his frustrations with the ongoing “audit” of votes from the 2020 general election in that county apparent.
“It’s time to say enough is enough,” Gates said. “It is time to push back on the ‘Big Lie.’ We must do this. We must do this as a member of the Republican Party, we must do this as a member of the Board of Supervisors. We need to do this as a country.”
In addition to his comments at the news conference, Gates was one of seven signatories (most of them Republican) to a brutally blunt letter offered in response to questions posed by Arizona state Sen. Karen Fann (R). Fann, as president of the Senate, has been the legislative face of the vote-counting effort that her Republican-led chamber authorized. The questions Fann posed were apparently inspired by the team leading the audit, a group called Cyber Ninjas, and centered on various vague allegations of improper handling of ballots or deleted material.
The response from Gates and his colleagues is unsparing.
“ …[T]he Arizona Senate is not acting in good faith, has no intention of learning anything about the November 2020 General Election, [and] is only interested in feeding the various festering conspiracy theories that fuel the fundraising schemes of those pulling your strings,” the letter to Fann reads. “You have rented out the once good name of the Arizona State Senate to grifters and con-artists, who are fundraising hard-earned money from our fellow citizens even as your contractors parade around the Coliseum” — the location of the vote-counting effort — “hunting for bamboo and something they call 'kinematic artifacts' while shining purple lights for effect. None of these things are done in a serious audit. The result is that the Arizona Senate is held up to ridicule in every corner of the globe and our democracy is imperiled.”
Point by point, the letter rebuts the claims raised by Fann, arguing convincingly that the senator and the inexperienced team leading the audit simply have no idea what they’re talking about. The impression one gets from the letter is the impression you might get from watching a YouTube flat-earther challenge an esteemed geology professor on the shape of the planet: a thorough response with no shortage of demonstrated disdain.
Something particularly interesting is happening with the Arizona “audit” (as its proponents call it) that has otherwise been missing in the months since the 2020 election. Because it's happening now, in relative isolation, and because it carries at least some sort of authoritative stamp that provides a process for feedback, America is at long last able to directly confront false election claims promoted by former president Donald Trump and his allies. And the result is Republicans stepping up to deride the process as a grotesque, unfounded sham.
To be very clear, there is nothing unusually sloppy or unfounded about the Arizona audit. With no obvious exception, all of the allegations of fraud and malfeasance that have emerged since Trump lost six months ago have been equally shoddy and baseless. Each of them has been the product of an under-informed or obviously biased complainant — or, alternatively, has been numeric prestidigitation meant to imply fraud that never actually manifests in any other way.
What sets Arizona apart is that it can’t be lumped into some overarching narrative of “irregularities,” and it can’t simply be left at “this guy who has a Ph.D. in chemistry says that the n-curve values are suspicious.” They wanted to count the votes, and now they are and now the actual experts have permanent palm-marks on their foreheads.
It's really quite clarifying. Even Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) had to sort of shrug at the whole thing.
“I accept the results of the election,” he said Monday. “I don’t know what the audit is all about in Arizona. I don’t know the details but I am ready to move on.”
This is a fervently pro-Trump senator who in the weeks after the election spoke of calling Arizona to try to figure out a path to victory for Trump. Were there any obvious legitimacy to the Arizona vote count that’s underway, you’d think he’d embrace it. Instead, he’s done the opposite.
Trump himself, of course, has embraced the Arizona effort. He's never been bound to reality and has always embraced any wild claim that came onto his radar. But he's obviously frustrated that his allies on cable news aren't willing to link their reputations to what's happening in the state.
“Fox News is afraid to cover it—there is rarely a mention,” he complained on his blog over the weekend. “Likewise, Newsmax has been virtually silent on this subject because they are intimidated by threats of lawsuits. One America News (OAN), one of the fastest growing networks on television, and the ‘hottest’, is doing a magnificent job of exposing the massive fraud that took place.”
What does the OAN coverage look like? In a report from Monday, it consisted of correspondent Pearson Sharp walking through Fann’s original letter to the board of supervisors — the letter that prompted the, um, sharp response from the county’s Republican leadership. Calling the coverage credulous downplays it; the report is little more than Sharp repeating one of Fann’s claims and then adding an eyebrow-raised insinuation that malfeasance had been proved. Considered in the broadest context, the OAN report does expose a massive fraud that’s underway, but not the one Trump thinks.
But to the supervisors’ point about how the “audit” fuels fundraising schemes, it’s clear that the utility of alleging fraud still exists. It exists for Trump for psychological and political reasons. It exists for OAN for audience-building reasons. And it exists for right-wing lawmakers for attention-seeking reasons. So Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) and Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) have planned a rally in Phoenix on Friday, assuming that neither of them is otherwise detained.
Both also signed onto a letter sent by a small group of lawmakers to deputy assistant attorney general Pamela Karlan who’d questioned the legality of the audit. That letter, too, centered on Fann’s allegations. It also assured Karlan that Rep. Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.) had “personally visited the site of the election audit and we are confident in the integrity of the process and look forward to reviewing the results, no matter what is found.”
Biggs was also identified by one of the organizers of the protests at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6 as having helped develop the plan for the day.
What’s happening in Arizona is only unusual in that it is happening in a spotlight, and it is happening through a formal system that allows it to be held to account. It is part-and-parcel with the other claims that Trump, Biggs, Gaetz and the rest have made since November, but it is happening at a quieter moment and more directly challenging the authority of Republican officials, without showing any results.
There will likely never be a “have you no sense of decency” moment for Trump’s effort to argue that the election results were suspect. But Republicans coming together to identify the flagship effort to undermine those results as biased and sloppy is at least a step in that direction. -
2021-05-18 at 6:12 PM UTC
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2021-05-18 at 7 PM UTCMaking
America a
Grab bag of lies
Again
Salon
Why the Republicans' Big Lie works so well: A sociopathic party, and a damaged country
Chauncey DeVega
The Republican Party and the right-wing movement are expert and prodigious liars. This causes great frustration and anger for Democrats, progressives and others who believe in real "we the people" American democracy. The American people have become massively confused and disoriented by the Republicans' torrent of lies.
Why are the Republicans able to lie so much and so easily? There are two primary reasons.
The foundational explanation is that the modern Republican Party and right-wing movement are sociopathic. The Republican Party meets those criteria, as I explained in an earlier essay at Salon:
As detailed by the International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems, exhibiting three or more of the following traits is sufficient for the diagnosis of sociopathy:
Callous unconcern for the feelings of others
Gross and persistent attitude of irresponsibility and disregard for social norms and obligations
Incapacity to maintain enduring relationships, though having no difficulty in establishing them
Very low tolerance to frustration, a low threshold for discharge of aggression, including violence
Incapacity to experience guilt or to profit from experience, particularly punishment
Markedly prone to blame others or to offer plausible rationalization for the behavior that has brought the person into conflict with society
The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders adds these two qualifiers:
Deception, as indicated by repeatedly lying, use of aliases, or conning others for personal profit or pleasure
Impulsiveness or failure to plan ahead
The day-to-day practical explanation for the Republican Party's habitual lying (and that of the right more generally) is that it is a highly effective political strategy for helping them win and keep power.
To that point, the Republican Party's policies are unpopular with the American people. If Republicans told the truth about those policies, they would rarely or never be able to win free and fair elections.
Moreover, today's Republican Party is almost fully a neofascist political organization and personality cult centered around Donald Trump. Its goal is to overthrow America's multiracial secular democracy and replace it with an apartheid-style plutocracy (flavored with theocracy). Assaulting empirical reality, undermining any sense of shared truth and values and replacing it all with an approved narrative that serves their goals is a primary method that fascists and authoritarians gain control over a society.
In his own way, Republican strategist and mastermind Karl Rove predicted such a future in 2004 with his observation about the Iraq war: "We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality — judiciously, as you will — we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors ... and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do."
Donald Trump publicly lied at least 30,000 times while president and faced few if any negative consequences for that behavior. Moreover, he came within several thousand votes of "winning" the 2020 presidential election because of his strategic use of lying, deception and trickery, including voter suppression and voter intimidation.
After their defeat at the ballot box, Trump and his allies and followers then weaponized the Goebbels-inspired "Big Lie" that the 2020 election was somehow "stolen" from him by Joe Biden and the Democrats. The Big Lie was integral to Trump's coup attempt and his followers' attack on the U.S. Capitol. The Big Lie is also being used as fuel for the Republican Party's Jim Crow-style efforts to prevent Black and brown Americans from voting.
In all, Donald Trump was not a cautionary tale for today's Republicans. He was a role model for present and future behavior.
New research from the political advocacy and research group Democracy Corps shows that the Big Lie strategy is working.
Contrary to what the hope-peddlers and happy-pill sellers of the mainstream news media would like to believe, the Republican Party is not in disarray, in the midst of a "civil war" or "trying to find its soul." The party is largely united behind Trump and the Big Lie.
Democracy Corps summarizes the findings of its new research on Trump support in battleground states:
We conducted a large, mostly cell phone survey with an oversample of Republicans in the 2022 battleground for the U.S. Senate, governorships, and House, and it is painfully clear Donald Trump, Lindsey Graham, and Kevin McCarthy know their party. The Trump loyalists who strongly approve of him are two thirds of those who identify as, "Republican." And they are joined by the Trump aligned to form a breathtaking, three quarters of the party in the electoral battleground states and districts that will decide who leads the country.
Their report also finds that "Donald Trump's loyalist party is totally consolidated at this early point in its 2022 voting," and that Republican voters are more engaged with the 2022 midterms than are Democrats. "And with such high early engagement of Republicans and white working class voters in this survey," the report concludes, "the era of Donald Trump shaping the electorate is not over either."
These findings are especially ominous for what they suggest about the efficacy of the Republican Party and right-wing's "cancel culture" and "culture war" narratives, despite the way members of the liberal chattering class may mock such strategies.
Democracy Corps further argues that "Trump's current focus on the stolen election" must not be dismissed as "an amusing side-show":
It is about Blacks and Democratic politicians in the cities using illegal voting procedures and stuffing ballot boxes to steal away Trump's great victory his battle to save America. This survey shows what are the true drivers of GOP identity — the deep hostility to Black Lives Matter, undocumented immigrants, and Antifa. And imagine their reaction to the flood of unaccompanied children at the border, the guilty verdict in Minneapolis, and Black Lives Matter protests after each police shooting of unarmed Blacks.
There is no escaping the reality that Trump's Republican Party is a self-consciously and self-confidently anti-democratic, anti-immigrant party that will battle for the future of white people in a multicultural America.
The Trump loyalists — again, two-thirds of the party — respond with deep emotion to the term, "MAGA," that captures their whole embrace of Trump's battle to make America great again. And it is an unfinished battle and campaign.
If Democracy Corps' polling data and other analyses are correct, then the future of American democracy is even more imperiled than many political observers have so far accepted or understood. The Republican Big Lie strategy (and all the little lies that sustain it) would not be effective if their voters and other supporters had not been trained, for years or decades, to respond positively to it.
This socialization process begins with foundational lies, dogma and myths about the Republican Party, such as the ludicrous contention that it believes in "small government" and "fiscal responsibility." During the last few decades, Republican administrations have invariably increased the size of the budget deficit. Serious economists have also shown that "supply-side" or "trickle-down economics" are a massive intellectual fraud.
Republicans have repeatedly cut taxes on the richest Americans and corporations, leaving the economy and the federal budget in far worse shape, compared to Democratic administrations. "Small government" has been shown to be a racist term of art, used to justify destroying the social safety net and undermining the common good in ways that disproportionately impact Black and brown Americans.
For decades, the Republican Party and movement conservatives have branded themselves as defenders of "freedom." But in practice they have supported Christian theocrats and others who want to take away women's reproductive rights, end secular democracy and limit the civil and human rights of other groups they deem to be "less than" or not "real Americans," such as nonwhite people, the LGBTQ community Muslims, immigrants and other marginalized groups.
Through Fox News, right-wing talk radio, the internet and social media, the spread of conspiracy theories and other forms of disinformation, the Republican Party and conservative movement have created a fact-free alternate reality for their followers. In that echo chamber, lies and misrepresentations about empirical reality and the truth are laundered and transformed into narratives that serve the groupthink and collective cult mentality of the American and global right.
Fake right-wing "populism" rejects science, critical thinking and other forms of expert knowledge as tools of "political correctness," used by "elites" to manipulate and oppress the "freedom" and "liberty" of the "average person." In that sense, "populism" is a breeding ground for lies.
Social scientists and other researchers have shown that Trump's followers ignore his lies (in effect endorsing them) because they view him as not "politically correct" and a type of "outsider" who is "taking on the system" on their behalf.
Researchers have also shown that enthusiasm for Trump's campaign and presidency were and are directly related to support for his lies.
In addition, Republican politicians are significantly more likely to lie than are Democrats. Republican voters have been trained to understand that political lying is normal — if not perhaps even virtuous.
Today's Republican Party and broader right-wing movement are tied together by white identity politics, white supremacy and a commitment to defend "traditional values" and "white America."
Because politics is now a core aspect of how Republicans and Trumpists define their personhood, lying is easily normalized. False claims have become integrated into their thinking about the world and reality.
Right-wing Christians are among Trump and the Republican Party's most loyal followers. While telling lies is supposedly contrary to their faith, white evangelicals and Christian nationalists support the lies told by Trump and other "saviors" if they are perceived as serving the purpose of helping to create "God's kingdom" in America and around the world.
What can be done to counter the Republican Party and Trump movement's powerful weaponization of lies against American democracy and a healthy society? This new post-Trump world, in which neofascism is not a hypothetical possibility but is ascendant and growing in power, requires pro-democracy forces to adopt new ways of thinking.
Democrats, the news media and the American people need to accept that when Republicans, Trumpists and their allies and followers lie it is not a miscommunication, an error, a misunderstanding, a moment of confusion or honest disagreement about questions of public policy and politics. When Republicans and other members of the right lie, it is a weapon — and part of a determined strategy to undermine democracy and reality itself.
Democrats and the media also need to accept and understand that today's Republican Party and right-wing movement are not engaged in "normal politics," where the rules and norms of a healthy, functioning democracy are respected by all sides, where there is give-and-take, honest negotiation and then final compromise in the service of the public interest.
Ultimately, the struggle for American democracy in the Age of Trump and beyond is existential. It will be decided around basic questions of what is true and what is not — and the public's willingness to know the difference and then act accordingly. Based on the historic power of the Big Lie, the forces of democracy are fighting at a great disadvantage. -
2021-05-18 at 7:01 PM UTC
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2021-05-18 at 8:32 PM UTCThe following users say it would be alright if the author of this post didn't die in a fire!
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2021-05-18 at 11 PM UTCGood news for Georgia and the Republican Party. Lieutenant Governor Geoff Duncan won’t be running again for office. He was the one who, along with Governor Brian Kemp, stopped the Georgia State Senate from doing the job they wanted to do on the 2020 Presidential Election Fraud. Duncan’s fight against Election Fraud made him unelectable. His former top aide, Chip Lake, said that the Lieutenant Governor would not win another term in office. Lake said, “I think he was an accident, and this is what happens when accidents happen in politics. They become one and done.” Now maybe the Georgia State Senate and House will build up the courage to expose the large-scale Presidential Election Fraud, which took place in their otherwise wonderful State. Let them just look at the State Senate in Arizona to find out what Leadership and Patriotism is all about!
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2021-05-18 at 11:01 PM UTCisnt that special
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2021-05-18 at 11:10 PM UTCAnyone remember now how Biden was predicting people in Texas and Florider would die when they reopened from the Corona virus panic?
Sleepy Joe doesn't have much experience with dying, he's spent 88 years dodging the grave, including being a draft dodger.
