#extremist republican

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

Michael de Adder, The Washington Post :: @deAdder

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LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

January 29, 2024

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

JAN 30, 2024

With their families now notified, the Pentagon has released the names of the three American soldiers killed in Jordan yesterday. Army Reserve soldiers Sergeant William Jerome Rivers, 46, Specialist Kennedy Ladon Sanders, 24, and Specialist Breonna Alexsondria Moffett, 23, all from Georgia, were assigned to support Operation Inherent Resolve, charged with helping regional partners defeat the Islamic State of Syria and Iraq, or ISIS, to promote stability in the region. 

At a press conference today with North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg in Washington, D.C., Secretary of State Antony Blinken spoke of the three lost soldiers, the many wounded, and their family and friends. “Every day we have our men and women in uniform around the world who are putting their lives on the line for our security, for our freedom,” he said. “I am as always humbled by their courage and their sacrifice.”

Blinken reiterated the administration’s determination to keep the Hamas-Israel war from spreading, a signal that the administration will respond to this attack but not go to the extremes right-wing hawks have demanded. “From the outset, we have been clear in warning that anyone looking to take advantage of conflict in the Middle East and try to expand it: Don’t do it,” Blinken said. “[W]e do not seek conflict with Iran, we do not seek war with Iran, but we have and we will continue to defend our personnel and to take every action necessary to do that, including responding very vigorously to the attack that just took place.”

The secretary reiterated that the administration is “very, very actively pursuing” efforts to get the hostages currently held by Hamas released—including as many as six Americans—and create an extended pause in fighting to get aid to Palestinians in Gaza. Its larger goal, he said, is “putting a durable end to the cycle of violence that we’ve seen in the region for generation after generation” and to achieve “an integrated Israel with relations with all of its neighbors, security commitments, assurances that it needs to make sure that it can move forward in peace and security; a Palestinian Authority that’s reformed, and a clear pathway to a Palestinian state.”

Such a plan, Blinken said, would promote security by creating a more integrated region with normalized relations between countries and “where the question of the rights of Palestinians is finally answered.” Stoltenberg responded by thanking Blinken for his “tireless diplomacy…to prevent further escalation of the war in Gaza, your efforts to alleviate human suffering, and your hard work towards a peaceful resolution.”

Over the weekend, officials from the U.S., Israel, Egypt, and Qatar meeting in Paris, France, created a blueprint for a six-week pause in the war while Hamas releases the hostages taken on October 7 in exchange for a much greater number of Palestinians held in Israeli jails. The prime minister and foreign minister of Qatar, Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim al-Thani, traveled from Paris to Washington, D.C., where he met with Blinken. 

David Rothkopf noted today in The Daily Beast that such a plan would end the death and destruction in Gaza and enable Israel to begin a healing process. It would create room to rebuild new leadership for the Palestinians and move Israel toward “the new elections and new government it so desperately needs and deserves.” 

Qatar is taking the proposal to Hamas. 

Blinken and Stoltenberg both talked as well about NATO and its “unwavering support for Ukraine.” NATO has grown stronger in response to Russia’s attack on Ukraine, and NATO allies and partners have provided more than $110 billion in total aid for Ukraine while the U.S. has provided about $75 billion, Blinken noted (the U.S. has contributed by far the most in military aid).

But the U.S., which has provided key support for NATO and Ukraine, is suddenly faltering as extremist Republicans in the House are refusing to pass a supplemental measure to provide more funding for Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan and to secure the southern border of the U.S. 

Blinken again urged Congress to pass the funding. 

“Without it, simply put, everything that Ukrainians achieved and that we’ve helped them achieve will be in jeopardy,” Blinken said. “And…we’re going to be sending a strong and wrong message to all of our adversaries that we are not serious about the defense of freedom, the defense of democracy. And it will simply reinforce for Vladimir Putin that he can somehow outlast Ukraine and outlast us.”

Stoltenberg agreed. “It would be a tragedy for the Ukrainians if President Putin wins, but it will also make the world more dangerous and us, all of us, more insecure. It will embolden other authoritarian leaders—not only Putin…but also North Korea, Iran, and China—to use force.  Today it’s Ukraine; tomorrow it could be Taiwan. So therefore it is in our interests to ensure that Ukraine prevails as a sovereign, independent nation.” 

Biden appears to have ramped up aid to Ukraine slowly to keep Putin from being able to claim he was at war with the U.S. and to keep him from mounting a full-blown response to such a threat, but as David Frum put it in The Atlantic, Biden “overestimated the time available to keep aid flowing to Ukraine because he underestimated the servility of House Republicans to Trump’s anti-Ukraine animus.” Frum explained: “[T]he background political reality is that Donald Trump is an enemy of Ukraine and an admirer of the Russian dictator Vladimir Putin. As Trump has neared renomination, his party—especially in the House of Representatives—has surrendered to his pro-Putin pressure.”  

Back in early November, then a brand new House speaker, Mike Johnson (R-LA) told Senate Republicans that he supported aid to Ukraine but would not deliver it without money for security on the southern border of the U.S. Such a measure was crucial to U.S. security, he and other Republicans insisted, and they hyped the dangers of current immigration policy.

A bipartisan group of Senate negotiators went to work to hammer out such a measure, but once it got close to completion, Trump stepped in to stop the deal, intending to run on fears of immigration in 2024. Republicans are falling into line behind Trump, putting the border deal, as well as more funding for Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan, at risk. 

Meanwhile, the extremist Republicans are in the awkward position of insisting that the United States is in terrible danger from a border crisis but that they don’t want to solve that crisis for almost a year, waiting until 2025 when they expect Trump to be in office.

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

[tomorrowusa]

The Supreme Court election in Wisconsin is not the only important electoral contest in that state on Tuesday.

There’s a special election to fill a vacancy in State Senate District 8 which will decide whether or not the GOP keeps its two-thirds majority in the Wisconsin Senate. Without that two-thirds majority, Republicans cannot override vetos by Democratic Gov. Tony Evers. 

WI-SD-08 had been very Republican but it has been trending blue in recent years.

GOP support has waned in recent years as Democrats made inroads in the suburbs.

Republican U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson won about 63 percent of the district vote in 2016, but that dropped to 54 percent in 2022, according to a Marquette Law School analysis provided to Wisconsin Public Radio.

In 2012 and 2014, former Republican Gov. Scott Walker won about 67 percent of the vote in the current boundaries of the 8th Senate District. In 2018, that fell to 60 percent as he lost to Democratic Gov. Tony Evers statewide.

In the November election, Donald Trump-endorsed gubernatorial candidate Tim Michels received about 52 percent of the vote in the district. But he lost to Evers, who secured a second term.

Democrat Habush Sinykin is running for this seat on a pro-choice, pro-democracy platform. If she wins, this district can be considered purple.

Her opponent is Dan Knodl who is a far right extremist who after the 2020 election signed a letter attempting to decertify President Biden’s victory. Knodl is a certified election denier.

So if Wisconsin just re-elected a Dem governor and was won by Joe Biden in 2020, how did Republicans get a two-thirds majority in the State Senate? In one word: gerrymandering.

That’s why the election for Wisconsin Supreme Court and WI-SD-08 are key. With Wisconsin Republicans totally in control of the redistricting process, they can map themselves into perpetual control of the state.

Here is Wisconsin Senate District 8 – north and northwest of Milwaukee – in all its lime green glory.

If you know somebody who lives there, remind them to vote on Tuesday. If you currently live there, help get out the vote.

To find out which legislative districts you live in, anywhere in the US, use this handy tool.

Find Your Legislators Look your legislators up by address or use your current location

And anywhere in Wisconsin, vote for Janet Protasiewicz for State Supreme Court. Her election will shift the court’s ideological orientation from hard right to center-left.

Janet Protasiewicz Wisconsin Supreme Court

Vote in every election. There is no such thing as an unimportant election.

[sher-ee]

A must watch.

Ken Burns warns about Trump during his commencement speech at Brandeis University:

"He is the opioid of all opioids"

[rejectingrepublicans]

[she-is-ovarit]

The liberal culture of perpetually walking on eggshells, fearing that whatever you say might offend somebody, or (alternatively) feeling like you are always a victim to everybody's microaggressions is extremely unhealthy.

The conservative culture of perpetually being rude under the guise of "just saying it like it is", completely disregarding that what you say might offend somebody, or entering into conversations always on the defense is extremely unhealthy.

People in both left and right political groups who fit within these behavioral patterns seem to operate off of getting high from feeling righteousness.

These behavioral trends in both groups breed authoritarianism, paranoia, ignorance, aggression, ideological purity, and black and white thinking.

[socialjusticeinamerica]

There was an Easter Sunday discount and the MAGA gun fanatic customer didn’t understand it and flipped out.

“The customer left, only to return with a cocked gun that he pointed at Vernon as the employee was serving another customer.

“He’s just saying, ‘I should kill you, n*****.’ He just kept saying that,” Vernon told Cleveland ABC affiliate News 5. “As he was pulling off, he was saying, ‘This place was ran so much better when it was ran by white people.’”

🤬

[dontmean2bepoliticalbut]

[republicansaredomesticterrorists]

☝️

Highly recommend this article.

[sadbeautifutragic]

.

[truth-has-a-liberal-bias]

A venture fund and a real estate startup – both with links to far-right organizations – are promoting a residential development in rural Kentucky as a haven for fellow rightwingers.

The promoters have presented the planned development as an “aligned community” for right wingers who want to “disappear from the cultural insanity of the broader country” and “spearhead the revival of the region”.

...

The development was announced on X, formerly known as Twitter, and in a special edition of the New Founding by Joshua Abbotoy, who is managing director of venture fund New Founding and principal of real estate developer Kentucky Ridge Runner LLC according to company records.

...

Kentucky Ridgerunner, meanwhile, is an LLC founded in 2022 with Abbotoy at its head according to Kentucky company records. It is the main vehicle for HRP, and owns the bulk of the land which is up for sale to buyers with rightwing sympathies.

Abbotoy’s father, Mark, a real estate appraiser based in Hartsville, Tennessee, is named as managing partner on the Ridgerunner website, and Lazar Lazarovski, a Nashville-based tech entrepreneur and realtor, is marketing director.

The website currently advertises two developments in the vicinity of Burkesville, a town in the so-called Eastern Pennyroyal district of southern Kentucky, around 20 miles north of the Tennessee border.

One of the developments, christened “Longhollow Acres”, is described as “a rolling 550-acre farm situated six miles northeast of Burkesville, and about half a mile to the river”. [...]

[tomorrowusa]

Republicans don't want voters to know what anti-abortion fanatics they are. J.D. Vance has been busy scrubbing his site and social media of his more virulent comments against reproductive freedom.

Sen. JD Vance, Donald Trump’s vice presidential pick, is an anti-abortion extremist, but like the rest of the GOP, he’s doing his damnedest to cover that fact up. First, he scrapped the anti-abortion screed from the website for his Senate campaign, then he falsely insisted Democrats and the media were twisting his words on abortion. 

Just because he's hiding his extreme views doesn't mean he's changed them.

This was on the mobile version of his site before he removed it this month.

He tries to paint his views in glowing terms. But he shows no sympathy for 13-year-olds forced to travel hundreds of miles to blue states to end unwanted pregnancies. He is in sympathy with Texas laws which would rather have women die than end pregnancies which have caused life-threatening complications.

Society shouldn’t view those pregnancies as inconvenient, he said in a 2021 interview, explaining his support for a federal ban on abortion without exceptions for rape and incest.  “I think two wrongs don’t make a right,” he said. “It’s not whether a woman should be forced to bring a child to term. It’s whether a child should be allowed to live.” 

It's not J.D. who is forced to spend 18 years raising the child of a rapist.

You hardly heard the word abortion mentioned at the Republican National Convention. But that doesn't mean that patriarchal Christian fundamentalists weren't salivating at the prospect of a Trump-Vance régime.

No Republican at the convention wanted to talk about abortion and the extreme position they have embraced. But don’t be fooled by the cover-up that Trump, Vance, or the Heritage Foundation are attempting. 

Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA) released a fact sheet on Project 2025 (the Trump blueprint for a second term) and reproductive freedom. It's a PDF which can be printed out and posted.

Blue Illustrated Medical Center Flyer - Repro-Project-2025-Fact-Sheet

[sher-ee]

Justice Alito’s home.

Also:

Also the flag used on Jan. 6th.

Justice Samuel Alito is a partisan insurrectionist. He has no business being on the Supreme Court.

[castles-crumbled-down]

Quick rundown of what Project 2025 is gonna do to our rights and stuff [so far, with what i know]

Project 2025 is the extreme right's plan to turn America fully conservative, shifting the government to dictatorship and to be authoritarian.

The project will go into effect when the next republican U.S. president gets elected and steps into office.

It's gonna be a gradual change, all of this isn't going to happen overnight.

Dehumanization of People of Color, LGBTQIA+, AFABs {Assigned Female At Birth}, Disabled, and Neurodivergent people

Transgenderism and trans-related things will be criminalized, due to being "pornographic".

AFABs: Women will become less significant in society, single mothers will be forced to marry, life for women will become closer to what it was like before/during the women's rights movement.

LGBTQIA+ People: Queer marriage will most likely be outlawed/criminalized, dehumanization.

Christianity will be pushed onto people

The FBI will be dismantled, the Department of Justice will become compromised, and they're going to do something to the Department of Education to have more conservative education.

Project 2025 official website [from the heritage foundation/DARN CONSERVATIVE PROPAGANDA]: https://www.project2025.org/

[qqueenofhades]

I was wondering if you think things would have gone differently for McCarthy if he had immediately shut down the Biden impeachment idea, what with no evidence and all? Personally if I was in congress and saw someone willing to go to such lengths to try to court just a few extremists/crazies in their own party, I’d be super worried about what they would demand next from him

No, because he was 100% in a no-win situation of his own making. He bent over backward to appease the crazies by bringing the "impeachment" investigation, which instantly proved to be a total disaster exposing the complete absence of any actual evidence and was seen as such by everyone, including Fox. Because McCarthy sold his soul to get the job in the first place by pandering to the most extremist elements of the GOP House caucus, he willingly agreed to the situation where just one loony would be able to introduce a motion to vacate him -- which, uh, is exactly what just happened. This was a ticking time bomb, and it's extremely hard to feel bad that it went off. Chekhov's Matt Gaetz, or something.

Basically, Kevin was damned-if-he-did, damned-if-he-didn't. He enraged Democrats by bringing the sham impeachment and by going on TV and blaming them (as he continues to do even now) for "not wanting to pass" the budget deal, when they were the only reason the government didn't shut down. He had repeatedly lied to them, kissed up to Trump, and otherwise been profoundly untrustworthy. He didn't have enough spine or character to shut down the impeachment business, and even if he had, he would have been even more compromised in the eyes of the far-right lunatics (blah blah "Hiding The Truth About Biden's Crimez And Working With Democrats To Stop It!"). Who indeed would have tried to remove him on that alone. This was all completely predictable and unavoidable from the moment he sold every single scrap of principle or customary House rule just to futilely attempt to appease the worst people alive, get his paws on the gavel for barely 9 months, and accomplish literally nothing, thus to go down in flames as a literal first-in-history laughingstock. Hope it was worth it, Kev!

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

GOP Convention:: Mike Luckovich

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LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

July 16, 2024

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

JUL 17, 2024

The Republican National Convention is a moment to reintroduce Trump and MAGA Republicans to voters who have not seen them up close since at least 2021. So far, the convention has proved that the Republican Party is now the MAGA Party. It has not been a smooth unveiling. 

Yesterday, just after House speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) announced that delegates were formally nominating Trump as the Republican Party’s presidential candidate, the teleprompter failed. Unable to continue without it, Johnson quickly left the stage. This was awkward, since two weeks ago, Johnson said on the Fox News Channel of President Joe Biden: “Unless the president is reading off the teleprompter, I don’t think he’s capable of making these big decisions and that is something that should alarm all of us….” 

The teleprompter having been fixed, Johnson returned forty-five minutes later to introduce Iowa’s attorney general, Brenna Bird, who in turn began the process of nominating Ohio senator J. D. Vance for vice president. The last time a Republican vice presidential nominee has been named so late was 1988, and while announcing at the convention has the benefit of generating enthusiasm for the novel story, it has the downside of bringing an avalanche of opposition. Vance brought the latter.

He is very young—just 39—and has held an elected office for just 18 months, making him notably inexperienced for someone in contention for the vice presidential slot, especially behind a 78-year-old presidential nominee. In the past, he was a never-Trumper, saying that Trump “might be America’s Hitler,” “might be a cynical a**hole,” and is “cultural heroin,” “noxious,” and “reprehensible,” but he came around to embrace the Big Lie that the 2020 election was stolen and to say that if he had been vice president on January 6, 2021, he would have done what former vice president Mike Pence would not: he would have refused to count the certified electoral ballots for President Joe Biden. 

Former Wyoming representative Liz Cheney, who was drummed out of the party for standing against Trump’s attempt to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election, wrote: “JD Vance has pledged he would do what Mike Pence wouldn’t—overturn an election and illegally seize power. He says the president can ignore the rulings of our courts. He would capitulate to Russia and sacrifice the freedom of our allies in Ukraine. The Trump GOP is no longer the party of Lincoln, Reagan or the Constitution.”

Both ends of the Republican spectrum have also expressed concerns about Vance. The far right has been vocal today about their disdain for Vance’s wife, who is the American-born daughter of Indian immigrants. “Do we really expect that the guy who has an Indian wife and named their kid Vivek is going to support white identity?” Nick Fuentes asked. 

On the other side of the Republican spectrum, those who opposed Trump because of his extremism, especially on abortion, are unlikely to have their fears relieved by Vance, who has advocated no-exceptions abortion bans, that people stay in violent marriages, and said: “We are effectively run in this country…by a bunch of childless cat ladies who are miserable at their own lives and the choices that they’ve made. And so they want to make the rest of the country miserable too.”

But for all the talk of unifying the country since last weekend’s shooting, Trump did not pick Vance to bring Republicans together. His selection of Vance reinforces that the MAGAs have taken over the Republican Party with an ideology that rejects democracy in favor of Christian nationalism. Vance has repeatedly elevated Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orbán’s destruction of democracy in favor of a strong leader imposing Christian family structures, ending abortion rights, enforcing anti-LGBTQ+ policies and encouraging attacks on immigrants, and seizing universities. Heritage Foundation president Kevin Roberts, who is also aligned with Orbán and was key to the production of Project 2025, which echoes Orbán’s co-called “illiberal democracy,” cheered Vance’s selection. 

On Monday the convention approved a platform, the document that outlines the party’s position for the administration they hope to put into power. The evolution of Republican platforms since 2016 shows the evolution of the Republican Party. The 2016 platform fell pretty much within the norms of the genre, celebrating the nation and attacking the opposition before calling first for tax cuts—standard fare for Republicans since 1980—open markets, and deregulation of business and finance, as well as a smaller government. It called as well for an end to gay marriage, protection of gun ownership, and opposition to abortion. 

In 2020 the Republican Party did not write a platform, simply saying “[t]hat the Republican Party has and will continue to enthusiastically support the President's America-first agenda.”

In 2024 the Republican Party platform reiterates the points of a Trump rally. Its capitalization is erratic, as his is, and it is full of sweeping and often incorrect statements. Rather than celebrating the country, it warns that “we are a Nation in SERIOUS DECLINE. Our future, our identity, and our very way of life are under threat like never before.” It promises that, under Trump, “We will be a Nation based on Truth, Justice, and Common Sense.”

The only real sign of the old party is the platform’s promise to make the Trump tax cuts, which have already added $2.5 trillion to the national debt, permanent. Otherwise, the platform is a MAGA document. It portrays a world that reflects Trump’s dystopian vision rather than reality, then promises to fix that dystopia either with vague promises or with culture war victories. In odd passages, it promises to do what Biden has already done: conquer inflation, bring supply chains home, revive manufacturing, and save the auto industry. 

The speakers at the convention have largely been MAGA extremists, and the picture they painted of the United States echoed Trump’s. They portrayed a country in decline from the heady days of the Trump presidency, but their image was not based in reality. Virginia governor Glenn Youngkin, for example, claimed that “Women, Black Americans, Hispanic Americans, Asian Americans all saw record low employment under Donald J. Trump,” when in fact those record lows have come under Biden. Former CEO of Yammer, South African David Sacks, echoed Russian talking points when he blamed Biden for provoking Russia to invade Ukraine. Tennessee senator Marsha Blackburn attacked “racist DEI requirements.”

CNN fact checker Daniel Dale has been kept busy correcting the Republicans’ repeated lie that there is a violent crime wave in the U.S. under Biden; the opposite is true. Both violent crimes and property crimes have plummeted since the Trump administration. Republicans are also saying that Democrats “have eroded the American energy dominance that President Trump delivered.” In reality, while Biden is trying to shift the U.S. to renewables, Dale noted that “the U.S. under Biden is producing more crude oil than any country ever has… the U.S. is setting fossil fuel world records under this administration. The U.S. produced a global record 12.9 million barrels of crude oil per day in 2023, easily beating the Trump-era high of 12.3 million barrels.”  

Today’s speakers included Nikki Haley, a last-minute addition to the program after the events of the weekend in an apparent attempt to create a sense of unity. She made a good pitch but didn’t convince everyone: there were scattered boos at her appearance. Her speech was the high-water mark of the unity effort tonight; the rest of the speakers hammered the idea that the country is divided in two and that Trump’s opponents are persecuting him. They singled out the media as a key enemy.  

The bitter rift between establishment and MAGA Republicans has been evident in other ways, as well. Attendees booed Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) when he pledged Kentucky’s votes to Trump, from whom he has kept his distance. MAGA congressman Matt Gaetz (R-FL) interrupted CNN journalist Kaitlan Collins when she was interviewing former House speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) to taunt McCarthy by pointing out that he had not been asked to speak, adding that if he had been, “You would get booed off the stage.” Gaetz was behind the move to throw McCarthy out of his office, and he resigned from Congress shortly thereafter. McCarthy reacted by noting that there is an ethics complaint against Gaetz for sleeping with a minor.   

Trump has appeared at the convention with a large bandage on the ear he says was pierced by a bullet on Saturday. Journalists have begun to note that there has been no medical report of Trump’s injuries, an odd omission after the intense recent scrutiny of President Biden’s health. 

Trump seemed oddly subdued on Monday and appeared to fall asleep during the proceedings. His wife Melania has not yet appeared at the convention. 

Today, presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s son Bobby Kennedy III posted a video of a call Trump made to his father in which Trump appeared to try to win Kennedy’s support first by appearing to support Kennedy’s opposition to vaccines and then by suggesting that he could get Kennedy a job. “I would love you to do something,” Trump said. “And I think it’ll be so good for you and so big for you. And we’re going to win.” He also noted that Biden had called him after the shooting, saying “it was very nice, actually,” and that the cause of the injury he sustained on Saturday felt like “the world’s largest mosquito.” 

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON