The Republican Agenda 2021 and Forward

[lizkat]

There is a really vulgar bit of snark that could be tacked on to this, but I am not quite that crude.

Thank you.

 

[Yoused]

In a campaign fundraising email, Josh Hawley (Q-MO) urges followers to donate so he can force schools to stop teaching that there is more than one gender

​

(see red buttons)

 

[Alli]

I’d like to know which one gender is THE ONE. Cause if it’s feminine (not female), Hawley’s going to have to make some changes in his life.

 

[mac_in_tosh]

Of course to Hawley the word "liberal" is not sufficient. He has to label them "socialist." With the GOP, "liberal" is almost always preceded by "radical extremist."

With Republicans it's all about culture wars. They have nothing to offer in the way of programs to improve the life of Americans and aren't really interested in governing. The poster boy for that is the sleeze Ted Cruz who was caught escaping to Cancun while millions of his fellow citizens were suffering from massive power outages.

 

[GermanSuplex]

I can’t wait until carpetbagger Hawley is up for re-election. Every TV ad should feature him running away from the mob. That’s all he is in my mind, a pathetic gif.

You would think being an actual resident of the state you’re running to represent would be important to voters, but apparently it isn’t.

 

[Yoused]

we need to stop giving these misogynists air (and airtime)

Republican House Candidate Said Women's Suffrage Made Us a 'Totalitarian State'

"We cannot say that women should be able to vote simply because they are a large part of the population," Michigan candidate John Gibbs wrote while at Stanford.

jezebel.com

 

[Chew Toy McCoy]

Heard an interview with a white Mississippi journalist who has lived there his entire life. He said there’s a long history of white people in the state making sacrifices in order to keep black people down. In other words, if something might elevate black people then they don’t want it for anybody. This seems to be the mentality that has risen to the top for a lot of Republican voters. Whenever something is proposed their kneejerk analysis is to determine if it would benefit a group they aren’t in and probably don’t like and if so then they don’t want it. Doesn’t matter if they would benefit from it too. The primary objective is to keep others down/beneath them.

 

[fooferdoggie]

we need to stop giving these misogynists air (and airtime)

Republican House Candidate Said Women's Suffrage Made Us a 'Totalitarian State'

"We cannot say that women should be able to vote simply because they are a large part of the population," Michigan candidate John Gibbs wrote while at Stanford.

jezebel.com

this coming from this moron . who thinks emotionally???? sounds like a incel
While a student at Stanford in the early 2000s, Gibbs created a “thinktank” that he called the Society for the Critique of Feminism. On the think tank’s website, preserved via the Internet Archive’s ever-delightful Wayback Machine, he wrote that women don’t “posess (sic) the characteristics necessary to govern,” argued that men are smarter than women because they “think logically… without relying upon emotional reasoning,” and quite literally called patriarchal society “the best model for the continued success of a society.” Sir, who hurt you?

 

[GermanSuplex]

we need to stop giving these misogynists air (and airtime)

Republican House Candidate Said Women's Suffrage Made Us a 'Totalitarian State'

"We cannot say that women should be able to vote simply because they are a large part of the population," Michigan candidate John Gibbs wrote while at Stanford.

jezebel.com

So John, who's the girl you never got over after she broke your heart?

This guy really pisses me off for some reason. Perhaps because unlike some of the other GOP creeps, he comes across (at least some of the time) as a nice and affable guy.

Really hoping this guy loses in November.

 

[mac_in_tosh]

this c0oming from this morning. who thinks emotionally???? sounds like a incel
While a student at Stanford in the early 2000s, Gibbs created a “thinktank” that he called the Society for the Critique of Feminism. On the think tank’s website, preserved via the Internet Archive’s ever-delightful Wayback Machine, he wrote that women don’t “posess (sic) the characteristics necessary to govern,” argued that men are smarter than women because they “think logically… without relying upon emotional reasoning,” ...

Then how does he explain Trump?

 

[lizkat]

Today we have news of the GOP's implied disavowal of Ohio congressional candidate JR Majewski, via their having pulled $700k of money for campaign ad buys. This followed an AP investigation of earlier reports that he had somehow falsified descriptions of his military service.

Amid doubts about J.R. Majewski’s military record, GOP ads in his district are scrapped

Military records show that Majewski lacks many of the medals that are typically awarded to those who served in Afghanistan.

www.mercurynews.com

Ohio GOP House candidate has misrepresented military service

WASHINGTON (AP) — Campaigning for a northwestern Ohio congressional seat, Republican J.R. Majewski presents himself as an Air Force combat veteran who deployed to Afghanistan after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, once describing “tough” conditions including a lack of running water that forced him to...

apnews.com

Majewski yesterday was still insisting his records of deployment to Afghanistan were "classified".

Of course if some of his missions were actually classified, then he should not even be mentioning them this soon, under penalty of court martial.

That aside, the memes on social media have got pretty brutal regarding "yo where are even any of usual medals for any Afghanistan service?" along with many posts focused on Majewski's "classified deployment" assertion, and running to "ha ha ha ha so I just thought about that and declassified it."

 

[Alli]

That aside, the memes on social media have got pretty brutal regarding "yo where are even any of usual medals for any Afghanistan service?" along with many posts focused on Majewski's "classified deployment" assertion, and running to "ha ha ha ha so I just thought about that and declassified it."

The jerk even had the stupidity to post his orders. Unfortunately, what it’s showing is that he went TDY (temporary duty), and also exposed the fact that he’d been busted down two ranks and never made them up.

 

[lizkat]

The jerk even had the stupidity to post his orders. Unfortunately, what it’s showing is that he went TDY (temporary duty), and also exposed the fact that he’d been busted down two ranks and never made them up.

Some bar brawls may have been more exciting than others...

The way I look at it, his attempt to inflate his service record unnecessarily alienated potential support of any men or women who have served in the military in support sectors. Troops can't survive without reliable logistics and supply services. All honorable service matters to fellows and country. Ask any Russian in Ukraine right now. Yet this guy Majewski has now gathered tweets on social media mocking him for "loading bags in Dubai"... which of course reap some comebacks along lines of "better thank the christ someone put your kid's ammo re-ups on the right f'g plane ".

Some of those comebacks are from people who might never vote for a Democrat but they're not going to vote for Majewski now if they live in that Ohio district. The Rs should be thanking God this is a midterm and not the 2024 presidential contest. "Reverse coattails" affecting the top of ticket can be a thing, thanks to people who decide to sit out a congressional election in a presidential election year.

 

[Citysnaps]

GOP: The party of pants on fire.

 

[Yoused]

GOP: The party of pants on fire.

which seems to have spread to their hair

 

[GermanSuplex]

I’m watching “The Rehearsal” on HBO. It’s a fascinating show, I suggest reading about it. The entire GOP and Trump remind me of Nathan Fielder, desperately trying to create what is essentially a facade grounded in reality, trying to cover every base but getting caught off guard nonetheless, then having to construct a whole new lie to move forward and keep the thing going.

Sadly, the GOP is real. But it looks like things are coming back to bite them. I do believe they GOP will get the house, thanks to gerrymandering and screwing with registrations, but I still think there will be upsets and some of these far-right loons who won primaries will be thrashed at the ballots.

 

[lizkat]

I’m watching “The Rehearsal” on HBO. It’s a fascinating show, I suggest reading about it. The entire GOP and Trump remind me of Nathan Fielder, desperately trying to create what is essentially a facade grounded in reality, trying to cover every base but getting caught off guard nonetheless, then having to construct a whole new lie to move forward and keep the thing going.

Sadly, the GOP is real. But it looks like things are coming back to bite them. I do believe they GOP will get the house, thanks to gerrymandering and screwing with registrations, but I still think there will be upsets and some of these far-right loons who won primaries will be thrashed at the ballots.

I don't know what to think about possible election outcomes this year. Part of it's the whole "messing with registrations" (and polling places and election workers and the powers of state secretaries of state in the vote certification process) but there's also a little wonderment about how much "October surprises" can matter any more, and whether vats of money dumped into races by billionaires or industry lobbies can really swing seats or not.

We live after all in an age where a former president told us 30k documented lies and we did or didn't believe him but maybe got the drift that nothing a public figure says really matters?

So we sit now in front of political ads that have cost hundreds of millions of dollars, and while they run we scroll through social media to see if we missed any viral posts from total strangers about what's up with the planet tonight.

Ah the political ad is finally over --our brains always know it's over when someone flash-mumbles "paid for by the committee to re-elect somebody or other" -- so the TV watcher gets that cue and puts down smartphone and resumes watching his procedural crime show or whatever.​

​

So If I had dumped $10k or $100k or half a million bucks into some PAC I'm not sure I"d be impressed with the PAC's decision to shell it out for ad buys any more...

There's so much money in politics now that the donors might as well just hand it to incumbents or challengers they favor: stop pretending there is some kind of flow that goes "donor buys ad, voter sees ad, voter votes for guy with best ad, winner remembers who picked up tab for most of his ads, winner phones that guy to say you won the right to draft my legislative efforts for two years, congratulations."

We may know less than we ever did about what makes a voter vote as he does. Databases of personal info on potential voters are floating around, rented out, doubled down on if they turn up monetary responses. Campaign managers don't even always know who's phonebanking for them, much less whether what those rogue operators are saying may come back to bite their candidate.

What kind of October surprise can even faze Americans any more anyway? We have candidates who are running for re-election who have been indicted for corruption and banking on name recognition alone to get them across the finish line anew. We have Trump out there still talking to die-hard cultist followers about a 2024 campaign even as he faces potential indictments for stuff like financial fraud on a grand scale, misuse or worse of classified and other sensitive documents, even sedition or treason.

And then there is the ephemeral quality of our outrage. The firehose of the internet's information flow offers us daily pickings of what to be most outraged over. Who remembers last week's outrages, or the ones from yesterday? We live in an eternal now with our smartphones at the ready. How soon is too soon to ship out an "October surprise" in 2022? No one knows. It drives the pollsters mad.

 

[lizkat]

Well this just about takes the cake really. GOP rolls out its latest adaptation of Gingrich's ol "Contract for [or on?] America" but with no concrete legislative proposals, just talking points and a video that purports to be about our rich heritage but contains stock footage of stuff like...yeah, Russian oil rigs.

https://www.twitter.com/i/web/status/1573394446351478785/

If you read the Huffpost piece cited in the tweet, they reached out to Kevin McCarthy to inquire why stock images from Russia, Ukraine and some European grocery store were used in the video. Here was the response:

“Interesting how you guys aren’t remotely interested on the issues facing the American people in the video,” responded McCarthy spokesman Mark Bednar.​

 

[Yoused]

Well this just about takes the cake really. GOP rolls out its latest adaptation of Gingrich's ol "Contract for [or on?] America"

Seems to me that the original "contract" was similarly lacking in substance.

If you read the Huffpost piece cited in the tweet, they reached out to Kevin McCarthy to inquire why stock images from Russia, Ukraine and some European grocery store were used in the video. Here was the response:

“Interesting how you guys aren’t remotely interested on the issues facing the American people in the video,” responded McCarthy spokesman Mark Bednar.​

All we can hope is that the cover-everyone-in-meadow-muffins machine will eventually run out of steam(ing BS).

 

[GermanSuplex]

Trump eventually entered the room, having lost a noticeable amount of weight since I had seen him last. Graham followed a minute later and gestured toward Trump. “The greatest comeback in American history!” Graham declared. Trump looked at me. “You know why Lindsey kisses my ass?” he asked. “So I’ll endorse his friends.” Graham laughed uproariously.

Three Conversations With Donald Trump

The former president tried to sell his preferred version of himself, but said much more than he intended.

www.theatlantic.com