Originally Posted by Pete F. (Post 1237001)

Reminder: Jim Jordan secretly plotted with Donald Trump to overturn an election and undermine American democracy. Now he's getting votes for speaker. That’s the GOP.
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Originally Posted by Got Stripers (Post 1236981)

Many have commented on how Trump has destroyed to GOP and it keeps getting proven over and over. From the selection of candidates, the mid term results and now this; I think the predictions by Scott and Jim that it will be fun to watch after the mid terms seem to be true but the fun isn’t on the right side of the isle.

Originally Posted by Jim in CT (Post 1237007)

Right, the GOP is destroyed. They have the house, 49 Senate seats, and a robust majority of state governorships and state legislatures.

Finally, the GOP controls the states that are growing the fastest, and the left runs the states that people are fleeing. This will likely continue, as the bluest states like CT, are just about ready to enter the phase where either they start bouncing pension checks to unionized retirees, or they ram huge tax hikes down our throats. Those are the only 2 choices for places like CT and IL. As people leave those states for FL, that means blue states will lose house seats and red states will gain them.

That's a destroyed party to you? The GOP is stupid, dysfunctional, has as many liars and scumbags as any hugs group of people will have. But they aren't getting creamed by any means.

Plus there's probably a recession coming. America isn't going to blame the GOP-led house.

Originally Posted by Pete F. (Post 1237020)

What goes round comes round. The right-wing habits of chaos and betrayal the GOP unleashed against the American Republic on Jan. 6 are now destroying Lincoln’s party. The sedition you feed is the sedition that feeds on you.
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Originally Posted by Jim in CT (Post 1237021)

The fact that you hate the GOP, doesn't mean it's destroyed. We just had an election. The GOP underperformed obviously, but on a federal/state level, they're hanging right with the democrats. So I don't know what the "now" is you're referring to, if it's the speaker mess that's a temporary embarassment that no one likely will remember in a year.

Originally Posted by Pete F. (Post 1237024)

Two years of a circular firing squad. D’s rejoicing with a look ahead to 24.
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Originally Posted by Jim in CT (Post 1237027)

america didn’t agree with you in november. the GOP is in fine shape. The biggest threat is obviously trump. He’ll be in the rear view mirror no later than 2024.

You’re denying mathematical reality because you don’t like it.

If trump is the nominee, you should
look forward to 2024. If it’s Desantis, you have less reason to be excited.

who do you think will be the democrat nominee? curious who you think. I think Newsom.

Originally Posted by Pete F. (Post 1237028)

Your new hero

SEVENTY EIGHT. That’s the number of verified child sex-trafficking victims who were groomed and recruited out of Ron DeSantis’ state-run foster care in 2021.

ZERO. That’s how many were recruited from Drag shows.

Guess who’s being investigated.
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Originally Posted by Jim in CT (Post 1237030)

and yet he won re election in a purple state, by an absolute avalanche of a landslide. again, america doesn’t agree with you.

Who do you think the democrat nominee will be? don’t want to share your guess?

Originally Posted by Pete F. (Post 1237033)

Biden
Biggest infrastructure bill since Eisenhower, major China competitiveness law, most significant gun reform since 1994, Respect for Marriage Act, reauthorizing Violence Against Women Act, Burn Pits Act for vets, massive support for Ukraine, Electoral Count Act reform: Biden rules!
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Originally Posted by Jim in CT (Post 1237027)

america didn’t agree with you in november. the GOP is in fine shape. The biggest threat is obviously trump. He’ll be in the rear view mirror no later than 2024.

You’re denying mathematical reality because you don’t like it.

If trump is the nominee, you should
look forward to 2024. If it’s Desantis, you have less reason to be excited.

who do you think will be the democrat nominee? curious who you think. I think Newsom.

Originally Posted by wdmso (Post 1237051)

Poor Byron Donalds being used by the far right of the Republican Party putting him up for the speakership a seat they will never give Him

The GOP is so so pathetic the just invoked Frederick Douglass proudly being a Republican

Where have we heard this twisted logic before

Originally Posted by wdmso (Post 1237051)

Poor Byron Donalds being used by the far right of the Republican Party putting him up for the speakership a seat they will never give Him

The GOP is so so pathetic Scott Perry [part of fake-elector scam] just invoked Frederick Douglass proudly being a Republican . And change is needed in Washington because stealing the election didn’t work

Originally Posted by Jim in CT (Post 1237058)

Today, the democrats are ALL OVER republicans who deny the results of the 2020 election.

But here are quotes from democrat house leader Hakeem Jeffries...

"Climate change is not a hoax. But 45's election may have been".

"Trumps election integrity commission should investigate his so-called victory".

"the real hoax is likely your so-called election victory".

So can someone just clarify for me, when is it OK to deny the results of an election, and when is it wrong to do so? When is election-denying acceptable, and when is it unacceptable?

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/dem...ying-elections

Originally Posted by wdmso (Post 1237060)

Give it up Jim your being Intellectually dishonest again

It’s easy jim it’s one thing to say “so called election victory”. it’s totally different when you actually try to steal it like Trump and the Republicans did

Originally Posted by Jim in CT (Post 1237058)

Today, the democrats are ALL OVER republicans who deny the results of the 2020 election.

But here are quotes from democrat house leader Hakeem Jeffries...

"Climate change is not a hoax. But 45's election may have been".

"Trumps election integrity commission should investigate his so-called victory".

"the real hoax is likely your so-called election victory".

So can someone just clarify for me, when is it OK to deny the results of an election, and when is it wrong to do so? When is election-denying acceptable, and when is it unacceptable?

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/dem...ying-elections

Originally Posted by wdmso (Post 1237063)

Give it up Jim your being Intellectually dishonest again

It’s easy to clarify it’s one thing to suggest I think the election wasn’t fair it’s totally and completely different when the President of the United States and his administration and other Republicans and supporters actually try to steal the election .. that’s not even disputable

Originally Posted by Pete F. (Post 1237066)

After 4 years of order, leadership, and governance under a House Democratic majority, I present to you…The current situation in the House,

The Chi-coms, Stalinist Supreme Soviet, and, dare I say, the Nazis had very ordered governance.

Turbulence in our House of Representatives can be far more beneficial for keeping our Federal Government in check against being a well ordered cabal lead by the false authoritarian promise of taking care of the people.

hilarious though it is, shows one important thing. If your entire political party is chosen based on the desire to hurt other people, they will, given the opportunity, hurt each other.

If words and disagreements hurt you, then you should surely seek employment somewhere other than the political arena.

People who harm have no ability to restrain themselves from doing harm. They also have no love nor loyalty to each other. Hate and harm are the whole of their being and they will exercise hate and harm regardless of target or consequences.

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Originally Posted by detbuch (Post 1237074)

People who hate and harm our constitutional form of government and wish to replace it with a promised, supposedly benevolent, authoritarian state will not restrain themselves from that endeavor. And they will exercise that hate and harm against those standing in their way and will ultimately feed off of their authoritarian nature by subjugating, punishing, anyone that threatens their power. They will gather committees and cabals around themselves to create the attractive air of orderly consensus in order to please and pacify the populace with a show of justifiable and legal righteousness so they then can remove, with trials and investigations and indictments, those who oppose and threaten them or their agenda, thereby permanently destroying them by irreparable harms and punishments.

Originally Posted by Pete F. (Post 1237075)

Bolsonaro landed in Florida. He’s afraid his passport might be revoked now that presidential immunity no longer shields him from criminal investigations, so he went to Florida where he plans to spend time with other fascists like Trump and DeSantis.
Desantis's idea of freedom sure seems to resemble a authoritarian govt the way he's going after private businesses

Going after private businesses? Like in how he is attracting businesses from high tax states.
He acts very business friendly. It's like he's going after businesses to move to Florida.

and minorities. DeSantis doesn’t pretend to be moderate; being a far-right culture warrior is his brand. Journalist/author and scholar Henry A. Giroux analyzes DeSantis’ appeal in a scathing article published by Truthout on December 16, and he doesn’t sugarcoat anything. DeSantis, Giroux warns, is “fueling the emergence of fascist politics in the United States.”

Fascism has been continuously fueled in our politics through increasing public/private "cooperation" between our Federal Government and oligarchs that run our large corporations of all types, which all pre-dates DeSantis by a longshot. Progressivism is a political precursor to our growing fascism as it was/is the ideology that demands unlimited government. All it took was for those of great wealth to meld with that form of government in a scratch my back I'll scratch yours. The symbiosis diminishes competition against the big businesses by partnering (financially supporting) with a hyper-powerful government which can impose regulations which stifle the ability of smaller businesses to compete. Intended or not, that is the consequence.

“While some pundits have connected DeSantis’ politics to an emerging authoritarianism,” Giroux explains, “they still fail both to name the ongoing development of fascism in the U.S. and to recognize that it takes different forms in different societies and historical formations. They dismiss any talk of fascism by suggesting that its unique historical attributes, such as the genocidal use of concentration camps, have to be repeated precisely in order to assign the term fascism to present events. Fascism is never entirely interred in the past; it is a dangerous ideology that may go into remission but never disappears.”

Sounds like he's saying that "fascism" depends...

Giroux continues, “Fascism is a recurrent and infinitely translatable phenomenon and often takes on the cultural and political attributes of the societies in which it appears. The refusal to acknowledge that fascism can appear in many forms, often lying dormant in a society until the emergence of certain forces unleash it, reinforces the willingness of many to retreat into silence or ignore the seriousness of the emerging fascist threat. Expressing ourselves in words, learning from history and making connections among disparate events all matter in the age of fascism.”

Sounds like he still hasn't nailed what fascism is . . .

Giroux stresses that when one is analyzing fascism, it’s important to recognize patterns and understand how individual events fit into the big picture — events like DeSantis sending migrants to Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts or Trump having dinner with white nationalist and Holocaust denier Nick Fuentes at Mar-a-Lago.

Wow, sending migrants to Martha's Vineyard is a sign in the "pattern" of fascism . . . and having dinner with all types and persuasions of people including white nationalists and Holocaust deniers is a sign of fascism. Maybe I'm wrong, didn't Trump have dinner with capitalists, and Democrats, and Repulicans, and gays, and black people, and atheists, and religious folk . . . all types of people . . . wow, some fascist-by-dinner association.

“Fascist politics saturate U.S. society,” Giroux warns. “Ultranationalism, the calls for racial purity, voter suppression, hyper-militarism, required loyalty oaths from higher education faculty, rampant censorship, a ubiquitous anti-intellectualism, and a full-fledged attack on social provisions and public goods make clear that democracy is in crisis.

Trump's nationalism was "Ultra"? Is DeSantis Ultra too? Are they hyper-militarists? Or ubiquitously anti-intellectual? Or have a full-fledged attack on "social provisions" and public "goods"? This guy is really reaching for something . . . I guess something he thinks is "fascism." Mussolini was actually an intellectual and both he and Hitler solidly supported social provisions and public goods for their people.


Yet, in too many cases, the larger significance of these incendiary calamities is missed because they are treated as separate from each other…. DeSantis’ publicity stunt of using migrants as political pawns was also disconnected in the mainstream and liberal media from his attempt to erase the history of the Jim Crow era as part of his larger project of a politics of disposability.”

I thought that encouraging migrants to flood across the border was using them as political pawns--oh well, to each his own. Is DeSantis going to dispose of all the Hispanics and blacks in Florida. Hadn't heard about that.

Giroux continues, “For instance, little was said connecting this racist policy to DeSantis’ passing laws banning books about Black history and racial narratives from schools and libraries, along with limiting what teachers can teach about racism — a policy that clearly indicates how DeSantis is following in the footsteps of the Nazification of education in Hitler’s Germany.”

DeSantis banned all books about Black history? Well, of course not. Nor does Florida issue statewide bans on specific books. Is DeSantis following in the footsteps of Nazification? That would be sort of a Hyper or Ultra type of statement.


Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, a far-right authoritarian, has drawn a great deal of admiration among MAGA Republicans — including Fox News’ Tucker Carlson. And Giroux outlines some parallels between DeSantis and Orbán.

"Some parallels"--one could draw "some parallels" between Giroux's methods in writing this essay to how Nazis and various authoritarians and Fascists present their "facts" and ideas concerning what they want you to think is true.

“Following in the footsteps of Viktor Orbán, the authoritarian leader who has turned Hungary into a fascist country,

I guess it depends on what you mean by "fascist." Giroux never clearly spells that out. And throws in a bunch of ideas which are either untrue or guilt by comparison or association, or just hyper-slanted, propagandistic like a good "fascist" would employ.

DeSantis has waged a war on immigrants, targeted gay and transgender youth, purged voters, banned books in Florida schools, limited what teachers can say about racism and other critical elements of American history, and used state power to punish businesses, evident in his ruthless and vindictive attack on Disney,” Giroux observes. “He has also used policing to punish Black voters who disagree with his policies, courted Christian nationalists, supported a white nationalist agenda and waged a war on higher education. There is little doubt that DeSantis has turned Florida into a laboratory of fascist politics.”