The list of personalities like this just keep growing in their ranks. They just say what their voters "feel".

interesting.... former professional wrestler so not surprised by the song and pony dance... guy is from NJ, lost two elections in Neveda and just moved to Texas prior to announcing his run.... unfortunately I wouldn't be surprised if these antics actually worked for him in parts of Texas....

You nailed it.

What the Republicans Has Turned Into???

Great grammar there buddy. At least proofread your damn titles.

It is so clear that he had a stunt double riding that bull. They go out of their way to avoid showing the bull-riders face. Yet they try to imply that it was him.

I find this to be a completely apt epitaph for Trump and his term in office AND it demonstrates what the GOP is all about now. Complete and total empty rhetoric that the "MAG" crowd ate up and loved and thumped their chests about, never mind the reality.

https://www.cnn.com/2021/04/22/tech/foxconn-wisconsin-factory-scaled-down/index.html

When first announced in 2017, Foxconn's plan to build a massive electronics factory in Wisconsin was hailed by then-President Donald Trump as a sign of the rebirth of American manufacturing.

But nearly four years later, the complex that promised to create a Silicon Valley in the industrial Midwest is essentially a white elephant, a collection of mostly empty buildings without any high-tech products to build.

How come republicans voters whine about Hollywood so much, then turn around and vote for TV personalities?

Are they aware that reality TV isn’t real life?

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/elections/caitlyn-jenner-launches-bid-california-governor-n1265064

Caitlynn Jenner about to announce her run for Gov of California...

Just wondering what the Republicans will do about their comments about Rachel Levine now? How do they explain this one.

Wanna hear the worse part of this whole story... Many years before that, Foxconn said they were going to build the same kinda factory in PA.. That never came to pass either.

Believe in the word CONN in Foxconn!

Well she is a Republican. Maybe as long as she doesn't try to use their bathroom things will be okay.

Yeah, I don't see Katlin Jenner as governor. Even in California.

Arnold was pretty coherent. I voted for him. Twice. I thought he managed the State pretty well.

Arnold is what republicans used to be.

Likewise, JFK is what democrats were once upon a time, and only once in my lifetime.

“If by a "Liberal" they mean someone who looks ahead and not behind, someone who welcomes new ideas without rigid reactions, someone who cares about the welfare of the people-their health, their housing, their schools, their jobs, their civil rights and their civil liberties-someone who believes we can break through the stalemate and suspicions that grip us in our policies abroad, if that is what they mean by a "Liberal", then I'm proud to say I'm a "Liberal.” J.F.K.

And yet, all the same problems as then, are here now. And that's not a dig on/at liberals. Or dem's.

It's a dig at politicians. They don't serve US, they serve them.

Neither is true.

There is also a Republican version of that graphic.

You'll have to ask J.F.K. Oh never mind, he was assassinated.

I guess you missed the point. The point was that fish tried to act as if J.F.K. wasn't conducting many of the same fights that liberals are today. That is incorrect. He pointed out the things he was fighting both for and against and proudly proclaimed himself a liberal.

Maybe you should take a look at the things Biden is supporting and trying to pass and who is fighting against him to get a glimpse of who has been actively stopping those things from happening.

I'm certainly not trying to say that most politicians aren't thinking of their own special interests. But their number one interest is reelection. To get that they must try and deliver the things the platform they ran on promoted.

My statement stands. The same problems this country had last year, 5 years ago, 10 years ago, 20 years ago, 50 years ago, etc, STILL exist.

Only difference is whose side you take. The problems are still there. Politicians get rich, problems aren't solved.

Period.

It's worse than that. The dems have turned far far left and turn everything in to a race war.

They want that.

Ummm ....yes it is. It’s been proven out for decades. The party of no no no. The party of “if we don’t win we’ll take the ball and go home”. Pfft The GQP. The Party of the imbecile DJT.

Where have you been bro. Right wing Anglo saxons have been waging a race war for hundreds of years, GMAFB

Sorry man, I disagree as it applies to today.

And yet they keep winning more and more and more votes. The majority of the country - by a record margin - voted for the Democrats.

Now maybe someone that really doesn't have much of a clue will claim that they get all these votes because the Dems want to give "everything to everyone for free" ... and imply that the country votes Democrat because they are all people looking for free hand outs. . . . . Maybe Faux news will come up with some crazy canned answer that sounds good as long as you don't look at the facts?

Bottom line is the 'Right' has a problem with acknowledging or accepting the mainstream direction of a huge slice of the country. Just like the Left has a huge problem with not grasping how/why/fact that Trump still got a lot of votes even after being incompetent and the worst POTUS in the Nation's history.

More and more votes?? Lol. Four years before their poster child was defeated by a reality show host! Maybe they got a record number of votes (in this election) because even life-long conservatives couldn't bring themselves to cast another vote for Trump.

Fair enough - But what have you done for me recently honey? The last election still counts. The support of Warren / Bernie / AOC is real and substantial and growing.

And Trump is the face of the GOP and continues to be - and spineless Republicans and sycophant's continue to kowtow to him, continue to enable his lies.

I have seen you say that before, by a record margin.

What are you talking about?

Warren / Bernie / AOC are token socialists that the democrats pat on the head... and then stick a pacifier in their mouths and sweep them off the stage when they've done their job. There is no way any one of them (or anybody that far to the left) can ever win the presidency. The people that pay the bills in this country won't have it, and "the powers that be" learned their lessons with Trump -- no more outsiders. That's both sides bro... can't play tug o'war against the middle.

Yet the "powers that be" turned around and endorsed Trump again in 2020. So they've suddenly learned their lesson in the last six months?

Have absolutely no idea what you're talking about.

Hopefully that simplifies it for you.

I don't know, what has they turned into?

They ....Has turned into mockingbirds.

It is a catchy title. I do like your mockingbird comment. Very clever my man.

No worries Pit. We all flub it up now and then. It's just that this one does hit a funny bone.

The right has followed the left down the extreme hyperbolic trash bin.



Pure Cringe.



Meanwhile Biden is banning menthol cigs and has been too busy to legalize weed.

I'm not quite sure who it is that followed who but your point is well taken.

Some of the things people label as "liberal ideas", when one actually stops to think about it are not liberal at all.

It'll be interesting to see where things go because the hyperbolic rhetoric keeps amping up and appears to have no end.

At some point I expect Conservatives to start alleging that the Liberals are trying to force people into gay, socialist orgies and for the Liberals to start alleging that the Conservatives are trying to force people in the lowest three tax brackets to prepare for Hunger Games.

Hunger Games may be a bit of a stretch but not as much as one might think.

Here is something that has always puzzled me. Why is it that when ideas come up that help those at the bottom of our society, including low wage workers, to help them at least earn a living or have healthcare for all Americans that it's suddenly labeled as liberal?

Let's take a look at college for example. Free college for all is off the charts an idea that I view as being extreme. At least in the eyes of most of our population. I think that's certainly going too far based on what most Americans want.

No change in the cost of college and the debt incurred is not a legitimate alternative either. There is certainly a middle ground between the two that would make a lot of sense for everyone.

Fully funded community college is such an idea. As of now the federal government takes on all of the bad debt and unpaid loans from college loans but allows private companies to write these loans at well above the prime interest rate. So if tax payers are already taking on the bad debt, why shouldn't they at least reap some of the rewards of writing the loans themselves and getting the benefit of the interest being paid? That way all college loans could be given at the prime rate allowing students a lot less debt over time and our government getting the interest being paid? As of now it's a lose/lose proposition for tax payers. That really doesn't make any sense.

As of now it seems everyone on the right sees even these measures as liberal ideas. But let's look at the results that would be gained.

I can tell you for a fact that here in one of the most red states in our nation, Tennessee, they offer high school graduates two years of community college paid by the state. No cost to the student. Why? Because every state in the union is fighting for good paying jobs. As such having a well educated population gives you an advantage in attracting those jobs to your state. Here in Tennessee that's paying off well.

That same strategy would play out on a global scale. To compete with other nations we must have the ready work force to fill such jobs. To compete in the global job market we must also be competitive in education.

The thing that probably baffles me the most is that here in Tennessee a Republican governor and a Republican senate saw the wisdom in having a better educated work force. To them it was an investment in the future of the state economy. As such it was a Republican plan that wasn't viewed as some "liberal idea". It made sense to them and is paying great dividends.

So the question at that point becomes is it the idea of free community college that's a liberal idea? Or do people call it a liberal idea because it's a proposal coming from the democrats? Because here in Tennessee, when proposed and passed by Republicans, people weren't screaming about it being liberal.

I guess my overriding point in all of this is it's easy for those who oppose an idea to place a label on it based strictly on who is proposing an idea and not so much the idea itself. And it seems that anything that might help those at the bottom is considered liberal because making it sound like a bad idea to help lift up every working American is a bad thing by placing what they see as a negative label to it.

Why is it a liberal idea for every American that works 40 hours should live above the poverty line? Why is it a liberal idea to want every American to have healthcare? Since when did common humanitarian ideas and common decency towards your fellow American become labeled as liberal?

There are a lot of republicans that would like those gay orgies if the could wear a mask and stay in the closet. Just saying.

I don't really disagree with anything you said. I was just trying to make the hyperbolic analogy with a little comic relief mixed in.

I just posed this to you because I felt I could get an honest, non bias response. Just curious as to your thoughts on it. It wasn't actually a direct comment based on your above post.

First, completely free college would more than double and maybe even triple our GDP IMHO. A highly trained/educated workforce is how we compete with other countries in the future. Our biggest competitor, China, has free college. Germany, Norway, UK, EU, and many other countries offer either free or very low cost education. Japan offers college tuition for $6500 a year at public universities.

You want to know why a lot of good American jobs go to immigrants? Well companies need educated workers for those jobs and education legal immigrants get free or next to free training for those good paying jobs then move to America legally... Think about all of the foreign born doctors here in the US; they study in their countries for next to nothing then scoop up some of the best jobs in the world because America can't or doesn't produce enough doctors to meet demand in it's own schools. Hell, years ago I remember reading about American pre med students risking life and limb by going to medical schools in 3rd world conditions to save money on education! The overlying story was about kidnapping and ransoms in south america I believe.

So as to free college, I disagree with it being too much. But I also understand how Americans who paid for college or are paying would feel like they got the shaft if others got to go for free. In order to gain a competitive advantage that other countries have had on us for years, free college is a no brainer IMHO.

The problem is that everything in America is for sale and everybody wants to profit. Information has never been more valuable than it is today and education is basically selling information as a product. This is why profit driven colleges charge so much and put out so many useless degrees.

Think about a degree for a moment. It's really nothing more than a certification by a trusted organization (accredited) that you have completed a course of study. If jobs don't require that certifying piece of paper, then it loses all value other than commemoration of the event.

Yet in the coding world coding bootcamps grads, online learning program certifications, and self taught coders compete with college CS degrees (at a tenth of the cost) everyday for some of the best jobs in America. The conundrum with the coding example is that employers hire the cream of the crop for the best jobs (including many immigrants).

This leaves the rest of the field to work in 2nd and 3rd tier jobs that pay much less. These jobs are often offered by companies with no idea what is involved in coding, how long things take to do, or what the technology is actually capable of doing. In these situations the job offers might be for as little as $25K a year and usually less than $50K.

Not only are they way undervalued but often these jobs will expect the coder to be proficient in multiple CS career paths. You may have to be the IT guy, the front and back end developer, the data analyst, the designer, copywriter, digital marketer, digital media producer, and social media manager just to land a $40K a year job. Imagine doing that with a $100K+ in high interest student loans. Even people paying $10K to $20K for coding bootcamps complain about this.

Additionally in coding, the guy with ten years of actual coding experience earned from doing the work every day is far more valuable than the kid with a fresh degree. So more often than not those CS degree holders are fighting for a 2nd or 3rd tier job until they have put in the coding time and gained the experience needed to land a higher paying job. So what good is the degree?

We as a country need to train people for jobs which will help grow productivity. A well educated workforce improves everything from R&D to GDP. Yet the massively overvalued exchange of knowledge in the name of high profits is the number one reason we do not have the most highly educated workforce in the world. Hell a third of our working population is barely capable of holding down a minimum or low wage service industry job due to lack of education. I think that is shameful, especially when you think of what they might have been capable of if getting an education was not an OBSTACLE.

BTW, one simple work around to the college costs problem would be to let colleges sell the fancy degree and the college experience BUT make them provide the exact same classes online under a job training certification program for free or very low cost. Then people incurring student debt would not be able to say there was no alternative. This is basically what MOOC classes do now but on a larger scale.

I wasn't actually trying to see things from one extreme or the other. I'm not saying it is an extreme idea per say. I'm saying it's simply the most extreme idea on the table when one suggests or proposes free college for all that's coming from one side.

What I was trying to propose is that there should be come common ground in the middle at which we could find a majority of Americans to agree on no matter their politics. I was trying to find an example where Republicans in one area of the nation actually proposed and passed laws giving free community college to its citizens and yet when it's Democrats proposing the same idea it's labeled as some liberal idea.

I think free community college and having the rest of college being funded by the prime interest rate is a great way to greatly reduce not only the cost of college but greatly reduce repaying the loans. Do I think that's the perfect solution? Not really.

But at some time we need to find a starting point that most Americans can agree on with which to move forward in finding some solution to the cost of higher education. I'm not so much objecting to your proposal as I am looking for some common ground.

I know you hate that!

Ahh, I gotcha now. There's a lot to digest there and it evokes a lot of thoughts, but I'll try to corral them.

The overarching answer to your question - to me - is: Power. Politicians will classify something as liberal or leftist or "socialist" being the operative word lately. The other side will use "fascist" or other phrases as well.

The whole goal is not to get to the merits of something, like you said. If every single person actually evaluated every issue in a way that was not reactionary, people might come up with the same assessment as yours, or different ones, in which legitimate debates and conversations could take place to actually improve society through a democratic process. The goal is instead to keep people from thinking about the issue, and react, react, react.

The best way to do that is employ fear and anger, from a populace who is growing in desperation. Trevor Noah said something that I will never forget when reflecting on the problems in South Africa: "If you have just the right amount of fear mixed with desperation, you can get people to believe almost anything." I've held on to that quote for a while.

So politicians and media alike will pump out fear phrases like "socialist" or "fascist" etc., not in reference to the substance of what is actually being discussed, but in order to further self-service of the politician or the media group.

I'll never forget Ted Cruz once saying that net neutrality was the "Obamacare of the internet." I think if you objectively look at that metaphor, it's beyond dumb. However, I'm sure it riled up his base just plenty.

When it comes to things like student loans or education or business regulation, it does not serve the self interests of many Republicans on the national level, both because their donors probably don't want it, and because it's something that the Democrats do want, and more power to the Democrats means less power to the Republicans. So what do the Republican politicians do? "SoCiAlIsM!!!!!" They don't even get into what merits they might actually have to debate with.

The Democrats do it, too. More on social views in my experience. Simple, fear-mongering words or phrases to control their base and further their self-interests. It doesn't matter what the issue is or the substance behind it. You have to control your bases with simplistic phrases.

Because, what happens if you don't use these phrases and stoke fear and lob muck all over the place? Without all that anger and fear built up, your constituents might get to thinking about their lives and what you are actually doing to represent them, and how certain issues should be resolved rationally.

And the politicians and media can't have that, because then they'd actually have to act accountable.

All that aside, Florida Fan said something that resonated with me on here about all the political jabbing. It does sadden me because I see - time and time again - people acting with so much spite, anger, schadenfreude and disdain. It is disheartening because it really leads me to think the system has devolved into forcing us back to our reptilian instincts and removing a lot of our rational, human element.

Communism.

What about "Uncle" Tim Scott?

The left gets angry when a minority doesn't fall in line and stay in the field.

that's a great catch phrase for educational opportunity.

You proved my point.

The government gave me some money to go to college many years ago. It was the best investment that the government ever made. The money is paid back in the income differential between a degree person and a non degree degree person.

Of course, I selected a major with income potential. I don’t understand why the same does not apply. No sense in investing in 50K for a major that has a 30k earning potential.

Conditions have proven your point.

What do you call mandating that colleges give away their education as OCD advocates?

I believe the words were "for free or for a very low cost" and I'm not on board with that, but I'd like to flesh it out with him in a dialogue or debate before I send out one-line, fear-based words.

I believe the answer you provided is proof of the conditions I spoke of.

I don't think it's a terrible idea, but it shouldn't be applied to every degree program they have. I think a good start would be to offer some sort of intro training into the trades to arm job-market newbies with education to guide them into jobs that are very much in-demand right now. It should help companies looking for employees with the on-boarding.

See how that goes first before opening the floodgates to all of a college's degree programs. Some programs really should be done via the traditional college experience, while many could be hybrid-ized.

The GQP, along with police departments, and large corporations always put on the minority frontman to explain away their dirty deeds. Typical Corruption and greed. Nothing new.

Oh...so he is a front man in your words.

So to be a "real" minority you have to meet some sort of standard? Or maybe it is a person needs to lack some sort of standard? I don't think President Obama was a front man. Am I wrong?

Would you be kind enough to explain that to me?

I think it's fair to say that minorities are under represented overall within leading positions of the GOP. However when it comes to the media - their minority supporters always get front and center stage and are included and present in some fashion. Some might see that as blatant manipulation and using these people as 'front men' to make it appear that the GOP has more support from minorities than they actually do.

Another factor is the 15 minutes of fame ... I'm sure some of these individuals have strong beliefs. I am sure there are many who use a contrarian position to garner the media spotlight. They are politicians after all. And I am not saying it's better or worse than the Dems.

I know you love nothing less than a one word, "communism!" response to everything that doesn't fit into your little box. But I'm going to try anyway.

First let's get the facts straight on how state colleges are funded. State colleges are in part funded by the state and in some cases the federal government. Tax dollars. In return students within the state get a break on tuition.

Now let's get to the cost and choices and why the cost is so high. I call it "Club Med Universities". They are no longer just a college campus. Every bell and whistle has been built in and that cost is passed on to the student. The students don't have the choice to pay tuition à la carte based only on what they choose to use on campus.

Now let's get to why this is important. We both know that a degree from Ohio State or Florida State carries more weight in the job market than Phoenix University. Having the ability to get a degree from a highly desirable college could easily make a huge difference in income.

So why would you consider it communism for a student who isn't even on that campus be forced to pay the same rate as a student who is on campus having all of their amenities? Why would an online student not be given a huge discount in tuition?

Here's what it seems you are saying. Tax payer dollars given to these universities should come without strings. Give them the money and let them refuse to provide an affordable, sensible option to the students of their state. Let them charge online students the same tuition they would those living on campus without the benefit of any of the amenities be charged the same.

It's like staying at Motel 6 and paying Hilton prices.

Maybe I'm misunderstanding you.

Don't worry, I have no expectation you will actually enter into the discussion. Anything less than unbridled capitalism that takes advantage of people simply trying to get an education is communism to you.

To emphasize one point you made further is that it would just be a mandate for state universities, based upon the taxpayer dollars, not private universities, which can still do as they please and rely on the market to determine if their models work or not.

That was my point exactly. While I do think business and corporations need to have a measure in standards that prevent abuse of consumers, I do not believe they should be duly burdened with a heavy dose of regulations. Consumers should always be protected from unscrupulous business practices but there should certainly be a limit. Sitting back and allowing the market to determine the price for private universities certainly isn't something I would be in opposition to.

But when tax dollars are being used to subsidize a university there should be a great measure of responsibility placed on receiving a fair return on that investment for the people helping to pay that bill.

Democrats put their minority members out front.

At any rate, it doesn't matter. I find it offensive the guy was called Uncle Tim. I know, or hope, you aren't saying it is OK to call someone that because they aren't a member of the the "correct" party. I find it repugnant that Perfect calls in a front man. I am pretty sure a few weeks ago he called them the token, but I could have the poster wrong. i am not going to go back to find the comment nor do I "collect receipts" as one poster put it.

Free for all or free for nobody who can't earn some sort of scholarship.

You know as well as I do that Jr. College in Tennessee is free for all that qualify. I am not sure what the GPA might be...3.0? 2.5? I know it isn't reserved for only students making a 3.8 or up.

I don't have a problem with that. That is largely funded through lottery proceeds.

Diamond and Silk.

I'm not saying they aren't black or black enough.

I am saying they are a couple of bizarre idiots with a semi popular Youtube channel, yet because they supported Trump they were hoisted to much greater stardom for "15 minutes" or whatever. Then they must have either fallen out of grace or something because they've all but disappeared from the limelight now and I never hear them mentioned by GOPers anymore. They were minority "Front Men" for the moment in the 2016 race. Where were they during the 2020 race?

I can't say I even know who you are talking about. Most of us don't watch the fringe crap you hold up as something the majority favor.

That segues into something i see a lot in my job with DoD contractors. We obviously subsidize a lot of their R&D which leads to massive production profits for them down the road. Since we fund a lot of their R&D, we should be able to reap the benefits on the back end when the item is ready for production, but they - of course - don't see it that way.

If you rely on the Government substantially to run your business, then you should be more beholden to the tax payers. If you do it completely independently, more power to you.

You once again dodged pretty much the entire thing.

Do you think when a state subsidizes a university with tax payer and lottery dollars, that it's a communist idea to, as a condition for those tax payer dollars, require them to give a huge discount for online classes since those people get none of the benefits with being on campus?

Because that's pretty much what you said before. We're not talking about community college here.

First, lottery dollars aren't tax dollars.

Tax dollars go to fund SNAP and I am not allowed to participate.

Everybody who wants to get a loan can get a loan.

I will amend to say nearly everybody. I am sure there are some disqualifiers.

I agree with you 100%. I've been saying the exact same thing in regards to big pharmaceutical companies for many years now. A lot of their R&D is funded with tax payer dollars and our reward is having the highest prescription drug prices on the planet.

And then those on the other side of the aisle say we should leave our healthcare just as it is. Many other democracies negotiate the prices of their prescription drugs and medical procedures saving their citizens billions upon billions of dollars and greatly decreasing the average cost of healthcare for their citizens.

When business uses competitive bidding those same people call it a sound business practice. When you suggest our government follow those same sound business practices they call it socialism or communism.

It's not about the practice of competitive bidding they object to. It's about who is suggesting it be used. In this case it would help all Americans and that's when it suddenly becomes a terrible idea.

Why do you insist on trying to put up a golden calf?

Are you unaware that the lottery in no way pays the majority of education costs? Seriously? Property taxes pay the bulk of educations costs.

And of course you still didn't answer the question. Of course an honest answer wouldn't fit your stated opinion.

And you ignore that community college is basically free for all that have at least a fairly decent GPA.

If you want education past that, pay for it.

You (deliberately one assumes because your not dim) missed and avoided the point. GOP = minorities are literally the minority. Democrats = minorities share an equal footing throughout the party. So putting them "out front" is natural because they are where they belong. That is NOT the case for the GOP. But whatever - we know it doesn't matter and you will try to skew the debate.

FACTS CAN BE FOUND HERE IF YOU WERE ACTUALLY INTERESTED IN THEM - Pew is reliable and independent to my knowledge.

https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/20...117th-congress/

Among today’s senators and representatives, the overwhelming majority of racial and ethnic minority members are Democrats (83%), while 17% are Republicans.

So in your view students should be charged the same thing if they take their courses online as they do on campus in a state funded school. It just goes to show how out of touch you are with most of America.

I wasn't suggesting it be free. I was suggesting that online classes should be much cheaper than having all of the amenities you have on campus.

In your world paying for more means getting much less for the same price is the right thing.

And besides, Tennessee is one of the only states that has free community college. I guess students everywhere else should just pound sand.

I am not trying to skew the debate. No doubt minorities make up a minority of the GOP. Maybe we are trying to attract more.

As more and more minorities are now a part of the system and attaining the fruits it has to offer, more and more are joining.

I have said for a long time I don't understand why the black community as an example stick by the democrats. Look what good it has done.

Republicans aren't out to screw people of color. We embrace success and affording everybody opportunity. As more and more minorities enjoy that success, more and more will see Tim Scott and others and begin to see themselves in that position as member of the party.

I don't know how old you are or if you are black, white, yellow, or red. I don't really care. I just sincerely believe the left is eager to keep people where they are and more or less keep them on the payroll.
Generations of minorities have been conditioned to public housing, public food, and health. The dems keep promising that but what has really changed for the black person in that situation?

Some have broken away and good for them. Far more are stuck in the system and politics of poverty. That is institutional racism. It isn't the white guy down the street.

By the way, I have noticed a willingness in you to actually try and talk rather than throw barbs like a few around here are eager to do, or they just bicker to bicker. I just wanted to say I have noticed that and appreciate that. I reciprocate in kind.

Yeah, the government should be able to leverage its buying power far, far more. The problem is those that we buy from put lots of money in the campaign coffers of the people who run the government, and get to write the laws in exchange for said money.

The last time I remember a stand alone bill coming up to negotiate drug prices, W was still president. It was done in the middle of the night with little to no fanfare and it failed. As far as I know a bill such as that hasn't come up since. Once again we agree that it's corporate lobbyists that prevent a lot of things that are good for the America people. Yet one side seems to promote such measures while the other side seems to obstruct them.

The only thing that changes is who is in favor and who is obstructing, depending on the issue.

Would enjoy a thread dedicated to this to discuss how we approach it. You can start by going to a site called coursera and looking at it's structure for free college courses and certifications. Some certifications cost a small fee. The courses are from major colleges and are all available as MOOC classes.



I have shared these before on here.

Then on coursera you can also see the coursera plus option to pay $399 a year for unlimited access to 3000+ courses, specializations, and professional certifications at no additional cost. FYI, the free option often has fees for certificates.

So many major colleges are already doing what I suggest at least in part. All I am saying is to take this model and go all the way with it by having all college courses and certs be free or very low cost online. This will not deter those who want to be part of the greek life on campus or who want the traditional college experience including a formal degree. Colleges could still sell that and do very well, but this would also provide a low cost alternative for those who need continuing education, certified training, or who simply want to acquire the knowledge being held hostage without paying a huge ransom for access.

OF COURSE PEEN THINKS IT'S COMMUNISM. Anything that diminishes profits or creates progressive change is communism or socialism to Peen. He's not a bad guy, he's just stuck in a 50s mentality politically. I don't think Peen is racist but I've seen him say things that would make you think that on here. This, IMHO, is his 50s political mentality because the things he says and claims to think were more widespread and socially acceptable in the 50s than they are today. None of this implies anything negative about him other than me personally thinking his political thought process is outdated. I honestly think that about most conservatives, especially those who claim to be centrist but never want to do ANYTHING to progress beyond what most see as critical issues that need reform/adjustment/re thought.

My argument for making sure everyone has equal access to the information they need to improve themselves and be the most productive they can be is fairly straight forward:

1) A highly trained/educated workforce would provide more hiring options for employers.

2) It would keep/create more jobs in America for Americans.

3) People would be less stressed, more willing to train/educate themselves, better prepared for life in general, and not restricted to unsuitable low wage work or life on welfare (entitlement programs) due to lack of education opportunities.

4) The GDP, stock market, number of employed Americans, and wealth per capita should all increase as a by-product of educating the workforce. Crime and other poverty issues would lesson also IMHO. All of this would easily offset any government costs IMHO.

That's a start.

To be fair and honest in discussing this, anyone can prepare and present or pitch a bill to their representative. Most of them have local offices they work out of during breaks. Never actually tried tp meet with one myself but imagine there is an appointment system in place for people to talk to them. Activist approach them all the time with their issues.

I think we need a law that restricts bills/laws (acts?) to a single issue AND if the bill is longer than say 10 pages, that it must also create a true and accurate and very abbreviated summary (in layman's terms) detailing exactly what and how the bill/law works and the precise issue it is meant to resolve or alleviate. Even if we did not limit what the bill/law can contain, the summary along with some penalty for falsification or omittance within the summary would go a long way toward solving a lot of issues.

Amen to that.

I'm all in favor of that. So many times a bill is written based on an issue of grave importance. By the time all of the riders are added it's nothing more than a jumble of items that totally water down and muddy the intent of the bill in the first place.

I agree with that. Too often you have a issue nearly everybody agrees with, then it gets bogged down because 5 other garbage amendments are added, or it get passed with a bunch of garbage included...and both sides do this.

We have been dorking around with a roads bill for 6-7 years now. Everybody agrees we need a roads bill, but invariably it gets killed because of other items one side or the other can't agree on.

I also think we should have a law that states immutable rules for the House and Senate, as well as mandating that any bill that makes it out of committee and hits the floor of the House or Senate gets a vote.

There does need to be some guidelines set so that when a bill passes the house it should be heard on the senate floor. It makes it far too easy for a majority in the senate to shelf any idea the house may bring forth. And I'm not saying that just because Mitch McConnell used that as a weapon to stifle the house. It would prevent both parties from using this as a tool moving forward.

I understand your thinking, but I don't agree with that.

Lot's of bills are floated that need to be killed before they are voted. Lot's of bills can pass committee that never have a chance of being passed.

I am all for members doing the business of the American people, but there is a point where we don't need to be wasting time voting on dead bills.

I think both sides need to propose legislation that stands a chance of passage. Many times(IMO) bills are presented to rile up the troops or gain brownie points as the intent more than any thought it would actually pass.

My feeling is if a bill isn't written with bipartisan support so the members pushing the legislation can work inside their own party to gain the necessary support, it should never come up for vote.

Partisan legislation isn't in the best interest of the American people.

Rarely is the idea or thought the problem. It's all in the how's.

The point is that the American people elected the members of the house. As such the bills they put forward should be read and debated in the senate.

You see, what gets passed and what does not isn't so much the issue. The issue is hearing why they do or don't pass. Hearing why one party opposes it and one party supports it.

That's a huge part of educating the voters on who they might decide to vote for in the next election. Just burying a bill because your party had decided they aren't going to pass it deprives the American people from actually knowing the reasoning why one party opposes the bill.

Refusing to bring it to the floor tells the people the only thing you want to do is hide from it and not debate its merits.

Partisan politics is exactly what you seem to be supporting when you say one side should just bury bills they don't support.

We just disagree. I don't think you can tie things up with votes on every brain fart that floats by.

We do disagree because I don't think when when 535 members of the house pass a measure to advance to the senate it can be considered a brain fart. Disagreeing on a bill doesn't make it a brain fart just because you disagree with it or don't like it.

j/c

This country, the world even, needs more Liz Cheney's. A lot more...

The Conservatives have caught on to rinos like Liz Cheney and Mitt Romney! Well deserved...

Trump of Cult won't forgive those that voted with their conscience and based on the facts instead of along political lines for their Faux King. LOL

OH NO ! More Rinos ... or are they Deep State Actors? Either way, more coming to light:

George W. Bush says the Republicans 'won't win anything' if they stand for 'white Anglo-Saxon protestantism' and slams his own party for not being inclusive

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article...testantism.html

NOT TO MENTION that now that so many GOPers are refusing the covid vaccine, we are being informed that covid-19 will be with us for many years to come and herd immunity is not going to happen. GOOD JOB GOPers.

I know a lot of GOPers and none of them have refused vaccines.

So prove that with facts, or stop lying.

I know a handful of people who won't take the vaccine. Each if them also believe the election was stolen. It's a very small sample but it's 100% correlation

Still waiting for actual stats from a verifiable source.

The best thing to do for rural elderly voting Republicans is to refuse the vaccine.

https://rumble.com/vfkxbl-vaccine-facts-...kF1DPoNusecgU6Q

The challenge with the CDC is that they are always going to err on the side of caution for the protection of public health. That was the way of the CDC until Trump.

Why 41 percent of Republicans don’t plan to get the COVID vaccine

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/why-41-percent-of-republicans-dont-plan-to-get-the-covid-vaccine


Nearly half of Republicans say they don’t want a Covid vaccine, a big public health challenge.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/14/us/politics/republicans-covid-vaccines.html


Many Republican men are hesitant to get coronavirus vaccine: "I don't think it's necessary"

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/vaccine-hesitancy-republican-men/

If you need more proof, try opening your eyes.

Well we should all take up smoking a pack of cigarettes every day then. I mean it's never been proven that NOT smoking means you will ever develop lung cancer. Look how many people have given up smoking. 7 out of 10 lung cancers are caused my smoking 70 percent. That means that 3 out of 10 30 percent get lung cancer without smoking. So look how many folks gave up smoking because it lowered there chances of getting cancer by 40 percent. Yet look how many folks wont get a covid vaccine when it reduces your chances of getting covid that produces any symptoms by at least 92 percent.

https://time.com/5942076/proof-covid-19-vaccines-work/

I think that is across the board. Don't try to make it sound like it is only Republicans who aren't getting vaccinated. Large segments of the community aren't.

Ummmmm - you don't get vaccinated so you don't have to wear a mask. That's just plain ignorant. Likewise bars, restaurants opening. Plain coo-coo.

In other news - getting vaccinated doesn't let you drive faster than the speed limit. It won't protect you from falling trees. Nor will it allow you to breath under water.

And nice that you posted yet one more news source not from the 3 sources you ONLY ever post.... kinda proves everything we need to know

Oh hush !!! When they say "Facts" they don't mean, like, real facts. We all know they don't matter. They want PTLF - Pretend Trumpian Lie Facts. It's a new kind of fact, check it out on wiki.

From the same source as Fish ...

https://rumble.com/vfbxal-please-watch-you-decide-and-share-.html

I don't know if I should laugh at the ridiculousness or cry that some people will actually believe it.

You are at least partially right about that. I've unfortunately seen/heard too many black folks declining the vax as well...

Most say it is because they have a distrust for the medical community given the history.

j/c

All one needs to do is read the things fish posts to see what Republicans have turned into. Not all Republicans, but far too many of them. To those like fish, if you aren't some extremist, anti vaxxer who believes everything isn't some giant conspiracy theory, you're a rino.

Three-quarters of Republicans believe a lie about the 2020 election

https://www.cnn.com/2021/02/04/politics/2020-election-donald-trump-voter-fraud/index.html

It doesn't matter that it was Republican election officials who certified some of the most contested states. It doesn't matter that their falsehoods have been proven wrong. They now dismiss facts based on "what they feel".

It's an unmitigated disaster.

The reddest states have the most poorly educated populaces. This not a coincident.

"I love the poorly educated." - Donald Trump

It's like all thing Trump/GOP these days ... while they talk about Liberals and dismiss them as having emotional responses to topics instead of fact based responses... the reality is it's Trump/GOP and the wild fringes that react with fear mongering / lies / conspiracy theory / emotion .... and zero facts. A lot like the "Big Government" lie. The fiscal responsibility Lie. The Law and Order Lie. In every case it's "listen to what I say my priority is - but don't pay attention to the reality of what I do"

...Rumble is a direct rival to YouTube...that's all.

Fact-Checked on Facebook and Twitter, Conservatives Switch Their Apps

Since the election, millions have migrated to alternative social media and media sites like Parler, Rumble and Newsmax.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/11/technology/parler-rumble-newsmax.html

It is a place where there is no fact checking and the fringe on the right have migrated to so they can spread lies and conspiracy theories with impunity. The very thing Republicans used to rail against. No accountability.

Parler, Rumble and Newsmax

I've never even heard of those.

No matter, I think some of you need to pay attention to what is going on now. It's going to be gone if you don't wake up. We have some serious problem brewing with the way things are now being run.

And that was a general reply

General or otherwise it's the fear tactics you are being programmed to believe.

Now there's all the scientific study we need! I mean she even has the squeaky toy chiming in...

I delivered facts with articles to back them... where are your receipts? Or are you just putting more mud in the water?

Still waiting for you to acknowledge the facts...

Fish may not believe in the same things that you or I do, BUT he is still a good guy with a good heart. Hell we disagree all the time but I know your heart is good bro.

I've never tried to say otherwise. Hell, I disagree with Peen all the time on here. I think he's a good guy with a great heart. I've never met fish and as such I would never try to judge him as a person.

Love ya bro

Back atchya Bud.

Can't find anything on the web that verifies this statement.

Source?

Meanwhile. . . Proof that the Deep State really does exist.

https://thehill.com/regulation/551755-ju...ng-disingenuous

Proof was posted, if you need more info try using google.

How to search on Google

https://support.google.com/websearch/answer/134479?hl=en

How to Search on Google: 31 Google Advanced Search Tips

https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/google-advanced-search-tips

Hope that helps!

Good for her! Investigate all the shady crap Trump's admin did. I want to see the transcripts of Trump's and Putin's private talks.

Typical s/a answer, what you lack in iq, you can always make up for in other ways

Where does it state that herd immunity is impossible and we'll have covid for years... get this... because of REPUBLICANS???


Seems scary...

Reaching ‘Herd Immunity’ Is Unlikely in the U.S., Experts Now Believe

Widely circulating coronavirus variants and persistent hesitancy about vaccines will keep the goal out of reach. The virus is here to stay, but vaccinating the most vulnerable may be enough to restore normalcy.

Early in the pandemic, when vaccines for the coronavirus were still just a glimmer on the horizon, the term “herd immunity” came to signify the endgame: the point when enough Americans would be protected from the virus so we could be rid of the pathogen and reclaim our lives.

Now, more than half of adults in the United States have been inoculated with at least one dose of a vaccine. But daily vaccination rates are slipping, and there is widespread consensus among scientists and public health experts that the herd immunity threshold is not attainable — at least not in the foreseeable future, and perhaps not ever.

Instead, they are coming to the conclusion that rather than making a long-promised exit, the virus will most likely become a manageable threat that will continue to circulate in the United States for years to come, still causing hospitalizations and deaths but in much smaller numbers.

How much smaller is uncertain and depends in part on how much of the nation, and the world, becomes vaccinated and how the coronavirus evolves. It is already clear, however, that the virus is changing too quickly, new variants are spreading too easily and vaccination is proceeding too slowly for herd immunity to be within reach anytime soon.

Continued immunizations, especially for people at highest risk because of age, exposure or health status, will be crucial to limiting the severity of outbreaks, if not their frequency, experts believe.

“The virus is unlikely to go away,” said Rustom Antia, an evolutionary biologist at Emory University in Atlanta. “But we want to do all we can to check that it’s likely to become a mild infection.”

The shift in outlook presents a new challenge for public health authorities. The drive for herd immunity — by the summer, some experts once thought possible — captured the imagination of large segments of the public. To say the goal will not be attained adds another “why bother” to the list of reasons that vaccine skeptics use to avoid being inoculated.

Yet vaccinations remain the key to transforming the virus into a controllable threat, experts said.

Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, the Biden administration’s top adviser on Covid-19, acknowledged the shift in experts’ thinking.

“People were getting confused and thinking you’re never going to get the infections down until you reach this mystical level of herd immunity, whatever that number is,” he said.

“That’s why we stopped using herd immunity in the classic sense,” he added. “I’m saying: Forget that for a second. You vaccinate enough people, the infections are going to go down.”

Why reaching the threshold is tough

Once the novel coronavirus began to spread across the globe in early 2020, it became increasingly clear that the only way out of the pandemic would be for so many people to gain immunity — whether through natural infection or vaccination — that the virus would run out of people to infect. The concept of reaching herd immunity became the implicit goal in many countries, including the United States.

Early on, the target herd immunity threshold was estimated to be about 60 to 70 percent of the population. Most experts, including Dr. Fauci, expected that the United States would be able to reach it once vaccines were available.

But as vaccines were developed and distribution ramped up through the winter and into the spring, estimates of the threshold began to rise. That is because the initial calculations were based on the contagiousness of the original version of the virus. The predominant variant now circulating in the United States, called B.1.1.7 and first identified in Britain, is about 60 percent more transmissible.

As a result, experts now calculate the herd immunity threshold to be at least 80 percent. If even more contagious variants develop, or if scientists find that immunized people can still transmit the virus, the calculation will have to be revised upward again.

Polls show that about 30 percent of the U.S. population is still reluctant to be vaccinated. That number is expected to improve but probably not enough. “It is theoretically possible that we could get to about 90 percent vaccination coverage, but not super likely, I would say,” said Marc Lipsitch, an epidemiologist at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.

Though resistance to the vaccines is a main reason the United States is unlikely to reach herd immunity, it is not the only one.

Herd immunity is often described as a national target. But that is a hazy concept in a country this large.

“Disease transmission is local,” Dr. Lipsitch noted.

“If the coverage is 95 percent in the United States as a whole, but 70 percent in some small town, the virus doesn’t care,” he explained. “It will make its way around the small town.”

Uneven Willingness to Get Vaccinated Could Affect Herd Immunity

In some parts of the United States, inoculation rates may not reach the threshold needed to prevent the coronavirus from spreading easily.

Estimated share of adults who would

“definitely” or “probably” get the vaccine

(The darker the purple the more likely to be vaccinated.)

How insulated a particular region is from the coronavirus depends on a dizzying array of factors.

Herd immunity can fluctuate with “population crowding, human behavior, sanitation and all sorts of other things,” said Dr. David M. Morens, a virologist and senior adviser to Dr. Fauci. “The herd immunity for a wealthy neighborhood might be X, then you go into a crowded neighborhood one block away and it’s 10X.”

Given the degree of movement among regions, a small virus wave in a region with a low vaccination level can easily spill over into an area where a majority of the population is protected.

At the same time, the connectivity between countries, particularly as travel restrictions ease, emphasizes the urgency of protecting not just Americans but everyone in the world, said Natalie E. Dean, a biostatistician at the University of Florida in Gainesville. Any variants that arise in the world will eventually reach the United States, she noted.

Many parts of the world lag far behind the United States on vaccinations. Less than 2 percent of the people in India have been fully vaccinated, for example, and less than 1 percent in South Africa, according to data compiled by The New York Times.

“We will not achieve herd immunity as a country or a state or even as a city until we have enough immunity in the population as a whole,” said Lauren Ancel Meyers, the director of the Covid-19 Modeling Consortium at the University of Texas at Austin.

What the future may hold

If the herd immunity threshold is not attainable, what matters most is the rate of hospitalizations and deaths after pandemic restrictions are relaxed, experts believe.

By focusing on vaccinating the most vulnerable, the United States has already brought those numbers down sharply. If the vaccination levels of that group continue to rise, the expectation is that over time the coronavirus may become seasonal, like the flu, and affect mostly the young and healthy.

“What we want to do at the very least is get to a point where we have just really sporadic little flare-ups,” said Carl Bergstrom, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Washington in Seattle. “That would be a very sensible target in this country where we have an excellent vaccine and the ability to deliver it.”

Over the long term — a generation or two — the goal is to transition the new coronavirus to become more like its cousins that cause common colds. That would mean the first infection is early in childhood, and subsequent infections are mild because of partial protection, even if immunity wanes.

Some unknown proportion of people with mild cases may go on to experience debilitating symptoms for weeks or months — a syndrome called “long Covid” — but they are unlikely to overwhelm the health care system.

“The vast majority of the mortality and of the stress on the health care system comes from people with a few particular conditions, and especially people who are over 60,” Dr. Lipsitch said. “If we can protect those people against severe illness and death, then we will have turned Covid from a society disrupter to a regular infectious disease.”

If communities maintain vigilant testing and tracking, it may be possible to bring the number of new cases so low that health officials can identify any new introduction of the virus and immediately stifle a potential outbreak, said Bary Pradelski, an economist at the National Center for Scientific Research in Grenoble, France. He and his colleagues described this strategy in a paper published on Thursday in the scientific journal The Lancet.

“Eradication is, I think, impossible at this stage,” Dr. Pradelski said. “But you want local elimination.”

Vaccination is still the key

The endpoint has changed, but the most pressing challenge remains the same: persuading as many people as possible to get the shot.

Reaching a high level of immunity in the population “is not like winning a race,” Dr. Lipsitch said. “You have to then feed it. You have to keep vaccinating to stay above that threshold.”

Skepticism about the vaccines among many Americans and lack of access in some groups — homeless populations, migrant workers or some communities of color — make it a challenge to achieve that goal. Vaccine mandates would only make that stance worse, some experts believe.

A better approach would be for a trusted figure to address the root cause of the hesitancy — fear, mistrust, misconceptions, ease of access or a desire for more information, said Mary Politi, an expert in health decision making and health communication at Washington University in St. Louis.

People often need to see others in their social circle embracing something before they are willing to try it, Dr. Politi said. Emphasizing the benefits of vaccination to their lives, like seeing a family member or sending their children to school, might be more motivating than the nebulous idea of herd immunity.

“That would resonate with people more than this somewhat elusive concept that experts are still trying to figure out,” she added.

Though children spread the virus less efficiently than adults do, the experts all agreed that vaccinating children would also be important for keeping the number of Covid cases low. In the long term, the public health system will also need to account for babies, and for children and adults who age into a group with higher risk.

Unnerving scenarios remain on the path to this long-term vision.

Over time, if not enough people are protected, highly contagious variants may develop that can break through vaccine protection, land people in the hospital and put them at risk of death.

“That’s the nightmare scenario,” said Jeffrey Shaman, an epidemiologist at Columbia University.

How frequent and how severe those breakthrough infections are have the potential to determine whether the United States can keep hospitalizations and deaths low or if the country will find itself in a “mad scramble” every couple of years, he said.

“I think we’re going to be looking over our shoulders — or at least public health officials and infectious disease epidemiologists are going to be looking over their shoulders going: ‘All right, the variants out there — what are they doing? What are they capable of?” he said. “Maybe the general public can go back to not worrying about it so much, but we will have to.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/03/health/covid-herd-immunity-vaccine.html

That took 2 seconds and minimal google skills. You can do it! Just try.

I've read that and a few others... seems like the biggest reason to pull back on the concept of herd immunity is simple...


Too many variants and the experts being way off on calculations -- mostly because of the variants.

OR

Because of Republicans. Although I still can't find any articles on that.

We can all spread hate, who knows, maybe that will get rid of Covid? I'm sure you'll do your part -- keep up the great work.

Can't believe you own eyes or what?

Quoted by Andy Ngo

Funny, I think it's you.

You put your list together. Here's my list of the GOP fear mongering, off the top of my head:

Fear of immigrants. Fear of the immigrant caravan heading to the border.

Fear of Obama/Biden taking your guns away. Nothing... More gun and ammo sales in US history during Obama's terms.

Fear of big government. Reagan, Bush, Trump's governments all as big or bigger than any other.

Fear of Lawlessness. And yet it is Trump and Trump supporters promoting The Big Lie and insurrection.

Fear of Communism. Nothing on the American Political landscape even remotely resembles Communism. The Democrats in the USA are still way right of the most Left leaning countries in Europe - none of which are remotely communist.

Fear of the Press: They are the enemy of the people if they dare criticize the King. Meanwhile we had 8 years of the exact same negative spin on everything that was Obama.

Fear of cancel culture: Meanwhile GOP/Trump endorses cancelling ANYTHING that voices a contrary opinion: from Kaepernick to coke to embracing voter suppression laws.

Fear of social media: Claiming the Right is being silenced and restricted - meanwhile the GOP/Fox and right leaning topics are at the top of the most shared items on FB and Twitter.

Fear that Biden is a Socialist Puppet: And here we are with Biden engaging with the GOP and being more centrist than Trump or Obama.

Fear that Christianity / Religious freedom is under attack: Based on ... not much. Emotions? GOP is strong on emotion right now, very little fact.

Fearmongering is most definitely one of the things the GOP does really really well.

If you're going to make fun of people's Google skills, don't ask for people to mock your reading skills. If you're point to that article as evidence that GOP is the roadblock to herd immunity, you clearly didn't read the article.

Side note: if you're going to mock someone by linking to Google's how-to-search page, use this instead. www.lmgtfy.com

I suspect you looked at the map with the colors, noted which states were predominantly purple and which ones weren't. The map makes a decent argument, but the entire article went into detail on ALL OF THE OTHER FACTORS working against herd immunity.

1. Herd Immunity threshold increasing due to shifting transmissibility of variants
2. Availability of vaccines (quantity and authorization to a greater proportion of the population)
3. Vaccine hesitancy (NOT attributed to any 1 group, and we know there are several out there, including GOP)


But I would like to talk about the 1 reason that isn't called out in the article. Vaccine approval. I've said this I-don't-know-how-many-times on here already... we're pounding our fist over something that the FDA has not fully approved yet. The 'BUT IT'S SCIENCE' crowd is talking about shaming people that don't want to slam something into their arm that hasn't been approved yet by the proper authorities.

So similar to how you should've slowed down and read the article you linked, I think we should all slow down and let this process play out. If we're going to get all bent out of shape about people refusing to inject themselves with something, we should at least wait for the FDA to officially tell us it's safe to do so.

According to this over 200,000,000 million vaccines have been administered in our country.

https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/news-perspect...9-vaccine-doses

The rate of deaths has declined greatly since the vaccine is reaching more people.

So far 578,000 Americans have died. You don't need to be an expert or wait to understand the ramifications of neglecting to get the vaccine.

Everything else is pretty much BS.

While I would agree, that's not what we're discussing. Someone tried to pin our inability to achieve herd immunity solely on Republicans. The truth of the matter is that it's nowhere near that simple, as evidenced by that person's very own link.

... I then went on a tangent equating pushing un-approved vaccines on the population to putting the cart before the horse. Let the pharma companies go through the process to prove, definitively, that the vaccines are safe and effective and then we can talk about tying people down so we can jab them with needles.

I certainly was not advocating that we tie people down. However you probably won't agree with my perspective on the topic.

Covid 19 has killed more Americans than the number of our soldiers that were killed during WW2. During WW2 the citizens of our nation pulled together to sacrifice in order to defeat a common enemy. They dealt with rationing and scraping every penny to buy war bonds to support the war effort. Industry worked together with our government to produce the supplies needed to defeat our enemy. That's just what patriotic Americans do when faced with a common enemy.

Covid is no less of an enemy than the Germans and Japanese were during WW2. It's has killed even more Americans and continues to do so. Just because you can't see the enemy and it's not wearing a uniform, has no impact on the fact it is an enemy of the American people. Body counts matter.

Can you imagine what history would be saying about Americans who refused to support our efforts during WW2? What they would say about a political party or TV Networks trying to downplay the severity, ramifications and cost of life during WW2? Anyone or anything that would even suggest we neglect to take measures during WW2 that could save the life of possibly hundreds of thousands of Americans?

The things you can imagine they would say is exactly how I feel about anti vaxxers. People give lip service to the flag and scream about the National Anthem. How people should stand for it. Yet when they have the chance to step up and actually DO SOMETHING to help save their fellow Americans, many of those same people refuse to take action. They are only willing to give Patriotism lip service.

Now you may say that's an extreme viewpoint. And I have no issue with those who see it that way. But I was raised by a man who was a MSGT in the U.S. Army. He taught me some very valuable lessons. And one was that you can't measure Patriotism on feelings or words. You base Patriotism on actions.

I agree that Republicans refusing to get the vaccine isn't the only factor. What I can say is those that are undermining the confidence in Americans as to the safety and effectiveness the vaccine provides ARE mostly Republicans.

Just like what fish posted yesterday. A video from a site called Rumble where there is no accountability on their videos and many on the right have migrated so they can post false content with no accountability.

See we can agree that it isn't "just Republicans who aren't getting the vaccine". But what I will refuse to agree with is that it isn't Republicans who are putting forth the most concerted effort to undermine it and from everything I can find is the group with the highest percentage of people within it refusing the vaccine.

At this point the inmates are running the asylum.

How much more evidence does it take than over 200,000,000 million Americans have gotten the vaccine with little serious side effects before the prevention of death overrides unfounded fear tactics?

Ok... it's twice now so forgive me for pointing out.

It's either 200 million - or 200,000,000. It's not 200,000,000 Million

I think drawing such a black and white comparison as fighting WW2 is not appropriate due to many factors. Not the least of which is the uncertainty and the mixed advice & messaging that came out of the WHO and CDC (even without Trump's interference and misdirection). Add to that the misinformation that's spewed and readily available online. Addressing the misinformation and lies that permeate society is a minefield - do you want to be the arbitrator of truth? What do you want to do with people who - say - have been groomed to believe Trump had the election stolen from him? Or who are uncertain of the vaccine? Do you want to mandate that they can't hold those beliefs? How do you govern/legislate that.

And even if you want to use WW2 as an example - what year did WW2 start? And when did the USA join the allies in fighting Nazi Germany? It's not the same date as Europe and our Allies. Even in your black and white analogy there is grey.

Not picking on you Pit, you share the sentiment of the large majority, but "everything else" is NOT pretty much BS. There is a large part of this equation this seems to be conveniently ignored...

Part of the road to this relatively unquantifiable term "herd immunity" is natural infection.

Reinfection rates are absurdly low. World-wide they are way less than .005, even the much hailed Dutch study -- among thousands of healthcare workers working in public hospitals is only 1.5%

Research suggests that COVID-19 vaccines may have lower efficacy against some of the variants of the COVID-19 virus than natural infection.

Long-term protection by either form (vaccine or natural infection) are basically UNKNOWN. All we have is educated guesses, period.

Natural infection plays an important role in the road to conquering Covid. Just as important as vaccination in overall effect, more important in terms of wiping out variants.

So, should people that have been infected also get the vaccine? The ambitious answer falls directly into the category of "well, it can't hurt" and no scientific evidence has proved anything more.

For the record, I have been infected and I'm in no hurry to get vaccinated. I probably will, but I have the luxury of a different timeline, particularly since I haven't even passed the recommended six month threshold since infection. I've been watching world-wide reinfection rates and vaccine efficacy since the beginning. Not slanted articles that conveniently ignore actual evidence, or won't even acknowledge important factors -- actual studies and verifiable medical evidence.

I'll make my choice for me, not to avoid being called irresponsible, thrown into categories, shamed or labeled. And to be blunt, all the banter and shaming is absurd whether the "targets" been infected or not. Most evidence points to the fact that "you want them on that wall, you need them on that wall" if we ever hope to reach the point of "herd immunity" anyway.

If everyone were vaccinated we wouldn't have to worry about the luck of the draw on people getting infected in the first place much less re-infection.

The actual part of infection and re-infection is only a part of herd immunity when there are no other scenarios available. It's the least attractive option.

And allow me to clarify. I meant the excuses not to be vaccinated are pretty much BS.

The data that they're putting together now to convince the FDA to fully approve the vaccine, is my answer to this question.

Granted, there's a significant portion of the population (the one we've been talking about in this thread lately) that still will fight getting the vaccine. These are the same people that think you're trying to poison them with the measles vaccines and so on. Well-established pools of data mean nothing to these people.

and just to frame what I'm saying here... I got the vaccine when it was made available to me. Prior, I was debating internally about when I would get it because I wasn't wild about a new type of vaccine with a new development process getting fire-drilled through development and regulatory scrutiny prior to emergency use. Hesitancy, in this situation, should be pretty understandable... especially since people are generally very risk-averse when it comes to their health.

I don't think it's so unreasonable to wait until the vaccine is fully approved for use before we start getting on peoples' cases about it.

Do you have any sources to indicate this or is this based strictly upon your opinions and feelings?



So now that the body of evidence, over 200,000,000 vaccinated, that wouldn't have an impact in your decision if you were making it at this time? See that's part of my point. We aren't at the beginning stages of the vaccine where I have no doubt people had some legitimate questions. That's not where we are now. And other than an answer based on what you "think and feel" you have nothing to base the answer you gave concerning the data.



As for when the vaccine first came out I agree. As to where we stand now this would be based in fear and nothing else.

No offense bro, but "200,000,000 vaccinated" is not evidence, it's just a number. It's proves nothing about the overall efficacy -- most people have only been vaccinated for a couple months, vaccination as a whole is only four months in the rear-view. Bottom line, we are at the beginning of making any direct scientific assumptions as to what effect on the spread and overall efficacy of the vaccine.

Numbers hold meaning. How many millions more vaccines would it take until people can reasonably come to the conclusion that the possibility of ending up on a ventilator and even possible death is a worse option than a vaccine that has been proven to be much safer than many prescription drugs currently on the market? So you're saying that even though there have been very few serious side effects after 200,000,000 million vaccines have been given, that has no evidentiary value? Seriously?

It's true that "as a whole" we are at the beginning of reaching herd immunity, That doesn't lessen the fact that after 200,000,000 vaccines being shown to have very little serious side effects, that most certainly is a large body of evidence.

The vaccine has been proven to be 94% effective even among the most vulnerable in our society, the elderly.

Pfizer, Moderna Covid vaccines 94% effective at preventing hospitalizations in elderly, CDC study shows

https://www.cnbc.com/2021/04/28/cdc-pfiz...alizations.html

Just clicking

where would we be if people refused to take the Polio Vaccine? Just wondering

No. I have no links or evidence that Pfizer, Moderna, etc are pushing as hard as they can to complete their clinical trials so they can put a complete submission in to the FDA for full approval of the vaccines. It is an assumption.

This begs the question why the FDA doesn't just say, "you know what? You're good, have at it".


The reason is because there's a large difference between proving very basic safety and efficacy (to build the argument that the benefits probably outweigh the risks) in addition to a lack of other options to address a health emergency (paraphrasing conditions for Emergency Use Authority), and full approval. Those differences include longer monitoring periods to watch for any long-term effects of the vaccine, accumulating data for any/all patient groups (ex. children and adolescents, pregnant women) and just a larger data pool from which to draw conclusions.

There would be a lot more crippled people around if they survived the disease. Today it is an afterthought, back then it was a real fear.

Your comment made me think of another question. Was there any significant number of folks that fought against the polio vaccine back in the day? was there a group of politicians saying "it's not real"

Is this the best you can do? lmao@u

I wasn't making fun of his google skills, I was pointing out that the evidence is easily found with a simple google search. AND NOPE, it's mainly the republicans not getting the vaccine because they are just absurd.

All your points are valid. I'm not saying that the short term positive results have "no evidentiary value", not at all... just pointing out that the number in and of itself doesn't qualify as evidence. And to be fair, I'm referring to efficacy over time, not trying to speak for the doom and gloom side effects crowd. Going back and reading my comment, not the best of wording, my bad. Still, there is absolutely no proof of efficacy over time, not without a flux capacitor.

To be clear, I'm definitely not arguing against the vaccine. I guess there are really just two points for me to make.

First -- you're never going to get everyone to belly up to the bar for the vaccine. The people that don't are they're own worst enemy... but at the end of the day, they actually help with herd immunity. So what if everybody just "worried about their own damn selves" as the saying goes. If you are vaccinated, why are people even worried if others aren't? Especially since it's very evident that most people will be. I don't understand the hateful speech, media scrutiny and trying to stuff every individual into a category because they don't want to get a vaccine.

Second -- people that already have been infected, as far as the numbers go, are actually safer to be around than people that have been vaccinated... at least to this point in time. Math is finite, it doesn't lie.

Thanks for engaging in real conversation, I know my point of view is different than many others.

1. I guess it's not as simple as you infer, because the link you yourself posted doesn't support your argument.

2. See #1

We had a little over a year to study Covid and it has killed over 560,000 Americans. We've had months to study the vaccine and the death count is on the decline.

The only point you've made to me is that we can all sit back and say, "There's been no long term studies". But we certainly have overwhelming evidence of the lesser of the two evils. And it's not even close.

j/c

The following information shows the direct correlation between Trump voters and the lack of vaccines given.



U.S. counties with more Trump voters are less likely to be vaccinated, data shows

https://www.kxan.com/news/political-news...ted-data-shows/

The only problem I see in what you posted, and it's a very BIG problem.

So far the "herd immunity by infection" method has killed over 560,000 Americans. I think that alone shows the flaw in people using that method. It's not a legitimate alternative.

Devil's advocate would point out that 80% of those deaths occurred while "herd immunity by infection" was the ONLY choice, ie... before the vaccine roll-out. But your point stands.

I agree with you. There was no choice. I'm not sure how that changes the cost of life incurred when that was the only method used.

While I'm sure there were many Covid cases that went unreported and early on probably a lot of Coivd deaths that weren't reported, we do have a data base with which to base some basic comparisons.

There have been 32.6 million cases reported resulting in 579,000 deaths.

There have been over 200,000,000 million vaccines administered with only a hand full of deaths and those all came from the J&J vaccine.

https://www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus...icans-poll-find

From the story: there are multiple polls and articles that show the same

Among Republican men, 49% said they did not plan to get the shot, compared with just 6% of Democratic men who said the same. Among those who said they supported President Trump in the 2020 election, 47% said they did not plan to get a coronavirus vaccine compared with just 10% of Biden supporters.

Similarly, compared with "big city" respondents, rural residents were more likely to say that they did not plan to take a coronavirus vaccine.

There were plenty of choices pre vaccine! We just couldn't convince them to stay home or wear masks! mAh FrEeDoMs!

Also, a study I saw from the University of Minnesota and other articles from NPR state that they don't think that we will ever reach 80-85% of vaccinated to reach herd immunity-but they do feel that this will be a better summer but if we only get to 65-70% vaccinated and states continue to open-we will have issues again late summer into the winter again

And they don't know a bunch about this yet-
How long will the vaccines last?
How effective are they against variants?
Will the unvaccinated who already have gotten covid and recovered be able to get sick again in fall respiratory season?

They want a headline that specifies that Republicans are to blame! Because all the PROOF in the world will never be enough for them to accept the blame.

then it will be fake news from a liberal rag

https://apnews.com/article/personal-taxe...7880faf15d5dea3


Republicans promote pandemic relief they voted against
By STEVE PEOPLES
today

FILE - In this April 15, 2021, file photo, Rep. Nicole Malliotakis, R-N.Y., speaks during a House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington. Every Republican in Congress voted against the $1.9 trillion "American Rescue Plan," which President Joe Biden signed into law three months ago. But ever since, Republicans from New York and Indiana to Texas and Washington state have promoted elements of legislation that would not exist if they had their way. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh, Pool, File)
NEW YORK (AP) — Rep. Nicole Malliotakis, R-N.Y., said it pained her to vote against the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan.

But in the weeks that followed, the first-term Republican issued a news release celebrating more than $3.7 million from the package that went to community health centers in her district as one of her “achievements.” She said she prided herself on “bringing federal funding to the district and back into the pockets of taxpayers.”

Malliotakis is far from alone.

Every Republican in Congress voted against the sweeping pandemic relief bill that President Joe Biden signed into law three months ago. But since the early spring votes, Republicans from New York and Indiana to Texas and Washington state have promoted elements of the legislation they fought to defeat.



The Republicans’ favorite provisions represent a tiny sliver of the massive law, which sent $1,400 checks to millions of Americans, extended unemployment benefits until September, increased the child tax credit, offered housing assistance for millions of low-income Americans and expanded health care coverage. Republicans tried to negotiate a smaller package, arguing that Biden’s plan was too expensive and not focused enough on the nation’s health and economic crises.



Democrats are promising to make the pandemic relief vote — and the Republican resistance to it — a central element in their political strategy moving into next year’s midterm elections as they defend delicate House and Senate majorities. And there are early signs that Republicans may struggle to defend their opposition to the popular legislative package, which was designed to protect the nation’s fragile economic recovery following the worst public health threat in a century.

GOP lawmakers have been especially bullish about promoting the rescue plan’s Restaurant Revitalization Fund, which devoted $28.6 billion to the struggling industry. Applications for the program opened this week.

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., topped a group of at least eight Republicans who have encouraged constituents to apply in recent days. The others included Sen. Roger Wicker, R-Miss., and Reps. Elise Stefanik, R-N.Y.; Greg Pence, R-Ind.; Jaime Herrera Beutler, R-Wash.; Beth Van Duyne, R-Texas; Troy Balderson, R-Ohio; and Anthony Gonzalez, R-Ohio.


“The Congresswoman is using her platform to inform her constituents of federal funds and resources available to them,” Stefanik spokesperson Karoline Leavitt said. “She did not claim to support the bill in the tweet, and her constituents deserve to know about federal programs they can apply for regardless of how she votes.”

Wicker’s office noted that he voted against the full package, but led efforts to ensure the restaurant relief was included.



“Sen. Wicker co-authored the amendment that successfully added the Restaurant provision to the reconciliation bill. Why wouldn’t he want to encourage participation?” Wicker spokesman Phillip Waller said.

The Independent Restaurant Coalition acknowledged the Republican’s awkward position, but offered its thanks anyway.

“Senator Wicker did not vote for the package (we wish all members did!), but his work on the RESTAURANTS Act from the beginning made the relief fund possible,” the industry group tweeted. “We are grateful for that work.”

And White House spokesman Andrew Bates sarcastically expressed appreciation for the Republicans who have begun to tout elements of Biden’s stimulus.

“The American people — majorities of Democrats, independents, and Republicans — have long been firmly unified behind the American Rescue Plan,” Bates said. “So it’s heartening to see Republicans in Congress reaching across the aisle to endorse it — even retroactively.”

The politics of the Republican position are complicated.

The GOP ultimately benefited politically after uniting against the massive economic stimulus package signed into law by President Barack Obama in 2009. Republicans scored massive gains in the House and Senate the following year. While the GOP is optimistic it will retake the House majority in 2022, it’s far from clear whether the stimulus vote will help it get there.

Polling suggests the Biden stimulus is overwhelmingly popular. Two in 3 voters have consistently supported the $1.9 trillion package in recent polling, while individual elements such as the $1,400 direct payments to individuals are even more popular.

And just three months after the bill was signed into law, the Republican opposition has only begun to be tested.

The Democratic National Committee has already launched “digital takeovers” of local news websites in Arizona, Georgia, Wisconsin, Nevada, New Hampshire, Florida, North Carolina and Pennsylvania to thank Democrats and highlight the Republican obstruction. The White House’s political arm has also put up billboards in 20 states calling out Republicans and focused on the Republican opposition in training for Democratic officials.

“Between now and next year’s midterm elections, we’re going to make sure every voter remembers how Republicans tried to stand in the way of this economic boom and our return to normalcy,” said DNC spokesman Ammar Moussa. “And you can count on Democrats to call Republicans out for their hypocrisy when they try to tout the same programs they voted against.”

Beyond funding for restaurants, Republicans have also touted millions of dollars in health care grants allocated to their districts in the latest stimulus plan.

Rep. Madison Cawthorn, R-N.C., in late March pointed to millions of dollars in such grants on social media, saying he was “proud” to see the taxpayer dollars returning to his district. A spokesman did not respond to a request for comment.

Rep. Alex Mooney, R-W.Va., issued a news release at roughly the same time to promote more than $41 million spread across 12 health care centers in his district.

“I am glad that this funding has been secured,” he said, neglecting to mention how it was secured.

The four-term Republican congressman defended his decision to highlight the grants this week in a statement.

“Despite what anyone claims, all money that is appropriated by Congress is derived from the taxpayer, not President Biden,” Mooney said. “Taxpayers deserve to know how their money is being spent, especially as it affects their towns and communities.”

Malliotakis, who took office in January, promoted more than $3.7 million in health care grants from the Biden stimulus among her achievements in a self-issued “First 100 Days Report Card.”

“These grants were among the 9% of funds dedicated to COVID-19 relief that I was always in support of,” Malliotakis said in a statement. “Regardless of any particular vote, I’m going to help individuals, small businesses and nonprofit organizations get funding they are entitled to.”

If that's what you took away from my posts, then I really don't know how else I can phrase it for you. You are the one that's alleging that Republicans are the reason why we won't hit herd immunity, and you are the one that linked to an article that listed a whole host of reasons and briefly touched on the one reason you mentioned.

You simply refuse to acknowledge the evidence you yourself are bringing to the table because it would lower the soapbox you're on right now.

Take it up with the FDA, then. They are the ones that are responsible for giving full approval of the vaccines, which ultimately makes them the key governing body that doctors rely on to advise patients getting the vaccine. Lack of full approval (and the data behind it) is why most doctor's won't advise pregnant women to get the vaccine. It's why adolescents can't get the vaccine.

The lesser of two evils is really the main part of the argument that went into authorizing the vaccines for emergency use, but there's also a reason why there's a big difference between that and full approval.

I'm not sure how many other ways I can explain this. For someone who proudly puts themself on the side of doctor's/scientists/etc, it's remarkably easy for you to disregard the fact that those same people haven't yet said it's ok to fully distribute these vaccines.

Since you decided to go down the road of "what you yourself said", you pointed out the main reasons it wasn't fully authorized. No matter how safe it is, without long term studies, regulations prevent the FDA from giving full authorization. So the "take it up with the FDA" portion of your comment really doesn't make any sense.

As for breaking it down into different groups of people, I understand what you're saying but that is simply another portion of the long term process required of the FDA for full approval. I'm not sure how anyone can't see that when over 200,000,000 vaccines have been administered with far less serious side effects than many fully approved FDA prescription drugs the answer isn't already obvious. Many ages and races make up those 200,000,000 vaccines.

That doesn't change the requirements the FDA has to go through for full approval but the evidence is clear that it's pretty much safe for every demographic. Studies have already been conducted for children and is awaiting FDA approval.

Full FDA approval is an arduous process that takes a lot of time and has nothing to do with the actual safety of the vaccine no matter how safe it is.

It has SO little to do with you and much more to do with the obvious. Trump poopooed the vaccine and his dumbest supporters don't want to get it now. Trump, after being pressured by the media, reluctantly told them to get the vaccine. This only reinforced their fears and conspiracy theories. Republicans are talking about robots in the serum! How much proof do you need?

But hey, don't take my word for it, go look yourself because your time would be better spent doing that than arguing with me to change my mind. I gave you all the proof you need. It's all around you every day, those trump supporters are just nuts.

Many will also argue its “trump’s vaccine, that never would have happened without him!!!” out of one side of their mouths. While refusing to take it, out of the other side of their mouths.

It’s mental gymnastics performed at a gold medalists’ level.

Yep. Covid-19 (Trump's plague) anti vaxxing is just one of many ways they drive me nuts. I struggle daily wondering how we ever lived with them before. I think Faux News and GOPer/Trumpian lies have done something irreversible to their mental health.

The Republican Party cares more about getting rid of Liz Cheney than they do getting rid of Matt Gaetz, who went on drug-filled benders with underage girls.

If that’s the the GOP and modern day conservatism is, keep me far away from it.

Hilarious how their conspiracy theories call dems pedos all the time, yet the only pedos I've seen exposed in the government have ALL been GOPers.

I think that makes perfect sense. If I truly thought this was "trumps vaccine" I wouldn't want to get it either.

This is the reason for my 'take it up with the FDA' statement. If the evidence is obvious, then your argument is with them for not approving the vaccine.



It actually has everything to do with safety (and efficacy). That's the whole point of the approval process, actually (approval is given when the vaccine is proven to be safe and effective).

Worth quoting again.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/may/06/arizona-republicans-bamboo-ballots-audit-2020

Good lord above .... This actually makes the GOP supporting child abusers over Cheney pretty rationale by comparison.

C'mon Trumpians.... Defend this one.

You mistake someone voting for Trump as them being 'trumpians'. You paint with a broad brush, which makes you, and others that post similarly, look foolish, really.

You, until recently, not so much....but we have a few on here that despise anyone that voted for trump, and call them names incessantly.

Not a good look.

I was thinking similarly... I'm a life long republican and got my vaccine as soon as I could.... I didn't agree with everything that Trump did but still voted for him as I do not like a lot of Biden's policies.... still don't....

I think both sides really need to do a lot less trying to 'win' or get one up on the other side.... America would be much better if both sides of the isle met in the middle to work together rather than trying to win...

I don't despise anyone that voted for Trump. That's a lot of folks.

I don't even despise the hardcore Trump faithful. Although I do wonder what an earth they have going on in their heads after what we witnessed for 4 years.

What I do find myself doing is laughing at and mocking those that are part of the group that - for example 1. Don't comment on Gaetz but wanted to jump on Biden about his aide that was rude to a reporter (the aide that was removed). 2. Believe a giant proven lie that the election was stolen 3. Cry cancel culture - when that is the very essence of what Trump did and is. . . . I believe those people need to be called out for the BS that they promote.

I agree... 100% with you...

I want a fair election and felt that Trump was within his right to protest or take them to court... when he lost that it should have been over... I wish he would have congratulated Biden at that point and moved forward

Gaetz seems like slim and I hope due process works and if he's found guilt gets what he deserves... anyone who participates in sex trafficking should get what they deserve

I've never liked Cancel culture... and unfortunately both sides have rallied behind cancel culture, typically very quickly without the full story....

J/C

Fiorina had - what I thought was - a very good interview discussing Trump and Cruz and the state of the Republican party.

The embedded video is worth watching.

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/carly-fiorina-ted-cruz-cnn-2021_n_609513abe4b05fb33f4b5a7d

Interesting that she mentioned George Washington's farewell address. He pinpointed a few things in there, North and South being one of them, as well as political parties.

This quote really stands out:

"All obstructions to the execution of the laws, all combinations and associations, under whatever plausible character, with the real design to direct, control, counteract, or awe the regular deliberation and action of the constituted authorities, are destructive of this fundamental principle, and of fatal tendency. They serve to organize faction, to give it an artificial and extraordinary force; to put, in the place of the delegated will of the nation the will of a party, often a small but artful and enterprising minority of the community; and, according to the alternate triumphs of different parties, to make the public administration the mirror of the ill-concerted and incongruous projects of faction, rather than the organ of consistent and wholesome plans digested by common counsels and modified by mutual interests.

However combinations or associations of the above description may now and then answer popular ends, they are likely, in the course of time and things, to become potent engines, by which cunning, ambitious, and unprincipled men will be enabled to subvert the power of the people and to usurp for themselves the reins of government, destroying afterwards the very engines which have lifted them to unjust dominion."

Being a Trumpian is a lifestyle. Not who you voted for.

j/c...

They invoke cancel culture where it means the most. In our own government.

So, am I a Trumpian in your eyes?

Conservatives are Not Getting Vaccinated, to Own the Libs

Today, I received a text from our local pharmacy here in North Carolina, asking us to contact two friends or family members and tell them to get vaccinated.

That this is even necessary, illustrates this nation’s worst present affliction: political tribalism.

In the wake of the single most devastating public health crisis in our lifetimes, one that has killed well over a half a million people here in the United States and forced all of us into more than a year in lockdown—this simply shouldn’t be.

No one should be begging adult human beings who’ve been the loudest for months in demanding that we “reopen America, ” to do the one thing that could allow that to happen safely and quickly.

And the tragedy of all of it, is that were it not for the previous president and his party’s incessant attacks on Science and medicine and empathy since the pandemic began—they would have already been vaccinated. This would simply not be an issue.

This resistance to getting the shots isn’t based on reliable evidence that suggests any medical risk, it is simply the putrid fruit of a political movement that has trafficked in conspiracy from day one of this disaster: with the former president spending months downplaying the virus, debating the death toll, mocking mask-wearers, pushing phony cures, and turning safeguards into a form of anti-American oppression.

In other words, had Donald Trump simply said when this all began: “This is a serious danger. We’re all in it together. This has nothing to do with politics. We all need to mask and distance and wait on a vaccine and get it once it arrives” that’s what Conservatives would have done and we would not be here:

We wouldn’t be pleading with friends and relatives and co-workers to get a vaccine they somehow now seem to fear more than the virus itself.

FoxNews wouldn’t be running continual anti-mask, anti-vaccine programming designed to convince people to avoid sound medical advice and resist healthcare.

We wouldn’t be enduring people who were telling us all last year to take hydroxychloroquine, despite its documented hazards in such usage—now refusing a carefully engineered vaccine made precisely for the purpose of protecting them against this virus.

Tens of millions of Americans would not be opting out of a medical treatment that most of the world is waiting for and millions of people are literally dying without right now.

And we wouldn’t be listening to our parents and aunts and next door neighbors and politicians, talk about some vague hesitancy that they say they can’t explain.

(I can explain it, Conservatives: you’ve been brainwashed. You are afflicted with partisan politics and bad theology, and you are unable to think clearly because of it. You are so intent on validating your vote that you will do anything to feel that way.)

And as grief-worthy as the past year-plus has been, and all the senseless loss and cancelled plans and emotional trauma we’ve experienced, this year is perhaps even more tragic, because the help we all waited for is here, and a huge swath of this nation is refusing it, all to declare their allegiance to a former president and political party who weaponized this pandemic from the moment it began, and inexplicably turned it into a partisan event.

And so, the herd immunity they all spent months pining for, will likely not be possibly, precisely because they are taking a stand against Science and facts and Democrats. They are quite literally making “owning the Libs,” a hill they are willing to die on—or kill lots of other people on.

A friend of mine shared her exasperation with her Trump-supporting family members, saying, “I’ve tried everything. I’ve tried showing them the vaccine development process, I’ve tired giving them the Science. I’ve tried guilt and pleading and appeals to the compassion of Jesus, but nothing works. They simply will not be vaccinated because they’ve come to feel that getting it would be a defeat.”

And that’s the sad truth here: the refusal of tens of millions of professed adults to be vaccinated despite the unthinkable death we’ve witnessed, is a symptom of a political movement that was so bereft of ideas, it needed to turn a pandemic into a war against their opponents. In doing so, they made opposing the vaccine a political stance that is simply wasting lives and delaying progress and exacerbating suffering.

If only we could figure out how to give people immunity from ignorance and to boost their empathy…

https://johnpavlovitz.com/2021/05/06/conservatives-are-not-getting-vaccinated-to-own-the-libs/

Well, I know it's just a blog and this guy is some kind of ex mega church pastor, but apparently we share this same sentiment. So I'm not the only one who sees it.

Trump's Republicans assault democracy while Biden gets down to work

(CNN)As the Republican Party finds new ways to pay homage to Donald Trump and attack democracy, Joe Biden is pushing ahead with the grunt work of building a substantive presidency that could change the shape of America.

The contrast in approaches between the White House and the GOP encapsulates the risky bet that each has adopted at what is beginning to look like a tumultuous and potentially decisive turning point in the political history of the early 21st century.

In the country's relentless march through the next biennial election cycle, each side is making choices now that will provide the foundation of their strategies in 2022 and 2024 elections in which Trumpism and Bidenism will again be on the ballot in some form.

The President traveled to Louisiana on Thursday to promote a package that expands the definition of infrastructure from transportation projects to broadband Internet right through the provision of home health care for sick or elderly Americans.

But he chose a traditional backdrop, an aging bridge, to argue for tax raises on corporations and the wealthiest Americans to fund vital projects -- a centerpiece of his plan. He also offered some flexibility on the scale of a hike to corporate rates -- as he tries to get GOP senators on board -- hinting he may settle for a 25% ceiling instead of his initial bid for 28%.

"I'm not ready to have another period where America has another infrastructure month, and doesn't change a damn thing," Biden said at a highway bridge that carries I-10 in Lake Charles.

"The truth is, across the country, we have failed -- we have failed to properly invest in infrastructure for half a century."

Biden also spent the week working on the core task of his presidency -- ending the pandemic and repairing the economy. He announced a new target to convince wary Americans to get vaccinated. He made a decision to back waiving patents on Covid-19 vaccines, which reverberated around the world and could help save millions of lives in poorer nations. Biden also highlighted a restaurant rescue plan that is typical of his approach -- in that it uses a gusher of government money to safeguard a vital economic sector.

The plan is an apt symbol of a presidency rooted in fixing problems that makes a bet that after a murderous pandemic, Americans have arrived at one of the periodic moments in history when they are willing to endorse the sweeping use of government power to ease social and economic deprivation.

The strategy requires Biden to open a narrow path through tiny Democratic majorities in the House and Senate -- which isn't guaranteed. And if he has misjudged the public mood, he could risk a public backlash that could benefit Republicans next year.

Republicans fixated on personality cult loyalty tests

Ironically, one of the Republicans who has made one of the most targeted attacks on Biden's big government approach is Rep. Liz Cheney. But the Wyoming lawmaker, who's the No. 3 House Republican, may no longer have a leadership platform to make those arguments. She is set to be toppled as conference chair simply because she tells the truth, repeatedly, about the ex-President's lies about election fraud, points out that he whipped up an insurrection designed to overthrow Biden's victory and punctures his personality cult.

The fact that her likely replacement, New York Rep. Elise Stefanik, who has become a fiercely pro-Trump lawmaker and promotes his falsehoods, is far less conservative than Cheney, offers an eloquent picture of the modern GOP's priorities.

Seeking to ease concerns among fiscal conservatives about her record, Stefanik played her, literal, Trump card, underscoring the power of the former President's aura in her party. "My vision is to run with support from the (ex) President and his coalition of voters," Stefanik said on Steve Bannon's radio show Thursday. Illinois Rep. Adam Kinzinger, one of the small band of Republican House members willing to stand with Cheney in opposing Trump, refuted Stefanik's claims that she was a unifying figure.

"I'm gonna just go ahead and say this ain't unity. It's capitulation to crazy," Kinzinger tweeted.

The total embrace of Trump by House Republicans represents a counter-wager on the scale of the President's belief that Americans want a multi-trillion dollar overhaul of society designed to make the economy more equitable for working class Americans.

Given the popularity of Trump among GOP base voters and their willingness to buy into the false reality he created over last year's election, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy's strategy could work, as he seeks to wrest control of the House next year in midterm elections that may be decided by whichever party manages to excite their core voters.

Yet Trump's appeal is limited -- he never reached a 50% approval rating as president in the Gallup poll. He alienated crucial suburban voters and led House Republicans to defeat in the 2018 midterm elections and lost the White House in 2020 and two subsequent Senate runoffs. It's far from clear that devotion to the disgraced former President is a viable path for Republicans if Biden makes a success of his presidency and the economy is doing well as voters cast ballots in 2022 and 2024.

McConnell launches his own maneuvers

On the Senate side of the Capitol, meanwhile, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell appeared to signal a characteristic policy of obstruction when he said this week that 100% of his focus was on stopping the current administration. The Kentucky Republican's comments raised the question of whether a GOP counter-proposal to Biden on infrastructure and negotiations currently taking place with the White House is nothing more than political posturing.

McConnell's attitude recalled a similar stance he took against former President Barack Obama's presidency. It may also reflect insight from Biden -- a longtime sparring partner -- about the gravity of the current political moment. While Republicans in the House are almost exclusively positioning for the midterms already, McConnell, with his chamber's institutional capacity to serve as a roadblock, is also concentrating on shorter-term efforts to thwart Biden's transformational aspirations.

But McConnell may also have offered the President an opening to argue that Washington Republicans spurned his offer of compromise on key issues like infrastructure and his plans targeting American jobs and families.

His remarks also immediately trained attention back on West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin, a moderate Democrat who is a bulwark against the power of progressives in the party and wants compromise with minority Republicans on big Biden agenda items.

Manchin said on CNN's "Cuomo Prime Time" on Wednesday night that he didn't know what McConnell's reasoning was but insisted "there are Republicans working with Democrats who want to make something happen."

Building on Trump's election fraud lies

Outside Washington, Republican state lawmakers continued to build on the ex-President's lies about election fraud to make it more difficult for Americans to vote. In Arizona, state Senate Republicans pressed ahead with a sham partisan recount of general election votes in Maricopa County after Biden's win was repeatedly verified by courts and election officials.

The Texas state House, meanwhile, debated a Republican bill that would limit extended early voting hours, give partisan poll watchers more authority and make it tougher to cast a vote in city areas where Democratic voters live.

And Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signed into law the Sunshine State's new restrictive voting measures. Had the goal been to bolster public confidence in the electoral system he might have held a public event. But exposing the partisanship behind the move, he signed it into law on "Fox and Friends" in a stunt that excluded journalists other than those on one of Trump's favorite mouthpiece networks.

The fact that DeSantis is so willing to use the electoral system -- the core of US political freedoms -- as a prop to advance his own political career shows why some pundits believe he has the brazenness needed to serve as an heir to Trump -- a figure whose power still looms over Washington despite his departure for Florida more than three months ago.

https://www.cnn.com/2021/05/07/politics/...cans/index.html

/jk

While there may be a number of people refusing to get vaccinated strictly on political views, I would bet the majority are just because they don't see the need, or plain don't want to be bothered.

Call them selfish, call them arrogant, call them whatever you want. Not everything is political. I would bet the vast majority of people seldom do anything based on political views. The small segment that make the news are hardly a sample.

Just because someone is registered as R or D and say this or that, does not mean that decision was based on their political values, especially when you consider that probably better than half of the people registered in each party don't even follow politics beyond the headlines.

Maybe. But there are more on the GQP side that make the vaccine and mask wearing political then you are suggesting. And a big reason is they think it will make Biden look bad to not reach the goals he’s set.

No. I don't think you feel Trump is a good person or reflects many of your views and values. I don't think you approve of his vitriol that does nothing but paint anyone and anything that disagrees with him as some kind of enemy to our country. I don't believe you feel there was some wide spread voter fraud committed to steal the election. I think you saw him as the lesser of the two evils.

That describes a lot of people.

A major example of a Trumpian to me that posts on this board would be fish.

I'm certainly not trying to claim that everyone views my feelings as what they would describe as a Trumpian or not a Trumpian. That's just my own viewpoint.

I think painting everything with a broad brush much as you describe is wrong to do. So we do agree to that extent. But I think we can both agree that rural people are certainly not lazy and care about the safety and health of their families as far as it pertains to thinking of them as a whole.

Let me pose something to you. If in fact "they don't see the need, or plain don't want to be bothered", why would that be? Considering Covid has killed 560,000 Americans, if they listened to the virus experts, how could they not feel it was worth being bothered or feel the need? Which begs to question, who is it they're listening to that creates the situation they came to such a conclusion?

What I can do is show you that the lowest rate of vaccinations come from rural, heavily favorable Trump areas. Now that may not represent the nation as a whole. And it may not give the entire picture here. But it certainly makes it clear that politics and the stations people turn to for their information is a huge contributor to the problem.

Rural Georgia sees vaccine hesitancy as supply outweighs demand

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/covid-vaccine-hesitancy-rural-georgia/

90% of their voters voted for Trump. Their vaccination rate is less than 5%.

'Red' states on U.S. electoral map lagging on vaccinations

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politic...ations-n1264102

The same is happening here in Tennessee.

This week in coronavirus: Who doesn’t want the COVID-19 vaccine? White, rural Republicans.

https://www.tennessean.com/story/news/he...nes/7166086002/

Now we can all guess at what the biggest factor is for people not getting the vaccine. I agree that it isn't restricted to Republicans. But what I can't downplay is that there is certainly an obvious factor that we can all put our fingers on.

And that factor is that much of the issue depends on who people are listening to, to arrive at their decision.

I agree. I think people see the would likely survive covid if they get it. Meanwhile if you get vaccinated you still have to wear masks and social distance. Because of that, I'm not surprised for some people to say "whats the point?"

I think one of the biggest problems in all of that is that the Republicans still haven’t developed any substantive platform other than “owning the libs.”

It's not the voting for trump that paints folks with a broad brush, it's the continued support for a person that is literally responsible for tearing this country apart.

January 6th, 2021 is the biggest example.

While I see your point in voting for Trump in the future, those who voted for Trump did so two months before Jan. 6th. I would certainly hope January 6th changed the minds of some of those people about voting for him in the future.

Yes, he was always a divider. But hopefully Jan. 6th and the big lie over the election puts into plain view the danger this man is to our democracy moving forward and will only lessen his support. At this juncture, after what transpired, anyone who votes for him in the future I will certainly see in a different light.

The point is that you get vaccinated not only to protect yourself, but also it protects your family and others. It's a no-brainer.

And you only have to "keep wearing a mask" until enough of the idiots refusing vaccines get them in order to reach herd immunity.

I agree with some who think our country is going to hell but for different reasons than most.

Oregon extends mask mandates indefinitely

What assurances do we have social distancing mandates will ever be lifted?

It's all been laid out over and over again for anyone willing to listen that these are the health and safety measures in place until we reach herd immunity. From your own article...



But you have a point. If all these nimrods keep refusing to get the vaccine, it could be many years before herd immunity is achieved. You can't actually fight stupidity with common sense.

From the looks of things, the thinking hasn't changed at all.

The only thinking we're seeing is that of politicians. We won't know the impact from the voters unless or until Trump runs again.

I was referring to my circle of friends.. Their minds have not changed...

Just because it's funny.

He makes that face 80% of the time. It's hilarious.

Most likely, they are listening to themselves, and their lifestyle and situation. When you live rural, you can go long periods without being in any large crowd, aside from a trip to Walmart, they probably don't see many stranger.

Add that not getting the vaccination doesn't mean they are the same people who refuse to wear masks.

I'm not saying not getting the vaccination is smart, but I can seem, based, on the rural people I know, would just rather stay around their home and avoid as many people as possibly until this is controlled, than go into town and be around people.

Essentially, isn't that what the lockdowns were about? Don't go out and get it, and then you don't spread it. And when I say rural, I mean like rural acreage, not suburbs.

I had a thought related to this. If this is too much of a tangent, then let me know and I'll start up another thread.

I have a feeling that the goalposts regarding 'getting back to normal' are moving. The only thing I can definitively argue is that we won't ever get back to 'normal' (normal being our actions and attitudes towards health and viruses in our day-to-day). I don't see us ever ditching hand sanitizer at strategic points at businesses and such. I don't see us looking more harshly at people that are obviously sick and still coming into work and being out and about.

The list goes on, and honestly, not all of it is bad. Doing simple things that go a long way to slow/prevent the spread of illnesses/viruses are good things, and so us being more cognizant of them is good.

What makes it not so funny is that many folks believe him..

That's not funny, the ignorance out there isn't funny at all. it's scary.

This is something my GF and I have discussed. When we can once again travel internationally we plan on bringing masks, kn95’s. A few years back when we went to Thailand and Cambodia we ended up with a nasty cold for part of our trip. The beach part in southern Thailand. It kinda sucked. At that point we had flown from the US to Thailand. Traveled all over on public transportation.Then flew to Cambodia for a few days… and then back to Thailand. If we had worn masks on those flights we likely wouldn’t have ended up feeling sick and being out of it for a few days. That won’t happen again.
In asia people regularly wear masks when they’re not feeling well. It’s a common courtesy they have for one another. So wearing a mask won’t stand out.

Agree, there are going to me some lasting changes, and we will all adapt, much like the more stringent TSA rules after 9-11. We just accept them as normal now.

Typically if I get sick, it is after we have travelled, particularly by air.

While I don't completely disagree with you, I do think to a great extent it downplays the mass messages from right wing media and hard core right wingers that use the refusal to wear masks and get the vaccine as a political statement. I see and hear a lot of it. I actually watch and listen to the message that both sides are sending. And the political ramifications for the actions of people are very real.

I have been that way for years.

It's the mask thing and the fact that many Asian countries have used masking for a while that makes me think about this. I think all/most people in the US are going to struggle with/against the idea that the post-COVID world isn't going to be 100% the same as pre-COVID. I think we, as a nation, are just beginning to confront that reality now.

Interesting that the party that whines the most about cancel culture is now trying to cancel Liz Cheney for telling the truth.

Liz Cheney is in a predicament...the left hates her too:

From the faux liberal bible The New York Times:

"Liz Cheney, We Have a Memory. You’re No Hero".
May 5, 2021

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/05/opinion/liz-cheney-republicans.html

Better worry about yourself, Romney...

Cancel culture at it's finest.

Cancel culture is at its finest when it goes too far targeting Abraham Lincoln. Romney is nothing but a gumball rino politician.

She's ticked off both Republicans and Democrats.

Bumps her up a notch in my book.

Okay, let's pull on this thread. Let's say that the Trumpian wing goes to war with the moderate Republicans (Cheney, Romney, Kinzinger, Sasse, Gonzalez, etc.), and succeeds in divorcing them from the Republican party, ousting them, censuring them, removing them, whatever. Job done.

All that's left now are Trump loyalists, or at least people who won't stand up to him.

Do you believe this outcome is a good one, with long-term benefits? If so, why?

The left doesn't hate Cheney at all.. Do they oppose some of her stances on various issues, you bet... But let's be honest here. She is being vilified by the Right for saying exactly what McCarthy said after Jan 6.

She is being vilified over her stance that the election wasn't rigged... How dumb is that?

She's said that Trump is telling the BIG LIE! Well yeah. We all know that but republicans don't want to hear that. They don't want truth... Truth hurts them..

You nailed it, simple and concise.

I'll make an attempt to at least try to address your question by information Republicans have that they made every attempt to hide......

House GOP campaign officials withheld poor Trump poll numbers from lawmakers at recent Florida retreat: report

The NRCC failed to disclose bad Trump polling data at a House GOP retreat, per The Washington Post.

The numbers in several battleground districts showed poor favorability ratings for Trump.

In the districts that were polled, both Biden and Harris received higher marks than Trump.

The National Republican Congressional Committee did not disclose internal polling that found dismal numbers for former President Donald Trump in key swing districts during the House GOP retreat in April, according to two sources who spoke with The Washington Post.

During a presentation at the Florida retreat, NRCC staffers reportedly withheld the information even when pressed by a member of Congress regarding Trump's support.

The polling data showed Trump's favorability ratings underwater, with his unfavorable ratings 15 points higher than his favorable numbers, according to The Post.

In the districts that were polled, President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris had better numbers than Trump, The Post noted.

Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming, who is facing the possibility of being removed from her role as the House Republican Conference chair for her criticism of Trump's influence over the party, was reportedly "alarmed" by the lack of transparency in revealing the former president's polling data.

Cheney was said to be taken aback, in part, because Trump's lackluster poll numbers were also withheld from ranking committee chairs during a March retreat.

The NRCC reportedly denied seeking to keep the polling information away from members, but Cheney saw it as another way the GOP was seeking to ignore the truth about Trump's possible drag on the party.

Cheney, who boasts a decidedly conservative voting record, was one of 10 House Republicans who voted to impeach Trump for his role in the January 6 Capitol riot.

https://news.yahoo.com/house-gop-campaign-officials-withheld-205234938.html

Republicans neutering every voice in their party who calls out the big lie will alienate a lot of Republicans. The people in their districts elected them. Let's look at what Kevin McCarthy said right after the January sixth insurrection attempt.



And then there's this little gem from McCarthy...



Yet now there is no debate. They attack, censure and neuter anyone within their own party who questions or rejects the big lie. They keep supporting the very lie that caused the insurrection attempt in the first place.

They need to remember that all of those votes Trump received in the 2020 elections happened well BEFORE Jan. 6th. Their actions are lessening support, not increasing it.

My first instinct is to say "Game. Set. Match." I mean, how do you overcome that? How can one look at McCarthy right now and not see how the guy is speaking out of both sides of his mouth?

Perhaps someone who disagrees with that, though, could present something?

That's why a lot of Republicans are standing away from this whole issue.

They know the election wasn't rigged.. they know there was no massive voter fraud.

But if they speak up, idiots like McCarthy, Geatz (sp), Bobert and Green stand up and want them removed

It's almost like because of Trump, the Republicans are eating their young....

Trump Jr.'s ex-wife started dating Secret Service agent soon after filing for divorce: new book

A new book written by Pulitzer Prize-winning Washington Post reporter Carol Leonnig claims that there were concerns within the United States Secret Service about members of the Trump family dating agents.

The Guardian, which has obtained a copy of the new book, reports that Leonnig details how Vanessa Trump, the ex-wife of Donald Trump Jr., started dating an agent who had been assigned to guard her family soon after she filed for divorce with the former president's eldest son.

Although Secret Service agents are forbidden from dating the people they're guarding, the agency raised no red flags about Vanessa Trump's relationship with the agent because he was no longer being assigned to protect her after her divorce.

Trump Jr.'s ex-wife isn't the only member of the Trump family who raised eyebrows when it came to her dealings with Secret Service agents either, as Leonnig reports that there were suspicions within the agency about Trump daughter Tiffany Trump potentially forming a relationship with an agent.

Specifically, Leonnig claims that Tiffany Trump broke up with her boyfriend and then "began spending an unusual amount of time alone with a Secret Service agent on her detail," which caused leaders within the agency to become "concerned at how close Tiffany appeared to be getting to the tall, dark and handsome agent."

https://www.rawstory.com/trump-jr-wife-secret-service/

j/c...

Jason Miller, said: “These losers left the Republican Party when they voted for Joe Biden."

Seems like a sound strategy. Continue to fracture the party and lose elections.

WORKS FOR ME!

Over 120 generals and admirals warn that administration policies are 'national security threat'



https://flagofficers4america.com/opening-statement#393e50a9-590e-4cf3-a356-84bf2eec4e5b

I can’t take anything seriously a letter that calls the Democratic Party socialist and Marxist.

No wonder military officers are not allowed to express political positions while serving.

They would come across as being an embarrassment.

Not serious stuff there. Frankly I am disappointed in anyone who signed the document with that type of language no matter what there title was.

Certainly not to be taken seriously. A bit cartoonlike, but unsurprising.

Follow the link to the article. It basically coneys my thoughts in grater detail.

Partisan bull crap.

Alright- I chose to bang one out tonight. It's been awhile.




As a voting American citizen, I did just fine under under Reagan and both Bush's. I didn't vote for them or agree with much of their platform, but I never feared that they would overtly take steps to subvert our democratic institutions.

I can't imagine a scene like 1/6/21 being orchestrated or even prompted/encouraged by Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, Bush41, Billyjeff, Bush43 or O44. And until recently, I'd never seen a Legislative branch in which more than 1/3 of its members were willing to promote the bogus conspiracy that the newest POTUS was illegitimately placed in office, after an election that was certified, time and again- at every strata of The Process.

This should make us all concerned. Every last one of us.

If indeed a schism breaks the GOP, it will be due to the change in demographic that began during the season of Obama's 'shellacking.' The rightward march since then has been unrelenting, as traditional pols tried to deal with this new breed by traditional means. And they got shellacked, too.

Boehner: gone. Flake: gone. Ryan: gone, andonanonanon...

In the most general sense, I hope Real America is taking note of this brewing civil war. It's really, really important. If it happens, it will be the first time in over 150 years that a major party has split. Historic moments lead to historic change... and everyday people who may not necessarily pay close attention to politics will be directly effected by what happens. Dawgs at this web address will be forced to assess the party they've followed for decades, and decide for themselves which version best represents who they are. That is a prime example of History Hitting Home.

Because all politics is personal, when you get right down to it.

Speaking more specifically, I see a nativist core of GOP legislators (both federal- and state-level) who are bereft of policy, and heavy on practice. They stand upon no principles, so they have only policy manipulation to maintain their competitive place in politics- The Arena of Ideas:

Gerrymandered districts.
Closing down hundreds of polling and registration stations (in 'strategically-chosen locales.'
Shortening open hours for voting.
Shortening the windows for early voting...

these are just the first handful that I can blast off from the top of my head, but do not be mislead: 47 of our 50 states now have new pending bills that replicate this list, over and over and over. And every single one of these measures have been brought forth by members of the Republican Party. Based upon the 'stolen election' narrative prompted by the outgoing Executive.

Yes, this is a Point in History that is more pivotal than many people realize.

People need to truly understand just exactly where America is at this moment: Reagan Republicans are now an endangered species. The dominant philosophy since 1981 is now being challenged and weakened by what we are seeing now.

Cheney Embraces Her Downfall, Warning G.O.P. of Trump in a Fiery Speech

“Remaining silent and ignoring the lie emboldens the liar,” Ms. Cheney said. “I will not participate in that. I will not sit back and watch in silence while others lead our party down a path that abandons the rule of law and joins the former president’s crusade to undermine our democracy.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/11/us/politics/liz-cheney.html

Why are you spreading a bunch of lies.

With respect to new Georgia voting laws...

1) They lengthened the hours the polls are opened.
2) They added additional weekend poll hours so weekday workers have convienent new times available.
3) The new law requires additional polling places or voting machines if the line is longer than an hour. Yes, they know where the bottlenecks are ahead of time.

Guess what, its easier to vote than ever!

Man you really are a good parrot!!

Nver mind that virtually every Republican state is trying to bring in voter restrictions and laws in response to a election they lost because they didn't like the voter turn out - while there being NO PROOF OF MASS VOTER FRAUD OR ANY BASIS FOR BRINGING IN SAID RESTRICTIONS.

Truly - every day more proof that to Trump supporters #factsdontandneverdidmatter

What she said is true. Period.

That falls directly on Trump

I hope they follow through, though I doubt it with the presence of the word 'former' in the title. Sounds to me like a bunch of politicians were only able to find their backbone after they moved on.

If they were to follow through on this, I think it would be rough in the beginning, but cutting away the radical faction of the Republican party is ultimately the way to go and will help them in the long run.

I would like to see the party break up for sure because - as it is now - it has drifted so far away from what it was intended to be. I actually blame Reagan for sparking what has now become a bonfire on that front. I definitely agree there needs to be a follow through.

Where my concern is, though, is that I think a schism of the Republicans would embolden the Democrats to be more brazen in all of their tactics, strategies, and policies which I believe are tied to their own corrupt undertones. I hope that the Democrats experience their own separation among cracks which already exist (progressives). They just don't yet have a galvanizing element to cause that break-up, like Trump has with the Republicans, IMO.

Overall, this whole two party thing is killing us though, so we definitely need to see a break-up.

It's probably naïve of me, but I've always put a fair amount of faith in the 'silent majority' portion of voters in our nation. IMO, this is the group that has been terribly under-represented, but is a big decider of elections. They are not so tied to parties tie their loyalty down to someone who's a basket-case. I think this is the group that would allow a fractured Republican party to eventually succeed once it gets its feet underneath it.

Food shortages, chip shortages, gas shortages, millions on the government payroll, anti west sentiment rampant.

It's already broken up. The only thing left is the construction of the Gulags. I am sure that is probably in the infrastructure plan.

The chip shortage began under Trump. But then again the problem was created by one of the very principals you stand for. Supply and demand.

The gas shortage is only going to last a couple of weeks and was caused by Russian hackers. You know, Russia, who supported Trump be elected president.

And now you act like you're hair is on fire. It's hilarious.

While I agree - the problem to my eyes, the radical part is larger than the sane part at the moment. I mean just focus on "The Big Lie" ... how many GOP want to tag along with Trump's outrageous flat out lie rather than accept truth. Period. Don't look at the crazies on the fringes - just look mainstream and how many want to perpetuate a bogus narrative because it plays to Trump/Trump base/faithful.

Keep telling you #factsdontmatter.

I think that most of the Republicans in the house and senate don't really believe the big lie. I think they know better. What's far more concerning is that Trump and them following along with the big lie has created a situation where the majority of their voters believe it.

Not many of them are willing to risk their political careers to stand up for the truth. You certainly have some and Liz Cheney is being used as an example of what will happen to you if you speak up. It's the very definition of cancel culture. Only this time, cancel culture has serious ramifications. It's threatening the career of any Republican who steps up to the plate and tells the truth. It's an attempt to perpetuate Republicans lie to their voters.

Sadly I don't think it would look much differently if the role was reversed and Democrats were placed under similar circumstances. I don't know that to be a fact but holding onto and gaining power seems to be the driving force of most politicians irrespective of party.

I've always respected Republicans like John McCain, Mitt Romney and Colin Powell off the top of my head. Now I'll add Liz Chaney to that category. It doesn't mean I agree with some of their policies. It's that I believe they will stand up for what they feel is right at any cost. Even their own power.

There needs to be an infusion of spines inside the beltway. An integrity vaccine needs to be developed for the liar virus.

I am very middle of the road in my political views and Cheney is generally too conservative but I have definitely developed significant respect for her (and kinzinger). The rest of the republicans? lots of respect lost.

Now that's good stuff

j/c...

9 part thread from Kinzinger...

Reagan had a hand in what the Party has become, but really, he's been out of office since 1988. So by now, if the party wanted to correct itself, they had the time..

Instead of putting up the fix, they just kept going down that same rabbit hole.. Neither Bush could control it or pull it back in.

I had been drifting away from the party for years by the time the W years were coming to an end.. I thought then and I still believe that W was a decent man, but wow did he ever let the far right dictate what happens next.

Trump was the guy that took it over the edge.

Now, the republicans eat their young.... So foolish...

Their message on Jan. 6th was pretty much identical. Then McCarthy had his meeting with Trump at Mar-a-Lago in late January and he did a 180.

Spine infusion specialist needed immediately in Washington D.C.

I'm having issues with what they did to Liz Chaney today..

Essentially, what the republicans are saying is, we support a lie.... Just that simple

I understand what you're saying. I think it could be viewed in two different ways. One as you said...



Or one could see it this way....

We will do anything and everything to minimize and politically destroy anyone in our party who dares to tell the truth.

No, it was not Reagan. Reagan did not hate those on the other side.

When Republicans became followers of Rush, Mark Levin and all of the other radio talking heads, the party began to move right. Newt was the first significant politician to be a my way or the highway attitude. Fox News added fuel to the fire.

The election of Obama resulted in the Tea Party, which was the first iteration of the conspiracy theorists. Trump was simply the tea party going into the dumpster, and the dumpster caught of fire.

I'm quite sure your reply was not directed towards me.

Ana Navarro.. Why don't you roll out S.E. Cupp, Megan McCain or better yet...Michael Steele's token conservative opinions?

LMAO...Bill Kristol is waiting for someone to listen to him...

Either the election being stolen is a big lie or you support that it's true. There is no valid evidence the election was stolen. If there is, provide it.

We'll see what the Arizona re-count says...

Arizona was already recounted twice by the state and Biden was declared the winner both times. Certified the winner by Republicans.

You're talking about a partisan witch hunt that are looking for bamboo particles in ballots to see if they were sent from China.

It's that kind of crap that make me shake my head. You're an adult, in a position of authority. Act like one, not like a 13 year old.

Rachel Maddow seems to be worried along with a slew of liberal lawyers trying to stop the recount...

http://www.christianitydaily.com/article...ction-audit.htm

I agree with this. I would say that a small majority of what I personally advocate for lines up traditionally with what Republicans at least claim is their platform, but I've just lost so much respect for the party and most of the politicians within it as a whole, while gaining more respect for Cheney, Kinzinger, Sasse, etc.

We've talked about this before, but it's somewhat similar to how I view Sanders and AOC. I may vehemently disagree with their politics at time, but I'm at least left with the impression that they actually have some conviction about the votes that they cast.

I wonder how things would change if a couple of the (i'm not sure what to call them...non-Trump republicans?) declare themselves independents and "leave the party." In the house it'd be less painful, but in the senate it could be detrimental.

I have no idea if any of them are considering this, just been wondering.

So now Pwning the Libs has expanded to Pwning the RINOs, I guess.

Sad.

They're showing the absurdity of it and how people such as yourself will believe anything that goes along with what they want to believe. They understand that it is nothing but a silly, one sided, corrupt faux recount to keep the big lie alive.



This is the owner of Cyber Ninjas who is conducting the "unofficial recount".

They would only let OANN stream the recount blocking anyone other than a far right wing media source to select what the public saw. So what do they have to hide?



Using ultra violet lights. Searching for bamboo fibers. This desperate and crazy stunt is only turning more sane Republicans away. So keep up the good work!

'Rationals' Vs. 'Radicals': Anti-Trump Republicans Threaten Third Party

https://www.usnews.com/news/top-news/art...ten-third-party

I agree that Reagan did not hate those on the other side, and I also agree all of those things made everything worse. I think those are biproducts of the snowball rolling down the hill.

I think Reagan is the one that packed the snowball and pushed it with the fact his immense deficit spending and corporate/elite welfare (definitely not authentic conservative beliefs by the way) gave rise to a course for the crony capitalism dynamic seen with the Republicans today. Like Daman said, there were opportunities to stop it, but the situations and people that you are pointing to I think constituted the "snow on the mountain" that kept making the snowball bigger.

That's not to say I abhor Reagan or his presidency, but I see this as a flawed biproduct of it.

I used to characterize politics as being "the elegant art of lying"

We can battle over the reasoning behind trickle down economics, deficit spending, the Laffer curve, tax rates, social support programs and benefits, all day long...

No so much with today's Republicans. They have lost their elegance, lost their art, and lost their moral compass and standards. I was thinking about tossing in a few adjectives, but there is no need to do so.

They lost and can't admit it. So they blame others or eat their own...

This is BS and only such people as yourself would believe it.


May 9, 2021

If There's Nothing to Hide, Why Are Democrats Freaking Out about the Arizona Audit?
By J.B. Shurk

If you have been keeping an eye on the election audit taking place right now in Maricopa County, Arizona, then you also know that Democrats, news propagandists, and "concerned" NeverTrump Republicans are beginning to sound more and more like trapped rats squeaking in fear. An army of lawyers — many of the same political operatives who manipulated the November election by contravening existing election laws and flooding battleground states with uncontrolled and unverified mail-in ballots — are begging state and federal courts to stop the audit midcourse and petitioning Arizona's Democrat secretary of state and Merrick Garland's Department of Justice to intervene under the absurd pretense that ensuring election integrity somehow deprives voters of their civil rights. Arizonan and Biden-supporter Cindy McCain has publicly called the vote recount "ludicrous" because "the election is over." And MSNBC's Rachel Maddow is so terrified of what the auditors might find that she insists that the whole exercise is not only "dangerous," but also the "end of democracy."

Even though the entire audit is being conducted with unprecedented transparency and live video feeds that invite viewers anywhere in the world to watch the process, reporters and adverse political agents have been repeatedly caught attempting to infiltrate the well run operation or laboring to expose the identities of workers. If there is a reason for inserting spies into an already open process other than to later cast doubt upon the integrity of the auditing process itself, I don't know of it. And if there is a reason to expose workers' identities to the public other than to make them targets for campaigns of harassment and intimidation, reporters have made no attempt to provide it.

Compare the highly professional audit taking place in Arizona to the orchestrated chaos of the presidential election. It took five days last November for vote-counters to find enough mail-in ballots for Joe Biden for the Democrat press corps to declare him the winner, and in the voting precincts where Trump leads disappeared over those days, transparency was nowhere to be seen. Vote-counters covered windows with cardboard to block outside observation of any kind; counting paused and restarted in secret; and ad hoc procedures were established on the fly and without consistency from one precinct to the next when determining whether to include ballots lacking legally required voter identification metrics, including even the rudimentary safety protocol of a loosely matching voter signature. If "free and fair" elections require basic security, verification of ballot authenticity, and consistently applied standards at least across the precincts and counties of any one state, then there was obviously nothing free or fair about the 2020 election.

A lot more:

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles...zona_audit.html

There is a third... You know how when you are in a discussion with a Trump supporter and you bring up about Jan 6 for instance? Then the first thing that comes out of their mouths is, "why are you bringing up the past"?

They want us to stop talking about it. They want it to disappear.. Just like lessons on Slavery or the Holocaust.

They want those things to disappear from social studies classes in High School... They essentially want to ban anything that might cast a shadow over them.

"Them" being White Anglo Saxon men. Which as it turns out, I'm one. Italian in fact! I'm just not dumb enough to want cancel history. Even Italian history which, if you look back, wasn't always the best news. Like Siding with Hitler etc.

SO, talk about Cancel culture,, there it is,,

Fish, I know we've exchanged different political views over time but I just want to say you need to get some help. If you place any credit in a rag tag bunch of untrained amateurs performing a completely non-transparent audit without any training while clearly having a fixed agenda..... And think that you wouldn't be losing your ever living mind if it was a bunch of left-wing fruit cakes doing the same thing in different circumstances?? Or just laughing at them which is what I choose to do.... Then you really do need to seek some help. Simple as that. I'm worried for you.

It's an attack on democracy because democracy already happened, was challenged in however many lawsuits and came out the other side unscathed. Now they're going outside the democratic system (not unlike the coup attempt) to try to reverse a decision that they don't agree with but has been proven legitimate time and time again.

You won't get any argument from me there.

It's everything you said ... And it's bat chit crazy and pathetic.

I've said it before, but it bears repetiton: that rag's title should include quotation marks around the word "thinker."

Not much thinking with that bunch.

j/c

More than 150 Republicans launch new political movement questioning Trump's role in GOP

A group of more than 150 Republicans, led by Donald Trump critics Evan McMullin and Miles Taylor, announced a new political movement that takes aim at former President Donald Trump's hold on the GOP and calls for a reform of the party.

The effort came hours after Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming was ousted from her Republican leadership position by her colleagues in the House for being outspoken about Trump's lie that the election was stolen from him, once again highlighting the former President's grip on the GOP and the challenge for the group's signers in seeking to reshape the party.

McMullin, who ran for president as an independent in 2016, and Taylor, who famously penned an anonymous book condemning the Trump administration, organized this effort and published a set of principles in the Deseret News on Thursday.

"Enough is enough and we need to offer a commonsense coalition for this country and a more unified alternative vision than what we're seeing from the present GOP, which has now become rotten to its core with its persistent attacks on our democracy," Taylor said on CNN's New Day Wednesday. "So our message is it's time to either reform or repeal the Republican Party."

In the set of principles, the group wrote they would "reimagine a party dedicated to our founding ideals or else hasten the creation of such an alternative."

"We seek the preservation and betterment of our democratic republic and the endurance of our self-government, free from interference and defended against all enemies, foreign and domestic," they wrote in their statement of principles. "We oppose the employment of fear-mongering, conspiracism, and falsehoods and instead support evidence-based policymaking and honest discourse."

This is not a third party, but a movement, said attorney George Conway, who is the husband of former White House counselor Kellyanne Conway and also part of the group.

"I don't think I would characterize it so much as a third party as a coalition. I don't think a third party necessarily works in the kind of political system we have with a single member districts," he told CNN's Anderson Cooper on Wednesday night. "But there is a need for people who have a conservative to moderate point-of-view and want to believe in the rule of law and they need a place to go and a place where they can organize and support candidates that are consistent with that."

The list of Republicans who signed on includes former Massachusetts Gov. Bill Weld and former South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford, as well as 27 former members of the US House of Representatives, including Barbara Comstock, Charlie Dent and Paul Mitchell; and one former senator David Durenberger.

Other members of the group include former White House communications director Anthony Scaramucci; former Department of Homeland Security official Elizabeth Neumann; and former DHS general counsel John Mitnick.

https://www.cnn.com/2021/05/13/politics/republican-political-movement-trump/index.html?

I'll be interested to see where that goes.

I also just wanted to point out that his phrasing made me chuckle:

"who famously penned an anonymous book condemning..."

Yesterday turned into a compete crapfest with more Republicans trying to re-write the facts. I'm not a big fan of The Huffington Post but people can't deny the words coming out of these peoples mouths.

I saw that on NBC this morning. Same thing.

Basically, they don't want you to believe your lying eyes.

People that buy into this are the dumbest people on the planet...

J/c.

Some more voter fraud discovered.

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/col...mp-her-n1267416

Saw that the other day. What can you do but laugh

I killed her and then voted for Trump with her ballot? You couldn't make this crap up if you tried.

j/c

Trump Calls on Arizona Governor Ducey to Provide Security for 'Patriots' Conducting Election Audit

Former President Donald Trump demanded that Arizona Governor Doug Ducey provide "large-scale security" for the state's Senate Republicans who are carrying out a hand recount of all the 2.1 million ballots from Maricopa County.

Despite election officials already carrying out two audits of the ballots, Trump and Republicans continue to claim without evidence that President Joe Biden's victory by about 10,000 votes in Arizona was fraudulent. GOP state senators in Arizona have enlisted a private Florida-based company to execute the recount. Maricopa County is home to the bulk of Arizona's voters, and Biden carried the county.

"The Republican Party is demanding that Governor Ducey of Arizona immediately provide large-scale security for the brave American Patriots doing the Forensic Audit of the 2020 Presidential Election," Trump said in an early Saturday morning statement. "Governor Ducey will be fully responsible for the safety of those involved. State police or National Guard must immediately be sent out for protection."

The former president said that Democrats "do not want to have this information revealed, and they will do anything to stop it. Governor Ducey must finally act!"

It's unclear what Trump believes Democrats or others would attempt to do that would require police or the National Guard to intervene. Security concerns have been raised about the audit, but these are related to a lack of adequate security for the election equipment and ballots being counted. Democrats have said that Republicans are not doing enough to ensure the equipment and ballots are not compromised.

"I think the fact of the matter is that there have been numerous legitimate audits that have shown that there were no discrepancies," state Senator Rebecca Rios, the leading Democrat in the Arizona Senate, told local news site Arizona Family, part of local CBS News affiliate KTVK 3TV and KPHO 5.

"I don't know how people walk away feeling comfortable about what is going on. We have asked repeatedly, 'What is the plan? What is the plan for security?'" Rios said.

Trump loyalist Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, a Georgia Republican, shared Trump's statement on Saturday, tweeting that "people have every right to demand transparency in elections and every single part of the government!" She added that "if there is nothing to hide, why worry about audits?"

Ducey, a Republican, certified Biden's victory and the election results on November 30, drawing immediate backlash from Trump, who claimed that Ducey had "betrayed the people of Arizona." But Clint Hickman, a Republican who chairs the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors, asserted in mid-November that there is "no evidence of fraud or misconduct or malfunction."

Trump and his allies have repeatedly pushed lies and conspiracy theories about the 2020 election. They have made a range of bizarre claims, saying that Democrats and Biden conspired with foreign nations, such as China and Venezuela, to "rig" or "steal" the election. But they have not provided evidence to substantiate the extraordinary allegations.

Dozens of election challenges across the country brought by Trump and his allies have been rejected or dismissed in state and federal courts. Even judges appointed by Trump and other Republicans have pointed out that lawyers for the former president and his supporters did not provide evidence to support their allegations. Numerous audits and recounts in key battlegrounds states—like Arizona—have reaffirmed Biden's victory.

In mid-November, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency at the Department of Homeland Security released a statement describing the 2020 election as "the most secure in American history." The agency, which was led by a Trump appointee, added that "there is no evidence that any voting system deleted or lost votes, changed votes, or was in any way compromised."

Former U.S. Attorney General William Barr, who was widely viewed as one of Trump's most loyal Cabinet members, said at the beginning of December that there was "no evidence" of widespread fraud that would change the election's outcome.

https://www.newsweek.com/trump-calls-ari...n-audit-1586200

'It makes us look like idiots': Arizona state senator disowns widely criticized election recount after seeing it in action

An Arizona state senator described the Maricopa County vote audit as "ridiculous."

Paul Boyer, a Republican, voted in favor of the audit but said the reality was an embarrassment.

Observers have said auditors are working chaotically and appear to be driven by conspiracy theories.

A GOP state senator in Arizona described the controversial vote audit in Maricopa County as "ridiculous" and an embarrassment in an interview with The New York Times on Friday.

Sen. Paul Boyer, a Republican who represents a suburb of Phoenix, told the publication that he initially supported and voted for the audit but that he regretted doing so after seeing how poorly it was being conducted.

"It makes us look like idiots," Boyer said. "Looking back, I didn't think it would be this ridiculous. It's embarrassing to be a state senator at this point."

Republicans in the state Legislature commissioned the audit, saying they were investigating whether the vote was tainted by fraud.

Former President Donald Trump has said the election was stolen from him because of mass fraud, a baseless claim that numerous courts have rejected.

Joe Biden won in Maricopa County and in Arizona, surprising and enraging Republicans who had been banking on the state voting for Trump.

The county and the state also elected a Democrat, Mark Kelly, to the US Senate.

Last week, observers of the audit appointed by Arizona Secretary of State Katie Hobbs, a Democrat, described it as sloppy and haphazard.

They said there were no clear procedures to ensure the integrity of the recount or record the result securely and accurately.

They said that the people conducting the audit appeared to be seeking to verify conspiracy theories about mass fraud, using UV lights and other unproven technology to do so.

Hobbs has expressed concern that the audit could be used as a template to undermine other legitimate election results. The US Department of Justice has also objected to the execution of the audit.

The audit is being conducted by Cyber Ninjas, a firm whose founder has expressed support for Trump's election-fraud claims.

https://news.yahoo.com/makes-us-look-idiots-arizona-094225985.html

A not so independent audit?

The audit has no standing - it's being run by agenda driven amateurs. Like so much that is Cult of Trump - they don't need to find anything, they just need to bang the drum, make a lot of noise and then the mindless will simply parrot. It's propaganda only. "Stop the Steal, Stop the Steal".

HAVE !!!!!!

That about sums it up

I agree.

At this point, if there was a steal, you don't plan something as such without a means to wash it away.

There has been a long enough delay to wash away any evidence.

Alright - I think you have nearly earned yourself a nickname.

Straight question for you - do you believe the election was stolen. A "Yes" or "No" will suffice. I am not looking for proof - I am asking what you believe.

j/c

Trump is at it again and just remember, the GOP just ousted Liz Cheney for speaking out about it. Because they said they "need Trump". the decision has been made to back a liar over truth and help perpetuate his lies.....

‘CRIME OF THE CENTURY!’ Trump Goes Ballistic Over Election Again, Bashes Fox News, Newsmax, and Mike Pence as Cowards

In a trio of statements sent out on Saturday, and presumably* posted to his blog, ex-president Donald Trump flipped out some more about the 2020 election, Maricopa County, and Fox News. And bashed Mike Pence, too, while he was at it.

It was practically a compilation album of his favorite tracks.

In the first, emailed at noon on Saturday, Trump kept it short and simple-minded.

As our Country is being destroyed, both inside and out, the Presidential Election of 2020 will go down as THE CRIME OF THE CENTURY!

In the second, Trump goes a bit longer, crediting the Wall Street Journal with “finally” getting something right, in sharing WSJ’s take that 2020 had some of the worst presidential polling in 40 years.

“This was done purposely,” Trump railed. “The polls were a joke. I won States in a landslide that I was predicted to lose days before the election. Other states had me purposely so far down that it would force people, even fans, to say ‘Let’s stay home Darling. We love our President, but he can’t win.'”

He wrote that it is suppression polling, and “should be illegal.”

He also took the opportunity to suggest that Mike Pence a coward again, and called 2020 the “greatest Election Fraud in the history of our Country.” (Capitalization in the original.)

Wall Street Journal has reported (they finally got something right), that 2020 was the “Worst Presidential Poll Miss in 40 Years.” The public opinion surveys ahead of the 2020 Presidential Election were the most inaccurate ever, according to a major polling panel. This was done purposely. The polls were a joke. I won States in a landslide that I was predicted to lose days before the election. Other states had me purposely so far down that it would force people, even fans, to say “Let’s stay home Darling. We love our President, but he can’t win.” And then I would win those states or at least come very close. In one state that I actually won, but the results were rigged, ABC and the Washington Post had me down by 17 points. Even the rigged final result was extremely close. It’s called SUPPRESSION POLLING and it should be illegal. These are crooked, disgusting, and very dishonest media outlets and they know exactly what they are doing. The 2020 Presidential Election was, by far, the greatest Election Fraud in the history of our Country. The good news is, the American people get it and the truth is rapidly coming out! Had Mike Pence had the courage to send the Electoral College vote back to states for recertification, and had Mitch McConnell fought for us instead of being the weak and pathetic leader he is, we would right now have a Republican President who would be VETOING the horrific Socialistic Bills that are rapidly going through Congress, including Open Borders, High Taxes, Massive Regulations, and so much else!

In the third statement, Trump highlighted Maricopa County’s election audit and took time to attack Fox News for being “afraid to cover” what he referred to as “the Presidential Election Fraud,” again capitalized for, we assume, branding purposes.

He wasn’t entirely singling out Fox, though. He also bashed Newsmax before giving an OANN elevator pitch. “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,” he wrote. Not sure what the quotes were for around hottest. “The story is only getting bigger and at some point it will be impossible for the weak and/or corrupt media not to cover. Thank you to OAN and other brave American Patriots.”

The entire Database of Maricopa County in Arizona has been DELETED! This is illegal and the Arizona State Senate, who is leading the Forensic Audit, is up in arms. Additionally, seals were broken on the boxes that hold the votes, ballots are missing, and worse. Mark Brnovich, the Attorney General of Arizona, will now be forced to look into this unbelievable Election crime. Many Radical Left Democrats and weak Republicans are very worried about the fact that this has been exposed. The DELETION of an entire Database and critical Election files of Maricopa County is unprecedented. Many other States to follow. The Mainstream Media and Radical Left Democrats want to stay as far away as possible from the Presidential Election Fraud, which should be one of the biggest stories of our time. Fox News is afraid to cover it—there is rarely a mention. 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. The story is only getting bigger and at some point it will be impossible for the weak and/or corrupt media not to cover. Thank you to OAN and other brave American Patriots. It is all happening quickly!

It is different from when he was on Twitter because there are no character limits. That’s the only difference.

*(We say “presumably” because his blog was down at the time this story was published.)

https://www.mediaite.com/politics/crime-...nce-as-cowards/

Even after this rhetoric invoked the events of January 6th, he continues. An attempt to undermine the election process that this very nation was founded upon. And every time he screams like a little girl they bend over for him. Real Republicans need to take their party back. They've become a laughing stock.

If it was rigged… which it wasn’t… I want to thank the riggers for tossing that bloated orange turd to the curb. I wouldn’t walk across the street to spit on him if he were on fire.

j/c

Republicans weigh in on Liz Cheney and direction of GOP — CBS News poll

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/republicans...inkId=118866019

"Eighty percent of Republicans who'd heard about the vote agree with Cheney's removal — they feel she was off-message, unsupportive of Mr. Trump, and that she's wrong about the 2020 presidential election. To a third of them, and most particularly for those who place the highest importance on loyalty, Cheney's removal also shows "disloyalty will be punished."

It also shows that 67% of Republicans think Biden is an illegitimate president.

Cult of personality ranks higher than honesty.

But liberals told us there was no voter fraud.

If he forged his wifes signature, it would be interesting to see if the ballot still would have been caught.

No "wide spread" voter fraud.

Tell me you’re in a cult without telling me you’re in a cult.

Next level brainwashing.

I don't recall a Republican giving a straight, simple answer. It's simply not in their playbook...

It's more complicated than a yes or no. I tend to say no, but in reality, I am not sure.

No -it's not more complicated. What do you believe.

Bro- I can't even...
Dawg: WTF???

You & I (and hopefully everyone else) can see this... can't we?

Are Americans really stupid enough to take in this stuff as legitimate data?

My dear God.
This explains a lot of the convos I've had at this site, over the past 6 years.


Damn, bro.
Just- ...damn.

I used to identify as Republican. It's videos like that which honestly make me genuinely wonder how some of those I used to co-identify with can still keep carrying the banner.

How can one not see the crazy?

It's a powerful 34 seconds.

But literally - Trump of Cult don't care.

There is NOTHING... NOT ONE THING that anyone can point to that wasn't fully investigated that proves that Trump won...

No, Nobody trucked in Ballots from Canada to Philly... NOT TRUE.

Nobody Faked ballots in Pittsburgh....

Arizona Republicans are thinking the entire world thinks they are nuts for doing this investigation by a Pro Trump, Right Wing group that has NO experience in such audits... And now they want to go door to door to check voters out? That sounds a lot more like intimidation they auditing.

Yet, you aren't sure. You can't name one thing that hasn't been investigated that shows there was a STEAL....

Republicans eat their own when they don't agree with Trump...

Its sad to see my old party turn into a bunch of fools...

j/c...

Man this Republican on Republican violence is getting out of control!!!

Perhaps they have someone also testing for panda hair?

She isn't the only Republican saying this. Those with common sense fully understand this is no less than a political circus and it makes them all look like fools.......

GOP-dominated Arizona board of supervisors call for end to election audit

By Adam Brewster

May 17, 2021 / 9:29 PM / CBS News

The Republican-dominated Maricopa County Board of Supervisors on Monday called for an end to the audit of the election results. The Republican-led Arizona state Senate has ordered a full hand recount and audit of the ballots and voting machines in Maricopa County, the state's most populous county, despite that it will not change the outcome of the presidential election.

They also unanimously agreed to send a forceful response to claims made last week by Arizona's Republican Senate President Karen Fann, who wrote to the board of supervisors last week alleging the county was not complying with legislative subpoenas, didn't properly secure the chain of custody of ballots and deleted data.

"It's time to end this. For the good of the Senate, for the good of the Country and for the good of the Democratic institutions that define us as Americans," the supervisors and other elected officials said in a letter to Fann.

Fann's letter drew the attention of former President Trump, who blasted it out through his Save America PAC and called Fann's claims "devastating."

Despite prior multiple state audits that found no issues of concern in the 2020 election, the GOP-controlled Arizona Senate ordered another review, taking possession of Maricopa County's nearly 2.1 million ballots and almost 400 election machines by subpoena earlier this year. The audit is being run by companies that include one whose CEO promoted debunked election fraud theories.

Maricopa County recorder Stephen Richer, a Republican who was elected in 2020 and now leads the elections department, responded to Fann's claims at a Board of Supervisors' special meeting on Monday. He said there are some "good people" involved in the audit, but placed much of the blame on Cyber Ninjas, the firm coordinating the review of ballots.

"They are led by the Cyber Ninjas, a company nobody has ever heard of with a CEO who has indulged even the craziest election conspiracy theories," Richer said. "Cyber Ninjas has zero election experience prior to this year, and they are joined by other companies with zero election experience prior to this year."

Richer shot down Fann's claim that Maricopa County has "refused to provide passwords." He said that the county has provided all passwords in its possession. Richer also reiterated that the county would not be giving over additional routers because it would cost $6 million and pose a security risk for law enforcement officers.

"All of this risk seems grossly disproportionate to a benefit that has yet to be defined by the Cyber Ninjas," Richer said. "The county will not give over the routers."

Richer asserted that Maricopa County did establish a chain of custody for ballots. He referenced a letter signed by Ken Bennett, the Senate's audit liaison, approved the chain of custody and said the ballots were safely transferred. Fann's letter said that bags of ballots were not sealed, but Richer noted the boxes that held those bags were sealed.

Richer also passionately denied an allegation that the county deleted some election data. That claim was amplified by the Audit's Twitter account and repeated by Mr. Trump.

"Every file the Senate has asked for is there," Richer said. "No files from the 2020 election have been deleted. We deleted zero - zero election files."

Fann's letter last week claimed that there were a "significant number of instances" where the the number of ballots in batch differed from the number detailed on a slip accompanying the ballots. The response from Maricopa County on Monday said "it is obvious that your contractors have no understanding" of how this process works. It said some of the "discrepancies" identified by Fann were not discrepancies, "but rather accurately reflected" the process for duplicating damaged ballots.

Jack Sellers, the Republican chairman of the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors, questioned why Cyber Ninjas "can't even find files that were already given to them by Maricopa county."

"We wouldn't be asked to do this on-the-job training if qualified auditors had been hired to do this work," Sellers said. At the end of Monday's meeting he asserted that he "will not be responding to any more requests from this sham process."

"Finish what you're calling an audit and be ready to defend your report in a court of law," he said.

CBS News reached out to Fann's office and she was unable to comment at this time. She is expected to respond at a meeting on Tuesday afternoon. A firm representing Cyber Ninjas hasn't responded to a request for comment.

Doug Logan, the CEO of Cyber Ninjas, previously said in a statement, "Cyber Ninjas is the coordinating firm of four companies conducting components of the audit" and added, "each member of our team has been part of election audits, including Cyber Ninjas, which was part of election audits in Michigan and in Georgia." Officials in those states told CBS News that Cyber Ninjas wasn't involved in any of the audits carried out by election officials.

The audit was paused on Friday because the venue hosting the audit has high school graduations scheduled this week. About 25% of the ballots have been reviewed so far.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/maricopa-county-election-audit-board-of-supervisors-calls-for-end/

Someone should tell the County Board that it's more complicated than that.... throw in some "maybes" and "it's not impossible" ... keep that money flowing from the stupid and keep fanning the flames of hate and division.

What's out of control is that they're making up new things to test on the ballots AFTER Biden has given his '100 days in office' summary.

I'll say the same thing I said before... I'm no Democrat, but if burning down the Republican party is what it's going to take to purge this element that has 1 (if not both) hands on the wheel of the party, then so be it. It'll be rough for a while with Dems basically being the only show in town, but in the long run we (Conservatives as well as the greater citizen population) will be better off.

And it's very sad it has come to that. I certainly don't envy conservatives and there really wasn't much about Trump that was conservative. There was a time when most every political discussion concerned policy, not craziness and conspiracies. The type of politician in principal that Trump is actually isn't anything new on the surface. Going from my limited time on the planet it goes back to Goldwater.

But the message was far more sugar coated and had far more subtle undertones. Extremism runs in both parties. But when you start getting into Jewish space lazers, QAnon conspiracies and accustations about a stolen election that has been proven false over and over again, the inmates have certainly taken over the asylum.

While it makes the choice of real conservatives far more difficult moving forward, at some point you have to take your party back.

This is honesty. I hope more republicans start to see it this way soon. It would be nice to have thinking adults on both sides of the aisle again. Thanks for a little hope Oober.

This is how I've felt about the right since the tea party hit the scene. I knew I was done with the republican party at that point.

'QAnon Shaman' attorney: World hasn't seen 'propaganda' like Trump's since Hitler

A lawyer for self-described "QAnon Shaman" Jacob Chansley, who was charged after entering the Capitol on Jan. 6, said the world has not seen "propaganda" like it has in the past four-plus years since Adolf Hitler.

Attorney Albert Watkins made the comment to Talking Points Memo (TPM) while discussing his client’s case. Chansley was charged with knowingly entering or remaining in any restricted building or grounds without lawful authority and with violent entry and disorderly conduct on Capitol grounds.

Watkins told TPM that Chansley has Asperger’s syndrome, arguing that his client's mental state and the influence of former President Trump’s “propaganda” efforts would play a role in his case.

“A lot of these defendants — and I’m going to use this colloquial term, perhaps disrespectfully — but they’re all f---ing short-bus people. ... These are people with brain damage, they’re f---ing retarded, they’re on the [censored] spectrum,” Watkins told the outlet.

“But they’re our brothers, our sisters, our neighbors, our coworkers — they’re part of our country. These aren’t bad people, they don’t have prior criminal history. F---, they were subjected to four-plus years of [censored] propaganda the likes of which the world has not seen since f------ Hitler,” he added.

The lawyer defended his comments in an email to The Hill, arguing that there was a "reason and purpose" behind his "less than politically correct description" of the people who participated in what he called a "visit" to the Capitol on Jan. 6.

Watkins said his description fit "many" people who took part in the day's events.

"One charged, insensitive, and vulgar statement was all that was required to garner the needed attention to this important aspect of the January 6 defendants," Watkins wrote.

He said his pleas for "compassion and understanding" for the people involved in the events on Jan. 6 who have mental health issues and disabilities "have to date fallen on deaf ears."

Chansley, one of the most recognizable supporters of Trump who entered the Capitol on Jan. 6, has attempted to place some onus on the former president for energizing and persuading his supporters to enter the Capitol in an attempt to disrupt Congress's Electoral College certification.

In court documents filed in February, Watkins wrote that Chansley was consistent “in his assertion that but for the actions and the words of the President, he would not have appeared in Washington, DC to support the President and, but for the specific words of the then-President during his January 6, 2021 speech, the Defendant would not have walked down Pennsylvania Avenue and would not have gone into the U.S. Capitol Building.”

Watkins doubled down on the argument, telling TPM that there will “necessarily be a legal compulsion” to discuss Trump’s purported involvement in the case.

“Legally, these are unprecedented cases… And as a result, while the judge may not be compelled to emotionally embrace, as a matter of opinion, the effect or the impact of the words and actions of the former President as being a cause, there is going to necessarily be a legal compulsion to address that reality as part of an evaluation of culpability,” Watkins said.

A federal judge in March, however, argued that Chansley’s claim holding Trump accountable for his alleged illegal entry into the Capitol illustrated that he had no remorse for his actions. Chansley was ordered to stay in jail ahead of his trial.

Chansley has been one of the most recognizable figures in the aftermath of the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol. He was captured in a number of photographs and videos shirtless wearing a hat with horns on Capitol grounds.

According to Insider, 482 people have been charged in connection with the Capitol riot thus far.

https://thehill.com/policy/national-secu...ke-trumps-since

I'm with Oober on this one as well. From what I can tell, he and I are aligned on a majority of our outlooks, and this is another area.

To add some more to the topic, I have a lot of uncertainty on how it will move forward. I think what Oober is inferring is that the crazies will control the Republicans and lose the moderate/rational voters, and continue to lose seats in Congress as well as the White House, until the craziness burns itself on the right because of failure after failure to deliver, causing the Republicans to reinvent themselves.

That is what I hope for, a true return back to conservativism for Republicans. Not Reaganomics or crony-capitalism, not bible thumping intrusiveness into personal lives, not self-righteousness. A setup where the economic ladder is more-or-less free-flowing in both directions.

There are several areas where I remain uncertain, though:

1. Will the Democrats deliver while all the craziness devolves on the right? The Dems screwed the pooch with all of their shenanigans in '16 and they need to face that fact. I think the same dynamic that brought Trump into office still exists for now. If - through their own hubris - the Dems don't realize that they also need to clean up their act to appeal to both their constituents and to moderates, they could run the risk of '16 happening again.

2. How will the economy fair in the near future? Let's face it, there is a mainstream association of how the economy fairs with the party that is in power at the time. And that association exists regardless of how much sway the party in power even had. If a bubble bursts and the economy tanks, the Republican party - as is - could still reassume power.

3. How will the Republicans reinvent themselves? As long as guys like Ted Cruz, Lindsay Graham, McCarthy, and Josh Hawley maintain sway in Congress, they will literally do ANYTHING to stay in power. Even kiss the butts of people who insult them and their wives personally. Everything is considered fair game to them as long as they can keep power. They are the Lannisters of DC.

Who could challenge them? Could people like Sasse, Cheney and Kinzinger overcome their current pariah state and assume a reverse tidal wave?

I honestly don't know where it's all headed. For all our sakes, I hope the Dems can deliver, the economy stays good, and the sycophants somehow lose their power.

i wonder where all the normal conservatives will go. will they truly reinvent themselves, or just become political gypsies?

oooo and if they reinvent themselves, they will have to deal with the fact that the GOP still has the advantage....

oh, wait. we already saw this movie before. the tea party came about, only to get assimilated like the Borg.

the same thing will happen to the rebranded republicans.

When the alternative is Communism it make sense to assimilate with the Trump of Cult and their Anglo Saxon policies.

I think the difference is that the TEA party was never a genuine cause. It's too early to know if the current "renegades" are genuine, but guys like Sasse and Kinzinger seem to be more rational and reasonable, at least on the surface, than people like Michelle Bachmann or Ted Cruz.

Heck, I wonder how many true conservatives there even are left out there. There was an exodus after Bush's crash, after the tea party's arrival, Trump's election, and now again... how many true conservatives are left in that party?

Trump calls for Jan. 6 commission debate to end 'immediately'

Former President Trump called for an immediate end to the debate over a commission to investigate the Jan. 6 Capitol riot the night before the House is expected to approve the plan.

“Republicans in the House and Senate should not approve the Democrat trap of the January 6 Commission. It is just more partisan unfairness and unless the murders, riots, and fire bombings in Portland, Minneapolis, Seattle, Chicago, and New York are also going to be studied, this discussion should be ended immediately,” Trump said in a statement Tuesday night.

“Republicans must get much tougher and much smarter, and stop being used by the Radical Left. Hopefully, Mitch McConnell and Kevin McCarthy are listening!” he added.

Trump's statement came shortly after the bipartisan Problem Solvers Caucus endorsed the creation of a panel, despite opposition from House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) and House Minority Whip Steve Scalise (R-La.)

The House is set to vote on legislation approving a 9/11-style commission that will investigate the role Trump had in spurring the riots.

McCarthy announced on Tuesday that he opposed the new legislation, saying it puts too much focus on the attack at the Capitol and not enough on other violent riots that happened in the country as well as incidents such as the 2017 shooting of GOP lawmakers at a congressional baseball game.

https://thehill.com/homenews/house/554249-trump-calls-for-jan-6-commission-debate-to-end-immediately

Smokescreen.

The very act of including these sweeping provisions negates the purpose of a 9/11-style commission: a bipartisan, narrowly-focused, event-specific panel of inquiry. A commission with a mission.

When Bush43 signed the 9/11 commission into law, there was no dickering about its focus. There was no debate about including other potential threats to the US at a time that called for a direct accounting about the World Trade Center and Pentagon attacks.

In 2001, an attack was successfully carried out against the US, and that commission was specifically tasked with finding out how and why.
This commission in 2021 should be under the same parameters of specificity.


No watering this inquiry down, Kevin McCarthy. Start a separate commission to investigate general mayhem and violence in America's mass gatherings, but leave this commission to do what 9/11 did: give America clear answers that led to substantive changes in how we may better defend ourselves.

That is what's needed here.
That is what's needed now.

No matter where it leads.
National Security is at the very heart of this.

The fact that this attack didn't come from foreign influence should have no bearing on the direction, depth or thoroughness of this investigation. If we want to better guard ourselves from something like this again, we have to know the hows and whys of this particular event. ALL OF THEM.

"...against all enemies, foreign and domestic; "

j/c...

I will say that my ideal situation relies heavily on the notion of a 'silent majority'. It's a group that hold tremendous voting power and is, more or less, fairly rational in their thinking. We don't hear from them much because they're a fairly boring bunch, and don't like to jump to the front of the political scene.

I hope you are correct.

Sadly I think if the silent majority stay silent - then the division and noise from the folks on either side of that spectrum will continue to be a louder and more powerful force than they otherwise should be and will continue to drive and inspire ever more division.

I think/hope that resembles me. I think I've become a lot more boisterous in recent years because of all the shenanigans.

The question becomes will the people you describe come up with a viable candidates and support them even at the huge risk of losing or will they continue to put power over ethics?

Yeah, Democrats...' your old party'...would never eat their own.


‘Go F**k Yourself’ — Jill Biden Furious After Kamala Harris Racial Bus Attack

Charlie Spiering

19 May 2021


A new story about the 2020 Democrat primary campaign reveals the details of Jill Biden’s fury after Sen. Kamala Harris attacked Joe Biden for his record on race and public busing.

Harris debuted her attack on Biden’s record in a June 2019 debate with her Democrat rivals.

“There was a little girl in California who was part of the second class to integrate her public schools and she was bused to school every day. That little girl was me,” Harris said, announcing that Biden’s views personally offended her.

Jill Biden vented against Harris and her early primary debate attack on a phone call with close supporters, arguing that her husband was not racist, according to a new book about the 2020 campaign.

“With what he cares about, what he fights for, what he’s committed to, you get up there and call him a racist without basis?” Jill Biden said according to multiple people on the call. “Go f— yourself.”

Details of the call were revealed by reporter Edward-Isaac Dovere in his book Battle for the Soul: Inside the Democrats’ Campaigns to Defeat Trump and previewed by Politico.

Support for Harris spiked briefly in the polls after the debate attack but ultimately sputtered out entirely.

Harris exited the presidential race in December 2019, before the caucusing even began in Iowa, despite spending over $25 million on her failed campaign.

After Biden won the nomination Harris laughed off her attack, saying she was “1000 percent in support of Joe Biden.”

“It was a debate,” Harris laughed during an interview with Stephen Colbert in August 2020 and repeated. “It was a debate. It was a debate. Literally it was a debate. It was called a debate. Everyone traveled to the debate. There were journalists at the debate.”

https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2021/...ial-bus-attack/

And yet after the campaign they came together and she is vice president. Unless of course you believe "the big lie". And guess what? The Democratic party didn't demote or punish anyone for telling the truth.

'The big fraud'!

Rick Santorum
Rick Perry
Rand Paul
George Pataki
Bobby Jindal
Mike Huckabee
Lindsey Graham
Scott Walker
Chris Christie
Carly Fiorina
Jeb Bush
Ben Carson
Marco Rubio
John Kasich
Ted Cruz

2016 Candidates were a sorted (if not sordid) cast of characters. We started the debates with, like, fifty of them on stage. Most quickly dropped out. All had warts. Many voted for Trump, because frankly, he seemed tough on a lot of issues that others swept under the rug. And what were the options on the democratic side? A career criminal!

Nobody expected Trump to win. The narrative was "the republican party is in disarray, where do they go from here??"

Then Trump won and the narrative became: "the democratic party is in disarray, where do they go from here??"

Now Trump is gone and the narrative is, once again: "the republican party is in disarray, where do they go from here??"

It's an ongoing cycle. The funny thing is, many act like WE the people put these candidates on stage. We don't. The party and the media chooses for us.

Want evidence? Just look at the fact that we just elected an 80 year old with serious declining cognitive abilities.

Thoughts and prayers.

Assuming all that is true, wouldn't "eating your own" mean that the two of them are still bitter rivals (a la Trump/Romney or Trump/Kinzinger or Trump/Cheney or Trump/McConnell) vs President and Vice President?

I will actually fault the Democrats more with the candidate choice being picked by the party. '16 was a glaring example of that. I don't think the Republican "powers that were" had any real intention of getting Trump elected at the time.

I know the popular opinion from the right claims that Hillary is "a career criminal". But do you have any idea how many times the Republicans have investigated her and came up empty every time? They even investigated her after Trump was elected and still found nothing. I certainly did not consider her morally fit to be president, but then again I felt the same way about Trump.

The question doesn't really revolve around "who was put on stage" for the Republicans to me. It's the fact that Republicans chose the most disgusting human being on that stage to vote for and endorse. He went around saying nasty and volatile things. Invoking those at his rallies to assault those who were against him in the crowd. Telling police to rough up suspects.

It was simply disgusting. And that was their choice, not anyone elses.

It would but that flew right over his head.

We voted the fraud out in November. I’d refer to him as fat though. Not big. It’s more accurate. We voted the fat fraud out in November. Actually let’s throw ‘big’ back in there. It has a nice ring to it. We voted the big fat fraud out this past November.

Get over it.

Along those lines... this is why I added my little disclaimer. Nobody saw Trump coming leading up to 2016. He just kept picking up steam and momentum. I was really hoping, after the first wave of dropouts, that Kasich could survive to a nomination.

Actually I was hoping Kasich would rise to the top as well. I just feel that Trump represented the anger that Republicans held and a lot of the vile things he was saying was actually how many of them felt. I can't think of any other logical reason he garnered so much support.

When dog whistles blow, dogs listen.

I remember it well. Harris landed one square on the jaw of Biden. It's politics, not afternoon tea. She did some research found something in a politicians past, created a direct personal impact, made the attack and Biden had to backtrack and explain.

I have no doubt that Jill Biden was upset. But leave it to Breitbart to create some drama when everyone has kissed and made up.

This type of stuff happens all the time. Willie Horton, McCain campaign fliers, etc. etc.

The fact that this was one of Kamala's very few significant moments in the primary and she still ended up as Biden's VP is far more significant (IMO) than how Jill Biden feels about certain political shots.

I find it quite informative to now know that making someone your vice presidential running mate is considered "eating your own". I had no idea.

Like Joe B's run that died but got him the VP slot? I think most VPs are considered good enough for the backup role based on experience. Getting your ass handed to you in an election is often part of said experience.

I disagree. I present to you..... Dan Quayle.

He was a really nice guy with a spelling issue is all...

I guess that's a fair point. I'm probably just hung up on how that went down (naming a woman to score cheap political points).

Yes and no. I felt like that to a degree but then I thought about somebody having to break the glass ceiling and why shouldn't they spin that into political capital?

I think that's purely based on perception. We as a nation have never had a woman president yet many nations across the globe have had strong and effective females lead their country.

I understand why someone can and might see it from your viewpoint. I can also see it from the perspective that it's long overdue to put a woman in such a role of government. Did it score some political points? Yes, I'd say it did. But when if ever can a woman become our president or vice president if that's the first thing people think of when they run for such an office?

I mean any time a woman runs in such a position one can say it's to "score cheap political points". That's a built in excuse not to ever vote for a woman.

Agreed. When he said he would tap a woman for VP (instead of saying 'the best' or 'most qualified' or something like that), that told me all I needed to hear regarding what he was looking for out of his VP. IMO, even if we were limited to the women running for nomination, Kamala was not the most qualified. Warren and Klobuchar ran far more effective campaigns.

Well, history shows that leaders can build on the anger and resentment of their constituents to assume power. When that power goes unchecked...no bueno.

It's been a long time since "the best " or 'most qualified" was the criteria for picking a VP candidate. VP is chosen based who they feel will be most helpful in winning the election.

I see republicans coming out on here against the crazies like MTG and Trump but I'm not seeing anyone other than maybe fish that claims to be part of that group... the QOP. So if this holds true in the general population as one might deduct, how can their still be so many ardent Trump supporters and where is this horde of traditional conservatives hiding? I mean of the 71 million who voted 'R' in 2020, how many fit each mold? How many would be considered traditional but still sold out their values to support Trump? It would be interesting to know these things or at least quality guesstimates.

I'd like to hear from the boards GOPers, how many of you still think Trump should be re-elected, how many think the party should move on from him yet embrace the MAGA credo, and how many think they need to put all things MAGA and Trump behind them with a return to true conservatism pre Reagan? Additionally, I'm sure there are variations of where you might stand that I did not write out, I'd love to hear them and the thoughts behind why you feel that way.

When voters buy into the right wing propaganda that a vote for the Democratic candidate is a vote for communism - you'll have plenty that keep voting Trump or whatever hateful, divisive option is out there on the fringe of the party. Lots of those folks that are brainwashed into thinking that.

CBS News/You Gov Poll

https://news.yahoo.com/poll-most-gop-vot...xiXQGAyOwWwiWni

There are two organizations reporting this story.. Fox and Brietbart...

What I've not seen or heard is a recording of this story.. Just a Right Wing Reporter saying its so.

However, I just don't see where Jill would use that language?


I see a wife protecting her husband... But I don't see the language...

And as you can see, Harris was picked to be VP..

So I'd say this is much ado about nothing... Prove me wrong

jc

just here to remind the board that the ring wing crazies hired a security group called "Cyber Ninjas" to manage the audit in Arizona.

i am now convinced that every conservative is that 10 year old boy on Call of duty who calls you the N word and says he's gonna bang your mom.

Author Edward-Isaac Dovere from the 'Atlantic', Real Clear Politics, and "Politico':

"Dovere also claimed that Biden's wife Jill told supporters that Kamala Harris could 'go f**k' herself after the June 2019 Democratic primary debate where the then-candidate attacked Biden for supporting racist policies during his Senate career".

NUTS. They've all gone nuts.