

Republican Party has ‘flat out lost its mind’
#41
Posted 20 October 2017 - 08:00 AM
GOP delenda est.
Resist!
#42
Posted 20 October 2017 - 10:10 AM
D. C. Sessions, on 20 October 2017 - 07:00 AM, said:
I can't see Tiberi losing.
— Fran Lebowitz
“One of the saddest lessons of history is this: If we've been bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle. We’re no longer interested in finding out the truth. The bamboozle has captured us. It's simply too painful to acknowledge, even to ourselves, that we’ve been taken. Once you give a charlatan power over you, you almost never get it back.”
— Carl Sagan
Pray for Trump: Psalm 109:8
"Science is more than a body of knowledge; it is a way of thinking. I have a foreboding of an America in my children's or grandchildren's time - when the United States is a service and information economy; when nearly all the key manufacturing industries have slipped away to other countries; when awesome technological powers arc in the hands of a very few, and no one representing the public interest can even grasp the issues; when the people have lost the ability to set their own agendas or knowledgeably question those in authority; when, clutching our crystals and nervously consulting our horoscopes, our critical faculties in decline, unable to distinguish between what feels good and what's true, we slide, almost without noticing, back into superstition and darkness.”
— Carl Sagan
The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark
1995
“As democracy is perfected, the office of president represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.”
— H.L. Mencken
On Politics: A Carnival of Buncombe
“The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little.”
— Franklin Delano Roosevelt
Second inaugural address January, 1937
#43
Posted 21 October 2017 - 03:20 PM
Quote
"That's the problem with being implacable foes - no one has any incentive to treat you as anything more than an obstacle to be overcome."
"The 'Road to Serfdom' is really all right turns." --Progressive Whisperer
""The GOP ... where every accusation is also a confession." --Progressive Whisperer
#44
Posted 22 October 2017 - 07:42 PM
"Anyone who has the power to make you believe absurdities has the power to make you commit injustices" Voltaire
#45
Posted 25 October 2017 - 03:49 PM
Quote
“Jeff Flake stepping down yesterday was a big victory for voters of Arizona and the citizens of this country. Because we have got an optimistic path forward,” Ward told MSNBC’s Katy Tur.
Tur asked Ward if she agreed with Flake’s assessment that Trump is dangerous to American democracy. “I don’t,” Ward replied.
“What I agree with Sen. Flake is that there is a serious illness in Washington, D.C., and it is contagious, but it is swampitis and thank goodness we have a doctor who’s going to be coming to Washington to heal those ills,” she added, later clarifying that she is that doctor.
Ward, known for her fierce support of Trump and her willingness to engage with chemtrail conspiracy theorists, touted herself as an outsider who will prioritize Trump’s agenda.
As the subject line says, "flat out lost its mind."
"That's the problem with being implacable foes - no one has any incentive to treat you as anything more than an obstacle to be overcome."
"The 'Road to Serfdom' is really all right turns." --Progressive Whisperer
""The GOP ... where every accusation is also a confession." --Progressive Whisperer
#46
Posted 25 October 2017 - 05:02 PM
Quote
Straus, who is known for blocking extreme GOP legislation like to a bill to ban transgender bathroom rights, said that he hoped to find other ways to serve the state.
At a press conference on Wednesday, Straus was asked how his decision not to run would impact “rational Republicans” seeking office.
“I think that rational Republicans will survive their primaries just as they always have,” Straus opined. “It’s a myth that you have to be crazy to win a Republican primary for the Texas House.”
“A few don’t win,” he admitted. “But [most of them will] get re-elected.”
"That's the problem with being implacable foes - no one has any incentive to treat you as anything more than an obstacle to be overcome."
"The 'Road to Serfdom' is really all right turns." --Progressive Whisperer
""The GOP ... where every accusation is also a confession." --Progressive Whisperer
#47
Posted 25 October 2017 - 09:02 PM
— Fran Lebowitz
“One of the saddest lessons of history is this: If we've been bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle. We’re no longer interested in finding out the truth. The bamboozle has captured us. It's simply too painful to acknowledge, even to ourselves, that we’ve been taken. Once you give a charlatan power over you, you almost never get it back.”
— Carl Sagan
Pray for Trump: Psalm 109:8
"Science is more than a body of knowledge; it is a way of thinking. I have a foreboding of an America in my children's or grandchildren's time - when the United States is a service and information economy; when nearly all the key manufacturing industries have slipped away to other countries; when awesome technological powers arc in the hands of a very few, and no one representing the public interest can even grasp the issues; when the people have lost the ability to set their own agendas or knowledgeably question those in authority; when, clutching our crystals and nervously consulting our horoscopes, our critical faculties in decline, unable to distinguish between what feels good and what's true, we slide, almost without noticing, back into superstition and darkness.”
— Carl Sagan
The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark
1995
“As democracy is perfected, the office of president represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.”
— H.L. Mencken
On Politics: A Carnival of Buncombe
“The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little.”
— Franklin Delano Roosevelt
Second inaugural address January, 1937
#48
Posted 25 October 2017 - 10:10 PM
The Deaf have lost their sense of "hearing";
Republicans have lost their sense of "common".
#49
Posted 26 October 2017 - 09:55 AM
Quote
“Maybe we do better by having some of the people who just don’t like him leave, and replace them with somebody else,” Sen. Jim Inhofe of Oklahoma told The Associated Press. “And I think that’s what’s happening.”
Trump heartily agreed, declaring that both men were retiring because they couldn’t win re-election, and “I think I’m probably helped greatly in Arizona by what happened with Sen. Flake.”
Inhofe went further than most GOP lawmakers, but he had plenty of company in his refusal to echo the criticisms of Flake and Corker. Trump himself proclaimed he was leading a party unified in its pursuit of tax cut legislation.
“There is great unity in the Republican Party,” he contended as he left the White House for a hurricane briefing and other events in Texas. Claiming a show of affection at his appearance at a Senate GOP lunch a day earlier, Trump said: “I called it a lovefest. It was almost a lovefest. Maybe it was a lovefest.” He’s said repeatedly that he got multiple standing ovations.
"That's the problem with being implacable foes - no one has any incentive to treat you as anything more than an obstacle to be overcome."
"The 'Road to Serfdom' is really all right turns." --Progressive Whisperer
""The GOP ... where every accusation is also a confession." --Progressive Whisperer
#50
Posted 26 October 2017 - 10:00 AM
F_USTI_N B_RG_IN
Quote
The newly forged friendship may have something to do with Graham’s lukewarm reaction to Sens. Jeff Flake (R-AZ) and Bob Corker’s (R-TN) highly critical and public condemnation of Trump, his behavior and his policies in recent days.
Saying he likes Flake “a lot” and his impending retirement will be a “loss to the Senate,” Graham admitted he does share Flake’s “concerns about what the President said, about the way he behaves,” according to Vanity Fair’s Hive.
“The election is over. I’m focused on results, and that’s why I’m here. I’d rather not be a constant critic. I’ll stand up when I need to, but I’m trying to get taxes cut,” he said.
"That's the problem with being implacable foes - no one has any incentive to treat you as anything more than an obstacle to be overcome."
"The 'Road to Serfdom' is really all right turns." --Progressive Whisperer
""The GOP ... where every accusation is also a confession." --Progressive Whisperer
#51
Posted 26 October 2017 - 10:29 AM
Quote
The former White House chief strategist and chairman of Breitbart News has pledged to purge the GOP of its “squishy” establishment members—a delineation that he said extends to everyone in the Senate, save Ted Cruz. So far this cycle, even his critics concede that he’s encountered light pushback.
“Steve Bannon is like ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi,” said Rick Wilson, a longtime GOP strategist who counts himself among those trying to stop the Breitbart CEO’s growing political influence. “He's funded by billionaires, he has a shallow, catchy message that appeals to marginally-educated fanatics, and until the good guys start dropping JDAMs on his people, his skill at asymmetric warfare seems formidable. Right now, the good guys are grounded from fear and inertia.”
The war over the character and makeup of the Republican Party has the potential to radically remake one of America’s two major political parties and upend the ideas and policies that emanate from it. Which is why Wilson and others are so despondent over how lopsided the fight has been to date. Already, the extent of Bannon’s triumph has prompted Republicans to wonder aloud whether it would be better to simply rid the GOP of Trump critics and fully embrace his vision.
“After what I saw and witnessed yesterday, the overwhelming loud approval and support for the president that we had yesterday at the lunch,” Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-OK), referring to a Senate GOP policy luncheon with Trump on Tuesday, told reporters on Capitol Hill, “I got to thinking, you know, maybe we do better by having some of the people who just don’t like him leave, and replace them with somebody else. And I think that’s what’s happening.”
"That's the problem with being implacable foes - no one has any incentive to treat you as anything more than an obstacle to be overcome."
"The 'Road to Serfdom' is really all right turns." --Progressive Whisperer
""The GOP ... where every accusation is also a confession." --Progressive Whisperer
#52
Posted 26 October 2017 - 11:40 AM
GOP delenda est.
Resist!
#53
Posted 26 October 2017 - 12:33 PM
Quote
When asked by the pollster YouGov to compare Trump’s work ethic to other Presidents, 58 percent of Republicans said that Trump is a “harder worker” than any of them, including Republican Presidents Ronald Reagan and war hero Dwight D. Eisenhower.
In the poll released Wednesday, 66 percent of those who voted for Trump called him a harder worker than any other president.
"That's the problem with being implacable foes - no one has any incentive to treat you as anything more than an obstacle to be overcome."
"The 'Road to Serfdom' is really all right turns." --Progressive Whisperer
""The GOP ... where every accusation is also a confession." --Progressive Whisperer
#54
Posted 26 October 2017 - 12:41 PM
Quote
“Maybe [the white supremacist rally] was created by the Left,” Gosar told Vice. “You know George Soros is one of those people that actually helps back these individuals. Who is he? I think he’s from Hungary. I think he was Jewish. And I think he turned in his own people to the Nazis. Better be careful where we go with those.”
After declining CNN’s invitations for interviews, the network decided to track him down in the House of Representatives — and were met with responses similar to those uttered by President Donald Trump.
“Stay tuned, check out my website later this evening” the Arizona Republican said when asked for his “proof” that the rally is a liberal false flag. “My proof will be coming.”
Those responses are remarkably similar to comments made by Trump earlier this month, when he strangely claimed we are living in the “calm before the storm” and then refused to clarify, only telling reporters “you’ll find out.”
After CNN’s reporter asked him again, Gosar appeared to become frustrated and said, “You’re fake news!” before running away down the House’s marble stairwell and refusing to answer more questions. “Fake news” is, of course, one of the president’s favorite epithets for news outlets who cover him and his administration negatively.
Eventually, the “proof” did appear on Gosar’s website in the form of an interview with Soros, who said that at age 14, he witnessed the seizure of Jewish property by Nazis, but did not participate in the theft as the congressman suggested. It also linked to an Arizonan right-wing radio show that promotes a variety of other alt-right conspiracy theories.
"That's the problem with being implacable foes - no one has any incentive to treat you as anything more than an obstacle to be overcome."
"The 'Road to Serfdom' is really all right turns." --Progressive Whisperer
""The GOP ... where every accusation is also a confession." --Progressive Whisperer
#55
Posted 26 October 2017 - 12:45 PM
Quote
In an interview with the New York Times, the former junior Republican senator from Oklahoma made an alarming statement about Trump’s mental health when asked about what it would take to make the GOP detach itself from the president.
“We have a leader who has a personality disorder,” Coburn said.
However, the former senator also believed that the Republican base would not abandon Trump despite his apparent psychological affliction because “he’s done what he actually told the people he was going to do, and they’re not going to abandon him.”
"That's the problem with being implacable foes - no one has any incentive to treat you as anything more than an obstacle to be overcome."
"The 'Road to Serfdom' is really all right turns." --Progressive Whisperer
""The GOP ... where every accusation is also a confession." --Progressive Whisperer
#56
Posted 27 October 2017 - 11:46 AM
Quote
It would be convenient to blame this all on Donald Trump, but this problem predates him. Trump isn’t leading the base, but he is exploiting a pre-existing condition within the GOP.
My theory is that the Republican Party won too soon. As liberal commentator Bill Scher has argued, it often takes three consecutive presidential losses for a political party that is truly in the wilderness to have a “come to Jesus” moment. After Jimmy Carter’s loss to Reagan, Democrats nominated liberals like Walter Mondale and Michael Dukakis before they were finally willing to settle on New Democrat Bill Clinton. The fact that Republicans were still adrift, facing an identity crisis, and unready to actually govern, suggests they weren’t ready to lead. Donald Trump upset the normal order of things.
We’ve seen what happens when promising young conservatives (see Dan Quayle and Sarah Palin) are thrust into the spotlight prematurely. I think that’s a microcosm of what happened to the GOP.
My eyes rolled so hard over that last sentence that I think I sprained them. This is a bit more interesting. Basically Pew has determined that there's little room for people like Flake in the GOP now.
Quote
That’s not to say the other five-sixths of GOP voters are hard-core Trumpkins. But it is to say that conservatives like Jeff Flake are dramatically less in touch with the average Republican voter than is a casino magnate who donated to Nancy Pelosi and invited Hillary Clinton to his wedding.
Jeff Flake didn’t have to wait until 2018 to see how this was going to go down. It was pre-ordained.
The Pew report in general is interesting. I don't know if I really agree with their categories but it's worth a look.
"That's the problem with being implacable foes - no one has any incentive to treat you as anything more than an obstacle to be overcome."
"The 'Road to Serfdom' is really all right turns." --Progressive Whisperer
""The GOP ... where every accusation is also a confession." --Progressive Whisperer
#57
Posted 27 October 2017 - 01:58 PM
Quote
In an interview with New York Magazine, Grimm mentioned meeting Trump at his Trump Tower office and recalled being awestruck by the President’s hands and physical size in general.
“I remember saying to myself, I never realized what a large man — I mean stature-wise, he’s a big man, with massive hands,” Grimm said. He then outstretched his own hands in demonstration as he explained, “I don’t have small hands, but when I shook hands with him, the first time I shook hands with him, I realized he was a big man.”
The former congressman emphatically claimed that he was being completely honest. “I thought he had a big, strong grip. I’m dead serious,” he insisted.
Grimm represented Staten Island in Congress before he pleaded guilty to tax evasion in 2015, leading to a seven-month stint in prison. He is also known for threatening to throw a NY1 reporter off a balcony.
In September, Grimm announced that he would run for his old seat. His campaign has hitched onto the #MAGA train, which included hiring a former Trump campaign adviser and a meeting with ex-White House chief strategist Steve Bannon. Since leaving the White House, Bannon has pledged to target the Republican establishment by backing far-right candidates.
Hand size has proven to be a sensitive topic for POTUS.
"That's the problem with being implacable foes - no one has any incentive to treat you as anything more than an obstacle to be overcome."
"The 'Road to Serfdom' is really all right turns." --Progressive Whisperer
""The GOP ... where every accusation is also a confession." --Progressive Whisperer
#58
Posted 06 November 2017 - 01:55 PM
Quote
Hey asshole. Sometimes there is no silver lining. As for "shouldn't happen in a church", why is that any better than a concert, a restaurant, or a block party? This is the type of "thinking" you get when people go beyond normal religious belief into zealotry.
"That's the problem with being implacable foes - no one has any incentive to treat you as anything more than an obstacle to be overcome."
"The 'Road to Serfdom' is really all right turns." --Progressive Whisperer
""The GOP ... where every accusation is also a confession." --Progressive Whisperer
#59
Posted 06 November 2017 - 02:12 PM
Quote
And that’s where we are in 2017 America—a Republican candidate for governor saying the “big difference” in the election is that he’s on side of those who glorify people who committed treason against the United States and fought and killed to defend slavery.
But in the time of Trump—a man who infamously declared that there were “very fine people” on the side of the white supremacists marching in Charlottesville, Virginia, in August—this comes as little surprise. In fact, the day after this ad was released, Trump cheered his protégé Gillespie as well as praised the Confederate statues as “great” with the tweet: “Ed Gillespie will turn the really bad Virginia economy #’s around, and fast. Strong on crime, he might even save our great statues/heritage!”
In reality, Trump had radicalized Gillespie long before that late October ad. In September, Gillespie unleashed a commercial that went after one of Trump’s go-to targets: Latino immigrants. In this ad, we see Latino men in prison as the street gang MS-13’s motto flashes across the screen: “Kill, Rape, Control.” The narrator tells us: “MS-13 is a menace, yet Ralph Northam voted in favor of sanctuary cities that let dangerous illegal immigrants back on the street, increasing the threat of MS-13.”
Here's the before and after of Ed Gillespie:
Quote
Add to that, Gillespie in past years had been vocally critical of Republicans who were anti-immigrant. He even wrote a Wall Street Journal op-ed in 2006 titled, “Populists Beware,” warning: “The Republican Party cannot become an anti-immigration party.” He added, “Our majority already rests too heavily on white voters, given that current demographic voting percentages will not allow us to hold our majority in the future.”
But that Gillespie is gone. Instead the Gillespie we see today has been radicalized by Trump to embrace bigotry and hate.
There are examples from New Jersey in the piece as well. And this sums up where Republicans have taken us as a nation.
Quote
Well on this Atwater spectrum, in the time of Trump we are actually moving closer to Republicans openly using the N-word. And here’s the reality: If Gillespie, Guadagno, or others like them win in 2017 using these tactics, we can expect Trump to radicalize even more Republicans to copy his playbook of appealing to white supremacy and fearmongering in 2018.
"That's the problem with being implacable foes - no one has any incentive to treat you as anything more than an obstacle to be overcome."
"The 'Road to Serfdom' is really all right turns." --Progressive Whisperer
""The GOP ... where every accusation is also a confession." --Progressive Whisperer
#60
Posted 10 November 2017 - 04:51 PM
LFC, on 26 October 2017 - 10:29 AM, said:
If it does, I'll send flowers. No meter ever gave its windings in a better cause.
— Nate Silver
"Robots aren't the problem. Capitalism is." -- Last words of Stephen Hawking.
These days, "libertarian" is just a euphemism for a Nazi who's afraid to commit.
"If you're not outraged, you're not paying attention." -- Heather Heyer
"I'd rather have my child, but by golly, if I gotta give her up, we're gonna make it count." -- Her mother
"Your purpose, then, plainly stated, is that you will destroy the Government, unless you be allowed to construe and enforce the Constitution as you please, on all points in dispute between you and us. You will rule or ruin in all events." -- some RINO
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