The FBI has seized the phone of the Nevada Republican state chair as part of their investigation into the fake electors scheme.
Whenever I saw the clips of Bower’s testifying, I kept thinking I’d seen him somewhere before, but I couldn’t figure out where.
Last night, I remembered. He’s Mr. Mackey from South Park
The new snarl word is “Marxist.” They don’t know what that means either, but it is leveled at anyone who dares to criticize or point out the flaws in almighty capitalism.
“Woke” is pretty meaningless. It’s just a dog whistle to racists.
The whole narrative is meaningless, which is what makes it so useful. Whatever’s going wrong or pissing people off, the GOP can blame it on “the Democrats’ radical socialist/Marxist/communist agenda,” and to the rubes it makes perfect sense.
Nowadays it’s inflation. If unemployment was high, that would work, too. Bear market? Perfect.
Someone connected to BLM once mentioned Marx, so the the entire BLM movement is a Marxist plot to burn down businesses and arrest anyone who disagrees with them.
Or so I hear on a regular basis.
Ah, but that’s the thing…
What Bowers, Pence, Barr, etc. are in effect telling is that if only Trump & Co. had bothered to change the written rules first to allow it in such a way that gave them cover, they could have lived with it. They want that vision for the country, but they believe in going by formal steps, in the best of cases. Or if not feeling generous to them, then at least in having the guarantee that nobody can arrest them for doing what it takes.
They are believers in the maxim that under the law, some people are protected but not bound, some others are bound but not protected. And they felt that in this situation while Trump was convinced he was in the first group, they were in the latter position, and at least unwilling to gamble on leaving their fate to a unipersonal whim of a possible pardon some undetermined time in the future.
That earns them the contempt of both Trump and the believers in democracy.
Putin a Communist???
Sure, he began his career under the Soviet Union and so (I assume) was a member of the Communist Party. But since he’s been in power he appears to be more of a believer in kleptocracy/oligarchy, than ever a believer in Communism. (Or perhaps you intended your post facetiously?)
Absolutely. None of them could define either ‘Marxist’ OR ‘Communist,’ not even if you held a gun to their heads, which they’d actually kind of enjoy, maybe.
All very well-said.
Eric Greitens’s wife is getting death threats by people calling her a RINO after his RINO hunting video came out.
Shouldn’t this be in the schadenfreude thread?
{…} “We live in a country where this kind of rhetoric has resulted in violence,” she {Attorney Helen Wade during a court hearing in the former couple’s child custody case} said. “It’s in writing, `Wouldn’t it be awful if someone hunted down and killed Eric Greitens and his entire family. Golly that would be terrible.′ That’s one of them. The other one is so horrible I can’t read it aloud in court.” {…}
Wow, what a terrible death threat. I guess the upside is this attorney making it clear that Eric Greitens shouldn’t be using this kind of rhetoric which has resulted in violence . . . except she really didn’t, she just used it as a weapon against Eric Greitens in custody case.
When do we rebrand the GOP as the “Grand Ouroboros Party”?
He and the people like him haven’t changed, just the labels they wear. The reason why communism was a problem was that it led to people like Putin being in power. That’s always been the reason why communism was a problem. Putin is exactly as much a believer in communism as Stalin ever was. Back in the Cold War, it was us vs. the Russian Empire. It’s still us vs. the Russian Empire.
To be fair, it has always had some pretty severe structural problems besides the conduces-to-evil-dictatorship issue.
Matt Gaetz asked Individual 1 for a pardon before 1/6.
I’m guessing Gaetz texted Failed Coup Leader often asking for pardons.
Ken Paxton said he’s going to declare today an annual holiday.
Yes, it’s still us vs. the Russian Empire.
But our brief discussion highlights the tendency—especially among Stupid Republicans, but observable in others, too—to equate Communism with Totalitarianism. Not the same thing. (There have been small communities who’ve governed themselves along communist [though not particularly Marxist] principles, without going full Big Brother, for example.)
For the Soviet Union, Marx’s principles offered a means of manipulating and exploiting the masses–a handy excuse. And we see the same sort of shell game in other authoritarian governments: talking up Positive Principles as a way of fleecing the rubes. Putin was never about anything other than that; I seriously doubt he ever genuinely believed “to each according to his needs” and such.
(Apologies for the tangent.)
Both true, but if it weren’t for the totalitarianism, communism would be just one more on the very large pile of “sounds good in theory, but doesn’t work in practice (at least not at large scale)”. Nobody would need to care about it, were it not for the Stalins and Putins and their ilk.
As I told my sociology prof, communism only works if you can get everyone to hold hands and sing “We are Friends.”