nodynasty4us

[nodynasty4us]

Aldous J Pennyfarthing at Daily Kos:

Following Donald Trump’s example is typically a very bad idea. This is the same guy who stared at an eclipse, thought it might be a good idea to inject disinfectant, and insists on flushing toilets 10 to 15 times, even though the government recommends stolen top secret nuclear documents be flushed no more than three times in order to conserve water. And while listening to Trump is equally as bad—Truth Social investors are discovering that now—it might, ironically, end up saving the country. You may recall when several starry-eyed Republicans ran for president based largely on the notion that a guy with a fraudulent business who’d literally attempted to end America and faced dozens of felony charges might have some vulnerabilities in the general election. Well, one of those candidates—former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley—stuck around a bit longer than Trump would have liked and it’s still having an impact.

[...] On Tuesday night in the GOP’s closed Pennsylvania primary, Haley got more than 155,000 votes, or roughly 16.6% of the total. This is a pretty significant number for someone who’s no longer campaigning, and whose opponent is a universally known figure running as a quasi-incumbent.

The Hill reports that Haley got close to 20% in several Pennsylvania counties. And this could be reason for concern with “polling average of the state from Decision Desk HQ/The Hill has Trump ahead of President Biden in the state by just 0.4 percent, meaning every vote may have added importance there compared to many other states.”  And it’s not just in Pennsylvania. According to The Hill Haley “received more than 77,000 votes in the Georgia primary in March in March a few days after she dropped out, more than 150,000 votes, or almost 20 percent, in the Washington primary and more than 110,000 votes in the Arizona primary.” Clearly, Trump remains a polarizing figure within the GOP. And since telling Haley supporters to go screw, they’ve pretty much obeyed. The good news for Trump is that, as a wannabe dictator, he demands slavish obedience to all his dictates—and people are falling in line. The bad news for Trump is that if people actually listen to him, it could cost him the election.

As Washington Post senior political reporter Aaron Blake notes, the results in closed GOP-only primaries since Haley dropped out appear to show her momentum has barely slowed. 

In closed primary states so far, Nikki Haley continues to nab around 15%-25% of the GOP primary vote despite dropping out in March. That would be a bad omen for Trump come fall.

#donald trump #nikki haley #2024

[nodynasty4us]

From the April 24, 2024 article:

Former President Donald Trump is an unindicted co-conspirator in the Michigan attorney general’s probe into the attempts to overturn the 2020 election in that state, an investigator testified Wednesday. The investigator also said the list of unindicted co-conspirators includes ex-Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani, former Trump White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, and former Trump campaign lawyer Jenna Ellis. The revelations came at a pretrial hearing in Lansing for some of Michigan’s fake electors, who have been charged by Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel in her investigation into the attempts to subvert the 2020 election.

🖕

#donald trump #fake electors #michigan

[nodynasty4us]

From the April 25, 2024 story:

Trump has appointed his sons, Donald Jr. and Eric, to be gatekeepers. They will vet all future appointees—not for their ability to do the job but for their loyalty to Donald J. Trump. That will come before anything else. In that way, when Trump says "jump" they will all say "how high?" The brothers would not officially run the transition team, but whoever is picked to officially run it would understand from the get-go that every candidate for every office has to be run by them before getting serious. ... Is the influence of the two brothers better or worse than last time around? It is already clear that Darling Daughter Ivanka and Young Jared are not going to play a role in a second Trump administration. They are too busy playing with the Saudis' money. Given Trump's preference for nepotism as a governing philosophy, Junior and Eric are going to take over their slots. Whether Eric will be as good as Jared at bringing about peace in the Middle East remains to be seen.

#donald trump jr #eric trump

[nodynasty4us]

Kavanaugh asks if a "creative prosecutor" could go after former presidents with the same charges Trump faces

Justice Brett Kavanaugh asked the special counsel’s lawyer whether a “creative prosecutor” could have charged previous presidents with the same charges Trump is facing in the federal election subversion case. “The problem is the vague statute,” Kavanaugh said, citing the obstruction and conspiracy to defraud the United States charges that Trump is facing in this case. The charges, Kavanaugh said, “can be used against a lot of presidential activities, historically, with a creative prosecutor who wants to go after a president.”

via @cnnpolitics

Could someone have gone after a past president for "obstruction and conspiracy to defraud the United States"? No, because no past president has ever done so, save maybe for Nixon (who has been discussed).

Could a creative prosecutor go after past (or seated) presidents for any damn fool thing they could think up, just to gum up the works? Oh absolutely, and I'll lay odds it starts happening but quick if this doesn't go the way Republicans like. But will such attempts go anywhere? No, because (again) no other president has tried anything this blatant and extreme.

But yeah, I totally expect to hear the wackbat wing of the Republican party start claiming they're going to go after Biden for the "wrong citrus fruit" kind of actions that the former president (correctly) predicted when he talked (incorrectly) about how dangerous it was for him to be impeached.

#presidential immunity

[nodynasty4us]

From the April 24, 2024 article:

A newly published study by the conservative watchdog group MRC Free Speech America tallied up 39 times Facebook interfered with U.S. elections since 2012.

“Basically 98% of the firepower is directed at conservatives," explained Dan Schneider, one of the report's authors. "There are instances where Facebook has taken down liberals. But those liberals are either in opposition to Joe Biden, you know, like RFK Jr. or else they’re in opposition to Facebook itself.”

...

Schneider says recently; however, the platform does appear to be censoring much less.

“In the last two years, we’ve seen Facebook censor far less than they had in 2020. My hope is that Facebook really has turned over a new leaf," Schneider added, "We need improvements out of Facebook. We need to see an actual platform that promotes free speech and allows real vibrant discussions and debates that’s what American democracy is based on.”

(Via Ground News.)

#facebook #election interference #censorship

[nodynasty4us]

Post from @ emptywheel:

Here's a question Alito should be asked today: If a female president got an abortion during her term, could Idaho arrest her?

#supreme court #reproductive rights #presidential immunity

[nodynasty4us]

From the April 24, 2024 opinion piece:

“The nascent pogroms at Columbia have to stop TODAY, before our Jewish brethren sit for Passover Seder tonight. If Eric Adams won’t send the NYPD and Kathy Hochul won’t send the National Guard, Joe Biden has a duty to take charge and break up these mobs.”—a Monday tweet from Republican Arkansas Sen. Tom Cotton

...

The recent rise in American antisemitism, on campus and off, is very real. But Cotton and his ilk are much less interested in addressing that than they are in demonizing protesters (many of whom are themselves Jewish) angered by Israel’s brutal ravaging of Gaza and pushing Columbia University to divest its endowment, and any other investments, from Israeli-linked businesses and institutions.

...

Just a scanning of Cotton’s words outside newsprint should be more than enough to dispel any notion that the far-right senator is interested solely in law and order. Last week, after pro-Palestinian protesters blocked highways in major cities, Cotton tweeted out a lie that these dissenters were “pro-Hamas” and “encouraged” those stuck in the ensuing traffic to “take matters into your own hands”—before editing the tweet to add that people should “take matters into your own hands to get them out of the way.” Back in 2020, the country saw a rash of vigilante drivers purposefully ramming into peaceful anti–police brutality protesters. So there’s not really much ambiguity as to what Cotton wants vigilantes—or the troops—to do, especially as cops clad in riot gear have begun to descend on other universities.

#tom cotton #vigilantism #fascism #antisemitism

[nodynasty4us]

Free speech

Of all the perversions of the notion of free speech that have harmed US society over the last decades, the notion that if I say something you don't like I have threatened you, or made you feel unsafe, has got to be among the worst.

Threats are threats. Stochastic, "wouldn't it be nice if something happened to that person" statements are a threat. Being an asshole is not a threat.

It'd be nice if our society was capable of understanding the difference.

#freedom of speech

[nodynasty4us]

Defunding and abolishing the publicly funded provision of health care – and its eventual privatisation – is a long term goal of the conservative Right. Its political allies in this regard are the libertarian ultrarightist forces.

What has all this got to do with the Left? Numerous left wing writers and activists – the term left wing being a broad brushstroke – have moved into the rabbit hole of COVID denial MAGA ultrarightism. Glenn Greenwald, Matt Taibbi, among many others, have descended into a contrarian position from the libertarian ultraright. It is no exaggeration to call it a fascist contrarianism.

Robert F Kennedy Jr. a long term environmental lawyer and activist, has metamorphosed into a MAGA supporting far right political figure. Starting with the respectable-sounding position of vaccine hesitancy, RFK has moved decisively to the far right.

His journey is indicative of a widespread phenomenon – leftists who move right wards on an anti scientific trajectory. They remain contrarians – fascist contrarians, ultra libertarian opponents of publicly funded services, such as health care and education.

#conservatives #health care

[nodynasty4us]

From the April 24, 2024 article:

“Defendants and unindicted coconspirators schemed to prevent the lawful transfer of the presidency to keep Unindicted Coconspirator 1 in office against the will of Arizona’s voters,” the 58-page indictment reads.

The names of seven of the defendants, including Meadows, Giuliani and Epshteyn, are redacted, but the document makes clear who they are by describing their roles. Others include attorneys John Eastman, Jenna Ellis and Christina Bobb, as well as Trump 2020 campaign operative Mike Roman.

Ken Chesebro, an attorney who helped devise Trump’s post-election strategy, is described as “unindicted coconspirator 4.”

The only defendants whose names are visible in the version of the indictment released by the Arizona attorney general’s office Wednesday evening are the 11 Republicans who falsely posed as the state’s presidential electors despite Joe Biden’s narrow victory there. Among them: former Arizona GOP Chairwoman Kelli Ward, state senators Jake Hoffman and Anthony Kern, and Arizona’s RNC committeeman Tyler Bowyer.

#election subversion #arizona #mark meadows #rudy giuliani #boris epshteyn #john eastman #jenna ellis #christina bobb #mike roman #kelli ward #jake hoffman #anthony kern #tyler bowyer #fake electors

[nodynasty4us]

wait I'm curious

i feel like 90% of my followers fit at least one of those but maybe it's just the ones I see the most

#ranked choice voting

[nodynasty4us]

From the essay by Amanda Marcotte:

There are two main reasons MAGA continues to ignore Trump's cries for crowds to mob the courthouse on his behalf. First of all, they don't think it would really change anything. Second, they don't see what's in it for them. Trump, who is unable to think about anyone but himself for even a second, hasn't bothered to persuade his followers that it would somehow benefit them to take such serious risks.  On the second point, it's crucial to remember that while MAGA has cult-like properties and Trump is its leader, it isn't actually a cult of personality in the true sense. Fundamentally, it's a fascist movement focused on restoring an imagined past based on white supremacy and male dominance. Trump is the vehicle for his followers' grievances, not the other way around. His anger over losing the 2020 election resonated with them not because they pitied him, but because they pity themselves. They wanted to win that election too, and when he offered them a chance to steal it, they went for it, to protect their own egos more than his.  ... The good news is that it all suggests Trump is not a Svengali-type leader who can materialize a violent mob out of nothing. He really does need other people to draft his battle plans, recruit his foot soldiers, and communicate his wishes for him. Right now, he has no one to do that for him because, again, what's it in for them? People like Eastman and Chesebro were in on the coup because they're devoted fascists, not because of some great love of Trump. So they're not going to risk even more indictments to get him out of this particular pickle. 

TRUMP BEGS MAGA TO RALLY AT COURT - HERE’S WHY THEY’RE IGNORING DEAR LEADER

LOLOLOLOLOLOLOL

Reality hurts, Donnie.

#donald trump #maga #political violence

[nodynasty4us]

GOP has gone rancid—and it isn't fair decent people have to keep cleaning up after them

D. Earl Stephens

April 23, 2024 5:27AM ET

People await the arrival of former U.S. President Donald Trump at a rally for Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) at the Miami-Dade Country Fair and Exposition on November 6, 2022 in Miami, Florida. (Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

This article was paid for by Raw Story subscribers. Not a subscriber? Try us and go ad-free for $1. Prefer to give a one-time tip? Click here.

I’ve heard more than enough from people identifying as Republicans to last for whatever is left of my life.

By words and actions, Republicans have proven they are not serious people, and most definitely do not love or care for our country. We have learned without any doubt during the past decade that there is no line they won’t cross, rule they won’t break, or lie they won’t tell to further their dirty causes, which have absolutely nothing to do with making America great.

They are incapable of good governance, and have settled into mob rule. The Republican-led House of Representatives is a complete and nasty joke, where members literally elbow and hiss at each other, and that is both true and terribly, terribly sad.

With help from our inept Justice Department and a bought-off Conservative Supreme Court, Republicans are making a mockery of the notion that our nation is protected by the rule of law. They know better than anybody, that this simply is not true.

They have exploited a system they have learned to eagerly spit on by refusing to allow nominations for Supreme Court Justices in some cases, while rocketing other Conservative nominees through the Senate in record time.

READ: Breaking our democracy is all part of the GOP plan

They call violent terrorists who attack our country hostages, and expect the press to keep swallowing it whole, because that’s what they do.

Cheating and underhandedness is in their DNA.

They are long past the point of no return, and will either pay for their felonious behavior, or will somehow be rewarded for it at the polls this November, in which case we are done with our Democratic experiment after 248 years.

It is now up to Democrats to once again save this nation from the sick arsonists eagerly trying to burn it to the ground, and that is helluva lot to ask, and isn’t remotely fair.

Here’s a damn truth we don’t hear near enough about: If the Democratic candidate for president was facing 91 felony counts, had been convicted of fraud, was a serial abuser of women, told a documented 30,573 lies in four years, spread a big, toxic lie about an election he lost, and praised dictators, the party and the people who support it, would drop him/her like a rock.

He or she wouldn’t stand a chance. They’d be banished to the nearest dumpster. No decent person would want to be associated with such obvious scum.

The people who vote on the Left and the Right in this country are not remotely the same, and I am way past sick and tired of hearing that they are.

Something as despicable and odious as Donald J. Trump could NEVER happen in the Democratic Party. We simply would not allow it.

That right there is an ironclad fact.

Democrats and left-leaning people are not perfect, because no person is, but we still believe in truth, decency and manners. ALL children are important in our world, which is why we believe feeding them and getting them the healthcare and the childcare they need is vital, and far more important than paying the taxes of filthy-rich, bloated billionaires. We still believe that how the United States projects itself to rest of the world and our children means something.

We love our country, warts and all.

We still believe that when we’ve made mistakes, or said stupid, hurtful things we should apologize for them, not recklessly double down like ill-bred maniacs.

We have not, and will not, surrender to the lowest form of life like Trump. It is simply not in us.

As of this writing, I am officially DONE listening to the unmitigated gall that “both sides do it” or “both parties are the same” because that’s a complete load of bullshit. It is brutally insulting to the tens of millions of people in this country who play by the rules, believe all people are created equal, and still know a damn lie, or attack on our country when they hear it and see it.

The people who populate the Left and Right in our country are wired differently, and it’s time this was said out loud, and repeatedly. It is also long past time our media reported this. Especially because they know it to be true.

In the newsrooms where I used to work, if something so obviously bad and as evil as Trump and his enablers had burst on the scene, we would have been sounding alarms and reporting on it 24/7. The man means us and our country harm. We know this because he is SHOWING US AND TELLING US THIS.

There is seldom a day that goes by without him saying or doing something revolting and egregious. The media doesn’t even bother asking his Republican followers in Congress to account for his larceny anymore. They just accept it as somehow normal when it most certainly is not and never can be.

There are two sides to the story that should be told in America right now. One is called, good, the other is called, evil.

The only reason our national press does not report on this legitimately and accurately is simply because they are pathetic cowards, plain and simple. They know they are failing, but are carrying on despicably, anyway.

I’ll always have ammo to burn addressing their egregious behavior these days, but for now, I want to continue unwinding this thread of how the Left and Right are completely different and how unfair it is that we have to deal with the never-ending recklessness on the Right.

Back in 2015, when Trump laughably announced he’d be seeking the Republican nomination for president, many prominent Republicans rightfully scoffed at the possibility. You’ll get no better example than Lindsey Graham’s evergreen tweet: “If we nominate Trump we will get destroyed.......and we will deserve it.” Graham went on to call Trump, “a jackass.”

The Bushes, Rubios, and other red-blooded Republicans all saw Trump for what he was: completely disgusting and ridiculous. That was before the big-mouth, lifetime loser started blasting them off the debate stage by imitating a slobbering, belligerent drunk at the end of the bar.

Instead of bouncing him from the party, they allowed him to play to the delight of the silent minority in America, who had watched him bravely fire people on his TV show, and lick his toilet seat by degrading President Obama with his putrid, racist, noxious birther blather.

These were the fine people whose tongues bled from self-censoring the bile that flowed from their broken brains, into their big, fat mouths, and had taken centuries to finally go out of taste in this country. It killed them that there were actually awful, hurtful things they could not say out loud anymore.

Now they were free to be themselves again, and let the sludge flow freely from their chapped lips.

Their freedoms had nothing to do with breaking free from any chains, or breaking glass ceilings. No, their freedoms meant having the permission from the very top to be just as disgusting and appalling as they wanted to be. It meant belittling the disabled, and dragging women into the gutter. It meant coddling Nazis and calling cities that terrified them with their sophistication, “s--t holes.”

Before we knew it Nazis and white suprematists were coming out of their caves everywhere and lighting their tiki torches. They were finally on the march to the point of no return, where their disgusting leader was waiting to tell them that he loved them.

Once you have coddled a racist, a traitor, a two-timer, a friend of our enemies, an environmental terrorist, a serial liar, and a sociopath, you are completely lost and broken. Done.

Now the mob rules the Republican Party, which makes it fitting they are represented by this two-bit thug, who is currently sitting in a court room for hiding campaign money he paid to an adult movie star he slept with named Stormy, while his wife was at home caring for a newborn.

Yeah, that’s good and wholesome and normal right there.

A few have broken free of the madman’s grip in the Republican Party, while others have tried, and have crumpled into a heap and back into the mud and slime.

In February, Trump’s very own attorney general, the morally corrupt, Bill Barr, stumbled into bravery and truth when he said that voting for Trump would be “playing Russian roulette with the country.”

By this past Wednesday he had once again devolved and said, but “I’ll support the Republican ticket” if Trump leads it.

Also in February, New Hampshire Republican Governor Chris Sununu said of Trump: “A--holes come and go. But America is here to stay.”

On Sunday, he admitted he had changed his tune and said: “Look, nobody should be shocked that the Republican governor is supporting the Republican president.”

That’s exactly right, governor: A--holes come and go, and apparently you will do everything you can to hang around for a while. You are a revolting person, sport.

Nobody should be surprised by these things anymore, because the Republican Party is irredeemable and incapable of surprises. They can ALWAYS go lower, and prove it literally every day.

This is what happens when you are morally busted and are not bound by any rules or self-control that guides the rest of us.

This is what happens when you surrender to depravity.

This is what happens when you rubber stamp abuse of women, lies, insurrection and support for dictators as anything in the vicinity of normal.

So what happens when standing by the truth and playing by the rules gets you nowhere as a political party and as a country? What happens when millions discover there is no justice and a depraved mad man once again has the keys to the kingdom?

Thanks to the Barrs and the Sununus, and the tens of millions of below-average, broken-down Republicans littering our country, we are terrifyingly close to finding out.

It is up to the Left to take out the garbage once again in America, because the Right has lost its damn mind, as well as its sense of taste and smell.

At what point can all this FINALLY be delivered as fact and shouted on Page 1?

At what point can we quit pretending that both sides are even remotely the same?

NOW READ: What most assuredly happens when Trump sits down with the New York Times

D. Earl Stephens is the author of “Toxic Tales: A Caustic Collection of Donald J. Trump’s Very Important Letters” and finished up a 30-year career in journalism as the Managing Editor of Stars and Stripes. Follow @EarlofEnough and on his website.

#republicans #donald trump #long post

[nodynasty4us]

A conservative is scared things will change and a liberal is scared they wont.

#conservatives #liberals

[nodynasty4us]

Jessica Valenti at Abortion, Every Day:

After nearly two years of losing elections, Republicans think they have an answer to their abortion problem: If you can’t beat them, pretend to be them. With Americans furious over bans, support for abortion right skyrocketing, and the issue winning every ballot measure since Roe was overturned, conservatives’ new strategy is to propose ‘pro-choice’ amendments of their own. Disguised as initiatives to protect abortion rights, these measures would actually trick voters into codifying Republican bans. In Arizona, for example, Republicans are considering a ‘pro-choice’ amendment to distract from anger over the 1864 ban and to undercut a real abortion rights measure. A leaked strategy document shows that the amendment would claim to protect abortion up until 15 weeks, but be made toothless by restrictions enshrined alongside it. Republicans are even tossing around feminist-sounding names like the “Arizona Abortion Protection Act” and the “Arizona Abortion and Reproductive Care Act.” The goal is to make Arizonans believe they’re voting to protect abortion rights while directing them away from the measure that would actually do so.

Something similar is happening in Nebraska, where a coalition of anti-abortion groups proposed a measure they hope will distract from a genuine abortion rights amendment. After the pro-choice group Protect Our Rights launched a ballot initiative to protect abortion until ‘viability’, conservatives proposed a similar-sounding amendment, Protect Women and Children. This measure would supposedly allow abortion in the first trimester. But the Nebraska amendment wouldn’t actually make abortion more available. Just like the proposal the Arizona GOP is considering, it’s a massive deception. Nebraska already has 12-week ban; that means this ballot measure would codify a Republican ban into the state constitution, making it virtually repeal-proof. Still, to trick voters, anti-abortion politicians are calling the measure “a second, better choice.” (It is not a coincidence that this amendment has been endorsed by Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, Nebraska Right to Life, and the Nebraska Family Alliance.)

Republicans trying to fool voters by using pro-choice rhetoric isn’t new. When an anti-abortion amendment was on the ballot in Kansas in 2022, conservative groups sent voters misleading text messages telling them to “Vote YES to protect women’s health.” (A ‘yes’ vote would have removed abortion protections.) And when Virginia Republicans were pushing a 15-week ban, they insisted the law wasn’t a ‘ban’ at all, but an effort to “keep abortion legal” for the first weeks of pregnancy. In a moment when Americans overwhelmingly want abortion to be legal, Republicans are desperate to sound as reasonable, moderate, and even as ‘pro-choice’, as possible. Their extremist talking points haven’t worked; that’s why they’ve shifted from taking about ‘bans’ and abortion being ‘murder,’ to using words like ‘consensus’ and ‘compassion.’ Conservatives need voters to believe that they’re seeking some sort of middle ground. The truth? They will say anything to ban abortion and to keep it banned. They’d rather craft elaborate, deceptive ballot measures than lift wildly unpopular and unwanted restrictions. And they’d rather frame their policies as pro-choice than risk losing another vote.

The good news is that all of this means conservatives’ current tactics aren’t working. Their messaging is failing miserably, and every effort to stop ballot initiatives has reminded Americans that Republicans are passing these bans against our wishes. 

Jessica Valenti's latest Abortion, Every Day entry sounds the alarm about the GOP's deceptive use of ballot measures to trick people into voting into codifying abortion bans using pro-choice language.

#reproductive rights #republicans #disinformation #long post

[nodynasty4us]

The pollster asked the "right direction" question. This is the foremost example of a question that seems to convey useful information, but that actually tells us absolutely nothing when it comes to the election. For example, could someone believe: "This country is moving in the wrong direction, and the only solution is to elect Donald Trump, who will get these immigrants under control and will Make America Great Again"? Yes, they could. Could someone believe: "This country is moving in the wrong direction, getting closer and closer to a fascist takeover, and the only solution is to reelect Joe Biden, who is the only candidate who believes in democracy?" Yes, they could. So, absent a bunch of follow-up questions (which virtually never happen), the "right direction" question produces results that are absolutely meaningless.

Electoral-vote.com

#polls

[nodynasty4us]

Main points of the April 22, 2024 article:

Clinics and companies could be penalized for shipping abortion materials

Medical tools used for abortions and other procedures could be inaccessible

Drugs used for abortions, like mifepristone, couldn’t be shipped

Telehealth access would be limited—even for non-abortion patients

Doctors would be limited in providing treatment for miscarriages

Its five-year statute of limitations could retroactively punish abortion providers/pharmacies

#reproductive rights #health care #comstock act