Republicans: continued

[Brian Peacock]

Q is the toxoplasmosis of politics.

[Seabass]

https://twitter.com/theserfstv/status/1 ... 2608708608

[L'Emmerdeur]

Yeah, 'both sides, man'. Oh, but the study was published in Sweden. They're biased, so everybody should just ignore it. The Derp is strong in the US, where a centrist party with some left elements (Democratic Party) is called 'socialist.' MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!™

'International Study Finds US Republican Party Heading Towards Becoming One of World's Most Authoritarian Factions'

The U.S. Republican Party has been moving in an increasingly regressive and autocratic direction for over a decade and now more closely resembles far-right ruling parties in Turkey, Hungary, and India than typical center-right parties in Western European democracies, a Swedish study published Monday has found.

In the largest study of its kind, researchers at the Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem) Institute at the University of Gothenburg found that since 2004 the Republican Party has "retreated from upholding democratic norms" and is shifting in an increasingly authoritarian direction, especially since the ascension of President Donald Trump.

The study found that the GOP is "now more similar to autocratic ruling parties such as the Turkish AKP and Fidesz in Hungary than to typical center-right governing parties in democracies such as the Conservatives in the U.K. or CDU in Germany."

[Seabass]

Yabbut the Swedes are a bunch of godless commies. I bet they don't even have heavily armed MAGA convoys over there.

[Seabass]

More on the above study:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/business ... rian-data/

So 600 political scientists from all over the world have come to the conclusion that both sides are in fact not the same.

Lührmann is deputy director of the university’s V-Dem Institute, which compiled the data. For the project, researchers recruited more than 600 political scientists around the world to make annual assessments of political parties’ adherence to a number of key small-D democratic values.

[...]

The Democratic Party, by contrast, hasn’t changed much. This is a prime example of what political scientists call asymmetric polarization — a growing partisan gap driven almost entirely by the actions of the Republican Party.

While V-Dem’s data only runs through 2018, that asymmetry has only become more apparent in the aftermath of this election, Lührmann said: “It is disturbing that most leading Republicans are still not objecting to President Trump’s baseless claims of electoral fraud and attempts to declare himself the winner.”

As a result, she says, GOP scores are likely to sink further when 2020 data is released.

[L'Emmerdeur]

Tommy Tuberville, newly elected US Senator from the state of Alabama, is ignorant of how the government of the US works, and subscribes to the far-right revisionist history in which Nazi = socialist. Essentially he's calling the president-elect a wannabe Nazi. If this is any indication, he might be giving Louie Gohmert a run for his money when it comes to militant ignorance.

'Blockhead Football Coach Elected Alabama Senator Says Blockhead Things About Non-Football Topics Like History, Government'

In an interview with the Alabama Daily News Wednesday, Tuberville showed a football coach’s understanding of history and the American system of governance. Tuberville fumbled when discussing America’s three branches of government (kind of a biggie) and the origins of World War II (also not small) before going on to stumble through ethics rules of the job and ultimately rounding it out with a grand football analogy equating the filibuster to a two-minute drill in the dying moments of a football game.

“Yeah and that’s how our government was set up,” Tuberville said in response to a question about a politically divided Congress. “You know, our government wasn’t set up for one group to have all three of branches of government. It wasn’t set up that way, our three branches, the House, the Senate and executive.” The House and Senate are, of course, part of the same legislative branch of government with the other two branches being the executive and judiciary.

...

“I look at it and I see what country I grew up in and what it’s meant and the direction that we were going, and it’s concerning to me that a guy can run for president of the United States and have an opportunity to win when he leans more to a Socialist type of government … And that’s concerning to me that we’re to the point now where we’ve got almost half the country voting for something that this country wasn’t built on. Very concerning and, you know, as I tell people, my dad fought 76 years ago in Europe to free Europe of Socialism. Today, you look at this election, we have half this country that made some kind of movement, now they might not believe in it 100 percent, but they made some kind of movement toward socialism. So we’re fighting it right here on our own soil. We’ve got to decide, you know, over the years which direction we’re going, and that part’s concerning to me.”

[Seabass]

Fucking Alabama replaced Doug Jones civil rights lawyer with this idiot.

[Brian Peacock]

[L'Emmerdeur]

This isn't the first time the 'similar name spoiler candidate' has been used in US elections. I think it was a Republican operation the last time I heard about it.

'GOP using "shadow candidates" in crucial Florida districts, report claims'

Three candidates for Florida Senate district races were “shill candidates” whose presence was intended to siphon votes from those running for the Democratic Party, a report claims.

Local 10 News in Miami says that the three candidates, who list no party affiliation, have similarities and connections suggesting that they are all linked by funding from the same dark money sources.

The implication is that the candidates ran with no intention other than to upset voting patterns, as they did not campaign or fundraise.

In the District 37 race, a recount is underway as there were only 31 votes separating Republican candidate Ileana Garcia and Democratic candidate Jose Javier Rodriguez.

A third candidate, unaffiliated with either party, shares Mr Rodriguez’s last name and attracted more than 6,300 votes.

Local 10 began to investigate Alexis Rodriguez’s candidacy in October when an executive producer could not locate a headshot of the candidate for election broadcast purposes.

He would not return calls and had falsified his address on filing forms in June, giving his residence as a home that he had not lived in for five years.

A search of campaign finance records by Local 10 linked him to two other no-party candidates — one in central Florida, the other, like Mr Rodriguez, also in Miami-Dade.

[Tero]

Libertarian (he only funds Republicans) has regrets
https://thehill.com/homenews/news/52587 ... aonDstKvyg

[Tero]

November 14, 2020
Coloradans unleash wolves on their neighbors: A fitting metaphor for COVID
By Adam Yoshida
Some recent news from Colorado is a better metaphor for the current unpleasantness than any novelist or screenwriter could invent. On Election Day (or rather, in the late campaign, during the two months or so of voting), the people of Colorado voted, by the narrow margin of 50.84% to 49.16%, to reintroduce gray wolves in the areas of Colorado west of the continental divide. Without digging too deep into the details, the people for the measure, labeled Proposition 114, supported it for environmentalist and conservationist reasons. The opponents, especially those who lived to the west of the continental divide, opposed it because they feared that the wolves would harm their property and themselves. However, the measure carried largely because Denver and Boulder, despite overwhelming opposition in most rural counties, voted for it by a 2:1 margin. I'll let you guess on which side of the continental divide Denver and Boulder are.

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/20 ... covid.html

[L'Emmerdeur]

Sarah Palin is trying to maintain whatever whispy shreds of relevance that might cling to her ridiculous persona, and get people to pay attention to her. It worked for me.

'Sarah Palin Lashes Out At Obama For Correctly Calling Her The "Anti-Intellectual" Wing Of The GOP'

Former VP candidate Sarah Palin is none too happy with former President Barack Obama for — heaven forbid — pointing out the fact that maybe we wouldn't have had to live through 4 years of Trump if someone like Palin hadn't already laid the groundwork for the anti-intellectualism that's taken root in the party.

In an interview with the right-wing Newsmax TV, former Gov. Sarah Palin (R-AK) attacked former President Barack Obama for calling her out as part of the Republican Party’s “anti-intellectual” wing.

“It’s kind of pleasurable to know that I’ve been living rent-free in his head for 12 years,” said Palin. “The movement that he still cannot accept nor understand … that movement was all about giving the voiceless a voice, empowering people who are fed up, want accountability in their government, want a smaller, smarter government, things that he just hasn’t been able to grasp.”

She added that neither party cared for her, or Trump, because they were “rogue” figures who challenged the establishment.

There's nothing "rogue" about Palin or Trump. They both just figured out that to be popular with the Republican base, all they have to do is repeat everything they hear on Fox and say the quiet parts out loud. Apparently Republicans don't mind grifters and thieves, as long as you tell them what they want to hear, and push through all of their right-wing, Federalist Society-approved judges, as Trump has done.

Apparently she's talking about the following quote from Obama's book. I think Obama gives her (and Republican voters) too much credit.

Through Palin, it seemed as if the dark spirits that had long been lurking on the edges of the modern Republican Party — xenophobia, anti intellectualism, paranoid conspiracy theories, an antipathy toward Black and brown folks — were finding their way to center stage. She had no idea what the hell she was talking about.

The 'dark spirits' weren't lurking on the edges, in my opinion, though the conspiracy theory part had to wait for the internet to really take off. There's video. If you really want to see Palin yapping you can search it out.

[Svartalf]

relevance? maybe she would regain some if she took her two able feet and crossed to where she can see to show vlad west of there who's boss...

[L'Emmerdeur]

Hat tip to Raw Story--

According to the Lansing State Journal, one of the speakers at the "Million MAGA March" in Michigan, supporting the astroturfed "Stop the Steal" noise was a fellow named Brandon Hall, apparently a rising star in Michigan Republican circles.

"We're not going to give over our electoral votes to Joe Biden without a fight," said Brandon Hall, a conservative Michigan activist vying for the position of GOP party chair.

Turns out Mr. Hall can claim a level of expertise on the topic. He failed to mention it, understandably. From 2016:

'Brandon Hall gets 30 days in jail for election fraud'

A 27-year-old Grand Haven man was sentenced to 30 days in jail and 18 months probation for election fraud he committed while trying to help a Grand Haven attorney get his name on the ballot for a 2012 election.

Brandon Michael Hall admitted to forging numerous signatures on petitions for then judicial candidate Chris Houghtaling.

Hall was charged with 10 counts of election law forgery — a felony — in 2013. He successfully appealed the case back down to misdemeanors in Ottawa District Court, Ottawa County Circuit Court and the Michigan Court of Appeals.

He did not succeed when Assistant Attorney General Gregory Townsend appealed the case to the Michigan Supreme Court.

Hall said, after the high court’s decision that the case should be tried as a felony, he resigned himself to the fact that he would likely spend some time in jail.

Officials again charged the self-proclaimed political junkie with 10 counts of election law forgery and the case went to trial in late November.

Jurors came back with a guilty verdict on all counts after one hour of deliberation.

[Brian Peacock]

I suspect some element of psychological projection on the part of Republicans' claiming the election was rigged.