Republicans: continued

[Tero]

Judge pleasing the 40% right wingers that voted for him by allowing tiny part of Kari Lake law suit
https://www.cnn.com/2022/12/20/politics ... tid=Zxz2cZ

[Tero]

Trump and Musk believe they are characters in sci fi comic books:
In a statement on Truth Social, Trump wrote that "these folks don't get it that when they come after me, the people who love freedom rally around me. It strengthens me. What doesn't kill me makes me stronger."

[Svartalf]

Elected judges are by nature corrupted judges.

[JimC]

Elected judges are by nature corrupted judges.

Broadly true, but there can still be subtle political motivations in judicial appointments by other means...

[Svartalf]

If the judges are political appointees, yes
In France, they are appointed by the ministry, with the minister having pretty little to do with it.

[Tero]

[Svartalf]

If ye can't, shut up.

[Scot Dutchy]

Americans think that people are interested in their corruption. We are not honestly.

[rasetsu]

[Tero]

Catfight!
https://thehill.com/homenews/house/3782 ... asers/amp/

[Tero]

Boebert tweet: Biden has open borders
Reply:

Harbinger
@Forever1775 Dec 21
Replying to
@laurenboebert
It’s like everything else NONE OF THE EXISTING LAWS are any good as long as you have PANTY WASTE PROSECUTORS & JUDGES overseeing the cases…may as well be lawless… kind of like we’re seeing on the border now

(It's panty waist)

[L'Emmerdeur]

They're going to hell in a bucket and it seems they're not enjoying the ride. Salon article:

'There really is a "great replacement" — but it's not what Tucker Carlson says it is'

Very likely the reader is wearily familiar with one of the memes that American right-wingers endlessly repeat. It's called the "great replacement": the claim that shadowy but apparently omnipotent elites are deliberately replacing the old stock (meaning white) American population with immigrants from predominantly non-white or non-Christian countries.

The notion had its beginnings decades ago in the mental swamps of Southern segregationist politicians and has been recycled in various iterations through white supremacist groups. Donald Trump's election and the popularization of the phrase (in more or less coded language) by professional jackasses like Tucker Carlson made it into another of the Republican base's innumerable slogans.

The idea is bunk, of course, and easily understood as yet another of the many myths designed to play into right-wingers' persecution complex. But it is also possible to understand it as a folk-psychological projection of something that is indeed happening in the strongly Republican regions of the country inhabited by what Sarah Palin called "real Americans." It's not so much the great replacement as the great die-off, and Republicans are both its chief promoters and its principal victims.

The phenomenon first received attention in 2015, thanks to a paper by Anne Case and Nobel Prize laureate Angus Deaton. They detailed first the stagnation and then the absolute decline in life expectancy among non-Hispanic white populations, particularly in white rural areas of the U.S. They charted a significant rise in "deaths of despair" like suicide or drugs (particularly synthetic opioids) or obesity-related illness among the white working class.

This phenomenon cannot entirely be explained by the relative economic disadvantage of those who live in rural areas as compared to cities. Black and Hispanic populations, whether rural or urban, also experience economic disadvantage, but rates of midlife mortality among those groups continue to decline significantly, while they keep rising among white people with no college education.

...

With the onset of the COVID pandemic in 2020, the longevity disparity increased between regions in the United States, a gap that also correlates strongly with partisan political leanings. Statistical research has consistently shown higher COVID death rates in Republican jurisdictions than in Democratic ones and that gap increased after the rollout of COVID vaccines. A study by Lancet Regional Health-Americas found that the more conservative the voting records of members of Congress and state legislators were in a district, the higher the rate of age-adjusted COVID mortality was, even after compensating for race, education, income and vaccination rates.

...

This year, Scientific American summarized the result of all these factors: a striking differential in overall death rates in Republican versus Democratic counties, a gap that has been widening for 20 years and shows no sign of leveling out. The article suggests that policy choices are a factor.

It is easy enough to rationalize this disparity by pointing to external factors, such as poorer quality and less available health care in the rural communities where Republicans are more likely to live, along with less developed infrastructure (such as roads) in general. But here as well, those conditions at least partly result from decades of political choices made by Republican voters in electing state and local officials.

During the pandemic, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis prohibited localities from implementing masking and social distancing ordinances. The fact that DeSantis was overwhelmingly re-elected this year demonstrates that a majority of his state's voters approved of his policy and believed the resulting additional deaths were "worth it" (whatever "it" is").

...

Possibly there is also a less direct but deeper explanation for the white Republican die-off. This group has been systematically fed a steady diet of fear, rage, resentment and loss, which may well condition a fatalistic mental state that has real-world consequences. The great die-off is, at bottom, a form of self-sacrifice to an angry pagan idol that can never be propitiated.

[L'Emmerdeur]

The Trumpist Kari Lake, who denies she lost the election for governor of Arizona, was given some lovely coal for her Christmas stocking. She is not well pleased.

'Judge tosses Kari Lake's election challenge in Arizona governor's race'

A judge on Saturday dismissed Republican Kari Lake’s election challenge and affirmed Democrat Katie Hobbs’ election as governor two days after a trial in which he said Lake failed to prove her case.

Maricopa County Judge Peter Thompson, who oversaw the two-day trial, ruled that Lake’s legal team never offered clear and convincing evidence showing the election was rigged against her.

Lake can appeal the case before Hobbs is expected to be sworn into office Jan. 2. Because of the tight timetable, the case may move swiftly to the Arizona Supreme Court.

Thompson noted that real problems did affect the election, but election workers tried their best and performed their role "with integrity."

"Not perfectly,” Thompson continued, "as no system on this earth is perfect, but more than sufficient to comply with the law and conduct a valid election."

...

His 10-page ruling dismantles Lake’s witnesses and their arguments, denying in each case they presented compelling evidence. Any request for sanctions in the case need to be made by Dec. 26 at a.m., the ruling states.

"My Election Case provided the world with evidence that proves our elections are run outside of the law," Lake said on social media after the ruling. "This Judge did not rule in our favor. However, for the sake of restoring faith and honesty in our elections, I will appeal his ruling."

[Scot Dutchy]

Are we interested?

[JimC]

Yes, Scot, we are...