Common Sense!

 

HOW TO SOLVE THE TWO PARTY PROBLEM IN THE STATES!

 It's all very simple really..., and it's also very necessary!

This Republicans and Democrats thing with a handful of Independents is not working and something needs to be done!

The best solution is to get a bunch of billionaires together and form a third party on the Federal, State and local levels before the next election.

That's it folks, plain and simple!

(You're welcome!)

There's something rotten going on!

 Dear Friends: As an unbiased Canadian observer (and last honest broker) I have noticed more and more articles exposing the corruption of morals and common decency within the Republican party at all levels of American society.

There might not be something rotten in Denmark..., but there certainly is in the United States of America:

Guest post by R Muse:

If there was any doubt that Republicans are fascists working fervently behind the scenes to establish a one-party rule, an “incendiary” article in an ultra-right-wing publication should dispel any misconception that conservatives support America or its increasingly fragile democracy.

The right-wing publication “American Mind” is the product of the Claremont Institute that is described as “an influential conservative think tank.” A more apt description is a fascist organization intent on decimating America’s democracy and replacing it with an ultra-far-right political movement.

In fact, the “incendiary essay” mentioned above argues that “America has been destroyed by internal enemies” who “do not believe in, live by, or even like the principles, traditions and ideas that until recently defined America as a nation and as a people.” 

Of course, the essay’s author, Glenn Ellmers, is referring to what he labels as most people living in America who “are non-Americans." (NON-WHITE!) 

Ellmers is talking about anyone who opposes the GOP’s undemocratic machinations and a crusade to establish a fascist one-party rule.

As Zack Beauchamp over at Vox noted:

“Up until recently, the right-wing rebellion against American democracy is often subtle, expressing itself through ‘tricky changes to election law’ without a full-throated acknowledgment of what [GOP] lawmakers are actually doing. But sometimes, the mask slips – and someone in the conservative movement openly tells you what’s really going on.”

The essay in American Mind is openly informing Americans “what’s really going on,” and it is very telling that everything horrible many Americans were warning was in the offing with the rise of Trumpism is absolutely true.

It isn’t that Republicans started doing anything new with Trump’s rise, but everything contrary to maintaining a strong democratic society became part and parcel of the official GOP movement and its now-flagrant drive towards fascism: particularly the demonization of anything resembling opposition to the radical conservative movement.

According to Ellmers, the conservative brand doesn’t really capture what the new, fascist American right should be about. In his mind “conservatism implies preserving or protecting something already in place,” but he claims that there is next to nothing worth saving.

Echoing Trump, Ellmers writes:

“The US Constitution no longer works. What is actually required now is a recovery, or a refounding, of America as it was long and originally understood but which now exists only in the hearts and minds of a minority of citizens.” (author bold)

Ellmers doesn’t even attempt to conceal the fact that it is a “minority of citizens” who should control  and protect America from “most of America” he claims are “non-Americans or alien Americans.” And it is noteworthy that he did not mean cultural minorities; he meant Americans who support democracy. And if that MAGA minority has to destroy democracy to implement their fascist rule, then so be it. He writes:

“Our norms are now hopelessly corrupt and need to be destroyed. It has been like this for a while—and the MAGA voters knew it.In almost every case, the political practices, institutions, and even rhetoric governing the United States have become hostile to both liberty and virtue.”

This divisive demonization of any American who fails to support the fascism Ellmers is pontificating about is pure Trump, with valuable aid from his fascist supporters in Congress.

They have taken the “them against us” mindset to a dangerous level in claiming “real Americans must recognize the nefarious forces destroying America; the progressive, or woke, or ‘antiracist’ agenda that now corrupts our republic.” 

That is pure fascist rhetoric and while it was always subtle prior to Trump, it is now mainstream.

Prior to sending his seditious insurrectionists to overthrow the legal government on January 6, Trump implied their America’s existence was at stake saying:

“If you don’t fight like hell, you’re not going to have a country anymore.”

In 2019, Republican Senator Josh Hawley warned real Americans:

“We have come again to one of the great turning points in our national history, when the fate of our republican government is at issue.”

And in 2020, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy stated:

“Democrats want to defund, destroy, and dismantle our country.”

Creating an enemy of the people is a purely fascist machination to garner support for destroying democracy necessary to create a fascist one-party rule. Republicans in the states are doing their part by passing voter suppression legislation that has nothing whatsoever to do with election security.  In fact, Georgia’s fascist governor admitted as much on tape saying the Republican legislation disenfranchising democratic voters “has nothing to do with potential fraud, it is dealing with the mechanics of the election.”

He is right, creating an election mechanism that suppresses minority votes is not about fraud; it is ultimately about guaranteeing that one party rule will reach fruition

Many Americans were aware that the rise of Trump was a serious threat to democracy. And they knew that coupled with Republican attempts to suppress votes that did not support Trump’s aspirations to be a fascist dictator represented an existential threat to democracy.

However, until now they most likely never expected any Republican or conservative organization to openly reject democracy leading one to wonder if “most Americans” will comprehend that there really is such an existential threat to the nation’s fragile democracy that Republican fascism is no longer a conspiratorial threat because it is already here. 

P.S. Some supporters of Donald Trump had a rude awakening after realizing they were donating more money than they intended to the former president’s failed reelection campaign. The Trump campaign had been deceptively making supporters file for recurring donations rather than one-time payments, according to a report in the New York Times. (Trump has to give back $122 MILLION!)

The Conservative movement is rejecting America

 A recent essay in a prominent right-wing outlet gives an unusually clear window into the modern right’s anti-democratic worldview.

Guest Post by Zack Beauchamp:

The right-wing rebellion against American democracy is often subtle, expressing itself through tricky changes to election law without a full-throated acknowledgment of what lawmakers are actually doing. But sometimes, the mask slips — and someone in the conservative movement openly tells you what’s really going on.

One such slippage took place last week when the American Mind — a publication of the Claremont Institute, an influential conservative think tank based in California — published an incendiary essay arguing that the country has already been destroyed by internal enemies.

“Most people living in the United States today — certainly more than half — are not Americans in any meaningful sense of the term,” Glenn Ellmers, the essay’s author, writes. “They do not believe in, live by, or even like the principles, traditions, and ideals that until recently defined America as a nation and as a people. It is not obvious what we should call these citizen-aliens, these non-American Americans; but they are something else.”

These seditious citizens are opposed, according to Ellmers, by “the 75 million people who voted in the last election against the senile figurehead of a party that stands for mob violence, ruthless censorship, and racial grievances, not to mention bureaucratic despotism.”

If Trump voters and conservatives do not band together and fight “a sort of counter-revolution,” then “the victory of progressive tyranny will be assured. See you in the gulag.”

What exactly this counter-revolution entails is unclear, but Ellmers has some tips. “Learn some useful skills, stay healthy, and get strong,” he writes. “One of my favorite weightlifting coaches likes to say, ‘Strong people are harder to kill, and more useful generally.’”

Ellmers’s essay has been widely discussed in American media and intellectual circles, due to its bracing honesty about the modern right’s worldview and the prominence of the outlet that published it. Claremont is an influential institution of the right; one of its publications, the Claremont Review of Books, published the notorious “Flight 93” essay arguing that the 2016 election was a choice between Trump and national extinction. (“2016 is the Flight 93 election: charge the cockpit or you die,” that essay declared in its opening line.)

In the post-Trump era, the type of hard-right politics preached in Claremont publications “is simply conservatism writ large,” as Jane Coaston writes in a Vox essay on the California right. They’ve become the intellectual organ of Trumpist conservatism — an organization whose mission looks more and more like manufacturing an intellectual justification for the GOP’s right-wing populist.

The rhetoric of national emergency and decline that you hear in Claremont publications permeates mainstream GOP rhetoric. Minutes before the January 6 assault on Capitol Hill, former President Donald Trump told his assembled supporters that “if you don’t fight like hell, you’re not going to have a country anymore.” In a 2019 speech, Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) warned that “we have come again to one of the great turning points in our national history, when the fate of our republican government is at issue.” In a 2020 Facebook post, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy declared that “Democrats want to defund, destroy, and dismantle our country.”

As absurd as it may seem, Ellmers’s essay should be taken seriously because it makes the anti-democratic subtext of this kind of conservative discourse into clearly legible text. And it is a clear articulation of what the movement has been telling us through its actions, like Georgia’s new voting law: It sees democracy not as a principle to respect, but as a barrier to be overcome in pursuit of permanent power.

The right against “conservatism”

Inasmuch as there is a central argument in Ellmers’s piece, it is this: The label “conservative” no longer accurately captures what the American right should be about. This is because “conservatism” implies preserving or protecting something already in place, when in fact America is so hopelessly corrupted that there’s little worth saving.

“The US Constitution no longer works,” Ellmers writes. “What is actually required now is a recovery, or even a refounding, of America as it was long and originally understood but which now exists only in the hearts and minds of a minority of citizens.”

Many traditional conservatives, in his mind, are blind to this fact. Trump’s victory represented the true people rising up against an establishment that was unwilling to openly state how precarious the country’s situation is:

The great majority of establishment conservatives who were alarmed and repelled by Trump’s rough manner and disregard for “norms” are almost totally clueless about a basic fact: Our norms are now hopelessly corrupt and need to be destroyed. It has been like this for a while—and the MAGA voters knew it, while most of the policy wonks and magazine scribblers did not… and still don’t. In almost every case, the political practices, institutions, and even rhetoric governing the United States have become hostile to both liberty and virtue. On top of that, the mainline churches, universities, popular culture, and the corporate world are rotten to the core. What exactly are we trying to conserve?

Trump’s main failing, on Ellmers’s telling, is not that he was destructive — but that he was too ignorant and poorly advised to attack the right targets.

“As if coming upon a man convulsing from an obvious poison, Trump at least attempted in his own inelegant way to expel the toxin,” Ellmers writes. “By contrast, the conservative establishment, or much of it, has been unwilling to recognize that our body politic is dying from these noxious ‘norms.’”

Ellmers is not all that interested in the mechanisms of how and why the country has become so broken. He doesn’t really explain in any detail the nature of the nefarious forces that have polluted most American minds; he rails against “the progressive, or woke, or ‘antiracist’ agenda that now corrupts our republic” and takes it as a given that his audience will agree that this threat is apocalyptic.

He is more interested, instead, in rallying the forces of Real America against enemies he describes in strikingly dehumanizing terms.

“If you are a zombie or a human rodent who wants a shadow-life of timid conformity, then put away this essay and go memorize the poetry of Amanda Gorman,” Ellmers writes. “Real men and women who love honor and beauty, keep reading.”

Ellmers is hardly the only person on the right to see the opposition in a starkly negative light. A February poll found that a solid majority of Republicans, 57 percent, preferred to describe Democrats as “enemies” rather than as the “political opposition.” One of the central attitudes underpinning democracy — that sometimes the other side wins, and that’s okay — is buckling on the right.

“Not for the first time in our nation’s history, if this state of affairs continues force may be embraced as the only alternative when reason fails,” Ellmers writes. “We must fervently hope that things will change before they become violent. But if the clueless attitudes of our sclerotic elite remain unaltered, it is not hard to see what’s on the horizon.”

Freedom against democracy

If the extremism of Ellmers’s essay strikes you as similar to what you’ve heard from authoritarian political movements of the past, you’re not alone.

John Ganz, a perceptive critic of American conservatism, recently wrote that Ellmers’s essay should properly be termed “fascist.” Excommunicating a large percentage of the population from the body politic, describing once-idyllic society hopelessly corrupted by the forces of change, describing one’s enemies as animals or diseases, invoking the threat of physical force in a political context — these are all historically hallmarks of fascist rhetoric.

This analysis holds despite the fact that Ellmers speaks in a democratic idiom, portraying himself as a defender of the American democratic tradition against its enemies. Ganz notes that calls to restore “freedom,” “liberty,” and even “democracy” were used by fascist intellectuals and movements in interwar Germany, France, and Italy because they were culturally powerful — a way of recruiting the people to one’s way of thinking by speaking their language.

“In the US context it also makes sense that the reactionary mind would inevitably mythologize a ‘truer’ version of our republican and democratic traditions as the author does in this piece, because those are the basic symbols of our political tradition,” he writes. “In the French context, many fascist and para-fascist groups declared fealty to the ‘republican’ tradition, which is as nearly predominant in that country as it is in our own.”

One does not need to go to Europe to see political oppression defended in democratic terms. In 1963, Alabama Gov. George Wallace delivered an inaugural address in Montgomery, casting the South’s long tradition of oppression of African Americans as integral to southern freedom:

Today I have stood, where once Jefferson Davis stood, and took an oath to my people. It is very appropriate then that from this Cradle of the Confederacy, this very Heart of the Great Anglo-Saxon Southland, that today we sound the drum for freedom as have our generations of forebears before us done, time and time again through history. Let us rise to the call of freedom- loving blood that is in us and send our answer to the tyranny that clanks its chains upon the South. In the name of the greatest people that have ever trod this earth, I draw the line in the dust and toss the gauntlet before the feet of tyranny . . . and I say . . . segregation today . . . segregation tomorrow . . . segregation forever.

Ellmers’s essay is in line with this tradition, identifying freedom as a right that only a certain section of the population deserves. Those outside of it, either because they come from the wrong background or think the wrong way, have no just claim on our political system. When they wield power, it is by definition oppression.

In some ways, this is the central animating idea of the broader conservative movement in America. Ellmers is a radical who sees himself as opposed to “establishment” conservatism, but in reality, many on the broader right share a more attenuated version of his worldview — and pursue the disempowerment of their political opponents.

The implications of Ellmers’s worldview are chilling. In a January 2020 essay, he predicted — more in sorrow than in anger, of course — that a civil war is coming.

Barack Obama’s 2008 victory, and the attendant talk of a coalition of minorities and young voters creating a “permanent Democratic majority,” helped spread anxieties about declining electoral power on the political right. After the 2010 midterm elections, which swept Republicans into power in statehouses across the country, they acted — drawing gerrymandered maps and passing laws, like voter ID, seemingly designed to suppress Democratic-leaning constituencies.

The state-level Republican lawmakers were often quite honest about their aim of locking Democrats out of office.

“I think electing Republicans is better than electing Democrats,” former North Carolina Rep. David Lewis, who chaired the state’s recent redistricting committee, once said. “So I drew this map in a way to help foster what I think is better for the country.”

The January 6 attack on the Capitol was a pure expression of Ellmers-ism, a violent lashing out against a system that conservatives believe to be fraudulent and corrupt. The new round of voter suppression bills represents the more subtle 2010 variant of Republican anti-democratic attitudes: that the system can be rigged such that the Democratic threat is locked out of power for good.

There are at least eight proposals from Republican lawmakers in state legislatures around the country to seize partisan control over electoral administration. One of the most egregious examples, in Georgia, was passed into law last week. More broadly, there are over 250 state bills under consideration that would curtail voting rights in one way or another.

That these proposals are justified in the language of “restoring confidence” in elections and “preventing fraud” does not make them actually defensible in democratic terms — anymore than Ellmers’s thinly-veiled pining for a civil war is “democratic” because he wants to wage it in defence of a warped conception of liberty.

In a sense, Ellmers is right that America’s political system no longer works. He’s just wrong about who broke it — and why.

Republicans cheer parts of COVID bill they voted against!

 In what has to be the height of hypocrisy there are dozens and dozens of Republican politicians in the United States that are now cheering parts of the COVID relief bill as if it was their own....., while EVERY SINGLE Congressman and Senator voted AGAINST IT!

Once again I am so glad we live up here in the frozen north (sic) where it's too cold for these sorts of shenanigans!

The way I see it anyway!

There is nothing wrong with the 60% rule!

 Politicians in the United States are too stupid to realize that the 60% rule to pass legislation in the U.S. Senate is not the problem. (Or they are deliberately blind.)

The problem lies in the fact that legislators are voting the party line instead of voting their conscience and since the Republican party is currently corrupt, unethical and unscrupulous there is not much chance of getting anything done since the Hard Right is intent on opposing anything put forward by the Democrats no matter what it is!

This has been Republican party policy since the Obama administration when there was a "nigger" [sic] in the White House, and it doesn't seem to be changing anytime soon.

Perhaps the only remedy for the United States is to start a third party called the "Independents!" or the "Libertarians" at the Federal, State and Local levels!

The way I see it anyway!

FOX TV Cable News doesn't have an ounce of shame!

January 19th, 2012 - 5:35 P.M.: Those assholes over at FOX TV News did the entire United States not only a disservice but also showed the entire world what a crass and disgusting piece of shit they really are!

While MSNBC, CNN and even the CBC here in Canada were broadcasting the memorial for the 400,000 victims of COVID-19 (And just as President-Elect Biden was speaking) the most loathsome, obnoxious and creepy member of their newscast team, Greg Gutfield, was literally laughing at the notion that followers of Trump were part of a "cult!" 

He went so far as to suggest it was the "Radical Left-Wing" that was the true cult in America with their slavish devotion to gender and racial identities..., as well as their intolerance and vilification of President Trump..., and all-the-while the "Black Lives Matter" and "ANTIFA" riots were burning down cities all across America!

FOX TV News is the master of "Newspeak" and "Doublethink," combined with the "mutability of the past" (George Orwell's 1984) and they should be taken off the air as soon as possible!

The way I see it anyway!

A new broom for 2021

 On this last day of 2020 (Yipee!)) I would like to call for the removal of the broadcast license of Fox Cable News and most of the other Right Wing broadcast outlets!

Their disingenuous portrayal of politics has reached disgusting levels and just today I found blatant examples of Right-Wing propaganda that made my head spin and my stomach churn!

I have my TV set up o that I can switch back and forth between MSNBC on the left and CNN in the middle and FOX news somewhere in the Twilight Zone way over on the right of the political spectrum..., and while I was watching them I noticed that MSNBC and CNN were covering the pandemic and the new strain of covid-19 and the possible collapse of the hospital system in L.A. county and a third vaccine (Astrazeneca) about to come online and the failure to distribute the vaccine in the individual States..., and on and on!

Meanwhile, over at FOX cable news, most of the morning was devoted to GOP efforts to hire election observers to combat the obvious fraud about to occur at the Georgia Senate race next Wednesday, as well as the rejection of the new covid bill in the Senate that would put $2000 in the hands of most Americans.

One interesting point about the covid bill dialogue in the Senate was when Mitch McCan't gave reasons why they couldn't approve the extra money for those disadvantaged by the virus.

Chuck Surely then got up and started to lambast the Republicans for denying Americans $2000 relief money because of the pandemic..., while giving corporations over two (2) TRILLION dollars in tax breaks last year!  (As soon as it became obvious where Schumer was going with his speech they cut the 'feed' and went right back to the news desk!) 

ALL THIS LYING IN THE MEDIA PERMITS THE REPUBLICANS TO SUBVERT THE CONSTITUTION (AND DEMOCRACY) AND TRY TO STAGE A COUP D'ETAT BECAUSE THEY COULDN'T WIN THE ELECTION BY LEGAL MEANS!  

SO!

My wish for 2021 is that all those lying S.O.B.'s on the Far-Right 'burn in hell' for all the lies they are telling! 

The way I see it anyway!

THE REPUBLICANS HAVE TO GO!

 If you are wondering why my blood pressure goes up at the mere mention of the Republican Party... let me give you this piece of news as an example:

WASHINGTON — Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is pushing to let businesses and governments deny sick leave to workers who fall ill with COVID-19.

The Republicans are solely to blame for the delay in the new coronavirus protection deal because they keep throwing in stuff to protect businesses... and take out things that help ordinary people who are suffering from the coronavirus... whether it be from infection or from the effects of the disease on the economy!  

They need to go or a third political party (Libertarians?) has to be formed if the United States ever wants to get back to normal again!

The way I see it anyway!

ABOUT TIME FOR THE LIBERTARIAN PARTY!

 With the current state of polarization between the Democrats and Republicans... along with the far-left trying to bankrupt the country... and the far-right trying to blow up democracy (among other things), it's about time for the Libertarians to get in the game. 

The United States needs three political parties to adjust the playing field. Instead of politics being played like a half-court game of pick-up basketball it should be conducted more like a baseball game. (You don't want politics to look like a hockey or football game..... for obvious reasons!)

If there is some billionaire that really wants to change the American political system for the better... then let him (or her) spend a billion or so to set up the Libertarian party at the Federal, State and local levels.

A third party would be an automatic damper against the extremes of one side or the other as was the case with the Trump Republicans (Even if they were more of a cult than a political party.) and/or the Republican Senate under McConnell! 

The exact logistics of how it would work is up to the guy with the money and some of the political egg-heads but anything would be better than what ya got right now!

The way I see it anyway!

Fox News’ Tucker Carlson claims ‘damning’ Hunter Biden evidence lost in mail!

 I have said before on these pages that FOX TV News should have their broadcast license yanked since they are more of a propaganda outlet than a news dispenser and the biggest sinners 'on the air' over there are Tucker Carlson, Sean Hannity, Laura Ingraham and Greg Gutfeld.

As a matter of fact, these four "journalists" should be banned from the airwaves in the United States since they have perfected the art of lying through their teeth in Trump's favour... and the only anchor who is worth his salt on the whole network is Chris Wallace, son of veteran newscaster Mike Wallace!

Just as they make all sorts of accusations about President-Elect Biden and the rest of the Democrats when they know damned well there is no evidence to support those claims..... they are now starting to branch out in their malfeasance by making baseless accusations about stuff they personally did or didn't do!

To show you just how dishonest and unprincipled these people are in their coverage [?] of Right-Wing news listen... to this latest piece of bullshit:

Fox News host Tucker Carlson claims to have acquired incriminating documents about Hunter Biden, son of Democratic presidential candidate Joe – and then lost them in the post.

In a bizarre segment on Wednesday night’s show, Carlson alleged that his team mailed the documents from New York to Los Angeles after receiving them from a “source” on Monday, but that the bundle never arrived.

Without providing any further details or evidence, Carlson said the “damning” documents had “vanished” en route, heavily implying foul play.

That's right folks, the oldest story in history "IT WAS LOST IN THE MAIL" is now ready to become another poor excuse for journalism by the worst news [sic] outlet the United States has ever seen!

The way I see it anyway! 

Have lame duck US Presidents ever acted in ways that harmed the country more than trump?

 Allan:

No. And every single God Damned Republican should be picking up their phones and calling their representatives and demanding they put an end to this now. 

They should be flooding their offices with letters. 

Their inboxes with emails. 

Their steps with disappointed constituents. 

They gave us Trump. 

They knew the damage a narcissistic buffoon could do. And would do if put in this position. 

They need to put this country first. America first. 

They need to demand their guy get out. 

Now.

And then throw him in jail!

David Wheeler.