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[QUOTE=aja_christopher;6239510]Again -- I am not at all upset.
Stop trying to pick a fight -- I've said what I had to say and that's enough.
You can address the subject at hand (white supremacy, xenophobia, homophobia, etc within the Republican party) if you wish but don't try to make this about me rather than what was posted.
The lack of commentary is more about exactly what I stated in my initial post -- that much of the dialogue with you had become predictable and ultimately uninformative. That isn't meant as an insult -- just that I see your talking points on so many other conservative forums that your commentary doesn't seem that unique. In all the time I've spent talking to conservatives on message boards (and even open white supremacists from back in the early days of Yahoo) there hasn't been any improvement -- if anything it's only gotten worse. More organization, more open attacks, and more "plausible deniability" from the racist Republican politicians who stoke their fears and court their votes.
That said, it doesn't make sense to continue doing the same thing and expecting a different result -- if I am not getting anything out of the conversation then it's best that I use my time more wisely in other areas.
Meanwhile -- as a "conservative" I'd suggest your time better be spent making sure Trump and the Republican party don't destroy our democracy.
As always that is your choice but don't assume others are "upset" just because they choose not to engage with you in useless dialogue -- in the end it was firmly established that many of your opinions didn't match the actions of the Republican party regardless (i.e. Trump, bipartisanship, ethics, etc) so much of it is moot anyway.
Unless you actually go out and take action to change your party from within as many here have already suggested on this forum and until we actually see that change in the Republican party it's all talk and nothing more.[/QUOTE]
I'm not trying to pick a fight. You brought up stuff I said years ago, and seem to be going after me personally for something you thought was a fair point at the time.
I think my comments are typically polite and relevant to the argument made. In this case, I'm going with a generous interpretation of people going after me personally. I'm sure I've made mistakes on occasion, and made unnecessarily personal comments when frustrated, but I am significantly less likely to start talking about the other guy than you guys are to talk about me. And if you go after me personally, I will point out when they seem to be wrong.
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[QUOTE=Malvolio;6239549]It reminds me of how some conservatives bring up Andrew Cuomo any time one of use mentions one of Trump's many accusations of sexual assault. Well, Andrew Cuomo stepped down. Trump tried to simultaneously deny and brag about what he did, and still would not leave office over it.'[/QUOTE]
And Trump would also claim some of his victims were "too ugly to be raped", trying to avoid testifying in a defamation case by claiming he made those statements as president, further tarnishing the office, then making them again recently while not in office. He is, of course, the GOP front-runner for 2024, still, even in light of this, and all his white nationalism, conspiracy theories, and threats of violence.
Because that's who the Republican Party support, and therefore have become.
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[QUOTE=Mister Mets;6239622]You brought up stuff I said years ago, and seem to be going after me personally for something you thought was a fair point at the time.[/QUOTE]
To point out (what I percieve to be) "conservative" hypocrisy and also why I -- and many others -- no longer engage with it.
Obviously I hit the mark, which you only prove by repeatedly dodging the substance of what was posted -- in that respect, nothing has changed.
You can take that knowledge and grow from it or continue to repeat the same mistakes.
I choose the the former.
Again, it's not "personal" and just because someone doesn't care to argue with you doesn't mean that they are upset -- this isn't about you, it's about the Republican party so stop with the attempts at deflection.
Fix your own party instead of trying to fix others just because they disagree with you and your party's embrace of white supremacy, Christian nationalism, homophobia, xenophobia, fascism and anti-semitism.
[video=youtube;JrRi2yZfiho]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JrRi2yZfiho[/video]
That said, I also recall "civility" as being another trait that you promote while your party takes the low road at nearly opportunity -- attend to your own house and stop acting as if truth is a personal attack.
At the very least don't expect others to "politely" engage with fascists while your party uses racism, bigotry and prejudice to destroy our democracy because that is not going to happen.
Maybe if you can "fix" that within the Republican party then you will see more "civility" from those on the other side of the political spectrum but that's obviously not your concern.
[QUOTE=worstblogever;6239654]And Trump would also claim some of his victims were "too ugly to be raped", trying to avoid testifying in a defamation case by claiming he made those statements as president, further tarnishing the office, then making them again recently while not in office. He is, of course, the GOP front-runner for 2024, still, even in light of this, and all his white nationalism, conspiracy theories, and threats of violence.
Because that's who the Republican Party support, and therefore have become.[/QUOTE]
The only people who don't see that is those who don't want to.
Such as those claiming to support civility in politics on one hand, and Ron DeSantis on the other.
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[QUOTE=Mister Mets;6239497]A member of congressional leadership who received the unanimous votes of every Democratic National Committee member to be its Vice Chair is a major figure of a political party, and a measure of what positions receive public pushback.[/quote]
Indeed: it lays bare how ridiculous and narrow the standards of proof you want to hold everyone to when this is all that was required for you to be suspect of a democrat's intentions.
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[QUOTE=aja_christopher;6239661]To point out (what I percieve to be) "conservative" hypocrisy and also why I -- and many others -- no longer engage with it.
Obviously I hit the mark, which you only prove by repeatedly dodging the substance of what was posted -- in that respect, nothing has changed.
You can take that knowledge and grow from it or continue to repeat the same mistakes.
I choose the the former.
Again, it's not "personal" and just because someone doesn't care to argue with you doesn't mean that they are upset -- this isn't about you, it's about the Republican party so stop with the attempts at deflection.
Fix your own party instead of trying to fix others just because they disagree with you and your party's embrace of white supremacy, Christian nationalism, homophobia, xenophobia, fascism and anti-semitism.
[video=youtube;JrRi2yZfiho]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JrRi2yZfiho[/video]
That said, I also recall "civility" as being another trait that you promote while your party takes the low road at nearly opportunity -- attend to your own house and stop acting as if truth is a personal attack.
At the very least don't expect others to "politely" engage with fascists while your party uses racism, bigotry and prejudice to destroy our democracy because that is not going to happen.
Maybe if you can "fix" that within the Republican party then you will see more "civility" from those on the other side of the political spectrum but that's obviously not your concern.[/QUOTE]If you're calling me out years later for a comment that you agreed with at the time, I'm going to have a hard time finding the substance behind it.
I get the argument that it's more important to be on the right side, and to signal that you're on the right side, than to get the facts right out all the time.
When I see that view expressed, I push back against it because it's wrong. If there's no agreement on the basic process or first principles questions, there's no point to discussing substance.
There's also more legitimate debate on political questions than on the process questions. Smart people will disagree on the minimum wage, but would generally be in agreement that we shouldn't lie about data, for example.
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[QUOTE=Mister Mets;6239702]If you're calling me out years later for a comment that you agreed with at the time, I'm going to have a hard time finding the substance behind it.
I get the argument that it's more important to be on the right side, and to signal that you're on the right side, than to get the facts right out all the time.[/QUOTE]
That is not at all the "argument" being made -- the discussion is about white supremacy, bigotry, incivility and fascism within the Republican party.
Deflect all you like -- doesn't change my original point but only proves my other points regarding deflection and the futility of having said discussion with you.
You can't learn if you don't actually listen to others and equally importantly it's not our responsibility to teach you things that you should already know.
Such as not to support bigots and fascists in politics.
However, since you obviously have little to no desire to really change things within your party and would rather argue uselessly on a message board, let's agree to disagree.
[QUOTE=Tendrin;6239700]Indeed: it lays bare how ridiculous and narrow the standards of proof you want to hold everyone to when this is all that was required for you to be suspect of a democrat's intentions.[/QUOTE]
Not just him but the whole party -- Democrats wearing tan suits, t-shirts and eating dijon mustard versus Republicans who cater to white supremacists, start wars for oil and try to overturn legitimate elections.
There's no "both sides are bad" at work here -- there is one party who believes in freedom, equality and democracy for all Americans and another that does not.
At a certain point we have to stop pretending that this is anything but what it has proven itself to be -- an attempt by the Republican party to take over our government by almost any means necessary.
Had Trump succeeded who knows where we might be now -- yet here we are dealing with people who still want us to believe that Republicans should be trusted with power.
Edit: And with McConnell's Heritage Foundation and Federalist Society Supreme Court in place who knows where we are headed regardless -- again, the problem is the Republican party, not just Trump.
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"Climate change denial
The Heritage Foundation rejects the scientific consensus on climate change.[70][71] The Heritage Foundation is one of many climate change denial organizations that have been funded by ExxonMobil.[70][72] The Heritage Foundation strongly criticized the Kyoto Agreement to curb climate change, saying American participation in the treaty would "result in lower economic growth in every state and nearly every sector of the economy."[73] They projected that the 2009 cap-and-trade bill, the American Clean Energy and Security Act, would result in a cost of $1,870 per family in 2025 and $6,800 by 2035; on the other hand, the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office projected that it would only cost the average family $175 in 2020.[74]
Voter fraud claims
The Heritage Foundation has promoted false claims of voter fraud. Hans von Spakovsky who heads the Election Law Reform Initiative at the Heritage Foundation has played an influential role in making alarmism about voter fraud mainstream in the Republican Party, despite no evidence of widespread voter fraud.[75][76] His work, which claims voting fraud is rampant, has been discredited.[77]
Following the 2020 presidential election—in which President Donald Trump made baseless claims of fraud after he was defeated for reelection—the Heritage Foundation launched a campaign in support of Republican efforts to make state voting laws more restrictive.[78][79] Heritage, through its political arm, Heritage Action for America, planned to spend $24 million over two years across eight key states to support efforts to restrict voting, in coordination with the Republican Party and allied conservative outside groups, such as Susan B. Anthony List, American Legislative Exchange Council and State Policy Network. Almost two dozen election bills introduced by Republican state legislators in early 2021 were based on a Heritage letter and report.[80] Heritage also mobilized in opposition to H.R. 1./S. 1, a Democratic bill to establish uniform nationwide voting standards (including expanded early and postal voting, as well as automatic and same-day voter registration), reform campaign finance law, and prohibit partisan redistricting.[78][79] In 2021, Heritage Action spent $750,000 on television ads in Arizona to promote the false claim that "Democrats ... want to register illegal aliens" to vote, even though the Democrats' legislation creates safeguards to ensure that ineligible people cannot register.[79] In April 2021, Heritage Action boasted to its private donors that it had successfully crafted the election reform bills that Republican state legislators introduced in Georgia and other states.[81]
Anti-critical race theory legislation
In 2021, the Heritage Foundation said that one of its two priorities (along with tightening voting laws) was to push Republican-controlled states to ban or restrict critical race theory instruction.[82] The Heritage Foundation sought to get Republicans in Congress to put anti-critical race theory provisions into must-pass legislation such as the annual defense spending bill.[82]
Anti-transgender youth healthcare
In 2022, the Heritage Foundation published a study, without peer review, alleging that transgender youth healthcare is associated with increased suicide rates among trans youth. It was at odds with the conclusions of peer-reviewed studies, which the foundation's researcher said did not properly control for pre-existing mental states. LGBT advocates and some doctors criticized the study as misleading and flawed.[83]
Ukraine
Heritage Action opposed the $40 billion military aid package for Ukraine passed in May 2022 after the Russian invasion of Ukraine, breaking from its previous positions of support for such aid.[84][85] The Heritage Foundation's foreign policy director at the time, Luke Coffey, said he was ordered to retract his earlier statements supporting aid to Ukraine. Coffey subsequently left the Heritage Foundation.[86]"
[url]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Heritage_Foundation[/url]
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Again I’m going to ask to cut back on the cursing in this thread.
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[QUOTE=ChadH;6239434]COVID worsened an already growing debt problem in the U.S. Forgiving a portion of the debt for many people will allow them to raise their families out of near-poverty and improve their children's and possibly grandchildren's lives. Globalization, the 2008 recession, and stagnating wages gutted our middle class and this program would help restablish some of that. Taxpayers aren't just throwing the money down a hole. It would actually help a lot of struggling people which benefits our whole society. Additionally, those people who have some of their debt forgiven will accrue more savings which helps banks and spend the money they'd be paying on the debt on goods and services which, again benefits everyone.
They do, on average, make more but in an economy where higher-paying opportunities have become limited and wages for lower-tier jobs are stagnant, they can't manage to pay the interest down enough to effect the principal so it becomes impossible to get ahead. This program would help to mitigate that.[/QUOTE]
Covid (lockdowns, etc.) worsened debt issues and overall quality of life/ cost of life for everyone, not just folks with student loans. Increasing interest rates, to fight off inflation, have also created/ worsened the mortgage debt problem. And there are many other examples... of which student loans is just one more example.What about other people that also have debt issues? Money to bail out people isn't falling from the sky, it's coming from other taxpayers, this has to be paid for.
But for me, the biggest problem with this handout is how it's structured: $10,000 of student loan debt is waived for individuals earning less than $125,000 or couples earning less than $250,000.
According to Pew Research, the US "middle income range goes from $48,500 to $145,500 annually for a household of three". So a couple that earns $160k, $180k, $200k, $230k, $240k... isn't in the bottom or even the medium range, they're above middle class. Why are they getting a handout for an investment decision that they made, that no one forced them to do, and that enables them to earn more money on average? Why are taxpayers, many of whom earning less than them, being asked to foot the bill? This is unfair - and economics wise makes little sense.
At least the full campaign promise isn't being enacted, which was to cancel all student debt, not just $10k or $20k.
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[QUOTE=Wolverine12;6239722]Again I’m going to ask to cut back on the cursing in this thread.[/QUOTE]
I’m not the most observant of people…but actually can’t remember anyone actually using swear words in this thread…and I follow the discussion with interest most days.
Are they cleaned out by the moderators?
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[QUOTE=JackDaw;6239792]I’m not the most observant of people…but actually can’t remember anyone actually using swear words in this thread…and I follow the discussion with interest most days.
Are they cleaned out by the moderators?[/QUOTE]
I assumed so because I went back like 5 pages I didnt recall any swearing by us in general. So must have been deleted or edited.
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I don't think we're supposed to discuss the activity and decisions of moderators
Back to politics!
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[QUOTE=hyped78;6239809]I don't think we're supposed to discuss the activity and decisions of moderators
Back to politics![/QUOTE]
You’re right of course.
And I did’t intend to discuss moderators decisions. (Didn’t realise Wolverine 12 was a moderator…he listed as such only on the X boards, somewhere I never go. Only discovered when I checked full list of moderators a minute ago.)
So apologies.
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JackDaw, any thoughts on the bumbling Boris weekend and on us getting Sunak as more than likely new PM?
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Usually I drop my major F BOMBS on my threads. Look darn it...I'm a big adult...yes I am.
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[SIZE=1]On this date, in [URL="http://republicinsanity.tumblr.com/post/101010957813/lynn-westmoreland"]2014[/URL], in [URL="https://republicinsanity.tumblr.com/post/131798186278/lynn-westmoreland-2015-update"]2015[/URL], and in [URL="https://republicinsanity.tumblr.com/post/152192954353/lynn-westmoreland-2016-update"]2016[/URL], “Fanatical Republican Extremist of the Day” published profiles of former six-term Georgia Congressman [B]Lynn Westmoreland[/B], , who is perhaps most famous for passionately campaigning for bills he wrote to recognize the Ten Commandments in all public schools and courtrooms (which isn’t constitutional). He was later interviewed by Stephen Colbert during his “Better Know a District” series, and was asked to name the Ten Commandments he loved so much, and could not. Rep. Westmoreland’s press secretary later claimed that the segment was edited to make him look bad, and said that he actually successfully named SEVEN of the ten. He’s also been known to be controversial on matters of race, having campaigned against the renewal of the Voting Rights Act as far back as 2006, and having referred to the first African-American president and first lady as “uppity”, only to be shocked when the media informed him that the term was racially charged. He has since had the decency to only refer to Barack Obama as “our enemy at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue”, which is somehow an improvement in discourse. He’s also lambasted the media for having the nerve to report stories about Hillary Clinton and Benghazi (which he also thinks Obama should be impeached over) that indicate she committed no wrongdoing, and demanded investigations to prove that her top aide, Human Abedin, was not a secret operative for the Muslim Brotherhood. Westmoreland retired in 2016,
It was on this date in 2017 that “Fanatical Republican Extremist of the Day” profiled [URL="https://republicinsanity.tumblr.com/post/166741682388/aj-kern"][B]A.J. Kern[/B][/URL], a failed candidate for Congress from Minnesota’s 6th Congressional District in the 2016 elections whose career would best be described as “Monetizing Islamophobia”, as she is one of many known bigots in the state who spread as many lies as thy can about Muslims, which have led to an increase in attacks upon Somali immigrants in the state. Perhaps her most insane rant is against “female gential mutilation” being performed by Muslims, in spite of there being no edict in the Quran about such a thing. When she doesn’t do that, she claims Somali immigrants are driving up state and federal budget deficits because they somehow (she’s not clear on her math) exploit government assistance programs. Kern also agreed with Ben Carson during his 2016 presidential campaign, he stated his belief that the United States should never have a Muslim president. Apparently, she felt like Congressman Tom Emmer hadn’t hated Muslims enough, or that he was too busy being a homophobe to be a good enough Islamophobe, so A.J. Kern decided to challenge him for what was once the seat in Congress held by FRED Hall of Famer, the bats*** Congresswoman Michelle Bachmann. A.J. Kern managed to snag 26% of the vote in the GOP Primary in 2016 and 18% in 2018, which should tell you a lot about the modern Republican Party, that a person whose resume amounts to “dedicated bigot” could get over a quarter of their votes. She has returned to just giving hate speeches around Minnesota and isn’t currently running for elected office.
On this date in 2018, “Fanatical Republican Extremist of the Day” profile, where we’ll be discussing [URL="https://republicinsanity.tumblr.com/post/179381577053/jim-newberger"][B]Jim Newberger[/B][/URL], a candidate for U.S. Senate in Minnesota to challenge Sen. Amy Klobuchar in 2018, who cut his teeth in the Minnesota House of Representatives since 2012. Perhaps Newberger’s most infamous moment in his six years as a state legislator was back in 2015, when Minnesota Democrats were discussing expanding their own light rail out past the St. Cloud prison (no stops in that neighborhood, we would guess), and Newberger chimed in, saying, "[I]Right on the edge of St. Cloud, maybe a half a mile, a quarter-mile, from the rail tracks is the St. Cloud State Prison.... Boy, wouldn't that be convenient, to have that rail line going from that prison to North Minneapolis…[/I]" For those not in the know, Northern Minneapolis is also the most diverse community in the entire state, and is where most of the Somali immigrant population of the United States has settled. So… immediately after Newberger blurted that out, he was raucously booed by his colleagues, and immediately tried backtracking before putting out an insincere apology. And no, that xenophobia wasn’t a one-off, as during his campaign, Newberger has been calling for a block on all refugees being resettled in Minnesota, warning of the “rise of Sharia Law” and Muslim “no-go zones” in the Land of 10,000 Lakes (neither of which are happening). But if supporting the kind of bigotry that Newberger does wasn’t off-putting enough, he is also a defender of climate change, instead offering the incorrect scientific theory that the Earth is somehow moving closer to the sun. This stupid theory is debunked on NASA’s home page, suffice to say it shows a great deal of ignorance on Newberger’s part. Newberger’s voting record shows him consistently voting against minimum wage increases and workplace protections, supporting transphobic bathroom legislation, and voting against the legalization of same sex marriage. Newberger failed miserably in his attempt to unseat Sen. Amy Klobuchar in the 2018 elections and has yet to re-emerge in politics
On this date in 2019, “Fanatical Republican Extremist of the Day” profiled [URL="https://republicinsanity.tumblr.com/post/188570120258/courtland-sykes"][B]Courtland Sykes[/B][/URL], a 2018 candidate for U.S. Senate in Missouri whose campaign strategy was to try to win over Republican voters by being the most sexist candidate in the race. When asked in a forum about your stance on women’s rights, he answered, “[I]I want to come home to a home cooked dinner every night at six. One that she fixes and one that I expect one day to have daughters learn to fix after they become traditional homemakers and family wives. Feminists push an agenda that they made up to suit their own nasty snake-filled heads. I hope my daughters don’t go on to be career obsessed banshees who forgo home life and children and the happiness of family to become nail-biting manophobic hell-bent feminist she devils who shriek from the top of a thousand tall buildings they are think they could have leaped in a single bound — had men not been ‘suppressing them.’ It’s just nuts.[/I]” Needless to say that the press took attention to this misogynistic lunatic, and were wondering, “WHO THE HELL IS THIS GUY?” after he opened with that rant… and they were left with more questions than answers. Sykes apparently just moved to Missouri from Arkansas, where he worked as a defense contractor, and prior to that, he was a Congressional aide to Arkansas Congressman Bruce Westerman. Big surprise, he was anti-abortion. Also not shocking… he supported Donald Trump’s stupid idea for a border wall along the U.S./Mexico border. The only other political stance that could be found from Sykes was that he attacked the media for being too “liberal”, and claiming it was “fake news” like Trump, and that he was a fervent defender of Roy Moore. Courtland Sykes ended up finishing 9th out of 12 possible candidates in the GOP Primary for Missouri’s U.S. Senate seat, getting only 2.1% of the vote and has thankfully disappeared from view.[/SIZE]