US Politics: Losing Appeals

[Centrist Simon Steele]

11 hours ago, DireWolfSpirit said:

Tiktiktiktiktiktiktiktiktiktiktiktiktiktiktiktiktik................

The clock is moving every closer to March 25th, the date by which Donald needs to put up over a half billion to cover a surety bond for any appeal of that NY Fraud judgement.

The suspense is gorgeous.

I'm guessing some foreign leader will bail him out--secretly, of course.

[Centrist Simon Steele]

1 hour ago, Larry of the Lawn said:

Not saying Trump isn't making appeals to violence and all, but those blood bath comments do appear to be to hyperbolic and metaphorical language about China vs the US in the auto market.  Not clear if the "no more elections" is about China or something domestic, and I'm sure there is a dogwhistle element to it, but at least read the entire article LR linked.  

I agree, but Trump (and this is why I don't agree with the dementia argument) is an expert at dog whistles. Look back at his little speech with Netanyahu (2018, I think) where he kept saying "there is one solution I know we can agree on" and he kept playing with the words to promote a one-state solution. He's always done this--it's how he slips out of everything, I suppose. But his call for blood baths is heard the "correct" way by his "patriots" I'm sure.

[Bironic]

Question: Do you guys think that the Supreme Court overruling Chevron by July will have an impact on the election? Or is it the kind of thing that is too „technical/complicated/abstract“     for the majority of people, so they don’t know and/or don’t care?

[Jace, Extat]

2 hours ago, Zorral said:

Not Vietnam and the 1960's, here is what latterly the US wars have accomplished -- only evil for the people we tried to use as justification for aerial warfare and killing them.

The Open-Air Prison for ISIS Supporters—and Victims
Since the Islamic State fell, tens of thousands of people—many of them children—have been herded into Al-Hol, a giant fenced-in camp in Syria, and effectively given life sentences.
By Anand Gopal

March 11, 2024

Look and sound familiar by chance?

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2024/03/18/the-open-air-prison-for-isis-supporters-and-victims

You know how we know it isn't the 1960's in the USA?  The registered Republican voters are all in with the USA having dictators and loving Russia, and among the USA registered Dem voters, Israel is viewed as the Bad Guy.  So by all means continue educating me in the historical changes from the Vietnam era as to just why eradicating massive numbers of innocent people from the air win hearts and minds and wars, and so why we must drop nuclear bombs into the bargain.

 

Huh? 

ISIS is destroyed. Their ability to threaten U.S. interests is destroyed. All from the air, and not even with a fraction of what we're capable of... I didn't say you were gonna win hearts and minds. I said you could cap the enemy's capacity to wage offensive war entirely from the sky. Which is what happened with ISIS.

You don't need nukes for that.

[Liffguard]

14 minutes ago, Jace, Extat said:

ISIS is destroyed.

 

True.

 

Quote

All from the air

Not true. It took air strikes supporting ground operations for that. And not solely from the US.

 

I think Bret Devereaux did a pretty decent overview on the limits of strategic air power. TLDR, using air power alone to achieve strategic goals has a very poor track record.

Look, I don't want nuclear weapons to proliferate further. People sometimes talk about the threat of nuclear annihilation as if it ended in 1991, when that is very much not the case. The weapons still exist, and the more parties who have them, the more complex the situation becomes, the more likely circumstances line up in such a way that they get used. I do not want more states to get nuclear weapons.

But the reasons states pursue nuclear weapons is because they frankly have a very rational security incentive to possess them. And there appear to be a lot of people in the US - including lots of powerful, prominent people - who really, really seem to desperately want a war with Iran for some reason. And it's frightening, because a war with Iran would be a fucking disaster for everyone. So Iran has very rational reasons to develop a nuclear weapon. And in the long run the best way to counter that is to allay those security fears.

[Kalbear]

Yeah, the famous battle of mosul having no troops on the ground to deal with isis.

Don't let pesky things like facts get in the way of your fantasies

[Kalbear]

2 hours ago, Bironic said:

Question: Do you guys think that the Supreme Court overruling Chevron by July will have an impact on the election? Or is it the kind of thing that is too „technical/complicated/abstract“     for the majority of people, so they don’t know and/or don’t care?

Almost no one will care. It won't be important until years down the road anyway. 

[Jace, Extat]

1 hour ago, Kalbear said:

Yeah, the famous battle of mosul having no troops on the ground to deal with isis.

Don't let pesky things like facts get in the way of your fantasies

I know, I got a little over my skiis on that one. 

Don't tell nobody.

 

[A True Kaniggit]

Shout out to the Kurds. The true heroes in the battle against Isis. 
 

Who we immediately fucked over to both Turkey and Iraq. 

[Spockydog]

6 hours ago, Jace, Extat said:

Huh? 

ISIS is destroyed. Their ability to threaten U.S. interests is destroyed. All from the air, and not even with a fraction of what we're capable of... I didn't say you were gonna win hearts and minds. I said you could cap the enemy's capacity to wage offensive war entirely from the sky. Which is what happened with ISIS.

You don't need nukes for that.

Nor do you need Guantanamo Bay.

 

[Conflicting Thought]

3 minutes ago, Spockydog said:

Nor do you need Guantanamo Bay.

 

You deare question the mighty usa? Bro you are asking to get bombed!

And How are they supossed to get all excited without all them "terrorist" getting tourtured? Hmm?

 

[Martell Spy]

‘Knock it off’: Speaker Mike Johnson tries to stop Republicans from campaigning against each other in bitter primary battles

https://www.cnn.com/2024/03/17/politics/mike-johnson-house-republican-primary-fights/index.html

Quote

 

In at least four primaries – in South Carolina, Illinois, Texas and Virginia – Republican members are actively campaigning against one of their own, inflaming tensions in a conference where emotions are still raw in the aftermath of Kevin McCarthy’s unprecedented ouster atop the House.

Speaker Mike Johnson has had enough.

“I’ve asked them all to cool it,” Johnson told CNN at the House GOP retreat in West Virginia last week. “I am vehemently opposed to member-on-member action in primaries because it’s not productive. And it causes division for obvious reasons, and we should not be engaging in that.”

“So I’m telling everyone who’s doing that to knock it off,” Johnson added. “And both sides, they’ll say, ‘Well, we didn’t start it, they started it.’”

 

 

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

 

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

8 hours ago, Martell Spy said:

‘Knock it off’: Speaker Mike Johnson tries to stop Republicans from campaigning against each other in bitter primary battles

https://www.cnn.com/2024/03/17/politics/mike-johnson-house-republican-primary-fights/index.html

 

As long as this doesn’t result in the shittier candidate winning in the general… like Trump in 2016… that result will always give me pause about laughing and clapping with delight at Trumpanitas taking control of the Republican Party.

[Phylum of Alexandria]

4 minutes ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

As long as this doesn’t result in the shittier candidate winning in the general… like Trump in 2016… that result will always give me pause about laughing and clapping with delight at Trumpanitas taking control of the Republican Party.

True enough. Still, such undisciplined shitshowry does the GOP no favors for the November election. Their best strategy would be a fake-pivot to seeming normal and functional, but I'm not sure many know how to do that anymore, in this age where even Mitch McConnell is considered a RINO. 

So maybe not laughing or clapping. But like Ty I am hoping these fucks stay messy all the way up to the election, so we can boot them out of power.

[Zorral]

So much foreign money going into the xtian fascist dominionists with the objective of taking over the USA.  Not only Putin.  Lookin' at Orban.

March 17, 2024
HEATHER COX RICHARDSON
MAR 18, 2024

https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/march-17-2024?

"Michel noted that it was “nothing short of shocking” that Orbán declined to meet with administration officials and instead went to Washington, D.C., to meet with a right-wing think tank. With Roberts’s appointment as head of Heritage in 2021, the conservative organization swung to the position that its role is “institutionalizing Trumpism.”  "

"In the January interview, Roberts told Garcia-Navarro that Project 2025 was designed to jump-start a right-wing takeover of the government. “[T]he Trump administration, with the best of intentions, simply got a slow start,” Roberts said. “And Heritage and our allies in Project 2025 believe that must never be repeated.”"

Quote

 

On Friday, journalist Casey Michel, who specializes in the study of kleptocracy, pointed out that reporters had missed an important meeting last week. Michel noted that while reporters covered  Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orbán’s visit to former president Donald Trump at Mar-a-Lago, they paid far less attention to the visit Orbán paid to the Washington, D.C., headquarters of the Heritage Foundation on Friday, March 8. There, Orbán spoke privately to an audience that included the president of the organization, Kevin Roberts, and, according to a state media printout, “renowned U.S. right-wing politicians, analysts and public personalities.” 

Michel noted that it was “nothing short of shocking” that Orbán declined to meet with administration officials and instead went to Washington, D.C., to meet with a right-wing think tank. With Roberts’s appointment as head of Heritage in 2021, the conservative organization swung to the position that its role is “institutionalizing Trumpism.” 

Roberts has been vocal about his admiration for Orbán, tweeting in 2022 that it was an honor to meet him. At last year’s Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), Orbán boasted that Hungary is “the place where we didn’t just talk about defeating the progressives and liberals and causing a conservative Christian political turn, but we actually did it.” In January, Roberts told Lulu Garcia-Navarro of the New York Times that Orbán’s statement was “all true” and “should be celebrated.” In a different interview, Garcia-Navarro noted, Roberts had called modern Hungary “not just a model for conservative statecraft but the model.” 

Last year, Michel notes, Heritage joined the Hungarian Danube Institute in a formal partnership. The Hungarian think tank is overseen by a foundation that is directly funded by the Hungarian government; as Michel says, it is, “for all intents and purposes, a state-funded front for pushing pro-Orbán rhetoric.” The Danube Institute has given grants to far-right figures in the U.S., and, Michel notes, “we have no idea how much funding may be flowing directly from Orbán’s regime to the Heritage Foundation.” 

The tight cooperation between Heritage and Orbán illuminates Project 2025, the plan Heritage has led, along with dozens of other right-wing organizations, to map out a future right-wing presidency. In Hungary, Orbán has undermined democracy, gutting the civil service and filling it with loyalists; attacking immigrants, women, and the rights of LGBTQ+ individuals; taking over businesses for friends and family, and moving the country away from the rules-based international order supported by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). 

In the January interview, Roberts told Garcia-Navarro that Project 2025 was designed to jump-start a right-wing takeover of the government. “[T]he Trump administration, with the best of intentions, simply got a slow start,” Roberts said. “And Heritage and our allies in Project 2025 believe that must never be repeated.”

Project 2025 stands on four principles that it says the country must embrace. In their vision, the U.S. must “[r]estore the family as the centerpiece of American life and protect our children”; “[d]ismantle the administrative state and return self-governance to the American people”; “[d]efend our nation’s sovereignty, borders, and bounty against global threats”; and “[s]ecure our God-given individual rights to live freely—what our Constitution calls ‘the Blessings of Liberty.’”

In almost 1,000 pages, the document explains what these policies mean for ordinary Americans. Restoring the family and protecting children means making “family authority, formation, and cohesion” a top priority and using “government power…to restore the American family.” That, the document says, means eliminating any words associated with sexual orientation or gender identity, gender, abortion, reproductive health, or reproductive rights from any government rule, regulation, or law. Any reference to transgenderism is “pornography” and must be banned. ....

 

 

Edited March 18 by Zorral

[Zorral]

13 hours ago, A True Kaniggit said:

Shout out to the Kurds. The true heroes in the battle against Isis. 
 

Who we immediately fucked over to both Turkey and Iraq. 

And also talkin' bout these ain't the 60's anymore so don't bother recalling what happened then, well, golly gee, there are those who do recall and do see repetition -- the January issue of The Nation was a lot more interesting and worth perusing than most issues of The Nation are these days.  Among the most valuable pieces was Palestine Is In Asia by Viet Thanh Nguyen:

https://www.thenation.com/article/world/palestine-asia-orientalism-expansive-solidarity/

 

 

[LongRider]

Hmmm, 

Former President Donald Trump has not been able to get a bond to secure the $464 million fraud judgment against him, his lawyers said in a court filing Monday.

Trump and his company need to post a bond for the full amount by next week in order to stop New York Attorney General Letitia James from being able to collect while he appeals. They've asked an appeals court to step in in the meantime and said Monday that they have not had any success getting a bond.

"Defendants’ ongoing diligent efforts have proven that a bond in the judgment’s full amount is 'a practical impossibility,'" the filing said. "These diligent efforts have included approaching about 30 surety companies through 4 separate brokers."

Trump has been unable to get bond for $464 million judgment, his lawyers say (nbcnews.com)

[Kalbear]

Oh no! I'm sure that this will be the end of Donny Trumparino

[Phylum of Alexandria]

7 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

Oh no! I'm sure that this will be the end of Donny Trumparino

We certainly shouldn't bank on it, but so much of Trump's power is derived from perceptions about his success, and recently about his inevitability. To the ultra-faithful, nothing will shatter the brand. But to everyone else, he's looking and acting more and more like a loser.

There will likely never be one thing that takes him down. But collectively, they can compound and help do him in. Hopefully by making him an incompetent candidate in the coming election.