The_Piper wrote:

Animavore wrote:Didn't Trump say AOC's name is too long for him and just use Cortez? Thank you Marjorie Greene. Glad I remembered that, I'll drop the Taylor from now on.

Why stop there? Make it Margarine Taylor, greasy spreader of deranged fantasies.

Former President Donald Trump’s impeachment trial is set to begin in the U.S. Senate next week, with the potential stakes that he could be disqualified from ever holding federal office again in the wake of his role in the January 6 insurrection. But right-wing media have issued a common refrain: Rather than go forward with this public process to hold Trump accountable, the country should just move on. After all, they say, the trial would just make it harder for President Joe Biden to “unify” the country as he’d promised.

Fox News has pushed this message since the Biden presidency officially began — often conveniently overlooking the core disunifying element of the Trump supporters who attempted to overthrow Congress, and that this resulted in five deaths including a Capitol Police officer.

But beyond that omission, Fox has also exhibited a major case of hypocrisy when it comes to investigating terrorist attacks that resulted in the deaths of Americans. Compare the network’s flippant attitude over the past month, for example, to its endless parade of commentary over investigations of the 2012 attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya.

Back then, for Fox, the more investigations, the better.

Fox News reactions to deadly terror attacks: 2012 vs 2021


Hannity is getting redder and puffier.

Some of them could have been killed in that riot but they're still in denial. Have to wonder how many international leaders are still bewildered about the state of the GQP, I mean, GOP.

What lessons did the GOP learn from their 2020 losses? Stop being so crazy, extreme, hateful, bigoted, stupid, and anti-science? Nope. They learned that they must work harder to stop black people from voting.

Seabass wrote:C-SPAN caller: 'Democrats are going to keep eating the babies'

Love the way the interviewer leans and puts his hand on the cutoff button as the quality of the caller becomes obvious.

Hard to decipher the little bits on Trump plans you get from the net, when he no longer tweets. But I am wondering if Trump has plans to be the major mover in 2022 and 2024 elections? He would be campaigning for Republicans but not running. That way he could do the part he enjoys, trump rallies, and the Republican party would pay the bill for his travel.

They would need to move on about the "stolen election" and just focus on basic Trumpian hatred of foreigners and anyone not white Christian.

I think at the moment the Republican Party defies analysis since it's veered so massively into whack-a-loon territory.

Every time it looks like the adults might be about to take charge, they somehow manage to backdown and bring forth yet more crazy.

I don't think there will be enough vertebrate GOP senators to convict Trump, if nothing else a conviction would open the door to sanctions against Hawley, Cruz and whoever else were actively helping the insurrectionists (guided tours in the days leading up to the coup, and who the hell stripped the Capitol security?).

Remember also that one reason Trump was selected as the 2016 candidate was because he appeared to be one of the more sane nominees...

Quite what the GOP will look like after the dust settles is so out there I can't see anyone willing to predict it. They could eject the loonies and return to rationality (unlikely to my mind). They could split, with Trump's "Patriot Party" going fully fascist (complete with uniforms, rallies and Bellamy salutes). There are far too many variables.

Reasons for some hope:

The FBI aren't screwing around and it looks like they are lining up RICO actions against legislators who backed the coup.

The GOP's financial supporters look like they may be getting seriously cold feet about visibly supporting such an obvious pack of loons. This could be the factor that could really get them to clean up their act.

The Democrats finally (and it's only taken them a few decades) seem to have realised that they are not dealing with rational actors who will take part in bi-partisan action if it is to their benefit. Biden seems to be working on the assumption that the Republicans will do everything they can to prevent positive action to help the country even if that means the GOP representatives will have to set fire to their own genitalia to do it. The door is open for grown up negotiation - but the default plan seems to be based on the Republicans shitting on the constitution and seeking to destroy the government in any way they can, up to and including firebombing congress.

Fuck knows what it'll look like come the mid-terms.

I hope Biden gives them enough rope to hang themselves.

Tortured_Genius wrote:
Fuck knows what it'll look like come the mid-terms.

My guess is that:

Biden will not, and probably never could actually hope to achieve universal satisfaction in his party - if he goes one way, he loses the other side, and vice-versa. This means he lose support from both Democrats and Independents in greater numbers than he'll pick up support on either flank. Partisanship isn't just a red-blue issue.

Meanwhile, McConnell and other Rep leaders will do everything they can to trash every agenda and continually claim that the Dems don't want to reach a consensus or work cooperatively, while the looney fringe will keep shrieking about the Dems wanting a police state, wanting to take guns away, wanting to do all the things they say the Dems want to do but the Dems never actually appear to have any taste at all to do, plus they'll paint Biden as incompetent and an autocrat who's undermining democracy (somehow without choking on their own words) which will continue to galvanize the much more politically homogeneous Republican voters and will also net some of the fringe independents who turned against Trump. The result will be gains in both houses for Reps giving them the edge.

This will make the 2nd half of Biden's term a repeat of Obama's, whereupon they will engage in full obstructionism while claiming that the Biden administration can't achieve anything.

I think that, assuming no solution to the endemic electoral bias, the Reps have probably got about another 10-15 years of this kind of political game before electorate demographics begins to turn against them, at which point I presume that serious Conservatives will wrest back control once again and offer genuine policy alternatives that can let them compete on a fair footing.

Still my favorite Dobbs moment when he has a stroke trying to pronounce Huixtla