What if Jesus was just like that guy with the horn hat? Just totally nuts? — frank

The more important question is whether the horn hat man is the messiah.

They say Jesus may have been a composite of several people, so maybe horn hat guy is one of them.

FBI warns 'armed protests' being planned at all 50 state capitols and in Washington DC

What the hell is an 'armed protest'?? How is it not armed insurrection, pure and simple? If the shooting starts, can the 'armed protestors' expect that their actions are priviledged under 'freedom of expression'?

I looked at the comment section of Breitbart's story on the 'armed protests' and the amusing thing is that from the comments it appears that Breitbart is closely moderating the comments. Apparently so many terms trigger an automatic review before publishing that most if not practically all comments require a review. Don't want Trumpers to appear hungry for violence, I guess.

Death threats against Republicans who voted to impeach:

The right-wing outrage over the election did not die out at the Capitol on Jan. 6, nor have the conspiracies that fueled it. They have simply been joined by fresh conspiracies, like the baseless claim that antifa orchestrated the violence, as well as a surge of indignation that Trump was being punished after the election was allegedly stolen from him.

Among the clearest targets for that ire: the Republicans who voted to impeach Trump. Serious threats materialized almost instantaneously after Wednesday’s vote, according to some of the GOP lawmakers. Meijer told NBC News on Thursday that the threats flooded in immediately, and that his GOP colleagues have requested armed escorts, a protection typically granted only to members of party leadership.

“Many of us are altering our routines, working to get body armor, which is a reimbursable purchase that we can make," Meijer said. "It's sad we have to get to that point. But our expectation is that someone may try to kill us."

Daily Beast.

Nine years ago, terrorists attacked U.S. diplomats and contractors in Benghazi, Libya. Four Americans died, and Republicans spent years investigating why. Those investigations found no wrongdoing by President Barack Obama or then–Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, but they succeeded in painting Clinton as soft on terrorism, thereby damaging her 2016 presidential campaign. Now the same Republicans who decried Benghazi are downplaying President Donald Trump’s culpability—and their own—in the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol.

The Republican frenzy over Benghazi spanned two presidential elections. In October 2012, Darrell Issa, the chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, opened hearings on the Obama administration’s “security failures.” In a letter issued two weeks before that year’s presidential election, Issa and a fellow Republican lawmaker accused the administration of “endangering American lives” by ignoring the “escalating violence” that had preceded the attack. The letter also criticized Obama’s team for blaming the attack, erroneously, on unrelated protests over an anti-Muslim video.

After the election, Republicans launched more investigations. They created a House committee on Benghazi, which—as Issa and others would later admit—aimed to tarnish Clinton and cripple her candidacy. In hours of public interrogation and in the committee’s final report, Republican Rep. Jim Jordan said Clinton had neglected warning signs before the attack and had played up the protests to avoid acknowledging the terrorism. At the 2016 Republican National Convention, Sen. Marco Rubio alleged that Clinton had “turned her back on the fallen heroes in Benghazi.” Sen. Ted Cruz, taking Clinton’s words out of context, accused her of shrugging off “the death of Americans at Benghazi.”

Five years later, at least five people are dead after last week’s attack on the U.S. Capitol. That’s more than the number of Americans killed in Benghazi. But this attack wasn’t inspired by radical Islamists. It was inspired by Republicans. For weeks leading up to the storming of the Capitol, Cruz told his followers that Democrats were trying to “steal the election.” Issa pledged to challenge the “amazing discrepancies” in state ballots counts, and Jordan constantly promoted allegations of fraud. The night before the attack, Fox News host Lou Dobbs asked Jordan, “Are you absolutely convinced … that there was fraud and an effort to steal this election on the part of the radical Dems?” The congressman replied, “Certainly fraud. Over 200 affidavits and declarations.”

Even after the Jan. 6 assault, these lawmakers continued to spread the propaganda that had provoked it. Rubio said state officials had “mutilated election integrity laws to help the Democrats.” Cruz noted that millions of Americans “believe the election was rigged,” and he scoffed that Democrats who “dismiss those claims” did so because “they like the outcome.” When an interviewer pointed out that other lawmakers had found no evidence of significant fraud, Cruz retorted, “Voter fraud has been a persistent problem in our elections. We have seen it over and over again.” And when colleagues challenged Jordan to concede that “the election was not rigged or stolen,” he ducked, saying only that the results had been officially certified.

During the Benghazi hearings, Republicans lambasted Clinton for suggesting, even tangentially, that understandable grievances might have played a role in the Libyan attack. Now those Republicans are suggesting that legitimate grievances were behind the attack on Congress.
...

The response of these Trump apologists to last week’s insurrection makes a mockery of their hysteria over Benghazi. They’re doing exactly what they previously denounced: changing their story, rationalizing the motives behind the attack, and excusing the demagogue who inspired it. After four years of inquisitions into the deaths of four Americans in Libya, they’re accusing Democrats, in Issa’s words, of “overplaying a lot of things, including the death of these people on Capitol Hill.”

Republicans stand firmly against terrorism, it seems, until the terrorists are Republicans.

Republicans Are Tough on Terrorism Until the Terrorists Are Republicans

There's not much meaning to "Republican" any more. Two very different wings that should not be sharing the same name: Fascists and regular conservatives.

Yeah I know. That's what's sad about it. I think there are plenty of decent Republicans, but the lunatic fringe seems to have taken over. There's a lunatic fringe on the other end of the dial, but they don't seem quite so menacing at the moment.

Anyway let's hope that this is a watershed. Always darkest before the dawn......

I think there are plenty of decent Republicans, but the lunatic fringe seems to have taken over. — Wayfarer

Only because the "decent" ones stand firmly with them, which seriously questions their decency.

Unfortunately true. They stood up against Nixon back in the day but then Nixon was hardly a magnetic personality.

Hanover is a decent Republican and I would think that 4/5th of those that voted for Trump would've preferred a more decent Republican candidate but couldn't live with voting for Democrats and whatever socialist scare they perceive there.

There's not much meaning to "Republican" any more. Two very different wings that should not be sharing the same name: Fascists and regular conservatives. — Baden

I agree with the first part, that "Republican" means very little anymore, but I don't think the distinction between the two types is lunatic and normal. Compare the last two Republican Presidents: GW and Trump. GW believed in military intervention in the Middle East, he courted the Hispanic voter and didn't enforce the immigration laws, he favored open trade, and he responded to 9/11 by creating a federally controlled Dept. of Homeland Security. Trump is opposed to military action in the middle east, he's built a wall on the border, he wants to negotiate what he thinks are fair trade practices, and he left entirely to the states how to respond to covid.

I think the real meaning of a Republican is anyone who opposes a Democrat, with the best example being McConnell, who doesn't seem to be an ideologue or even a pragmatist, but really just an obstructionist, who has figured out how to make nothing happen.

but I don't think the distinction between the two types is lunatic and normal. — Hanover

I wouldn't quite put it that way. But there's little to distinguish Trump Republicanism from neo-fascist European movements like the National Front except maybe the latter are, if anything, a bit more subtle with their tactics. Same overall playbook.

I think there are plenty of decent Republicans, — Wayfarer

I think they're all in the Democrat party. Except maybe Arnold. I'm sure you can name a decent and reasonable Republican, but I cannot. Can you help me out?*

*Living, and one whose name needs not be prefixed with apology.

I wouldn't quite put it that way. But there's little to distinguish Trump Republicanism from neo-fascist European movements like the National Front except maybe the latter are, if anything, a bit more subtle with their tactics. Same overall playbook. — Baden

I think you can levy the fascism claim upon Trump personally, but I think his followers truly believe they are protecting democracy from being stolen by some secret society. They also are convinced that the judges haven't been following the Constitution and that the rule of law is dead. They also believe that you and I are sheep, blinded as to reality, giving them a feeling of superiority and a justification for their defiance.

I work with a guy like this. He refuses to wear a mask because he thinks they don't work and their only purpose is to force the citizens into submission. They're sort of a gateway drug, where today they'll get you to wear masks, so that eventually they'll get you to willingly give up your first born. Then, after that, it'll get even worse, and people will voluntarily give up their guns.

So, back to lunatics then? Anyway, hard for me to get my head around how deep this type of stuff goes.

The more important question is whether the horn hat man is the messiah. — Hanover

He served in the navy, actually. His presumable first lawyer started with one pitch:

Attorney Al Watkins said in a statement that his client, Jacob A. Chansley, the Arizona man whose furry headdress and painted face went viral during the siege, was acting on the invitation of President Donald Trump when he and others forced their way into the U.S. Capitol and halted Congress’ debate on Electoral College votes.

“He took seriously the countless messages of President Trump. He believed in President Trump. Like tens of millions of other Americans, Chansley felt — for the first time in his life — as though his voice was being heard,” Watkins said.

Another one spin it a bit differently:

Defense attorney Albert Watkins told CNN’s Chris Cuomo on Thursday that clemency would be the only “honorable” thing after the president’s rhetoric whipped his supporters into a frenzy that sparked last week’s bloody Capitol riot. Trump, he added, “has an obligation” to dish out pardons.

Watkins said Chansley — also known as Jake Angeli and the QAnon shaman — hung “on every word” of the president and felt “very, very, very solidly in sync” with him. It was “like his voice was for the first time being heard,” the lawyer added.

Chansley, 33, of Phoenix, “loved” Trump and “felt like he was answering the call of our president,” Watkins said. He was in Washington “at the invitation of our president, who was going to walk down Pennsylvania Avenue with him,”

Well, this defense strategy makes a certain degree of sense. Now, if only he has a history of psychiatric treatment...

I'm sure you can name a decent and reasonable Republican, but I cannot. Can you help me out?* — tim wood

Romney is an obvious choice, he's had the guts to call Trump out since day 1. Ben Sasse has also made a stand. 10 Republicans voted to impeach, as noted above, who are now subject of foul abuse and death threats through social media. I mean, if I were an American elector, I doubt that I would ever vote for a Republican, but I would like to believe in the idea of principled opposition. I thought W was reprehensible, although one of Trump's noticeable anti-accomplishments is actually to make W look a little less bad.

The real rot that has set in is the divorce from reality, the willingness to believe lies and 'alternative facts'. That, and the sense of personal animus and hatred towards those who disagree with you. The fact that a majority of Republican voters still believe the election was rigged is a dreadful state of affairs.

There was an interview with a BBC correspondent who used to cover Washington in Reagan's day (can't recall his name). He said that Tip O'Neill, who was the Democrat speaker, used to drop by Reagan's office at 6:00 pm every evening for a drink and chat. They didn't socialise much apart from that and their relationship was not necessarily convivial, but they could talk.

He said the rot really set in with Newt Gingrich who had a strong 'take no prisoners' animus towards any opposition. The Tea Party fundamentalists were also a major part in it. (Jim Jordan, Mark Meadows and Mike Pompeo were all associated with Tea Party fundamentalism.) Hopefully with Trump's defeat and banishment (and probable bankruptcy in the very near future) that cycle is coming to an end, and politics can move more towards actually trying to solve massive problems instead of being a massive problem.

I'm sure you can name a decent and reasonable Republican, but I cannot. Can you help me out? — tim wood

Eisenhower. gave some names and one interestingly is Liz Cheney, one of the 10, even if she is the daughter of Darth Vader.

Anyway, seems that the true conservatives are now called RINOs and the Republicans are totalitarian populists, or because they fear the mob are acting as totalitarian populists. Madness prevails.

The reality for a former Republican Presidential nominee and senator:

He said the rot really set in with Newt Gingrich who had a strong 'take no prisoners' animus towards any opposition. The Tea Party fundamentalists were also a major part in it. (Jim Jordan, Mark Meadows and Mike Pompeo were all associated with Tea Party fundamentalism.) — Wayfarer

Actually many see Gingrich as the person who ignited the hyper-partisan combative rhetoric. This of course was during the Clinton years, where on the domestic side Clinton was going from scandal to scandal and the Republican using every bit to sling mud on the Clintons making it a constant barrage toward the Clintons. It worked. The real hatred of the Clinton's was sown back then, starting with Whitewater and so on.

(For Hillary, it started a long time ago as the first lady)


From there came the deep hatred against Hillary Clinton and the birth of the conspiracy theories. Still, in the 1990's they were not at the Pizzagate/QAnon level with media vastly reporting on them. When Clinton was impeached in 1998, Newt was speaker of the House and the leader of the Republicans in Congress. During those times the divide started.

At least they could share a laugh and fit into the same picture...


It's interesting that the Tea Party, a movement that morphed from Ron Paul's 2008 campaign basically to the Tea Party Caucus in 2010, came up at similar time as there was Occupy Wall Street (happening in 2011, which then died quickly as it had no leadership). Before that there of course were the Seattle WTO protests in 1999, but otherwise there were long periods between the movements.

And now? Well, unfortunately there are deeply alienated people believing that they have lost their democracy, which is quite sad for the future. The Great American Train Wreck of the Trump train would be an apt name for this.

I sometimes think that the big problem in America is that stupid people are given too much power. Of course, there's no easy remedy. 'Idiocracy' was on the money. :sad:

But then, maybe it's because there's a lot of them, so they're a big audience. You can lead them up the garden path for commercial advantage. That seems the MO of the so-called 'right wing media'.

What has been stupid is the way elections are fought in the US, that's the start of the stupidity. Politicians really have made this so.

What is lacking here is how to stop this trainwreck of becoming even a bigger disaster.

Arguably the rhetoric of "healing" is utterly stupid from the Republicans. A simple zero tolerance violence and loud condemnation of the insurrection would be the first move. One ought to be consistent, if one has prior condemned the looting in the summer.

And those that indeed want to sink with the Trump ship and want to be on the crazy side of history (which historians obviously will find interesting later), they should turn the focus on 2024 and to treat the conspiracy theorist crowd by saying that now those contemplating violence are actually false flag operators that want to tarnish the reputation of Messiah Trump's image. Or something as bizarre like that.

Or then you make everything worse and the country goes to the similar kind of hysteria it was after 9/11 with arresting sikhs, because they wore turbans. And even more stupid.

Idiocracy is a terrible movie, an excuse for well-off liberals to make fun of the uneducated while ignoring capitalism's systemic drive to keep people stupid. Self-satisfied crap that shits on the working class, masking systemic problems and transforming them into individual ones. Excremental films like that are not diagnostic, they are contributary to the problems they aim to pick out.

Those who are 'given power' are those who can satisfy the whims of corporate America, that's it.

So I guess the answer is to have free education up to the university level, where those academic graduates finally earn more than their working class counterparts when they reach their 40's.

And if a system keeps people stupid, then it's quite obvious that politics of that population might end up being stupid.

Idiocracy is a terrible movie — StreetlightX

Actually I agree, it was atrocious, but then, so is what we've been seeing.

What has been stupid is the way elections are fought in the US, that's the start of the stupidity. Politicians really have made this so. — ssu

It's more than just politics. The culture itself encourages and coddles stupidity. Obviously there are very many brilliant people in the US, but the existence of large masses of those clinging to delusional fantasies is the problem. And how to combat that. I agree with some commentators is that it requires patient but thorough prosecution.

So I guess the answer is to have free education up to the university level, where those academic graduates finally earn more than their working class counterparts when they reach their 40's. — ssu

That would be the bare minimum; and even then it would be useless if universities remain nothing more than for-profit vocational institutes - excuses for hedge funds, in some cases - while budgets get slashed for actual vocational institutes along with K-12 education, under the guise of 'austerity' and 'balancing the budgets'. It doesn't help that the US funds their schools by property taxes, meaning that poor areas - those with the lowest property values - literally get the worst education. The poor are kept undereducated. But yeah, sure, blame the uneducated for everything that's going on :roll: This is not about 'academic graduates', this is literally about anyone at all who wants to grow up to be an autonomous human being.

Romney is an obvious choice, — Wayfarer

Governor of Massachusetts. And father of the ACA (in Massachusetts). But while as an enemy of your enemy, pretty good, as your friend? There have been a number of T-ball issues over the years he could have hit out of the park, but instead bunted or whiffed on.

Eisenhower. — ssu

Sure, but dead now fifty-two years! And arguably his Republicanism a fiction of convenience. More a much tougher and smarter man than almost everyone - who should certainly have known better - took him for.

There have been a number of T-ball issues over the years he could have hit out of the park, but instead bunted or whiffed on. — tim wood

Sure. Romney isn't magnficent, or a world-conquering hero, or the greatest guy in history. But he's a decent bloke, which is about the best you could hope for in the circumstances.

I'm sure you can name a decent and reasonable Republican, but I cannot — tim wood

I also have to say I think Mike Pence deserves kudos for his response on January 6th - after a mob broke into the Capitol with the explicit aim of ‘hanging Mike Pence’ and his worthless boss rubbished him in front of stadium crowds, that he went through the formality of the certification process without missing a beat, never visibly loosing his cool.

Republicans are totalitarian populists, or because they fear the mob are acting as totalitarian populists — ssu

It's funny (or it would be if it weren't so tragic) that right-wing anti-democratic rhetoric so often employs the notion of "the mob", the hoi polloi, the unwashed masses -- y'know, the bad people who aren't like you, that you don't want making decisions that affect you just because there's more of them than you -- and now, they are exactly such a mob themselves.

But of course, everything the right every complains about is projection, so I should have seen this coming.