Political Roundtable Part XXX

[Ruzious]

How many examples of Trump being blatantly treasonous to the US do we need before he loses all power in the Republican Party - much less lives behind bars for the rest of his life?

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/this-may-be-trumps-most-twisted-appeal-to-putin-yet/ar-AAVH951?li=BBnb7Kz

[Zonkerbl]

How many examples of Trump being blatantly treasonous to the US do we need before he loses all power in the Republican Party - much less lives behind bars for the rest of his life?

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/this-may-be-trumps-most-twisted-appeal-to-putin-yet/ar-AAVH951?li=BBnb7Kz

Trump is really good at flip flopping his perceived reality to match up to that of his supporters, except in this one place - he is always, always dead loyal to Putin. No matter what criticism he gets from other Republicans, no matter what public opinion is. It's really "strange." Of course it's obvious he is part of Putin's mafiosi group for some reason, either stupidity or blackmail or he still thinks he has a chance at a billion dollar Moscow Trump tower deal. I guess that's not a crime, strictly speaking, but it's just odd that none of his supporters seem to care. I guess they are not the sort of person to think about that sort of thing carefully.

[Zonkerbl]

The Russia collusion thing against the orange man resulted in evidence of obstruction of justice that the Republican senators simply refused to acknowledge, because they were in on it. I think it's nuts to believe Trump was innocent, much less be angry that anyone dared to investigate him. That's loony toons stuff right there, the big rich billionaire guy can't be investigated just because he's politically popular, even when he flagrantly, publicly breaks the law? What the hell? If we decide who gets investigated according to their political popularity, the next step after that is secret police disappearing people with politically unpopular views. Like seriously, don't go down that road with the GOP. You won't like where it ends. That's USSR stuff, and one interesting thing about the USSR is the people who were at most danger of being disappeared were the most loyal, the Commies who were most dedicated to repeating the official Soviet talking points were the ones at most risk of being targeted by Stalin for exfiltration to the Gulag - he was paranoid about stuff like that, thought they were just pretending so they could get close enough to assassinate him, or getting too politically popular and wanted to replace him. You think Trump will be all that different? Dude is obviously insane.

That's where cults of personality get you in the end. Infighting and unlimited power to secretly assassinate people at the "commander's orders"=death/exile to the most loyal.

It's interesting that my first thought about Trump was to compare him to Hitler. After five years of experience with him I think it is much more accurate to compare him to Stalin. Stalin was very inward focused, he had no designs on world conquest, he just wanted to be left alone to manage his own little corner of the world without interference. When Hitler invaded he was devastated - he disappeared for two weeks. He didn't show his face in public until there were signs that the Soviet army might miraculously survive the first blitzkreig. He wasn't a megalomaniac bent on world domination like Hitler was - he was a meganarcassist, all his autocratic tendencies were responses to perceived and imagined threats to him. He was weak and vulnerable, which is how he ended up so vicious. Trump isn't a power mad Hitler - he's a dangerously weak and timid Stalin.

[Pointgod]

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[Zonkerbl]

Now here's something I don't understand... John Kerry was CRUCIFIED by the media for having reversed his position on things. CRUCIFIED!!! Basically the right wing - and the MSM went along with it - taunted him with FLIP FLOPPER mercilessly all day, every day, and it was a good reason he lost (well, that and Karl Rove got all the churches to illegally participate in politics and howl about gay marriage)

[Zonkerbl]

yeeeeesssss.... YEEEEESSSSSSSS

FOX NEWS VIEWERS, BIG BUSINESS IS THE ENEMY!!! SEIZE THE MEANS OF PRODUCTION!!!!!!

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[dobrojim]

Sorry to have been AWOL for Popper's visit.

I may have posted this YouTube before but to me it makes a critical point and goes
a long way towards destroying the argument against greater progressivism in our taxes,
that argument being that if we tax high incomes too heavily we will destroy the
incentives to produce and our economy will stagnate.

Watch on YouTube

I was first exposed to this video about 7 years ago as part of a 'leadership' training
program I was accepted into. I found it fascinating both because the results of
the research described runs counter to what so many people believe and secondly,
the organizations that funded and performed the research that reached these
conclusions seemed like a group of orgs that would not deliberately promote
this kind of thinking.

Ten minute video.

[Zonkerbl]

Someone was asking what the GOP platform is...

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[Zonkerbl]

Randy Rainbow's take on Ron DeSantis' evil "Don't Say Gay" bill

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[dobrojim]

Thanks for sharing

[Bonscott]

If democrats were more interested in fixing the US and less infatuated with Dpnald Trump the country would be a lot better off.I don't envy the republican voted into the White House in 2024 as they will have a ton of damage to repair

[pancakes3]

examples of Republicans fixing the US, and the damage they have to repair:

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[dobrojim]

Speaking of GOP radicalization, great op-ed piece today by several authors collaborating including Ben Ginsburg who
was a long time GOP election lawyer.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/04/01/trump-election-decertification-efforts-hurt-all-republicans/

One of the logical fallacies mentioned is how every single GOP pol elected in 2020 and calling the 2020 election
into question is or would be subject to removal but for the fact that there is nothing legal that could be done.

The question they raise that ought to be asked of every single supporter of the big lie is why,
if Dems actually could and did do this, did they not throw many other close elections their way?
Outside of the election for POTUS, the GOP had a darn good showing. If dems could steal elections,
you'd think they would have done something about that.

As Donald Trump flails about trying to “rescind” the 2020 presidential election and castigating Republicans who point out the Constitution doesn’t allow that, here is a heads-up for state legislators considering doing his bidding: You were elected to office by the same voters using the same ballots on the same day.

If somehow Joe Biden’s victory was fraudulent, so was yours.

Recall that in 2020, Trump lost but that Republicans did very well down ballot. Republican voters in swing areas, mostly suburbs, split their tickets by abandoning Trump but voting for Republican congressional and state candidates, including for state legislatures. Republicans gained a net 141 seats and two legislative chambers, while Democrats won no new chambers.

These issues spotlight the crucial role of election officials — the people charged in our democracy with calling balls and strikes. When umpires or referees call a game so that the team they favor wins, we recognize that as an “illegal fix.”

When they make claims that betray a basic lack of knowledge of how elections work, we should call them what they are: unqualified for the office.

[Pointgod]

If democrats were more interested in fixing the US and less infatuated with Dpnald Trump the country would be a lot better off.I don't envy the republican voted into the White House in 2024 as they will have a ton of damage to repair

This is the definition of projection.

[AFM]

Watch on YouTube

holy ****

[Pointgod]

Speaking of GOP radicalization, great op-ed piece today by several authors collaborating including Ben Ginsburg who
was a long time GOP election lawyer.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/04/01/trump-election-decertification-efforts-hurt-all-republicans/

One of the logical fallacies mentioned is how every single GOP pol elected in 2020 and calling the 2020 election
into question is or would be subject to removal but for the fact that there is nothing legal that could be done.

The question they raise that ought to be asked of every single supporter of the big lie is why,
if Dems actually could and did do this, did they not throw many other close elections their way?
Outside of the election for POTUS, the GOP had a darn good showing. If dems could steal elections,
you'd think they would have done something about that.

As Donald Trump flails about trying to “rescind” the 2020 presidential election and castigating Republicans who point out the Constitution doesn’t allow that, here is a heads-up for state legislators considering doing his bidding: You were elected to office by the same voters using the same ballots on the same day.

If somehow Joe Biden’s victory was fraudulent, so was yours.

Recall that in 2020, Trump lost but that Republicans did very well down ballot. Republican voters in swing areas, mostly suburbs, split their tickets by abandoning Trump but voting for Republican congressional and state candidates, including for state legislatures. Republicans gained a net 141 seats and two legislative chambers, while Democrats won no new chambers.

These issues spotlight the crucial role of election officials — the people charged in our democracy with calling balls and strikes. When umpires or referees call a game so that the team they favor wins, we recognize that as an “illegal fix.”

When they make claims that betray a basic lack of knowledge of how elections work, we should call them what they are: unqualified for the office.

Because they’re stupid. They don’t believe what they’re saying, just trained monkeys repeating what their idiot idol Trump says as a form of virtue signalling. If they truly believed the election was illegitimate that means their elections were illegitimate as well. But they’ve essentially creating a bunch of domestic terrorists and don’t care about the damage it causes.

[dobrojim]

If democrats were more interested in fixing the US and less infatuated with Dpnald Trump the country would be a lot better off.I don't envy the republican voted into the White House in 2024 as they will have a ton of damage to repair

I won't name call as there is no need.

Explain to us what policies the GOP has for fixing what ails us. Be specific about the damage and the
proposed fixes.

I'll wait.

[Zonkerbl]

I don't think elected Republican officials are stupid, they just believe their voters will believe whatever they tell them. This is who they've chosen to represent them; this is the behavior they demand.

Dems made a strategic decision to eject non college educated white people from their party and the GOP gleefully absorbed them. Now they're the ones stuck with their hands in the honey jar

[Zonkerbl]

So if you see something like this in your twitter timeline:

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Just know that a lot of low wage service jobs are coming back as we recover from covid, dragging the avg wage down. If you look at the data you can see what happened - the only jobs eligible for remote work are high paying ones, all the service jobs where you have to show up in person are relatively lower wage and were decimated.

However, if you look carefully you'll see that, even though real wages have been declining for seven months (as, what, 4 million jobs were added) it's still higher than what it was before COVID.

[Kanyewest]

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