Susan Simpson from The View from LL2 sums it up:
The GOP has always had the votes to do whatever they wanted. But the veil has been lifted now. There is nothing they won’t do to gain and maintain power. There is plenty of damage they can inflict in a month before the election with Kavanaugh on the Supreme Court. The misogyny was only the most obvious problem. There’s still voting rights, healthcare and Trump’s special investigation problem. Collins and Flake do this kind of thing all the time. I hope Flake doesnt have political ambitions after this. As for Collins, she may think her contituents will forget. I’m betting they won’t.
Filed under: General |
The Confluence 
This tweet makes me shudder because that is where we are now. What are we going to do about it?
[…] Source link […]
The asteroid’s name will be Demogrpahic Change.
However, it may not arrive in time for this election.
*sigh* “demographic”.
I hate TurdPress. 😡
Because we need this kind of music (or poetry set to music).
It’s times like this we need a superhero to save us… 😉
I just read this in the NYT and I hope Rep. Nadler is in a safe seat and the blue wave is a tsunami.
If this Manchin bastard has any self respect he would vote no tomorrow.
Murkowski is voting present tomorrow. Manchin is the deciding vote and should vote no. They set him up.
Screw the motherfuckers, Manchin. You can get another job if you lose your election.
It also means that no Republican will cast a vote against Kavanaugh, so that they can say that it was only Democrats who were against him, and no one will correct this. I don’t believe that “graciousness” had much to do with this, which may be unfair to Murkowski, or not.
Obviously, in a two-party system, the Democratic Party is our only hope. And thus they have to win a lot of seats, both nationally and by state. Without winning those seats, they cannot do nearly enough to stop the Republican destruction machine. This is obvious, but this reality is somehow not acted upon by them. Moral high ground is an important thing, but if it is not turned into electoral victories, it doesn’t accomplish much of anything, particularly for the millions of people who need the things which Democrats would give them, if they could but just win more elections.
Politics is a blood sport. Maybe it should not be, but it is; and certainly the way that Republicans practice it. Lyndon Johnson was not very admirable as a person, but he was a great Senate Majority Leader who got bills through which benefitted many people. We don’t have people like that any longer; maybe part of it is that he and Sam Rayburn were Texans, and Democrats rarely win in Texas or any of the South, where they play hardball.
I was certain that if Kavanaugh had been defeated, the Democrats would have been so guilt-ridden, that they would have promised to confirm anyone else that Trump put up. Chris Coons, who is a good guy, like most of the Democrats, was eager to say last week that he was only calling for a very quick delay for FBI investigation, that he was by no means trying to just delay for its own sake. Republicans “delayed” Garland for 293 days, and never gave him a hearing, and did not apologize for any of it. Anything they can get away with, or power through, they do. Democrats do mean well, but they seem desperate to convince the media that they are being ethical and fair in all things..
The media mostly right-wing owned, helps to cause this. Imagine a game where one team cheats, one team plays fair, and the referee is on the side of the cheating team. Almost impossible to break through this, but it simply has to be figured out for the country to survive. One easy suggestion to start: Run campaigns where you scare people about what Republicans will do to them. It’s not even lying, it is true. Feel free to toss in an exaggeration at times. Scrupulously trying not to upset the media is what Dukakis, Gore and Kerry did, and what was demanded of Hillary every hour; and they all either lost, or actually won, but were cheated out of victory by the team that will do anything they can to win. Democrats never attack the media, even though it is almost all run by corporatists who want Republicans to win., Republicans have made a modus operandi of attacking the media. In sports parlance, this is called “working the refs,” complaining about them so much that they tend to make calls favoring you.
Trump has expanded this to attack the FBI, the CIA, the DOJ, the Democratic Party on a daily basis, Hilary, Obama, various states that don’t like him. He gets away with all of it. Democrats rarely attack anybody. Give us more Nancy Pelosis, more Bill and Hillary, more Harry Reids, more Al Frankens, Richard Blumenthals, Tammy Duckworths. Demonize and disparage Republicans singly and as a group. Do not stop doing it. Because they are doing it to you every day, and it sinks into people’s vacuous minds, and then you lose most of the elections; and good people fall into sadness, insomnia or despair, as they see this carnage continue. Your approach is not winning, and Republicans are trying to lock it in so that you will never win. You had the presidency and the Congress for two years in 2009-2011, and you did so little with it, because you had pushed for an elected a leader who was all about geniality, and who thought that he could transcend politics; and that if he were nice to the Republicans, they would be nice to him. We don’t want you to turn into monsters like the Republicans; but very unfortunately, good intentions and graciousness do very little for you in the brutally pragmatic world of politics. Bill and Hillary fought the Republicans, and they got precious little support from you, because you thought that it was too partisan and declasse.
Once upon a time, I never would have thought this, much less said it.
If and when we ever get power back, the media conglomerates and propaganda factories must be destroyed.
I hope anti-trust suits will be sufficient to accomplish that.
William, in my darkest moments, I fear that we must, indeed, become monsters.
We did some damnably monstrous things to defeat the Axis–but what was the alternative?
A very good analogy. I think that you are right, but I do not think that Democrats are made that way, at least not the way the party is constituted. Kennedy had the “Boston Mafia,” LBJ came up through Texas politics. Even Clinton, while not as coldly pragmatic as those, learned from the rough and tumble politics of Arkansas. Now our Democrats seem to favor a more genial approach, Obama being the exemplification. In 2008, he said, “We don’t want to repeat the battles of the ’90’s,” which can be understood as trying to score political points, bu also as a condemnation of the Clintons battling back against the forces which wanted to destroy them. And over the years, many Democrats seem to join in that; they want someone who will seem loftier and more transcendent. They don’t like Peilosi, who practices old school politics. Maybe it is simply generational, but where are the Democrats who are first-class parliamentarians, who will use every trick in the book to win a floor fight? Speeches are one thing; politics is like a backroom fight.
I could not like this comment more. We’ll never be as scorched earth and ruthless as they are because we have hearts and consciences but we have to play for keeps.
The way these Republicans and trump fought for this flawed man to put on the Court and then Obama did nothing, nothing at all about Merrick Garland… what a contrast!
We had a fighter in 2008, we got a wuss. Can you imagine Hillary pushing a Kavanaugh like character on to the Court? The same Bushes who disliked trump, pushed this fucker on to the Court and strengthened trump’s hand. Why? Country be damned, right?
Elder Bush congratulated Susan Collins on her ‘principled’ stand. W was calling senators around. Some journalist should dig through why the Bushes were intent putting this guy on the Court.
Absolutely right.
Could not agree more… The mess we are in today can all be neatly laid at the feat of the Democratic party that chose to install Obama over Clinton. If I get one more email asking me to contribute to protect Obama’s legacy I may lose it… His legacy is ensured by being between W and tRump.
I disagree with the “all” part.
The GOP who built a machine for weaponizing and harvesting stupid hatefulness, and foreign dictator Vladimir Satanovich Putin, deserve greater shares of the blame than the CDS wing of the Dems, IMHO. (YMMV.)
Oh, I forgot the McDucks who fund the GOP’s Pretty Hate Machine (h/t Driftglass for the term “PHM”, ultimately derived from Nine Inch Nails.)
Trump is Obama’s true and only legacy.
Jennifer Palmieri made a good point on Lawrence that even Kavanaugh thought he had lost the nomination when he went on that tirade in his statement. Such was Ford’s testimony but of course, the Republicans rescued him. NYT has an article that quotes McGahn as saying if there was a real investigation, Kavanaugh would never make it. So yeah, they cooked up a sham investigation. Where is Flake now, the hero that everybody paraded? At least, Heitkamp and Murkowski had the guts to do what they saw was right.
Yeah, so I am pointing out over and over that McGahan says Kavanaugh is guilty to conservatives. Look they know they are going to lose in November and that it is all going to come out. Vote like your life depends on it in 31 days.
I make this prediction. If the Rs keep the senate Thomas will be pushed out and a younger more virulent R will be put in his place.
I would not be surprised to see that happen.
The goal is to keep a forty-year set of far Right Justices on the bench, replacing the older ones. It has never been done in history, but the Republicans have no interest in anything but power. What some people are not realizing is that they are fixing it so that no Democratic President will ever be able to replace a far Right Justice, meaning that they will control the Court forever. Democrats have to respond to this by adding Court seats. People are used to imagining that, well, maybe this or that Justice will retire, but they won’t, not the far Right ones, not until the Republicans are ready to replace them. The tipoff was the Garland blocking, and then the vows from Republicans that they would never allow Hillary to ever appoint a Justice. It is their Court, and they intend to keep it that way forever. Since one doesn’t want to advocate assassinating Justices, the only other way to ever break the right-wing sttanglehold on the Court is to add Justices. But I bet you that most people have not figured out what the Republican plans are, they think, oh, well, we can replace some of these when they re tire. We will not be allowed to.
Kavanaugh is probably going to be indicted. He will be the easiest to get off the court. The rest of the court is going to have to be resolved by court packing.
At least that way the GOP will be able to claim they only have one sex offender on the court
Haha. We never know who trump will nominate next.
That we know of.
Unelected minority rule of the majority quite the pickle we have gotten ourselves into! Let’s not forget if we choose to remind the ruling class of our power we hit them in the pocket. Simple, no discretionary spending, only what we must pay to maintain our households, add this to Trump tariffs and things should become really interesting pretty fast.
Then if Democrats, Independents, and disaffected Republicans really turn out to vote and flip the house, senate and 1600 we need to demand some real change in exchange for our vote, no business as usual no more sitting ducks for the fringe ruling class. 1. Revise appointment to elected for the Judiciary top to bottom the original intent that decisions in Federal courts should grounded in the Constitution not in popular opinion, has been corrupted and cannot stand. 2. The Senate needs a revamp ok small States have 2 Senators but then big States need additional Senators use GDP, Population, tax revenues whatever but Vermont or Idaho (low GDP. Revenue, people) having the same power as California, NY or Texas is a dangerously antiquated system. 3. Abolish the Electoral College Twenty-Third Amendment it’s a Con.
…. Add a female member quota to the Republican Judiciary committee, I’m sure we could find one little attractive lady willing to do the hard work the boys are doing?!
I dunno. Could any delicate fleur carry the work load of Chuck Grassley, aka The Thousand Year Old Man?
A difference of opinion:
Either way, we must make the fury ours on Nov. 6.
The GOP does not have a clue as to the anger that is out there with women. They didn’t have a clue in 1992 either.
From your mouth.