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The Core Incompetencies of the Republican Party - GNR for Bluesday, October 18th [1]
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Date: 2022-10-18
If the republican party’s goal is to make bank robbers, serial killers, and Jeffrey Dahmer look like upstanding citizens in comparison to their current crop of officials and candidates, they are succeeding beyond their wildest dreams. Any other goal and they are yuge failures. They’ve become so debased, that what used to be considered over-the-top hyperbole about republican criminal behavior now qualifies as straight reporting.
It behooves us to continue to mention just how woefully incompetent the republicans have become at solving crises. From Katrina to Covid; from school shootings to drug prices, they are incapable of getting out of their own way. The last three republican presidents have all broken the economy, leaving a mess for Democrats to clean up.
As a group, they’ll take in any old destructive falsehood, then hermetically seal the entrances and exits so no smidgen of truth can squeeze in and disrupt their continuously looped symphony of cognitive dissonance and dissolution. They are the party of see-no-evil, hear-no-evil, speak-only-evil, poo flinging flying monkeys of the Wicked Mitch of the Senate and his misbegotten Whining Orange Master.
After 50 years of pushing the lie that government is bad, their ability to adequately provide good governance for their constituencies has atrophied away into nothingness. 9 of the top 10 per capita crime committing states are run by republicans. Republican states are last in educational attainment, health care outcomes, income, poverty and all of our other metrics of societal success. Republican states tend to take in more from the Federal Government than they contribute. They’ve changed of, for, and by the people into of the corrupt, for the deluded, and by the rich. They’ve erased cooperation, consensus, and community and replaced them with collusion, coercion, and conflict.
Together with their ownership conglomerate, they’ve created a fact free zone intended solely to incite their weak-minded irrational cult members into becoming an echo chamber for lies and hatred. The upside is that they are so far gone, they are no longer able to attract new followers.
In an act that defied logic, they went ahead and deified a shambolic diaper pail — a man so full of shit he has to flush 10 to 15 times just to clear his sinuses. We are now seeing a mountain of depositions, both to the J6 Committee and a host of grand juries, given by former minions, that directly contradict years worth of public lies.
During their race to the bottom they developed a formula for seizing and holding power. That formula neglects the common good, progress, civility, humanity, and honesty. All effort is made to appeal to the lowest and least attractive aspects of human nature — envy, greed, fear, bigotry, and hate. The “Divine Right of Republicans” is rooted in the same naked lust for power that fueled other dictatorial movements throughout history. Not only are they anti-democratic, they are antithetical to the very idea of America and the core teachings of our major religions.
We see pseudo Christians who joyously ignore the teachings of Jesus, while gleefully abusing those they can subjugate.
We see political opportunists without an ounce of the spirit of public service to share between their entire cabal of corrupt, money-grubbing, power-mad, wannabe dictators and impotentates.
Yes, they believe in family values — except for the part about families and the other part about values.
These are people who’ve been giving regular tongue baths and hall passes to deceitful shits like Hershel Walker, Mehmet Oz, Doug Mastriano, Kari Lake, Ron DeSantis, Greg Abbott, and, of course, that short-fingered orange obscenity. They do not deserve access to power, or even any of the benefits of our society.
At some point they will choke on the sodden ashes of their attempt to eliminate the flames of progress. My vote is for sooner rather than later.
GET OUT THE VOTE!
We have the power. We have the ability. We can and we will do this.
Slava Ukraini!
Remember the Children
Screw you, Samuel Alito
Stephen, Seth & Jimmy are all off this week, so I ended up rooting around for filler to replace the regular late night reprise section.
Here’s John Oliver on transgender rights to tide us over until the late night crowd returns to work.
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I guess this counts as prophecy. Alex Storozynki recorded this just over 3 years ago. It’s a parody of a 100 year old Jimmie Rodgers song.
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All this and news too!
There’s Lies, Damn Lies, Statistics, and Republicans
If I had a nickel for every lie republicans have told this campaign season, I’d be able to buy the republican party away from the remaining Koch brother.
Huffington Post: Josephine Harvey: 'You're On Tape': J.D. Vance Caught In A Lie During Ohio Senate Debate
Rep. Tim Ryan (D-Ohio) called out Republican rival J.D. Vance for saying conspiracy theorist Alex Jones was a credible source of information and then lying about it during Monday night’s combative debate between the two U.S. Senate candidates.✂️ “We are running for the United States Senate. This is the highest office you could get in this country except for president,” Ryan said. “And he’s running around backing these extremists. The most extreme people in the country. A guy who denied Sandy Hook. He’s like, ‘No, he’s credible.’” Vance insisted: “This is a complete fabrication. I never said that.” “You’re on tape, man,” Ryan shot back. “It’ll be like 30 minutes and we’re all going to know you’re lying.”
x Tim Ryan just SLAMMED JD Vance during the debate for calling conspiracy theorist maniac Alex Jones "credible." Vance denied it. So we found the tape. Here it is spliced together with Vance's denial. pic.twitter.com/LCOB8zyR1A — MeidasTouch (@MeidasTouch) October 17, 2022 When They Aren’t Lying, They’re Treasoning Please let my dreams about Mike Lee going back to whatever it is that he would do instead of inflicting his treasonous self on the rest of us come true. Wouldn’t it be nice if voters actually watched debates before heading off to the voting booth. Republicans would be in a lost worse shape if folks just payed attention. Huffington Post: Igor Bobic: 'How Dare You': Mike Lee Confronted Over January 6 Scheme In Senate Debate Evan McMullin, the independent candidate for Senate in Utah, confronted incumbent Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) on Monday over his role in the plot to overturn the 2020 presidential election in the rivals’ Senate debate. Text messages from Lee to former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows revealed how Lee helped push legally dubious schemes to keep then-President Donald Trump in power before shifting course and voting to certify the 2020 election on January 6, 2021. Lee also encouraged top Trump advisers to embrace Sidney Powell, a Republican lawyer who spread baseless claims of a rigged election. “That was the most egregious betrayal of our constitution in our nation’s history and it will be your legacy,” McMullin said in Monday’s debate. “When the barbarians were at the gate, you were happy to let them in,” McMullin added, referring to texts Lee sent to Meadows, urging him to listen to people like Powell and John Eastman, a right-wing attorney who authored “coup memos” on overturning the election. By the Way, It’s Not All Milk and Cookies Over in Camp Wannabe Despots
There’s a reckoning coming for the conspiracy theory loving, Dunning-Kreuger crowd currently in charge of the republican party. Running obviously morally compromised or massively stupid candidates is not a recipe for long term success. More and more conservatives with at least two functioning brain cells are reaching the limits of their ability to stomach the idiocy. Peter Wehner is brutal in his assessment. Sarah Longwell (the second article) gives some context.
Raw Story: Tom Boggioni: Conservative blasts the 'freak show' Republicans who have turned the party into an 'intellectual wasteland'
Using the U.S. Senate run of Georgia's Herschel Walker as a jumping-off point, conservative columnist and former GOP White House adviser Peter Wehner bemoaned the state of the GOP for giving up any pretense of principles since Donald Trump infected the party with his brand of win-at-all-costs politics.✂️ "Republicans once sold themselves as representing family values and tradition, concerned with moral standards and civic character. They insisted on the importance of good character and integrity in political leaders. This has been exposed as utterly cynical, most obviously in the support that Republicans—many of whom savaged Bill Clinton over his moral failings—gave to Trump, whose corruptions are peerless and borderless," he charged before adding that the current Trump-ear cast of characters -- including conservative non-politicians -- have taken over the conservative movement and that the Republican party will suffer because of it. "The GOP has turned on virtually every noble principle it once claimed to stand for," he wrote. "It has become a freak show, embodied in people like Trump and Walker, Marjorie Taylor Greene and Lauren Boebert, Ron Johnson and Josh Hawley, Blake Masters and Doug Mastriano, Adam Laxalt and J. D. Vance, Steve Bannon and Roger Stone, Michael Flynn and Mike Lindell, Tucker Carlson and Sebastian Gorka, Eric Metaxas and Paula White. They shape its sensibilities, providing the script for everyone else to follow."✂️ "Whatever you thought about the GOP pre-Trump—and it may be that the ugliness was much closer to the surface than I wanted to acknowledge at the time—the Republican Party is today much more conspiracy minded, anti-democratic, and anti-truth," he elaborated before lamenting, "This worries me, because I love my country. And it disheartens me, because I once admired my party. Today, however, because of its diseased state, the most urgent political task is to defeat it in the hopes of eventually rebuilding it."
Raw Story: Tom Boggioni: Republicans are trapped in a 'Triangle of Doom' that will cripple the party: conservative pollster
In a column for the Bulwark, conservative campaign consultant Sarah Longwell claims the Republican Party as it was once constituted will soon be a thing of the past because all the "good Republicans" are being driven from the party. Reacting to the news that Sen. Ben Sasse (R-NE) is surrendering his seat in order to become the president of the University of Florida, joining an exodus of GOP lawmakers who have thrown up their hands over the influence of Donald Trump, Longwell claims there is a sea-change in the GOP that has its roots in what she calls the "right-wing infotainment" industry. Writing, "What was the extinction event for Good Republicans?" she explained, "Ultimately, it’s the end-stage of what I call the Republican Triangle of Doom™: The toxic and symbiotic relationship between GOP voters, GOP elected officials, and the right-wing infotainment media."
Donations Aren’t Cheap
Rick Scott isn’t the only high profile republican fundraiser pissing away all their funds in order to continue raising them.
Huffington Post: Mary Papenfuss: Trump Fundraising Overhead Soaks Up 91 Cents Of Each Donor Dollar: Report
Donald Trump’s political fundraising operation has been spending 91 cents on overhead expenses for every dollar it brings in, according to Federal Election Commission filings reported by Bloomberg. Trump raised a fat $24 million in the third quarter — a 41% increase over the previous quarter — but spent $22 million to do so, the new figures show. Raising the money apparently became far more difficult and expensive (or fundraisers were pocketing larger salaries) as troubles mount for Trump. The FBI confiscated several boxes of White House documents — including classified and top secret information — from Trump’s Mar-a-Lago compound in August. In September, New York Attorney General Letitia James (D) filed a $250 million civil lawsuit alleging business fraud against Trump and his three oldest children.
Ready for Another Scandal Yet?
We continue to learn more about the antics of Donnie “Short but Sticky Fingers” McBonespurs.
The Atlantic: David A Graham: The Art of the Self-Deal
The epicenter of corruption in the Trump administration was not at the White House, but at the Old Post Office, a dramatic Romanesque landmark a few blocks down Pennsylvania Avenue from the presidential residence. The building, which operated for several years as the Trump International Hotel, became a hot place to see and be seen for a certain set, especially Trump hangers-on (Rudy Giuliani was a regular) and foreign diplomats eager to curry favor—a clear ethical problem. But a new investigation from the House Oversight Committee shows that the problems with the arrangement didn’t end there. The Trump Organization also charged the Secret Service as much as $1,185 per night for agents protecting Trump family members—nearly six times the usual allotted rate for government employees. In all, the House report found that the Secret Service spent at least $1.4 million in taxpayer money at the Trump International and other Trump properties, and probably more. By the standards of federal spending, $1.4 million is not a great deal of money. (The government has spent $5.4 trillion this fiscal year.) What is offensive here is not the sum, but the naked profiteering. The Secret Service couldn’t shop around: Agents had to stay at the hotel to protect the family members. The Trump Organization treated that as an easy way to bilk the government, sending public money directly to the president’s own pockets while claiming that it offered agents huge discounts. It was a brazen parody of what it means to be a public servant.
You Can Run, But You Can’t Refuse Service
I think huddles under his bed in his bunker beneath the septic tank at Mierda A Lugy and repeats to himself, “They won’t get me. They won’t get me.” until he falls into a catatonic state only to be awaken when someone waves a hamberder in his face.
Raw Story: Sarah K Burris: Donald Trump finally served with a court order in $250 million fraud lawsuit — after refusing for weeks
Trump's attorney Alina Habba was served the 220-page New York lawsuit from Attorney General Letitia James after Trump Organization leaders Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump dodged process servers, wrote Business Insider.✂️ "The apparent runaround led James' office to accuse Trump's side of 'gamesmanship,'" wrote Insider. So, James asked the court if she could simply email the papers to Habba and Robert. The judge agreed.
Poor, Poor, Pitiful Steve
If you feel like repeating a few chants of “Lock him up.” I won’t argue with you. He’ll get sentenced one year to the day after Congress filed the contempt charge against him.
NBC News: Rebecca Shabod: DOJ asks federal judge to sentence Steve Bannon to 6 months in prison, $200K fine
WASHINGTON — The Department of Justice asked a federal judge Monday to sentence former Trump adviser Steve Bannon to six months in prison and a fine of $200,000 for contempt of Congress. In a 24-page sentencing memorandum filed Monday in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, prosecutors called Bannon's refusal to comply with a subpoena from the Jan. 6 committee a "sustained, bad-faith contempt of Congress." The House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol repeatedly sought documents and testimony from Bannon but he "flouted the Committee’s authority and ignored the subpoena’s demands," prosecutors said.
Do Outright Admissions Count As Smoking Guns?
Buried among all the testimony implicating tfg in the plethora of crimes he’s accused of, there’s are some delicious admissions from very own flapping gums. The bottom line is he knew he lost and refused to acknowledge it. That makes everything he (and his merry band of fellow traitors) did to overturn the election indefensible in any legal sense. Sure, they’ll try. But, the admissions detailed by Hutchinson and Farah (and probably others) eliminate almost everything except an attempt at an insanity defense. Unless they have republican senators on the jury, he is on a one-way road to conviction.
Salon: Sareeba Shah: "Trump is losing it on Truth Social": Trump has a lot to say after getting hit with Jan. 6 subpoena
✂️ Despite publicly claiming that he won, Trump privately admitted he lost the election, according to former White House officials who testified to the panel. Still, he continued to forge a campaign to overturn the election. New testimony from Cassidy Hutchinson, the former top aide to White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, revealed anecdotes of Trump acknowledging he had lost the election. "He had said something to the effect of, 'I don't want people to know we lost, Mark, this is embarrassing, figure it out, we need to figure it out, I don't want people to know that we lost,'" Hutchinson said. Former White House Communications Director Alyssa Farah also recalled a moment when the former president accepted his loss. "I popped into the Oval just to give the president the headlines and see how he was doing. And he was looking at the TV and he said, 'Can you believe I lost to this f***ing guy,'" she said.
That Billion Dollar Verdict Is Not Enough
It has taken ten years for us to reach this point in the Sandy Hook saga. What Jones and his fellow lie-mongers have done is unforgivable. What was done to the relatives of the Sandy Hook victims is so far beyond the pale of what is acceptable to make no punishment for the perpetrators too severe.
Moving forward, I think the best thing we can do is rip his megaphone of monstrous lies out of Alex Jones’ deceitful hands and shove it up his metaphorical ass. Jones is an infected suppurating pus filled open sore on a burst pimple on a leaky cyst on a painful boil on the prolapsed sphincter of the incontinent asshole that is America’s rightwing bullshit factory. He needs to be permanently stifled.
AlterNet: Meaghan Ellis: Daughter of Sandy Hook victim pens blistering op-ed criticizing Alex Jones' 'lies' and 'hate' spewed after the shooting
The daughter of the slain principal of Sandy Hook Elementary School has penned an op-ed shedding light on the impact of Alex Jones' perpetuation of conspiracy theories about the mass shooting.✂️ "Jones has been in my life for nearly a decade, but not by choice. I was in my late twenties when my mother, Dawn Lafferty Hochsprung, the principal of Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, was killed on December 14, 2012," Lafferty wrote. "Within days of the shooting, I heard people online saying it was a hoax; the whole thing had been staged and the families were acting. I just thought: 'How can people be saying this?'" ✂️ Speaking about the lawsuit, Lafferty wrote, "I think taking legal action against Jones did further open ourselves up to his very extreme audience. I feel like we had to put ourselves out there and continue taking hits from him and his followers in order to take back our lives and stories, but also to protect other people, which I think is the best way I ever could have chosen to honor my mom."
Defunding the Police Insurrectionist Lawyers
Along with lying, cheating, and bullying, republicans have elevated oath breaking to a required skill for any of their office holders or legal representatives. May the Bluebird of Comeuppance wreak havoc all over their Wheaties. Taking away skeevy lawyers bar privileges will probably result in Mehmet Oz having more competition selling snake oil. But at least they won’t be polluting the courts.
Slate: Dennis Aftergut, Lawrence H Tribe: How to Ensure Accountability for the Legal Foot Soldiers of Jan. 6
✂️ On Wednesday, five former New York State Bar presidents and other legal luminaries demonstrated their “commitment to just practice,” filing a disciplinary complaint in New York that seeks a bar investigation of Trump lawyer Kenneth Chesebro. The meticulously drafted complaint, written by Lawyers Defending American Democracy, aims to have Chesebro sanctioned for professional misconduct that he appears to have committed to facilitate Trump’s attempts to overturn the 2020 election. (Both authors have signed onto the complaint.)✂️ In joining the bar, lawyers take an oath to support the U.S. Constitution much like the one that Article VI of the Constitution requires of all public officials. Lawyers who betrayed that oath in ways that led to the deadly insurrection of Jan. 6 are no better than a physician who violates the Hippocratic Oath to “do no harm.” Though an extreme example, the case of Larry Nassar, who used the pretext of medicine to do irreparable injury by sexually abusing Olympic gymnasts, comes to mind. Medical authorities properly revoked Nassar’s license to practice medicine well before he pleaded guilty to criminal charges for assaulting young female athletes. The same should be true of attorneys facing criminal investigation for their roles in the Jan. 6 attack. Chesebro is not a household name, but he appears to have conspired with two Trump lawyers who are: Rudy Giuliani and John Eastman. In fact, Chesebro wrote the earliest memo discovered to date that laid out the twin Trump schemes to appoint fake “winning” electors in states he lost and to get then-Vice President Mike Pence to anoint them victorious on Jan. 6.
Andy speaks. Jones squeaks.
Is it satire? Or, is it a scoop?
The New Yorker: Satire from the Borowitz Report: Tucker Carlson Warns That Alex Jones’s Billion-Dollar Penalty Will Have Chilling Effect on Lying
WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report)—A Connecticut jury’s imposition of a billion-dollar penalty on Alex Jones will have a “chilling effect on lying,” Tucker Carlson warned. Choking back tears as he delivered his commentary, the Fox News host said that the jury’s decision “was no more and no less than a direct attack on the lying life style.” “For those of us who make our living by spreading falsehoods, baseless conspiracy theories, and extremist fever dreams, this is a time to be afraid,” he said. “Very afraid.” “I think I speak for many Fox viewers when I say I don’t want to live under a tyranny of facts,” he added.
No, really — Is Potato (Read headline using a strong Russian Accent)
Stephen Colbert does a recurring bit, where the punchline is, “Is Potato.” I have a mental image of him reporting this story that just won’t go away.
The humble potato, which contains a natural antibiotic that destroys harmful bacteria, could hold the key to beating hospital superbugs in the future, according to research from a multinational team of researchers in Europe. The compound, called solanimycin, combats a host of fungi that wreak havoc on crops. In these recent experiments, it killed Candida albicans, which causes possibly-dangerous infections, like thrush in women.✂️ The research team see the discovery as an encouraging sign that plant pathogens could be coaxed to make compounds that may be used not only against plant fungi in crops that have developed resistance to treatments, but also against the growing threat of antimicrobial resistance in humans. Musical Interlude Performing for Barack and Michelle, here’s Esperanza Spalding and her amazing bass with a jazzy On the Sunny Side of the Street.
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From Glastonbury in 2016, here’s Ukrainian band DakhaBrakha with Yanky. All I could find about the lyrics is this is a story about going to a market, purchasing some fruit, and possibly baking a pie, using an obscure dialect that might be from Western Ukraine. Online dictionaries translate “Yanky” as “Yankee” but I find that doubtful given the story context.
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Hypocrisy on Parade — A NNNE Special Report
As far as I can tell, every loyal republican has signed a personal copy of the hypocritic oath, obligating them to create and disseminate mind-numbingly stupid verbal pretzels of tortured logic and contradictory reasoning, using only nonsensical streams of word salad just to answer softball questions from the lineup of anti-democracy dotards shilling for Murdoch over at Fox News. It’s actually quite painful to watch.
Maybe there are contagious wild hypos living free in republican waters.
Outgoing Republican congressman, and one of the very few republicans with any remaining respect for democracy, Adam Kinzinger, made this statement in August, appearing on Meet the Press, "The hypocrisy of folks in my party that spent years chanting ‘lock her up’ about Hillary Clinton because of some deleted emails or quote unquote wiping a server are now out there defending a man who very clearly did not take the national security of the United States to heart.”
The twenty-one instances that follow are just a small sample of recent cases of egregious republican hypocrisy. I have not included any of the incoherent ravings of tfg (R-Hypocrite) or Herschel Walker (R-Hypocrite) as they would overwhelm all the other R-Hypocrites with the sheer volume of their constant contradictory idiocy. Republicans long, long, long, long ago passed a near infinite threshold, so it is now no longer possible to to even try to list all of their hypocritical transgressions.
Minority Leader, Mitch McConnell (R-Hypocrite), back when he was the Majority Leader insisted that his high principles would not allow him to bring Merrick Garland’s nomination to a floor vote, because a presidential election was only eight months away. Four years later, he pushed to get Amy Coney Barrett confirmed after early voting had already begun in 2020.
PA-15 Rep. Glenn Thompson (R-Hypocrite), voted against same sex marriage and three days later attended the same-sex wedding of his son.
TN-4 Rep. Scott DesJarlais (R-Hypocrite), vowed to oppose all abortion outright, also pressured his ex-wife to abort 2 pregnancies and pressured his mistress to have one as well.
Candidate for Arkansas governor and former tfg Press Secretary, Sarah Huckabee Sanders (R-Hypocrite), attempted to blame democrats for the abysmal Covid vaccine numbers in republican circles by claiming, completely out of context, “If President Biden, Vice President Harris, and others on the left truly care about increasing the vaccination rate and saving lives, they should admit they were wrong to cast doubt on Operation Warp Speed and give President Trump and his team the credit.”
SC Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-Hypocrite), in 2016 told us, “I want you to use my words against me... If there’s a Republican president in 2016 and a vacancy occurs in the last year of the first term, you can say Lindsey Graham said, ‘Let’s let the next president, whoever it might be, make that nomination.’” In 2018 he said, “If an opening comes in the last year of President Trump’s term, and the primary process has started, we’ll wait to the next election.” Less than 24 hours after Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s death, he tweeted “I will support President @realDonaldTrump in any effort to move forward regarding the recent vacancy created by the passing of Justice Ginsburg.” (Yes, this is technically a repeat of the McConnell entry. It deserves the repetition because of the yeoman like work Lindsey did to one up Mitch’s flagrancy.)
Former White House Chief of Staff, Mark Meadows (R-Hypocrite), has not shut up about widespread voter fraud since the 2020 election. He and his wife voted in the 2020 election using the address of a mobile home in North Carolina where they did not live, own, or possibly ever enter.
Former Vice President Mike Pence (R-Hypocrite) whined about Hillary Clinton using private e-mail. While Governor of Indiana, he used his own private e-mail for state business. He used his personal AOL account to communicate with top advisers on such topics as security gates at the governor’s residence and the state’s response to terror attacks. In one email, Pence received an update from the FBI regarding the arrests of several men on federal terror-related charges. Pence was informed AOL was an insecure platform for receiving such confidential information. Then his account was hacked.
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Hypocrite and professional dunderhead), claimed it is “completely unfair” to forgive student loans up to $20,000. She personally had $183,504 of her debt forgiven. She is one of many republican debtors who had their loans forgiven that rail against student loan forgiveness.
Former Attorney General William P Barr (R-Hypocrite) denounced mail-in voting, and voted by mail-in ballot.
Texas State Rep. Bryan Slaton (R-Hypocrite), claims to be “pro-life”. He is not only in favor of the death penalty, he tried to make abortion a death penalty crime for both the women involved and the doctors who perform the procedure.
Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee (R-Hypocrite) refused to push Covid vaccinations in Tennessee. He attempted to convince people the Covid vaccine isn’t worth it, and was ineffective. He claimed government has no role to play in vaccinations. At the same time, he spent half a million dollars of state money on vaccines … for cattle. Tennessee went on to became one of the worst Covid hotspots in the country.
Florida Governor, Ron DeSantis (R-Hypocrite), referring to himself “DeSanta Claus”, tried to take credit for $5.5 million in infrastructure funding for rural Florida communities. The money came from the American Rescue Plan which he called “Washington at its worst.”
Republican Senators Josh Hawley (R-Hypocrite), Ted Cruz (R-Hypocrite), and Tom Cotton (R-Hypocrite) run around accusing and demonizing liberals for being “coastal elites.” Each of them holds two degrees from elite, coastal universities.
Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin (R-Hypocrite), claims to be fighting to “better” the state of Virginia’s public schools. His son goes to private school… in Maryland. He said he wants to protect “the sanctity of life” while he forced schools to remove mask mandates, attacked access to health care, attempted to ban lifesaving medicine, and did just about everything possible to spread Covid, suppressed any form of gun control. Everything he has done or attempted to do so far is a threat to life.
The RNC (R-Stupidity * of Hypocrites) spent 3 days at one of their recent events rhapsodizing about how great guns are, and how “gun free zones” are a danger to America, freedom, and civilization. They banned guns from the convention. Not one republican politician raised an issue with the ban.
Former governor of South Carolina, Nikki Haley (R-Hypocrite) whined Biden should not have asked for participation from China with sanctions against Russia regarding Ukraine, because you don’t ask “enemies” to fight against other “enemies.” She herself asked China for help passing sanctions on North Korea during her time as UN ambassador.
Minority Leader Rep Kevin McCarthy (R-Hypocrite), Rep Elise Stefanik (R-Hypocrite), Sen Ted Cruz (R-Hypocrite), are just a few of the army of republicans who have criticized Biden for spending $1.9 trillion on the American Rescue Plan. They claimed it increased the deficit and is tanking the US economy. The previous year they voted in favor of two bills, totaling $3 trillion in Covid relief spending, signed by tfg. Those things republicans claimed as risks to our economy, are widely viewed by professional economists as having been of minimal impact. Also, remember tfg, aka “The King of Debt”, promised he would reduce the national debt. Those republican tax cuts for the rich made it surge.
Candidate for Wisconsin governor, Tim Michels (R-Hypocrite), is running an anti-immigrant campaign railing against, a path to citizenship, drivers’ licenses, earned health benefits, and education of immigrant children. In 2007-2008 he was the president of the board of the Wisconsin Transportation Builders Association. They lobbied against a bill that would have penalized companies that hire undocumented workers by barring them from government contracts, tax breaks, or loans. In other words, he supports the wholesale exploitation of undocumented workers while simultaneously wanting to make their lives even more difficult.
Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost (R-Hypocrite) accused democrats of making up a story about a 10 year old rape victim and her need to travel to another state to receive an abortion. He claimed they created her story as a political ploy. When he found out she did exist, he used her story as a tactic in his very own political ploy.
tfg backed candidate for Secretary of State in Arizona, Mark Finchem (R-Hypocrite), said “I don’t care for mail-in voting. That’s why I go to the polls.” He voted by mail in 28 of the past 30 elections.
Last, but by no means least: 147 Republican members of Congress (140 House members and 7 senators) (R-Stupidity of Hypocrites) objected to the 2020 electoral college votes. They objected to the results of the election in swing states, but only in the presidential election. If the ballots were actually fraudulent, all results should have faced objections. Many of the (R-Stupidity of Hypocrites) members objecting to the vote, were themselves elected on the same ballots.
*The collective noun for a group of republican hypocrites** is a “stupidity.” Not surprisingly, the collective noun for a group of republican politicians is also a “stupidity.” Likewise for a group of MAGAot faithful.
**Democrats don’t have groups of hypocrites. We do our hypocrisy individually, like Dog intended.
Please feel free add further examples of republican hypocrisy in the comments section.
Instrumental Bridge
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On the Lighter Side
h/t Carla in Sequim
h/t freemark
Quote(s) of the Day
The republican recipe for life was recognized and disparaged long before republicans existed.
Good people do not need laws to tell them to act responsibly, while bad people will find a way around the laws. — Plato For there is no defense for a man who, in the excess of his wealth, has kicked the great altar of Justice out of sight. — Aeschylus
From then till now, love is a liberal constant.
Of all the varieties of virtues, liberalism is the most beloved. — Aristotle When the power of love overcomes the love of power the world will know peace. — Jimi Hendrix
Closing Notes
From the New Year’s Eve show in 1978, here’s a cover of Bobby Womack’s It’s All Over Now (you probably remember the Rolling Stones version).
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