The state of the republican party

I am complaining about the hypocrisy and double standards. The police kneel on Tony Timpa while he is high on drugs and he dies, there is little outrage. The police kneel on George Floyd while he is high on drugs and he dies and there are riots for a year, billions in damage, four officers charged with murder, and it is all the left can talk about. Both were on video. One was white, one was black.

California had lockdowns and the Governor has recently started talking about a new round of lockdowns since the recall was defeated.

You must have missed the part where I said both parties are garbage. The bullshit the Democrats do is more harmful to me personally, but I don't support either of them.

 

Why is George Floyd’s murder a Democrat thing? Why wouldn’t anyone be outraged by someone being murdered by a cop unnecessarily?

I’m sorry but if you think that way you obviously are a heavy consumer of FoxNews right wing propaganda and I don’t really see any evidence that independence as a voter is achievable in that circumstance.

Like having the take that Democrats are terrible because they want to keep people safe so that the economy will not collapse when our hospital system buckles, but not mentioning how Republicans are openly saying they want to shut down the government just because which will have real economic implications … just shows you certainly are not projecting the independence you then demand when you are pressed just an ounce. Any unbiased nonpartisan would view public health measures as vital to economic well-being, and certainly everyone… Democrats, Independents, and most Republicans should believe that not unnecessarily shutting down the government for pure partisan theatrics is even more vital. If you were a true independent, you would be outraged.

 

Republicans can be summed up as "Me First" in their thinking. It is a selfish mantra.

DD

 

First, I don't believe he was murdered. I covered that to death in the George Floyd thread though. Second, as I said, it was about the double standard. Why was his death more significant to people than Tony Timpa's death, who died in pretty much exactly the same fashion? Can you find any difference between the two? I only see one difference, and the fact that that difference cause such dramatically different reactions is gross.

LOL, I don't even have cable. I have never been a regular consumer of Fox News and haven't seen a single program from the channel in probably a decade. Go on with your assumptions though.

The economy collapsed because of the lockdowns. The states that did the best economically were the ones with the least COVID restrictions, not the most. Sadly, the debt ceiling will be raised without issue and the government will go on borrowing and spending like money is meaningless. This is all theater, like it was every other time the debt ceiling was made a pretend issue. They should have refused to raise the debt ceiling decades ago, and we would not have a multi trillion dollar debt.

 

Almost nothing in here is right.

The state of the Republican party.

 

Do you want to take a bet now on the Republicans forcing a shut down? Have you ever met this Senator from Texas named Ted Cruz? Also I'd love to see the evidence that Mississippi, Alabama, Texas, and Florida somehow had flourishing economies the past 2 years in contrast to California and New York. Please enlighten me with that data.

Also is there any difference between FoxNews and whatever right wing site that you get your talking points from? If you have no source of information as you allude to then how do you even know who Tony Timpa is? How are you so aware of how terrible the Democrats are?? The Houston Chronicle and Time Magazine? Your weekly Knights of Columbus meeting?

The whole "I'm really and independent so you should take me seriously" bit is very overdone. It's very Jopat/Bobbythegreat like. Just own what you believe and stop playing games.

 

https://news.yahoo.com/lockdown-sta...e-florida-new-covid-data-shows-153025163.html

 

Forcing a temporaty shutdown? No. Refusing to raise the debt ceiling? I'll take that bet. Florida and Texas both had lower COVID unemployment and faster job recovery than California and New York (I used New York State Unemployment Rate and Total Unemployed | Department of Numbers (deptofnumbers.com), but they are using public data). This even though California of course benefits from having silicon valley, so all the people forced to stay at home fed into profits for the likes of Amazon and UberEats, and more people can work from home at Google than at most businesses across the country. New York has the NYSE and most of the banking sector, both of which benefit from passive income over working.

I get most of my news from NPR. Occasionally I'll check out Rachel Maddow clips on YouTube (I disagree with her politics, but she is a very good anchor). I know who Tony Timpa is because of research I did during the George Floyd controversy, because I was quite certain other people had died while restrained during arrest and thought it was likely at least one was on video.

I'm libertarian, registered no party preference. None of that has any bearing on whether I should be taken seriously, it just means that I don't carry water for either party.

 

OPINION
The new big lie Republicans want you to believe? That there's a puppeteer at the White House.

Nobody is cutting off Biden's mic or dictating his decisions. The fictional conservative narrative contradicts what people can see for themselves.
Jill Lawrence
USA TODAY

5% of Americans in their 70s have dementia. There’s no reason to assume Joe Biden is one of them, unless you’re looking for political ammunition.

Casual ageism is a staple of the conservative arsenal against the president, and it would be laughable except that it’s so insulting – not just to him but to two generations of seniors. Like the “big lie” that Donald Trump actually won the 2020 election and will be reinstated as president any day now, we now have the big lie that Biden, at 78, is muddled and incapacitated.

A relative told me he’s worried about the country because Biden just naps and watches TV all day, and no one is in charge. And where might he have heard that? Well, Tucker Carlson says Biden is senile and can’t think clearly. Sean Hannity calls him “President Sippy Cup” and says he’s lazy. A few days ago, he reamed Biden for “enjoying another long weekend off in Delaware” instead of “working around the clock” at a command center to secure the release of Americans and allies still in Afghanistan. (I guess Hannity's not familiar yet with the concept of remote work.)

This is a puppeteer act'
In a hospital waiting room last week with the TV tuned to Fox News, I happened to catch the truly weird clip of Idaho Sen. Jim Risch trying to get Secretary of State Antony Blinken to admit Biden is controlled by someone authorized to turn off his mic to shut him up.

“He can’t even speak without someone in the White House censoring it or signing off on it. As recently as yesterday, in mid-sentence, he was cut off by someone in the White House who makes the decision that the president of the United States is not speaking correctly. I would like to know who this person is. This is a puppeteer act,” Risch said at a hearing on Afghanistan.

Blinken could barely suppress his amusement as Risch repeatedly demanded to know the identity of the mystery puppet master, and Blinken repeatedly replied that Biden is running his own White House.

Risch: “The media showed the American people his sentence was cut off in mid-sentence. Are you saying that didn’t happen?”

Blinken: “I really don’t know what you’re referring to. All I can tell you is … the president very much speaks for himself.”

Risch: “He does speak for himself but what happens when somebody doesn’t want him speaking?”

Blinken: “Senator, I’m telling you based on my own experience with the president over the last 20 years, heh, anyone who tried to stop him from saying what he wanted to say, speaking his mind, would probably not be long for their job.”

Here I should note that Risch, like Biden, is 78. And that I, like Blinken, would have been in the dark if not for that waiting room TV tuned to Fox News.

The big mystery turned out to be one of the “pool sprays” routinely listed on Biden’s advance schedule – a time when photographers get their video and stills at the start of a private event and then leave, at which point the audio and video feeds end. Inside the conservative media bubble, this blew up and inflamed the right’s narrative about Biden's acuity.

When Biden delayed his first news conference to March, there was endless speculation about what shortcomings it might reveal. The answer was few if any. He was crisp (for him) and knowledgeable and mostly kept his temper. He gave a major speech Tuesday to the United Nations General Assembly and the delivery went fine. (One clue: Republicans went after him on substance, not style.)

Conservative 'concerns' are overblown
The age-related conservative offensive reprises the blatant psychological projection of the Trump era: attributing his worst traits to someone else and weaponizing them. Trump set many hours aside to tweet and watch TV in the residence ("executive time”) and made nearly 300 trips to his own golf clubs and resorts. So Trump and his defenders claim Biden shirks his job and takes long vacations.

Likewise, the attacks on Biden's capacities are rooted in the many questions about Trump's. The former president's disordered speech drew attention from experts who said it reflected cognitive decline. He himself has never stopped marveling at his “amazing” performance on a cognitive test in 2018 (best captured by comedian Sarah Cooper). Trump bragged about the test on the 2020 campaign trail and was still bragging in Texas this summer: “I aced it. And I’d like to see Biden ace it. He won’t ace it.”

That was around the time Trump’s former White House doctor, now in Congress, demanded Biden take the test based on a few minor memory slips dating to March 2020. Conservatives have also latched on to video of Biden tripping on a stairway. And the New York Post editorialized in June that his remarks on gun violence were confusing and horrifying and said he seemed exhausted.

But a transcript of the event suggests those concerns were overblown. And no, despite a distorted edit on TikTok, Biden did not say COVID vaccines offer protection from hurricanes; he sensibly advised people to get vaccinated to reduce their COVID risk in the event hurricanes forced them to evacuate or go to shelters.

It’s a fact that Biden is the oldest newly inaugurated president we’ve ever had. But it’s also a fact that everyone has memory lapses, more often as they age, and that’s not the same as dementia. It's true as well that Biden occasionally goes awkwardly off script, or gets testy, or mangles sentences, but he has been doing all that for decades.

Attacking Biden for his age seems like a strange way to court the baby boom and silent generations, especially since they voted more Republican than Democratic in 2020 and Trump – age 75 – may well run again in 2024.

More fundamentally, the tactic is out of whack with reality. I mean, what are you going to believe, Fox News or your own eyes?

 

And, in general... given the party transition into full lies without shames over the past few years

 

Exactly!

 

News alert: Water is wet.

Congress has been filled with clowns for centuries. Now, we are just more aware of what clowns they are since communications aren't as constricted.

The more embarrassing part is that we are more aware of what clowns they are, yet we still elect them! I guess that also makes us more aware of how ignorant the electorate is....

 

I was about to bring up Lord Buckethead in UK Parliament. The purpose of the large legislative body as representatives isn't with the purpose of having the most eloquent, and experienced people in government. It's to allow people to elect accurate representatives of themselves in their local areas. If this is how Georgians want to be represented so be it. Where I have a problem is when the people of Georgia choose something else, but still have this type of clown forced on them like I have forced on me here in Texas because of Gerrymandering, and corrupting at the highest levels of the Texas government.