Jump to content

BarryLaverty

Members
  • Posts

    14,762
  • Joined

  • Last visited

  • Days Won

    9

BarryLaverty last won the day on February 24 2023

BarryLaverty had the most liked content!

Recent Profile Visitors

2,123 profile views

BarryLaverty's Achievements

Grand Master

Grand Master (13/15)

  • Dedicated Rare
  • First Post
  • Collaborator
  • Posting Machine Rare
  • Reacting Well Rare

Recent Badges

3.3k

Reputation

  1. First, I condemn Olbermann for clearly inferring that he is hopeful that Trump may be killed. I condemn all violence in the name of politics or protests. Always have and always will. Second, Olbermann speaks for the 'party' as much as the worst racists out there who vote Republican do. I don't even hold Trump against most Republicans I know, although if you vote for Abbott or Dan Patrick, or Ken Paxton, I do have a bone to pick with your overall concern for this state. Trump is his own energy, and however vile and negative and hateful he may be, I don't think he should be killed or that all think the same way he does. Clearly too many do, as he will be the nominee, but I will still keep those people as friends and neighbors I hope long after he has faded into a footnote.
  2. It's not lying, at all. It's a response to the long history of Trump making threatening comments and trying to crawfish away from them or have apologists like yourself give him cover. People aren't so stupid that they can't pick up on inference if it is even that.
  3. Disagree with that wholeheartedly, this case aside, from professional and personal insight!
  4. BECAUSE: ‘Bloodbath’ aside, Trump’s violent rhetoric is unambiguous Trump has already warned of “riots,” “violence in the streets” and “death & destruction” if he’s wronged. All of that context is vital. (Washington Post) Analysis by Aaron Blake Staff writer March 18, 2024 at 12:42 p.m. EDT In an interview with Donald Trump that aired over the weekend, Fox News host Howard Kurtz presented Trump with a not-exactly-novel theory: that Trump uses “over the top, sometimes inflammatory language” to draw attention. Cut through the 2024 election noise. Get The Campaign Moment newsletter. Trump conceded that “if you don’t use certain words, that maybe are not very nice words, nothing will happen.” The weekend provided ample evidence of that dynamic, particularly when Trump invited yet another tempest with his violent rhetoric. This time, he warned of a “bloodbath” if he loses in November. Trump’s allies claim he’s being taken out of context and unfairly attacked. To recap: Appearing at a rally in Ohio, Trump riffed on his proposal for a 100 percent tariff on Chinese-made cars to protect the U.S. auto industry. “Now, if I don’t get elected,” Trump continued, “it’s going to be a bloodbath for the whole — that’s going to be the least of it. It’s going to be a bloodbath for the country.” Here’s what we can say: Trump might indeed have been speaking metaphorically in this case. But the broader context here is vital. And that context is that Trump has repeatedly invoked the prospect of actual violence by his supporters while speaking about similar circumstances — his losing or facing criminal accountability, for example. We also saw a pronounced example of his supporters seizing on his rhetoric when they stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. Which makes it much more difficult to dismiss the “bloodbath” comment as overheated rhetoric. Trump is, at the very least, deliberately playing with fire. And this is merely the most recent example. Trump backers and even some conservative Trump critics dismissed the comment as, more or less, standard-issue political rhetoric. Some suggested that Trump was merely talking about a “bloodbath” for the auto industry (even though Trump was clearly saying the “bloodbath” would extend beyond that industry). Regardless, a focus on the one word misses the point. It’s not that this isolated comment is particularly egregious; it’s that it’s merely the latest example of this kind of rhetoric. And it’s often more direct: Trump in 2016 said that if he were denied the Republican presidential nomination at the GOP convention, “I think you’d have riots.” Trump in November 2020 responded to an adverse ruling by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court by saying it would “induce violence in the streets.” (Trump later expanded, saying, “Bad things will happen, and bad things lead to other type things. It’s a very dangerous thing for our country.”) Trump in March 2023 warned of “potential death & destruction” if he were charged by the Manhattan district attorney. He also mocked those who urged his supporters to stay peaceful, saying, “OUR COUNTRY IS BEING DESTROYED, AS THEY TELL US TO BE PEACEFUL!” Trump warned in August 2023, after the search of Mar-a-Lago, that “terrible things are going to happen.” He later promoted a comment from Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) that there would be “riots in the streets” if Trump were charged. Trump in January warned of “bedlam in the country” if the criminal charges against him succeeded. Days earlier, he also warned of efforts to remove him from the ballot using the 14th Amendment, saying: “Because if we don’t [get treated fairly], our country’s in big, big trouble. Does everybody understand what I’m saying? I think so.” And this doesn’t even account for the many, many examples of his alluding more suggestively to righteous violence by his supporters. He does this a lot. Sometimes it’s direct; sometimes it’s veiled and carries with it the plausible deniability that he craves. But is it really ridiculous to suggest that the guy who warned of “riots,” “violence in the streets” and “death & destruction” if he were wronged might be gesturing in that direction again? Of course not. More than that, history gives weight to comments like this. And that history includes Trump’s supporters turning violent after the 2020 election — and after they appeared to interpret his comments as encouragement. At a 2020 presidential debate, Trump was asked to repudiate violence by white supremacists and the Proud Boys. Trump responded by telling the Proud Boys not to “stand down,” as had been suggested, but to “stand back and stand by.” That set off a fuss similar to the one we see today, with Trump allies and media critics asserting that this was much ado about nothing — just some awkward phrasing! Trump and his White House resisted calls to clarify for days. Months later, the Proud Boys — who in real time appeared to interpret Trump’s comments as a call to action — played a central role in the Capitol insurrection. Also interpreting Trump’s various comments as a call to action, according to their legal defenses: many other Jan. 6 defendants. With that kind of history, it’s certainly a choice for Trump to keep talking like this. And there was even a time when Republicans worried about what Trump might be fomenting. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) said explicitly in April 2016 that Trump, even at that point, had “a consistent pattern of inciting violence.” Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), in dropping out of the race, directly linked Trump’s rhetoric to violent and angry clashes in Chicago after a Trump rally was postponed. “The broader anger that now exists in the American political discourse is a direct result of the fact that words have consequences,” Rubio said. “That when you run for President of the United States or if you are President of the United States … you can’t just take on the attitude that I’m going to say whatever I want.” Rubio added: “You can’t say whatever you want. It has real-life consequences for people in this country, and all over the world. And we’re starting to see it bear out.” Rubio’s warning, in particular, is applicable to what we see today. Trump has shown no sign of moderating his rhetoric despite the example of Jan. 6. Whether he’s doing it to merely provoke, because he wants to warn his critics, or because he actually wants his supporters to be ready to rise up, that doesn’t change the fact that it can be dangerous — in a way that Trump, those around him and even his many defenders must know. You can argue that one comment is being blown out of proportion. But the track record here is clear.
  5. Nope. How about you? What was your triggering moment that led to your DEI/CRT/ESG crusade? Could you share with us your trauma?
  6. Why is there such a purposeful obliviousness to Trump's lack of sanity and his sheer narcissism?
  7. Says the man who regularly fills this board with every right wing talking point, every culture war cause, every scrap of dogma, full of acronyms animosity. I can barely see your lips move when you puppet every word whispered in your ear. You are the supreme gaslighting poster with that comment. Respond or don't to Trump's duplicity. I don't care, either way.
  8. Spare me your deflection and your gaslighting. Everyone knows that mobsters speak in code.
  9. Always money to be made and ulterior motives. It's about what's best for HIM. (NY Times) What Trump’s TikTok Flip-Flop Tells America March 17, 2024, 9:00 a.m. ET By David French Opinion Columnist When the House of Representatives voted overwhelmingly last Wednesday to pass a bill that would require TikTok to divest its Chinese ownership or face an American ban, it provided a glimmer of hope in a dreary political time. This is exactly what a nation should do when it’s getting serious about the national security threat posed by the People’s Republic of China. It makes no strategic sense for America to permit one of its chief foreign adversaries to exercise control over an app that both vacuums up the personal information of its more than 150 million American users and gives that adversary the opportunity to shape and mold the information those users receive. Indeed, in one of the more astonishing public relations blunders in modern memory, TikTok made its critics’ case for them when it urged users to contact Congress to save the app. The resulting flood of angry calls demonstrated exactly how TikTok can trigger a public response and gave the lie to the idea that the app did not have clear (and essentially instantaneous) political influence. Moreover, the vote demonstrated that it’s still possible to forge something approaching a foreign policy consensus on at least some issues. When a threat becomes big enough — and obvious enough — the American government can still act. Or can it? The bill is now slowing down in the Senate, and there is real doubt whether it will pass. The app, after all, is phenomenally popular, and Congress is not often in the business of restricting popular things. But there’s another reason to question the bill’s prospects. And it not only threatens this particular piece of legislation, but also is yet another indication of the high stakes of the 2024 election: Donald Trump has abruptly flip-flopped from supporting the TikTok ban to opposing it — and that flip-flop is more important than most people realize. First, Trump’s flip-flop demonstrates once again the futility of ascribing any kind of coherent ideology to the former president. Before Trump’s change of heart, one could argue that being “tough on China” was one of the fixed stars of his MAGA policy constellation. Yes, Trump was prone to say nice things about China’s authoritarian leader, Xi Jinping. But he also began a trade war with China, and he even drafted his own 2020 executive order to banTikTok, a clumsy effort that failed in court. Second, the flip-flop indicates that Trump’s positions may well be for sale, even when they threaten national security. What changed between Trump’s 2020 executive order against TikTok and his 2024 support for TikTok? After all, as the platform has grown in popularity, it’s only become more dangerous to American interests. Yet Trump’s change of heart came shortly after he “repaired” his relationship with a Republican megadonor named Jeff Yass, whose firm has a multibillion-dollar stake in TikTok and who has donated millions to Republicans who oppose the ban. This comes at a time when Trump is facing hundreds of millions of dollars in legal judgments, a financial vulnerability that, as MSNBC’s Chris Hayes smartly argued, makes him perhaps prone to sell his political positions for cash. Finally, Trump’s reversal reveals that his real enemy is always the domestic enemy. As The Dispatch’s Nick Catoggio wrote last Thursday: “Populist-nationalism is about asserting tribal preeminence over other domestic tribes. And so it prioritizes fighting the enemy within.” In this context, the “enemy within” is Mark Zuckerberg and the “deep state.” And indeed that is Trump’s explanation for the flip-flop. Last week he posted, in all caps, on Truth Social, “TIKTOK IS LESS OF A DANGER TO THE USA THAN META (FACEBOOK!), WHICH IS A TRUE ENEMY OF THE PEOPLE.” For Trump, everything is always a zero-sum analysis. Banning TikTok would strengthen Meta, in Trump’s mind, and he would rather side with China than with Zuckerberg. Of course, many of Trump’s most reliable allies followed his lead to conjure up all of MAGA’s most despised domestic demons. The Federalist’s Sean Davis, for example, posted on X that “Deep State toadies are taking advantage of anti-China sentiment to transfer TikTok’s surveillance apparatus from China’s evil surveillance state to the U.S. government’s evil surveillance state.” Donald Trump Jr. placed blamed for the effort to ban TikTok on both of MAGA’s great enemies, the “Establishment” and “Big Tech.” Catoggio correctly observed, “It speaks volumes” that “Trump felt safe politically allying himself with China on a pressing issue in an election year so long as he framed his position in terms of greater antipathy to one of the right’s domestic enemies, Big Tech. On this specific issue, there is still hope. Unlike when Trump came out against Republican Senator James Lankford’s border bill, the G.O.P. did not immediately adopt Trump’s position en masse. An overwhelming majority of Republicans voted for the bill, and it remains to be seen whether G.O.P. senators will once again wilt under Trump’s gaze. But my alarm about Trump is much less about this one bill than about what his position says about his potential presidency. Last week, I wrote a column urging Reagan conservatives and Haley Republicans to vote for Joe Biden. The withering reaction from some on the right demonstrated the extent to which many Republicans still possess the mistaken belief that Trump possesses conservative convictions. How many times does he have to demonstrate that his personal grievances and perceived self-interest will always override ideology or policy? My core argument wasn’t that Biden was conservative, but rather that Trump was sprinting so fast and so far from Reagan conservatism that it was no longer clear that another Trump presidency would be a better fit for Reagan conservatives than a second Biden term. Given MAGA’s outright hostility to traditional conservatives, any members of that cohort who vote for Trump are essentially voting for their own extinction. Trump’s TikTok flip-flop demonstrates the point with extraordinary precision. Biden has said he’d sign the TikTok bill. Trump now opposes it. On yet another confrontation between American national security and an authoritarian foreign adversary, Biden sides with American interests and Trump aligns with our foe.
  10. Tee hee. Yeah, it's hilarious when he rants about bloodbaths and immigrants not being people and says that if he doesn't win that there will never be another election. Oh, he's such a fun and funny man.
  11. Not often I get to see straight running crazy up this close!
  12. Many of you, especially @Monte1076 carry water like dupes for the shadow groups that drive 'issues' and cost us all. Billionaires control your thoughts. https://www.yahoo.com/news/emails-show-wing-group-steers-055529621.html Emails show how a right-wing group steers GOP leaders on major policy issues Daniel Medina and Bob Ortega, CNN Sun, March 17, 2024 When Missouri Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft jumped into the state’s gubernatorial race last year, the Republican vowed to tackle a slew of culture war issues, promising to fight the “woke politics” of “left-wing” banks and touting how he used his position to enact a regulation targeting those financial firms. Ashcroft also said candidates shouldn’t focus on issues that let the one percent “force their beliefs on 99 percent of the population.” While Ashcroft positioned himself as a champion for working class voters, emails obtained by CNN and the progressive watchdog group Documented show that he was steered toward adopting his “anti-woke” investment regulation by a little-known, right-wing think tank with deep ties to conservative billionaires. The communications show that officials with the Foundation for Government Accountability suggested regulatory language to Ashcroft and even wrote an op-ed article that Ashcroft published in a national conservative magazine under his own name. The emails not only reveal FGA’s influence over Ashcroft, they offer a snapshot of the group’s growing influence across the country, particularly in red states. And that influence can carry a high cost for workers and taxpayers. The “anti-woke” investment measures have cost states hundreds of millions of dollars in additional investment fees and can lead to smaller returns for public employee retirement plans. One study estimated a 2021 Texas law would cost taxpayers up to $500 million in higher interest rates just on bonds sold in the first eight months after the law passed. Another study calculated that the law cost local governments $270 million a year in added fees, resulting in an annual $668 million in lost economic activity and thousands of full-time jobs. Along with attacking “woke” investing, FGA has worked with legislators and elected officials to push for laws to deregulate child labor, stop Medicaid expansion and slash food stamps, among other initiatives. Since the 2020 presidential election, the group also has played a key role in the push to advance voting restrictions and other legislation pitched as promoting election integrity in Republican states – claiming more than 70 such policy wins across the country in 2022 alone. In Wyoming, a GOP state senator forwarded an FGA draft bill to Secretary of State Chuck Gray that would prohibit sending out unsolicited absentee ballot request forms. “This is great!” Gray enthusiastically replied. It sailed through the legislature before the state’s Republican governor scuttled the measure, angering Gray. “The Governor just vetoed the absentee ballot request form bill. Very troubling,” he wrote to an FGA contact in an email. The group’s communications with Ashcroft and Gray, neither of whom responded to questions from CNN, give a rare glimpse into how billionaire megadonors use think tanks like FGA to advance their causes out of public view. Federal tax laws allow such donors to channel millions of dollars anonymously, through nonprofit foundations, to activist organizations that lobby for and work behind the scenes to enact legislation that reflects partisan political goals. FGA enjoys tax-exempt status as a charitable organization. It received more than $44 million from six conservative foundations tied to billionaire donors from 2013 through 2022, the most recent year for which tax records are available. Those foundations also have financedmuch of the push to tighten voting laws and spread election disinformation across the country since the 2020 election. But even though FGA’s tax-exempt status requires it not to engage in “substantial” lobbying, the group has closely coordinated with a variety of state officials and legislators to advance their causes. Its push in Missouri shows how that approach works. ‘Give this a 30-second glance over’ Last spring, before Missouri legislators considered bills to curb “woke” investing, FGA officials were already in frequent contact on the issue with at least two of the state’s top officials – including Ashcroft. Emails show the group strategized with the secretary of state’s office for weeks leading up to Ashcroft proposing his own such rule last January. FGA later cited Missouri’s rule as a model in a draft memo titled, “What Secretaries of State Can Do to Challenge the Threat of ESG.” ESG refers to a financial strategy that considers the environmental, social and governance effects of an investment, rather than solely the potential profit. Dubbed “woke investing” by its critics on the right, it has become a wedge issue in modern culture wars. Conservative activist groups have gotten lawmakers and officials in 17 states to pass investment laws to protect fossil fuel companies and gun manufacturers who might be hurt by ESG considerations. FGA has characterized the fight to stop ESG in existential terms, calling it a “far-left” plot to advance a climate and social justice agenda outside the ballot box. Ashcroft’s rule in Missouri required financial advisers and institutions to obtain written consent from clients to purchase or sell investments based on social or non-financial objectives, such as combating or considering the impact of climate change. Ashcroft said the rule was intended to serve as a template for the state legislature, where Republicans held large majorities in both chambers. But at the legislature, business interests like the Missouri Chamber of Commerce pushed backhard, and lawmakers failed to pass any anti-ESG bills. Meanwhile, Ashcroft’s collaboration with FGA carried on. The group even drafted and sent an op-ed to his staff. It criticized President Joe Biden’s veto of a GOP bill in Congress that would have prevented pension fund managers from considering factors like climate change in investment decisions, emails to Ashcroft’s office show. That op-ed was submitted nearly verbatim to the National Review, a leading conservative magazine. “Here’s the full edited version National Review sent to me, if Jay wants to give this a 30-second glance over,” an FGA official wrote to an Ashcroft staffer. The piece was published under Ashcroft’s byline the next day. He then promoted the articleas part of his efforts to fight what he called “woke politics.” A week later, he announced his candidacy for governor and has made fighting “woke politics” a major theme of his campaign. Ashcroft said his rule is intended to protect investors, and that ESG policies can threaten people’s retirement money. However, nonpartisan studies have concluded that anti-ESG policies adopted in Texas drove up the cost to taxpayers of bond issuances by up to $500 million in less than a year. In Kansas, Indiana and elsewhere, anti-ESG bills were gutted after studies suggested they could cost state pension plans billions of dollars by restricting investment options. Paying more for bonds can force governments to seek revenue elsewhere – such as raising taxes or cutting public services, said Daniel Garrett, a University of Pennsylvania finance professor who co-authored a Brookings Institution study that looked at Texas. Similarly, lower returns for state pension funds can pose risks for workers and retirees. “If the returns fall, that money comes from somewhere,” said Garrett. “It’s not just magic.” Heritage fellow says ESG worse than communism In late 2022, Missouri’s then-treasurer, Scott Fitzpatrick, pulled $500 million in state pension funds from BlackRock, the world’s largest asset manager. He accused BlackRock of forcing Exxon to cut oil and gas production by helping elect “climate radicals” onto its board. Florida pulled $2 billion from BlackRock two months after Missouri. “Kneecapping domestic energy production is a disaster waiting to happen,” Fitzpatrick, who is now the state auditor, told CNN in an interview. “Any policy that essentially seeks to drive up the cost of energy is going to affect the people of Missouri and it’s going to hit the poor people hardest.” But there’s little, if any, evidence of such kneecapping. The three “radicals” BlackRock voted to put on Exxon’s board consisted of two former oil company executives and a former US assistant Secretary of Energy. And while Exxon did cut production in 2021, it did so for the same reason as other oil companies worldwide – because of huge drops in consumer demand during the Covid-19 pandemic. Fitzpatrick told CNN that he, too, met with FGA officials to discuss the issue – and engaged with FGA allies such as the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) and the Heritage Foundation. Both groups have produced model anti-ESG bills and held events to persuade lawmakers to take up the “anti-woke” corporate fight. Fitzpatrick said he heard from Heritage fellow Andy Puzder, the former Carls Jr. CEO, “who speaks very well about the issue and whose message I agree with.” Puzder has promoted fighting these investment policies in various venues, including at a December 2022 legislative exchange council meeting in Washington. He told lawmakers that “ESG investing is socialism in sheep’s clothing,” according to a recording first reported by the Boston public-radio station WBUR. “The challenge of your generation is ESG investing, and it’s more insidious than communism or the Nazis.” Wisconsin state Rep. Kristina Shelton, a Democrat, remembers that meeting well, because none of the lawmakers seemed to know what ESG was or what Puzder was talking about. “You could see all the attendees pull out their phones to Google what it was,” she said. “You could see in real time them being spoon-fed issues.” An ALEC spokesperson confirmed that a model bill aimed at preventing state pension funds from considering “environmental, social, political or other “non-pecuniary” considerations “is official ALEC model policy.” A Heritage Foundation spokesperson, in an email, said “we are extremely proud of our anti-ESG work and we are grateful to Mr. Puzder and everyone in the conservative movement who is standing firm in this fight.” Missouri’s legislature considered more than a dozen anti-ESG bills last year, including drafts along the lines of models promoted by FGA, Heritage and ALEC. When none passed, Ashcroft was ready. His industry-wide written-consent rule took effect in June, placing Missouri squarely at the forefront of one of several burgeoning campaigns on the right where FGA has been instrumental. While FGA accomplished its policy goal in Missouri, the backlash was swift. A Wall Street trade group sued to block Ashcroft’s regulation and taxpayers are footing the bill for his defense at the tune of an estimated $1.2 million. FGA notches wins with weakened child labor laws FGA’s lobbying group, The Opportunity Solutions Project, spearheads its efforts at the state level. Together, they have at least 65 registered lobbyists who advocate and testify on behalf of FGA’s policies in 25 states, according to a 2023 tally compiled by Documented. One policy they’ve promoted with surprising success is in rolling back child labor laws. On its website, FGA dismisses protections put in place to protect teenage workers from night shifts, excessive hours or dangerous environments as undermining “parents’ rights.” FGA founder Tarren Bragdon has defended his organization’s work by saying, “we believe parents should decide what’s best for their children.” The group drafted a far-reaching bill in Arkansas, which eliminated work permits and age verification for workers younger than 16 years old, the bill’s sponsor, GOP state Rep. Rebecca Burkes, said in a Senate hearing. Burkes represents a district in northwestern Arkansas where Tyson Foods Inc. and George’s Inc., two of the country’s largest chicken processors, are headquartered. It’s also where US Department of Labor investigators, as part of a multi-state probe, found children as young as 13 working night shifts for a sanitation contractor at plants run by Tyson and George’s Inc., and other meat or poultry companies. George’s Inc. did not respond to queries from CNN. A Tyson representative declined comment. In Missouri, FGA drafted legislation to strip child workplace protections, according to an April 2023 Washington Post report, citing emails exchanged between an Opportunity Solutions Project lobbyist and a state senator’s chief of staff. FGA also worked to loosen child labor laws in Iowa, which passed a bill last spring allowing minors as young as 14 years old to work night shifts. The US Department of Labor has said Iowa’s new law violates federal law by allowing 16 and 17-year-olds to operate dangerous power-driven machines, engage in heavy manufacturing, and work in demolition. ‘Our primary audience is those policymakers’ In a podcast interview last summer, Bragdon was open about who his organization targets. “Our primary audience is those policymakers rather than activists or students or members of the general public,” said Bragdon, who started the Florida-based organization in 2011. He made those comments on The Daily Signal, a conservative news site run by The Heritage Foundation. FGA, as Bragdon described, was not fighting culture wars at the grassroots level – its work was more discreet. That low public profile has served the group well. FGA hosts Republican lawmakers at social events and at conferences, where it organizes panels around its priority issues. For instance, the opening day itinerary from FGA’s September 2022 Western Alliance conference in Park City, Utah, featured panels on election security, ESG and combating unemployment insurance fraud. It’s the type of influence peddling that has become part of a well-worn playbook for dark money organizations with deep pockets, said Sarah Bryner, research director at the nonpartisan campaign finance group OpenSecrets. “Strategically, it’s a lot easier … to engage your policy plan this way because you don’t need to try and get real people to sign on,” said Bryner. “You just need a few well-funded people. And is that problematic for democracy? Absolutely.” In an email, an FGA spokesperson did not address questions submitted by CNN but provided links to the organization’s website highlighting its policy platform on ESG, election integrity and child labor. FGA joins groups prepping for potential Trump return FGA’s growing stature within Republican politics was evident on-stage recently at an event with Florida Governor Ron DeSantis barely a week after he dropped his 2024 presidential bid. Bragdon, the group’s founder, joined DeSantis and Florida House Speaker Paul Renner to call for four constitutional amendments, including requiring a federal balanced budget and term limits for members of Congress. “Our nation’s heartbeat is not in the halls of federal power, but it’s in the spirit of our people and the legacy of our states,” said Bragdon, standing behind a podium with a “Hold Washington Accountable” placard. FGA is part of a constellation of conservative groups that have laid out a roadmap for a more aggressive Trump White House, should he return to power next year. Project 2025, published by The Heritage Foundation, is a massive 900-page policy book that calls for removing tens of thousands of civil servants; gutting the FBI; weaponizing the Justice Department; breaking up the Department of Education; and vastly expanding detention camps for undocumented immigrants, amid myriad other moves. FGA also continues its push at the state level across the country to enact its policy priorities. Take the ongoing efforts to stop ESG. Legislatures in 24 states will consider at least 118 Republican anti-ESG bills this year, according to an analysis by Pleaides Strategy; many of those bills are based on models from FGA or its allies. Such measures, said Wisconsin’s Rep. Shelton, are disconnected from the average voter’s concerns. “They are funded by very wealthy donors who are interested in perpetuating the culture war for their own benefit,” Shelton told CNN. “They are creating the crises they want to address through legislation, not the crises that everyday people want them to address.”
  13. I have decided that 'conservatives' like to hide behind 'two genders is science' mantra as a defense mechanism and really don't know ZIP about anything else more than that in the areas of medicine or climate or even the concept of evolution. It makes for an easier feeling about 'scary' things out there, I guess.
×
×
  • Create New...