The GOP: Not What It Used to Be

[Cartmann99]

 

[GreyhoundFan]

This is a good read.

 

Continues under spoiler:

Spoiler

 

 

[GreyhoundFan]

"A Texas Republican’s vile rant shows ‘great replacement’ is becoming GOP dogma"

Quote

It is becoming a trend: More and more Republicans have been signing on to “great replacement theory.” Because this worldview posits various versions of a nefarious liberal scheme to replace native-born Americans with non-White outsiders, it’s often analyzed through a racial prism.

But also embedded in this GOP “great replacement” talk is a particular theory about democracy and self-rule. It’s a wretched vision, one that suggests a broader truth about the GOP’s ongoing abandonment of democratic values, and it deserves serious scrutiny on its own.

A particularly vile “great replacement” rant that Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick (R) unleashed on Fox News opens a window on all of this.

“The revolution has begun,” Patrick told host Laura Ingraham. Speaking about the president, Patrick added: “A silent revolution by the Democrat Party and Joe Biden to take over the country.”

Patrick blasted the Biden administration for “allowing” in one or two million migrants this year. In 18 years, Patrick railed, if “every one of them has two or three children, you’re talking about millions and millions and millions of new voters.”

“Who do you think they are going to vote for?” Patrick seethed. “So this is trying to take over our country without firing a shot.” Patrick added this flouted the Constitution’s guarantee of republican government and protection against “invasion.”

The specific situation triggering Patrick is that thousands of Haitian migrants have crossed the Rio Grande, creating an emergency for federal officials. The administration has extended temporary protected status to migrants from Haiti amid an earthquake and political upheaval there, so they may not be expelled.

Patrick says this decision, and the broader “allowing” of millions to cross the border, are fundamental threats to republican government. He says this is a scheme to import people who will have children — and become citizens — who will inevitably vote Democratic, further threatening self-rule.

This is more than just loathsome demagoguery. It’s also an argument about democracy itself.

Patrick’s ludicrous nonsense

Biden has the authority to grant temporary protected status because our democratically elected representatives in Congress gave the president that authority, to designate countries as recipients of this status due to wars, disasters, or other extraordinary conditions.

Similarly, we “allow” people to seek asylum here because our elected representatives passed a law requiring it, to bring us in line with international human rights obligations.

As a substantive matter, Patrick’s claims are ludicrous. In his rant, he accidentally tells the truth when he notes that those millions of migrants are being “apprehended,” as opposed to being released. And that’s happening because migrants who cross the border have the legal right to seek asylum in the U.S., a right created — again — by our democratically elected representatives.

If anything, the Biden administration is largely reneging on that right. Huge numbers of those being apprehended are being expelled under the Title 42 covid-19 health rule, without due process. Patrick is grotesquely distorting the real meaning of “apprehension” numbers.

That aside, the core point here is that allowing migrants to seek asylum and granting them protected status — and providing them with ultimate paths to citizenship and even opening up other channels for legal immigration — are perfectly compatible with self rule. They are decisions the polity has made, via democratically elected representatives, about whether and how to admit outsiders as potential future members.

All that should be obvious, but these fundamentals are precisely what people like Patrick reject. When Tucker Carlson stirred his own “great replacement” controversy, it underscored the point: Carlson suggested the act of allowing legal immigration itself undermines the nation’s democratic character.

Similarly, Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.), a House leader, insisted this week that providing citizenship for the undocumented would produce a “permanent election insurrection” and “overthrow our current electorate.” Other leading Republicans have also trafficked in versions of this.

A deranged vision

All this amounts to a suggestion that allowing in outsiders democratically cannot be legitimate by definition. Patrick, Carlson and their ilk are advancing a deranged vision of democratic self rule that wouldn’t permit the polity to decide democratically to allow in outsiders as members or to provide refuge to the persecuted. That’s not democratic. That’s not self-rule.

Some would respond that when undocumented immigrants gain legalization after entering and/or staying illegally, it does have undemocratic implications. This does raise complex questions, but ultimately, if our elected representatives decide legalizing them is in the national interest, that’s compatible with democracy. When the children of the undocumented or of people granted asylum get citizenship — which so enrages Patrick — it’s because the Constitution grants it.

It’s no accident that people like Patrick support onerous voter suppression efforts and that people like Stefanik and Carlson validate the lie that Donald Trump’s defeat wasn’t democratically legitimate and handwave away the true insurrectionist intent of Jan. 6.

That’s because such bad actors routinely employ hallucinatory depictions of Apocalyptic threats supposedly posed to their cagey version of the “nation” by liberals and Democrats, which are then used to justify the most maximally anti-democratic tactics. The left is out to replace and destroy you, so anything goes in response, even subverting our democratic order if necessary.

The “great replacement” nonsense is yet another example of exactly that sort of derangement, and this mental habit is becoming dogma in the GOP. Which makes it particularly despicable that in pushing it, Patrick piously pretends to stand for democratic values.

 

[GreyhoundFan]

The latest LP video about the shitshow that is the GQP:

 

[Cartmann99]

 

[Cartmann99]

 

[GreyhoundFan]

 

[GreyhoundFan]

It's sad that the GQPers have spewed so much crap that I had forgotten about half of these things.

 

[Xan]

@GreyhoundFan - Holy crap!  That woman singing at the end of the video??  That was so bad.

[Audrey2]

1 hour ago, Xan said:

@GreyhoundFan - Holy crap!  That woman singing at the end of the video??  That was so bad.

Jill Rodrigues, is that you?

[Cartmann99]

 

[TuringMachine]

https://www.npr.org/2021/10/14/1046124278/missouri-newspaper-security-flaws-hacking-investigation-gov-mike-parson

Move over internet is a series of tubes guy, we've now got "decoded the HTML source code" governor. I suppose he's desperate to pretend like the reporter didn't just have to right click -> inspect element to be able to see a teacher's SSN. Also I like how this will apparently cost $50 million to investigate and fix. If that's how much it costs to slightly update a database query I am SEVERELY underpaid.

And of course this is all a political attack... somehow. Cause I guess that's just the default defense for all republicans these days. 

[GreyhoundFan]

Another insane week in the GQP:

 

[GreyhoundFan]

I wasn't sure where to post this, but I guess this will cause the GQPers to have a collective hissy fit: "United States issues its 1st passport with ‘X’ gender marker"

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DENVER (AP) — The United States has issued its first passport with an “X” gender designation, marking a milestone in the recognition of the rights of people who do not identify as male or female, and expects to be able to offer the option more broadly next year, the State Department said Wednesday.

The department did not identify the passport recipient, but Dana Zzyym, an intersex activist from Fort Collins, Colorado, told The Associated Press in a telephone interview that they received it. Since 2015, Zzyym, who prefers a gender-neutral pronoun, has been in a legal battle with the State Department to obtain a passport that did not require Zzyym to lie about gender by picking either male or female.

Zzyym (pronounced Zimm) picked up the UPS package with the passport after getting an early morning text and phone call from their lawyer, Paul Castillo of Lambda Legal, that it had arrived. Zzyym had stayed up late celebrating Intersex Awareness Day with two visiting activists.

While Zzyym, 63, said it was thrilling to finally get the passport, the goal was to help the next generation of intersex people win recognition as full citizens with rights, rather than travel the globe, Zzyym said.

“I’m not a problem. I’m a human being. That’s the point,” Zzyym said.

Zzyym was born with ambiguous physical sexual characteristics but was raised as a boy and had several surgeries that failed to make Zzyym appear fully male, according to court filings. Zzyym served in the Navy as a male but later came to identify as intersex while working and studying at Colorado State University. The State Department’s denial of Zzyym’s passport prevented Zzyym from being able to go to two Organization Intersex International meetings.

Zzyym would like a chance to travel to another advocacy conference once they resume after the pandemic or perhaps go sea fishing in Costa Rica but, being on a fixed income, says a road trip to Canada for fishing might be more feasible.

Advocates, who praised the work of Zzyym, said the United States’ decision to join over a dozen countries that allow a third-gender option would allow people to travel as their authentic selves and possibly keep them safer doing it.

“Intersex, nonbinary, and transgender people need identity documents that accurately reflect who we are, and having mismatched documents can create problems with safety and visibility,” said Mary Emily O’Hara of GLAAD, the world’s largest lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer (LGBTQ) media advocacy organization,

The U.S. special diplomatic envoy for LGBTQ rights, Jessica Stern, said the decision brings the government documents in line with the “lived reality” that there is a wider spectrum of human sex characteristics than is reflected in the previous two designations.

“When a person obtains identity documents that reflect their true identity, they live with greater dignity and respect,” Stern said.

The State Department said in June that it was moving toward adding a third gender marker for nonbinary, intersex and gender-nonconforming people but that would take time because of required updates to its computer systems. In addition, a department official said the passport application and system update with the “X” designation option still awaited approval from the Office of Management and Budget, which signs off on all government forms.

The department now also allows applicants to self-select their gender as male or female, no longer requiring them to provide medical certification if their gender did not match that listed on their other identification documents.

Stern said her office planned to talk about the U.S. experience with the change in its interactions around the world and hopes that might help inspire other governments to offer the option.

“We see this as a way of affirming and uplifting the human rights of trans and intersex and gender-nonconforming and nonbinary people everywhere,” she said.

 

[Cartmann99]

The "He's Godsent to us just like Trump was!" woman scares me.

 

[Cartmann99]

You don't have to be a lawyer to be the Texas AG, so being disbarred wouldn't cost him his job.

 

[47of74]

Yeah pretty much.

 

[Cartmann99]

[47of74]

1 hour ago, Cartmann99 said:

I hope the cease and desist letter from Sesame Workshop is forthcoming pretty soon.

[front hugs > duggs]

Wasn't it also in Orlando last year too?

Ugh, go away!!!! Nobody likes you here 😭

Edited November 22, 2021 by front hugs > duggs
grammar

[Howl]

 

[Cartmann99]

Republicans threaten to skip traditional general election debates

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This may be the end of presidential debates as we have known them.

The Republican National Committee has informed the Commission on Presidential Debates, which has hosted presidential and vice presidential debates for general elections for over three decades, that it will change its rules to prohibit the party's nominees from participating in CPD debates.

In a letter dated Thursday, RNC Chair Ronna McDaniel outlines many objections and accuses the CPD of stonewalling the RNC's requested changes to the process and of being biased. Her letter includes a number of suggestions for fixes.

"The RNC has shared our concerns with the CPD in good faith, carefully documenting why the party and its voters have lost faith in your organization, and we have proposed commonsense reforms that would restore trust in the debates process," McDaniel writes. "Unfortunately, neither the tone nor substance of your latest response inspires confidence that the CPD will meaningfully address the serious issues which the RNC has raised."

As a result, McDaniel writes, the RNC "will initiate the process of amending the Rules of the Republican Party at our upcoming Winter Meeting to prohibit future Republican nominees from participating in CPD-sponsored debates."

 

[fraurosena]

Signs Republicans may soon want to dump Trump and insurrection denials:

Republicans who impeached Trump outpace challengers in latest fundraising haul

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Republicans seeking re-election who backed former President Donald Trump's impeachment or voted to convict him last year are outpacing their GOP challengers in the money race, according to the latest Federal Election Commission filings.

The eight Republicans who voted in favor of either impeachment or conviction and are facing voters this year raised more money than those who seek to oust them from office, the filings released this week showed.

Leading the pack was Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., who pulled in more than $1.97 million during the last three months of 2021, bringing her yearly total to nearly $6.5 million. Harriet Hageman, Cheney's Trump-backed challenger, who launched her bid in September, reported about $443,000 in contributions last quarter, bringing her total for the year to just north of $745,000.

The disparity was mirrored in other races. Rep. Peter Meijer, R-Mich., brought in eight times what his Trump-endorsed primary challenger secured last quarter, while Rep. Fred Upton, R-Mich., raised more than five times what Trump-backed state Rep. Steve Carra brought in from October through December. And in Washington state, Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler out-raised her Trump-backed opponent, Joe Kent, bringing in about $422,000 compared to his roughly $297,000 during that same period.

On the Senate side, Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, more than doubled Kelly Tshibaka's fundraising haul last quarter. Tshibaka, backed by Trump, raised about $1.82 million last year, far short of Murkowski's $5.4 million.

The trend also played out in races in which Trump has not endorsed a primary challenger or only recently offered his blessing. Reps. Dan Newhouse, R-Wash., and David Valadao, R-Calif., are outpacing their fields in the fundraising battle, while Rep. Tom Rice, R-S.C., narrowly topped state Rep. Russell Fry, whom Trump endorsed Tuesday.

The fundraising totals show that knocking pro-impeachment Republicans out of Congress will not be a walk in the park for Trump's preferred candidates.

 

[Cartmann99]

I wasn't sure exactly where to put this. It's about RFK Jr's charity donating money to a Republican group in an attempt to shape their Covid policies.

The unrolled version of the thread is here.

 

[Cartmann99]

In case you're wondering why all the nutters are rattling on about free crack pipes, here you go: