The GOP: Not What It Used to Be

[Cartmann99]

 

[47of74]

Translation: they don’t like getting asked tough questions 

Quote

The Republican National Committee voted unanimously on Thursday to withdraw from its participation in the Commission on Presidential Debates, the organization that has long governed general-election presidential debates.

In a statement, RNC chairwoman Ronna McDaniel said the commission is "biased and has refused to enact simple and commonsense reforms to help ensure fair debates including hosting debates before voting begins and selecting moderators who have never worked for candidates on the debate stage."

The commission was formed in 1987 as a nonprofit sponsored by both the Republican and Democratic Parties and has sponsored debates in every presidential election since 1988. The group's co-chairs include former RNC chairman Frank Fahrenkopf.

 

[fraurosena]

On 4/14/2022 at 9:43 PM, 47of74 said:

Translation: they don’t like getting asked tough questions 

 

Pff, of course. How can they participate in debates when they know full well that any Dem cadidate will whipe the floor with a 'can't string a coherent sentence together', dumb and probably senile Trump on stage? Or, if not Trump, a dumbass, clueless and moronic DeSantis?

 

[WiseGirl]

Wasn't sure where to put this one...but as the repugs are annoying the hell out of me more often than usual, here it is.

 

[Cartmann99]

Spoiler

If only we could go back to the 50s before all this drag nonsense was a thing.

Spoiler

 

[47of74]

Orrin Hatch died yesterday

Quote

Orrin G. Hatch, the longest-serving Republican senator in history who was a fixture in Utah politics for more than four decades, died Saturday at age 88.

A staunch conservative on most economic and social issues, he also teamed with Democrats several times during his long career on issues ranging from stem cell research to rights for people with disabilities to expanding children’s health insurance. He also formed friendships across the aisle, particularly with the late Democratic Sen. Edward M. Kennedy.

Hatch also championed GOP issues like abortion limits and helped shape the U.S. Supreme Court, including defending Justice Clarence Thomas against sexual harassment allegations during confirmation hearings.

He later became an ally of Republican President Donald Trump, using his role as chairman of the powerful Senate Finance Committee to get a major rewrite of the U.S. tax codes to the president’s desk. In return, Trump helped Hatch deliver on a key issue for Republicans in Utah with a contentious move to drastically downsize two national monuments that had been declared by past presidents.

 

[Xan]

I'm not sure where to put this but there's an excellent article by Will Bunch on the Philadelphia Inquirer site.  Here's the link:

Spoiler

https://www.inquirer.com/opinion/commentary/desantis-disney-republican-war-corporations-20220424.html?scrolla=5eb6d68b7fedc32c19ef33b4

Basically, it's about how the conservatives today want to turn back progress in order to maintain control of society.

Final paragraph:

The true meaning of the Disney move is that today’s conservatives will do anything to maintain social control, including dropping any last, thin pretenses of supporting the Bill of Rights or the other pillars of American democracy. In 2022, they will throw away books, destroy the lives of teachers, and deliberately prevent your child from learning — anything to keep the arc of a moral universe from bending toward justice. They are embracing fascism not because they are winning, but because modernity is winning and they are losing. This is no time to cede the high ground. There is no math textbook that can calculate the moral price of losing this fight.

[Cartmann99]

Heads up that her rant includes the topics of ejaculation and pubic hair. 🎧

 

[Becky]

1 hour ago, Cartmann99 said:

Heads up that her rant includes the topics of ejaculation and pubic hair. 🎧

 

OMG, the poor interpreter!  I laughed a little, only because it so ludicrous, but it really isn't funny, is it?  She obviously truly believes it.  

[47of74]

The two SOTU hecklers almost got into a fight a few weeks ago.

Quote

The House Freedom Caucus — the far-right group of conspiracy theorists with members like Reps. Jim Jordan, Paul Gosar, and Madison Cawthorn — have long been warring with the rest of the Republican Party, which they feel isn’t sufficiently dedicated to former President Trump and his vision for a MAGA-fied America.

The caucus has apparently been warring with itself, too, according to a new report from Politico.

Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene and Lauren Boebert reportedly almost came to blows over Greene’s appearance at a white nationalist event in February, to the point that someone had to step in between them to de-escalate the confrontation. Three people close to the Freedom Caucus confirmed the spat to Politico, which took place during a meeting of the caucus’ board of directors.

This would have been all of America if that had happened.  Especially if there was video....

[47of74]

Awww Toilet Paper USA has a sad

Quote

A First Amendment debate is brewing at Drake University over a conservative club.

Turning Point USA is unable to apply for university funding or reserve space on campus after the Drake Student Senate voted to not grant them official recognition in a 17-2 vote in March. It was the third time in five years that the group was denied official recognition.

Student Senator Sa'Daiveon Newell says the decision was not based on politics, explaining that there are two other conservative groups that were granted official recognition.

Instead, Newell cited issues with national leadership and the organization being a "threatening force on campus."

"The leader of the organization was called out during the meeting for saying racist and transphobic and homophobic things in the past, which I don't believe is representative of Drake's campus," Newell said.

These fornicate sticks need to take a fornicating hint and go away.

[WiseGirl]

This is frightening. 

 

[Cartmann99]

 

[47of74]

The Des Moines Register had this article

Gee, could it have something to do with CovidKim and her GQP allies turning the state into a GQP shithole?

[GreyhoundFan]

[Howl]

Quote

Trump helped Hatch deliver on a key issue for Republicans in Utah with a contentious move to drastically downsize two national monuments that had been declared by past presidents.

Bears Ears (southeastern Utah) and Grand Staircase-Escalante (south central Utah)  are those national monuments.  I don't know if Biden has re-expanded the boundaries. 

Bears Ears is in southeast corner of Utah, San Juan County - part traditional Mormon and part Navajo Reservation.  It was a hugely divisive issue, but I think the majority  wanted to see the national monuments expanded.  It would bring in more tourism and protect lands sacred to numerous tribes, including Navajo and Utes.

However, many Mormons in that area reflexively hate The Government, even though many of them work for the Forest Service/BLM. 

Edited June 3, 2022 by Howl

[47of74]

The Iowa GQP had their bund meet...excuse me I meant convention yesterday.

Quote

Leaders of the Iowa GOP held their annual convention Saturday afternoon at the Iowa State Fairgrounds. Republican lawmakers pushed back on several Democratic ideas, and said the midterm election is their time to win big.

Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds (R), Rep. Ashley Hinson, R-IA-01, Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks, R-IA-02, Rep. Randy Feenstra, R-IA-04, and Iowa GOP Chairman Jeff Kauffman were all there, according to WHO-13 News in Des Moines.

“Drag shows for young kids, pornographic books in school libraries, elementary lessons on pronouns and sadly the list goes on," Reynolds said, according to WHO-13.

“And at every single turn they are keeping parents in the dark. This has to stop and ultimately, ultimately we are going to make sure that every parent has a choice in their child’s education," Reynolds continued.

As if we needed a reminder as to why I moved to Minnesota.

[GreyhoundFan]

[Cartmann99]

"Jesus, guns, babies": Religious violence is now at the core of the Republican Party

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At the tail end of last week, Rep. Lauren Boebert of Colorado took the stage at the Charis Christian Center's Family Camp Meeting. The event claims that, "you will hear God's Word shared through speakers who have proven God's Word," and follows the speakers' list with Acts 2:17-18: 

And in the last days it shall be, God declares, that I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams; even on my male servants and female servants in those days I will pour out my Spirit, and they shall prophesy.

The apocalyptic context notwithstanding, Boebert's talk made quite a splash because of her invocation of Psalm 109:8 in the context of praying for President Biden — "May his days be few and another take his office" — before laughing at the cheers of the crowd. This is certainly not a new use of that text by the GOP — Sen. David Perdue of Georgia invoked it against Obama in 2016, and it became an anti-Obama slogan featured on bumper stickers. With the passage divorced from its full context, people can laugh — but Psalm 109 is a war psalm, calling for the death of the man in question, with 109:9 reading "Let his children be fatherless, and his wife a widow." And that's the point: As with so many aspects of contemporary Christian nationalism, give the line people can nod along to, and hold back the violent context. This is a prayer for the death of the president, and it is one we can honestly say has become normal for Republicans to use about Democratic presidents.

Maybe that's a big enough problem that we should acknowledge it not just as a fringe phenomenon, but as part of the core problem of the contemporary, MAGA-infused GOP.

Of course, Boebert has gone much further than prayers against the president. She met with organizers of the Jan. 6 coup attempt beforehand. She tweeted the locations of lawmakers, including Speaker Nancy Pelosi, as insurrectionists were breaking into the Capitol. Like Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky, Boebert and her family have posed for Christmas cards with AR-15-style weapons, with all of the problematic associations of the birth of Jesus of Nazareth with weapons designed for combat. These things — Jesus, guns and, with family photos, babies — are in fact pillars of the Christian nationalist branch of the GOP.

Kandiss Taylor's failed Republican gubernatorial primary campaign in Georgia was incredibly instructive on where the GOP now stands. Her campaign bus, which literally had "Jesus, Guns, Babies" emblazoned on the side, was just the most overt aspect of her Christian nationalist campaign. She told followers to pray for good sheriffs and said that corrupt ones would be executed for treason, strongly implying her belief in the extremist "constitutional sheriff" doctrine, which holds sheriffs are arbiters of what the law is in their counties, not enforcers of it. She said at one campaign rally, "We're gonna do a political rally and we're gonna honor Jesus. They're not gonna tell us 'separation of church and state.' We are the church! We run this state!" — an aggressively Christian nationalist idea. Taylor called Gov. Brian Kemp's administration a "Luciferian regime," said that as governor she would release an executive order against the "Satanic elites," and vowed to tear down the "Satanic" Georgia Guidestones.

Taylor even championed Native genocide, saying, "The First Amendment right, which is our right to worship Jesus freely — that's why we have a country. That's why we have Georgia. That's why we had our Founding Fathers come over here and destroy American Indians' homes and their land. They took it." And, of course, she champions the Big Lie, saying on Twitter, "We are in a spiritual war ... it's God versus Satan. If GA goes down, if we let them steal the election from us .. we're gonna steal it back if we have to." That carried over to her own loss — despite losing the primary by 70 points, she refused to concede. 

We might well ask: So what? Taylor was defeated by a staggering margin, as were numerous other Christian nationalist candidates. Rep. Madison Cawthorn, for example, lost his primary race in North Carolina after the Republican establishment turned on him. Idaho Lt. Gov. Janice McGeachin embraced extremism, appearing with militia members in photo ops, administering oaths to them reserved for the state military, and appeared on video at the America First PAC meeting, saying, "God calls us to pick up the sword and fight, and Christ will reign in the state of Idaho." She lost by 20 points. The Republican candidate for secretary of state in California, Rachel Hamm, said she decided to run for office because she was a prophetic dreamer, and because her youngest son, "a seer," had found Jesus in the closet where she prays, holding a scroll telling her to run. She also lost and then claimed fraud, tweeting, "When you've fought the good fight, had an honest contest & lost, that's when you concede. So, in my case, there will be no concession. Stolen elections=stolen Republic."

And then there those who are still running. Greg Lopez, a GOP gubernatorial candidate in Colorado, believes in a blanket ban on abortion, rejects climate change, has said that the "educational system has now been converted into state indoctrination centers" and is a proponent of the Big Lie. He appeared, alongside a range of conspiracy theorists and far right figures, at the Western Conservative Summit at the beginning of the month. And he is not shy about his negative views of the LGBTQ community, a common theme among GOP candidates. 

Mark Burns in South Carolina, for example, was an early Trump supporter in 2016. He's an evangelical minister, a conspiracy theorist and pastor at the Harvest Praise & Worship Center. He's running for Congress in the state's 4th congressional district, and his platform reads like a grab bag of right-wing ideas: 

• Our right to bear arms is INHERENT, given to us by God almighty -- NOT by any man;
• If we don't fix these elections NOW, America will be lost. Without open, honest, transparent elections, no other issue matters;
• Life begins at conception;
• Marriage is defined as between one man and one woman;
• Critical Race Theory is Communist, anti-white Racism;
• Vaccine and mask mandates are medical tyranny, and have no place in America;
• The Pelosi budget opens the door wide open to full-blown communism.

And while these may sound like wild ideas, they're nothing compared to what Burns says. He has called for reviving the House Un-American Activities Committee — yes, the infamous Red-hunters of the 1940s — to investigate LGBTQ "indoctrination," which he calls a national security threat, saying that anyone engaged in it (or in gun control) should be tried for treason, and executed. Burns is literally calling for reviving the "lavender scare," which has a certain evil logic because that, in essence, is where Christian nationalists have settled in the culture wars: anti-trans legislation, anti-LGBTQ rallies and attacks, and pushing to re-criminalize sexual minorities.

The Jesus part is obvious. The guns have been covered, be it Pennsylvania gubernatorial candidate Doug Mastriano's links to the apocalyptic Rod of Iron Ministries or the marketing of AR-15-style guns as sacred weapons. But babies may be the most important part of it. Attacks on the LGBTQ community must be understood in the context of right-wing ideas about sexual purity and a full-blown mania for forced birth legislation. Anti-abortion laws, attacks on contraception and attacks on sexual minorities are all part of a Christian nationalist assault on the nation. Movements like Quiverfull, taken from Psalm 127, have a number of political aspects alongside a belief system that shuns birth control and believes God will give them the right number of children. They literally believe that whoever has the most babies wins, and see that as the fundamental political and spiritual battle. One Quiverfull-affiliated author has said:

It is the womb that conceives and nourishes the "godly seed" who will come forth to be the light in the darkness and who will destroy the works of Satan in this world. God is looking for an army. ... The womb is a powerful weapon against Satan. Some women fear to bring babies into this evil world, but this is one of the greatest reasons for having children — to be the light in this dark world!

Quiverfull is a Christian patriarchy movement, not only pushing female submission to husbands and fathers, and eschewing education and contraception to win the culture war — as Salon reporter Kathryn Joyce has detailed in her book "Quiverfull: Inside the Christian Patriarchy Movement" — but also contributing to the protection of sexual predators in church communities and vigorously promoting the anti-abortion and forced birth laws being passed around the country. 

I would also suggest, rather forcefully, that Christian patriarchy and Christian nationalism are linked to the "great replacement" theory, the deeply racist and xenophobic notion that nonwhite people are being brought into Western countries to "replace" white voters, in order to further a specific political agenda, leading to the supposed extinction of white people. As is well understood, this delusional ideology has fueled multiple massacres, including the mass shooting in Buffalo in May and earlier mass shootings in El Paso, Pittsburgh and Christchurch, New Zealand. Forced-birth laws and abortion bans are also part of this perceived demographic war, part and parcel with the spiritual battles Christian nationalists believe they are fighting and the very real stockpiling of arms, association with militia groups and opposition to government. PRRI's August 2021 survey shows that "great replacement" ideas are growing in evangelical circles, and have only become more mainstream since then. 

Religious violence is the bedrock of Christian nationalism, and Christian Nationalism is becoming the bedrock of the contemporary Republican Party. Forced birth laws, anti-LGBTQ legislation and the "great replacement" theory are all forms of violence, and all but certain to fuel the spread of more lethal violence. is violence. "Jesus, Guns and Babies" may seem like a laughable slogan, stripped of context. But it isn't funny at all. 

 

[Cartmann99]

The Texas GOP is in Houston right now and will be voting on their party platform on Saturday. They wouldn't let the  Log Cabin Republicans come to their shindig, so...

Spoiler

This is one section from the platform Texas Republicans will be voting on:

Spoiler

 

[Audrey2]

Well that was a nasty read. I read the paragraph on homosexuality. So under item 144 gender identity, can a physician refuse to perform rhinoplasties and boob jobs on people under the age of 21 based off of item 144 which says no medical practitioner can perform surgery on any healthy body parts? 

Just like the abortion issue I know where they think they're going with this but to me it also leaves open the ability to translate it in a different way and prevent something that people think is more acceptable, such as IVF or nose jobs.

[Cartmann99]

Spoiler

 

[Cartmann99]

The Texas GOP circus is over.

Texas Republican Convention calls Biden win illegitimate and rebukes Cornyn over gun talks

Quote

HOUSTON — Meeting at their first in-person convention since 2018, Texas Republicans on Saturday acted on a raft of resolutions and proposed platform changes to move their party even further to the right. They approved measures declaring that President Joe Biden “was not legitimately elected” and rebuking Sen. John Cornyn for taking part in bipartisan gun talks. They also voted on a platform that declares homosexuality “an abnormal lifestyle choice” and calls for Texas schoolchildren should be taught “to learn about the Humanity of the Preborn Child.”

The actions capped a convention that highlighted how adamantly opposed the party’s most active and vocal members are to compromising with Democrats or moderating on social positions, even as the state has grown more diverse and Republicans’ margins in statewide elections have shrunk slightly in recent years.

Votes on the platform were collected at the end of the party's three-day convention in which party activists moved to add multiple items to their official platform. As the convention closed, two separate sets of ballots — one allowing delegates to choose eight of 15 legislative priorities and another allowing delegates to vote on the 275 platform planks — were gathered. Those will now need to be tallied and certified in Austin, but it is rare for a plank to be rejected, according to party spokesman James Wesolek.

The convention reinforced the extent to which former President Donald J. Trump’s unfounded claims of a stolen election continue to resound among the party faithful — even though his claims have repeatedly been debunked, including by many of his own former aides, and after a week of televised hearings about the Trump supporters who stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

The denunciation of Cornyn represented a remarkable rebuke to a Republican who has served in the Senate since 2002. The hall at the George R. Brown Convention Center in Houston filled with boos on Friday as he tried to explain the legislation, which would allow juvenile records to be incorporated into background checks for gun buyers younger than 21 and encourage “red flag” laws that would make it easier to remove guns from potentially dangerous people, along with more funding for school safety and mental health.

Meanwhile, the party platform vote on Saturday by roughly 5,100 convention delegates would argue that those under 21 are “most likely to need to defend themselves” and may need to quickly buy guns “in emergencies such as riots.” It also would say that red flag laws violate the due process rights of people who haven’t been convicted of a crime.

Around 9,600 delegates and alternates were eligible to attend; organizers said the turnout was healthy.

The new platform would call for:

• Requiring Texas students “to learn about the Humanity of the Preborn Child,” including teaching that life begins at fertilization and requiring students to listen to live ultrasounds of gestating fetuses.
• Amending the Texas Constitution to remove the Legislature’s power “to regulate the wearing of arms, with a view to prevent crime.”
• Treating homosexuality as “an abnormal lifestyle choice,” language that was not included in the 2018 or 2020 party platforms.
• Deeming gender identity disorder “a genuine and extremely rare metal health condition,” requiring official documents to adhere to “biological gender,” and allowing civil penalties and monetary compensation to “de-transitioners” who have received gender-affirming surgery, which the platform calls a form of medical malpractice.
• Changing the U.S. Constitution to fix the number of Supreme Court justices at nine and to repeal the 16th Amendment of 1913, which created the federal income tax.
• Ensuring “freedom to travel,” by opposing Biden’s Clean Energy Plan and “California-style, anti-driver policies,” including efforts to turn traffic lanes over for use by pedestrians, cyclists and mass transit.
• Declaring “all businesses and jobs as essential and a fundamental right,” a response to COVID-19 mandates by Texas cities requiring customers to wear masks and limiting business hours.
• Abolishing the Federal Reserve, the nation’s central bank, and guaranteeing the right to use alternatives to cash, including cryptocurrencies.

Not every far-right proposal was advanced. The party chair, Matt Rinaldi, ruled that a motion to defend the due process rights of those who rioted at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, and to “reject the narrative” that the riot was an insurrection was out of order, and could not be voted on.

Taken together, the new provisions would represent a shift even further rightward for the Republican Party of Texas, once known as the party of Presidents George Bush and his son George W. Bush. Land Commissioner George P. Bush, a grandson and nephew of the two presidents, was defeated handily last month in his race against Attorney General Ken Paxton, an arch-conservative who sued to challenge the 2020 election outcome and convinced voters that he was the truer Trump loyalist.

Party platforms are mission statements rather than legal doctrines, and in Texas they have long reflected the opinions of the most activist wings of the parties. Republican elected officials are not bound to adhere to them, and at times party activists have expressed frustration that some parts of their platform and legislative priorities have not become law despite complete Republican control of the state government.

But the platforms are broad indicators of the sentiments of the most active Republican voters – those who dominate party primaries. Republicans have controlled every statewide office in Texas since 1999 and both houses of the Legislature since 2003, so the wishes of the party’s populist, pro-Trump base inevitably affects actions taken in Austin.

“The platform is largely symbolic but important as a measure of ideological drift,” said Brandon Rottinghaus, a political scientist at the University of Houston. “Party platforms are often used as a cudgel in party primaries. A more muscular ideological platform eventually leads to a more conservative legislature as challengers knock off more moderate members.”

The convention was noteworthy for the relatively low profile of top officeholders. Gov. Greg Abbott, who is seeking a third term in the November election, only appeared at a reception on Thursday on the sidelines of the convention. Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, who effectively controls the state Senate, addressed the convention, but House Speaker Dade Phelan only spoke at a luncheon, not to the main body of delegates.

Tensions within the party at times got personal. Video posted online showed far-right activists physically accosting U.S. Rep. Dan Crenshaw, calling the conservative Republican “eye-patch McCain” over his criticism of Russia. The group included self-identified Proud Boys and Alex Stein, a social media activist from North Texas. A Navy SEAL veteran, Crenshaw lost his right eye to a bomb in Afghanistan.

“A more aggressive party platform sends a clear message to politicians about where the base is going,” Rottinghaus said. “Donald Trump radicalized the party and accelerated the demands from the base. There simply aren’t limits now on what the base might ask for.”

Mark P. Jones, a political scientist at Rice University, said the 2022 platform presented for a vote indicated how emboldened hard-right party activists now feel — a far cry from 2020. Significant gains by Texas Democrats in state House elections in 2018 raised the prospect of the Republican Party losing its dominant status in Texas, making it moderate its platform in 2020 to focus on bread-and-butter issues. Texas Republicans did well in the 2020 elections — even though Biden won 46.5% of the Texas vote, the highest proportion for a Democrat since 1976 — and this year, culture-war issues were once again at front and center.

Jones said that Republican redistricting has made incumbents safer and less inclined to appeal to moderates. Moreover, inflation, the risk of a recession, the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and growing acrimony over race, gender and sexuality make it seem increasingly likely that Democrats will lose the U.S. House in the November midterm elections.

“As a result, the 2022 GOP feels free to veer to the right to its heart’s content, confident that it won’t come back to haunt the party in November, except perhaps in a half dozen races,” Jones said. “And even the party’s pragmatic center right conservatives lack the ability to argue, as they did successfully in 2020, that an ultra conservative platform could cost the GOP its majority status in the Lone Star State. This year, even the absolute worst case scenario has the GOP winning statewide, increasing its number of US House seats, boosting its Texas Senate majority by a seat, and maintaining the 83 seats it held in the 2021 Texas House.”

Before the platform was voted on, party activists delivered fiery speeches attacking Democrats.

“They want to destroy the racial progress we have made by saying that we are a racist nation,” said Robin Armstrong, a Black doctor in Texas City who treated COVID patients with unapproved drug therapies touted by Trump, including hydroxychloroquine. “The Democratic Party are now a party of chaos. They benefit from causing us to question the foundations that this country was built upon. The misery, the crime, the drug abuse, the high gas prices are all by design, so that the Democratic Party can permanently transform society. We Texans cannot and we will not allow this to happen.”

The Republican-dominated Legislature last year passed new voting restrictions that prompted Democratic lawmakers to flee to Washington in an ultimately futile protest. However, Republican leaders said repeatedly on Saturday that it was the other side that was trying to steal elections.

“The Democrats wants three things: Their goals are to steal elections, suppress Republican votes and federalize elections,” said Cindy Siegel, the chairperson of the Harris County GOP and a former mayor of Bellaire.

Immigration continued to be a major theme, with delegates lamenting Biden’s reversal of Trump-era border policies. U.S. Rep. Jodey Arrington, described an “unprecedented, unmitigated, self-inflicted disaster that is creating the worst humanitarian and national security threat to the American people in the history of our southern border,” adding, “this is an invasion, folks.”

He added: “President Biden has ceded control of our borders to paramilitary, narco-terrorist cartels.”

The mood of this convention was not hopeful. The themes ran dark, and activists spoke in apocalyptic, even cataclysmic, terms about the state of the country.

“Everything is topsy-turvy. What’s right is wrong and what’s wrong is right,” state Sen. Donna Campbell, an emergency room doctor in New Braunfels, reflecting a state of uncertainty that is shared by Americans of many political backgrounds, even if they don’t agree on the causes. “Our country is on a trajectory to self-destruct, unless we change the direction.”

Campbell and other activists frequently spoke of their Christian faith.

“I believe that in the sovereignty of God, you and I were purposely born into this moment, into this confusing time that we face,“ she said. “We’re meant to be alive, at this time, right now, and here in this state.”

I got about two-thirds through their final draft last night before I stopped for mental health reasons. In short, American and Texan Exceptionalism fell in love with an super-religious QAnon/MAGA/Sovereign Citizen nutter and they had a whole houseful of crazy babies.

When the official platform drops, I'll try to find an article that breaks it all down. If worse comes to worse, I'll plow through it myself and post about it.

[Ozlsn]

Honestly the Log Cabin Republicans are kidding themselves if they think the current GOP is going to diversify - or if they think the current GOP won't have them in jail or worse the minute they can.

[Cartmann99]

1 hour ago, Ozlsn said:

Honestly the Log Cabin Republicans are kidding themselves if they think the current GOP is going to diversify - or if they think the current GOP won't have them in jail or worse the minute they can.

They've been getting the door slammed in their face for a long time.

They even tried playing the Don Junior card: