The Republicans are getting the “Stop The Steal” band back together ahead of this year’s presidential race.
This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at https://talkingpointsmemo.com/?p=1488735
This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at https://talkingpointsmemo.com/?p=1488735
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Republicans/conservatives only ever accepted majority rule democracy when it allowed them to dominate. Now that conservatives realize they are outnumbered demographically and ideologically they understand their only vehicle to stay in control of the levers of wealth and power is to abandon their efforts at popularity and go all in on minority rule by any means necessary. Cheating, deception and skullduggery are all they have left.
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“an unprecedented and a clear and present danger to the integrity of our election system.”
Clear? Huh?
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What the whole GOP show “is rooted in” to include the antics of Holy Mike is bullshit. It’s all bullshit. A crude word for “bearing false witness” which Mike has been Commanded not to do. But if Mike’s all bullshit ( like I’m sure he is ) that Command don’t mean squat to him.
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All I see is an endless supply of money from a few evangelical billionaires, a whole class of people bent on bringing America to Jesus, and another group of people who could give a fig as long as they don’t pay the taxes they are already mostly dodging.
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I really think someone needs to tell Donnie about how much money this Jenny Beth Martin made off of his Stop the Steal campaign. He should check the records that she is still tithing to him and his fight.
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David Frum’s oft-quoted observation – that conservatives will stop believing in democracy before they stop believing in conservatism – is marred by the assumption that conservatives ever really believed in democracy at all; Occam’s Razor suggests they never did nor the concomitant notion that the rule of law applies to everyone equally.
Conservatism consists of exactly one proposition, to wit: There must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect.
There is nothing more or else to it, and there never has been, in any place or time.
– Frank Wilhoit
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Martin is an “activist” in the same sense Jenny Thomas is an “activist.”
She isn’t an “activist,” she is a handsomely paid operative of the billionaire clique of cliques hiding their oligarchist agenda behind astroturf. Tea Party Patriots was, and apparently still is, the front for a clique of oligarchists centered on Richard Uihlein, one of the Schlitz beer fortune (and how is there even a fortune associated with that brand? 
) heirs and the owner of a shipping company he founded in 1980.
Tea Party Patriots now has a network of 501c’s with very, very opaque books. Information on how much she is paid dribbles out every few years, but she seems to collect six digit compensation from multiple “Tea Party Patriot” entities.
The kind of people who frequent sites like this have likely heard of this woman and and then promptly forgotten her multiple times since the media was constantly gushing about the sudden, totally unexpected and inexplicable emergence of Teh Teeeeee Parteeeee, teh freshists, authentickist, grass-rootiest grass roots movment evah! in 2009-10. And that’s the point. The whole purpose of people like her is to serve as a cutout between the billionaire and centimillionaire oligarchists and their political wing, the GOP.
There are dozens of her ilk who’ve been slithering around in the D.C. shadows starting about fifteen seconds after Citizens United was released.
Here a couple of sources to get you started:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jenny_Beth_Martin (notice how her Wikipedia page is very out of date)
Good luck finding any information about how much she’s paid and who’s writing the checks as of 2024.
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Why do we keep using their dishonest terminology for their movements and what they are doing.
A great example of this is referring to the movement that tried to steal the 2020 election as “Stop The Steal” when in fact what they should be called is “Attempt to Steal”.
That said, this started with the Republican Party’s and in particular Bob Dole’s total resistance movement to the election of Bill Clinton as not legitimate and Unamerican . Furthermore, the only reason this strategy has continued with success is because the news media insists on taking it seriously instead of dismissing for what it is, cynical and Unamerican political strategy.
Starting in 1993, Senate Minority leader Bob Dole organized the Republicans to flat out oppose by any and all means necessary any legislative actions by Democrats and the newly elected President Bill Clinton.
From 1993 through 1994 there were more Senate filibusters than in all the entire history of the Republican combined. In 2009, in response to the election of Barack Obama, Mitch McConnell expanded the total resistance and refusal to accept a Democrat as president by expanding the use of the filibuster from just legislation to all matters including the most mundane like appointments of ambassadors and any presidential action that needed Senatorial approval.
Both the impeachment of Bill Clinton and the racist Birther movement and the very formation of the Tea Party in November of 2008, just after the election and before Obama actually took office, are further examples of the Republican political strategy of total resistance and opposition at all costs to Democrats.
Because the news media has gone along taking Republican opposition seriously and not merely a political strategy to stop Democrats from accomplishing needed policy and regain power, the Republican strategy of total resistance and refusal to recognized duly elected opposition as legitimate has to a great extent worked.
That the news media has and continues to take seriously the Unamerican Republican political strategy of total resistance and refusal to recognize the victorious opposition when duly elected is how and why the American politics and nation has become so divided and why Republicans continue to escalate their refusal to recognize elections they lose.
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For years now, I’ve been hearing that “illegals” have been receiving welfare checks.
Most recently, I’ve heard that Pres Biden is giving them a $5,000 stipend.
Now we hear that they’re voting for Dems in droves.
No doubt there will be magas who believe this horse shit.
Same play, different dialogue.
I suspect this tactic came from some focus group during which some old duffer said he/she heard that the Dems were registering non-citizens to vote.
ETA: It’s a variation on the theme of welfare Cadillac.
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To their interpretation of Jesus.
Jesus lived 2,000 years ago. I suspect people other than mega-church preachers have a better perspective on the man.
Plus, if you believe, then God is speaking to you and me and to everyone, not just billionaires.
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“One of the saddest lessons of history is this: If we’ve been bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle. We’re no longer interested in finding out the truth. The bamboozle has captured us. It’s simply too painful to acknowledge, even to ourselves, that we’ve been taken. Once you give a charlatan power over you, you almost never get it back.”
― Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark
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This seems like a subject worthy of reporting by some intrepid journalist(s).
Every time this subject is surfaced by some republican politician, the questions should be, “Tell us, [Insert lying Republican politician name here] just how many examples of this occurred in the last election? The one before that? Where did this occur, exactly? How do you know it’s happening? What’s your evidence?
IOW, make them defend it.
Wonder if that would happen?
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What’s the NNT, or Number Needed to Treat, for this bill? In plainer English, how many citizens does Johnson want to harass and hassle into giving up or not even bothering, in order to prevent one non-citizen from voting illegally?
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Too bad the rightists couldn’t have found their civic virtue when it came time to wear a mask. They sure do want thousands of legit, citizen voters to be harassed and inconvenienced for every non-citizen their bill would prevent from voting illegally.
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starting about fifteen seconds after Citizens United was released
Exactly.
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“Furthermore, the only reason this strategy has continued with success is because the news media insists on taking it seriously instead of dismissing for what it is, cynical and Unamerican political strategy.“
More than the news media, I would contend that it is the failure of DoJ to identify and prosecute these people for conspiracy to defraud the American people. DoJ finally went after the defrauded participants of J6, but the leadership of that insurrection still remain largely uncharged and unprosecuted.
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Church has been running moral interference since the founding of money, it’s just more plain now.
The Right have their stronghold, and it is complete and utter moral righteousness. Worked out poorly for the Germans. And the Jews, and the RoW.
160-odd years since the discovery of evolution and nobody has asked the question - how evolved are we?
This evolved. Those in power believe that the creator of the entire universe is a buff space granddad.
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The only evidence they need is the fact that Democrats win some elections. From that they infer that illegal acts of [insert bogeyman or conspiracy theory du jour] is the only plausible explanation.
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How many times have the Rethugs ask for recounts in Districts that they won?
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