Originally published at: Republican Senators Are MAGA Conspiracy Theorists Now
There is an ever-shrinking gulf between the right-wing fringe and elected Republicans in their certainty that even easily explainable events must be the work of a shadowy cabal. Conspiracy theories have bubbled up around both the sudden death of Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), 71, and the prolonged illness and absence of 84-year-old Sen. Mitch McConnell…
So according to Trump
Obama rand a free and fair election in 2016
Biden ran a free and fair election in 2024
Trump ran an election full of fraud and cheating in 2020
Where his incompetent administration cheated trump out of the presidency???
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Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX), about as normie a Republican that still exists in public life (until November, anyway), told reporters Tuesday that he wants to see Graham’s full autopsy “to rule out any foul play.”
“And Mitch McConnell’s, TOO!”
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ST. AUGUSTINE, Fla. (AP) — A man running from an encounter with immigration and other federal agents in Florida was struck and killed by a tractor trailer on Tuesday, authorities said.
The 28-year-old was among four occupants of a vehicle that stopped in the parking lot of a gas station and convenience store in St. Augustine before 7 a.m.
During an encounter with agents from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement as well as Homeland Security Investigations, the four fled on foot, with one darting across a busy road into the path of the semi, Florida Highway Patrol Sgt. Dylan Bryan said in an emailed statement. The driver of the semi stopped and tried to help the man, Bryan said.
It was the third death in about a week involving encounters with ICE agents, following shootings in Texas and Maine.
Neither ICE nor the Department of Homeland Security immediately returned emails from The Associated Press seeking comment.
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Senate Democrats block $1.15 trillion defense authorization bill
- Vote Outcome: Senate Democrats defeated the motion to advance the $1.15 trillion defense authorization bill 50-46, falling short of the 60 votes needed. Voting was mostly along party lines.
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There is an no gulf between the right-wing fringe and elected Republicans
FIFY
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That’s a lot of health care going up in smoke
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Soon to be a classic once it makes the rounds.
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So Cornyn’s getting chatty on his way out? And Tillis too? Story shifters trying to rewrite history.
When Trump said “jump!” they always replied, “how high boss?”
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And in other news, more promotions blocked at the DOW
Free article.
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So the Orange Idiot is actually scheduling a prime time address to babble about the 2020 Big Lie ? That’s an insane move even for him. I don’t live in the US and don’t own a television but I wouldn’t watch that even for the comedic relief. I’m surprised his handlers have gone along with this, it will just show his detachment from reality in even starker terms
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I’m cool with something analogous to, “Drop anchor!”
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Trump’s worldview is a contagion
Yep. We got the cure. Vote the germs out!
ICE Halts Vehicle Stops
Wise move, since 99% of the people on the street are citizens.
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Trump lost 2020 fair and square.
On the other hand, Trump frequently accuses others of crimes he himself has committed. 2016 was decided in critical states by late reported votes from electoral divisions using black.box machines with no paper trail.
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Short of physical restraint there is nothing his handlers can do. As his dementia progresses so does his impetuosity and resistance to handling; his root personality no longer recognizes constraint.
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Flori-duh is a dangerous place. Flee
The Forever War Gets Scary - Paul Krugman
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Watch nowThe Forever War Gets Scary
But I’m not talking about bombs and drones
Paul Krugman
Jul 15 
Transcript
The war with Iran has just reached a very scary phase, and I’m not talking about the bombs and the drones. Hi, Paul Krugman here, doing a brief podcast instead of a full post, because I actually spent the day with friends and doing other things, and this is a quicker alternative.
If you’re following the news, you know that the sort-of ceasefire with Iran has been called off. Trump has reinstated the blockade. The Iranians are back to hitting things with their drones and missiles.
The U.S. position has been wildly erratic. First, Trump said he was going to impose a 20% toll on all shipping, basically turning the Strait of Hormuz into a U.S. toll booth, which would have been wildly illegal and irresponsible, aside from being impossible. Now he says, no, he’s going to demand that countries invest in the United States, which is also actually wildly illegal. But in any case, it’s never going to happen.
And yet, this is extremely scary. The reason to be afraid is not that I think the war is going to come to America. It’s not even that I think the United States is going to seriously try to occupy Iran. We don’t have the troops. We don’t have the missiles. Trump depleted a large share of our weaponry in the course of his failed war so far. So this is likely going to be punitive strikes, maybe some war crimes along the way, but that’s all.
But what is really frightening here is that it does appear as if Trump has given up on trying to extract something that looks like victory. If we go back just a few days ago, it appeared that what was going to happen was that Trump was going to de facto pull out, give upon the project, take advantage of falling oil prices because the strait was sort of kind of open — and try to spin the story about this was truly, this was actually an American victory and the economy is great and look at the stock market.
And, you know, just it was a little bit — more than a little bit —stupid and doomed. It was also kind of amazing because a serious attempt to end the conflict would have required facing up to reality, saying, OK, this war didn’t go well, but America remains great. Sorry about that.
But that was apparently not something Trump emotionally could bring himself to do. He just cannot admit that this venture failed. He can never admit that anything failed. We’re going to be searching for the saboteurs of the reflecting pool for the remainder of his presidency.
This is a change in strategy that is ominous because what is Trump’s plan for the midterm elections? Here the idea presumably was that there would be enough economic success and people would have sufficiently short memories that they would possibly give Trump credit for opening the Strait of Hormuz, but in any case have put the gas price shock and the whole disruption surrounding the war behind them. And be ready to start admitting that this is the golden age that Trump and company keep on claiming it is.
Now that’s all off. Now it’s just we’re going to bomb Iran. No clear strategy there, but we’re not going to even pretend that things are okay. We’re going to blockade them, which actually has a little bit more leverage, but no hint that anything might be resolved in a way that would help Republican chances in the midterms. So what is going to happen?
I don’t think it’s a coincidence that just as Trump essentially gives up, not gives up in the sense of abandoning his war, but gives up on trying to achieve anything he can even spin as a positive outcome, that we now have an announcement that this Thursday he’s going to have a primetime speech, which reports say is going to be about election fraud in 2020. Some reports hinting that he might try to declare the two Democratic senators from Georgia somehow illegitimate.|
But what is happening is that effectively he’s setting up the pretext, the groundwork for massive interference in the vote this November. That we’re basically seeing the stage set for some kind of attempt to block fair elections, maybe block elections entirely.
I don’t know how this is going to play out. But we are really now at the point where it’s pretty clear that Trump and the people around him have given up on actually winning the election. They’ve decided instead that
somecombination of propaganda, misinformation, disinformation, and possibly massive illegality is their way forward.
And don’t say they wouldn’t do that. That has been famous last words every step of the way
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The Shooter in Maine Was a New ICE Recruit - The Atlantic
The officer involved in the fatal shooting in Maine was hired by ICE this year from the Department of Veterans Affairs Police, according to the senior official. The officer has worked in federal law enforcement since 2017, the official said. Neither detail has been previously reported. The shooter in Maine has not been publicly identified; neither has the shooter in Houston, where the earlier fatal ICE shooting occurred.