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Post by jdredd on Jan 31, 2018 16:23:37 GMT -5
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Post by jdredd on Mar 1, 2018 11:51:14 GMT -5
www.nytimes.com/2018/03/01/opinion/mona-charen-never-trumper.html?action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=opinion-c-col-left-region®ion=opinion-c-col-left-region&WT.nav=opinion-c-col-left-region"Liberals tend to admire NeverTrumpers, because they see them as conservatives with a moral sense and, perhaps, a brain. By contrast, Republicans — whether of the fully or merely semi-Trumpified varieties — detest NeverTrumpers with an animus they can scarcely extend to liberals or progressives. Reacting to Charen’s CPAC appearance, one right-wing writer for Red State called her “a new voice in the wilderness of insignificance” — and then devoted 1,000 words to underscoring that insignificance. This is not, at root, ideological critique. It’s the sign of a bad conscience. The 2016 primaries showed that NeverTrumpers were never much of a political force in the G.O.P. They are even less so today, when the president has an 85 percent approval rating among Republicans. What few NeverTrumpers remain in the party’s senior ranks are either leaving politics or leaving the earthly estate." 85% of Republicans are on the Trump Crazy Train? Shows their lack of taste.
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Post by jdredd on Mar 23, 2018 3:09:30 GMT -5
Ha-ha! John Bolton National Security Adviser! Odds are still good Trump will be the worst thing that ever happened to the Republican Party.
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Post by jdredd on Apr 24, 2018 0:26:44 GMT -5
www.nationalreview.com/2018/04/build-national-american-conservatism-to-counter-existential-threats/"We face an existential challenge to the American cause. It is a bet against the revolutionary idea that a diverse people could use their God-given right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness to establish and maintain a just and prosperous nation. By our example, we have inspired the world to favor the side of liberty. But if we fail to correct our current course, we could end up emboldening the cause of autocracy. This is why I am, now more than ever, committed to doing all I can to help reinvigorate a national American conservatism that puts the strength of family, community, faith, and work first. Our policy agenda must follow from this goal. Rebuilding the American project cannot be the work of conservatives alone. It will require a broad civic awakening, one that restores our ability — as one people with many different views — to discuss these issues, recommit to our founding principles, and ensure that we preserve the blessings of American freedom for generations to come." Gosh, here is a thrilling platitude-fest from little Marco Rubio. If he really wanted to do something inspiring he would quit Trump's GOP.
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Post by jdredd on Apr 29, 2018 16:19:31 GMT -5
Hey, I heard a good one from the conspiracy nuts on the right: That all the Republican congressmen retiring are doing so because their lives are being threatened!
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Post by jdredd on May 30, 2018 3:58:17 GMT -5
www.nytimes.com/2018/05/29/us/politics/trump-rally-nashville-ms-13.html?&hpw&rref=politics&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=well-region®ion=bottom-well&WT.nav=bottom-well"Mr. Trump was in Nashville to boost Representative Marsha Blackburn, a Republican, who is running to succeed Senator Bob Corker, who is retiring. He savaged Phil Bredesen, the state’s former Democratic governor whom Ms. Blackburn is expected to face in November, calling him “an absolute, total tool of ck Smer,” the Senate Democratic leader, and “of course, the MS-13 lover Nancy Pelosi,” he said, referring to the House Democratic leader." That no Republican will call him on this comment just shows how degenerate the GOP has become.
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Post by jdredd on Aug 1, 2018 3:27:04 GMT -5
www.nytimes.com/2018/07/31/us/politics/trump-koch-brothers.html?&hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=first-column-region®ion=top-news&WT.nav=top-newsWASHINGTON — President Trump has given Republicans good reason to tolerate his unruly leadership style. His tax cuts, deregulation push and nomination of conservative judges amount to the most orthodox Republican agenda any president has pursued since Ronald Reagan. Few had better reason to appreciate Mr. Trump’s results than Charles G. Koch, a billionaire industrialist who is one of the Republican Party’s biggest donors. Yet Mr. Koch’s simmering frustrations with the president over trade and immigration have now spilled over into an ugly public feud with Mr. Trump and candidates who side with him. By calling Mr. Trump’s trade policies “detrimental” and denouncing divisive leadership, Mr. Koch is making a provocative political move that — be it hardball strategy or more of a ploy — threatens to complicate Republican efforts to hold on to their slim congressional majorities in the November midterm elections. Mr. Trump hit back on Tuesday by attacking Mr. Koch; his ailing brother and business partner, David; and the powerful political network they founded as “totally overrated” and “a total joke in real Republican circles.” While Trumpty has bought off most of the GOP with his tax cut, apparently some Republicans still hold on to their ideology, such as the Kochs. It is amusing to see them at each other's throat, kind of like watching Mafia Dons go at each other. The Koch's just aren't buying Trump's cult of personality.
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Post by jdredd on Aug 7, 2018 0:03:40 GMT -5
www.nytimes.com/2018/08/06/opinion/columnists/orange-county-california-midterm-democratic-party.html?mabReward=CBMG1&recid=18SD0JgL5NbZePKl8b7TCv3sC7e&recp=4&action=click&pgtype=Homepage®ion=CColumn&module=Recommendation&src=rechp&WT.nav=RecEngine"The affluent seaside region, after all, used to be so far right that in 1968 Fortune Magazine called it “nut country.” In her book “Suburban Warriors: The Origins of the New American Right,” the historian Lisa McGirr described how Orange County activists in the 1960s “organized study groups, opened ‘Freedom Forum’ bookstores, filled the rolls of the John Birch Society, entered school board races and worked within the Republican Party,” believing their very way of life was in danger. Mike Levin, the Democrat running for Issa’s seat, told me that growing up in Orange County, his Democratic parents felt so isolated they hesitated to talk politics with friends or neighbors. Since then, the demographics of the region have changed, thanks to an influx of immigrants from Asia and Latin America. More significant, however, may be the demographic changes in the Republican Party. The former Trump strategist Steve Bannon recently told Vanity Fair’s Gabriel Sherman, “The Republican college-educated woman is done.” Unlike many things he says, this appears to be true. In one recent poll of House preferences, college-educated white women favored Democrats by a staggering 47 points. (College-educated white men favor Democrats as well, but by much smaller margins.) Thanks to the fear and revulsion Trump evokes, the intense suburban civic awakening is now happening on the Democratic side." Ha-ha! We'll see if the county I love to hate flips. If it does, at least the GOP will still have Fresno.
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Post by jdredd on Aug 14, 2018 2:00:42 GMT -5
www.nationalreview.com/2018/08/ronald-reagan-cold-war-naval-strategy-john-lehman-book/"By the end of 1986, with the Soviets having learned that they could not interfere with U.S. aircraft carriers operating in Norwegian fjords, the Soviet general staff told Gorbachev that they could not defend the nation’s northern sector without tripling spending on naval and air forces there. Thus did the Cold War end because Reagan rejected the stale orthodoxy that the East–West military balance was solely about conventional land forces in central Europe, so NATO’s sea power advantage was of secondary importance. Today’s naval problems posed by a rising China, particularly in the South China Sea, are unlike the problem of hastening the Soviet decline. Today’s U.S. ships are more capable than ever, but too few for comfort, as Lehman’s readers will realize when they consider what only the Navy can do. In the movie A Few Good Men, a furious Colonel Nathan Jessup (Jack Nicholson) exclaimed to his courtroom tormentors — Navy officers — words that are actually true regarding almost all civilians in this age of complex professional military establishments configured for myriad and rapidly evolving threats: “You have no idea how to defend a nation.” Lehman’s book is a rare window on that world, and a validation of the axiom that if you want peace, prepare for war." Good old George Will, still doing his thing. I remember reading him when I was in college, back when conservative commentators had some class and weren't jokes. And I have to agree with him on this, we'd be much better off if all the money we've spent killing Muslims had been spent on the Navy.
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Post by jdredd on Nov 6, 2018 3:05:15 GMT -5
Now that the GOP is totally owned by Trump, I wonder where they would go if he decided not to run in 2020 or lost? Naive as I was in expecting that hordes of Republicans with integrity would flee Trump's GOP, he still could be the worst thing that ever happened to them.
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Post by jdredd on Nov 15, 2018 14:37:31 GMT -5
Even formerly bright red suburbs are abandoning Trump. Is the GOP headed to being the party of just white billionaires and hicks? Probably not, because you can depend on the Dems to screw things up.
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Post by jdredd on Nov 16, 2018 1:38:55 GMT -5
www.nytimes.com/2018/11/15/opinion/republican-party-nativism-trump.html?action=click&module=Opinion&pgtype=Homepage"During the Cold War, being a conservative was a moral cause. You were fighting Communist tyranny — aligned with Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn and Lech Walesa. But you were somewhat marginalized in your own society. Liberals controlled the universities, the news media, the cultural high ground, so the right attracted many people with outsider personalities. Then with the election of Reagan and Thatcher and in the years afterward, conservatives built their own counter-establishment — think tanks, publications, broadcasting outlets. As conservatism professionalized, it despiritualized. After the Soviet Union collapsed, conservatism no longer had a great moral cause to rally around. It became a technocratic, economics-focused movement concerned with small government and entitlement reform. Compassionate conservatism and the dream of spreading global democracy were efforts to anchor conservatism around a moral ideal, but they did not work out." Here is Mr.Brooks giving his diagnosis of the state of the GOP. Their paranoia made them relevant during the Cold War but that ended (fortunately with a whimper and not a bang). They are still looking for a new Nemesis.
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Post by jdredd on Dec 4, 2018 15:12:41 GMT -5
www.nationalreview.com/2018/05/gop-generation-gap-young-conservatives-break-with-elders/"SDS was the more successful organization, culturally if not politically. This was in part because SDS had the sympathy of the press, but also because it had the more exciting story. They weren’t merely rebels; they were in revolt against their own side. The SDSers had a radically different view of politics than older liberals. Meanwhile, the young conservatives took their marching orders from the grown-ups, like William F. Buckley Jr. and M. Stanton Evans. The Sharon Statement derived its name from the location of YAF’s first meeting: Buckley’s home in Sharon, Conn. The manifesto, written by Evans, clocked in at 368 words. The Port Huron Statement rambled on for more than 50 pages. This disparity can be explained both philosophically and sociologically. The young conservatives hailed from more blue-collar backgrounds, and they self-consciously aligned themselves with eternal truths and the wisdom of the ancients. The young liberals, who tended to be the children of elites, sought to reinvent the wheel, rejecting not just the ancients but also the generation that came before them." So this is Goldberg's spin on the youth movements of the 60's. So what eternal truths and wisdom of the ancients does Trump represent? But he is probably right that the New Left tried to reinvent the wheel, and unsurprisingly failed.
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Post by jdredd on Jan 24, 2019 13:21:36 GMT -5
www.nytimes.com/2019/01/23/us/gop-liberal-america-millennials.html?action=click&module=Top%20Stories&pgtype=Homepage As a self-described political conservative, Reagan Larson might seem to be a natural fit for the Republican Party. The 19-year-old college student from South Dakota grew up in a Catholic household that objected to same-sex marriage, and she remains firmly opposed to abortion. But in many ways, that is where the ideological similarities end. Ms. Larson, a dual major in biology and Spanish at Gustavus Adolphus College in St. Peter, Minn., does not oppose the legalization of marriage equality. She views climate change as undeniable, believes “immigrants make our country richer,” and disagrees with her parents on the need for a border wall. Ms. Larson is part of Generation Z, one of the most ethnically diverse and progressive age groups in American history. People born after 1996 tend to espouse similar views to the age cohort just ahead of them, the Millennials, but they are far more open to social change than older generations have been, according to the findings of a new report by the Pew Research Center. The findings mark a shift that could substantially reshape the nation’s political and economic landscape."
Uh-oh. Looks like the Republicons will not be able to get as many cheap votes with gay rights and immigration from "Gen Z" (Which I called the "Post-9/11 Gen"). They still have abortion and guns, though. And what kind of a sick f$$k names their daughter Reagan? And this poor kid is not the only one.
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Post by jdredd on May 14, 2019 10:44:26 GMT -5
www.nytimes.com/2019/05/13/us/politics/rashida-tlaib-holocaust.html?action=click&module=News&pgtype=Homepage"Ms. Cheney called the remarks “sickening,” and accused Ms. Tlaib and other Democrats of “spreading vile anti-Semitism.” Mr. Scalise followed suit, calling Ms. Tlaib’s comments “twisted and disgusting.” Then President Trump jumped in. “Democrat Rep. Tlaib is being slammed for her horrible and highly insensitive statement on the Holocaust,” Mr. Trump wrote on Twitter on Monday morning. “She obviously has tremendous hatred of Israel and the Jewish people. Can you imagine what would happen if I ever said what she said, and says?” The Republicans’ moves are yet another sign that they are looking to exploit growing Democratic divisions over Israel for political gain, by breaking the longstanding ties between Democrats and Jewish voters. The Democratic leadership’s defense of Ms. Tlaib was far more unequivocal than anything they said on behalf of Representative Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, the other Muslim woman in the House. Representative Steny H. Hoyer of Maryland, the majority leader, said Mr. Trump and House Republicans had taken Ms. Tlaib’s comments out of context: “They must stop, and they owe her an apology.” In her own defense, Ms. Tlaib wrote on Twitter, “Policing my words, twisting & turning them to ignite vile attacks on me will not work. All of you who are trying to silence me will fail miserably. I will never allow you to take my words out of context to push your racist and hateful agenda. The truth will always win.” What's good about this? Ms. Tlaib did not roll over and play dead. But "The truth will always win"? Hardly ever.
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