"The Global Consciousness Project, also known as the EGG Project, is an international multidisciplinary collaboration of scientists, engineers, artists and others continuously collecting data from a global network of physical random number generators located in 65 host sites worldwide. The archive contains over 10 years of random data in parallel sequences of synchronized 200-bit trials every second."
Posted by Warm Southern Breeze on Thursday, February 2, 2023
You DARE question MY POWER?!?
I’ll show YOU who’s the boss, you little pissants!
Mitch McConnell
Senate Repugnicunt Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of KY has removed Senators Rick Scott of FL, and Mike Lee of UT from the powerful Commerce Committee in apparent retaliation for Scott’s challenge to McConnell’s leadership, and for Lee’s support of Scott’s effort.
The Commerce Committee has broad jurisdiction over numerous federal agencies, is considered a prestigious assignment, and McConnell had exclusive power to decide whether Scott and Lee would remain on the Committee because it was the third so-called “A-list” committee assignment both held.
Scott is also a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, and the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, while Lee is a member of the prestigious Judiciary Committee, and the Energy and Natural Resources Committee. Scott had more seniority on the Commerce Committee than Cynthia Lummis of Wyoming, who also serves on two other “A-list” committees — Banking, and Environment and Public Works committees — and Lee had more seniority than Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia, who also sits on the Appropriations Committee and is the ranking Republican on the Environment and Public Works Committee.
McConnell replaced Scott, Lee, and Ron Johnson of Wisconsin — who left the Commerce Committee to take a coveted seat on the Finance Committee — with Read the rest of this entry »
Posted by Warm Southern Breeze on Monday, January 23, 2023
Perhaps the most “burning” question in many political observers imagination in the matter of George Santos/Anthony Devolder’s election is:
“How DID this happen?”
I’ll take that question for $1000.
In a word, “apathy.”
Constituents who entrusted their support to him in NYD3 were hypothecated.
Allow me to explain. They pledged their support (as evidenced by their votes), and when the pledge expired following the election’s certification, he took the Congressional Oath of Office, and to their dismay, voters discovered they did not control (own) him. After all, they DID allow him to run under their banner. Had they any control over their own party, they would have never done so… or, at least they want us to believe that.
Frankly, NYCD3 voters have no one to blame but themselves.
One of their several news outlets — no, NOT The Old Gray Lady, but the North Shore Leader — warned constituents long in advance (in September) that he was a fraud.
The metaphorical “voice of one crying in the wilderness” was largely ignored, until it was convenient for the OG to belatedly “pounce” upon the dirty deal done dirt cheap in December… after the election was over, and certified, and hope to draw some belated attention to themselves… long after the fact.
Posted by Warm Southern Breeze on Sunday, January 22, 2023
The lying Republican elected to represent New York’s 3rd Congressional District (Queens/Nassau) is not just any old run-of-the-mill liar, he is a pathological liar.
His life, or rather, what he has presented as his life, is just one blatant falsehood after another. And that the good people of that portion of Long Island which he represents have elected him, speaks more to THEIR laziness and THEIR ineptness than to anything else.
The people of that district have stained THEIR own name, THEY have soiled their own shorts.
One of their local newspapers, The North Shore Leader, broke the story on The Fabulist, and did an at-lenght exposé of him BEFORE the election, and BEFORE the New York Times.
In a story published 20 January 2023 and headlined “The Leader Told You So: US Rep-Elect George Santos Is a Fraud — and Wanted Criminal,” they detailed how, at least four months earlier, they had broken the story, and wanting to endorse a Republican candidate, they could not, because of his wholesale lies about himself, which again, they discovered and reported BEFORE the New York Times.
The Veteran’s Service Animal died because George Santos/Anthony Devolder diverted the money raised for his own selfish use.
It is almost a pointless exercise to detail the hideous lies he has told about himself, each one more fantastic than the next, and with the discovery that they were all a pack of lies, he merely brushed them all off saying they were “embellishments” of his résumé.
Seemingly countless people have come forward, individuals who knew, or have known him personally, and without exception, they every one have essentially said the same thing: George Santos/Anthony Devolder is a liar.
Wikipedia page for user Anthonydevolder, who is, more likely than not, George Santos. Devolder is his late mother’s surname.
In the mean time, others who have been around him over the years have found evidence from a few years earlier when he was a drag queen.
While he has claimed to be openly gay, he was once married to a woman, and purports to have changed. Exactly how, he has not made clear, and refuses to speak to news outlets.
When news and video of his drag queen days made the national news, he denied it all.
When news of George Santos’ Wikipedia User ID page under the name of “Anthonydevolder” in the category of Drag Queen was made known, “edit wars” started upon it almost immediately, and the page was “blanked,” which raises several unsettling questions: “Why?,” and “who?” most notable among them.
HOWEVER… HuffPost recently published at least one news article about the recent discovery of an item which was Read the rest of this entry »
Posted by Warm Southern Breeze on Monday, January 9, 2023
Representative Jim Jordan-R,OH4
Have you recently read any crap on Twitter?
It’s much too easy to read plenty of phony baloney malarkey on Twitter.
Of course, that’s not very difficult to do now that Elon Muskrat is actively burning down that house, and welcoming Neo-Nazis, White Supremacists, Big Lie promoters, QAnon conspiracy theorists, and other such ilk on board… again.
Here’s but one statement which I recently read on that social media dumpster fire:
“Incoming House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan has not authored, sponsored, nor passed one piece of legislation in his 17 years in Congress.”
Of course, there were other surrounding contextual words and remarks, some of which were opinion, others fact (sounds vaguely familiar, eh?), and it was quite obvious that the author had no love lost for Ohio’s 4th Congressional District Republican Representative.
And frankly, neither have I lost any love for that lunatic.
Posted by Warm Southern Breeze on Sunday, January 8, 2023
The 118th Congress will be pockmarked by confusion, an inability to pass legislation for the people’s benefit, and the Repugnants will attempt to cut Social Security, Medicare, and literally, every program that helps the American people. Kevin McCarthy will not last a year as Speaker of the House, and will be ousted most likely, no later than July 2023. His term in office will be abbreviated, interrupted with a motion to Vacate the Chair, and quickly forgotten. His consistent inability to gather support from among the majority party, causing a meltdown on the opening day of the 118th Congress that led to 15 consecutive votes over a period of 5 days, will be the highlight of his utter failure.
I’m One of the Last Holdouts Against Kevin McCarthy — and I Won’t Back Down
Guest Essay by Bob Good
January 6, 2023
Mr. Good, a Republican, represents Virginia’s Fifth Congressional District in the House of Representatives.
Back in the summer, a group of conservatives put together a proposal with extensive changes to the rules and processes that govern how Republicans run the House of Representatives. For example, we wanted regular, rank-and-file members to have more power to amend bills on the House floor. We wanted at least three days to read and consider bills before we were asked to vote on them. And we wanted to limit the scope of bills to a single subject, so we wouldn’t be asked to vote on legislative “Christmas trees” passed on a tight deadline. We made those demands because the people we represent have told us time and again that Washington is broken, and we knew they wanted to see a change in the status quo.
Representative Bob Good, wearing a taupe-colored suit and maroon tie, stands before a black microphone that rises from the center of a polished wooden table in front of a row of brown leather chairs in the House chamber in the Capitol.
What the American people have tuned in to watch this week is a healthy democratic process, working as it was designed to: with members in the same place, engaging in debate, and having face-to-face conversations. Important negotiations often take months or even years in a legislative body. Yet this is the one and only opportunity we have to debate how the House is run every two years, both with the election of a speaker and with the passage of the new House rules.
While some have accused us of acting in our own personal interests, we are standing strong because we believe the United States House of Representatives was designed to be the People’s House where the will of every American would be represented. That is why the selection of a speaker requires the votes of a majority of the House. A majority of the people’s representatives must trust that person to lead us.
Throughout the past few months of negotiation and debate, we have been very clear with Republican leadership that we want changes that empower regular members of Congress, who each represent a district of more than half a million people, to have more meaningful input into how legislation is considered. And some of those procedural changes have been accepted.
Posted by Warm Southern Breeze on Sunday, January 8, 2023
Mike Rogers-R,AL3 is physically restrained from attacking Matt Gaetz by Richard Hudson-R,NC8 after he confronted Matt Gaetz following Gaetz’ “PRESENT” vote in the 14th round of balloting for Speaker of the House (SOTH), late Friday night, January 6, 2023
“Matt, you’re FINISHED!
I’m not gonna forget this!”
— Mike Rogers-R,AL3 screamed at Matt Gaetz-R,FL1 after Gaetz voted “PRESENT” instead of “McCarthy” in the 14th round of balloting for Speaker of the House of Representatives (SOTH), late Friday night, January 6, 2023, which was the 14th consecutive failure in 4 consecutive days by members of that party to elect a SOTH. Gaetz, and 19 other members of the Freedom Caucus, refused to vote for McCarthy for several legitimate reasons, though Kevin McCarthy-R,CA20 used coercive threats, and other unethical and authoritarian-type behaviors to have some of them acquiesce, under pressure from him, to change their votes to FOR him, instead of someone else, or “PRESENT.” Matt Gaetz never did.
No, Mister Mike “Rugrat” Rogers, YOU’RE the one who’s finished.
And you’ve now made your shit stain mark to an national television audience,
and to global international audience via the Internet,
and yourself a permanently indelible pock mark upon your failed party,
and in American history.
Congratulations, Mr. Asshole Rugrat Weasel Drunk Redneck Mike Rogers.
You shouldn’t have been on the House floor under the influence, and you sure as hell didn’t represent Alabama — or, maybe you did! Alabama is full of assholes like him. They’re called “weasels,” and are generally considered pests everywhere they’re found. Interestingly, a group of weasels is known as a “sneak,” a “boogle,” a “gang,” or a “confusion.” And in the Repugnants’ case, it’s confusion. And, that’s exactly what Rogers did — he sneaked up from behind amidst the confusion.
Mike Rogers-R,AL3 is physically restrained from attacking Matt Gaetz-R,FL1 by Richard Hudson-R,NC8 when Rogers confronted Gaetz after Gaetz voted “PRESENT” in the 14th round of balloting for Speaker of the House (SOTH), late Friday night, January 6, 2023
Matt Gaetz was 100% correct when he stated this before the 12th vote:
My colleague from California, Mr. Garcia, knows the incredibly high regard I hold for him. He is a patriot; I deeply, deeply admire him, but I must take some exception to some of the comments he made in his nomination of Mr. McCarthy.
First, he said that Mr. McCarthy has “earned” the position.
You only earn the position of Speaker of the House if you can get the votes. Mr. McCarthy doesn’t have the votes today, he will not have the votes tomorrow, and he will not have the votes next week, next month, next year.
And so, one must wonder, Madam Clerk, is this an exercise in vanity for someone who has done the math, taken the counts, and is putting this institution through something that absolutely is avoidable?
My colleague Mr. Garcia did not say this, but many of my other Republican colleagues have. They believe Mr. McCarthy has earned the position of Speaker of the House because he raised half a billion dollars to get Republicans elected.
Several believe that one earns the position of Speaker by raising enormous sums of money, and there is no doubt that the individual that was nominated by Mr. Garcia is the Lebron James of special interest fundraising in this town. There’s nobody better.
[NOTE: In a Newsweek OpEd entitled “McCarthy Has Earned the House Speakership” by former SOTH Newt Gingrich published 12/16/22 at 6:00 AM EST, he not only confirmed McCarthy’s mammoth fundraising machine of $500 million, but also that fundraising massive amounts of money IS a qualification for the office, and wrote: “Set aside the $500 million McCarthy and his allies raised during the 2022 campaign cycle. Some of his critics seem to think that effort doesn’t count (it should) because he had the power of the conference (and they don’t).”]
Posted by Warm Southern Breeze on Tuesday, November 15, 2022
Why is Herschel Walker surprised?
Seriously…WHY?
The GOP (Grand Old Party, a Republican moniker which emerged c.1854) is no more, and is not even a mere shadow of its former self. It is LITERALLY the FGOP — Formerly Grand Old Party, or OGOP, Once Grand Old Party.
Today, it’s the POT (Party Of Trump) — a natural-born liar, swindler, cheater, chiseler, defrauder, narcissistic, racist, xenophobic, duplicitous, unpatriotic, treasonously treacherous traitor who will LITERALLY DO ANYTHING to get what he wants, everyone and everything else be damned — and his servile sycophantic boot-licking, pablum-puking puerile punks.
They’re ALL ass-kissers — as POS45 (Piece Of Shit 45) described his subservient anointed Ohio Senate candidate J.D.Vance while campaigning with him September 17, 2022 saying, “J.D. is kissing my ass he wants my support so bad“ — and mendaciously monolithic morons.
The last genuine Republican may have very well been the now-late Arizona Senator John McCain who so despised POS45 that, while in his last days on Earth, still in office and dying from glioblastoma, a brain cancer that typically kills its victims within 16 months +/-, that he gave specific orders FORBIDDING PO45 from attending his funeral.
So, for Herschel Walker, that poor fool-as-a-tool used by POS45 and the OGOP — a Black man, at that — it’s just another example of how the worthless scum who fly that elephantine banner treat Americans.
The “I love the poorly-educated” voters who cast their ballots for anything with the letter “R” beside their name (which instead ought to be a “T”), are unthinking “Concrete Block Republicans” who would literally vote for a concrete block instead of anyone in any other party, demonstrating that they’re vacuous prattling imbeciles who neither think, nor attempt to think, and very much vote for anything that flies that modern political jolly roger.
Moreover, it’s ABUNDANTLY CLEAR that PO45 will be VERY MUCH trying to buy his way back into the White House, and continues demonstrating his deliberately deceptive, swindling, chiseling, cheating ways.
It’s just pure putrid MAGA effluvium on the Trump Dump garbage scow.
Herschel Walker’s campaign to Republicans:
Stop〝deceptive fundraising〞in Georgia U.S. Senate runoff
Republican politicians and associated committees are sending out desperate fundraising emails begging the GOP faithful to help save America by getting behind Herschel Walker in his Dec. 6 runoff against Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock in Georgia.
But what’s not immediately clear to recipients is how little of that money is going to Walker’s campaign: just a dime for every dollar given by small donors.
Walker’s campaign, which has trailed Warnock’s in fundraising throughout the election, is asking fellow Republicans to stop their fundraising practices — or at least to start sharing more with the candidate.
Herschel Walker during his Unite Georgia Bus Stop campaign rally in Norcross, GA, September 9, 2022. Photo by Demetrius Freeman / The WaPo
“We need everyone focused onwinning the Georgia Senate race, and deceptive fundraising tactics by teams that just won their races are siphoning money away from Georgia,” said Walker’s campaign manager Scott Paradise on Monday.
“This is the last fight of 2022, and every dollar will help,” Paradise said. “The companies and consultants raising money off this need to cut it out.”
Posted by Warm Southern Breeze on Friday, November 11, 2022
Thirteen days after the 2020 election, I had lunch with President Trump. I told him that if his legal challenges came up short, he could simply accept the results, move forward with the transition, and start a political comeback, winning the Senate runoffs in Georgia, the 2021 Virginia governor’s race, and the House and Senate in 2022. Then he could run for president in 2024 and win. He seemed unmoved, even weary: “I don’t know, 2024 is so far off.”
A common housefly alit and remained for several minutes upon Vice President Mike Pence’s head, Wednesday, October 7, during the 2020 Vice Presidential debate at the University of Utah, in Salt Lake City, with Kamala Harris, the Democratic Party’s nominee.
In a Dec. 5 call, the president for the first time mentioned challenging the election results in Congress. By mid-December, the internet was filled with speculation about my role. An irresponsible TV ad by a group calling itself the Lincoln Project suggested that when I presided over the Jan. 6 joint session of Congress to count the electoral votes, it would prove that I knew “it’s over,” and that by doing my constitutional duty, I would be “putting the final nail in the coffin” of the president’s re-election. To my knowledge, it was the first time anyone implied I might be able to change the outcome. It was designed to annoy the president. It worked. During a December cabinet meeting, President Trump told me the ad “looked bad for you.” I replied that it wasn’t true: I had fully supported the legal challenges to the election and would continue to do so.
On Dec. 19, the president mentioned plans for a rally in Washington on Jan. 6. I thought that would be useful to call attention to the proceedings. I had just spoken with a senator about the importance of vetting concerns about the election before Congress and the American people. At the White House on Dec. 21, Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan led lawmakers in a discussion about plans to bring objections. I promised that all properly submitted objections would be recognized and fully debated.
On Dec. 23, my family boarded Air Force Two to spend Christmas with friends. As we flew across America, President Trump retweeted an obscure article titled “Operation Pence Card.” It alluded to the theory that if all else failed, I could alter the outcome of the election on Jan. 6. I showed it to Karen, my wife, and rolled my eyes.
Plainclothes United States Capitol Police behind a barricaded door on the Floor of the House of Representatives, aim at an insurrectionist — one of thousands on January 6, 2021 who ransacked and destroyed government property and offices at the U.S. Capitol Building at the oblique request of then-POTUS Donald Trump in his failed conspiracy attempt to remain in power by providing several slates of falsified Electoral College Electors, then inciting violence during the certification process — following his re-election defeat in the November 2020 General Election to the Democratic Party’s nominee, former long-time U.S. Senator, then Vice President, Joseph R. Biden, Jr.
NONE of that mass-produced, factory-farmed, Made-in-China, Made-for-China gobbledygook.
This does NOT need refrigeration!
And, these pieces are also cooked, of course.
Oh! And you KNOW, that since 2013, Smithfield Foods, in Smithfield, VA, a formerly-American-based company, has been OWNED BY THE COMMUNIST CHINESE “Shuanghui Group” (now known as “WH Group” because it sounds more “American,” you know) because Smithfield’s Wall$teet corporate owners sold their American birthright for a paltry bowl of porridge — a mere US$4.72B.
You DO recall that China is a Communist nation, don’t you?
WH Group’s “global headquarters is strategically located in Hong Kong, with regional headquarters in China and the U.S.,” while the “Headquarters Shuanghui Development in Luohe, Henan Province,” China, and WH Group’s U.S. Headquarters of their Smithfield Foods division is in Smithfield, Virginia.
WH Group is also one of the LARGEST FOREIGN OWNERS of American farmland, with 146,000 acres, and that separate sale (as part of Smithfield’s holdings) was worth US$500M, according to the USDA.
Put another way, 146,000 acres is 228.1252 square miles… that’s nearly 20% (18.79% exactly) of the entire state of Read the rest of this entry »
Posted by Warm Southern Breeze on Sunday, October 30, 2022
You should know this:
IN LESS THAN 90 DAYS, YOUR CHANCE OF BEING KILLED IN ALABAMA WILL INCREASE.
WHY?
On March 11 this year (2022), Republican Governess Kay Ivey signed into law House Bill 272, which was proffered, and supported by the state’s GOP legislators, to wantonly arm the citizens, WITHOUT requiring proof of anyone’s ability to demonstrate competency, or properly handle, the concealed firearms they will soon be allowed to carry EVERYWHERE THEY GO. The law will become effective January 2023.
Of the 29 total votes against HB272, 3 were Republican, 2 Democrats did not vote, 2 Republicans were absent, Yeas totaled 70.
Even our Armed Forces, at the most fundamental level, MANDATE that EVERY SERVICE MEMBER demonstrate competency with numerous firearms, and other weapons of war.
Posted by Warm Southern Breeze on Sunday, October 9, 2022
Neoliberalism’s Globalization scheme has failed… SPECTACULARLY.
And all it took was 50 years, a global pandemic, the practical decimation via “outsourcing” of the majority of the American domestic economy, an increase in homelessness, deaths of all kinds from all sources, addictions, crime, disease, mass incarceration, increase in preventable deaths from lack of healthcare, all-time high wealth dispartity, increase in poverty rates, tax cuts upon the wealthiest Americans and their corporations, after GOP POTUS Richard Nixon kissed Communist China’s Chairman Mao’s derriere through cozying up to Mao’s successor/henchman Chinese Communist Chairman Chou En-lai.
What is “neoliberalism”?
Well, one thing it’s NOT, is pro-American.
The sequence of events that led to ‘Brexit’ — a moniker referring to the British exit from the European Union — began as part of a neoliberal campaign to deregulate many previously-regulated industries, and create a ‘free market uptopia’ in the UK. They failed at every turn.
The other thing that IT IS, is a primarily a GOP-wielded tool… though, in all fairness, there have been some Democrats (like Bill Clinton) who enthusiastically supported it, along with the so-called “Three Strikes” laws which is a two-part scheme, consisting of a:
1.) School-to-prison pipeline, which then becomes a;
2.) Prison-packing scheme
— which has continuously disproportionately harmed our non-White brothers & sisters, primarily, and in that process turned America into a police state. In the United States, there are MORE TOTAL PEOPLE INCARCERATED than in all the prisons combined in Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, Russia, North Korea, China, and other despotically-ruled totalitarian regimes worldwide.
Applying a “Free Market” ideology to that scenario would dictate that capacities of the prisons should not be enlarged (in order to minimize operating costs), and instead, build Wall-$treet-traded PRIVATE FOR-PROFIT PRISONS — which is a very “pro-free market” thing to do, which again, is part and parcel of neoliberal behavior, strategies, and tactics.
Yeah.
But “neoliberalism” is a hard-line “modern spin” on some old ideas, at least as interpreted by an entire cadre of moderns (most of whom are in the current era).
“philosophical view that a society’s political and economic institutions should be robustly liberal and capitalist, but supplemented by a constitutionally limited democracy and a modest welfare state.”
Typically, individuals who subscribe to, and promote, such ideas often do so blindly, and unthinkingly.
Again, most — but, not all — whom have espoused, or supported neoliberal ideas have been (and are) GOPers and Radicalized Republicans.
The preposterous absurdity of that statement is self-evident, because if government is the problem, then the obvious solution to that problem is elimination of it (government); and the absence of government is a state of anarchy, chaos, and lawlessness. Yet, it was at that point in which radicalized Republicans who identified themselves as the “TEA Party” caucus (Taxed Enough Already), began in earnest to slowly dismantle government, bit-by-bit, piece-by-piece, and law-by-law.
POTUS Clinton was also largely sycophantic to the GOP’s destructive objective under the direction of GOP Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich, when he proudly proclaimed in his January 23, 1996 State of the Union Address, that “The era of big government is over.” Yet, his go-along-to-get-along strategy proved inadequate when faced with the reality of the failures of Three-Strikes laws, creation of a school-to-prison pipeline as a private-prison-for-profit packing strategy, which incarcerated more non-Whites than Whites, especially through disparate sentencing for crack vs powder cocaine, and cannabis.
Posted by Warm Southern Breeze on Sunday, July 17, 2022
“Grooming” is a word that gets thrown around a lot these days; from serial sexual abuse to personal hygiene, “grooming” has become a favorite Word of the Day by the GOPT — Grand Old Party of Trump.
And well it should, because that party specializes in projection, an abusive manipulative psychological distraction technique that casts blame for a problem upon one’s opponent, or enemy, claiming that they are the ones doing the very thing the accuser is doing.
By blaming another, it keeps observers distracted from what the accuser actually is doing, by busying themselves with investigating whether, or not, the one being accused is genuinely guilty as charged by the accuser, or not.
As a longtime and ardent observer of matters political, I have absolute certainty that you’re keenly aware of such actions.
Posted by Warm Southern Breeze on Saturday, July 16, 2022
The United States Constitution has been amended 27 times.
Of those 27 amendments, there is but one solitary matter which has consistently appeared over the years.
And similarly, there is but one matter which has consistently been problematic for the United States.
That solitary matter has been addressed in the Constitution, to be affirmed, confirmed, and reaffirmed, time, and time, and time again.
And that single, solitary matter, is voting.
Exactly 5 of the 27 amendments — or 18.5% — to the U.S. Constitution have dealt with matters related to voting. If by the number of instances in which the matter is addressed is any indication of its importance, there is NO MORE greater matter to civil society, and by extension, to our democratic republic, than voting.
And yet, as evidenced by the corollary to those same amendments, voting has been, and continues to be, the single most abused, and misused tool of those who attempt to wrest power AWAY FROM the people, and accumulate it to unto themselves, and/or their favored political party.
Voting gives POWER TO THE PEOPLE; and that is precisely why some do NOT want We The People to have power, as our Constitutional Democratic Republic mandates.
Here are the amendments to the Constitution, as they read, which have all dealt with matters of voting.
Posted by Warm Southern Breeze on Friday, May 27, 2022
“Common sense isn’t so common, anymore,” goes one woefully pithy saying.
And, it certainly seems true — at least when it comes to matters of politics in this period.
But, exactly WHAT IS “common sense”?
Common sense could be the proverbial “moving target” which changes with every whim, and puffing wind of doctrine.
But, let’s hit the “pause” button for a moment and examine some matters surrounding firearms, aka “guns” and at least the two most recent tragedies in Buffalo, NY and Uvalde, TX, both sites of mass murders by 18-year-old gunmen armed with AR-15 style rifles.
Campaign flyer for GOP Arkansas U.S. Representative, Jay Dickey, CD-4.
Hyperbole aside, is there ANYTHING which could have been done to have prevented either holocaust?
Quite possibly, yes.
So, let’s examine some facts, and what laws ALREADY EXIST (or not) pertaining to firearms that might have prevented such carnage, and if they were useful — or not.
First, in BOTH cases, the perpetrators were aged 18.
Second, in BOTH cases, the firearm used — an AR-15 style rifle with a high-capacity ammunition magazine — was legally purchased.
Incidentally, that was also the firearm of choice used in numerous other massacre-style killings.
With respect to the Federal Government, there is NO law requiring establishing a comprehensive database of such massacres, and because of that, there is none. The ONLY such databases are maintained by private, non-governmental entities. That should not be so.
The Department of Justice maintains all sorts of statistics about crimes, and their perpetrators, but not on matters like this.
Why not?
That’s because a GOP Representative from Arkansas’ 4th Congressional District, Jay Dickie Jr. (1939-2017), put a “rider” onto a budget item in 1996 which has since been monikered as the “Dickie Amendment” which specifically forbade the Federal Government from studying such things.
At the time of his terms in the House of Representatives, Dickie described himself as an ardent Second Amendment supporter, which essentially translated into being “the NRA’s point person in Congress,” as he later described his role in a July 27, 2012 Op-Ed co-authored with Dr. Mark Rosenberg, MD.
Posted by Warm Southern Breeze on Monday, November 1, 2021
The Capitol Hill Police only made one mistake:
They
should have used flame throwers,
and
turned
every goddamned one
of
those sons of bitches
into
burnt toast
&
crispy critters.
So, more power to Lindsey Graham, at least on this matter.
If those bastards are not prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law, and convicted, it will be a travesty of justice.
As lawmakers were being evacuated from the Capitol on January 6, South Carolina Republican Senator Lindsey Graham told the Senate Sergeant-at-Arms to use the firearms they had been authorized to use, in order to stop the insurrectionists who had breached the building to threaten Congress.
According to a long-form piece published by The Washington Post on Sunday, the Senator was furious that lawmakers were being forced to evacuate and yelled at the Senate Sergeant-at-Arms,
“What are you doing? Take back the Senate! You’ve got guns. Use them! We give you guns for a reason. Use them!”
The Senator also called former POTUS Trump’s daughter Ivanka, and told her what her daddy should say to the rioters to calm them, and have them vacate the Capitol.
“You need to get these people out of here. This thing is going south. This is not good. You’re going to have to tell these people to stand down. Stand down.”
Posted by Warm Southern Breeze on Monday, September 6, 2021
Spendthrift Democrats ignore looming bankruptcy of Social Security and Medicare
By Liz Peek, Opinion Contributor — 09/04/21 03:00 PM EDT
Liz Peek is a Fox News contributor, conservative commentator, former partner of the now-defunct major bracket Wall Street investment banking firm Wertheim & Company, who worked as a oil industry research analyst on Wall Street over 20 years.
Let’s take it line-by-line — all my remarks are highlighted in GREEN and some areemboldened.
Here’s her opening line:
Are Democrats serious about confronting the impending collapse of Social Security and Medicare? It sure doesn’t seem so.
WOLF! WOLF! WOLF! Remember the Aesop’s fable of “The Boy who Cried ‘WOLF!'”?
Next line:
Instead of focusing on the looming bankruptcy of these programs, Democrats are pushing to spend $4-$5 trillion on a progressive wish-list of expensive new federal giveaways. Perhaps they believe that promising voters free college, free child care, free elder care and so much more will distract them from realizing that our most important safety nets are falling into disrepair.
“Federal giveaways,” she writes. You mean like TAX CUTS FOR THE WEALTHY & THEIR CORPORATIONS? That’s CORPORATE WELFARE. And we mustn’t forget Jeff Bezos who paid NO INCOME TAX, nor did his MEGA CORPORATION AMAZON. And then, there’s the “Paris Hilton Tax Cuts,” which DOES NOT TAX inheritance… even though it’s like winning the lottery. They did NOTHING TO EARN IT. And that’s just a drop in the bucket.
Next line.
Moreover, President Biden and congressional Democrats want to significantly hike taxes to pay for shiny new entitlements. But taxpayers are already facing big hits just to maintain the ones we already have.
Refer to the preceding paragraph about income tax rates for individuals, and corporations, and those who do NOT pay income taxes — the wealthy. They DO NOT see the paying of taxes, including income taxes, as being a patriotic duty. And yet, it is. During the 2-term Republican administration of President Dwight David Eisenhower, income tax rates upon the wealthiest Americans was 90%+, and upon corporations was 50%+. AND DURING HIS ADMINISTRATION, OUR NATION GREW LIKE GANGBUSTERS. Some complain about “tax and spend.” And yet, that is EXACTLY how it works. And the spending goes RIGHT BACK INTO THE PRIVATE SECTOR, which is where it originated. Presently, in 2021, the highest personal income tax rate is 37%, while the highest corporate income tax rate is 21%.
Next couple of paragraphs.
This week, the trustees of the Social Security and Medicare programs released their annual reports; the news is not good.
The bottom line: Both funds are running out of money, faster than expected. Both Medicare and Social Security will need to be propped up, the sooner the better. Specifically:
Medicare’s Part A Hospital Insurance trust fund will go broke in five years; outlays are projected to exceed income by nearly $600 billion over the next 10 years. Over the longer term, we would need a 27 percent increase in the payroll tax or a 16 percent spending cut to keep the program running.
Gross spending on Medicare will increase from 4.1 percent of our entire economy this year to more than 6 percent over the next 20 years.
Social Security will become insolvent in 13 years. Under current law, the administration cannot guarantee full benefits to today’s retirees.
The trustees’ report says that Social Security will run cash deficits of $2.4 trillion over the next 10 years, equal to 2.3 percent of total taxable payrolls.
Social Security is estimated to post a cash-flow deficit of $147 billion this year, equal to almost 0.7 percent of GDP
The date of projected insolvency for these entitlements moved closer over the past year; the proposed remedies from the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget (CRFB) become more draconian as time goes on.
The link provided by the author, Liz Peek, was NOT to an official United States Government website. It was to a group calling themselves “Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget.” And even that group DID NOT present a link to official sources. Yeah… that sounds about right. Find someone who’ll agree with you on everything you say, and present that echo chamber as reality.
Y’all BOTH keep up the good work — COVID & GOPers!
If our nation had a single-payer type healthcare delivery system as an option, those type problems (unpaid costs of care) would NOT exist.
Obviously, our nation’s excellent world-class healthcare delivery system is working quite well… for the Wall$treet banksters who run it.
——//——
Facebook post shared by Scott Apley mere days before he caught COVID-19, was hospitalized, and died.
In a Facebook post made Wednesday morning, the Galveston County Texas Republican Party wrote that Scott Apley, a member of the State Republican Executive Committee and Dickinson City Council, who was hospitalized with COVID-19, had died mere days after he shared a post on social media questioning the effectiveness of the coronavirus vaccine.
While the TX GOPers did not mention Apley’s cause of death, a GoFundMe page established for his survivors to help with medical and final expenses stated that, “on Sunday August 1st, H Scott Apley was admitted to UTMB Galveston with pneumonia-like symptoms and tested positive for COVID.”
Apley, who was 45, is survived by his wife, Melissa Apley, has also tested positive, but has not been hospitalized, and their infant son Reid, who is being cared for by Melissa’s mother, according to the GFM fund-raising page.
Melissa Apley, their infant Reid Apley, and Scott Apley.
Posted by Warm Southern Breeze on Monday, August 2, 2021
If coronavirus disease could talk, that’s what it would say.
Because right now, those whom have resisted getting vaccinated are largely conservative White Republican men.
A recent poll conducted by Monmouth University’s Polling Insitute found that 73% of self-identified Republicans oppose face mask and social distancing guidelines in their state, while 16% of those who remain vehemently opposed to getting the vaccine “believe Covid is a hoax or they are unlikely to get infected. Which means there may be very little that can be done at this point to change their minds,” said Patrick D. Murray, Founding Director of Monmouth University’s independent Polling Institute. Among those who admit they will not get the vaccine if they can avoid it, 70% either identify with or lean toward the Republican Party, and only 29% of Republicans blame vaccine opposition for most of the recent rise in COVID-19 infection cases.
Ron DeSantis (b.1978), Republican Governor of Florida since January 8, 2019, barely defeated Andrew Gillum, the Democratic Mayor of Tallahassee by a margin of 0.4%. At age 42, he is the nation’s youngest governor.
And they’re dying like flies in places like Florida, where Republican Governor Ron DeSantis — who himself is vaccinated with the Johnson & Johnson/Janssen single-dose viral vector-type vaccine — has steadfastly refused to do anything to protect his state’s citizens from the ravages of coronavirus disease infection, and has staunchly refused mandating face/nose covering use in public spaces, and even recently signed an executive orderPROHIBITING school districts from requiring staff and students to wear protective masks.
That, as news of findings published by the CDC of an outbreak in Provincetown, Barnstable County, Massachusetts – a resort town and summertime getaway location on the tip of Cape Cod – occurring among fully-inoculated individuals after participating in summer events and large public gatherings between July 3 and July 17, in which 469 cases of COVID-19 infection were identified among Massachusetts residents who had traveled there, of which 346 (74%) occurred in fully vaccinated persons. Testing identified the Delta variant in 90% of specimens from 133 patients.
The “great unknown” — even among researchers — throughout development, testing, and emergency approval of the Moderna and Pfizer/BioNtech mRNA type vaccines, and the Johnson & Johnson/Janssen viral vector type vaccine has been: Read the rest of this entry »
Posted by Warm Southern Breeze on Wednesday, July 14, 2021
Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr departs his home September 10, 1998, in McLean, VA. The 445-page Starr report on the investigation into the affair between President Clinton and former White House Intern Monica Lewinsky was delivered to Congress Wednesday afternoon. KHUE BUI/AP
Here’s your QAnon pedophile network boss.
Would you be surprised to know that it’s Kenneth Starr?
Remember: The [radical right-wing] QAnon conspiracy theory [falsely] claims that Democrats are involved in a global cannibalistic pedophile network, and that anti-Trumpers were directly involved in an attempt to destroy the 45th President’s efforts in office because he was onto their game and was rooting them out of “deep state” government bureaucracies and big business. The never-Trump movement began as intra-party opposition by prominent conservative Republicans to prevent him from being nominated, and later morphed.
And it is worth noting, that the pernicious QAnon conspiracy theory has long been discredited by numerous independent individuals, none of whom worked together, and that like many other conspiracy theories – and viruses – continually evolves, ever changing various elements of itself to potentially become as damaging as possible.
There’s always at least one element of truth in every lie, no matter how far-fetched the lie is, for without it, the entire house of cards falls apart. That’s just how fragile conspiracy theories are. They CANNOT survive independently, and like all parasites, need hosts in order to perpetuate.
Great Saint James (top center) and Little Saint James (lower center) islands in the U.S. Virgin Islands were owned by Jeffrey Epstein.
And in this instance, pedophilia is the solitary bit of truth.
From that single germ, the conspiracy begins to grow. Assertions of the existence of international cartels or networks are built upon the fact that Epstein was known to frequently fly abroad to various nations, and between 1995 and 2013 logged at least 730 flights to and from Teterboro Airport, NJ – a small, general aviation reliever “corporate” airport, just 12 miles from midtown Manhattan, where he maintained a seven-story, including basement, 18,814 square foot residence at 9 East 71st Street, on the posh Upper East Side of Manhattan. The pilots’ flight logs of his travel to and from Teterboro Airport represent only about a third of his total air travel between 1995 and 2013, and consist of thousands of flights. He was arrested at Teterboro Airport July 6, 2019 returning from Paris.
His international travel was facilitated by ownership of several jet aircraft and helicopters, including a Cessna Citation jet, a Gulf Stream jet, and a Boeing 727 jet airliner nicknamed “Lolita Express,” along with two Caribbean islands — the 78-acre Little Saint James, and the larger adjacent 165-acre Great Saint James, in the U.S. Virgin Islands — and was known to host notable guests on the them, among whom are known to have been former U.S. President Bill Clinton, accompanied by his Secret Service agents, because flight itineraries, manifests and passenger lists detail that he flew there as Epstein’s guest at least 26 times.
Jeffrey Epstein, Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Department booking photo, 27 July 2006, following his indictment for soliciting prostitution.
Other notable personalities who Epstein hosted regularly included such high-profile individuals as Donald Trump, renown Harvard University Professor of Law, emeritus, Alan Dershowitz, the UK’s Prince Read the rest of this entry »
Posted by Warm Southern Breeze on Tuesday, July 13, 2021
The Texas Governor, a wheelchair bound cripple (that itself is an enlightening story revealing his sadly hypocritical character), has attempted to compare Texas with Delaware by noting that TX has Early Voting, whereas DE, nicknamed “The First State,” does not.
I would imagine that most Texans with any sense of pride in the Lone Star State would be insulted by such a benighted attempt to compare the picayune Delaware to the formidable Texas.
By so doing, Greg Abbott and other Banana Republicans demonstrate what utter morons they are by daring to compare Texas with Delaware.
Why not compare the USA with Chile? Guatemala? Sri Lanka?
It ought to be self-evident to even the most dense person why there’s practically no genuine comparison. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted by Warm Southern Breeze on Monday, June 28, 2021
“Redistricting is like an election in reverse! It’s a great event. Usually the voters get to pick the politicians. In redistricting, the politicians get to pick the voters!”
— Thomas Hofeller (1943-2018), Republican National Committee Redistricting Director, GOP strategist and district mapmaker at “Redistricting & Census 2000,” an event sponsored by the National Conference of State Legislatures, (see video at 33:50–34:24), at Henry Gonzales Convention Center, San Antonio, Texas
Should politicians choose their voters?
Or, should voters choose their politicians?
That’s the essence of what will be the next great political fight to come from Republicans.
And, if things go the way that many expect them to go, the GOP will crown themselves the victor.
“The fix is in,” as the saying goes.
Here’s one recent news item detailing how the formerly-Grand Old Party will manipulate the system:
Republicans Eye Nashville Crack-Up To Gain House Seat
By Reid Wilson – 06/20/21 04:32 PM EDT
“Republicans plotting to maximize their advantages in state legislatures across the country during the decennial redistricting process are considering cracking apart Tennessee’s largest city, an ambitious move that could signal how aggressively the party will try to rig maps in its favor in the coming months.
“In preliminary conversations, top Republicans in the Volunteer State have contemplated dramatically redrawing the boundaries of a district anchored in Nashville, one of just two U.S. House seats in Tennessee held by a Democratic member of Congress.
“The move would put the squeeze on Rep. Jim Cooper (D), the dean of Tennessee’s congressional delegation and a presence in Washington since he first won his district in 1982, save for an eight-year absence after he lost a race for a U.S. Senate seat in 1994.
“Cooper has never had trouble winning reelection: He ran unopposed in 2020, and he hasn’t taken less than 62 percent of the vote since the Republican wave of 2010.
“Cooper’s strength lies in Nashville’s Davidson County, home to about four in five of his constituents. The county gave President Biden almost two-thirds of the vote in 2020, while the smaller but more Republican suburbs in Dickson and Cheatham counties voted heavily for former President Trump.
“Nashville and Davidson County have been wholly contained within one congressional district since at least the 1950s, a logical function of its role as the population epicenter of Middle Tennessee.
“But if Tennessee Republicans decide to divide Davidson County between neighboring districts, Cooper may find himself facing the unpalatable decision to run in a district that is much more favorable to Republicans: All three of the neighboring districts — held by Reps. John Rose (R) to the north and east, Mark Green (R) to the west and south and Scott DesJarlais (R) to the southeast — gave Trump at least two-thirds of the vote.
““Tennessee has changed dramatically, in a lot of ways,” said Gregory Gleaves, a Republican strategist in Nashville. “I don’t think it would be that unusual for Nashville to get split. It happens in other states. There’s no law saying Davidson County is the one county that can’t be split.”
“Democrats would have little ability to resist the GOP power play. Republicans hold 26 of 33 seats in the state Senate, and 74 of 99 seats in the state House of Representatives. Gov. Bill Lee, also a Republican, has the final say in approving any new district maps.
“It’s always going to be chopped up to the advantage of the ruling party. So that’s expected,” said state Rep. Antonio Parkinson (D), the chairman of the Tennessee state legislature’s Black Caucus. “It makes it harder for Democrats to get elected.”
“Cooper’s office did not respond to a request for comment. But he is no fan of partisan gerrymandering: Cooper introduced legislation earlier this year that would require states to create independent and bipartisan redistricting commissions.
“Voters should continue to choose their elected officials — not the other way around,” Cooper said in a statement introducing the bill in January. “The redistricting process shouldn’t be about protecting the powerful and we need to fix it.”
“The U.S. Census Bureau has not put out block-level population data that will inform state legislative mapmakers, after the pandemic delayed data collection and analysis, so any potential plans to split Nashville are preliminary at most.
“But redistricting experts say they see the move to divide Tennessee’s biggest city among multiple districts, diluting the power of Nashville’s voters and giving Republicans a chance to pick up a seat, as emblematic of a strategy the GOP will use in other states.
“This is a common tactic used by state legislators especially in order to crack voters into different districts,” said Ari Goldbloom-Helzner, a computational research analyst at the Electoral Innovation Lab at Princeton. “It makes it difficult for those groups to constitute a majority in electing a representative of their choice that represents their community.”
“Several other cities have been chopped between districts for partisan gain, too: In the last decade, Texas Republicans split Travis County, home of liberal Austin, among five separate congressional districts, four of which are held by Republicans. Pennsylvania Republicans drew district lines so bizarre in the increasingly Democratic Collar Counties around Philadelphia that the state Supreme Court set a new map of boundary lines in place for the 2018 elections. In Michigan, liberal Lansing is divided between districts held by Reps. Tim Walberg (R) and Elissa Slotkin (D), after Slotkin defeated Republican incumbent Mike Bishop in 2018.
“As the Census Bureau prepares to deliver new block-level data to states, Republicans and Democrats are beginning to outline strategies they will implement to take full advantage of the control they wield.
“Republicans, by dint of their advantage in so many state legislatures, will have a leg up. The GOP holds complete control over the redistricting process in 20 states that will collectively send 188 members to the House of Representatives.Democrats control the entire process in only seven states that account for 72 members of Congress.
“Sixteen states will draw new boundary lines through independent or bipartisan commissions or through power-sharing agreements because both Democrats and Republicans hold at least one lever of government. The seven remaining states send only one at-large member to Congress.
“The Republican advantage is less than it was a decade ago, just after the 2010 election handed the GOP control of a large number of governorships and state legislative chambers. But recent Supreme Court rulings have removed some of the guardrails that constrained legislatures last time around, potentially giving Republicans and Democrats alike greater freedom to exercise their control over the redistricting process.” https://thehill.com/homenews/state-watch/559207-republicans-eye-nashville-crack-up-to-gain-house-seat
If it’s wrong for one party to do it, it’s wrong for the other party to do it — regardless of which one is in power. Both parties would decry such an unjust and inequitably lopsided measure if the other one did it.
It’s not mere politics. The problem is very real, and is a dangerously destabilizing force upon our free and independent Constitutional processes, most notably upon voting, by making it ineffectual, null and void, and jeopardizing our national security and our democratic republic. In essence, it is a theft and usurpation of power out of the hands of The People, and into the pockets of politicians.
All that is thanks in large part to Thomas Hofeller, a Republican strategist who some say “perfected” the art of gerrymandering – a manipulative process designed to usurp power from the people, and instead, give it to politicians.
However, HR1 and companion bill S1, would put a stop to such abusive practices by establishing independent, nonpartisan redistricting boards in all 50 states, which is but one reason why that bill is so very important. It also puts an end to the abuses of “dark money,” and brings to a screeching halt the disastrous “money is free speech” SCOTUS ruling in Citizens United.
After Hofeller’s death, his daughter Stephanie discovered what amounted to a veritable treasure trove of information, all which was from his work drawing maps that would significantly benefit Republicans. What was embarrassing, was that all of his work was designed to limit the political influence of Blacks, Hispanics, and other non-White people. Stephanie’s discovery of his arguably racist work was so shocking, that the Republican party in North Carolina – where Hofeller’s maps work was successfully utilized by the GOP – sought to legally prevent her from publicly releasing his work.
Thomas Hofeller’s work creating gerrymandered exclusionary political maps was nationwide and included redistricting in Arizona, Florida, Maryland, Mississippi, Missouri, North Carolina, Ohio, Tennessee and Virginia, as well as Nassau County New York, and Galveston, and Nueces counties in Texas.
Hofeller was also significantly responsible for the idea of a prospective Census question “Is this person a United States citizen?” which was eventually nixed by the judicial system.
Stephanie said that her father’s stated objective was to use the manipulative process of gerrymandering to “create a system wherein the Republican nominee would win. State legislature, it doesn’t matter who votes for what. Congress, it doesn’t matter who votes for what. And president, it doesn’t matter.”
Posted by Warm Southern Breeze on Wednesday, June 2, 2021
The Insurrectionist wing of the Republican Party has problems.
Fox News Republicans…
…Live in their own little world.
But most objective observers already knew that – or, at least, strongly suspected it.
Now, scientific research has shown it to be true.
On practically every issue in society touching upon government has policy, or law, Fox News Republicans are far right wing extremists on everything.
And, their opinion of the 45th President is similarly high – and disturbingly so, at 98%.
The negative correlation – that of overwhelmingly negative views of high-profile Democrats – is no less than 93%.
There is in many cases a disparity between Fox News Republicans (FNRs) and Republicans (Rs). For example, FNRs gave the 45th President an 80% Strongly Approve (SA) rating, while Non-Fox News Republicans (NFNRs) gave him 42% Strong Approval (SA). There were similar disparities between FNRs and NFNRs on matters of economic importance, with FNRs expressing 86% SA, while NFNRs were 53% SA.
Even on handling of the coronavirus pandemic, FNRs were almost double the SA difference with 59%, while NFNRs were 29%. And on dealing with protests following police killings of Black Americans, FNRs had 55% SA, while NFNRs had 28% SA.
The disparity, chasm, and gulf between FNRs an NFNRs demonstrates that the Once Grand Old Party is not merely fractured, fissured, or split, but broken asunder, and perhaps beyond repair.
The differences and the issues were almost stereotypical in their responses, whether Abortion, Appointment of SCOTUS Justices, Jobs/Unemployment, Immigration, Federal Deficit, Trade Agreements, Healthcare, coronavirus pandemic, Foreign governments’ interference in US election, Racial inequality, Increasing disparity between rich & poor, and climate change. The differences between FNRs an NFNRs was at least 3%, and as great as 20%+.
And this is telling, as well:
“Fox News Republicans are more likely than all Americans and non–Fox News Republicans to say that Confederate symbols are more symbols of Southern pride than symbols of racism. More than nine in ten Fox News Republicans believe that both Confederate flags (92%) and monuments to Confederate soldiers (94%) are symbols of Southern pride. Non–Fox News Republicans are only somewhat less likely to say the same about flags and monuments (81% and 87%, respectively). All Americans are much more divided, with 47% who say the flag is a symbol of Southern pride and 59% who say the same of Confederate monuments.”
And interestingly, they also believe that they are victims of discrimination:
“Consistent with their other views on discrimination, more than eight in ten Fox News Republicans (83%) agree with the statement that “discrimination against white Americans has become as big a problem as discrimination against Black Americans and other minorities.” Two-thirds of non-Fox News Republicans (66%) agree with the statement, compared to just 42% of all Americans.”
Fox News Republicans
• Urban/Suburban 79
• White 81
• Male 57
• Evangelical/Mainline Protestant 36/21
• No College Degree 70
• Attend religious services once or more weekly 46
• Almost evenly distributed ages 30-65+ 30-49/30; 50-64/28; 65+/32
• Household income $50,000-$100,000 43
“In a bid to make prosecutors more accountable for their actions, Chief Judge Sol Wachtler has proposed that the state scrap the grand jury system of bringing criminal indictments.
“Wachtler, who became the state’s top judge earlier this month, said district attorneys now have so much influence on grand juries that “by and large” they could get them to “indict a ham sandwich.”
A month later, the New York Times noted that Judge Wachtler believed that Grand Juries “operate more often as the prosecutor’s pawn than the citizen’s shield.”
That belief – that Prosecutors can get Grand Juries to do whatever they want them to do – may sound familiar to anyone who has read, or heard, news items of the criticisms of almost any Grand Jury in the United States.
But, of course, the adage doesn’t always true.
At least not in this instance, when the Feds have the goods on their will-plead-guilty-Monday-morning 17 May 2021 suspect – such as DNA and fingerprints – and as an unexpected by-product of the investigation are – more than likely – working on another very closely-related suspect, who – as of yet – remains unnamed, and unindicted.
That as-yet unnamed, and unindicted suspect would be Florida’s Republican Representative for the 1st Congressional District, Matt Gaetz.
Gatez and Greenberg are each quintessential examples of a Florida Manchild. They’re each multi-millionaires from daddy’s money – Greenberg from his father’s dental clinics, and Gaetz from his father’s pharmaceutical interests – and are, as such, spoiled brats and children of privilege who think the world is their oyster.
One “Florida Man” in the headline, of course, is Joel Greenberg, who was formerly a Tax Collector for Seminole County, Florida, and a very good buddy to the other Florida Man, the Banana Republican Florida Representative Matt Gaetz of the state’s 1st Congressional District in Fort Walton.
After his election to public office, Greenberg immediately began ingratiating himself to Trump supporters, and spoke at a rally in Sanford, FL in late 2016. Investigative reporting by the New York Times found that Greenberg and Gaetz had initially met one another through their support of Trump some time in 2017 and in June that year, Gaetz suggested to Greenberg that he consider campaigning for U.S. Congress. And on July 8 that year, Greenberg posted on Twitter a picture himself, along with convicted Federal felon, Nixon aficionado and political dirty-trickster Roger Stone, and Gaetz.
In this September 30, 2019, file photo, Seminole County Tax Collector Joel Greenberg talks to the Orlando Sentinel during an interview at his office in Lake Mary, Florida. As a key figure in the federal investigation of Republican Representative Matt Gaetz, Greenberg is expected to plead guilty to criminal charges next week. Joel Greenberg will appear Monday, 17 May 2021 in Federal court in Orlando, Florida for a change of plea hearing, according to court documents. (Joe Burbank/Orlando Sentinel via AP, File)
Investigation into Greenberg’s dealings was first initiated by the Secret Service, in response to complaints that he improperly used county resources to mine Bitcoin… after cryptocurrency mining computers he’d purchased with taxpayer dollars for his private personal use caused an electrical system overload, resulting in a fire, which altogether caused over $7000 worth of uninsured damage to Seminole County property.
When the Feds wrapped up their investigation into Greenberg and his activities, they had leveled a 33 count indictment of violating several Federal laws – on charges ranging from stalking to sex trafficking, and conspiracy to fraud – so a plea deal down to 6 is a significant reduction – a very nearly 82% reduction.
David Weinstein, a former Assistant US Attorney for the Southern District of Florida said of Greenberg’s plea deal that, “His cooperation requires him to be providing truthful testimony and to provide it at the government’s request.”
As part of his plea agreement, on Monday, 17 May 2021 in Orlando at the George C. Young Federal Annex Courthouse in the United States District Court for the Middle District of Florida, Joel Greenberg will admit to recruiting women for commercial sexual exploitation, paying them over $70K from 2016 to 2018, including at least one underage girl then-aged 17, whom he paid to have sex with him, and with others, including Matt Gaetz.
Count One: Sex Trafficking of a Child – 18 USC § 1591
Count Eight: Producing a False ID – 18 US § 1028(a)(1)
Count Nine: Aggravated Identity Theft – 18 USA § 1028A
Count Fourteen: Wire Fraud – 18 USC § 1343
Count Twenty-Four: Stalking – 18 USC § 2261A
County Twenty-Six: Conspiracy – 18 USC § 371
Minimum & Maximum Penalties
Count One: Mandatory Minimum 10 years, up to life, $250,000 fine, supervised release not less than 5 years up to life, special assessment $100
Count Eight: Maximum sentence 15 years, $250,000 fine, 3 years supervised release, special assessment $100
Count Nine: Mandatory Minimum 2 years (consecutive to any other conviction), $250,000 fine, 1 year supervised release, special assessment $100
Count Fourteen: Maximum 20 years, $250,000 fine or 2x gross loss caused by offense – whichever is greater, 3 years supervised release, special assessment $100
Count Twenty-Four: 5 years maximum $250,000 fine, 3 years supervised release, special assessment $100
Count Twenty-Six: Maximum 15 years, $250,000 fine or twice gross gain or loss caused by offense – whichever is greater, 3 years supervised release, special assessment $100 – because offense was committed while on pre-trial release, and was warned about it
Federal prosecutors say that Greenberg abused his public office as Tax Collector for Seminole County, Florida not only by embezzling $400,000, but also by improperly using a statewide driver license database to “investigate” information about sexual partners, including a then-17-year old girl with whom he, and others had paid to have sex with.
He was also charged with numerous violations of the Federal Driver’s Privacy Protection Act, on multiple counts of producing a fraudulent identification document and creating false identification documents, along with aggravated identity theft.
Specifically, Greenberg also abused his elected office by using “his access to the Seminole County Tax Collector’s Office to take surrendered driver licenses before they were shredded,” and then he “used the surrendered driver licenses that he had taken to cause fake driver licenses to be produced that had his photograph but the personal information of the victims whose driver licenses he had taken.”
Prosecutors also say that Greenberg’s corrupt house of cards began to crumble with a series of falsified letters which Greenberg had crafted and mailed [fraudulent use of U.S. Mail] which purported to be from a non-existent “very concerned student” enrolled at a private prep school where Brian Beute – a Republican candidate for Tax Collector and political opponent – taught music, and falsely alleged that the music teacher (Greenberg’s political opponent) had engaged in sexual misconduct with another student.
As part of that Roger-Stone-initiated ruse, he also created fake social media accounts in order to pose as Beute, or others, in an attempt to discredit him.
Republicans excel, are expert in, and frequent users of, the tactic of psychological projection – falsely claiming that an opponent is engaging in the very activities which they (the accuser) are/have engaged in.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Roger B. Handberg III testified in court that investigators found Greenberg’s fingerprints and DNA on the letters, and traced the fake social media accounts to his computer’s IP address.
Posted by Warm Southern Breeze on Thursday, May 13, 2021
“If I don’t have gas, I don’t work,” said Ronald Ross, 47, a DoorDash driver in Atlanta, as he fueled up his Chevy sedan.
Asked about government requests to avoid hoarding, he said: “Forget that. It’s first come first serve. People have to look out for themselves. As long as they’re peaceful and all.”
I ordered pizza recently from Little Caesars – they use DoorDash. They don’t have their own delivery driver employees like most other pizza companies do – even small ones. And unlike other standard traditional transactions in which one pays the vendor for their product, in the DoorDash model, you pay them EVERYTHING. The merchant does not bill.
DoorDash charged very handsomely for the service (various “fees” and such), and their total was about $10 – almost ½ the pizza price – most of which ($9) went to them.
Posted by Warm Southern Breeze on Friday, April 30, 2021
Banana Republicans are 100% pure hypocrites.
Matt Gaetz
Marjorie Taylor Greene
Florida Republican Representative Matt Gaetz (CD-1) and a group of other House Republicans on Friday, 30 April 2021 introduced legislation to defund the U.S. Postal Inspection Service, a law enforcement and investigative arm of U.S. Postal Service.
American intelligence agencies have debriefed Congress and issued reports about the serious threat to national security posed by domestic terrorists, particularly White supremacists, neo-Nazis and other racist groups such as Proud Boys, and others, following their concerted attack upon Congress on January 6, 2021 as they were performing their Constitutionally-mandated duties by certifying election results. Those groups, and others sympathetic with them, primarily used the radical right-wing social media platforms Parler and Telegram to coordinate their efforts, and attack.
HYPERCRIMINALIZATION:Georgia’s new law codifies mass disenfranchisement and intimidation and further expands criminalization policy in the voting process.1.Mass Challenges:Codifies that a single person can challenge the voter registration of an unlimited # of voters at once, resulting in that voter being purged. (lines 575–576)
1. Mass Challenges: Codifies that a single person can challenge the voter registration of an unlimited # of voters at once, resulting in that voter being purged. (lines 575–576)
2. Mass Challenges: Codifies that a single person can challenge the rights of an unlimited # of voters to cast their ballot in the upcoming election. 364k Georgians were frivolously challenged in the runoffs. In just 29 counties, 15,000 Black voters, 2,000 Hispanic voters, and 1500 AAPI voters were challenged.(lines 622–623)
Georgia’s nickname is the “Peach State,” and it is one of the 13 original colonies.
3. Mass Challenges:Mandates counties hold mass challenge hearings that challenged voter must show up to—within 10 days of frivolous challenge. (line 581)
4. Line–warming/Criminalization: Makes it a crime for volunteers or groups to hand water or snacks to voters in line. (lines 1873–1875)
5. Line–warming/Criminalization: Makes it a crime for *voters* in line to accept water or snacks from a volunteer or group. Bill later amended to allow an “unattended receptacle” near line. (lines 1873–1875, lines 1887–1889)
6. Criminalization: Creates a new misdemeanor for voters if the voter allows someone other than those authorized under state/federal law to see them marking their ballot at home. (lines 1339, 1347–1349)
7. Criminalization:Creates a new felony for anyone that witnesses someone else mark their *absentee* ballot at home — unless they are providing legally authorized assistance or are a child. (lines 2449–2454)
8. Criminalization: Creates a new misdemeanor for handling a completed application for anyone not authorized by law to assist voter. (lines 979–981)
9. Criminalization:Adds new misdemeanor for photographing your own *absentee* ballot or someone else’s. (expanding existing law to ensure VBM also criminalized) (line 2460)
10. Intimidation: Creates new fraud hotline that will accept “anonymous tips” and AG can launch investigations or prosecute within 3 days. (lines 171–178)
POWER GRABS/CONSOLIDATION OF ELECTION AUTHORITY: Georgia’s new law removes significant power from the Secretary of State and gives the GOP–led, gerrymandered state legislature majority control of the State Election Board.
11. Removes SOS Power: Removes the Secretary of State as Chair of the State Election Board (line 185).
12. State Legislature Controls SEB: Grants state legislature power to appoint new chair of State Election Board (SEB). Meaning state legislature will choose 3 out of 5 State Election Board members going forward, a majority. (lines 185 –189)
13. Removes SOS Power:Removes the SOS as a voting member of the State Election Board (lines 252–253).
14. Removes SOS Power: Bill amended at last second to remove SOS power to appoint members of performance review board. (lines 500–503, line 521, line 540 || vs. lines 499–502, line 520, line 540 of bill as passed SEI committee: LC280338S)
15. Removes SOS Power: Requires SOS provide all necessary support/assistance to SEB for county takeovers at the sole discretion of SEB (lines 270–281).
16. Removes SOS Power:Bans SOS/counties from proactively sending vote by mail applications without a request. (lines 966–970)
17. Legislative Power:Allows state legislature to overrule any emergency election rule (lines 2491–2494)
COUNTY ELECTION BOARD TAKEOVERS:Georgia’s new law removes judicial oversight from the county intervention process and grants a GOP–controlled State Election Board the power to replace county BOEs and local elections officials that have significant voter access and election certification responsibilities.
18. No Judicial Oversight: Removes judicial oversight from county takeover process. Georgia already had a process to deal with low–performing counties, but it required judicial oversight of the State Election Board (SEB). The new process replaces judicial oversight with opaque investigation/takeover powers. (See Georgia Code § 21–2–32 for previous process)Read the rest of this entry »
Posted by Warm Southern Breeze on Wednesday, April 28, 2021
The idiom to “go off half-cocked” came from incidents in which a flintlock or matchlock gun would fire prematurely, before the trigger was pulled.
As used in modern context, it means:
• to take a premature or ill-considered action; to act too soon, prematurely, or without reflection;
• to do or say something without preparing for, or thinking about it;
• to go into action too early, or without thinking.
That certainly seems to be the case with several Banana Republicans recently. Banana Republicans lead Banana Republics, right?
An article published last week by the notoriously unreliable British tabloid “The Daily Mail” – which is infamous for habitually and recklessly publishing sensationalistically inaccurate fear-mongering stories – stated a deliberate lie which falsely claimed that President Joe Biden’s climate proposals would deliberately limit Americans’ red meat consumption.
LEFT to RIGHT: Donna Mosing, spouse of Greg Mosing; Kristi Noem; Ted Nugent, spouse of Shemane Nugent.
However, a week before he made that announcement, Nugent’s wife Shemane posted a photo on Instagram which cross-posted to Twitter, of them standing with South Dakota Republican Governor Kristi Noem and Republican donor Greg Mosing and his wife, Donna, alongside a private jet aircraft. None of them were wearing any type of protective nose/mouth covering.
She wrote: “Thank you for a great trip with Governor Kristi Noem, on Rockstar One (think Air Force One!).”
Posted by Warm Southern Breeze on Tuesday, April 13, 2021
U.S. Banana Republican Representative for Illinois’ 3rd Congressional District Jim Banks – just look at the smirking smug look on that mofo’s face.
Banana Republicans are liars.
Period.
Full stop.
They will say, or do, anything to get, and retain, power.
Their last leader was a Liar of the First Order. Nothing he said could be believed.
Nothing.
Ever.
Nothing that he and his über-wealthy multi-millionaire henchmen – also known as his cabinet and administration – did ever benefited the working families of America.
Nothing.
Ever.
They don’t give a shit about you, until something happens to them.
Look at Kentucky U.S. Representative Andy Barr, a Banana Republican who ostensibly represents the 6th Congressional District in that state. His wife died aged 39 of MVP – Mitral Valve Prolapse – after being diagnosed with it some years earlier. Sure, that’s a sad thing to have happen. And it happens much more frequently than one would imagine. But, this is the VERY first time that a Banana Republican has done any goddamn thing about it.
What we need to do is eliminate the hypocritical Banana Republicans.
Just look at the miserable POS Wilbur Ross, the lying asshole who was his Secretary of Commerce, who sought to exclude counting people in the Census, and actually went to a Supreme Court fight to attempt to shaft Americans.
Fortunately, the SCOTUS said “NO,” to his illegal, and anti-Constitutional ideas.
And then, there’s the scumbag who was POS45’s Postmaster General, Louis DeJoy, who aided and abetted Read the rest of this entry »
Posted by Warm Southern Breeze on Saturday, April 3, 2021
Tit for tat.
Just like something a petulant 4-year old child would do.
Soon enough, America will let the GOP know how utterly disgusted they are with their bullshittery.
It’ll be at the ballot box.
Their days are numbered, and the end is in sight. That’s why they’re taking such utterly drastic and unheard-of measures, including writing restrictive laws prohibiting voting… i.e., fixing problems that don’t exist – except that the problems are that they lost because they’re fresh out of ideas, and utterly out-of-touch with the American people.
GOP Senators Push To End Major League Baseball Antitrust Status
Republican Senators Mike Lee of Utah, and Ted Cruz of Texas have joined calls to end Major League Baseball’s antitrust exemption following the its decision to pull the 2021 All-Star Game out of Atlanta.
Posted by Warm Southern Breeze on Tuesday, March 16, 2021
Yes, we all know that they’re jerkwads.
They also believe that the moon is made of green cheese, and that POS45 won re-election. That’s why he’s not in the White House – he’s on permanent vacation pooping into one of his golden toilets at his Palm Beach, FL resort, and playing golf. Because that’s what winners do, right?
And lie about practically everything. He’s a liar, so that almost goes without saying.
He deceived the American public – or, at least attempted to deceive the American public – about getting a vaccination against COVID-19 before leaving the White House.
Posted by Warm Southern Breeze on Tuesday, March 9, 2021
So they got their clocks unexpectedly cleaned in the November General Election, and now, they don’t like it.
And what do they do?
Change the rules, because they don’t like them any more.
That’s right!
Where, or in what sport does that ever occur – that the losing team seeks rule changes after a loss, because they lost?
None.
Why?
Because respectable teams understand that their losses are exclusively because of poor playing skills, including faulty strategy, bad tactics, and nothing more. And in politics, it boils down to the questions how well have you treated the people? What have you done FOR them to help, and benefit them?
Georgia elections official Gabriel Sterling, pictured in November 2020, pushed back on false claims about voter fraud. But he supports some Republican initiatives to change voting laws, saying it could help elections administrators.
It’s only been 16 years since Republicans last changed the voting rules in Georgia, and… well, read this article by Georgia Public Broadcasting about the matter -AND- the article by NPR in which Gabriel Sterling, Georgia’s Chief Operating Officer for the Secretary of State’s office, is interviewed.
“In 2005, the year that Republicans gained control of state government after decades of Democratic domination, HB 244 was a 59-page bill that contained nearly 70 revisions of state election code, including two major changes: adding a photo ID requirement for in-person voting and allowing Georgians to vote by mail without an excuse, and without an ID.
“At the time, Democrats and voting rights groups adamantly opposed both measures. Lawmakers compared the photo ID requirement to Jim Crow laws and warned that Georgia would have some of the country’s most restrictive voting procedures. The addition of no-excuse absentee voting did not reassure Democrats, either. In an eerie inversion of today’s positions, they argued that it would introduce a system ripe for abuse.
““By removing restrictions related to mailed absentee ballots, HB 244 opens a greater opportunity for fraud,” former Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed, then a Democratic state senator, wrote in an op-ed. “Skeptics might point out that absentee voters have historically voted for Republicans in higher numbers.”
“Among the lawmakers who voted for the bill were Gov. Brian Kemp (then a state senator), House Speaker David Ralston, Speaker Pro Tem Jan Jones, Majority Leader Jon Burns, Senate Rules chairman Jeff Mullis, Georgia Republican Party Chairman David Shafer (then a state senator) and Reps. Terry England, Sharon Cooper, Ed Setzler, Lynn Smith and Barry Fleming, author of the current House omnibus which is one of the bills that would add an ID requirement to absentee ballots and applications.
“Democrats who opposed the 2005 bill included current Sen. Minority Leader Gloria Butler, Sens. Ed Harbison, Horacena Tate, Kasim Reed and Reps. Debbie Buckner, Roger Bruce, MARTOC chair Mary Margaret Oliver, and Calvin Smyre, currently the longest-serving member of the House, among others.
“Democrats said at the time that requiring photo ID to vote in person would disenfranchise lower-income, older and non-white voters, while pressing the idea that expanded no-excuse absentee voting without an ID requirement was an invitation to fraud.
““This bill would actually open the door wide to opportunities for voter fraud because it allows voting by mail where you present no identification whatsoever,” Democratic Secretary of State Cathy Cox said in an Atlanta Journal-Constitution article. “So those parts of the bill really don’t jive in my mind in terms of any real effort to crack down on what someone perceives to be voting fraud.”
“Fast forward to 2021: There has been no evidence of widespread fraud with absentee-by-mail voting and, until the 2018 governor’s race, the relative few voters that used absentee ballots skewed older, whiter and more Republican.
“A record number of Georgians participated in the November general election thanks in part to expanded voting rules and procedures pushed by Republican Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger. Demographic changes and a surge in automatic voter registrations have shifted statewide politics to razor-thin margins, and Democrats took advantage of no-excuse absentee voting to flip the state’s electoral votes and both U.S. Senate seats.
“In the elections debate following the 2020 presidential race, the arguments might sound familiar. Former President Donald Trump and other top Republicans have questioned the security of the more than 1.3 million absentee ballots cast by Georgians in the November election, claimed that the state’s method of matching signatures to verify absentee ballots opened the door to fraud, and proposed sweeping changes to fix the system.
“Raffensperger told GPB News that adding an ID requirement to absentee ballots seemed like a logical solution given the complaints from both sides of the aisle.
““A year ago we were being sued by the Democrats,” Raffensperger said in the interview. “They did not like signature match, they said it was unconstitutional and now the Republicans are saying the same thing. Well, you guys are both singing off the same song sheet now, so maybe now we need a verifiable photo ID component with the absentee ballot process.”
“Gov. Brian Kemp supported no-excuse absentee voting in 2005, and by the end of his run as secretary of state in 2018, touted Georgia as a national leader in election law because of the state’s absentee rules, automatic voter registration and at least 16 days of in-person early voting — a distinction that his successor Raffensperger touts at the bottom of every press release.
“But other Republican legislators have changed their stances on the state’s election laws over the past decade-and-a-half.”
–––MORE–––
Georgia is recognized as a national leader in elections. It was the first state in the country to implement the trifecta of automatic voter registration, at least 16 days of early voting (which has been called the “gold standard”), and no-excuse absentee voting. Georgia continues to set records for voter turnout and election participation, seeing the largest increase in average turnout of any other state in the 2018 midterm election and record turnout in 2020, with over 1.3 million absentee by mail voters and over 3.6 million in-person voters utilizing Georgia’s new, secure, paper ballot voting system.
Georgia elections official Gabriel Sterling gained national attention a few months ago by pushing back against former President Donald Trump’s false claims of voter fraud.
But Republican state lawmakers in Georgia, inspired by those falsehoods, have introduced a handful of bills that would increase barriers to voting for some people.
Georgia Elections Official Gabriel Sterling Responds To Bills That Make Voting Harder
Georgia is among 43 states that are considering similar legislation, according to the Brennan Center.
Sterling, a Republican who is now the chief operating officer for the Georgia secretary of state’s office, says some of the measures backed by Republican Georgia state lawmakers go too far.
But he argues that many of the proposals could end up helping elections administrators.
There was no widespread fraud in Georgia, he says, but there were small numbers of double voting, out-of-state voting and felons voting. Rules involving photo IDs could make things easier for elections workers, he says.
“In a state like Georgia, where the election is getting closer and closer, every vote’s going to count,” Sterling says. “And anything we can do to make the system more secure and provide confidence to everybody, that’s the kind of things that we need to be focusing on.”
Sterling talked with NPR’s Scott Detrow on Morning Edition about the proposals under consideration and why he opposes the Democrat-backed voting rights bill that passed the U.S. House last week.
Here are excerpts of the interview:
One proposal would eliminate no-excuse absentee voting and add voter ID requirements for absentee voting. This is being characterized by many voting rights groups as nothing more than a response to the fact that Democrats won Georgia Senate races and the presidential race last year and that Democrats used absentee voting more than Republicans. Are they wrong?
Posted by Warm Southern Breeze on Tuesday, February 16, 2021
More Compelling Evidence That Senators Are Members Not Of Congress, But Of The Cult of Trump
Banana Republicans in the United States Senate are a bunch of spineless jellyfish.
And… Kentucky Senate Minority Leader Moscow Mitch “The Bitch” McConnell is their leader.
An Impeachment Manager Says Republicans Privately Told Her She Made A Compelling Case To Convict Trump, But They Acquitted Him Anyway
• Delegate Stacey Plaskett (D-Virgin Islands) was a House manager in Trump’s second impeachment trial.
• She told CNN some Senate Republicans privately told her she “made the case” for conviction.
• But she said they already planned to acquit Trump and didn’t want to “stand out on a limb” by convicting.
A House impeachment manager says Republican senators told her privately that she “made the case” to convict former President Donald Trump, but they still voted to acquit him.
Delegate Stacey Plaskett, a Democrat from the Virgin Islands, told CNN’s Chris Cuomo on Monday about the interactions she had with unnamed Republican senators during Trump’s second impeachment trial last week.
“I had Senators, even after we presented, who stopped me in the hallway, Republicans, who said that we had made the case, but yet they were going to vote to acquit the president,” Plaskett said.
Plaskett said she tried to win these senators over by saying they could vote to acquit Trump, but not vote to disqualify him from holding office in the future – a vote which would have taken place after conviction, and only requires a simple majority.
Posted by Warm Southern Breeze on Friday, February 12, 2021
“Trump told us to do it.”
Trump’s MAGA supporters rioter-insurrectionists who were assembled at the White House Ellipse Park January 6, 2021 quickly became violent exclusively because they believed that Trump was asking them to do so – that they were doing his bidding.
“He said, ‘Be there.’ So I went and I answered the call of my president.”
House Impeachment Managers cited social media posts, recorded video, and court documents which reflected as much.
“I Answered the Call of My President.”
Impeachment Managers also extensively documented that several months BEFORE the election, Trump was laying the groundwork for convincing his cult of followers that the November presidential election was fixed, and that his victory was stolen because of Read the rest of this entry »
Posted by Warm Southern Breeze on Monday, February 8, 2021
There’s a segment of society that’s cool with totalitarianism, and authoritarianism.
They’d be happy as a lark to live in a prison, with security cameras at every corner watching everything they do 24/7/365, complete with concertina wire-topped electric fences, armed guards, and people telling them what to do, how to do it, when to do it, and when and where to go – complete with patdowns and searches for contraband. Every moment of their life would be under scrutiny and available for public consumption.
Those are the Banana Republicans – people who have so little confidence in the government that they’ve helped to destroy since 1980, that they feel like they have to carry firearms and other weapons, openly and clandestinely, in order to protect themselves. People who say hate is love, and war is peace, and slavery is freedom all while doing their damnedest to convince the ignorant and fearful that the GREAT BIG BOOGEYMAN OF BIG GOVERNMENT IS COMING TO EAT YOUR BABIES!
Boo!
AP-NORC Poll: Few In U.S. Say Democracy Is Working Very Well
By Steven Sloan and Thomas Beaumont
Monday, Feb ruary 8, 2021
WASHINGTON (AP) — Only a fragment of Americans believe democracy is thriving in the U.S., even as broad majorities agree that representative government is one of the country’s bedrock principles, according to a new poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.
Just 16% of Americans say democracy is working well or extremely well, a pessimism that spans the political spectrum. Nearly half of Americans, 45%, think democracy isn’t functioning properly, while another 38% say it’s working only somewhat well.
Only 16% Of Americans Say Democracy Is Working Very Or Extremely Well
A new AP-NORC poll finds Democrats are much more likely than Republicans to say democracy is working at least somewhat well. Few Republicans or Democrats say it is working very or extremely well.
How well would you say democracy is working in the United States these days?
CAPTION: Results based on interviews with 1,055 U.S. adults conducted Jan. 28-Feb. 1. The margin of error is ±3.8 percentage points for the full sample.
Source: AP-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research Graphic: Kati Perry
“At every turn, it’s gotten worse and worse,” said Curtis Musser, a 55-year-old Republican-leaning independent in Clermont, Florida, who didn’t vote for Trump. “You could see it brewing even before the election. And everything just kept spiraling downward from there.”
Posted by Warm Southern Breeze on Monday, February 8, 2021
See how insane that headline is?
The fact of the matter is, that 43-year old quarterback Tom Brady led the Tampa Bay Buccaneers to a Super Bowl 55 victory over the Kansas City Chiefs 31-9 in Tampa, Florida’s Raymond James Stadium.
And like the 2020 General Election, it too was seen worldwide. There was no “Deflate-Gate,” there were no biased referees, there were no ineligible players on field, there were no players on either side using performance enhancing drugs, and there were no changes to the goal lines, or hash marks.
It was a 100% fair game.
Just like the 2020 November General Election.
Maybe in the interim, before the next season starts, for the benefit of future games, and in order to restore confidence in the game, the Kansas City Chiefs can get some rules changed to help them win next time.
Remember: Denial is not a river in Egypt.
States’ Republicans Weigh New Laws Making It Harder To Vote
After an election that saw record voter turnout, with many of those voters casting their ballots early and by mail, some Republican state lawmakers are proposing a wave of new voting laws that would effectively make it more difficult to vote in future elections.
The proposals come in the aftermath of the unprecedented onslaught of disinformation about the conduct of the 2020 election by former President Donald Trump and some of his allies in the Republican Party.
“Some folks bring these proposals forward and say, ‘Well, we just need to address confidence in our election systems,’ when it’s some of those very same people, or at least their allies and enablers, [who] have denigrated our election system by either telling lies or at least leveraging or relying on other people’s lies to justify some of these policies,” said Steve Simon, Minnesota’s Democratic Secretary of State, at a news conference organized last week by the Voter Protection Program.
A recent analysis by the Brennan Center for Justice found that 106 bills have been filed by Republican lawmakers in 28 states that would restrict voting (the group also found 406 bills in 35 states that would expand voting access). Many of the bills would limit voting by mail, add new voter ID requirements, make it more difficult to register voters and give states greater leeway to purge voter files if voters don’t consistently cast ballots in every election.
“Some of them are for show; some of them have to be taken more seriously,” said Trey Grayson, a former Republican Secretary of State in Kentucky, at the same news conference.
What We Learned from Trump’s Effort to Overturn the 2020 Election Results
by Matthew Rosenberg, Jim Rutenberg
February 1, 2021
The January 6, 2021 rally/riot of MAGA Trump supporters before their assault on the Capitol. Nina Berman/NOOR, via Redux Pictures
An examination by the New York Times of the 77 days between election and inauguration shows how a lie the former president had been grooming for years overwhelmed the Republican Party and stoked the assault on the Capitol.
For 77 days between the election and the inauguration, President Donald J. Trump attempted to subvert American democracy with a lie about election fraud that he had been grooming for years.
A New York Times examination of the events that unfolded after the election shows how the president — enabled by Republican leaders, advised by conspiracy-minded lawyers and bankrolled by a new class of Trump-era donors — waged an extralegal campaign that convinced tens of millions of Americans the election had been stolen and made the deadly Jan. 6 assault on the Capitol almost inevitable.
Interviews with central players, along with documents, videos and previously unreported emails, tell the story of a campaign that was more coordinated than previously understood, even as it strayed farther from reality with each passing day.
Here are some key takeaways:
As some lawyers on Trump’s team pulled back, others were ready to press ahead with suits skating the lines of legal ethics and reason
Within 10 days of the election, even as Mr. Trump and his supporters promoted allegation after allegation of voter fraud, his team of election lawyers knew that the reality was the inverse of what Mr. Trump was presenting: They were not finding substantial evidence of malfeasance or enough irregularities to overturn the election.
That reality was hammered home on November 12, when final Arizona results showed Joseph R. Biden Jr. with an irreversible lead of more than 10,000 votes that rendered the legal team’s main lawsuit in that state — which had identified 191 ballots to contest — moot.
At an Oval Office meeting that day, the election lawyers squared off against the president’s personal lawyer, Rudolph W. Giuliani, over Mr. Giuliani’s embrace of questionable legal tactics and conspiracy theories like one that Dominion voting machines had transformed Trump votes into Biden votes.
Ultimately, Mr. Trump decided to give Mr. Giuliani leadership of the entire legal strategy, making November 12 the day when Mr. Trump’s effort to reverse his loss in the courts became an all-out, extralegal campaign to disenfranchise millions of voters based on the false notion of pervasive fraud.
Voting-machine conspiracy theories became intertwined with a supercomputer story pushed in conservative media
The Dominion conspiracy theory taking root among the president and many of his supporters had been weeks in the making. In late October, an obscure conservative website, The American Report, was pushing stories about a supercomputer called The Hammer that it said was running software called Scorecard to steal votes from Mr. Trump.
The theory found amplification the day before the election on the podcast of Mr. Trump’s former political strategist, Stephen K. Bannon, who Read the rest of this entry »
Posted by Warm Southern Breeze on Monday, February 1, 2021
“Loony lies and conspiracy theories are cancer for the Republican Party and our country. Somebody who’s suggested that perhaps no airplane hit the Pentagon on 9/11, that horrifying it school shootings were pre-staged, and that the Clintons crashed JFK Jr.’s airplane is not living in reality. This has nothing to do with the challenges facing American families or the robust debates on substance that can strengthen our party.”
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky issued a short statement Monday night that didn’t directly mention Georgia’s Banana Republican MT-headed Greene by name, but left no mistake that he wrote about her exclusively.
Hey, you ignorant Kentucky hillbilly!
Read your history.
Ku Klux Klansmen rally in support of Arizona Senator Barry Goldwater, 1964 GOP Presidential nominee.
Image: Universal History Archive/Getty Images
In 1964 at the Republican National Convention, New York Governor Nelson Rockefeller reminded the delegates that he warned over a year earlier that the party was in danger of being infiltrated by radical elements, such as the Ku Klux Klan, Communists, John Birch Society members, racist Dixiecrats, White Supremacists who used Nazi-like tactics, and other such ilk. By the time of the convention, it already had been.
Posted by Warm Southern Breeze on Sunday, January 31, 2021
Some people – mostly Banana Republicans and similar GOP types – have minds like concrete:
Thoroughly mixed, and permanently set.
That includes Georgia Representative Marjorie Taylor Green, R-14 (aka “MT-headed Greene”), and most all of the former “Party of Lincoln.”
In fact, the GOP could now be considered almost-fully matured.
But, we should not tear down the Lincoln Memorial, because frankly, the currently sorry, stinking condition of the once-Grand Old Party is not his fault. Not by a long shot.
What we are seeing now is the natural result and full outcome, the fruit-bearing, of seeds that were planted in 1964. This is their natural fruit. That was the year the GOP suffered one of the most significant losses in American Presidential electoral history. Arizona Senator Barry Goldwater was the party’s nominee, and the incumbent Democrat Lyndon Baines Johnson (LBJ) was President, having succeeded to the office after the assassination of President John Fitzgerald Kennedy (JFK) in Dallas, Texas, on November 22, 1963. He was seeking a second term.
The GOP’s National Convention was held in Daly City, California (adjacent San Francisco on the north) at Cow Palace, a former livestock arena, July 13-16, 1964.
Perhaps you’re wondering, ‘Why, whatever for was he booed?’
He was seeking inclusion of language in the official party platform that condemned, and rejected (there’s the so-called “cancel culture” at work) Ku Klux Klan, Communists, John Birch Society members, and other domestic terrorists and White Supremacist racists including Dixiecrats – Southern Democrats who supported segregation, racist policies and laws – who had infiltrated the Republican party.
Read it again:
“…Ku Klux Klan, Communists, John Birch Society members, and other domestic terrorists and White Supremacist racists including Dixiecrats – Southern Democrats who supported segregation, racist policies and laws – who had infiltrated the Republican party.”
Yes, you read that correctly.
Ku Klux Klansmen rally in support of Republican Arizona Senator Barry Goldwater, the 1964 GOP Presidential nominee. Image: Universal History Archive/Getty Images
In 1964, the GOP accepted, and welcomed the inclusion of Communists, the Ku Klux Klan, John Birch Society members, and other radicalized elements, into the party.
That’s a very bitter, and hard pill to swallow, but it’s the unvarnished truth.
10,252,500 unemployed people
x $40,000 = $410,100,000,000 ($410 billion)
That’s MUCH LESS than the $1.9 TRILLION proposed.
Plus, the $10,000 FICA/SECA money would be for their employers, a $10,000 tax deduction!
Why do something like that?
First, it puts a significant amount of money (delivered in a lump sum) into the hands of hurting people. And they need that help DESPERATELY. It keeps them from being evicted/foreclosed upon, it keeps the lights turned on, and water and gas turned on, etc.
Second, it significantly helps employers, many which are also hurting, and need help. In the case of small businesses, many owners are employees of their companies, so they would also get $30,000 checks. PLUS, they would also get $10,000 checks (per se), which would be credited to the company’s books as a deduction in operating expenses, thereby increasing their profit (perhaps they’ll use it to pay down long-term debt). How they use the value of the deduction is entirely up to them, but it (the money) MUST BE PAID TO THE EMPLOYEE’S FICA ACCOUNT. In fact, the mechanics of the transaction are Read the rest of this entry »
Posted by Warm Southern Breeze on Thursday, January 28, 2021
If you cant win honestly, the next step is using dishonesty.
And that’s EXACTLY what Georgia Banana Republicans are doing – changing the rules in the middle of the game when it becomes apparent that they’re starting to lose favor with The People.
Lying, corrupt, sons of bitches, and bastards… every god-damned one of ’em.
A Georgia Republican is introducing a bill requiring voters to send copies of their photo ID to election officials two times before being permitted to cast an absentee ballot.
Posted by Warm Southern Breeze on Wednesday, January 20, 2021
While I am not now, nor have I ever been, a member of any political party, I am completely simpatico with Senator Sasse’s observations, and remarks.
Competition is good, wholesome, and healthy, and strengthens each competitor. So in a very real way, it would be disastrous for our political system – which for all practical purposes, is comprised of but two political parties – to suffer the loss of one. Instead, we should be seeking to increase the number of viable competitors.
The GOP’s problems are myriad, not the least of which are cowardice, and failure to stand for truth, and oppose lies, no matter their source, or who promulgated them. As evidenced by what they did the past 4 years, if the party cannot will not stand for “truth, justice, and the American way,” what will they fall for?
As the colloquial saying – and song by the same name – goes, “you’ve got to stand for something, or you’ll fall for anything.”
Sadly, the GOP has already fallen.
The following article contains abbreviated excerpts of the original, which may be found linked at the conclusion.
QAnon Is Destroying the GOP From Within
Until last week, too many in the Republican Party thought they could preach the Constitution and wink at QAnon. They can’t.
Eugene Goodman is an American hero. At a pivotal moment on January 6, the veteran United States Capitol Police officer single-handedly prevented untold bloodshed. Staring down an angry, advancing mob, he retreated up a marble staircase, calmly wielding his baton to delay his pursuers while calling out their position to his fellow officers. At the top of the steps, still alone and standing just a few yards from the chamber where senators and Vice President Mike Pence had been certifying the Electoral College’s vote, Goodman strategically lured dozens of the mayhem-minded away from an unguarded door to the Senate floor.
…
If and when the House sends its article of impeachment against Trump to the Senate, I will be a juror in his trial, and thus what I can say in advance is limited. But no matter what happens in that trial, the Republican Party faces a separate reckoning. Until last week, many party leaders and consultants thought they could preach the Constitution while winking at QAnon. They can’t. The GOP must reject conspiracy theories or be consumed by them. Now is the time to decide what this party is about.
The newly elected Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene is cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs. She once ranted that “there’s a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to take this global cabal of Satan-worshiping pedophiles out, and I think we have the president to do it.” During her campaign, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy had a choice: Disavow her campaign and potentially lose a Republican seat, or welcome her into his caucus and try to keep a lid on her ludicrous ideas. McCarthy failed the leadership test and sat on the sidelines. Now in Congress, Greene isn’t going to just back McCarthy as leader and stay quiet. She’s already announced plans to try to impeach Joe Biden on his first full day as president. She’ll keep making fools out of herself, her constituents, and the Republican Party.
If the GOP is to have a future outside the fever dreams of Internet trolls, we have to call out falsehoods and conspiracy theories unequivocally. We have to repudiate people who peddle those lies.
…
America’s Junk-Food Media Diet
The way Americans are consuming and producing news—or what passes for it these days—is driving us mad. This has been said many times, but the problem has worsened in the past five years. On the supply side, media outlets have discovered that dialing up the rhetoric increases clicks, eyeballs, and revenue. On the demand side, readers and viewers like to see their opinions affirmed, rather than challenged. When everybody’s outraged, everybody wins—at least in the short term.
This is not a problem only on the right or only on obscure blogs. The underlying economics that drive Read the rest of this entry »
For the ignorant – and, that’s most people – it’s a SCOTUS ruling handed down June 17, 2019 that ruled that, “The Free Speech Clause of the First Amendment prohibits only governmental, not private, abridgment of speech.”
In other words, Censorship laws DO NOT apply to the Private Sector.
Thank the so-called “conservative” Supremes who handed down that ruling. They are: KAVANAUGH, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which ROBERTS, C. J., and THOMAS, ALITO, and GORSUCH, JJ., joined.
So, Mr. Dorsey, and every other private company does NOT have to abide by anti-censorship laws.
Furthermore, what in the hell is Ted Cruz doing meddling, trying to tell Twitter how to run their business? That jacked-up twat probably doesn’t even own one share of Twitter.
What fucking hypocrite that son-of-a-bitch is!
I’d have loved to have seen Mr. Dorsey ask Cruz that question – “Are you telling me how to run my business?” – and follow it up with this one:
“Exactly what laws are you accusing me, and/or my company, of breaking?”
Of course, the obvious answer is ‘none.’
And remember: This is Political Theater for Banana Republican Ted Cruz, who feigns not-so-righteous indignation on behalf of those who would vote for him in future elections, Presidential, or not. And chances are, we’ll see that Texas turd make a Presidential run for the border in 2024.
Posted by Warm Southern Breeze on Saturday, January 2, 2021
There is little-to-no question that the damage done to the Republican Party by the Liar/Narcissist/Loser in Chief has taken a toll upon the party, and it may well be years before they can recover from the 4-year onslaught.
There is also little-to-no question that they have been their own worst enemy. That is not to say that the Democrats are all light and goodness, for they are not. Hillary Rodham Clinton did her damndest to hobble the party by literally having the party’s directors and upper level managers sign a contract over to her relinquishing, and ceding control of the party to her. While that was not illegal, it was unethical has hell, and spelled the end of Bernie Sanders candidacy, who, with crowds surpassing those of Hillary and Trump combined, and with a political history that was unwavering and consistent, appeared TWICE as if he would be the party’s nominee. But for Hillary.
Her corrupted actions were detailed in a book authored by Donna Brazile, which was entitled “Hacks.”
And, perhaps you may recall how she later revealed in her book, an excerpt of which was made into a Politico article, what she’d found when she was briefly DNC chair, specifically, how a back-room deal was struck between Hillary and the DNC a year before the 2016 election campaign season began.
“I had promised Bernie when I took the helm of the Democratic National Committee after the convention that I would get to the bottom of whether Hillary Clinton’s team had rigged the nomination process, as a cache of emails stolen by Russian hackers and posted online had suggested. I’d had my suspicions from the moment I walked in the door of the DNC a month or so earlier, based on the leaked emails. But who knew if some of them might have been forged? I needed to have solid proof, and so did Bernie.
“So I followed the money. My predecessor, Florida Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, had not been the most active chair in fundraising at a time when President Barack Obama’s neglect had left the party in significant debt. As Hillary’s campaign gained momentum, she resolved the party’s debt and put it on a starvation diet. It had become dependent on her campaign for survival, for which she expected to wield control of its operations.”
“When I got back from a vacation in Martha’s Vineyard, I at last found the document that described it all: the Joint Fund-Raising Agreement between the DNC, the Hillary Victory Fund, and Hillary for America.
“The agreement—signed by Amy Dacey, the former CEO of the DNC, and Robby Mook [Hillary’s Campaign Manager] with a copy to Marc Elias [General Counsel for Hillary’s campaign]—specified that in exchange for raising money and investing in the DNC, Hillary would control the party’s finances, strategy, and all the money raised. Her campaign had the right of refusal of who would be the party communications director, and it would make final decisions on all the other staff. The DNC also was required to consult with the campaign about all other staffing, budgeting, data, analytics, and mailings.”
Contributing writer at The Atlantic and senior fellow at EPPC
Senator Josh Hawley isn’t just engaging in civic vandalism—he is an emblem of a weak and rotten Republican Party.
Ryan Christopher Jones / The New York Times / Redux
Those hoping for a quick snapback to sanity for the Republican Party once Donald Trump is no longer president should temper those hopes.
The latest piece of evidence to suggest the enduring power of Trumpian unreality is yesterday’s announcement by Senator Josh Hawley of Missouri that he will object next week when Congress convenes to certify the Electoral College vote.
Hawley knows this effort will fail, just as every other effort to undo the results of the lawful presidential election will fail. (A brief reminder for those with faulty short-term memories: Joe Biden defeated Trump by more than 7 million popular votes and 74 Electoral College votes.) Every single attempt to prove that the election was marked by fraud or that President-elect Biden’s win is illegitimate—an effort that now includes about 60 lawsuits—has flopped. In fact, what we’ve discovered since the November 3 election is that it was “the most secure in American history,” as election experts in Trump’s own administration have declared. But this immutable, eminently provable fact doesn’t deter Trump and many of his allies from trying to overturn the election; perversely, it seems to embolden them.
One such Trump ally is Tommy Tuberville, the newly elected senator from Alabama, who has suggested that he might challenge the Electoral College count. And there are others. But what makes Hawley’s declaration ominously noteworthy is that unlike Tuberville—a former college football coach who owes his political career in a deep-red state to Trump’s endorsement in the GOP primary against Jeff Sessions—Hawley is a man who clearly knows better. According to his Senate biography, he is “recognized as one of the nation’s leading constitutional lawyers.” A former state attorney general, Hawley has litigated before the Supreme Court. He graduated from Stanford University in 2002 and Yale Law School in 2006. He has clerked for Chief Justice John Roberts; he taught at one of London’s elite private schools, St. Paul’s; and he served as an appellate litigator at one of the world’s biggest law firms.
It is one thing for Hawley to position himself as a populist, something he had done even before he was elected in 2018; it is quite another for him to knowingly engage in civic vandalism and, in ostentatiously unpatriotic ways, undermine established norms and safeguards. This is precisely what Senator Hawley is now doing—and he is doing so in the aftermath of Trump’s loss, when some political observers might have hoped that the conspiracy mindset and general insanity of the Trump modus operandi would begin to lose their salience.
A longtime acquaintance of the Missouri senator explained to me Hawley’s actions this way: “Hawley never wants to talk down to his voters. He wants to speak for them, and at the moment, they are saying the election was stolen.”
“He surely knows this isn’t true,” this acquaintance continued, “and that the legal arguments don’t hold water. And yet clearly the incentives he confronts—as someone who wants to speak for those voters, and as someone with ambitions beyond the Senate—lead him to conclude he should pretend the lie is true. This is obviously a very bad sign about the direction of the GOP in the coming years.”
Think about this statement for a moment: The incentives Josh Hawley and many of his fellow Republicans officeholders confront lead them to conclude that they should pretend the lie is true.
Those who have hoped that Republicans like Senator Hawley would begin to break free from Trump once he lost the election have not understood the nature of the change that has come over the party’s base.
Trump was the product of deep, disturbing currents on the American right; he was not the creator of them. Those currents have existed for many decades; we saw them manifested in the popularity of figures such as Sarah Palin, Patrick J. Buchanan, Newt Gingrich, Oliver North, and many others. But their power grew in force and speed over the past decade. In 2016, Trump tapped into these currents and, as president and leader of the Republican Party, he channeled those populist passions destructively, rather than in the constructive ways that other Republicans before him, such as Ronald Reagan, had done. (Even if you’re a progressive who loathed Reagan, the notion that he was a pernicious and malicious force in American politics in the style of Trump is simply not credible.)
What is happening in the GOP is that figures such as Hawley, along with many of his Senate and House colleagues, and important Republican players, including the former United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley, are all trying to position themselves as the heirs of Trump. None of them possesses the same sociopathic qualities as Trump, and their efforts will be less impulsive and presumably less clownish, more calculated and probably less conspiracy-minded. It may be that not all of them support Hawley’s stunt; perhaps some are even embarrassed by it. But these figures are seismographers; they are determined to act in ways that win the approval of the Republican Party’s base. And this goes to the heart of the danger.
The problem with the Republican “establishment” and with elected officials such as Josh Hawley is not that they are crazy, or that they don’t know any better; it is that they are cowards, and that they are weak. They are far more ambitious than they are principled, and they are willing to damage American politics and society rather than be criticized by their own tribe. I’m guessing that many of them haven’t read Nietzsche, but they have embraced his philosophy of perspectivism, which in its crudest form posits that there is no objective truth, no authoritative or independent criteria for determining what is true or false. In this view, we all get to make up our own facts and create our own narratives. Everything is conditioned on what your perspective is. This is exactly the sort of slippery epistemic nihilism for which conservatives have, for more than a generation, reproached the academic left—except the left comes by it more honestly.
The single most worrisome political fact in America right now is that a significant portion of the Republican Party lives in a fantasy world, a place where facts and truth don’t hold sway, where “owning the libs” is an end in itself, and where seceding from reality is a symbol of tribal loyalty, rather than a sign of mental illness. This is leading the party, and America itself, to places we’ve never been before, including the spectacle of a defeated president and his supporters engaging in a sustained effort to steal an election.
The tactics of Hawley and his many partisan confreres, if they aren’t checked and challenged, will put at risk what the scholar Stephen L. Carter calls “the entire project of Enlightenment democracy.” This doesn’t seem to bother Hawley and many in his party. But what he should know—and, one hopes, does know, somewhere in the recesses of his heart—is that he has moved very far away from conservatism.
Whether the Republican Party can be salvaged is very much an open question. I don’t know the answer. But here is what I do know: Patriotic Republicans and conservatives need to fight for the soul of the Republican Party, for its sake and for the sake of the nation. America needs two healthy and sane political parties. Trump’s departure on January 20 should open up space for at least a few brave and responsible figures to arise, to help ground the GOP in truth rather than falsehoods, reality instead of fantasy, and to use the instruments of power for the pursuit of justice.
Their task won’t be easy; right now the political winds are in their face rather than at their back. Trump’s hold on the GOP remains firm, and separating from Trump and Trumpism will trigger hostility in an often angry and radicalized base. The right-wing ecosystem is in a mood to find and (figuratively) hang traitors, whom it defines as anyone in the Republican Party who doesn’t acquiesce to Trump’s indecency and paranoia. Which in turn means that those hoping to lead a Republican reclamation project need to find ways to be shrewd and persuasive, to be crafty while maintaining their integrity. They need to connect with the base but find ways to elevate it instead of pandering to it. In better times, many Republican leaders have done so, starting of course with Abraham Lincoln, “the great hero of America’s struggle for the noblest cause,” in the words of his early 20th-century biographer Lord Charnwood. But others have done so as well.
Our collective hope should be that principled Republicans will find their voice and prevail—one courageous step at a time, one act of decency at a time, one year at a time.
Posted by Warm Southern Breeze on Monday, December 21, 2020
“For too long, a small group in our nation’s Capital has reaped the rewards of government while the people have borne the cost.
“Washington flourished – but the people did not share in its wealth.
“Politicians prospered – but the jobs left, and the factories closed.
“The establishment protected itself, but not the citizens of our country.
“Their victories have not been your victories; their triumphs have not been your triumphs; and while they celebrated in our nation’s Capital, there was little to celebrate for struggling families all across our land.
“That all changes – starting right here, and right now, because this moment is your moment: it belongs to you.
“It belongs to everyone gathered here today and everyone watching all across America.
“This is your day. This is your celebration.
“And this, the United States of America, is your country.
“What truly matters is not which party controls our government, but whether our government is controlled by the people.
“January 20th 2017, will be remembered as the day the people became the rulers of this nation again.”
Contrary to what the Liar in Chief said, neither he, nor the Banana Republican Party, have made America great again.
Of course, the logic of his campaign slogan – “Make America Great Again” – is illogical, and inherently contradictory, because Read the rest of this entry »
Posted by Warm Southern Breeze on Wednesday, October 15, 2014
By his refusal to act, Alabama Republican Governor Robert Bentley allowed legislation to pass which PROHIBITEDTWO Out-of-State Businesses from Investing, Conducting Business Operations, and Hiring in Alabama. Total Cost Loss To Alabama = $200+ Million
Governor Bentley Refused To Reign In Unfounded Fear Mongering By GOP Dominated Legislature
Fueled by unfounded, unscientific constituency fears, Legislators in Alabama’s state Senate and House of Representatives recently authored restrictive regulatory legislation which made it impossible for a Texas-based business to expand operations in Alabama. Not counting the jobs and salaries lost, the investment cost of the loss to Alabama exceeds $200 Million.
Specifically, Pioneer Green Energy, 802 Lavaca St, Austin, TX 78701, (512) 351-3363, planned to spend over $200 Million to build two facilities in Cherokee and Etowah counties to generate electricity, and hire local people to operate and maintain the facilities.
In comparison, Remington Arms – the firearms manufacturer which recently announced relocation to Huntsville, Alabama – will be spending $110 Million, with $38 Million in tax incentives provided by the state.
Pioneer was set to construct 30-45 wind-driven turbines (electricity-generating windmills) in Etowah county at a cost of $160 Million in their NoccalulaWind project. In nearby Cherokee county, they were set to construct 7-8 such windmills, at a cost of $40 Million in their ShinboneWind project.
A series of bills which originated in Alabama’s state Senate, and House of Representatives was effectively, the death knell for the projects.
State Senator Phil Williams, a Republican in Alabama’s 10th Senate District, speaks from the Floor of Alabama State Senate. He authored SB 402 & SB 403, prohibitive regulatory legislation which hamstrung $200 Million in Industrial Development and Jobs.
As reported by Conservation Alabama, April 10, 2014, in a column entitled “2014 Legislative Session recap,“ “Two local bills opposed by Conservation Alabama did pass. Senate Bills 402 and 403 requiring strict regulations for wind energy conversion systems in Etowah and Cherokee counties passed, eliminating any real chance of wind energy in those two counties. After these local bills passed it was thought that Senate Bill 12, a statewide bill to regulate wind energy conversion systems, would make it through with language that superseded the two local bills and included more reasonable and agreed upon language between the two sides. However, proponents of the bill could not get on the same page. Last minute changes to the bill created additional controversy, and the bill ultimately failed to pass in the House and consequently the two local bills will become law.”
Alabama state Senate Bills 402 and 403 were authored and sponsored by Senator Phil Williams, a Republican whom represents Alabama’s 10th Senate District, which includes Etowah and Cherokee counties. By profession, Senator Williams is a lawyer, and in part, he wrote this about himself on his legislative profile/biography webpage: “Phil Williams is the managing member of Williams & Associates, LLC, a law firm based in Gadsden, AL.” His campaign website states this, “His legal focus is largely in the areas of insurance, municipal and corporate defense.” (SB402 may be found online here -or downloaded from this site AL SB402-int– & SB 403 may be found online here -or downloaded from this site AL SB403-int-)
Here’s Part One of the Grand Hypocrisy. The Alabama GOP website states this about Senator Williams: “One of the most promising freshman Senators in Montgomery is Phil Williams of Rainbow City. He is the proud sponsor of the Alabama Jobs Creation and Retention Act, which provides tax incentives to new or existing businesses that engage in industrial projects. Sen. Williams said, “This Act will help make Alabama a center of gravity for new and existing business growth, and is another example of our Republican-led senate following through on our campaign promises.””
Why would a State Senator whom sponsored the “Alabama Jobs Creation and Retention Act” author legislation that FORBADE the creation of jobs?
Alabama State Senator Phil Williams (R), in green tie & suit, authored regulatory legislation which lost $200 Million Industrial Development in Alabama, and cost jobs.
According to an article in The Alabama Reporter written by Brandon Moseley, published 07 June 2013, Senator Williams, who hails from Rainbow City, is seeking a second term in office, and made this remark about his candidacy: “It has been a great honor to serve the people of Senate District 10 these past few years. We have accomplished so much of what the people in our communities said they wanted, and my intent is to continue the fight for conservative values and finish what we’ve started.”
Readers may recall that Etowah county is home to disgraced former Alabama Supreme Court Chief Justice Roy Moore – sometimes popularly known as “The Ten Commandments Judge” – who was removed from office following a hearing November 12, 2003 by a unanimous vote of the Alabama Court of the Judiciary. Since then, he campaigned for the same office – State Supreme Court Chief Justice – and was elected November 6, 2012.
It certainly seem that folks in Alabama Politics – that’d be the GOP/Republicans – are largely backwards, hypocritical, narrow minded fear mongers who appeal to their equally “largely poor, uneducated, and easy to command” constituency.
Because while on one hand, they decry “regulation” and “excessive” regulation which they claim constrains business, and free enterprise – and therefore jobs – in the state, they simultaneously enact the very legislation they decry.
It’s called HYPOCRISY. And to be certain, it’s simply defined as “the practice of claiming to have moral standards or beliefs to which one’s own behavior does not conform; pretense.”
This is a HUGE case in point, that an out-of-state business was prepared to construct and expand business operations in Alabama – from the ground, up. Had leased land, obtained easements, and every other necessary preliminary item to conduct business operations… including hiring professional services in Alabama to prepare for business operations.
BUT!
Wouldn’t you know it? The GOP-dominated Alabama State Legislature (House & Senate) enacted legislation, which passed without Governor Bentley’s signature, which PROHIBITED the businesses from even getting the first bulldozer out to clear land. Seriously.
Think I’m joking, exaggerating, or kidding?
Read on.
Oh… and be sure to thank them in November.
—-
Alabama regs too strict for turbines, says lawyer for wind energy developer
By William Thornton, wthornton@al.com
Twitter: WThorn7
on August 20, 2014 at 11:16 AM, updated August 20, 2014 at 12:03 PM
GADSDEN, Alabama — The lawyer for a Texas-based company abandoning plans for two windmill farms in northeast Alabama said today that recently approved state regulations on wind energy led to the decision.
Charlie Stewart, attorney for Pioneer Green Energy, said the company no longer has plans to develop two wind energy farms in Cherokee and Etowah counties. Groups opposing the development announced yesterday they had received word Pioneer Green was relinquishing land leases for the projects.
Pioneer Green planned a $40 million project with seven to eight turbines in Cherokee County. The larger Etowah County project would have had 30 to 45 turbines costing $160 million.
Stewart said the company was ready to begin construction when the lawsuits were filed, and the legislation passed earlier this year, which established setback and noise standards.
That bill required the state’s Public Safety Commission to oversee wind farms, mandated that noise from the turbines not exceed an average of 50 decibels, and laid out a setback of five times the height of the tower from the base to the nearest property line. Last year, a company official said the legislation was too restrictive by making the property line the threshold and not the nearest residence or structure.
Stewart said much of the opposition was fueled by “hysteria.”
Warm Southern Breeze 