Mike 03
Mike 03's JournalTrump's responses to the George Floyd protests shows the small government mantra was a lie
NBC
Scott Lemieux
June 8, 2020, 11:49 AM MST
Calling out the military on peaceful protesters isn't smaller government. But conservatives always just used that as a catch phrase to justify lower taxes.
The op-ed that Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., widely seen as a rising star in the party, wrote last week for The New York Times is a much better reflection of what American conservatism is really about than their mantra of “small government.” A nearly fascistic call for the military to be called in to violently suppress the mostly peaceful protests spurred by the ongoing, unjustified and unjustifiable killings by police of multiple Black men and women, it has deservedly cost the opinion editor of the Times his job. (Cotton is reportedly raising big money off both the piece and the fracas.)
There is no bigger government than one that can kill its citizens at will for protesting the government killing them at will. It’s one reason the right to protest is our First Amendment.
But President Donald Trump certainly reflects the Republican spirit of that type of big government. Sure, the signature achievement of the Trump administration was an upper-class tax cut, and they nearly passed a partial repeal of the Affordable Care Act, which they proclaimed a victory for smaller government. (Our national debt is the highest on record, and government spending as a share of GDP has not returned to the lows of the Clinton era by any stretch of the imagination.) But the tax cut does nothing to materially enhance the “liberty” of the American people, unless one counts as “freedom” the ability of Jeff Bezos’ heirs to never have to work for a living. Similarly, taking away health care from people is a net negative loss to their freedom — not least because there’s nothing “free” about extremely ill or dead.
Read more: https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/trump-s-responses-george-floyd-protests-shows-their-small-government-ncna1227516
Superb article. One can't overestimate what a huge help Republican Kelli Ward
has been in helping to turn Arizona blue:
With baggage like that, surely the state GOP would want nothing to do with Ward, right? Wrong: Five months after losing the primary, Ward was elected the chairwoman of the state GOP. Ever since, Ward has made headline after headline in the Arizona press for her ridiculous actions, outrageous tweets, and mismanagement—not to mention an allegation of corruption. In a fundraising email from last September, Ward wrote that “we’ll stop gun-grabber Mark Kelly dead in his tracks.” This is grotesque. Kelly, the Democratic nominee, is nationally famous in his own right for being a NASA astronaut (and the twin brother of another NASA astronaut) but also for being the husband of former Arizona congresswoman Gabby Giffords, who was shot in the head at point-blank range in an attack that nearly killed her and did kill six others.
Next up: we need to get rid of Ducey.
Thanks for posting!
I lived in Los Angeles when this happened:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Hollywood_shootout#:~:text=The%20North%20Hollywood%20shootout%20was,States%20on%20February%2028%2C%201997.
After this shootout occurred I remember the police saying they were outgunned by criminals (although these were bank robbers, the police also were beginning to be "outgunned" by drug gangs/cartels in Southern Cal too) and there was a push to equip them with heavier armaments. This was a huge story in Southern California; I don't know if it was part of the push to militarize, but it's' hard to overstate the impact this shootout had in our area. It completely changed the conversation Law Enforcement was having with civic leaders.
Or, rather than shame, try to get them to see how they've been "let down" or used by Trump
This is what the FBI behaviorists attempt to do with a cult; for example, trying to peel Branch Davidians away from David Koresh.
Howard Stern actually tried this when he pointed out to Trump supporters in his audience that Trump despised people like them, and that if they went to Mar-A-Lago they wouldn't see a single person who actually looked like them.
Shaming feels gratifying in the moment but we really want to find techniques that actually work and end up as votes for Biden, not drive Trump supporters deeper into Trumpland. They are already so invested that it's going to be humiliating for them to admit they've been wrong all along. So if we can allow them to save face we'll have better luck.
It's a bad case of hero-worship
Graham has always been infatuated by more powerful, charismatic people, even to the point of embarrassing obsequiousness. He's consciously or unconsciously trying to become Trump, like the character Vukovich slowly becomes Richard Chance in the movie To Live and Die in L.A.
Just my theory.
Well, I know that when I blackmail somebody, that's the person
I call in the middle of the night to express my anxieties and innermost thoughts, fears and frustrations, and then to seek advice from on foreign policy decisions. And he's always overjoyed to see me and hear from me, and brags about it to anyone who will listen.
I don't mind this being a talking point if it bothers Lindsey Graham, but...
He's not that hard to understand. If you read Bob Woodward's book, Fear, he presents this relationship as fulfilling an inner need Graham has always had to have the attention of and validation from a more charismatic, more powerful politician. He loves being the guy that Trump calls in the middle of the night in the middle of an anxiety attack. He loves pontificating and actually having someone take him seriously, and he loves giving advice to Trump on what to do with our troops and sharing his grand vision of foreign relations (probably a lot of which he borrowed from John McCain, who fulfilled the mentor role before Trump did).
Someone also explained Lindsey Graham as being like a pilot fish that attaches itself to a whale for the safety and shelter it provides. That's a good analogy too. Graham is amoral, so he can shift allegiances easily. He loves the attention and adoration of the most powerful man in the world. It's just another peak experience for Graham.
He really is that person.
Ann Applebaum nails it in her mandatory-reading essay History Will Judge the Complicit
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2020/07/trumps-collaborators/612250/
Lindsay Graham is, for want of a better term, a Groupie.
Your point about the Lincoln Project ads is spot on.
They are profoundly effective but if they are not getting beyond Twitter and like social media platforms and MSNBC they are all but useless exercises in self-indulgence.
We need that kind of ad content (Lincoln Project/the Bloomberg ads) but sprayed the way Bloomberg placed his ads, on often-accessed television channels, plunked down in the middle of major televised events and so forth. This is so basic it shouldn't have to be stated.
Trump Illegally Eliminates Protections for First and Only Monument in the Atlantic Ocean
Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC)
June 05, 2020
Teeming with ancient coral, marine mammals, seabirds, and undiscovered species, the Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument is no place for commercial fishing.
...skip...
The Trump administration claims the decision to roll back protections will boost jobs and grow the fishing economy in the wake of COVID-19. These claims are empty. As a Washington Post report revealed, the administration’s own staffers intentionally hid information in 2017 that undermined their case for opening the monument back up—specifically, the fact that fishing vessels near the monument generated a mere 5 percent of their annual catch from within the monument. And the government’s own data shows that revenues and catch in the relevant fisheries are up or the same since the monument’s designation.
But regardless of the impact on industry, the president simply does not have the authority to issue such a rollback. “A significant change to the monument or its protections, such as allowing commercial fishing, must be done by Congress, not by the president,” Sewell says. “The Antiquities Act gives the president power to protect special areas for future generations, not the opposite power to abolish those protections.”
The monument’s status has already been defended by the courts, including in 2019 by an attack from fishing industry groups. “We are prepared to sue the administration to protect these ocean treasures from harm and exploitation by commercial fishing and other extractive industries,” Sewell says.
Read more: https://www.nrdc.org/experts/nrdc/trump-illegally-eliminates-protections-first-and-only-monument-atlantic-ocean
I really hope this isn't a virus that can trigger ME/CFS
Not surprisingly, CFS is often referred to as an immune dysfunction syndrome. It frequently appears in people who have been sick. An estimated 50% to 70% of patients with chronic fatigue syndrome report that their symptoms started after they had a viral-like illness 2 or infection. 3
https://www.moleculeralabs.com/chronic-fatigue-immune-dysfunction-syndrome/
That would be a hellish price to pay on top of getting a terrible virus.
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Gender: MaleHometown: Modesto California
Home country: United States
Current location: Arizona
Member since: Mon Oct 27, 2008, 06:14 PM
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