Tag: Republicans

Secret Memo Urges House Republicans To Blame White Nationalist Killings On ‘The Left’

House Republicans have been circulating a memo internally that instructs members of Congress to blame violence initiated by white supremacists, like the recent El Paso mass shooting, as something that is the fault of “the left,” according to TheTampa Bay Times.

A spokesperson for Rep. Gus Bilirakis (R-FL) said the memo was “provided by the House Republican Conference,” is currently chaired by Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY). Bilirakis included talking points from the memo in a newsletter he emailed to constituents last week.

The memo provides Republican members a series of questions they are likely to face from constituents and gives them the language to respond.

View the complete August 18 article by Oliver Willis on the National Memo website here.

Progressives have suffered through years of accusations and pundits that how they ‘hate the real America.’ Here’s the truth

AlterNet logoFor most of modern political history, the Republican Party has used patriotism — an odd and obfuscating sentimentality — as a weapon to shame critics of American foreign policy, and turn the general public against dissidents who reject the folly of Empire maintenance through violence. Samuel Johnson’s excoriation — made famous by Bob Dylan — that “patriotism is the last refuge of scoundrels” always seemed accurate in both its denunciation of the manipulative emotion itself, and also of those who take advantage of it for political expediency.

America has collapsed into a prone position, however, where the scoundrels are so brazen in their inhumanity, so bold in their indifference to suffering, and so barbaric in their refusal to compromise for the sake of their own country that only their own language can aptly describe them.

President Donald Trump, his enablers in Congress and his most devoted supporters are anti-American and soft on terrorism.

View the complete August 18 article by David Masciotra from Salon on the AlterNet website here.

How the right wing fell for its own fables about the working class

Washington Post logoA conservative publication fell for a hoax by a fake construction worker, but the real fiction is much more widespread.

Archie Carter, a construction worker from Queens, is a self-described Marxist-Leninist. Not long ago, he joined the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), only to be repulsed by its overeducated, elitist members who cared more about “feminist procedures” and “fashionable intersectionality” than “real people” like him.

At least, this is what Archie claimed in an essay titled “DSA is Doomed,” published last week — and retracted soon after — by the commentary site Quillette. For the right-leaning pundits who deride today’s socialists as politically correct coastal posers, this narrative resonated. Archie Carter — a “real live worker (!)” as Sam Adler-Bell cheekily put it — had confirmed what they had long suspected.

There was just one problem. Archie Carter was neither real nor live, nevermind a worker. The essay was a hoax perpetrated by a 24-year-old “left populist” in Illinois, who later told me and other journalists that he intended to reveal the right-wing bias of Quillette, which brands itself as an unbiased, nonideological “platform for free thought.”

View the complete August 16 article by Aaron Freedman on The Washington Post website here.

‘Raw ignorance and prejudice’: Paul Krugman explains how Trump and the GOP are risking a recession

AlterNet logoAfter rising on Tuesday, stocks tumbled on Wednesday. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell more than 700 points on news that major European economies might be headed for recession.

At home, American analysts and investors have been spooked by President Donald Trump’s ongoing trade war with China, which has raised uncertainty about future investment and clearly triggered broader fears about macroeconomic stability. Looming over these worries is the fact of the inverted yield curve: 10-year bonds are now offering lower interest rates than 2-year bonds, a sign that investors are scrambling for somewhere safe to keep their money long term.

Economist Paul Krugman argued Wednesday that, while the world doesn’t appear to be facing a repeat of the 2008 financial crisis, the risk of a recession is indeed rising. And despite his boasts about his economic performance, Trump himself appears to be driving at least one major factor in the increased risk, while the GOP blocks potentially countervailing measures.

View the complete August 14 article by Cody Fenwick on the AlterNet website here.

Why are Mike Huckabee and Rick Santorum hanging out in Russia?

For thousands of dollars, you can join these former GOP stalwarts on a Baltic tour.

At a time when U.S.-Russian relations are at a post-Cold War nadir, former GOP stalwarts Mike Huckabee and Rick Santorum decided to visit St. Petersburg. According to Huckabee’s Twitter feed, the two have spent the past few days in Russia, touring the city and visiting seaside restaurants.

The two are helping lead a for-profit cruise through the Baltic Sea — one that costs guests anywhere between $5,000 and $12,000 to attend.

On Facebook, Huckabee pitched the cruise as an “unforgettable trip to the Baltics,” noting that it would also be stopping in Estonia, Finland, Sweden, and Denmark.

View the complete August 13 article by Casey Michel on the ThinkProgress website here.

A 2008-style crash may not be far away — and once again, Republican delusions are to blame

AlterNet logoAmericans suffer from frustratingly short attention spans and even shorter memories. Case in point: Following the dark ride of the George W. Bush years, during which there were two wars, apocalyptic terrorist attacks in New York and Washington, torture as national security policy, warrantless eavesdropping and the most catastrophic economic crash since the Great Depression, I was foolish enough to believe Americans would banish the Republican Party to the hinterlands of our politics for a good long while.

I was horribly wrong. Eight years later, 62 million voters recklessly ignored the lessons of 2001 to 2009 by installing an even more incompetent, dangerous and unstable Republican administration in the White House. Donald Trump’s ascendancy isn’t so much a win for him as much as it’s a win for the propaganda efforts of Fox News, talk radio and Russian internet memes, collectively suckering “conservative” voters by bathing them in enough counterfactual nonsense to “neuralyze” all memories of what happened last time around.

That bottomless slagheap of propaganda convinced Trump’s base that the steadily improving economy of the Barack Obama administration was “American carnage,” requiring a return to the stewardship of Republicans who had been responsible for a $1.4 trillion deficit, the collapse of the stock market, more than 800,000 jobs lost in a single month and the near disintegration of both the housing market and America’s auto industry, to name two sectors.

View the complete August 13 commentary by Bob Cesca from Salon on the AlterNet website here.

‘Congress’ isn’t blocking new gun laws — the GOP is

AlterNet logoObstructionist Republicans have been blocking common-sense gun laws for years, even as the laundry list of gun massacres continues to grow. The radical maneuver comes against overwhelming public support for Democrat-backed legislation. If ever there’s been an example of an entire political party in America completely out of step with the country, this is it. So why does the press constantly inform news consumers that “Congress” is to blame for the lack of action, instead of Republicans?

That question became even more pressing in recent days, following the murder of 31 people during hate gun rampages in El Paso, Texas, and Dayton, Ohio, where gunmen toting AK-47s and AR 15s set out to kill as many civilians as possible. Democrats remain united in desperately wanting to pass new laws, while Republicans stand in the way. Yet “Congress” is being blamed.

“Despite frequent mass shootings, Congress has proved to be unable to pass substantial gun violence legislation, largely because of resistance from Republicans,” the Associated Press reported in the wake of the recent tragedies. But no, it’s not the fault of “Congress.” It’s the fault of Republicans, and there ought to be absolutely no confusion in the media. Americans are increasingly bewildered by the lack of legislative action on guns, and the press blaming “Congress” so simply gives the GOP a huge pass.

View the complete August 11 article by Eric Boehlert from Daily Kos on the AlterNet website here.

‘They’re afraid’: Suburban voters in red states threaten GOP’s grip on power

Washington Post logoBROOKHAVEN, GA — Republicans face a reckoning in the red-state suburbs that have long been a bedrock for the party, propelled by the stormy confluence of President Trump’s searing racial attacks, economic turbulence and frustration with government inaction after last weekend’s deadly mass shootings in Texas and Ohio.

The GOP lost its House majority in 2018 after it fared poorly with suburban voters, particularly women. Party leaders are increasingly alarmed that they have made little progress winning them back. Instead, Trump’s incessant feuds, his hard-line position on immigration — including federal raids that left children without their parents — and the stock market’s tumult amid his trade standoff with China threaten to further alienate suburban voters ahead of the 2020 campaign, even in states that have traditionally elected Republicans.

Republican leaders also worry that Trump’s dramatic policy moves and Twitter outbursts — such as last month’s racist remarks about four minority women in Congress — could prod more suburban GOP lawmakers to head for the exits rather than mount a defense, following in the footsteps of several Texas Republicans and others who have decided not to seek reelection.

View the complete August 9 article by Robert Costa on The Washington Post website here.

Former Republican consultant busts party as nothing more than racists who want tax cuts for the rich in brutal tweetstorm

AlterNet logoIn a furious tweetstorm, a former adviser to the Ohio Republican Party expressed disgust at how far the GOP has fallen under Donald Trump and said the GOP may never recover.

According to Robert E. Kelly (who former Singapore Ambassador Kirk Wagner called” … one of the best voices on Asia in the world, used to work for the Ohio GOP and is not some left wing nut”) the GOP is willing to look the other way as long as the president keeps signing off on their tax cuts for the rich.

To get there though, Kelly, who now serves as a Professor of Political Science at Pusan National University, took a detour through Republican intransigence on gun control, the GOP’s history of racism, evangelical support for a “mean-spirited and adulterous” Trump, and callow GOP leaders like former Reps. Paul Ryan (R-WI) and John Boehner (R-OH) who stood by the “inept” president.

View the complete August 8 article by Tom Boggioni from Raw Story on the AlterNet website here.

‘Be honest about this’: Democratic senator shoots down reporter who suggests ‘both parties’ are to blame for mass shootings

AlterNet logoSen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH) shot down a question from a reporter on Wednesday that suggested Democrats and Republican carry equal blame for the failure of Congress to address mass shooting in the United States.

“Don’t both parties take blame in the inability to find a solution to these mass shootings?” the reporter asked.

“No, no,” Brown responded while addressing the press in Dayton, Ohio, the site of just one of the weekend’s mass shootings.

View the complete August 7 article by Cody Fenwick on the AlterNet website here.