Ron DeSantis' Unconvincing Economic Reset
Though an improvement over his obsession with wokeness and culture wars, DeSantis can't seem to ditch the populist demagoguery.
In an attempt to kick-start his sputtering presidential bid, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, a Republican, has shifted his focus toward economic issues and away from the culture war obsession that defined the early stages of his campaign.
The pivot is a welcome—and probably necessary—change that gives DeSantis an opportunity to talk about actual conservative policies rather than seeking new ways to threaten to use state power against private entities the governor dislikes. In recent campaign speeches, an op-ed published Monday in USA Today, and the "Declaration of Economic Independence" published on his campaign website, DeSantis has pivoted toward talking about the worrying size of the national debt, the growth of regulatory burdens, and how both are crushing growth.
But even as he switches gears, DeSantis still seems stuck in that frame of mind that defined his culture war antics—a mentality that could stall the candidate's attempted reboot.
The best example comes in bold text right at the bottom of DeSantis' new economic declaration. "The goal of our declaration of economic independence is simple: We win. They lose."
Much of the document is focused on spelling out who and what "they" might be. At one point, near the top, DeSantis even claims that "it's time to name names and defeat those people and institutions that have formed the root cause of this economic malaise."
Unfortunately, there aren't many specifics actually offered. Instead, he settles for criticizing broad classes of people. The "central planners who seek to advance their political agendas," the "class of progressive corporations looking out for every interest except for that of the American people," and especially the "failed elites that have orchestrated American decline." (In the brief declaration, DeSantis mentions those unnamed "elites" no fewer than five times, and always pejoratively.)
That is, at best, a pretty phony line of attack coming from a guy with an undergraduate degree from Yale and a law degree from Harvard.
But it's more than that. It's straight-up populist demagoguery and class warfare—tactics that seem incongruous with DeSantis' supposed pivot toward economic issues. As Dominic Pino notes at National Review, it's the sort of argument that conservatives rightly dismiss when they hear it coming from the populist left. "We're used to hearing Bernie Sanders talk about how 'the billionaires' are responsible for our problems, or Elizabeth Warren decry 'corporate greed' as the cause of every ill," Pino writes. "Politicians on the left believe more government is good, so it makes more sense for them to blame some nondescript group of wealthy or powerful people that most Americans can't relate to. But DeSantis says he wants to scale back the federal government, and his actual policy ideas contain some helpful moves in that direction. So why the class warfare?"
It's a good question, and one that you won't find satisfactorily answered within the declaration or the op-ed. DeSantis has carried over the us-vs.-them framing that defined many of his anti-woke political stunts, but applying that logic to economic issues makes even less sense.
Take, for example, DeSantis' stated goal of achieving 3 percent economic growth through a combination of simplifying the tax code and cutting burdensome federal regulations. There's no need to wrap that promise within a "we win, they lose" zero-sum view of the world. Isn't higher economic growth good for everyone?
Or look at what DeSantis says about the danger of reckless federal borrowing, which he (correctly) points out has added to inflation. "American families have seen their quality of life and economic security diminish while our national debt has exploded," he writes in his declaration.
But merely blaming "elites" for that mess would be a cop-out even if DeSantis didn't literally promise to "name names" just three sentences later. The two men who are largely responsible for the reckless spending and borrowing that's taken place over the past seven years are President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump. Trump oversaw a dramatic increase in government spending—the federal budget climbed from $3.98 trillion in fiscal year 2017 to $4.45 trillion in 2019—even before the COVID-19 pandemic arrived and blew the deficit to previously unimaginable highs. On the back end of the pandemic, Biden signed the $2 trillion American Rescue Plan, despite warnings from economists the stimulus package would overheat the economy and trigger an inflationary spiral, which it did.
Trump and Biden also happen to be the two men who DeSantis probably has to defeat if he's going to win the White House. What does DeSantis have to lose by calling them out directly for their fiscal malfeasance?
That, in a nutshell, is what makes DeSantis' economic pivot so unsatisfying. Even when the facts are on his side, the governor can't seem to let go of the language of class warfare and populism.
It's easy to see the shape of a better DeSantis campaign within the contours of his new economic policy agenda. After Americans have been battered by a pandemic and high inflation, a candidate like DeSantis could use the past seven years to make a compelling case against the way both Trump and Biden handled economic policy. The national debt was less than $20 trillion when Trump took office in 2017 and stands at $32.6 trillion today. The federal government has borrowed more than $12 trillion (and counting) over the course of two presidential terms, and put it all on a tab for your children, he could say. And for what? Are you better off than you were in 2016?
Embracing that sort of Reaganite economic message will be impossible as long as DeSantis remains hobbled by zero-sum, populist politicking.
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Well yes. Perhaps DeSantis doesn’t think that his potential voters will understand economic niceties, or won’t tolerate criticism of Trump for overspending (another anti-promise kept), or perhaps he thinks that they simply prefer to hear messages that “elites” are ruining ‘Murica and he can stop it
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Can you give more praises to Soros again? And all the Dems you support. Always fun to see you do that.
I’d like to here more about how criticizing Soros is implicitly antisemitic.
Comment aside whether you mean this or not, I feel the use of ‘murica is such a snobby and disgusting tude from folks who believe a degree from a diploma mill makes them multitudes smarter than the commoner who can only do blue collar labor in their eyes.
Yeah, I agree, the self reverence of the left is nauseating. They are better than working stiffs because they have a degree in women’s studies and “understand the Problem of Whiteness”, and they preach it daily.
In a Biden vs. DeSantis matchup, Boehm will be forced to vote strategically and reluctantly for Biden. 😉
#ImmigrationAboveAll
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I can’t imagine anybody being dumb enough to want Joe Biden to become president. Boehm is a shining example of smart journalism.
Nary a day goes by without Reason needing to trot out a TDS or a DSDS filled article. They’re like donuts filled with shit rather than custard or jelly.
Orange Man bad. Oranges Man badder.
Both literally Hitler.
No shit. If Reason was run by true libertarians then every article about Trump or DeSantis would be gushing about how wonderful they are, blaming Democrats for everything bad, and urging readers to vote early and often for Republicans.
Boehm is attacking DeSantis for advocating something Reason ostensibly endorses but using the type of hyperbole Boehm acknowledges that the Democrats use, while doing it.
Boehm has never attacked the Democrats for opposing scaling back the federal government, or for using hyperbole while doing it.
Sarcasmic feels that this isn’t indicative of bias. But remember, he swears he’s not a Democrat, folks.
Instead Reason is really libertarian for gushing over Polis and Amash (although oddly quiet now that he is against the Trump charges). Weird how they did that.
He is double plus ungood now.
Gushing just a bit more about Trump. This is the way.
Even when the article isn’t about Trump you can’t help but talk about him.
I bet you dream about him too.
Mike bitterly masturbates to photos of Trump.
While crying.
And moaning “I wish I could quit you”.
I’d be happy if they’d stop worrying so much about style over substance.
“the worrying size of the national debt, the growth of regulatory burdens, and how both are crushing growth.”
Does it really matter how we address those?
Also, I think it’s pretty obvious the “they” the populist rhetoric is referring to are the political class elitist who think they should be able to shape the world to their liking and fuck everyone else.
(FTR: Fuck DeSantis as I think he’s just going to be another NeoCon like Jeb.)
Being locked up with kind words is better than not being locked up.
It comes across as so silly. Everything framed in a way to make things that are obvious and good sound like they are stupid and evil. The whole thing ultimately makes the case that Desantis did a good thing here but Eric hates him and sides with the assholes creating these problems.
I found it funny that he decided to highlight the economy of the last 7 years as a negative. If he truly wanted to talk about a struggling economy he would use 2008 as a starting point. Things were on a decent track starting in 2014 and the economy was booming under Trump until covid. His choice of a timeline makes the opposite point he wants to convey. The economy was shitty under Obama and Biden. It was recovering and growing at a good rate when congressional republicans started making gains and after Trump became president. Biden was gift-wrapped an economy set for a record comeback and he botched it in every way imaginable
It was pretty bad. By they, he meant the central planners and elitists who think they should run every aspect of people’s lives. It was fairly obvious that’s what he meant. Pretty sure Ronald Reagan delivered a very similar message (the scariest words in the English language are ‘I’m from the government and I’m here to help). So, no this isn’t rhetoric that conservatives have rightly condemned. It’s pretty much bread and butter conservative speech until the neo-cons took over. And there was nothing really conservative about the neo-cons. Additionally, this isn’t class warfare talk. He wasn’t condemning the rich, but rather condemning those who think they should be able to decide for others how they do business. Eric Boehm needs to read David Brooks piece “are we the bad guys?” because given how Boehm gets his panties in a twist for De Santis saying the elitists and central planners need to lose, he is the bad guy. For the same reason Brooks concluded he was the bad guy. Fuck, what De Santis said is not much different than a Reagan or Goldwater stump speech. Where the fuck has Boehm been?
Also, aren’t libertarians also supposed to be opposed to central planners and elitists telling us how we conduct business? Or is that to ‘populist’ for them now?
University taking his requisite marxist indoctrination courses instead of anything useful.
” Fuck, what De Santis said is not much different than a Reagan or Goldwater stump speech. Where the fuck has Boehm been?”
It was lies then, it’s still lies now. Government has grown and grown continuously since the days of Goldwater and Reagan, and populous pandering isn’t going to stop that.
Lol yeah, Goldwater and Reagan, that’s the problem.
That and putting your faith in the word of a politician running for office.
“Democratic voters by and large don’t care about higher economic growth,”
What the voters want is immaterial. The politicians and the rest of the state want economic growth. Expanding the reach of the state through economic growth is the whole point.
” the hateful radical left wing objectives of the Democratic party.”
The leftist of the Democratic party don’t dictate policy. They are corrupt, tame and apologetic if they say anything that crosses the party line.
Since the stated objective of “equity” is that everyone deserves an equal outcome regardless of their path through life, I’d love to see how many among the social justice movement would agree to fly on “Equity Airlines” where everyone on board the plane gets to actually be the pilot for their “far share” of the duration.
Or maybe get treated at “Equity Hospital” where all salaries are $80k/year and the job assignments are given out randomly at the start of each shift; one day you’re polishing the floors in the lobby and the next maybe you’re running a transplant team to swap part of a liver from a live donor to the person most in need of a new organ within 100 miles (no need for blood/tissue typing, almost everyone can spare a lobe, so “from each according to their ability to each according to need” right?) maybe the liver donor can be chosen at random as well (bodily autonomy being a fundamental principle which only apples to the uterus/ovaries of potential “birthing people” after all).
“Politicians on the left believe more government is good, so it makes more sense for them to blame some nondescript group of wealthy or powerful people that most Americans can’t relate to. But DeSantis says he wants to scale back the federal government, and his actual policy ideas contain some helpful moves in that direction. So why the class warfare?”
So DeSantis is actually advocating something that Reason purports to support, but Floridamanbad, so we instead get an article criticizing the way he says it.
Even though he acknowledges that the Democrats also use hyperbole.
Never change, Boehm.
How dare Floridaman attack the left’s non-sequitor argument, he should leave it to people to make the connection themselves when blaming others is such an easy out. Never change Reason leftists, never change.
OK. Maybe I overstated above. It’s not only immigration that compels Koch-funded libertarians to support Democrats. It’s also soft-on-crime policies!
Amid a surge in crime in Oakland, California, police have advised residents to use air horns to alert neighbors to intruders and add security bars to their doors and windows.
Whatever you do, you must not respond to rising crime by electing tough-on-crime politicians. Because they’re bad for billionaires like Charles Koch and George Soros.
Instead, just be like the boozy Mom in A Nightmare on Elm Street and transform your home into an ugly fortress.
#FreeTheCriminals
#EmptyThePrisons
If CA were as willing to tolerate tough-on-crime homeowners as readily as they do shoplifters, carjackers, and junkies it’d be 12 gauge blasts instead of air horns alerting the neighbors. Or maybe gunshots still don’t actually draw that much attention in the east bay.
Instead of an air-horn, ask the home invaders attacking you to hand you some sunblock; you’ll be swarmed by 35 UC Berkley undergrads demanding that you “check your white privilege” in far less time than it’d take for a dispatcher to pick up at 911.
So he “pivoted” from icky “culture war” to ickier “populism”. As if they’re separate things.
His campaign isn’t sputtering because he’s alienating culture war conscientious objectors, and never-Trumpers. It’s sputtering because he made a risky jump into the ring that has alienated Trumpers. And he has technically run an awful campaign to boot.
As far as messaging on the economy, it’s hard to compete with the succinctness of Trump’s “I’m going to turn the oil back on”.
There’s nothing wrong with DeSantis’ campaign. The guy knows how to campaign.
The reason he can’t get any traction is because Trump and his endless indictments take up all the media coverage. The Democrats and their lackeys in the legal system and press want to keep Trump in the news; that’s why Smith and others bring these nonsense indictments and why the press wallows in them.
Democrats want Trump to be the nominee and that’s why they don’t want any other Republican candidate talked about.
And yet, the polls today are far different than they were in September of 2020.
Maybe. It’s hard to say where bad media situation ends and bad campaigning begins. He put himself in a spectacularly awkward position with the timing and thrust of his run. Running as a populist, he can only come off as Trump-lite. Taking big donor neo-con money, he’s not going to win many people sick of the establishment over
As far as getting drowned out by trump, he has to have known that was going to be the case. and He has to be able to rise above that. Part of what that would take would be hitting bigger alternative platforms (like Rogan or Lex etc.) Especially when half the conservative platforms are actively hostile to you. RFK Jr. showed the way.
He has made massive missteps with the very crowd he has win over at some point since he ran. He’s trashing his street cred in record time (though to be fair, it’s politics and people will forget three weeks from now). Either way, he’s going to be left with a rump party even if he manages to get the nod. Because I see few ways( outside of assassination) that Trump doesn’t run as an independent if he doesn’t get the GOP nod.
Even on a grassroots, glad handing with the people campaigning level, I think Vivek is outdoing him.
DeSantis won’t crack 50 million total votes even without Trump running as an independent.
Nobody wants Bush 3.
“There’s nothing wrong with DeSantis’ campaign. The guy knows how to campaign.”
He’s running a terrible campaign or at least his campaign team is. Friendlies are constantly complaining that they can’t get interviews and that the campaign never calls back with quotes or answers requested.
It’s also an old-fashioned campaign to that relies on paradigms from a quarter century ago.
He should be appearing on every big name podcast he can. Lex Fridman, Joe Rogan, Russell Brand, Jordan Peterson, Jimmy Dore, Glenn Greenwald, Young Turks, Bill Maher, etc. Even though some will be hostile to many of his positions, they will let him explain them (unlike legacy media), and that’s worth far more than $100 million in cable ads.
RFK Jr. is doing this and it’s been wildly successful for him.
So why can Vivek coverage where DeSantis cannot and why is that coverage generally favorable while the coverage of actual DeSantis campaign actions by friendlies is generally negative?
I’m generally supportive of his actions but some of his campaign is attacking Trump in ways that taint those actions and is offputting. Then there are the establishment tones he’s taking on that raise cash but also concerns. There is a needle to be threaded there in both cases and in both he’s off for whatever reason right now.
There is a lot wrong with his campaign. His overwhelming focus on fights with trump. Their ban on doing podcasts. Look at Viveks growth in the polls as an unknown. He is talking policy, doing tons of podcasts, and not spending every waking second talking about Trump and instead talking policy.
DeSantis has had a terrible campaign so far. If media is the issue go around the media to podcasting.
Incorrect, NOYB2.
DeSantis has gotten exposure, and it’s not gone well.
His support has catered, and continued to decline, because he’s running the never-Trump playbook. He’s an Ivy league lawyer who’s entire career has been taxpayer funded, who’s campaign is 90% wealthy establishment donor funded, who won reelection as governor and immediately bailed on the state to run a shadow presidential campaign, speaks out of both sides of his mouth, and employs a social media astroturf that’s entirely copied from NAFO.
To the extent he’s strayed at all from prototypical politician bs, it has been to run an anti-gay ad, feature symbolism invented by Himmler, and talk about “slitting throats” or shooting illegal immigrants dead on sight.
There’s nothing natural or inspiring about his campaign.
Now he’s endorsing Biden’s election as legitimate and condemning “Trump’s” CARE Act that he praised and profited from.
He’s exposed himself as the opposite of what he portrayed as governor, and his campaign seems intended to suicide bomb the populist right base rather than actually win.
How will Trump avoid the same disaster as in 2020? As far as I can tell, he has done nothing to counteract the problems we had in 2020, and there is a large group of Republican and independent voters who will rather stay at home than vote for him.
So you’re one of those that sees NK level of votes for one candidate and thinks it’s perfectly normal and on the up and up. You cannot fix stupid.
https://twitter.com/ImMeme0/status/1689008098734665730?t=TzSJq5Z4EsYvWJxbfbmblg&s=19
Poll watcher from 2020 Michigan.
It’s completely normal that in 20h time period the counted duplicate ballots were casted ONLY for one candidate, which happened to be Biden.
It’s completely normal for poll workers to change challenged ballots to a straight Democrat ticket by filling up the ballots by themselves.
It’s completely normal to add votes from the same batch multiple times.
It’s completely normal to have poll center boarded up and not allowing GOP poll watches back in.
If you say that all looks like an election fraud you are conspiracy theorist.
[Link]
The same projection occurs with Biden as well. Their popularity in their bases are the same. Their popularity with independents is the same.
How the fuck will DeSantis, or anybody else?
This is such a brain dead talking point.
Literally EVERY “legitimate” avenue to address or counter the fix was denied by all authorities and institutions.
The only answer would’ve been violence, but we know what “respectable” types think of that.
But sure, the Rs could run another candidate besides Trump. Then we won’t have to think of any solutions to absurd levels of fraud because absurd levels of fraud won’t be needed to beat whatever McCain/Romney GOPe stooge they put up there.
“Doing what Democrats have been doing:
– getting together a legal team and getting challenges ready
– organizing poll watchers and officials
– organizing massive mail-in voting campaigns
– organizing ballot harvesting
– lining up donors and publicity
– getting social media organizations ready”
LOL at asking the government to protect you from government. Great plan. Yea, I’m sure the legal system will totes work this time after refusing to give any hearing last time.
And, sure, Trump increased his votes by damn near 20%, but the problem was… not enough people voted by mail?
What the fuck are you even talking about?
Harvest ballots, get publicity, work social media…
Your post is as delusional as the Q psyop.
“A serious candidate would also focus on attacking Biden, instead of wallowing in self-righteous indignation over his legal woes or attacking his primary opponents.”
Yea, you totes know about what a serious candidate should do…
I mean, you don’t think there’s anything wrong with a campaign that’s cost it’s candidate two-thirds of his support, but please keep telling us your expert opinion.
“Trump will lose if running against Biden, both because Trump is asleep at the wheel and because Democrats have successfully poisoned him as a candidate. And in the unlikely event that he were to win, the next four years would be a sh*tshow just like his last year because he has no ability to hire anybody reasonable to run his administration.”
I love how the Never Back Down PAC just takes CNN talking points and tries to give them a National Review spin as cover.
Keep simping for the professional managerial class, soy.
The culture war is populism.
I miss the days when conservatives viewed populism as a negative.
So you prefer the days of the neocon GOPe who basically were “Democrat-lite”?
Yes.
I prefer the days when they had principles.
When did neocons have principles? Oh you mean caving to democrats and mainstream media. I get it now.
That’s why you hate trump, he didn’t give you another war to jerk it to.
Trump and his ego-driven cult of personality has brought nothing but shame onto the Republican Party and conservatives. His emotional populism has managed to set the conservative movement back by decades, if not ruined it completely. And his crybaby antics about the election have managed to destroy faith in the system, deepened partisan hatred, and brought the country closer to a civil war.
I hope you’re proud of that, because that’s your legacy.
Lol. This was tongue in cheek right?
Tax cuts, lower regulations, no new wars, a good economy (which even you admitted to yesterday), first step act, ME relations between Islam and Israel…. all set neocons back decades.
Run with that. Meanwhile keep talking about how Joe respects the constitution and the left has more in common with libertarians as they censor, raise taxes, promote regulations, political justice, siphon money to friendly groups, start wars, vaccine mandates, etc.
Run with that. Make you look principled.
Funny how you and Mike care more about outside appearances than substance. Is that because you’re so ignorant on anything so facial analysis is easier?
Thanks for your undoubtedly honest concern.
His ego thanks you for your support.
Speaking of support, has Hunter started paying the woman he knocked up child support yet?
Why would I know or care? That is only important to partisans.
I mean you talk about Trump non stop. But apparently talking about democrats is a nono.
So you prefer the days of the neocon GOPe who basically were “Democrat-lite”?
Trump was real Democrat.
Donnie said the economy did better with Democrats and he agreed with Democrats on the issues (including abortion).
Until 2016 that is.
Go back to your porn, dipshit.
Yeah, you miss the elitist Republican pricks like Buckley, Bush, Romney, McCain, etc. They’d dutifully play ball with the war mongers and central planners in the Democratic party and not rock the boat.
The culture war is neo-communism. The populism is just the reaction.
” it’s hard to compete with the succinctness of Trump’s “I’m going to turn the oil back on”.”
Didn’t Biden beat him to it? You think DeSantis is going to attract votes by parroting Biden’s agenda?
I think Trump means we’ll start drilling again and by extension push back on the net zero type of policies that will set human progress and prosperity back a century.
That’s not the same thing as Biden dumping our strategic reserve on the market to hide his inflation while simultaneously scuttling the petro dollar through his complete incompetence.
“DeSantis’ stated goal of achieving 3 percent economic growth through a combination of simplifying the tax code and cutting burdensome federal regulations.”
We are finally getting some progress and talking about some real issues. I certainly like to hear more about these kinds of ideas and I would support both. Can he get Congress to simplify the tax code? Paul Ryan could not get that done, so what will DeSantis do differently? As far as reducing Federal regulations, will that include more openness to trade and immigration reform? I see both these as essential to a more robust economy.
Paul Ryan was an amazingly ineffective man. Him failing is expected.
Paul Ryan did not do any worse than the Republican speakers before and after him. Could Ron DeSantis get tax simplification through with Kevin McCarthy leading the House? Are either of these two men willing to hold their members in line for a votes? That what I want to know.
It’s hard to get anything done because of democrat Marxism.
He should call it the 30-30 campaign. Something had to be proposed, debated and signed into law to wind up with 30+ million illegals and 30+ trillion in debt. Call out those who proposed, debated and signed them into law, by name and by deed, and say you are going to undo them one by one and start moving the 30-30 back to 0-0.
He doesn’t really want to do that though.
There are roughly 10 – 15 million illegals. The number from Mexico has dropped by a few million over the last decade – offset by increases from further south.
There are about 15 million LEGAL immigrants. Which makes sense because you R’s can’t count. And you can’t understand the difference between legal and illegal because all brown people look illegal.
This 2018 Yale paper estimates that the undocumented immigrant population in the US is in the range of 16 million to 29 million. And things have changed substantially since Biden’s inauguration.
Glad you cited a real source. Even they agree with my data sources that say the total number has been roughly constant for about 18 years or so. Which undermines your politicized notion that this is some political DeRp thing.
The difference then is that your source would say that there were roughly that many (16 – 29 milion illegals) in the US in 2004/5. When the other sources say there were about 11 million. And that the growth begins at zero when amnesty occurred in 1987(?). Your source is based on a computer model. The other source is based on survey/census.
I have no disagreement with the idea that the census/survey method would undercount the numbers. I have serious disagreement with the methodology of that model. Which simply says that ‘voluntary emigration’ (return of illegals to their home) is a function of apprehensions at the border.
Which results in the notion that those illegals who came during the 1990-2005 period, when border enforcement was lazy (and I agree completely that border enforcement was crap then), are all still here. THAT is the sole reason for the difference in numbers. That study doesn’t even test that notion with other info that would develop in that cohort over the course of what is now an entire generation – 20 to 30 years. Nothing from data re births or workforce or population pressures on infrastructure or ‘la migra’ raids or counts of vehicles going south to Mexico or economic pressures or mobility or – anything.
Hell – maybe they all went to Canada.
Canada won’t have them.
Shorter JFree. Trust government in everything.
“Glad you cited a real source.”
Someone’s been taking chemjeff lessons. Casually implying that I don’t usually cite “real” sources in order to poison the well. What a weasel you are.
You usually don’t cite sources at all. As I said – glad you didn’t do that.
Well thats a lie. Add another thing JFree lies about.
I think I post a fuck of a lot more cites here than you. In fact, I can’t even remember seeing you ever post a citation.
You’ve made an awful lot of hot takes in this thread, for example, and nary a cite with any of them.
Please give us a cite on who is able to identify whom.
Given that Wokeness is the existential threat to free speech, and classical liberalism in general, why am I not surprised that Reason isn’t that exorcised over it. Reason, print another line like this: Plus: Why don’t journalists support free speech anymore?
You might figure out who’s really “obsessed” with Wokeness.
I’ve tried this same argument with a few blue-pilled libertarian friends. It should be a slam dunk, but their answer was something like, “ I just don’t think things are as bad as you say”. The sort of Penn Gillette “things are always getting better” response. I don’t get it.
I’ve noticed it’s Usually the same people who use Hanlon’s razor in a way that suggests malice doesn’t exist.
“I just don’t think things are as bad as you say.”
Reminds me of Nazi-Germany when they had labor camps knocking off the Jews but no one was really sure it was happening or couldn’t come to grips that it was happening.
Just respond with, “And which parts of the people’s law over their government is still intact (i.e. The US Constitution).”
Wokeness is a threat to free speech, among others. DeSantis himself has attempted to stifle free speech and it had nothing to do with his being woke.
What speech did he stifle Mike? Employees of the state acting in their job function?
Reason’s oddly minimal attacks on leftist advocates of censorship has a parallel in the 1940’s
Article after article in newspapers roundly condemned Hitler as a monster whose death camps claimed the lives of over 10 million people. He was a dictator, a mass murderer, the living incarnation of evil.
By comparison, Uncle Joe Stalin was not a monster, merely a man who so loved his country that he had to take drastic action to preserve Mother Russia and sometimes those actions had collateral damage.
40 people killed in “mostly peaceful” race riots was no threat, but the Jan 6 riot in which only one rioter was killed, that was the greatest threat to the nation since the Civil War.
Stalin – misunderstood
Hitler – ultimate evil
And those Japanese people the US locked up should be thankful, too. It was for their own good, really.
January 6th was exceptionally evil and traitorous because it was an attempt to interfere with the peaceful transition from one presidential administration to the next. It was an attack on civilized governance, peaceful disagreement, and good sportsmanship in politics within our nation.
And fuck anyone here who says that good sportsmanship, which used to be a core American value, is not vitally important.
Bookmarked.
What for? The lying piece of shit will just deny he ever said it, including when you post links to it. Or else he’ll claim he was hacked for the 11,000th time. He and sarcasmic seem particularly inept at account security for two post-graduate computer science experts.
If the insurgents were so determined to stop certification, how were they dispersed? How was Congress able to reconvene later that day? Why was there no attack and attempt to stop certification on January 7?
Was this an insurrection or was it a riot?
It was a riot. Did I say otherwise?
It was a riot, but also exceptionally evil and it was also traitorous. Traitorous is an insanely strong term to use for a “riot.” People who broke windows, committed some property damage, weren’t necessarily traitors to the government just because they gathered in protest of a government function.
That assessment would essentially make every riot that stems from political unrest traitorous.
Note that Episiarch/Bo Cara Esq. has never once suggested that the violence that included 3 dozen murders and the attempted arson of a courthouse full of people locked inside was traitorous or evil.
The immigrant limo driver who was dragged out of his car and beaten while his livelihood was torched in front of him during Trump’s inauguration could probably tell you something about the “peaceful transfer of power” as well, but Episiarch/Bo Cara Esq. doesn’t give a flying fuck about brown people unless they’re convenient to the furtherance of whatever racist shitbag agenda his Nazi party supports.
Hi, Tulpa! Nice of you to stop by.
Hi Episiarch/Bo Cara Esq.! Did you know that regurgitating sarcasmic’s most retarded accusation doesn’t actually change the fact that you’re a lying piece of shit and that, as always, I’ve utterly destroyed your imbecilic Democratic Underground talking points and made you look like the lying piece of shit you always were and always will be? Nice of you to let me fuck you in the ass publicly, I guess.
They weren’t just protesting the government function. They were trying to stop the government function from proceeding.
No, they weren’t, you lying stupid piece of shit. And even if that had been it wouldn’t have been traitorous any more than the innumerable times left wing psychopaths have disrupted congress and caused proceedings to be delayed, like when they bum-rushed the Kavanaugh hearings, or like back when a bunch of Puerto Rican independence activists actually shot up congress. Not one of them was charged with treason or sedition, and all had their sentences commuted by Jimmy Carter. There’s a reason why even in the clown show D.C. kangaroo courts no one involved in J6 has been charged with treason, you lying piece of shit.
There was absolutely no chance that Biden would not assume the presidency. In terms of damage done to the republic, there was none. Calling that a serious threat borders on the ridiculous.
Not a single politician was injured. For a few hours, some of them felt one ten thousandth of the fear felt by every small business in Minneapolis, Los Angeles and Portland during the summer.
Washington DC may be the center of the progressive universe, but a few hundred unarmed morons is not a threat to the world that people actually live in.
That it was an attempt at stopping the peaceful transition of power incompetently carried out by a bunch of gullible morons doesn’t make it any less traitorous.
Was the gathering itself lawful? Were these people gathering to seek a redress of grievances and to make their voices heard about a perceived injustice?
If they’d actually attempted to seize control of the government and subvert the will of the electoral population by using violence, I might agree. But they wanted to go into a public function and prop their feet up on the Speaker’s desk.
I’m not excusing the lawless actions and the property damage because violence against property is still violence. But calling it treason because you believe they wanted to overthrow the government is ridiculous. You might as well hang every person from CHAZ as a traitor, or every Portland protestor who was constantly trying to shut down a federal courthouse every day for 4 months. And I definitely decry THEIR lawless actions as well but they shouldn’t be hanged as traitors.
I didn’t say they wanted to overthrow the government. I was very specific in saying they were attempting to stop the peaceful transition from one Presidential administration to the next.
And I didn’t call for anyone to be hanged, either.
Why do you keep putting words in my mouth?
That’s no way to talk about our brave heroes in the FBI, Episiarch/Bo Cara Esq. You’re not wrong though. They were too incompetent to even start much of a riot, so they had to get a racist black piece of shit capitol cop with a history of leaving his gun in the shitter shoot one unarmed woman in the face, and then beat another one to death in a pedestrian tunnel.
Say, that mob that burned down 2 completely blocks of downtown D.C. and beat the shit out of an immigrant limo driver after dragging him out of his vehicle and torching it, was that a treasonous attempt to stop the peaceful transfer of political power in this country, Episiarch/Bo Cara Esq.? If not, can you explain why? Since you won’t come back here until 18 hours from now to corpse-fuck the thread without the interruption of any counter-arguments, let me just go ahead and preempt the retarded shit you’re going to drop here with this helpful explanation of special pleading:
2 protesters were killed. By capitol police.
Ashley Babbitt was shot.
Rosalyn Boyland was beaten to death and denied medical attention.
>>There’s no need to wrap that promise within a “we win, they lose” zero-sum view of the world. Isn’t higher economic growth good for everyone?
I think so, but that seems really confusing coming from you did you stop voting (D) w/o letting your bosses know?
I guess I got it backwards. You aren’t signaling to the “unReason” crowd. Others are signaling to you.
lol I am only me and my comment was to Eric. and quite warranted.
aside: nobody posted in the two hours between my post and yours so what was the signal?
I meant when conservative commenters around here make clique allegiance signaling comments in general, not specifically any comment anyone made today.
You’re confused. You’re talking about the circle jerk with you, Kiddie Raper, Fatfuck, Mod, Tony, Kiddie Raper Lite, and often Sarcpussy.
Sarc, this is how you post a list.
So like when you deep throat sarcasmic and the actual, unironic pedophile shreek on a daily basis, Episiarch/Bo Cara Esq.?
Your comment was not warranted. It was the same tired, weak bullshit of accusing Reason staff of being Democratic shills.
It’s true, topical, and they are shills. Just like you.
bro, Eric made a Reaganomics statement in the positive as though it came to him in a fugue state. comment totes warranted.
Why don’t you spit Boehm’s cock out of your mouth and let him speak for himself if he wants to, faggot. Criticism of a writer when they post their work publicly is always warranted. Oh, and maybe if Boehm doesn’t like having his nose rubbed in the putrid stench of his enthusiastic support of Democratic politicians, he could, you know, stop enthusiastically supporting Democratic politicians.
I’m distinctly unsure about DeSantis. But, this critique is just stupid.
That is, at best, a pretty phony line of attack coming from a guy with an undergraduate degree from Yale and a law degree from Harvard.
This reeks of the stale “class traitor” arguments. You can be a member of an elite and still have sympathy for the position of the middle class and think the elite system is corrupt. Hell, one could argue the country was founded by members of the elite who thought the elite system was corrupt.
We’re used to hearing Bernie Sanders talk about how ‘the billionaires’ are responsible for our problems, or Elizabeth Warren decry ‘corporate greed’ as the cause of every ill…Politicians on the left believe more government is good, so it makes more sense for them to blame some nondescript group of wealthy or powerful people that most Americans can’t relate to. But DeSantis says he wants to scale back the federal government, and his actual policy ideas contain some helpful moves in that direction. So why the class warfare?
I guess this makes sense coming from the conservatives at the National Review (i.e. Conservatism Inc). But, a libertarian should be able to see through this garbage on a cursory reading. Regulatory capture? The Cantillon Effect? Cronyism? Libertarian theory is rife with examples of entrenched, powerful interests, better known as elites, using the power of the state to secure and enhance their interests. And its something libertarianism is supposed to be utterly opposed to. To simply say libertarians ought to defer to elites because of their elite status without consideration of the means of their securing that status is asinine.
For all their bluster and bravado, the Democrats ARE the party of billionaire elitist who think they should control the world and shape it to their liking.
^^^
DeSantis can’t seem to ditch the populist demagoguery.
He is just building on the real accomplishment of Trump. Now, millionaires, billionaires, Ivy Leaguers, trust fund kids, possibly even the children of dynasts, monarchs, Davos attendees and presidents can all sip profitably at the fountain of populist demagoguery. That opportunity was once closed off and subject to segregation. Now, everyone has equal opportunity.
“can all sip profitably at the fountain of”……..
Wait; Who CUT taxes and Who keep proposing to raise them?
The two men who are largely responsible for the reckless spending and borrowing that’s taken place over the past seven years are President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump.
According to wingnut.com (and Mothers Lament, ITL, Jesse and other Cultists) Nancy Pelosi tricked Fatass Donnie into signing those massive spending bills.
NOT DONNIES FAULT!
Amazing. You still don’t know what veto proof means, where spending originates, or that Pelosi wanted $3.4T and got talked down to $2.2T. None of which excuse the spending or means that Trump was “tricked”.
All while pretending that Democrats are responsible for the growth after shotgunning the economy in the face for over a year.
#DefendBidenAtAllCosts
The CARES Act and PPP were not veto proof since the GOP controlled the Senate, moron.
The GOP lobbied for those massive bills.
Quit apologizing for your Big Gov party.
You really are an idiot. Both of these were Covid stimulus done at a time when no one, and I mean no one, not even the Oracle of Dogshit, Georgia, could predict what might happen. It’s better to compare results state by state afterward. States like Florida and your Georgia recovered quickly. States like Illinois and California did not. Ask yourself why.
Trump oversaw a dramatic increase in government spending—the federal budget climbed from $3.98 trillion in fiscal year 2017 to $4.45 trillion in 2019—even before the COVID-19 pandemic arrived and blew the deficit to previously unimaginable highs.
RTFA
Especially the paragraph that states most of the growth was due to presidents before him lol.
Noticed no link again.
Can you get anything factual?
https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/511055-pelosi-schumer-say-white-house-declined-2t-coronavirus-deal/
Veto proof doesn’t mean that the opposition party to the president has all the votes you blithering moron. It means that congress has enough votes to override a veto. Which they did.
Quit pretending that Fatass Donnie didn’t want the CARES Act.
He was proud of that massive $2.1 trillion boondoggle. And then threw PPP on later.
I never said he didn’t you lying fuck. I just pointed out all the ways you were wrong in your posts.
The GOP contingent in the Senate had no real recourse to fight back against the rhetoric of “killing grandma to save a buck” and “playing politics with the safety of the entire public” that would have rained down through the propaganda arm of the DNC, aka NYT, WaPo, CNN, ABC News, CBS News, NBC News, Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, Google, and NPR.
When the bulk of the “fourth estate” as well as the gatekeepers on 90%+ of all online traffic have decided to amplify one party’s talking points completely uncritically and suppress any information that’s deemed inconvenient; if the censorship list is limited to “misinformation” (as determined by a group on unelected bureaucrats cosplaying as scientists), that’s just Orwell 101, but when they add in a designation for “malinformation” for things that are provably true but might hamper the greater agenda, that’s advanced level distopia being played out in the here and now.
Don’t you mean — That ONE single spending bill written by Democrats?
I’m sure Biden was tricked too… Oh wait; no he sponsored all of them.
Trump oversaw a dramatic increase in government spending—the federal budget climbed from $3.98 trillion in fiscal year 2017 to $4.45 trillion in 2019—even before the COVID-19 pandemic arrived and blew the deficit to previously unimaginable highs.
Thank your GOP – Donnie, Mitch and Paul Ryan.
GOP had full power until 2019.
Imagine if he’d been able to enact the entirety of the “infrastructure bill” that was the centerpiece of his agenda before someone introduced him to Miller and Bannon.
Take a guy who’d been a major Democrat donor and cronyist businessman for decades and it doesn’t much matter that he’s now claiming to be a Republican (whatever that even actually means anymore) and brings a bunch of blue collar unionists along for the ride with the kind of nativist populism that used to be the “bread and butter” of the progressive movement to crowd out what remained of the GOP primary “base” after the Bush/Rove regime ran a purge on the non-theocratic wings of the party, and what you get is Dem populist policy cosplaying as some kind of new conservativism.
It’s no wonder the leftists are now so wrapped around their axle that they can doublethink themselves into the belief that actual liberal ideas are now “alt-right”.
What’s funny is “from $3.98 trillion in fiscal year 2017 to $4.45 trillion in 2019”
IS but $470B…………. Compared too……………….
After Republicans lost power an increase of $10T (20-TIMES)…
Do you also freak out when comparing an ant to a bear?
When the debt rises during a Republican presidency, it’s because of Democrats in Congress. If Republicans have both then it’s the previous Democratic administration’s fault.
When the debt rises during a Democratic presidency, it’s the fault of the president.
See?
Sarcasmic’s totally not a Democrat folk, he swears it. He just thinks criticizing them for the things they do is unfair.
The irony was sarc disagreed with shrike on this just yesterday. But joins him today on the argument.
He seems to be semi honest after being humiliated over a comment about Biden loving the constitution and will admit shrike lies.
He’s consistently inconsistent.
Sarc said the economy in 2017-18 was good. But Donnie inherited a strong economy from Obama. Nothing changed except Donnie spent like a drunken Ted Kennedy.
cite?
More like the debt rising is the fault of Congress. It just so happens that Democrats have controlled Congress more on average over the last 100 years.
https://www.spokesman.com/stories/2020/jun/25/control-house-and-senate-1900/
So, in a sense, you’re not far off the mark.
And when the debt rises while Republicans control Congress, it’s still the fault of the Democrats.
Only in so far as how many Democrats vote to pass the budget.
(How many Republicans vote against any given budget vs how many Democrats? Time for some research.)
I just know that while Republicans talk a great talk when they’re not in power, nothing seems to change when they are.
I have noticed that a Dem president and a Rep congress seems to be the most fiscally sane pairing (relatively speaking).
I can’t argue with that.
Stop pretending you have principles.
That may have been true in the past, but we’re well beyond all political norms now
What the heck happened to the Republican House bill to make it illegal for Federal employees to become involved in social media content moderation. Appears to have died in some back room.
Dems control the senate retard. Why do you keep repeating this retarded talking point? The House passed it moron.
Episiarch/Bo Cara Esq. unironically doesn’t know how a bill becomes law like every 3rd grade kid who ever watched Schoolhouse Rock.
Other than the debt to GDP ratio, which blows up every time Democrats get in control of either of the two houses of congress. But actually knowing how spending bills originate and how the budget process works is just a conservative conspiracy theory, right you drunken piece of shit child molester?
Has any Dem in any office in the last 30 years ever had any complaint about spending (except the Military, which they misrepresent the cost of by pretending that 30% of outlays represent the whole of the “pie”) other than that it was “too little”?
Meanwhile the GOP has an internal group of “trouble makers” who take issue with all manner of spending and are even willing to dispose of the dogma that somehow 70% of all government expenditures are “off limits” when it comes to trying to even take a baby-step toward some kind of sustainable governance in this country. $Trillion plus annual deficits are the kind of “leadership” that’s just going to get the treasury’s credit rating further downgraded, and the Dems can wave around the 14th Amendment all they want, but they can’t force private creditors to believe in the “full faith and credit” of a government which manages its finances worse than an addict on a bender.
Ooh, the Republican Party has a tiny, ineffective caucus.
Compared to the Democrats having no fiscally responsible caucus at all. And yet only one party draws your ire. Because you’re a lying faggot piece of shit.
” If Republicans have both then it’s the previous Democratic administration’s fault.”
BOY……. If projection had any other name it would be Sarcasmic or Sqrlsy.
No dumb*ss that’s the EXACT game you two play constantly.
“Mothers Lament, ITL, Jesse and other Cultists”
I’m number one!
Suck it, ITL, Jesse and the tens of thousands of other posters who also hate this greasy, fifty-centing pedophile.
I find it funny it was the same list he used as SRG in the roundup.
Obviously coincidentally non-coincidental that Shrike and Diet Shrike would use the same list.
Except it’s not the same list. It has you and MoLa on it, but also ITL, who I never mention. And you are two of the most conspicuous, and conspicuously dishonest, posters.
Okay shrike.
“You are two of the most… conspicuously dishonest, posters.”
Okay. Give everyone an example where Jesse and I lied. You don’t even have to come up with a link or citation. Just give us an example.
To make it extra fair you can even ask for reciprocal examples of when you or Georgian Shrike lied (with him feel free to limit examples to today only).
Obvious one is both you and JesseAz insisting that I’m a sock. That’s a lie – which you’ve stopped promulgating recently, though.
I’ll point to others as I come across them,
Shrike, I have told you a half dozen times I dont care if you are shrike or not. You have the same soros worship, the same talking points, and the same leftist views. It doesn’t matter to me if you are him or not as arguing with you is exactly the same as arguing with him. I continue to do it because it is a difference without substance. And it makes you angry which I find funny.
Got it shrike?
You’re a conservative. Everyone knows it.
As a classic liberal it is expected that we won’t agree on very much.
Remember that you don’t like Hayek either.
Hahahahahahahahahahahaha
Soros worship. Schiff worship. Media matters worship. “Classical” liberal.
Lol.
Do you know anything about Hayek outside of one sentence from an essay 60 years ago?
Imagine accidentally replying from the wrong handle in the very thread where you’re begging everyone to believe that the sock you’ve previously outed at least a dozen times is a different person.
Try to remember which account gets the sporadic and hideously butchered, misapplied cockney slang while you’re at it, kiddie fucker.
insisting that I’m a sock. That’s a lie
You posted things at the start that sounded exactly like Shrike’s yammerings. You can call that mistaken identity but it wouldn’t be a lie unless we knew, for absolute certain, that you weren’t Shrike.
I still suspect you’re a sock, although now I’m leaning towards Jeff.
And no, me having suspicions isn’t “lying” by any metric.
This is shreek, 100%. All you have to do is get the retarded pedophile faggot flustered and wound up and he just falls back on the same rhetorical tics, because he’s an autistic sperglord who really honestly can’t help himself. Even when he tries to make socks that disagree around the margins with some of his Sarah Palin’s Buttplug positions, he literally cannot help himself if you press him. Just bring up Soros and Obama’s war crimes and you’ll get all of his shreeky tics from whichever sock he’s using.
Hey, that’s the same list you used on your SRG sock this morning. Lol.
As I said, I never mentioned – nor ever mention – ITL.
Whoa, both SPBP and SRG mention Biden and Trump, it’s socks, I tells ya!
We got it shrike, your secret is safe. Put the ascot back on, nobody can tell it is you. Lol.
Fuck off, you pro-child-abuse POS.
Coming from shrike that is a weird attack.
Weirdly most of the pro child abusers here are your allies. In fact I’m pretty sure it is exclusive. If not others at least don’t openly support it.
And I have been told here that Trump was just an innocent bystander when the CDC declared a moratorium on evictions during his term. Can’t expect him to run his own administration.
Cite?
The feds didn’t enforce that moratorium, the governors and mayors did, based on the CDC “reccomendation”.
Here in CA, Newsom kept it going for well over a year; probably the only fair way for him to play it since he was also keeping millions of people’s jobs shut down for as long. Keeping half the businesses in the “sixth biggest economy in the world” closed until after the inaguration was crucial, since if they’d allowed them to re-open before that Biden would have had a harder time claiming to have “created” all the jobs involved (or at least the ones at the 60% of closed businesses which were actually able to re-open and hadn’t already fled to the “human sacrifice” states like TX, GA, or FL)
Did someone trick you into posting dark web links to hardcore child pornography and getting your original Sarah Palin’s Buttplug handle banned, shreek, or did you do that all on your own?
Take, for example, DeSantis’ stated goal of achieving 3 percent economic growth
Achieved only once since 2005.
(5.9% in 2021)
In 2005, federal debt was $8 trillion. Which was ungodly then. But quadrupling since then? Four times more debt incurred (meaning government by ‘unanticipated emergency’) since 2005 than everything before then in US history combined.
Talk about a generation of Americans who should all be killed by their own children and grandchildren (or any random stranger younger than 30). I know if I am ever on a jury in a murder trial like that I will acquit.
“Achieved only once since 2005.
(5.9% in 2021)”
Gosh, that’s amazing! I wonder if something happened in 2020 that would facilitate such a jump in 2021?
Any ideas, Shrike?
**multiple clown emojis here**
But it is fair to use the cheap COVID gas price of 2020, right?
Because you and Fatass do it all the time.
Hey shrike. Feel free to use the 2019 numbers as we all do except for you, dishonest shit.
Trump oversaw a dramatic increase in government spending—the federal budget climbed from $3.98 trillion in fiscal year 2017 to $4.45 trillion in 2019—even before the COVID-19 pandemic arrived and blew the deficit to previously unimaginable highs.
Why I vote for gridlock.
GOP can’t be fiscally responsible.
Stop lying.
If you actually voted for gridlock, you’d have to pull the lever for a Republican every once in a while (like with the GA senate race).
But you dont.
Because you’re a demshill.
I voted for Brian Kemp.
And I’ve voted for Republicans for Senate like Matt Mattingly. I would never vote for that idiot Herschel Walker.
You vote for Republicans about like Dunphy fucks Morgan Fairchild while powerlifting on a surfboard you demented pedophile.
You mean the article that explained the vast majority of that growth was payments on the debt and entitlement programs? What was Trump responsible there for again? Which programs?
I noticed you stopped posting the link since the 3rd paragraph undoes your assertion lol.
“But it is fair to use the cheap COVID gas price of 2020, right?
Because you and Fatass do it all the time.”
What the fuck are you talking about? Are you rambling about the time you used the Covid shutdowns as a benchmark for later drilling activity?
More Republican Pouncing!
There’s no need to wrap that promise within a “we win, they lose” zero-sum view of the world. Isn’t higher economic growth good for everyone?
*squints*
I can’t tell if this is meant to read “I throw out Christmas presents because of how they’re wrapped.” or “I fire employees because of their skin color.”
I’m sure there are probably lots of viable interpretations, but those two seem as valid or apt as any.
Isn’t higher economic growth good for everyone?
Even this is not entirely true. All higher economic growth means is that the gains to the winners outpace any losses to losers. If I had a state-mandated monopoly on the manufacture and sale of pencils, ending that monopoly would be good for growth. Of course, it would be lousy for me.
“I throw out Christmas presents because of how they’re wrapped.”
That’s a perfect summation of this article. It describes the National Review’s NeverTrump mentality too.
>>“I throw out Christmas presents because of how they’re wrapped.”
fucking hilarious.
This isn’t a ‘re-boot’, so much as it is changing gears. And remember, never start bickering with Trump.
Funny how it’s so unconvincing but the article ‘notes’ its all the perfect path forward.
Even when the facts are on his side, the governor can’t seem to let go of the language of class warfare and populism.
Why would he? Conservatives have lost their resistance to emotive language. Now they’re just like progressives in that respect.
Remember, Sarcasmic may be covering for a writer literally bitching about Republican form over substance, but he’s not a Democrat. Just ask him.
Oh the irony of sarc talking about emotive language. Lol.
ONLY A MEAN GIRL TRUMPISTA WOULD SAY THAT!
HOW COME YOU GUYS ALWAYS BRING UP THE HUNDREDS OF TIMES I GOT SHITFACED DRUNK AND BLURTED OUT INTIMATELY PERSONAL INFORMATION LIKE HOW I WAS A HOMELESS DRUG ADDICT AND HOW MY “CUNT” WIFE LEFT ME AND GOT CUSTODY OF MY KIDS! WAHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
How dare a graduate of Yale and Harvard behave this way! How dare he!
I mean, becoming a Republican is a big enough stab in the back… now this?
One word: the Bush dynasty.
That’s like, three words.
No one said the White Knight could count.
3 becomes one when you stick the 3 into each other’s asses. See turducken.
With a nice tall glass of HO2?
Good. Good, good.
Democrats, of course, never resort to demagoguery.
Relevance to this discussion?
It’s the Trump Defense: “Whatever we did was ok because they did it first!”
Unlike the true libertarians who demand nobody ever fights back and never criticizes institutions no matter what they do. Because the left has good intentions.
Just accept a man inside your rape crisis center for women. It’s promethean transformations all the way down.
You’d think conservatives would not look to liberals or progressives for their standards of behavior, but here we are.
And who the flying fuck are you to determine any standards of behavior after what I’ve seen you post as the The White Knight, dumbass?
alinsky rules are two way street
Only if you accept that societal decline in standards.
the crazies on the left have declined society. will only get worse if nobody responds.
A collectivist way of viewing the world: there’s their army and your army, and one is going to win at any cost.
An individualist, libertarian worldview necessarily leads to valuing high standards of individual behavior.
Aren’t you just calling everyone you disagree with conservatives above? This is called hypocrisy.
Taking the high road is for losers.
politically, yes. the last 30 years is offered as Exhibit A.
George Washington was a chump. Should have gone for king instead of quitting after two terms. What a loser.
Sadly, the political establishment has declined significantly since then.
Plus he was a slave owner so fuck him. /s
Do you listen to the Heaton podcast?
If not check it out.
https://politicalorphanage.libsyn.com/
I’ve learned a lot.
Thomas Jefferson became a total dick as president. Power corrupts blah blah blah.
Sarc have you ever learned something that wasn’t in audio format? Is all your learning simply the opinion of others.
Btw, find it ironic that you’re advertising for a school Trump graduated from and a university China paid to set up a Biden Center. Lol.
I haven’t. Thanks I’ll check it out.
Washington fought back against an authoritarian government. The same behavior you just condemned. What the fuck?
That was hand wavey.
Are you trying to make an argument that Democrats are dominant because of their underhanded tactics? Problem is they haven’t been dominant. Team Blue and Team Red have both been in power about half that time. At the state level, it’s about half blue and half red states.
I dare you to come to Illinois, and especially Chicago and say that they are equally underhanded. I fucking triple fucking dog dare you, White Mike. They’ve been in power for over 90 fucking years due to their underhanded acts.
Republicans hadn’t held congress in almost a century when the Gingrich Contract With America wave swept in you historically illiterate jizz mop.
What hugh road are you and Mike taking by supporting the left cutting off dicks and sexualizing kids? What high road are you taking letting democrats weaponize the law? What high road are you taking never criticizing the left while pushing their narratives? What high road are you taking by laughing about the government killing an unarmed woman? What high road are you taking defending the BLM riots? What high road are you taking defending censorship? What high road are you taking defending covid censorship?
Bowing down to the left as they strip your freedoms isnt the fucking high road.
Why should you care, dimwit? Most things you says have about as much relevance to the discussion as Billy Sunday in a porno.
Technically true, you don’t resort to plan A.
DeSantis can’t ditch any campaign strategy unless Casey signs off on it.
Just like how leftists are the first to call any black Republican a nigger, they’re also first to suggest a Republican man is pussy-whipped if he respects his wife while they feign a mental breakdown like a 17th century churchlady about Trump having multiple marriages.
https://twitter.com/AuronMacintyre/status/1688949286954737665?t=MfE2pvdbJHF_8SFUScVmJA&s=19
Let’s check in on the freest and fairest election in American history
“BREAKING: Michigan police find tens of thousands of fake voter registrations, bags of pre-paid gift cards, guns with silencers, burner phones, and a democrat-funded organization with multiple temporary facilities in several states in a massive 2020 voter fraud bust.”
https://twitter.com/KanekoaTheGreat/status/1688993244225605634?t=zpPAirtkFXhGblO34S5kzA&s=19
BREAKING A recently released report from Michigan law enforcement unveils a concerning voter fraud incident involving a group funded by Joe Biden’s 2020 presidential campaign.
This organization, operating in multiple swing states, is implicated in submitting fraudulent voter registrations during October 2020.
Following a raid, Michigan authorities discovered caches of pre-paid gift cards, firearms equipped with silencers, and disposable burner phones.
Throughout the 2020 election period, these Democratic election committees provided more than $4,000,000 to this particular organization:
Biden for President: $450,000
Democratic Senatorial Campaign: $2,117,605
DNC Services Corp: $1,031,856
Democratic Party of Iowa: $493,100
The investigation was initiated following the observation of a Muskegon, Michigan, clerk who noticed an individual depositing 8,000 to 10,000 completed voter registration applications at the city office on October 8, 2020.
This same individual returned multiple times, registering an additional 2,500 voters.
Alarmingly, many of these registrations displayed identical handwriting with fraudulent addresses and phone numbers.
Additionally, signatures did not match those on file with Michigan’s Secretary of State.
Thank you to the @gatewaypundit for making this police report available to the public.
——
Voter registration organizations from both sides have been accused of similar fraudulent activities.
Notably, ACORN, which had over half a million members and more than 1,200 neighborhood chapters, ceased operations in 2010 after being implicated in a similar fraudulent voter registration operation spanning multiple states.
In your estimation, how big of an influence does election fraud have on US elections?
It’s all an illusion. The Michigan authorities fell into a mass hypnotic trance, and saw things that totally don’t exist.
Just ask White Mike.
No widespread fraud
Now that’s interesting. If repeated enough times, it could easily be more than enough to sway an election.
Biden had 2,804,040 votes to Trump’s 2,649,852, a difference of a mere 154,188 votes. This, by itself is 12,500 votes. It would have to be repeated 12 to 13 times, but that would be easy to do if spread to other areas.
They found Corn Pop.
https://twitter.com/TheAndersPaul/status/1688933491600183296?t=pdaC3_nYI61hTEiIfVGrsQ&s=19
Really Fulton County and GASOS!? Someone hacked the Fulton County Elections network and took control of election equipment remotely and deleted files from ENET, GASOS did a crap investigation under an NDA with Fortalice while discussing avoiding discovery. Did you report to FBI?
Oh, to analyze, they need the password of a user. Fulton is a little hesitant to give. Oh wait, Cause they are all the same. Every County’s election equipment, same. ACLU Enet accesible laptops, shared. Oh and when told to change pass cause of time frame, GA says dont
Oh and this is a potential Fulton Election machine hack being looked at by Angelos Keromytis. Is this investigated and reported to the FBI or CISA? nope.
Oh Hey, Ga under Cyberattack. It would be funny if it wasn’t true. As I said, I am going to be more liberal w docs now. And there are more. There ARE agencies in the federal government that are aware of abnormal network traffic and were watching. the extent and details not sure.
[Links]
What part of cleanest election ever do you not accept?
From the comments.
“Of course the election was stolen, and that’s a good thing.”
You know it’s coming.
Time already ran that article in 2020.
They haven’t asked if they cleaned the election with a cloth yet. How can I know it’s a clean election if they didn’t use a cloth.
Over/Under on more reports like this getting leaked out now that the DOJ has blown their wad on the big indictment?
I’m cynical enough to posit that they know they’ve got an uphill battle to really prove anything and this is all an attempt to drag out the issue as long as possible.
Huh, in 2018, Donald Trump’s Nazi border Stasi fired tear gas into a surge of migrants trying to force their way across the border. This was clearly a low point in racist American immigration policy.
Yesterday, Biden’s heroic border protection agents fired tear gas into a surge of migrants trying to force their way across our sacred border. Biden continues to protect America and its way of life.
LOL
https://twitter.com/JackPosobiec/status/1688989935527735297?t=SO53bGIrgfttAnHiEWV7pQ&s=19
Florida politico tells me this meme is being passed around Tallahassee, sent me a copy
[Video]
Huh.
https://www.foxnews.com/world/australian-pedophile-ring-busted-wake-killings-2-fbi-agents
The Australian investigation began following a fatal shoot-out between FBI agents and an American suspect tied to the criminal group.
FBI special agents Daniel Alfin and Laura Schwartzenberger were killed in 2021 while attempting to execute a search warrant for child pornography in Florida.
Suspect David Lee Huber, 55, fired a rifle through the door and killed the pair of agents, wounding three others. He then turned the gun on himself.
EG.5 COVID strain is wreaking havoc. Mask up, boost up!
No explanation on what “better social management” even means. Unless they’re talking about the wall of silence around Fauci.
Zing!
You didn’t include a link to the source you are quoting, but it appears to be this Washington Post article:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2023/08/08/eris-covid-variant-eg-5-omicron/
These may be the most cringe words ever uttered about COVID-19:
Professor K. Srinath Reddy at the Public Health Foundation of India likened the subvariant to one of “several Barbies in the same film” — noting that it was essentially a variation of other omicron descendants.
anyone know if the old vaxxines work on the new omicrons? asking for grandma
Not signaling.
Fuck off.
The beauty of mRNA vaccines is that, unlike flu vaccines that are only effective against specific strains, they help the body fight off all variants. Yeah, yeah, you don’t consider the COVID vaccine to be a true vaccine because it helps people fight off the virus after getting sick rather than stopping people from getting sick. Doesn’t mean it doesn’t do anything.
>>Yeah, yeah, you don’t consider
I’m literally asking do the old vaccines work on the new variants?
Yes. They help prime the body to fight off the bad guy and all of its cousins.
Doesn’t mean the person will not get sick. But they will be less sick for less time.
thank you. until tomorrow …
This is false. Only if the same proteins the vaccines use to signal an immune response. It is literally why omega spread quickly despite vaccinations.
Sort of like Tylenol and Vitamin D then, except 100 times more expensive.
No, no they are not. They are effective against a specific characteristic of a virus, like the spike protein. Natural immunity will show people have immune systems that target certain aspects of the virus, do therefore cover populations against mutations. Mutations in viruses happen very quickly. If two covid variants have the same spike protein signatures the mRNA will be temporarily effective against both. But evolution usually happens towards where pressure is not, so it is not common for mutated viruses to have the same signatures that mRNA targets so those vaccines tend to be ineffective over variants while natural immunity will protect against various mutations. Which is why mRNA is worse than general immunity.
Aren’t you glad you pushed everyone to get vaccines 4 times a year instead of letting a low risk virus spread and letting natural immunity evolve in the population?
They’re a little early. They should have waited until next year so they could use the surging case count and fear pron as an excuse to “re-fortify.”
For sound economic perspective go to https://honesteconomics.substack.com/
Those Republicans obsessed with Woke.
In their obsession with Woke, it would be nice to see them stop using Woke terminology like “gender affirming care” and use the proper term “child mutilation”.
DeSantis began his campaign suggesting that he handled Covid better than Trump since he opened up Florida while Trump refused to fight with Fauci’s lock down strategy. A little criticism from Trump supporters and this line of argument quickly disappeared.
Here we have two cowards vying for the nomination. This is not surprising since membership in the Republican Party is reserved for those with proven spine-ectomies.
The first time that Fauci admittedly lied about masks, Trump should have fired him on the spot for damaging the NIAID’s credibility. Trump trembled because it was an election year and he thought he could just ride it out since lying is the actual mother’s milk of politics. Trump was getting good advice from Scott Atlas who could back up his arguments with facts, while Fauci, Birx and Redfield could only cite each other as authorities.
DeSantis’ actions during the Covid crisis gave him the stake that he could have driven right through the heart of Trump’s campaign, but he lacked the guts to use it. When you stand over the vampire’s coffin and the sun is setting, you’d better drive that stake in now, the vampire won’t give you a second chance.
“Trump trembled because it was an election year ”
He could have also pulled out of Afghanistan instead of letting Biden do it. Taking risks is something do to after re-election. Before, frivolities like plotting the annexing of Greenland occupied Trump while his handpicked disloyal minions undermined any serious initiatives.
Biden could have also pulled out of Afghanistan on the timeline Trump had set, which had implications for the seasonal fighting in Afghanistan, but decided he wanted a 9/11 photo op instead. In a way I guess he got one. 13 American coffins being flown over while he checked his watch.
Speaking of 9/11, remember how you spent a decade shilling idiotic Truther conspiracy theories from Loose Change on here?
“the seasonal fighting in Afghanistan,”
There was no seasonal fighting to worry about. The Taliban marched into Kabul in broad daylight, unopposed.
“13 American coffins being flown over while he checked his watch”
Bad things happen when you lose a war.
“He could have also pulled out of Afghanistan instead of letting Biden do it.”
He tried to do it earlier, and the Democrats wouldn’t let him. I know you know this, so why are you lying about it?
House Democrats, Working With Liz Cheney, Restrict Trump’s Planned Withdrawal of Troops From Afghanistan and Germany
July 2, 2020
Last night, the House Armed Services Committee voted overwhelmingly in favor of an amendment — jointly sponsored by Democratic Congressman Jason Crow of Colorado and Congresswoman Cheney of Wyoming — prohibiting the expenditure of monies to reduce the number of U.S. troops deployed in Afghanistan below 8,000 without a series of conditions first being met.
The imposed conditions are by no means trivial: for these troop reductions from Afghanistan to be allowed, the Defense Department must be able to certify, among other things, that leaving Afghanistan “will not increase the risk for the expansion of existing or formation of new terrorist safe havens inside Afghanistan” and “will not compromise or otherwise negatively affect the ongoing United States counter terrorism mission against the Islamic State, al Qaeda, and associated forces.”
The Crow/Cheney amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) last night passed by a vote of 45-11. The NDAA was then unanimously approved by the Committee by a vote of 56-0.
Here’s the bill itself.
Trump was elected in 2016, long before Liz Cheney’s amendment. After his election, Trump actually increased troop presence in Afghanistan.
The fact that the author calls DeSantis’ actions “anti-woke stunts” shows his blatant bias against the Governor.
It was a highly accurate, objective statement. DeSantis is all about the grandstanding stunts.
Words mean more than actions or policy seems to be the left “libertarian” mantra.
Funny how the author decries or is no fan of R.De’s culture wars…more of a “Let’s concentrate on Economics”. Problem with this is economics suffer when people are forced to bend the knee to the delusions of a neo-Marxist soft (and hardening) revolution. It’s more than just how many of your kids Disney gets to groom for the pervs while granting the Corp broad privileges. The same gang of wokesters in charge of practically ALL our institutions who claim women can have a penis are probably not all that good in economic policy, too. You can’t avoid this war. Logic and reason must prevail.
That’s a lot of word salad to say you are A-OK with DeSantis wielding government power indiscriminately.
That was a succinct way of saying you only care about abuse of government power when there’s a possibility someone to the right of Stalin might obtain it.
“you are A-OK with DeSantis wielding government power indiscriminately”
We can all read what he wrote so why are you lying?
So Reason’s last post came in at 11am, with nothing more. My newspaper, for the first time in almost eight years didn’t mention Trump once on its home page. I feel like something is going on that no one wants to talk about.
Entertainer Wayne Brady came out as pansexual. Here’s what that means 1 hour ago
Yeah, this is the top news story right now. Something’s up.
Is Wayne Brady gonna have to choke a bitch?
How is this any different from Murray Rothbard’s “libertarian class consciousness” approach (adopted by the LP Radical Caucus) of flogging looting versus looted classes? It was criticized tactically — for instance, David Friedman’s approach is “the enemy is us”, meaning it’s a bad meme throughout society, not a particular interested class’s fault, just ignorance or intellectual laziness — but there’s nothing unlibertarian about it per se.
“failed elites that have orchestrated American decline.”
I might quibble with the term “orchestrated,” if it implies that the governing classes were smart enough to know the bad results of their “well-intentioned” ideas.
But if it means the ruling classes got together to do dumb stuff which brought American to…where it is now, then that sounds like a valid criticism.
Of course, voters elected many (not all) of these rulers, so it’s not a pure populist “us vs. them” scenario. Or, I should say, the voters didn’t have the vigilance – or “jealousy,” as the Founders put it – to watch the rulers carefully and stop them from messing up.
Not that DeSantis is the one to solve these problems (if anyone can). But it seems perfectly reasonable for him, in pointing out the consequences of bad policies, to blame those who made those policies.