Those GOP grifters will be the death of this republic

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Trump just unleashed an unhinged, barely coherent rant about the possibility President Biden might reveal what was going on in the White House on January 6th, the day Trump tried to finally end, once and for all, any possibility of governmental oversight of his ongoing criminal career. He believed he could follow in the footsteps of grifters before him who've taken control of and then drained dry countries from Hungary to Russia, Brazil to Turkey and The Philippines.

Thus it surprises nobody to discover that when Donald Trump and the people around him learned, in mid-November of 2020, that there was absolutely no meaningful voter fraud in that month's election, they chose, instead of acknowledging the truth, to go ahead with a plan to raise over $200 million dollars (and counting). That even today "President Trump" is sending out one or two fundraising emails a day, each one with the tiny "make this a recurring donation" box pre-checked.

Grifters occupy a unique niche in the world of criminals: they avoid direct violence, but live and act only to enrich themselves, whether it's with money, sex, power or all three. They're typically high-functioning sociopaths who sneer at the rules of civilized society the rest of us take seriously.

Republican appointees on the US Supreme Court cracked open the door for professional grifters in 1976 when, for the first time in American history, the Court redefined politicians taking money from billionaires away from being "political corruption" and "bribery"—what such behavior had been called since the beginning of the republic—to instead say it was a mere "exercise of free speech" on the part of the morbidly rich.

Two years after the Buckley decision, in 1978, Justice Lewis Powell (author of the infamous 1971 Powell Memo) pushed the door even farther open when he wrote for the Republican majority a decision granting giant corporations the same "free speech right" to own politicians in Boston v Bellotti.

And in 2010, with Citizens United, Republican appointees on the Court didn't just blow the doors open; they tore down the entire building of "good government" in America, reaffirming that any billionaire or corporation that wanted to own their very own pet politician—or, if rich enough, own an entire political party—was totally legal and not at all corrupt.

Which is why Richard Nixon, who resigned in 1974, was one of the last Republican politicians who actually believed that politics in America had something to do with governing the nation (even if he did it poorly). Ever since then, the GOP has been composed almost exclusively of professional grifters (which is a somewhat different type of cat from an ordinary criminal like Nixon who just took bribes, blackmailed people and lied about it all).

Grifters occupy a unique niche in the world of criminals: they avoid direct violence, but live and act only to enrich themselves, whether it's with money, sex, power or all three. They're typically high-functioning sociopaths who sneer at the rules of civilized society the rest of us take seriously. They combine the not-uncommon skill set of being charming and great salesmen and storytellers, but have no conscience or respect for the truth.

Grifters believe they're the only "real" people in the world and all the rest of us are here for their entertainment, satisfaction or to pluck clean of whatever we have that they want. They view us as cardboard cutouts; their pains and loves and desires are real while ours are merely background noise.

And the entire Republican Party has become one giant in-crowd of professional grifters, most all of them getting rich, getting famous and/or getting laid in the process.

Ronald Reagan grew up during the Great Depression, became a Democrat who loved FDR, and once believed in government and that hard work and talent would get him ahead. Then Nancy Davis introduced him to her wealthy father, who let Ronnie in on the grift. Shill for General Electric and the GOP and he could marry Nancy, get rich, and might even have a bright political future. He was the first professional grifter president of the modern era.

Newt Gingrich was primed for the grift, screaming about Bill Clinton having an affair with Monica while porking Calista down the hall and fending off calls from his then-second wife. He got into the grift in a big way when he rolled out his "Contract With America" that was almost entirely tax cuts for giant corporations and the morbidly rich. Hell, he's still in on it; I'm getting an email almost every week from Trump with Gingrich's picture and signature asking for money.

Paul Ryan pimped tax cuts for the obscenely rich his entire career, knowing when he left office there's be massive paychecks waiting for him the rest of his life.

Dick Cheney knew there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and that Saddam Hussein not only had nothing to do with 9/11 but actively hated and hunted down Bin Laden's Al Qaeda operatives so he could imprison or kill them. But Cheney had run Halliburton into trouble, betting that if he picked up Dresser Industries on the cheap that the Clinton administration would cover their asbestos liability. When he lost that bet and Halliburton was in trouble, a nice war with billions in no-bid contracts for the oil-company-turned-defense-contractor was just the grift he needed to both bail him out and make him fabulously rich.

Clarence Thomas and Antonin Scalia both knew that if any other federal judge were to go quail hunting with a defendant before the Court three weeks before trial or allow his spouse to take hundreds of thousands a year from a think tank with business before the Court, there would be hell to pay. But they were in on the grift and simply exempted themselves from the Federal Code of Judicial Conduct. Hell, they helped write the grift with Citizens United.

Since Citizens United the Republican grift has fully gone party-wide and even picked up a few Democrats along the way.

Some members of Congress get rich with money from Big Pharma, others choose to make their money with Big Oil or Big Coal, others are deeply in the pockets of airlines, telcom companies, the tobacco industry, banks, insurance companies or the food and hospitality monopolies.

Some Republicans even ran day-trading operations on insider information out of their offices until then-Democratic Congressman Brian Baird tipped off the world on my show and Air America's Majority Report 14 years ago.

They all believe, as Bob Dylan famously sang, "You've gotta serve somebody." And the "somebody" they all choose to serve are always the ones who pay the most.

Which is why it only makes sense that the Republican Party would put up a lifelong grifter as their nominee for president in 2016. And that he'd surround himself with grifters like Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, who Forbes magazine said would, by any measure, "rank among the biggest grifters in American history," having scammed business partners out of at least $120 million.

Everybody in the GOP is either stuffing their "Leadership PACs" with money they can dip into after they leave office, living high on the hog, using their position to become famous or get into the pants of underage girls, or preparing for their well-feathered-nest after leaving politics.

I've been running a contest on my radio show since it started in 2003 offering a prize to anybody who can identify even one single piece of legislation that was originally sponsored by a Republican, passed Congress with a Republican majority, and was signed into law by a Republican president that primarily helped average working people or poor people instead of the rich or giant corporations.

Nobody has ever won the prize, and I'm betting nobody ever will.

This is not to say the Democratic Party doesn't have its share of grifters (two publicity-hungry senators come to mind). After all, when the Supreme Court legalized political grifting they didn't limit it to one party or the other.

But the single largest caucus in the Democratic Party is the Congressional Progressive Caucus (co-founded by Bernie Sanders) and its members generally refuse corporate PAC money and don't usually hang out with lobbyists. Former co-chair of the Caucus, Representative Mark Pocan, has joked on my show that "they say there are three Big Pharma lobbyists for every member of Congress, but I have no idea who mine are."

While Democrats are trying to legislate around the corrupting landmines laid by conservatives on the Supreme Court, Republicans are expanding on Donald Trump's "voter fraud" and "antifa" grifts to raise money and consolidate their own power in the face of an American electorate that's starting to figure out their game.

Trump and a handful of his grifter buddies who were up for full-out treason thought they could pull off the ultimate grift and seize the trillions in assets of the entire country. They only failed, we're learning, by a whisker.

Next time we may not be so lucky. Congress must grift-proof our politics by getting billionaire and corporate money out of politics, as Democrats tried to do when the House of Representatives passed the For The People Act that arguably Democratic grifters Manchin and Sinema are blocking in the Senate.

Perhaps the 2022 election will bring Democrats a large enough progressive majority that they can work around their own grifters. Or maybe it'll signal the death knell of the republic.

To an extent largely unprecedented in American history, that decision will be in the hands of activists and voters like you and me. We have a big job ahead of us.
https://www.alternet.org/2021/09/gop-grifters/

The US is going to have to do to the GOP and their grifters, what Germany did after WWII, when they did a denazification of their government. That's if we ever want to have a government of all the people again.
Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored.-Huxley
"We can have democracy in this country, or we can have great wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we can't have both." ~ Louis Brandeis,

Re: Those GOP grifters will be the death of this republic

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It's an opinion piece by Thom Hartmann. When PACs and Super PACs came into existence, Democrats yelled and raged that it was the end of democracy yet they've turned around, started their own and benefited from them. In the 2020 election they raised almost as much as Republicans with their Super PACs and it wasn't just Biden - Warren, Hickenlooper...
https://www.opensecrets.org/outsidespen ... p=O&type=C
"Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but not their own facts." - Daniel Patrick Moynihan

Re: Those GOP grifters will be the death of this republic

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I have to agree that the picture is inappropriate, even if I sort-of understand why one would feel that way.

Besides, one could also say it would be a waste of ammunition, since a) there isn't much in there worth a bullet, and b) iDJT is a symptom of the larger problem, if only the titular figurehead of the problem. Get rid of him and someone else equally malevolent and more intelligent will replace him.
Eventually I'll figure out this signature thing and decide what I want to put here.

Re: Those GOP grifters will be the death of this republic

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BearPaws wrote: Mon Sep 27, 2021 5:53 pm I have to agree that the picture is inappropriate, even if I sort-of understand why one would feel that way.

Besides, one could also say it would be a waste of ammunition, since a) there isn't much in there worth a bullet, and b) iDJT is a symptom of the larger problem, if only the titular figurehead of the problem. Get rid of him and someone else equally malevolent and more intelligent will replace him.
Yeah, well it was on the cover of a magazine.
I know many here have said they want him dead in a number of different ways. So worse, maybe than what anyone else said here, not really.
“The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing,”

Re: Those GOP grifters will be the death of this republic

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I come to this forum to avoid that stuff. It is antithetical to democracy. It is as repulsive as Tr*mp and his movement.

I feel the same about the occasional references to his death or to the death of his followers from COVID or other causes. No place for that in civil discussion.

Particularly vile to post such things as a political figure in cross hairs on a gun sight.

We're all allowed temporary lapses of judgment in states of frustration, tonguengroover. Do as you wish, but if you look back and think "what was I thinking?" you would have my respect for pulling it and saying oops.

You know, because I'm sure my respect is something that's super important to you. LOL.

Re: Those GOP grifters will be the death of this republic

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tonguengroover wrote: Mon Sep 27, 2021 6:25 pm
BearPaws wrote: Mon Sep 27, 2021 5:53 pm I have to agree that the picture is inappropriate, even if I sort-of understand why one would feel that way.

Besides, one could also say it would be a waste of ammunition, since a) there isn't much in there worth a bullet, and b) iDJT is a symptom of the larger problem, if only the titular figurehead of the problem. Get rid of him and someone else equally malevolent and more intelligent will replace him.
Yeah, well it was on the cover of a magazine.
I know many here have said they want him dead in a number of different ways. So worse, maybe than what anyone else said here, not really.
Whether I want him dead of natural causes isn't the point. I make a point of not wishing violence on people online, if only to reduce the blowback from nannies looking for reasons to limit my access to the outdoors.
Eventually I'll figure out this signature thing and decide what I want to put here.

Re: Those GOP grifters will be the death of this republic

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Going back to the topic at hand
Trump and a handful of his grifter buddies who were up for full-out treason thought they could pull off the ultimate grift and seize the trillions in assets of the entire country. They only failed, we're learning, by a whisker.

Next time we may not be so lucky. Congress must grift-proof our politics by getting billionaire and corporate money out of politics, as Democrats tried to do when the House of Representatives passed the For The People Act that arguably Democratic grifters Manchin and Sinema are blocking in the Senate.
Whether or not the people who funded his last campaign ie corporate entities and his ilk will insure his success in taking back POTUS remains to be seen. He certainly has the backing of his base.
The next attempt at insurrection may well be this coming mid term elections if every thing does not fare well for them.

We've all read the recent pundits articles warning of an overthrow of the government. And practically all of the GOP elected officials seem to be willing to go along. The radical right supporters are heavily armed. Tens of thousands if not a hundred thousand with past and recent military training are willing to use force. I see whats coming down the road. I am prepared.
My question is will the left lay down their arms and just give up? Or will they pull the trigger and fight back. Because I am not inclined all parts of the military will fall in line behind the constitution.
It's not the grifters that will take down the republic, it's their base. Because what I see is that liberal left are weak and do not have the force in training like the radical right is doing. They have called for civil war many times and Trump and his buddies want it.

The left is not ready.
“The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing,”

Re: Those GOP grifters will be the death of this republic

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The "left" in America now is not like the "left" in the 60's. More expensive suits now. Many on the "left" today are neoliberals who bow to their preferred giant corporations. They have little interest in liberty. Profit, however potential, gets their attention. Still, the neolibs have more money, and therefore more political power, than do the progressives. Those of us off the planet on the left have to look to those wretched neoliberals if we're going to get any progress.

But unless we get out the vote on the left or even of the Dems, we will be crushed by idiocy.They can corner votes via gerrymandering to get the Electoral College. They must be voted out.

CDFingers
Crazy cat peekin' through a lace bandana
like a one-eyed Cheshire, like a diamond-eyed Jack

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