News bits: Regarding the resolution of disapproval; The radical right echo chamber protects Faux News; Etc.

The NYT writes about an effective tactic called a resolution of disapproval that Senate Republicans are using to divide and weaken vulnerable Democrats ahead of the 2024 elections. The NYT writes:

Republicans have settled on their procedural weapon of choice for this Congress — and they have it trained squarely on Democrats anxious about their 2024 prospects.

Twice in the past week, Republicans scored wins and divided Democrats by employing an arcane maneuver known as a resolution of disapproval to take aim at policies that they oppose and see as political vulnerabilities for Democrats, using the measures to amplify their message.

The biggest victory came on Thursday, when President Biden told Senate Democrats that he would sign a Republican-led resolution blocking the District of Columbia’s new criminal code if it reached his desk. It was a reversal from his earlier opposition and a frank acknowledgment that Republicans had gotten the better of Democrats on the hot-button topic of violent crime.

But the beauty of a resolution of disapproval is that it has special status in the Senate. It can’t be kept off the floor by the majority leader and is not subject to the filibuster, providing a blunt political instrument for lawmakers if they can assemble a simple majority. That is because of the Congressional Review Act, enacted in 1996 after Republicans took power on Capitol Hill, which created the process that allows Congress to upend federal rules.

With little power to set the Senate agenda, Republicans regard the tactic as a handy way to score legislative victories and force Democrats to debate subjects they would rather avoid.  

The technique also fits the Republican legislative mind-set, which tends more toward blocking policy rather than creating it.

“We are built to disapprove,” said Senator Kevin Cramer, Republican of North Dakota.

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Defending the radical right echo chamber and faux reality: The NYT writes about how the radical right propaganda Leviathan is dealing with the defamation lawsuit that Dominion filed against Faux News:

Conservative Media Pay Little Attention to Revelations About Fox News

Fox News and its sister network, Fox Business, have avoided the story. Newsmax and One America News, Fox’s rivals on the right, have steered clear, too. So have a constellation of right-wing websites and podcasts.

But in the conservative media world? Mostly crickets.

Four outlets mentioned the lawsuit in some way, but did not mention the comments from Fox News hosts. One of those, The Gateway Pundit, published three articles that included additional unfounded allegations about Dominion, ....

There is no wonder why the rank and file radical right is ignorant and disinformed about the lies and slanders that Faux has been broadcasting about the 2020 election. They are stuck in an  echo chamber dominated by demagoguery, lies (including lies of omission, i.e., the highly effective KYMS tactic*), slanders, irrational emotional manipulation, flawed motivated reasoning and the like.

* KYMS = keep your mouth shut

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The authoritarian radical right witch hunt grounded in gigantic hypocrisy, colossal crackpottery and blatant bad faith: We all knew this was going to happen once the pro-tyranny GOP got its House witch hunts fired up. This is about the Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government, chaired by radical right liar and crackpot Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio). The investigation focuses on the alleged “weaponization” by Democrats of the Department of Justice and the FBI. The WaPo writes:

House Republicans vowing to uncover a “weaponization” of the federal government against conservatives have so far called witnesses who have not presented any evidence of wrongdoing at the Justice Department and FBI but have peddled conspiracy theories about the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol, according to Democrats on the panel who have heard their interviews.

The three witnesses who have participated in transcribed interviews, all former FBI officials, have shown no firsthand evidence of the politically motivated misconduct Republicans say they are investigating. But they have variously promoted dissolving the FBI, cited baseless claims that the Jan. 6 insurrection was planned by Democrats, that rioter Ashli Babbitt was murdered, and made Nazi allusions, Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee said in a 316-page report[1] released Thursday night. In addition, they said, two of the witnesses were paid and supported by Kash Patel, an ally of former president Donald Trump.

The WaPo article goes on to point out that last month, Jordan claimed that whistleblowers alleged much wrongdoing by the FBI. They claimed that the FBI manipulated Jan. 6 case files and exaggerated evidence of domestic extremism. But Democrats on the committee say (i) none of the three witnesses who testified has produced any such evidence, and (ii) committee Republicans have not produced the many whistleblowers they claim to have found.

Jordan completely rejects the Democratic analysis of what has transpired so far. He calls it cherry-picking and taking information out of context. Given recent radical right history in congress here is no reason to believe there is one shred of good-will in Jordan or his radical Republican colleagues. The two sides will very likely wind up presenting two incompatible final versions of the truth. When that time comes, it will become clear if the radical right has finally ginned up the courage to fabricate evidence to advance its anti-democratic, authoritarian-Christian theocratic agenda.

GOP House Witch Hunter-in-Chief

Jim Jordan hunting witches

Footnote: 

1. The 316 page Democratic staff report starts with comments like these:

This partisan investigation, such as it is, rests in large part on what Chairman Jordan has described as “dozens and dozens of whistleblowers… coming to us, talking about what is going on, the political nature at the Justice Department.” To date, the House Judiciary Committee has held transcribed interviews with three of these individuals. Chairman Jordan has, of course, refused to name any of the other “dozens and dozens” who may have spoken with him. He has also refused to share any of the documents which these individuals may have provided to the Committee.  

First, the three individuals we have met are not, in fact, “whistleblowers.” These individuals, who put forward a wide range of conspiracy theories, did not present actual evidence of any wrongdoing at the Department of Justice or the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).  

Second, the transcribed interviews we have held thus far refute House Republican narrative about “bias” at the Department of Justice. We urge Chairman Jordan to schedule the public testimony of these individuals without delay. The American public should be able to judge for themselves whether these witnesses or their allegations are remotely credible.

Witch hunt!!

The list of bad policies and authoritarianism that liberalism and Democrats advocate

CONTEXT

I made a list of the bad things that old-fashioned conservatives and the American radical right (collectively the right) tends to criticize and accuse the Democrats and liberalism of doing or advocating. I have bookmarked this link for easy personal access. Now I don't have to rely on my sometimes faulty memory to recall the major complaints the right commonly levels against the left. Of course, not all people on the right believe all of these bad things about liberalism, but I bet that most (~90% ?) would agree with at least half of them. Given the bitter complaints the right constantly levels against the left, having a list for handy reference feels like it could be helpful sometimes. 

The list of bad or worse the right accuses the left of doing or advocating 

1. teaching CRT and indoctrination of public school and university students with false, rewritten history such as land being stolen or taken by force from American Indians, and (ii) alleged but false effects of systemic racism on minorities 

2. gender fluidity indoctrination of public school students, especially young children in grade and middle school, but also in high school 

3. ruthless reliance on divisive, identity politics that divides, polarizes and disinforms society and damages democracy 

4. blaming the right for ruthless divisive, identity politics that divides, polarizes and disinforms society and damages democracy 

5. being too subjective and easy about public school grades, especially for non-White students 

6. unfair and/or unconstitutional affirmative action in college admissions, with admissions based on self-described representations instead of actual, demonstrated merit 

7. radical socialism/communism with advocacy of catastrophic raids on wealth, meaning proposing unreasonably increased taxes on wealth (wealth being undefined) 

8. anti-Semitism 

9. attacks on Christians and Christianity amounting to severe persecution of religion and a heavy burden on, and threat to, religious freedom 

10. attacks on capitalism in the form of unreasonably high taxes, unreasonably stringent regulations, outrageously high corporate taxes and outrageous protections for consumers and labor 

11. outrageous, evil support for abortion and gun regulations, with total gun confiscation being the final goal 

12. ridiculous, unfounded alarmism about climate change and its causes based mostly on flawed or fabricated data, unreliable science and corrupt, lying scientists 

13. outrageous, completely unsupported public claims that Trump, Trumpism and the Republican Party generally are in any way anti-democratic, supportive of mendacious, divisive, authoritarian, fascist, or theocratic 

14. outrageous, completely unsupported public claims that the peaceful event on 1/6 was an insurrection, a coup attempt, unlawful, violent or anything other than a lawful exercise of free speech, freedom of association and freedom of religion 

15. ridiculous, unfounded, utterly false claims that American was founded as a secular democracy with a separation of church and state intended by the drafters of the constitution 

16. advocacy of completely open borders and unlimited, unrestricted immigration

17. subversion of democracy and elections by millions of illegal immigrants, including the theft of the 2020 presidential election by millions of illegal votes

18. plans to legalize discrimination against White people by non-White communities, with the eventual goal being replacement of Whites with non-Whites in government, society and business

19. liberal lies about Republican efforts to insure election integrity being authoritarian attempts to subvert and rig elections and democracy to favor Republicans and Republican single party rule

20. blatant lies about the safety and efficacy of COVID vaccines and mask mandates, and related public health policies that amount to tyranny

21. support for defunding and disbanding police departments

22. support for Antifa and violent protest in support of socialism or communism

Q: What important criticism(s) of the left/liberalism did I leave off the list?

Fun with guns . . . . . and rationality

Salon writes about a discussion on gun rights, gun deaths and a few other mostly gun-related things. The participants were radical right Republican state Sen. Nathan Dahm of Oklahoma and comedian Jon Stewart. 

State Sen. Nathan Dahm (R-OK) has penned several bills loosening gun restrictions, including the nation’s first anti-red flag law. He thinks these bills protect the Second Amendment – and that they make us safer. We think it's probably one or the other. Watch it on @AppleTVPlus. pic.twitter.com/T7fLFLjTQ5

— The Problem With Jon Stewart (@TheProblem) March 3, 2023

Salon transcribed some of the 8:27 discussion:

"You don't want anything that could help law enforcement or society determine whether or not a person is a good guy with a gun or a bad guy with a gun," Stewart said.

"The registry would allow you to have much more effective background checks," Stewart continued. "I don't understand why you won't just admit that you are making it harder for police to manage the streets by allowing all of these guns to go out without permits, without checks, and without background stuff? Why can't you just stand by that?"

"Because that's not what I'm doing," Dahm responded. "I'm defending the individual's right to keep and bear arms."

Stewart countered by noting that Americans have to register in order to have voting rights.

"So you have to register for a right. Is that an infringement?" Stewart asked the lawmaker.

"Does the right to vote say 'shall not be infringed?'" Dahm responded.

"Oh, so this is just a semantic argument?" Stewart retorted, to which Dahm quickly said "no, it's not."

"What is the leading cause of death among children in this country?" Stewart asked Dahm during the discussion.

"And I'm going to give you a hint," he said, "it's not drag show readings to children."

"Correct, yes," Dahm responded.

"So what is it?" Stewart asked again.

"I'm presuming you're going to say it's firearms," Dahm said.

"No, I'm not going to say it like it's an opinion," Stewart said with indignation. "That's what it is. It's firearms. More than cancer, more than car accidents, and what you're telling me is you don't mind infringing free speech to protect children from this amorphous thing that you think of, but when it comes to children that have died, you don't give a flying f**k to stop that because that shall not be infringed."

"That is hypocrisy at its highest order," Stewart concluded.

So, is Dahm a hypocrite as Stewart alleges? Does it matter that guns kill more children than cancer or drag show readings? Which of the two sound more reality-based and rational, Dahm or Stewart? Which is more pro-democracy, e.g., it's OK to infringe voting rights via registration but not gun rights?

About Ron DeSantis’ political ambitions

CONTEXT

Recently, I’ve posted several items about what the radical right dictator wannabe Ron DeSantis is doing in Florida. It is the centerpiece of his campaign for president in 2024. From what I can tell, he is emulating the tactics that Viktor Orban used to kill democracy in Hungary. This post is a copy of the superb analysis that PD laid out on Snowflake’s Forum about the cruel, authoritarian things that DeSantis wants to do to American democracy. For context, this 5:28 interview is about how Orban killed democracy in Hungary. He did that within just two years after his election in 2010. That track record of anti-democracy accomplishment is why radical right Republican authoritarian elites love Orban and want to replicate here what he did there.

DeSantis analyzed

  PD wrote: 

DeSantis is the only candidate (once he actually announces) with a chance of defeating Trump, who is still the #1 Republican candidate in the polls I’ve seen. But DeSantis knows that he’ll never beat Trump on Trump’s own terms-- basically cult of personality with that famous charisma I just don’t feel, but which seems to catalyze voters even after all his blunders. So what can DeSantis do? Trump savages him verbally, and-- true to Trump’s nickname for him, DeSanctimonious-- he can do no more than say, “I don’t insult other Republicans, I criticize Biden and not others in my party.” Actually he does both, but dreads a battle of personalities, since his own is dull as dishwater. 

Here’s what I think is going on in Fla. with the constant ratcheting up of authoritarianism: he’s putting together a resume for the radical Trump-loving base which will not require him (he hopes) to square off with Trump and thus lose. Instead, his sales pitch is going to be, I think, “Look at what I did to Florida in a few short years. Give me your vote, and the US will look just like Fla.” Okay, so what does that look like according to DeSantis? As he puts it in this 50 second clip, after bragging about his authoritarian policies, “The political character of Florida has changed. We’ve been really able to rewrite the map here, and the Democratic Party in this state is basically a dead, rotten carcass on the side of the road.”

He is betting that if he can do what Trumpists want Trump to do more quickly and effectively (or at least make the claim on the basis of Florida as “exhibit A”) then most of Trump’s followers will vote for this audacious “Trump sans baggage.” While Trump continues to relitigate the 2020 election at his rallies, DeSantis is working hard to model Florida’s colleges on Hillsdale College ( where Scalia and Clarence Thomas have given commencement speeches, and where "anti-woke" curriculum and Christian nationalism-laced American History courses are designed and exported to Red States). DeSantis placed Christopher Ruffo on the board of New College in order to make of this famous liberal arts college that once had Arnold Toynbee in its history dept., a Christian Nationalist (CN), anti-woke, book banning dystopia to show just how much he can fuck with US institutions and get away with it. 

Ruffo is the GOP’s premier culture warrior, the guy who almost single-handedly made the letters CRT a household word in this country and manufactured a virtual panic over them. He and other CNs from Hillsdale and Claremont (the most regressive institutions going) are taking over the administration of this college which will also (DeSantis hopes) serve as “exhibit A” on the education/ religious indoctrination front. See, it’s not just K-12 anymore. As the bumper stickers say nowadays, “Florida is where woke goes to die.” That has to include not just K-12, but state colleges, corporations (like Disney) and anything else in the way of the DeSantis juggernaut. Here’s Ruffo bragging about how swift and thorough the wreckage will be. Notice the line that says, “We’ll recruit new students who are mission-aligned.”

But I'm more optimistic than this. The takeover of New College has already changed the dynamics in higher education. We have a strong new president who has a mandate to change the administrative and academic trajectory of the institution. You'll see changes in the next 120 days.

— Christopher F. Rufo ⚔️ (@realchrisrufo) February 28, 2023

So, there should be no surprise that if he can get away with it, DeSantis will censor blogs just like he has done with libraries, just as he is doing with Advance Placement courses in HS and now higher education too. Who knows what he really believes. As Katherine Stewart (author of The Power Worshippers) wrote in a recent New Republic piece, DeSantis knows that the road to the White House must include A) frequent public acts of cruelty (y’know like when Trump attacked an American Judge as "having a conflict of interest because he’s Mexican" or when he taunted a Goldstar Family whose Muslim son had died fighting in Afghanistan while Bone Spurs used insulting ethnic stereotypes to savage the parents). That’s why DeSantis pulled that stunt with the asylum seekers he sent to Martha’s Vineyard late last year. Performative cruelty. 

The second requirement to win is to get the support of a significant portion of the Republican super-donors, which DeSantis has done. BUT, often overlooked by MSM is the fact that, as DeSantis has learned from Trump, the road to the White House now requires that “you get an endorsement from God” according to the influential CN’s and white evangelicals. That’s why Hillsdale College (a CN bastion) serves as the template for the educational makeovers he’s trying to orchestrate. I recommend Katherine Stewart’s article in The New Republic.

All of these things are timed to coincide with his new book, The Courage to be Free: Florida’s Blueprint for America’s Revival, obviously his extended argument for running against Trump. This Newsweek article includes a 30 minute podcast interview with DeSantis in case anyone wants to hear what he sounds like as he makes the case for being a--perhaps less charismatic but more “effective”-- proponent of just about all of the things “the base” wants from Trump.  

I still say Trump is likely to be the candidate mainly because when I try to picture DeSantis forced to respond to Trump in real-time on TV I think he’ll come across as lame and stiff as Trump repeatedly insults and humiliates him as he did effectively with more likeable-- to Repubs that is-- candidates in 2016. But as Stewart and others point out, DeSantis is a man with a plan, and though he’s in the news, unlike Trump, he is not explicitly called out as a dangerous would-be dictator. And yet that is exactly what he wants to prove he is by making sure that by the time the debates start he can say with even greater credibility that in Florida, he has left the Democratic Party like “a dead, rotten carcass on the side of the road.” 

It’s scandalous that our cowardly media outlets give him a pass as if he were just another candidate-- albeit with anti-woke tendencies. Anti-woke is only the tip of the iceberg, the bait to attract a broad swath of Republicans and Right Leaning Independents. Come for the anti-woke--stay for the thought control regime.

Qs: Is this analysis wrong, hyperbole or otherwise not persuasive? If so, why, e.g., are evil democrats indoctrinating children with socialism, and evil awareness of inconvenient truth and gender fluidity? Does the alleged evil the Democrats do justify doing to American democracy what Orban did to democracy in Hungary? Is DeSantis just another candidate or does the MSM deserve a grade of F for failing to treat DeSantis as the dictator wannabe I firmly believe he is?