From the delusional files: Close to an immigration deal or a Lucy?

CONTEXT

For years bigoted/racist Republican Party elites have been sabotaging bipartisan deals in congress to fix the immigration problem at the border. The reason is simple. Keeping the border issue unresolved is a perfect way to demagogue the hell out of something to keep the rank and file engaged, e.g., enraged, terrified of the Great White Replacement by cruel immigrant hoards,  distracted from what the kleptocratic, authoritarian GOP actually stands for, i.e., tyranny and massive corruption, etc. 

One can reasonably see fixing the American immigration problem about the same way one can see the unresolvable Israel-Palestine problem. Neither is fixable except via one side getting everything it wants.

THE LATEST “DEAL”

The Hill reports: 

Schumer: Negotiators ‘closer than we have been’ on border deal

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) indicated negotiators are inching closer to a border deal that could unlock aid for Ukraine, while pressing the House to jump on board with the eventual agreement.

“We’re making progress. We’re closer than we have been, but this is a very difficult issue and there’s still different issues to be overcome with,” Schumer told reporters after opening the Senate for the second half of the 118th Congress.

“Everyone’s going to have to give something to get this done. No one can just get his or her own way,” he said.  

Schumer’s remarks came as a group of 60 House Republicans, headlined by Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.), is traveling to the border near Eagle Pass, Texas, on Wednesday to highlight their concerns about border security. December marked an all-time high in border crossings with roughly 300,000 encounters, the Department of Homeland Security said earlier this week.

House Republicans passed their border bill last year, H.R.2, which received no Democratic votes.  

The Democratic leader declined to discuss how a potential bipartisan bill would move, given that Congress is staring down a pair of government funding deadlines on Jan. 19 and Feb. 2.

There’s no basis for belief that a deal can likely be reached. From the GOP’s point of view, working with Dems to fix immigration in a presidential election year makes absolutely no sense. But, it makes a lot of sense for Repubs to posture in that direction so they can demagogue that the Dems won’t compromise, while only wanting completely open borders.

I rate this a Lucy:

Left: Schumer

Right: Repubs

Crackpot conspiracies alive & well; The Firehose of Falsehood: The stolen 2020 election evidence

The WaPo reports a story about the American radical right crackpot & lies politics segment of the American experiment: 

The story had all the elements of a blockbuster crime saga: burner phones, semiautomatic weapons, silencers and bags of prepaid cash cards. “NOW WE HAVE PROOF!” blared the headline on the right-wing website Gateway Pundit. “Massive 2020 Voter Fraud Uncovered in Michigan.”

The story referenced “thousands of fraudulent ballots” caught by Muskegon City Clerk Ann Meisch. Grateful readers deluged her office with hundreds of calls, hailing her as a hero.

But Meisch knew it wasn’t true.

According to police reports, the Michigan attorney general’s office and an interview with Meisch, an employee of a voter registration drive company had submitted to the Muskegon city clerk thousands of voter registration applications weeks before the 2020 election, some with faked signatures and faulty addresses.

Meisch’s staff spent hundreds of hours weeding out the bad applications. The guns the police found were legally registered to a landlord who had nothing to do with the registration drive. The prepaid phones and cash cards were given to temporary employees to contact new voter prospects.

“There were no fraudulent ballots,” Meisch said in an interview, “not a single one that anyone in my office was aware of.”

But for Gateway Pundit, which is run out of its founder’s home and whose small staff produces stories that help set the agenda for Donald Trump’s most ardent followers, the August story provided weeks of headlines that radiated across right-wing media and were repeatedly amplified by pro-Trump influencers. That’s despite the fact that it was published nearly three years after the election — and after Meisch’s staff had thwarted any fraud.

The outlet’s emphasis on long-debunked fraud claims helps explain why election denial has proved so durable, despite the many efforts to halt the spread of disinformation and impose consequences on those who persist in it.

Like it or not, there usually are no significant consequences for liars and slanderers. Most of it is shielded by free speech law. Defamation law captures maybe about 0.1% of it all, and maybe about 2% of the legally actionable spew ever winds up in court. The demagogues, grifters and radical freaks, e.g., Gateway Pundit, Faux News, etc., who rely on dark free speech are usually worse than immoral. They are evil when (i) their intent is to harm, or (ii) they don’t care about reasonably foreseeable harm. 

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DJT has released what he says is all the evidence showing that the 2020 election was stolen. It is an unsigned 32 page document that lists all the fraud and whatever else happened in GA, WI, PA, MI and AZ that led to DJT actually winning. One of the people cited as having found some fraud, illegality or irregularities is a guy named Kevin Moncla. He is reported to be a convicted pervert. 

The document lists dozens of instances of fraud, illegality or irregularity. There are lots of citations to various details, but important assertions are usually not supported by a citation. For example, there is not citation to the claim: “Not a single ballot purportedly cast during early in-person voting was witnessed to and signed off by poll managers, as required by Georgia election rules.” 

A couple of fact checks of a few assertions indicates that most are lies about non-existent things or gross distortions of actual things. For example, the document asserts that an estimated 289,866 absentee ballots were identified as sent to people who never requested them, “something that would be illegal,” according to the senate committee.

A fact check commented: The Voter Integrity Project, a right-wing group, has said that 289,866 “illegal votes” were cast in Michigan. The report’s authors called 40 people from the group’s list of supposed voters who received absentee ballots without requesting them and found just two who said they had been sent unrequested ballots. One was on the state’s permanent absentee voter list. The other voted absentee in the 2020 primary election and may have forgotten about checking a box then to request an absentee ballot in the general election.

Apparently, DJT has not cited this, or at least most of it, in the lawsuits against him. Presumably doing that would get him and his attorneys sanctioned for lying to the court. Since no one has signed it, no one is available to point fingers at in case this thing generates more lawsuits. This document appears to be part of DJT’s FTZWS* propaganda tactic. 

* Flood The Zone With Shit - a term coined by Steve Bannon

It’s also called the Firehose of Falsehood dark free speech tactic. Wikipedia comments: 

The Firehose of Falsehood is a propaganda technique in which a large number of messages are broadcast rapidly, repetitively, and continuously over multiple channels (such as news and social media) without regard for truth or consistency. An outgrowth of Soviet propaganda techniques, the firehose of falsehood is a contemporary model for Russian propaganda under Russian President Vladimir Putin.

The Russian government used the technique during its offensive against Georgia in 2008, and continued to use it in Russia's war with Ukraine, including the annexation of Crimea, and the prelude to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Politicians, governments, and movements in other countries have since used the same tactics, such as former US president Donald Trump.

I rate this document:

Q: How would America and its government, commerce and society change if, at least rhetorically speaking, liar’s pants really did catch on fire?

I bet they would change a heck of a lot.

News bits: Repubs up for re-election; Dark free speech in action

A WaPo opinion mentions some of the Repubs in congress and some of their fun, patriotic antics from recent years:

Some have already left office. But as many as 117 members of Congress are running for reelection in 2024. Here they are, drawn together; a collection of American politicians engaged in using democracy in order to attain the power to subvert it.

The whole House class of 2024

What a fine batch of patriots, from the crypt. With “people” like that in congress, America doesn’t need foreign enemies. Gosar is especially charming and witty, don’t you think? What a delightful person, as long as he doesn’t come over here.

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A WaPo article (not paywalled off) reports on how relentless authoritarian radical right dark free speech continues to convince all kinds of Americans that DJT’s coup attempt was, more or less, no big deal:

Three years after the Jan. 6 attack, Republicans are more sympathetic to those who stormed the U.S. Capitol and more likely to absolve Donald Trump of responsibility for the attack than they were in 2021, according to a Washington Post-University of Maryland poll.

Biden's closing argument...

It’s officially a presidential election year here in the U.S.  Granted, it’s a long time until November, and with many variables in play.  With all that’s going on in the courts, our political future is very uncertain. 

But sometime in the coming fall, barring Trump’s imprisonment or one Big Mac too many, a final presidential debate between (likely) Trump and Biden will take place. There will not be a better, more perfect time for Joe Biden to “lower the boom” on the fickle electorate; when people are finally paying attention, where even the Trump lovers/worshipers/cult must look, will look, since Trump is sharing the stage. Many (a hefty chunk of them) can’t NOT look, they idolize Trump that much.

I believe democracy, indeed the ongoing American experiment itself, will all be on the line, leading up to the November finale.  It'll be showtime; no time for boilerplate speeches such as “The economy is good, the stock market is up," and other yada yada yada hard facts and data that doesn’t amount to a hill of beans to your average person walking around out there. No, business as usual and boilerplate speeches will not do. The final appeal to the electorate must be of the caliber of The Mother of All Closers. We now know, through experience, that “standard operating procedures” are worthless in today’s politics. So where am I going here?

Bottom line: Biden’s 2-3 minute closer must hit people where they live. Emotionally.  Punch ‘em, and I mean hard, right in the gut. 

Surely, with Biden’s access to the myriad of great minds out there (e.g., Jon Meacham, Richard Haass, even Steve Schmidt) who know what it takes to manipulate people (in a constructive way), he/they can come up with something that hits people where they live: in their emotions. Heck, even I, an everyday housewife, think I could write a pretty effective closer, “tugging" “jerking at heartstrings” to be persuasive. Such a speech has to hit the sweet spot, where it doesn’t get pegged as hyperbolic or overkill, yet manages to scare the hell out of the “on the fence” potential Trump voter. It better bring a tear to their eye. 

Questions:

1. Do you agree with my argument/assessment, that it has to be a speech like no other?  If not, make your case against it. What should Biden’s October closing speech sound like?  Give us some examples of what should be his “punchlines/buzz words.”

2. Is Biden’s command of speech too weak to successfully pull this off?  If yes, who should be that spokesperson?

3. Is it the case that all the speeches in the world will not affect the outcome.  People, at this point, are already “cemented in” to their preferred choice?

Top ten predictions for the US in 2024

 Let's see if anyone agrees with my predictions.

1. Depends on who is running, but Trump will win if vs Biden

2. Democrats take the House, Republicans the Senate

3. The economy will decline slightly but not enough to be the #1 voting issue

4. The border on one side, abortion on the other will be the biggest issues for the election

5. If Biden does step down, provided someone other than Kamala runs for the Dems, Trump is toast

6. There will be no convictions prior to the election

7. More divisiveness and nastiness, not less, however..........

8. As a whole, the nation will become MORE progressive, not more conservative

9. Americans will grow weary of support for Israel and Ukraine

10. The NY Rangers will win the Stanley Cup

New Year’s Day - open topic politics, etc. 🤪👏☠️😘

Not sure there’s much worth posting today, or yesterday. Lots of repetition or incremental change on DJT’s crusade to kill off American democracy, and its civil liberties and rule of law. More papers are being filed in various courts. DJT is making increasingly fascist and outrageous sorts of arguments in his defense. Federal courts continue to actually take DJT’s drivel, lies and hyperbolic nonsense seriously. So, no new good news on that front.

Personal notes (what?? - G does personal notes?? Call out the National Guard -- something is terribly wrong): I need to organize my herbs and spices containers. They're a mess. I'll skip going to the gym today because . . . . because I can. But I'm adding a couple of exercises to the list of five things I do at home because doing them at the gym is tiresome and boring. 

milo has commented that in the old days people didn't write about lies. To me, that is a fascinating thought. That's based on written human history according to milo. If that's true, my seat of the pants (not yet on fire) explanation is that in the old days of subsistence living, wasting time, energy or resource on lies could get a person killed. In my narrative, liars had to be killed or silenced with a sharp slap up side the head with a 2x4 (or a big stick in ancient days before 2x4s were invented). Later, when civilization advanced and there was more distance between life and death, lies in epic stories and potboiler fiction were just harmless entertainment. But nowadays, political and other kinds of lies are back to killing people. My guess is that, directly or indirectly, lies cost the human species a few hundred thousand lives per year, maybe several million.

What else comes to mind . . . . . think, think . . . . . oh yeah, climate science denier lies are causing plant and animal species to go extinct (an indirect cause-effect linkage, but nonetheless real). People who toss cigarette butts on the ground ought to be slapped hard up side the head with a 2x4 and then made to pick up 2,000 butts and put them in the trash. 

A comment or two from Cat's Paw raised this stink:

Well, that’s all the news that’s fit to print.

Starting the new year with a bang!