Author: Jon Ponder

Schmidt: GOP Sows Chaos While Selling Order – As Right-wing Authoritarian Movements Always Do

Jon Ponder

Former Republicans operative Steve Schmidt spoke with Rachel Maddow on Sept. 24 about the ominous rise of anti-democracy forces inside the shell of the former Republican Party and its march toward autocracy under Donald Trump.

Fascism is a word that gets thrown around a lot, but it specifically refers to anti-democracy movements and political parties. Steve Schmidt, Bill Kristol and many other former Republicans are sounding the alarm. Fascism isn’t coming. It’s here. This is what American fascism looks like.

Watch:

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How Low Can the California GOP Go?

Jon Ponder

It was hard to imagine before this year that the California GOP could become more pathetic and unpopular. They’re already the smallest of California’s three voter groups, under Dems and Inds, with just 24% of registered voters. And yet, in an unbelievable act of political stupidity that took six tries in 24 months, they found a way to piss everybody off. By recalling Gov. Newsom, they wasted $300 million in taxpayers’ money and disrupted the state’s economic recovery with needless and reckless chaos.

And bonus for Californians now: Because of CAL GOP, we get to do it all again in just a few months when the regularly scheduled governor’s race begins!

Maybe John “Who?” Cox will run again.

Minority Rule in Congress Likely to Worsen – 2020 Census Shows Dramatic Reduction in Rural Population

Jon Ponder
Percent Change in County Population 2010 to 2020
Percent Change in County Population 2010 to 2020

Slate.com: “[While] metro areas grew, vast stretches of the country continued to bleed population. About 53 percent of all U.S. counties shrank between 2010 and 2020. You can see them in the sea of burnt orange on the graph [above], rural regions and small towns that often have few residents to begin with. In total, they were home to about 50.5 million people in a nation of more than 331 million.”

“This isn’t a new story per se. Rural America and small towns have been losing residents for decades. But the trend seems to have accelerated. From 2000 to 2010, for instance, only around one-third of all counties lost residents.”

This will undoubtedly exacerbate a longstanding inequity of representation in Congress.

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Fact Check: Republicans Attempt to ‘Benghazi’ Pelosi over Jan. 6 Capitol Security

Jon Ponder
Terror Attacks: Benghazi on Sept. 11, 2021 (left); US Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021
Terror Attacks: Benghazi on Sept. 11, 2021 (left); US Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021

The Republicans’ use of the terrorist attack on the 2012 US consulate in Benghazi as a political cudgel is a classic example of the power of their dark arts. Their objective was to weaken then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, whom they perceived as a formidable future presidential candidate. Ignoring the fact that secretaries of state have no command authority over troops or their deployment, the investigated her role in the security failure at the US Benghazi diplomatic outpost ten times, six of which were conducted by GOP-led committees.

Using carefully constructed slander, congressional Republicans created a fictionalized version of the attack, one in which Secretary Clinton was responsible for the deaths of US security personnel as well as her friend, US Ambassador Christopher Stevens. Compounded with dozens of similar attacks on Clinton during her 30-year career in public service, the facts-free insinuations worked. Her approval rating, once in the mid-60s, began to drop. She “lost” the 2016 presidential campaign despite a 3 million vote advantage in the popular race.

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Afro-Cuban Proud Boys Leader Pleads Guilty to Burning Black Lives Matter Banner

Jon Ponder
Enrique Tarrio (CNN)
Enrique Tarrio (CNN)

CNN: “The leader of the far-right Proud Boys pleaded guilty Monday to two misdemeanors stemming from his conduct in Washington, DC, amid violent pro-Donald Trump protests in December. Enrique Tarrio appeared in DC Superior Court to plead guilty to property destruction for burning a Black Lives Matter banner that belonged to a historic Black church in DC. He also pleaded guilty to attempted possession of a high-capacity magazine, a violation of local gun control laws.

“He will be sentenced next month and could face up to one year in jail, though defendants rarely get the maximum penalty. The charges were filed in local DC court and are separate from the sprawling federal investigation into the January 6 Capitol insurrection — during which dozens of Proud Boys stormed the building and have since been charged with conspiracy and other crimes.”

Tarrio’s Wikipedia page describes the Proud Boys as “a far-right, neo-fascist exclusively male organization.” Fascist organizations typically hold strong racist views, which makes Tarrio’s “Afro-Cuban background,” according to Wiki, unusual.

Steve Schmidt: Rupert Murdoch’s Fox News ‘Has Birthed a Fascist Movement on American Soil’

Jon Ponder
Steve Schmidt
Steve Schmidt

From Steve Schmidt on Twitter:

Rupert Murdoch, the 90 year old creator of the Fox News lie machine that has birthed a fascist movement on American soil while simultaneously obliterating faith and belief in America’s highest ideals like pluralism and democracy, is VACCINATED. His children are all vaccinated.

Yet, they purposefully and premeditatedly prey upon their audience for profit, consigning thousands upon thousands to miserable and lonely deaths where people choke to death and drown in the fluids of their lungs.

We live in a society that seems deeply uncomfortable using the word, EVIL. We demand rational explanations for everything including unfathomable acts of cruelty, violence and malice. Attributing the cause as an act of EVIL, absent purpose, intent or meaning seems to disorient us. Perhaps it is because of the religious connotations associated with the word or out of a type of arrogance that believes there is an answer for everything.

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Qanon Accuses Q US Senate Candidate of Trafficking His Own Daughter Because She Wore Red Shoes

Jon Ponder
Left: Lahmeyer, center, with Q conspiracists disgraced Gen. Mike Flynn, left, and pillow grifter Mike Lyndell; right: Lahmeyer's daughter in red shoes
Left: Lahmeyer, center, with Q conspiracists disgraced Gen. Mike Flynn, left, and pillow grifter Mike Lyndell; right: Lahmeyer’s daughter in red shoes

Things have been spinning out of control since the first week in July for Pastor Jackson Lahmeyer, a 29-year-old Qanon-courting candidate from Tulsa who’s running to oust Oklahoma’s apostate Republican senator, James Lankford.

After aggressively courting leading Trump/Q propagandists – he’s been photographed with disgraced Gen. Mike Flynn and pillow-grifter Mike Lyndell – Lahmeyer suddenly found himself the target of Q conspiracist madness that has put his once-promising campaign in jeopardy.

It all started when Lahmayer posted a photo of his very young daughter posing in front of a huge campaign photo of himself, proudly showing off her red shoes. What Lahmeyer (and 99.999999 percent of the world) did not know then is that, according to Q fabulism, children who wear red shoes are part of sex trafficking rings.

Since then, Lahmeyer has been on the defensive, fruitlessly attempting to reason with the same hardcore Q cultists whose votes he’d hoped to win. On July 7, he issued this meekly defiant plea for sanity, via Twitter:

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