We Lost the Battle for the Republican Party’s Soul Long Ago

[jfish26]

and “half” of this country has zero problem with that kind of rhetoric…hence my disdain (aka mean girl was) for our resident trump apologists

smfh

It is amazing to me that whatever Trump is selling is worth the cost of doing business. And that's BEFORE you discount whatever Trump is selling by the unlikelihood that he'll ever deliver it!

I have been told he is a "decent guy".

I've been told that we need not worry about the character he plays for his base.

[twocoach]

https://www.cnn.com/2023/12/19/us/britt ... index.html

"An Ohio woman who had sought treatment at a hospital before suffering a miscarriage and passing her nonviable fetus in her bathroom now faces a criminal charge, her attorney told CNN.

Brittany Watts, 33, of Warren, has been charged with felony abuse of a corpse, Trumbull County court records show."

I'm sorry but the GOP should be burned to the ground. This is out of control.

[Shirley]

https://www.cnn.com/2023/12/19/us/britt ... index.html

"An Ohio woman who had sought treatment at a hospital before suffering a miscarriage and passing her nonviable fetus in her bathroom now faces a criminal charge, her attorney told CNN.

Brittany Watts, 33, of Warren, has been charged with felony abuse of a corpse, Trumbull County court records show."

I'm sorry but the GOP should be burned to the ground. This is out of control.

"Ludicrous" is too nice a word, it's fucking outrageous!

From your article:

Physicians say the prosecution is ‘ludicrous’

Ohio Physicians for Reproductive Rights slammed the criminal charge against Watts, saying it would deter other women who suffer miscarriages from seeking medical help.

^^^ THAT!

The average person has no idea how reluctant low-income people, and especially minorities, are to go to the hospital. The potential cost alone is enough, but they're also used to feeling belittled and discriminated against.

At KUMC, I'm proud to say that one of the cardinal sins you could commit was to make a patient feel judged, feel embarrassed. Your job was to help them by giving them the best care possible and ANYTHING you did which might detract from that was Wrong! And doing anything that might cause the patient to avoid or delay care in the future because of the way you treated them was not something your superiors would tolerate.

“As citizens, we are outraged that the criminal justice system is being used to punish Ms. Watts who, like thousands of women each year, spontaneously miscarried a non-viable fetus into a toilet and then flushed,” the group said in an open letter to the Trumbull County prosecutor.

“By seeking to indict her, you are clearly implying that anyone who miscarries at any point in pregnancy in our state must retrieve the fetal tissue whether they are at home, at work, at school, at a restaurant or other public place and preserve it until the tissue can be disposed of properly even though Ohio law does not define what a proper disposal method would be. … That fact alone renders your prosecution both unjust and ludicrous,” the letter says.

“As physicians we are deeply concerned that your actions will deter women who miscarry from obtaining the medical attention they need and deserve.”

[DeletedUser]

The government should stay out of women's bodies....but she left "it" in the toilet and went on about her day? Wtf.

What a weird time to be alive. Seems like we have a lot better things to worry about than whether a person chooses to have an abortion.

[jfish26]

The government should stay out of women's bodies....but she left "it" in the toilet and went on about her day? Wtf.

What a weird time to be alive. Seems like we have a lot better things to worry about than whether a person chooses to have an abortion.

I would be very interested to know whether this issue would hold any meaningful political weight whatsoever, but for Citizens United and the tax-exempt status of churches.

Which, one might point out, is not necessarily an argument against those things!

[Shirley]

The government should stay out of women's bodies....but she left "it" in the toilet and went on about her day? Wtf.

What a weird time to be alive. Seems like we have a lot better things to worry about than whether a person chooses to have an abortion.

^^^

Like drag queens grooming our kids, and Hunter Biden's laptop...

[jhawks99]

I'm putting this here cuz,,, why the hell not.

I always hated Payton Manning until he retired from football. Loving his Bud Lite commercial. That is all.

[twocoach]

I'm putting this here cuz,,, why the hell not.

I always hated Payton Manning until he retired from football. Loving his Bud Lite commercial. That is all.

I'd like to see a real life version of it where everyone's cans of beer explode in their faces after being thrown to them.

[jfish26]

Supporting links in underlying post. Bold/underline mine.

December 26, 2023

https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.c ... dium=email

On December 26, 1991, the New York Times ran a banner headline: “Gorbachev, Last Soviet Leader, Resigns; U.S. Recognizes Republics’ Independence.” On December 25, Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev had resigned, marking the end of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, often referred to as the Soviet Union or USSR.

Former Soviet republics had begun declaring their independence in March 1990, the Warsaw Pact linking the USSR’s Eastern European satellites into a defense treaty dissolved by July 1991, and by December 1991 the movement had gathered enough power that Belarus, Russia, and Ukraine joined together in a “union treaty” as their leaders announced they were creating a new Commonwealth of Independent States. When almost all the other Soviet republics announced on December 21 that they were joining the new alliance, Gorbachev could either try to hold the USSR together by force or step down. He chose to step down, handing power to the president of the Russian Federation, Boris Yeltsin.

The dissolution of the USSR meant the end of the Cold War, and those Americans who had come to define the world as a fight between the dark forces of communism and the good forces of capitalism believed their ideology had triumphed. Two years ago, Gorbachev said that with the collapse of the Soviet Union, "They grew arrogant and self-confident. They declared victory in the Cold War."

The collapse of the USSR gave the branch of the Republican Party that wanted to destroy the New Deal confidence that their ideology was right. Believing that their ideology of radical individualism had destroyed the USSR, these so-called Movement Conservatives very deliberately set out to destroy what they saw as Soviet-like socialist ideology at home. As anti-tax crusader Grover Norquist wrote in the Wall Street Journal: “For 40 years conservatives fought a two-front battle against statism, against the Soviet empire abroad and the American left at home. Now the Soviet Union is gone and conservatives can redeploy. And this time, the other team doesn't have nuclear weapons.”

In the 1990s the Movement Conservatives turned their firepower on those they considered insufficiently committed to free enterprise, including traditional Republicans who agreed with Democrats that the government should regulate the economy, provide a basic social safety net, and promote infrastructure. Movement Conservatives called these traditional Republicans “Republicans in Name Only” or RINOs and said that, along with Democrats, such RINOs were bringing “socialism” to America.

With the “evil empire,” as President Ronald Reagan had dubbed the Soviet Union, no longer a viable enemy, Movement Conservatives, aided by new talk radio hosts, increasingly demonized their domestic political opponents. As they strengthened their hold on the Republican Party, Movement Conservatives cut taxes, slashed the social safety net, and deregulated the economy.

​​At the same time, the oligarchs who rose to power in the former Soviet republics looked to park their illicit money in western democracies, where the rule of law would protect their investments. Once invested in the United States, they favored the Republicans who focused on the protection of wealth rather than social services. For their part, Republican politicians focused on spreading capitalism rather than democracy, arguing that the two went hand in hand.

The financial deregulation that made the U.S. a good bet for oligarchs to launder money got a boost when, shortly after the September 11, 2001, attacks, Congress passed the PATRIOT Act to address the threat of terrorism. The law took on money laundering and the illicit funding of terrorism, requiring financial institutions to inspect large sums of money passing through them. But the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) exempted many real estate deals from the new regulations.

The United States became one of the money-laundering capitals of the world, with hundreds of billions of dollars laundered in the U.S. every year.

In 2011 the international movement of illicit money led then–FBI director Robert Mueller to tell the Citizens Crime Commission of New York City that globalization and technology had changed the nature of organized crime. International enterprises, he said, “are running multi-national, multi-billion dollar schemes from start to finish…. They may be former members of nation-state governments, security services, or the military…. These criminal enterprises are making billions of dollars from human trafficking, health care fraud, computer intrusions, and copyright infringement. They are cornering the market on natural gas, oil, and precious metals, and selling to the highest bidder…. These groups may infiltrate our businesses. They may provide logistical support to hostile foreign powers. They may try to manipulate those at the highest levels of government. Indeed, these so-called ‘iron triangles’ of organized criminals, corrupt government officials, and business leaders pose a significant national security threat.”

In 2021, Congress addressed this threat by including the Corporate Transparency Act in the National Defense Authorization Act. It undercut shell companies and money laundering by requiring the owners of any company that is not otherwise overseen by the federal government (by filing taxes, for example, or through close regulation) to file with FinCEN a report identifying (by name, birth date, address, and an identifying number) each person associated with the company who either owns 25% or more of it or exercised substantial control over it. The measure also increased penalties for money laundering and streamlined cooperation between banks and foreign law enforcement authorities.

But that act wouldn’t take effect for another three years.

Meanwhile, once in office, the Biden administration made fighting corruption a centerpiece of its attempt to shore up democracy both at home and abroad. In June 2021, Biden declared the fight against corruption a core U.S. national security interest. “Corruption threatens United States national security, economic equity, global anti-poverty and development efforts, and democracy itself,” he wrote. “But by effectively preventing and countering corruption and demonstrating the advantages of transparent and accountable governance, we can secure a critical advantage for the United States and other democracies.”

In March 2023 the Treasury told Congress that “[m]oney laundering perpetrated by the Government of the Russian Federation (GOR), Russian [state-owned enterprises], Russian organized crime, and Russian elites poses a significant threat to the national security of the United States and the integrity of the international financial system,” and it outlined the ways in which it had been trying to combat that corruption. “In light of Russia’s further invasion of Ukraine,” it said, “we must redouble our efforts to prevent Russia from abusing the U.S. financial system to sustain its war and counter Russian sanctioned individuals and firms seeking to exploit vulnerabilities in the U.S. financial system.”

The collapse of the USSR helped to undermine the Cold War democracy that opposed it. In the past 32 years we have torn ourselves apart as politicians adhering to an extreme ideology demonized their opponents. That demonization also helped to justify the deregulation of our economy and then the illicit money from the rising oligarchs it attracted, money that has corrupted our democratic system.

But there are at least signs that the financial free-for-all might be changing. The three years are up, and the Corporate Transparency Act will take effect on January 1, 2024.

[Sparko]

Great article. Thanks Fish

[jfish26]

And it's what helps put the MAGA right's anticorruption bleating, and anti-globalist agenda, in the proper context.

It's not principle. It's not even politics. It's pragmatism - pulling up the ladder you ascended on.

Which makes it of a piece with other antidemocratic behaviors, of course.

[Overlander]

So, put Cheeto Mussolini back at the top, and he gets rid of the Act first thing.

[zsn]

Actually one of the conduits for money laundering of the said oligarchs was the Trump Crime Enterprise.

[ousdahl]

With the “evil empire,” as President Ronald Reagan had dubbed the Soviet Union, no longer a viable enemy

[jfish26]

With the “evil empire,” as President Ronald Reagan had dubbed the Soviet Union, no longer a viable enemy

…?

[jfish26]

Actually one of the conduits for money laundering of the said oligarchs was the Trump Crime Enterprise.

As the family itself has said.

[KUTradition]

With the “evil empire,” as President Ronald Reagan had dubbed the Soviet Union, no longer a viable enemy

…?

looking for another foot-in-mouth opportunity

[ousdahl]

Oh, do tell!

[DeletedUser]

With the “evil empire,” as President Ronald Reagan had dubbed the Soviet Union, no longer a viable enemy

…?

looking for another foot-in-mouth opportunity

He can't help himself.

[japhy]

This seems pretty straight forward.

An expert hired by Donald Trump to substantiate the former president’s voter fraud claims regarding the 2020 presidential election called him out for continuing to peddle falsehoods. Trump in November of 2020, shortly after losing the election, entered into a contract with Ken Block of Simpatico Software Systems, according to The Washington Post. However, Block on Tuesday penned an op-ed for USA Today asserting that his research never yielded anything to support Trump’s claims — and instead wholly debunked them.

“I am the expert who was hired by the Trump campaign,” Block wrote. “The findings of my company’s in-depth analysis are detailed in the depositions taken by the Selection Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol. The transcripts show that the campaign found no evidence of voter fraud sufficient to change the outcome of any election. That message was communicated directly to White House chief of staff Mark Meadows.” He then underscored the “steady diet of lies and innuendo” that the ex-president has used in an effort to “overcome the truth,” before noting that the "cries that the election was lost or stolen due to voter fraud continue with no sign of stopping.”

"The constant drumbeat hardens people’s hearts and minds to the truth about the 2020 election. Emails and documents show that the voter data available to the campaign contained no evidence of large-scale voter fraud based on data mining and fraud analytics," he wrote. "More important, claims of voter fraud made by others were verified as false, including proof of why those claims were disproven." Block also noted that his investigation’s findings have been shared with special counsel Jack Smith and Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, both of whom have criminally charged Trump over his efforts to subvert the 2020 election. “What these claims don’t take into account is that voter fraud is detectable, quantifiable and verifiable. I have yet to see anyone offer up 'evidence' of voter fraud from the 2020 election that provides these three things,” Block continued. "My company’s contract with the campaign obligated us to deliver evidence of voter fraud that could be defended in a court of law. The small amount of voter fraud I found was bipartisan, with about as many Republicans casting duplicate votes as Democrats.”

And yet here we are with millions of Rubepublican voters and politicians worshiping a well known con man.