advertisement


Post-Trump: Biden President Elect II (Trump tantrums, riots etc)

Status
Not open for further replies.
On Radio 4, a play covering the Reagan "Iran Contra" affair. Seems a very quaint little scandal.
 
Last one for today; court papers indicate that one defendant in the sweep-up after the Capitol riot drove there from Colorado (a 25-hour drive, apparently), and was apprehended with;

Assault-style rifle
Glock firearm with high-capacity magazines, and ...

2,500 rounds of ammo.

Ponder that for a minute. 2,500 rounds.

I'm going to HAVE to go do some research on how much ammo for a Glock actually costs, now ....
 
A very good (and rather worrying) article in today's Financial Times:

https://www.ft.com/content/cabfd2bc-54d9-4a9e-8cd2-d8e1e19351d1

Title:

Why the Republican party will be hard to rescue
Moderates must undo decades of paranoid politics, not just five years of it

An excerpt:

It was a Republican, vice-president Mike Pence, who most exercised the crowd in the US Capitol last week. It was another, Senator Lindsey Graham, who found himself encircled and jeered in a local airport. Neither man’s unctuous service to Donald Trump over four years counted for much once they chose to uphold his presidential election loss of last November. For that lapse in purity they will now be hounded, to quote one marcher, “forever”.

A feature of extremism is the relish with which it attacks its own side. The doubter and the schismatic incur more wrath than the outright non-believer. And so mainstream Republicans are in for a vicious and open-ended struggle with the wilder edges of their own movement. If only the Grand Old Party were at stake, the nation could leave them to it. But no democracy can prosper long without two responsible parties. It is of existential import to the US (and to the world it helps to anchor) that Republican moderates prevail. How tragic, then, that they probably won’t. Their first problem is the depth and age of the internal rot. Republicans have to undo decades of flirtation with paranoid elements, not just five years’ worth. Whether we date it to the congressional midterm election of 1994, or Barry Goldwater’s White House bid in 1964, or the McCarthyite 1950s, the party has not policed its right flank for a long time.
 
Last one for today; court papers indicate that one defendant in the sweep-up after the Capitol riot drove there from Colorado (a 25-hour drive, apparently), and was apprehended with;

Assault-style rifle
Glock firearm with high-capacity magazines, and ...

2,500 rounds of ammo.

Ponder that for a minute. 2,500 rounds.

I'm going to HAVE to go do some research on how much ammo for a Glock actually costs, now ....

No idea, but for giggles I looked up the weight....

69.5 lbs / 31.5 kilos FFS.
 
A very good (and rather worrying) article in today's Financial Times:

https://www.ft.com/content/cabfd2bc-54d9-4a9e-8cd2-d8e1e19351d1

Title:

Why the Republican party will be hard to rescue
Moderates must undo decades of paranoid politics, not just five years of it

An excerpt:

It was a Republican, vice-president Mike Pence, who most exercised the crowd in the US Capitol last week. It was another, Senator Lindsey Graham, who found himself encircled and jeered in a local airport. Neither man’s unctuous service to Donald Trump over four years counted for much once they chose to uphold his presidential election loss of last November. For that lapse in purity they will now be hounded, to quote one marcher, “forever”.

A feature of extremism is the relish with which it attacks its own side. The doubter and the schismatic incur more wrath than the outright non-believer. And so mainstream Republicans are in for a vicious and open-ended struggle with the wilder edges of their own movement. If only the Grand Old Party were at stake, the nation could leave them to it. But no democracy can prosper long without two responsible parties. It is of existential import to the US (and to the world it helps to anchor) that Republican moderates prevail. How tragic, then, that they probably won’t. Their first problem is the depth and age of the internal rot. Republicans have to undo decades of flirtation with paranoid elements, not just five years’ worth. Whether we date it to the congressional midterm election of 1994, or Barry Goldwater’s White House bid in 1964, or the McCarthyite 1950s, the party has not policed its right flank for a long time.

Good - I sincerely hope the GOP tears itself apart over the next couple of years so that the Dems can cement control in the mid-terms. It would be so richly deserved. However I'm cautious, because one thing the GOP has been very good at over the past 30 years is keeping its eye on the prize (control of the Supreme Court, disenfranchising ordinary people, and creating rule by corporation).

I think the wealthy and corporations who bankroll the GOP will also be very well aware of the danger and will rally around to contain the far right. The far right are their "useful idiots" who help them to con ordinary folk into voting for financial self immolation, but they will be thrown under the campaign bus as soon as they become a liability.
 
Good - I sincerely hope the GOP tears itself apart over the next couple of years so that the Dems can cement control in the mid-terms. It would be so richly deserved. However I'm cautious, because one thing the GOP has been very good at over the past 30 years is keeping its eye on the prize (control of the Supreme Court, disenfranchising ordinary people, and creating rule by corporation).

I think the wealthy and corporations who bankroll the GOP will also be very well aware of the danger and will rally around to contain the far right. The far right are their "useful idiots" who help them to con ordinary folk into voting for financial self immolation, but they will be thrown under the campaign bus as soon as they become a liability.

One bit of good news for the mid-terms - there will be 14 Democratic Senate seats up for re-election, and 20 Republican seats. So it will be difficult for the GOP to flip the Senate, but fairly easy for the Dems to expand.
 
Impeachment process live right now. I’m watching on CBS for a while.

PS Lock him up! Lock him up! Lock him up! Lock him up! Obvs.
 
Last one for today; court papers indicate that one defendant in the sweep-up after the Capitol riot drove there from Colorado (a 25-hour drive, apparently), and was apprehended with;

Assault-style rifle
Glock firearm with high-capacity magazines, and ...

2,500 rounds of ammo.

Ponder that for a minute. 2,500 rounds.

I'm going to HAVE to go do some research on how much ammo for a Glock actually costs, now ....

9mm ammo is pretty cheap (maybe as low as 20c per round if bought in bulk) - that's still going to be at least £500 worth though. The assault rifle is likely to be 5.56mm and that's more like 50c a round at the cheapest. So maybe in the £500-1000 range if it's a mix.
 
Still watching the proceedings. Finding decency or integrity in Republicans looks exactly the same as finding it in Johnson’s third-rate Tea Party cover band, i.e. just about possible, but exceptionally rare. Just a few speaking out, far too many openly defending the indefensible.
 
Should Biden wish he can increase the number of judges on the Supreme Court, he could add a few less extreme members such that key acts like Roe v Wade cannot be reversed and other more enlightened practices could be introduced to the USA.
 
Anyone fancy some Lego?:

ErjE53lXcAM9Yms
 
Should Biden wish he can increase the number of judges on the Supreme Court, he could add a few less extreme members such that key acts like Roe v Wade cannot be reversed and other more enlightened practices could be introduced to the USA.

I sincerely hope he does just that. It would be horrendous to see a century of woman’s rights fall to the Republican Taliban.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.


advertisement


Back
Top