Conservative Ideology 2024: NOTHING BUT LIES AND FEARMONGERING

[jhu72]

Georgia's Lt. Governor explains the GOP's current affinity for voter suppression laws: "they got scared". Not exactly news to their opponents.

[seacoaster]

Heather Cox Richardson's September 8 column:

"On this day in 1974, President Gerald Ford granted “a full, free, and absolute pardon unto Richard Nixon for all offenses against the United States which he, Richard Nixon, has committed or may have committed or taken part in during the period from January 20, 1969 through August 9, 1974.” Ford said he was issuing the pardon to keep from roiling the “tranquility” the nation had begun to enjoy since Nixon stepped down. If Nixon were indicted and brought to trial, the trial would “cause prolonged and divisive debate over the propriety of exposing to further punishment and degradation a man who has already paid the unprecedented penalty of relinquishing the highest elective office of the United States.”

Ford later said that he issued the pardon with the understanding that accepting a pardon was an admission of guilt. But Nixon refused to accept responsibility for the events surrounding the break-in at the headquarters of the Democratic National Committee in Washington, D.C.’s fashionable Watergate office building. He continued to maintain that he had done nothing wrong but was hounded from office by a “liberal” media.

Rather than being chastised by Watergate and the political fallout from it, a faction of Republicans continued to support the idea that Nixon had done nothing wrong when he covered up an attack on the Democrats before the 1972 election. Those Republicans followed Nixon’s strategy of dividing Americans. Part of that polarization was an increasing conviction that Republicans were justified in undercutting Democrats, who were somehow anti-American, even if it meant breaking laws.

In the 1980s, members of the Reagan administration did just that. They were so determined to provide funds for the Nicaraguan Contras, who were fighting the leftist Sandinista government, that they ignored a law passed by a Democratic Congress against such aid. In a terribly complicated plan, administration officials, led by National Security Adviser John Poindexter and his deputy Oliver North, secretly sold arms to Iran, which was on the U.S. terror list and thus ineligible for such a purchase, to try to put pressure on Iranian-backed Lebanese terrorists who were holding U.S. hostages. The other side of the deal was that they illegally funneled the money from the sales to the Contras.

Although Poindexter, North, and North’s secretary, Fawn Hall, destroyed crucial documents, enough evidence remained to indict more than a dozen participants, including Poindexter, North, Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger, National Security Adviser Robert McFarlane, Assistant Secretary of State Elliott Abrams, and four CIA officials. But when he became president himself, Reagan’s vice president George H.W. Bush, himself a former CIA director and implicated in the scandal, pardoned those convicted or likely to be. He was advised to do so by his attorney general, William Barr (who later became attorney general for President Donald Trump).

With his attempt to use foreign policy to get himself reelected, Trump took attacks on democracy to a new level. In July 2019, he withheld congressionally appropriated money from Ukraine in order to force the country’s new president, Volodymyr Zelensky, to announce he was opening an investigation into the son of then–Democratic presidential hopeful Joe Biden. That is, Trump used the weight of the U.S. government and its enormous power in foreign affairs to try to hamstring his Democratic opponent. When the story broke, Democrats in the House of Representatives called this attack on our democracy for what it was and impeached him, but Republicans voted to acquit.

It was a straight line from 2019’s attack to that of the weeks after the 2020 election, when the former president did all he could to stop the certification of the vote for Democrat Joe Biden. By January 6, though, Trump’s disdain for the law had spread to his supporters, who had learned over a generation to believe that Democrats were not legitimate leaders. Urged by Trump and other loyalists, they refused to accept the results of the election and stormed the Capitol to install the leader they wanted.

The injection of ordinary Americans into the political mix has changed the equation. While Ford recoiled from the prospect of putting a former president on trial, prosecutors today have seen no reason not to charge the people who stormed the Capitol. More than 570 have been charged so far.

Yesterday, a 67-year-old Idaho man, Duke Edward Wilson, pleaded guilty to obstruction of an official proceeding and assaulting, resisting or impeding certain officers. He faces up to 8 years and a $250,000 fine for assaulting the law enforcement officers. And he faces up to 20 years in prison and a $250,000 fine for obstruction of an official proceeding.

This law was originally put in place in 1871 to stop members of the Ku Klux Klan from crushing state and local governments during Reconstruction.

If Wilson is facing such a punishment for his foot soldier part in obstructing an official proceeding in January, what will that mean for those higher up the ladder? Representative Eric Swalwell (D-CA) has sued Trump; Donald Trump, Jr.; Representative Mo Brooks (R-AL), who wore a bullet-proof vest to his speech at the January 6 rally; and Trump’s former lawyer Rudy Giuliani, who also spoke at the rally, for exactly that: obstructing an official proceeding.

Representative Bennie Thompson (D-MS) launched a similar lawsuit against Trump, Giuliani, the Proud Boys, and the Oath Keepers, but withdrew from it when he became chair of the House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol. Ten other Democratic House members are carrying the lawsuit forward: Representatives Karen R. Bass (CA), Stephen I. Cohen (TN), Veronica Escobar (TX), Pramila Jayapal (WA), Henry C. Johnson, Jr. (GA), Marcia C. Kaptur (OH), Barbara J. Lee (CA), Jerrold Nadler (NY), Maxine Waters (CA), and Bonnie M. Watson Coleman (NJ).

Lawyer and political observer Teri Kanefield writes on Just Securitythat there is “a considerable amount of publicly available information supporting an allegation that Trump and members of his inner circle intended the rallygoers to impede or delay the counting of electoral votes and certification of the election.” She points out that the rally was timed to spur attendees to go to the Capitol just as the counting of the electoral votes was scheduled to take place, and that in the midst of the attack, Giuliani left a voicemail for a senator asking him to slow down the proceedings into the next day.

At the end of the Civil War, General U.S. Grant and President Abraham Lincoln made a decision similar to Ford’s in 1974. They reasoned that being lenient with former Confederates, rather than punishing any of them for their attempt to destroy American democracy, would make them loyal to the Union and willing to embrace the new conditions of Black freedom. Instead, just as Nixon did, white southerners chose to interpret the government’s leniency as proof that they, the Confederates, had been right. Rather than dying in southern defeat, their conviction that some men were better than others, and that hierarchies should be written into American law, survived.

By the 1890s, the Confederate soldier had come to symbolize an individual standing firm against a socialist government controlled by workers and minorities; he was the eastern version of the western cowboy. Statues of Confederates began to sprout up around the country, although most of them were in the South. On what would become Monument Avenue, the white people of Richmond, Virginia, erected a statue to General Robert E. Lee in 1890, the same year the Mississippi Constitution officially suppressed the Black vote. Black leaders objected to the statue, but in vain.

Today, 131 years later, that statue came down."

[runrussellrun]

Heather Cox Richardson's September 8 column:

"On this day in 1974, President Gerald Ford granted “a full, free, and absolute pardon unto Richard Nixon for all offenses against the United States which he, Richard Nixon, has committed or may have committed or taken part in during the period from January 20, 1969 through August 9, 1974.” Ford said he was issuing the pardon to keep from roiling the “tranquility” the nation had begun to enjoy since Nixon stepped down. If Nixon were indicted and brought to trial, the trial would “cause prolonged and divisive debate over the propriety of exposing to further punishment and degradation a man who has already paid the unprecedented penalty of relinquishing the highest elective office of the United States.”

Ford later said that he issued the pardon with the understanding that accepting a pardon was an admission of guilt. But Nixon refused to accept responsibility for the events surrounding the break-in at the headquarters of the Democratic National Committee in Washington, D.C.’s fashionable Watergate office building. He continued to maintain that he had done nothing wrong but was hounded from office by a “liberal” media.

Rather than being chastised by Watergate and the political fallout from it, a faction of Republicans continued to support the idea that Nixon had done nothing wrong when he covered up an attack on the Democrats before the 1972 election. Those Republicans followed Nixon’s strategy of dividing Americans. Part of that polarization was an increasing conviction that Republicans were justified in undercutting Democrats, who were somehow anti-American, even if it meant breaking laws.

In the 1980s, members of the Reagan administration did just that. They were so determined to provide funds for the Nicaraguan Contras, who were fighting the leftist Sandinista government, that they ignored a law passed by a Democratic Congress against such aid. In a terribly complicated plan, administration officials, led by National Security Adviser John Poindexter and his deputy Oliver North, secretly sold arms to Iran, which was on the U.S. terror list and thus ineligible for such a purchase, to try to put pressure on Iranian-backed Lebanese terrorists who were holding U.S. hostages. The other side of the deal was that they illegally funneled the money from the sales to the Contras.

Although Poindexter, North, and North’s secretary, Fawn Hall, destroyed crucial documents, enough evidence remained to indict more than a dozen participants, including Poindexter, North, Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger, National Security Adviser Robert McFarlane, Assistant Secretary of State Elliott Abrams, and four CIA officials. But when he became president himself, Reagan’s vice president George H.W. Bush, himself a former CIA director and implicated in the scandal, pardoned those convicted or likely to be. He was advised to do so by his attorney general, William Barr (who later became attorney general for President Donald Trump).

With his attempt to use foreign policy to get himself reelected, Trump took attacks on democracy to a new level. In July 2019, he withheld congressionally appropriated money from Ukraine in order to force the country’s new president, Volodymyr Zelensky, to announce he was opening an investigation into the son of then–Democratic presidential hopeful Joe Biden. That is, Trump used the weight of the U.S. government and its enormous power in foreign affairs to try to hamstring his Democratic opponent. When the story broke, Democrats in the House of Representatives called this attack on our democracy for what it was and impeached him, but Republicans voted to acquit.

It was a straight line from 2019’s attack to that of the weeks after the 2020 election, when the former president did all he could to stop the certification of the vote for Democrat Joe Biden. By January 6, though, Trump’s disdain for the law had spread to his supporters, who had learned over a generation to believe that Democrats were not legitimate leaders. Urged by Trump and other loyalists, they refused to accept the results of the election and stormed the Capitol to install the leader they wanted.

The injection of ordinary Americans into the political mix has changed the equation. While Ford recoiled from the prospect of putting a former president on trial, prosecutors today have seen no reason not to charge the people who stormed the Capitol. More than 570 have been charged so far.

Yesterday, a 67-year-old Idaho man, Duke Edward Wilson, pleaded guilty to obstruction of an official proceeding and assaulting, resisting or impeding certain officers. He faces up to 8 years and a $250,000 fine for assaulting the law enforcement officers. And he faces up to 20 years in prison and a $250,000 fine for obstruction of an official proceeding.

This law was originally put in place in 1871 to stop members of the Ku Klux Klan from crushing state and local governments during Reconstruction.

If Wilson is facing such a punishment for his foot soldier part in obstructing an official proceeding in January, what will that mean for those higher up the ladder? Representative Eric Swalwell (D-CA) has sued Trump; Donald Trump, Jr.; Representative Mo Brooks (R-AL), who wore a bullet-proof vest to his speech at the January 6 rally; and Trump’s former lawyer Rudy Giuliani, who also spoke at the rally, for exactly that: obstructing an official proceeding.

Representative Bennie Thompson (D-MS) launched a similar lawsuit against Trump, Giuliani, the Proud Boys, and the Oath Keepers, but withdrew from it when he became chair of the House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol. Ten other Democratic House members are carrying the lawsuit forward: Representatives Karen R. Bass (CA), Stephen I. Cohen (TN), Veronica Escobar (TX), Pramila Jayapal (WA), Henry C. Johnson, Jr. (GA), Marcia C. Kaptur (OH), Barbara J. Lee (CA), Jerrold Nadler (NY), Maxine Waters (CA), and Bonnie M. Watson Coleman (NJ).

Lawyer and political observer Teri Kanefield writes on Just Securitythat there is “a considerable amount of publicly available information supporting an allegation that Trump and members of his inner circle intended the rallygoers to impede or delay the counting of electoral votes and certification of the election.” She points out that the rally was timed to spur attendees to go to the Capitol just as the counting of the electoral votes was scheduled to take place, and that in the midst of the attack, Giuliani left a voicemail for a senator asking him to slow down the proceedings into the next day.

At the end of the Civil War, General U.S. Grant and President Abraham Lincoln made a decision similar to Ford’s in 1974. They reasoned that being lenient with former Confederates, rather than punishing any of them for their attempt to destroy American democracy, would make them loyal to the Union and willing to embrace the new conditions of Black freedom. Instead, just as Nixon did, white southerners chose to interpret the government’s leniency as proof that they, the Confederates, had been right. Rather than dying in southern defeat, their conviction that some men were better than others, and that hierarchies should be written into American law, survived.

By the 1890s, the Confederate soldier had come to symbolize an individual standing firm against a socialist government controlled by workers and minorities; he was the eastern version of the western cowboy. Statues of Confederates began to sprout up around the country, although most of them were in the South. On what would become Monument Avenue, the white people of Richmond, Virginia, erected a statue to General Robert E. Lee in 1890, the same year the Mississippi Constitution officially suppressed the Black vote. Black leaders objected to the statue, but in vain.

Today, 131 years later, that statue came down."

What every happened to the Colorado Congresswoman.....all we heard, for months after, was she was "this" or "that"........giving terrorists access to Capitol hill.

How is that investigation going ?

Oh......and most UNION members, socialist organizing is in SOuthern states, yes? That Amazon vote?

geez. people see what they want to see. More "confederate" flags in New Hampshire than Alabama, yes

[dislaxxic]

Lauren Boebert allows 8-year-old to play alone, next to possibly-loaded firearm

Ohh, those wacky wepubwicans...

..

[runrussellrun]

Lauren Boebert allows 8-year-old to play alone, next to possibly-loaded firearm

Ohh, those wacky wepubwicans...

..

yeah boneless icecream....the play was about Jan. 6th and Boebert planning the entire thing. remember the screams for her head?

And than you post that useless puff piece ? Has nothing to do with Jan. 6th.

You go , disslax...you go. great stuff. of legends.

compley.....or die.

[dislaxxic]

What? That post appeared next to yours? Complete coincidence.

Truly...

This is a thread about "Conservative ideology, you know, that oxymoron.

Boebert is a ditz and may very well come out stinking like boneless roses after the J6 committee gets done with her.

..

[MDlaxfan76]

sheesh, Conservative Ideology and we learn that RRR is a Lauren Boebert fanboy?

I guess we did know.

[runrussellrun]

another r DEPLORABLE

Here is Representative Boebert at CPAC: We’re here to tell government we don’t want your benefits. We don’t want your welfare…

https://twitter.com/Acyn/status/1413945250020614146


maybe the MAGA don't realize that she has a government job with government benefits...

Glad you agree, that those who depend on the government are on welfare.

Raytheon, Hopkins, Harvard, UCLA, Mcdonald dougie, lochhead..., google, amazaon, microsoft, wallstreet (bailouts every decade or so ) etc, etc.

Who makes Obama's killing drones ? Ronco ?

[runrussellrun]

sheesh, Conservative Ideology and we learn that RRR is a Lauren Boebert fanboy?

I guess we did know.

That is the conclusion, that I am a fan? Let me be clear, I am not.

dude, only asked about the status of her Jan. 6 investigation, calling for her ouster, etc.

And you got fanboy out of that? just wow.

[seacoaster]

sheesh, Conservative Ideology and we learn that RRR is a Lauren Boebert fanboy?

I guess we did know.

That is the conclusion, that I am a fan? Let me be clear, I am not.

dude, only asked about the status of her Jan. 6 investigation, calling for her ouster, etc.

And you got fanboy out of that? just wow.

Well, you can be a little difficult to understand sometimes.

[MDlaxfan76]

sheesh, Conservative Ideology and we learn that RRR is a Lauren Boebert fanboy?

I guess we did know.

That is the conclusion, that I am a fan? Let me be clear, I am not.

dude, only asked about the status of her Jan. 6 investigation, calling for her ouster, etc.

And you got fanboy out of that? just wow.

You want her ousted? say so.
You know she hasn't been.

You call it a puff piece, but this is the gal whose whole brand has been guns, guns, guns...and Trump cult.

You attack the Cox piece with some sort of claim that there are more Confederate flags in Vermont than Alabama?....yeah, "dude" fire another one up and ramble away.

[runrussellrun]

sheesh, Conservative Ideology and we learn that RRR is a Lauren Boebert fanboy?

I guess we did know.

That is the conclusion, that I am a fan? Let me be clear, I am not.

dude, only asked about the status of her Jan. 6 investigation, calling for her ouster, etc.

And you got fanboy out of that? just wow.

Well, you can be a little difficult to understand sometimes.

tough to understand when you have them on "ignore"

[runrussellrun]

sheesh, Conservative Ideology and we learn that RRR is a Lauren Boebert fanboy?

I guess we did know.

That is the conclusion, that I am a fan? Let me be clear, I am not.

dude, only asked about the status of her Jan. 6 investigation, calling for her ouster, etc.

And you got fanboy out of that? just wow.

You want her ousted? say so. Didn't say one way or the other, just asked how the investigation was going. NO.....I didn't know it was dropped.
You know she hasn't been.

You call it a puff piece, but this is the gal whose whole brand has been guns, guns, guns...and Trump cult. What is wrong with guns, guns guns? We spend more on guns guns guns than we do on butter. You blaming THIS woman? Guess , technically, a harpoon missile isn't a gun

You attack the Cox piece with some sort of claim that there are more Confederate flags in Vermont than Alabama?....yeah, "dude" fire another one up and ramble away. "attack" the cox piece? By pointing out that there are plenty of "rednecks" all across our nation. pointing out this fact, and referencing Confederate flags in New Hampshire (didn't say Vermont).....and the 1.1 million "rednecks" in Massachusettes that voted for Trump....geez. that is "attacking" ?

And yeah, when you use terms like "possibly", in relation to the zoom video of her kid, near, possibly loaded weapons, etc......whatever. You are just part of the big creepy society.

Can I ever do good, in your eyes?

exactly........

[seacoaster]

sheesh, Conservative Ideology and we learn that RRR is a Lauren Boebert fanboy?

I guess we did know.

That is the conclusion, that I am a fan? Let me be clear, I am not.

dude, only asked about the status of her Jan. 6 investigation, calling for her ouster, etc.

And you got fanboy out of that? just wow.

Well, you can be a little difficult to understand sometimes.

tough to understand when you have them on "ignore"

It's true, I usually have you on "ignore." I end up reading your posts to try to understand the folks who are responding to you. So it goes. Either way, you are hard to understand. Back to "ignore."

[runrussellrun]

sheesh, Conservative Ideology and we learn that RRR is a Lauren Boebert fanboy?

I guess we did know.

That is the conclusion, that I am a fan? Let me be clear, I am not.

dude, only asked about the status of her Jan. 6 investigation, calling for her ouster, etc.

And you got fanboy out of that? just wow.

Well, you can be a little difficult to understand sometimes.

tough to understand when you have them on "ignore"

It's true, I usually have you on "ignore." I end up reading your posts to try to understand the folks who are responding to you. So it goes. Either way, you are hard to understand. Back to "ignore."

Why are you here? Only to post articles.

The need to insult people and crap in their face is sick. How do you think it makes people feel when you, to their internet face, say, we ignore you.....always. Followed by, you're hard to follow

stay welcoming, people. You are solving much and making people feel good about themselves.

stop attacking me with insults, my mental capacity is fragile. Please don't do this to me anymore......

[Farfromgeneva]

Lauren Boebert allows 8-year-old to play alone, next to possibly-loaded firearm

Ohh, those wacky wepubwicans...

..

yeah boneless icecream....the play was about Jan. 6th and Boebert planning the entire thing. remember the screams for her head?

And than you post that useless puff piece ? Has nothing to do with Jan. 6th.

You go , disslax...you go. great stuff. of legends.

compley.....or die.

Telling people to go away or die. Lovely, especially from a person that hides behind multiple handles and doesn’t have the balls to even speak clearly.

[Farfromgeneva]

sheesh, Conservative Ideology and we learn that RRR is a Lauren Boebert fanboy?

I guess we did know.

That is the conclusion, that I am a fan? Let me be clear, I am not.

dude, only asked about the status of her Jan. 6 investigation, calling for her ouster, etc.

And you got fanboy out of that? just wow.

Well, you can be a little difficult to understand sometimes.

Hmm, what’s a translation book worth to you. We can survey and maybe there is a buck to be made.

[Farfromgeneva]

sheesh, Conservative Ideology and we learn that RRR is a Lauren Boebert fanboy?

I guess we did know.

That is the conclusion, that I am a fan? Let me be clear, I am not.

dude, only asked about the status of her Jan. 6 investigation, calling for her ouster, etc.

And you got fanboy out of that? just wow.

You want her ousted? say so. Didn't say one way or the other, just asked how the investigation was going. NO.....I didn't know it was dropped.
You know she hasn't been.

You call it a puff piece, but this is the gal whose whole brand has been guns, guns, guns...and Trump cult. What is wrong with guns, guns guns? We spend more on guns guns guns than we do on butter. You blaming THIS woman? Guess , technically, a harpoon missile isn't a gun

You attack the Cox piece with some sort of claim that there are more Confederate flags in Vermont than Alabama?....yeah, "dude" fire another one up and ramble away. "attack" the cox piece? By pointing out that there are plenty of "rednecks" all across our nation. pointing out this fact, and referencing Confederate flags in New Hampshire (didn't say Vermont).....and the 1.1 million "rednecks" in Massachusettes that voted for Trump....geez. that is "attacking" ?

And yeah, when you use terms like "possibly", in relation to the zoom video of her kid, near, possibly loaded weapons, etc......whatever. You are just part of the big creepy society.

Can I ever do good, in your eyes?

exactly........

Not when you call everyone an jerk, liar and hypocrite and attack them and then cower like a victim. There is zero good in that behavior

[seacoaster]

sheesh, Conservative Ideology and we learn that RRR is a Lauren Boebert fanboy?

I guess we did know.

That is the conclusion, that I am a fan? Let me be clear, I am not.

dude, only asked about the status of her Jan. 6 investigation, calling for her ouster, etc.

And you got fanboy out of that? just wow.

Well, you can be a little difficult to understand sometimes.

tough to understand when you have them on "ignore"

It's true, I usually have you on "ignore." I end up reading your posts to try to understand the folks who are responding to you. So it goes. Either way, you are hard to understand. Back to "ignore."

Why are you here? Only to post articles.

The need to insult people and crap in their face is sick. How do you think it makes people feel when you, to their internet face, say, we ignore you.....always. Followed by, you're hard to follow

stay welcoming, people. You are solving much and making people feel good about themselves.

stop attacking me with insults, my mental capacity is fragile. Please don't do this to me anymore......

I am here for a lot of reasons, almost all of which are, you might've guessed, my own. I share a lot of articles and other opinion, and actually think I am doing a service to some extent anyway for folks whop aren't subscribers and who may not have seen this article or that article. I post my own opinions too. I am not insulting you; your posts just -- sorry -- don't interest me, and as for insulting, you seem to set the standard on calling people idiots or suggesting that they are being hoodwinked. The ignore button is to FL as the remote is to TV. It isn't personal or insulting that I don't watch certain programs.

[Farfromgeneva]

sheesh, Conservative Ideology and we learn that RRR is a Lauren Boebert fanboy?

I guess we did know.

That is the conclusion, that I am a fan? Let me be clear, I am not.

dude, only asked about the status of her Jan. 6 investigation, calling for her ouster, etc.

And you got fanboy out of that? just wow.

You want her ousted? say so.
You know she hasn't been.

You call it a puff piece, but this is the gal whose whole brand has been guns, guns, guns...and Trump cult.

You attack the Cox piece with some sort of claim that there are more Confederate flags in Vermont than Alabama?....yeah, "dude" fire another one up and ramble away.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=2fbNyyrPrco