Miscellaneous And Off Topic Subjects

[Obi-Jon]

Don't worry, all the Log Cabin Republicans and 'family value' conservatives (closeted or not) will revive Disney's financial fortunes.

[Dr. Strangelove]

The WSJ has more details about this for now than other news outlets. Seems reasonably significant that both Pence's chief of staff and his chief counsel testified to a federal grand jury very recently. According to the reporting a lot of questions were about John Eastman and Rudy and a Jan 4th meeting where they pressured Pence

https://www.wsj.com/articles/justice-department-questions-top-pence-aides-over-trump-bid-to-overturn-election-11658783628?st=ftbgmoyxg2ur50m&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink

[Dr. Strangelove]

And here's the same Marc Short on CNN a bit ago, roasting Matt Gaetz

[THE_WIZARD_]

...

[lineygoblue]

Don't worry, all the Log Cabin Republicans and 'family value' conservatives (closeted or not) will revive Disney's financial fortunes.

This, I believe, is quite true.

Christian conservative folk spend a lot of time griping about ABC's "The View", but will spend thousands of dollars on a 'family' vacation to Disney properties, .. who OWNS ABC News and The View. I know a Christian pastor whose wife works for a travel agency, and she books Christian families on vacations to Disney properties almost daily.

So yes. Christians are unwittingly, (or wittingly?) providing ABC/Disney with the money they need to continue bashing the Christian community in the USA.

[CGVT]

Or maybe they just don't give a shit. You know, like most reasonable people.

[lineygoblue]

CGVT .. are you saying Christians can be reasonable?

Yikes

[Jeff Buchanan]

So yes. Christians are unwittingly, (or wittingly?) providing ABC/Disney with the money they need to continue bashing the Christian community in the USA.

,,,,,, and it's not just Disney. I read a NYTs article last weekend describing the long ago origins of the MAGA movement. Of course, that title fails to encompass how broad the movement to remove the left's liberalsim and wokeism from mainstream political thought in America is. Trump simply latched on to the growing presence of a larger anti-liberal movement born out of fear that white christian Americans - "real Americans" the movment claimed - were being pushed out of office, replaced by woke liberals and people of color, where such offices could influence policy on multiple levels.

The movement is led primarily by over 50s some evangelicals some motivated by the paranoia that white Cristian America is imperilled. Part of their political plank is that Trump's defeat by Biden came at the hands of election fraud, this despite no evidence that election fraud took place on a scale to wrongly elect Joe Biden. It's striking how stridently these folks beleive that line of thought.

In America's past, movements like this, mainly based on conspiracies, tended to be fringe movements. The John Birchers are an example. There are others with more diverse objectives, none of them ever achieving prominence in American political discourse. The Tea Party is one of these. That is no longer the case. MAGA, Stop the Steal, any slogan that tends to identify the members of this group has become a mainstream movement with grass routes organizers. Some support DJT, some don't but support his messaging and approach toward immigration, the US economy and foreign policy. Many are avowed, former Tea Party Rs.

Posts here have spoken of the people who are Turmp's base and could get him re-elected as President. I don't believe there has been much commentary about the scope and power of this movement and the political impact they are going to have moving forward. I see the most dangerous efforts of this movement are attempts to reshape state level election laws and replace election officials with movement members. I'm not familiar enough with legislation before the US congress regarding federal efforts to keep state election laws, including processes determing how electors are chosen, uniform but whatever they are, I'm for them and hope such laws don't become casualties of congressional political bickering.

[Jeff Buchanan]

Ukraine Update: I posted yesterday that there were early indications that the Ukrainians were about to or have already started to move towrds recapturing the Kherson province and the major city of Kherson. News this morning confirms thoose early indications and in some surprising detail regarding arms shipments from the west. We know of HIMARs from the US and they've apparently been effective in disrupting Russian logistics and C&C. Significant reductions in artillery fires were noted as being more likely due to re-supply problems than an operational pause. In addition, the Slovak Mig 29s being given to Ukraine came up again with Slovakian military spokesmen being circumspect about plans as you'd expect.

Reported today is the news that the first six British Stormer HVM anti-aircraft missile systems and German-supplied Gepard air defence systems have arrived in Ukraine. I wasn't familiar with these systems. Doing some research, they are both 90s versions of short range, laser or high frequency radar guided (e.g. the frequencies found in police speed tracking radar devices, X and KU bands and hard to jam). There have been modifications so no telling which iterations the Brits and the Germans provided to Ukraine. My guess is that they will be used to prevent the Russians from gaining air superiority over the emerging battle space in SW Ukraine, Kherson and the port of Odesa.

Some analysts believe the Ukrainains are not yet prepared to take on a counter-offensive of the scope required at this moment in time. They might become operationally ready at some point, with the appropriate support from the west, to achieve objectives while preventing the high casualty rates and destruction to critical infrastructure that urban combat can inflict. OTH, it appears the Russian Army is trying to recuperate and re-set ground operations. That presents a timely opportunity for Ukraine to strike and dictate outcomes. MI6 and milbloggers reported that a large convoy of Russian armor and BMPs were moving out of the Donbas and towards Kherson/Odessa. There are questions posed by MI6 of the morale and operational readiness of the Russian Army. SImilar concerns involve the Ukrainian army as well but I've been reading repeated reports that the assessment of Ukrainian will to fight is higher than that of the typical Russian soldier. It is beyond doubt that both sides have lost large numbers of experienced fighters and commanders and both sides have many more conscripts, poorly trained and rushed to the front than would be optimum. Russian officers who are still alive or are newly assinged to the fornt are assessed to be much less effective at coordinating combat operations than thier Ukrainian counterparts, equally ravaged by the war.

This morning Odesa was again attacked by Russian air-launched cruise missiles. The Russians are no longer denying a similar attack on Sunday. Mykoliv and Kharkiv were also similary targeted today. Ukrain's spokespersons do not think the attacks will prevent grain shipments from restarting from Odesa. The Russians have stated the targets inside the port of Odesa were all military and port facilities that would be involved in loading ships with grains were not attacked. British intelligence says the targets were not military but that is as far as they went. Since the Russians do little more than lie and obscure their intent, I have my doubts grain shipments by ship from Odesa will resume. The Russians will blame Ukraine and it's western supporters.

Meanwhile GasProm, the Russian energy company that announced last week that gas would once again be delivered via Norstream said today, nope, they're shutting down supplies again due to technical reasons and sanctions preventing critical parts from being delivered. According to engineering sources, there is no technical reason to shut down the pipeline other than using the gas that flows through it as an economic weapon. Europe's leaders seem to understand that but it is not clear how this gas will be replaced. That is especially true for Germany.

[Obi-Jon]

....Posts here have spoken of the people who are Turmp's base and could get him re-elected as President. I don't believe there has been much commentary about the scope and power of this movement and the political impact they are going to have moving forward. I see the most dangerous efforts of this movement are attempts to reshape state level election laws and replace election officials with movement members. I'm not familiar enough with legislation before the US congress regarding federal efforts to keep state election laws, including processes determining how electors are chosen, uniform but whatever they are, I'm for them and hope such laws don't become casualties of congressional political bickering.

Amen.

[Hannibal]

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[Hannibal]

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[Hannibal]

The movement is led primarily by over 50s some evangelicals some motivated by the paranoia that white Cristian America is imperilled.

There is a lot of nonsense to unpack here. The first bit being that the movement in question is being led by over 50s -- The dissident right, America first types are heavily populated and led by young Gen Y and Gen Z types. The older Republicans are the legacy Bush and Romney types who voted for Clinton and Biden because they were offended by Trump's decorum. The far right skews younger because they are the ones who have to live long term with the catastrophic mismanagement of the country's economy, culture, and immigration policies. They are people seeing the realities of interracial crime statistics and reasonably extrapolating what the country is going to look like in 50 years as today's demographic trends continue. If you are over 50, you will expire before this happens. If you fit this description, then you also grew up with three networks + PBS feeding you highly curated political messages, and not reality.

Which brings me to my next point -- the "paranoia" about white Christians becoming a minority. It's not paranoia. It's actually happening. Liberals used to brag about it and smugly gloat about the one party super majority that they would have some day. You can find tons of old Op Ed pieces and books referencing this phenomenon. Labeling this a "conspiracy theory" is classic gasllighting. That Whites will become a minority and then a smaller and smaller minority over the next 50 years without a massive shift in governance is a 100% certainty.

[iam416]

There is a lot of nonsense to unpack here

Yeah, you know when a post is based on a NYT's article so very thoughtfully trying to figure out the "MAGA" movement that it's going to be dubious. There's almost nothing I find less interesting than The Media writing on or reporting on what makes Rs or MAGA or whatever tick.

And, honestly, I'm still not sure what the difference is between the widely celebrated and hailed "Demographics is Destiny" touted by Obama and the "great replacement theory" touted by certain Rs/ I mean, substantively and factually it says the same thing. One is celebrating the loss of voting power by a rival bloc and the other is bemoaning the loss of voting power for that bloc. But both acknowledge and accept the obvious.

They're both wrong. And Hannibal is wrong and will be proven such consistently in Texas. Hispanics aren't going to wildly shift the electorate. Those voters are still very much in play for Rs and very much open to sensible conservative positions.

[Dr. Strangelove]

The dumpster Right is largely an online thing and thus skews young. I'm not sure that people under 30 are actually more conservative though. I'm more likely to say no, they're not.

Of course the Alt Right media is also full of phonies and performative hacks because, let's face it, the competition is a lot tougher in mainstream media. So you've got losers like Benny Johnson, who got fired repeatedly for plagiarism in the mainstream media, finally making it big in Alt Right circles because, well, they have very low standards. Tucker Carlson was just another bowtie-wearing Beltway momma's boy until he found his current angle parroting anti coastal elitist slop and pretending like he gives a fuck about Iowa.