2022 Midterms

[Elegiac]

So is the counting done for everywhere else yet, or are we still waiting to find out stuff beyond the run-off?

There's still a few districts in California that haven't finished counting, and then there's potential recounts and ballot curing which may affect the size of the GOP's majority.

It's not about stopping crime, though. It's about ensuring that they don't escape punishment for their crimes.

And the point of punishment for crimes is... what, exactly.

[Grinning Serpent]

And the point of punishment for crimes is... what, exactly.

Justice. What an odd question to ask.

[DarkTZeratul]

Justice. What an odd question to ask.

You're talking about murder, not justice.

[Edge-]

https://www.startribune.com/trump-ba...cus/600226578/

The Republican chair of the Wisconsin Assembly elections committee who was backed by former President Donald Trump, embraced conspiracy theories about the 2020 election and wanted to decertify President Joe Biden's victory, has been kicked out of the closed GOP caucus due to a lack of trust, according to a letter sent to the lawmaker.

State Rep. Janel Brandtjen's expulsion from the caucus comes after Republicans failed to win a supermajority in the Assembly and Trump's endorsed candidate for governor lost to Democratic Gov. Tony Evers in the swing state.

The letter, first obtained by WisPolitics.com, was sent to Brandtjen on Friday, just a day after Republicans met in private to vote on their leaders for the upcoming session. Assembly Speaker Robin Vos was reelected to his post. Brandtjen endorsed and campaigned for his Republican opponent, Adam Steen, who was also backed by Trump.

"The continual issues from the past have led our caucus to lose trust in you," state Rep. Rob Summerfeld, the Assembly GOP caucus co-chair, said in the letter telling Brandtjen she would no longer be allowed to attend the caucus. "For this reason, this vote was taken."

Brandtjen did not immediately respond to a message seeking comment Wednesday. But on Tuesday, she said she left the closed caucus after leadership elections because of "family commitments."

Vos declined to elaborate Thursday on why she was kicked out.

"It was closed caucus," Vos said. "I think the letter speaks for itself."

rofl

- - - Updated - - -

https://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-...nrsc-rcna57445

In late August, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee delivered a book — “Auditing for Dummies” — to NRSC headquarters.

Why am I posting this? Well, because now this is an actually funny joke.

During a tense, three-hour-long meeting of the Senate GOP Conference, Sens. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) and Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) said there should be an independent review of how the party’s campaign arm spent its resources before falling short of its goal of winning the majority. ... According to two people familiar with the discussion, Blackburn told Scott during the meeting that there needed to be an accounting of how money was spent, and that it was important for senators to have a greater understanding of how and why key decisions involving financial resources were made. To move forward, Blackburn said, the party needed to determine what mistakes were made.

Because Republicans are now wanting to audit the NRSC spending under Rick Scott.

[Grinning Serpent]

You're talking about murder, not justice.

No. If they have committed a crime, it's justice, not murder. Our justice system is a broken mess that barely manages to fulfill basic functions and is very clearly designed to imprison and punish poor people (and, specifically, poor people of color) while the wealthy can flaunt it. We could have an entire thread about how absolutely fucked our "justice" system is and how it rarely manages to live up to that name. Or, you can just go do jury duty at some point in your life and that's all the firsthand experience you will ever need to understand what a crock of shit it all is. I've done it three times and the last time was a murder trial where the accused *literally grinned* when the prosecution was talking about his actions that night, and we still had to spend over 90 minutes trying to talk sense into a single person who didn't want to vote aye with everyone else - not because she believed the man was innocent of the charges, but because she didn't want to handle the thought of having to send someone like that to prison for most likely the rest of their natural life. "A jury of your peers" is garbage, because the average person is a fucking moron... but it's better than the alternatives, I guess?

People like Trump, McConnell, etc belong buried in a ditch, not walking around free. It's not justice that they walk free despite committing so many crimes. The reason they aren't punished, the reason they aren't criminals in a legal sense, is because they are the ones that write the laws or otherwise control those that enforce the law - they believe themselves to be above the law. That's fucked up, and in my mind, I wouldn't feel bad if someone decided to cut through the bullshit and solve the problem via the simplest means. Not because they're political rivals, but because they're evil sacks of shit that have through intentional action killed hundreds of thousands of people and they should be punished for it.

FWIW, I'm not the kind of person that believes in law for law's sake. I don't believe that laws are automatically just or moral or correct. If you do, then that would obviously be a point of conflict and you would reasonably feel that I'm wrong in declaring Trump etc criminals when they have not been convicted of crimes. To me, a system that lets people commit crimes of that nature and to that extent, and does not immediately deal with them, is a dysfunctional one that gets no respect from me.

[DarkTZeratul]

People like Trump, McConnell, etc belong buried in a ditch, not walking around free. It's not justice that they walk free despite committing so many crimes. The reason they aren't punished, the reason they aren't criminals in a legal sense, is because they are the ones that write the laws or otherwise control those that enforce the law - they believe themselves to be above the law. That's fucked up, and in my mind, I wouldn't feel bad if someone decided to cut through the bullshit and solve the problem via the simplest means. Not because they're political rivals, but because they're evil sacks of shit that have through intentional action killed hundreds of thousands of people and they should be punished for it.

Jesus Christ get some fucking help instead of advocating for vigilante killings of politicians.

Seriously, how is this kind of extremist screed any different from the people who chanted to hang Mike Pence on January 6th? Or the people who think journalists or Democrats should be lined up against the wall to be shot? Or fuck it, how is this different from ISIS or the KKK? Is it just because you think you're "righteous" in your cause? Because news flash: so do they.

[Milchshake]

The Times asks former Dirtbag Podcasters on their current Fox show.
With the return of Trump, will we also see a return of accelerationists?

[Cthulhu 2020]

You're talking about murder, not justice.

I mean, while I don't wholly agree with Grinning Serpent, the entire tangent of this conversation has been about rabidly conservative figure heads who told everyone COVID was a hoax, and have gotten thousands of people killed as a result. People who have power and continue to be given power should face justice. But who's going to hold them accountable? As long as conservatives exist, they'll continue to give power to whoever has an R in front of their name, no matter how many people they've indirectly killed.

[VMSmith]

People who have power and continue to be given power should face justice.

Yes, but rehabilitation should always be the goal, given the mental capacity of the offender to be rehabilitated. Punishment should never be the goal of a justice system. Imprisonment is a lamentable necessity for those mentally incapable of rehabilitating, but execution should be entirely eliminated.

And the sad truth is that wealth has always been a method of avoiding any form of justice. It's why I can somewhat understand Serpent's desires in an uprising of the Proletariat sort of fashion, yet still reject it because we are not at the "lining the capitalists up against the wall" stage of society yet.

[Endus]

Yes, but rehabilitation should always be the goal, given the mental capacity of the offender to be rehabilitated. Punishment should never be the goal of a justice system. Imprisonment is a lamentable necessity for those mentally incapable of rehabilitating, but execution should be entirely eliminated.

And the sad truth is that wealth has always been a method of avoiding any form of justice. It's why I can somewhat understand Serpent's desires in an uprising of the Proletariat sort of fashion, yet still reject it because we are not at the "lining the capitalists up against the wall" stage of society yet.

It isn't just about rehabilitation, and I'd actually argue that "punishment" isn't a component of justice at all, not at the imprisonment level anyway. It's horribly ineffective at doing so, and there's essentially no deterrent effect to harsher punishments, so it's kind of a waste of time and effort and the motive seems to be sheer sadism.

The other factor is protecting the public peace. If you're a violent offender, being locked away from the rest of society while you're given resources to work through your issues protects that society from your excessive conduct. And, as you note, in cases where they remain a threat, they should continue to remain incarcerated, not because they need to "suffer more", but to protect innocents.

The death penalty isn't conscionable. If you could somehow be omnisciently certain of both the guilt of the offender in exactly the manner they're accused and that rehabilitation were impossible, then you could make a case for summary execution on the basis of resource efficiency, because why bother keeping someone alive and incarcerated when they won't ever get better or feel remorse? But the actual process of execution is ridiculously expensive, and such cost savings don't actually appear, and we're not omniscient, and so, there really isn't any argument that supports it. Which is why pretty much every developed country on the planet's eliminated it.

[Inuyaki]

https://www.businessinsider.com/hers...mpires-2022-11

"I don't know if you know, but vampires are some cool people, are they not?" the congressional candidate said. "But let me tell you something that I found out: A werewolf can kill a vampire. Did you know that? I never knew that."
"So, I don't want to be a vampire anymore," Walker added, without further context. "I want to be a werewolf."

Okay....

[Captain N]

Walker trying to get the Twilight/World of Darkness vote.

[Edge-]

https://www.businessinsider.com/hers...mpires-2022-11


Okay....

This is missing some context, and it's not quite that bad, but it is silly. Audio desync is weird, but he's definitely saying those words.

He was describing his children watching the horror movie Fright Night at 1AM in the morning, and he was watching his kids who were watching this movie on the TV, and the movie taught him that. And then he went on to describe the movie in a rambling, semi-coherent fashion for two minutes before arriving at his ultimate point that like needing faith for the holy cross to work in the movie, you need faith in your government institutions for them to work.

Again, not as crazy as that snippet suggests by any means and he's hardly the first candidate to go on a strange tangent in an attempt to make some kind of analogy. But somehow I don't think this is going to resonate with too much of his base, I don't take the evangelical crowd as big fans of 80's horror movies.

[NED funded]

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/16/u...-mccarthy.html

Republicans genuinely dont think they did anything wrong in Jan 6. Always remember this. Voting republican is a vote to end our democracy

[PC2]

With the return of Trump, will we also see a return of accelerationists?

Accelerationism isn't a real thing. The handful of people who do subscribe to "accelerationism" aren't serious people who have any decision making power.

Republicans genuinely dont think they did anything wrong in Jan 6. Always remember this. Voting republican is a vote to end our democracy

lol no that is hyperbole and paranoia. I would say that there is nobody who can end our democracy because the police and the military wouldn't follow the instructions of an authoritarian.

[Endus]

lol no that is hyperbole and paranoia. I would say that there is no party or group of people who can end our democracy because the police and the military wouldn't follow the instructions of an authoritarian.

Here's why nobody should ever take you seriously.

Despite the literally dozens of examples of exactly this happening multiple times and in multiple places throughout human history, you don't want to believe it could be true, because you made up an idea in your head and prefer your delusion to an actual understanding of history and human behaviour.

[Vladier]

Here's why nobody should ever take you seriously.

Despite the literally dozens of examples of exactly this happening multiple times and in multiple places throughout human history, you don't want to believe it could be true, because you made up an idea in your head and prefer your delusion to an actual understanding of history and human behaviour.

Remember, according to PC2, history is an illusion and has no bearing on the future, of whatever it is they believe.

[Belize]

Here's why nobody should ever take you seriously.

Despite the literally dozens of examples of exactly this happening multiple times and in multiple places throughout human history, you don't want to believe it could be true, because you made up an idea in your head and prefer your delusion to an actual understanding of history and human behaviour.

Plus it's not like we had multiples of examples of the police in the U.S. being authoritarian shits in cahoots with politicians.

[Draco-Onis]

Here's why nobody should ever take you seriously.

Despite the literally dozens of examples of exactly this happening multiple times and in multiple places throughout human history, you don't want to believe it could be true, because you made up an idea in your head and prefer your delusion to an actual understanding of history and human behaviour.

The mistake Trump made was not putting more chronies to lead every part of his administration, he started doing that at the end. There are generals who he could have put in charged of the armed forces that would have done his bidding. If he wins this time around he won't make the same mistake and will start planning overthrowing democracy day one.

[Breccia]

The mistake Trump made was not putting more chronies to lead every part of his administration, he started doing that at the end.

Well, don't forget, he was only allowed to take the Republican 2016 nomination by making concessions, number 1 being Pence. If he had refused that and run on an all-crony party, the GOP might have Bernie Sanders'd his ass and split the vote.