Pundits: The fact that Ossoff and Warnock are unlikely to both win their elections means Joe Biden needs to court Republican votes rather than push a much-needed progressive agenda

*Ossoff and Warnock win handily*

Pundits: Ah. Nevertheless,

Republicans caused this to happen, because they wanted it to happen.

The president.
The Senators.
The Representatives.
And their voters.

An open show that they care about nothing but domination. That is their politics.

The American Fascist Party.

The gates were opened for them.

Later they were escorted out.

In between, they delivered their message. This space belongs to white supremacy, because this country belongs to white supremacy.

And now those who orchestrated it will pretend they had nothing to do with it.

"The worst of us are safer at their very worst than any of the rest of you are at your best."

That's the message. Republicans have delivered it for decades, last year most notably in their Covid policy.

They're very consistent to it.

The American Fascist Party.

If you belong to this party, and you aren't a white supremacist fascist, yes you are.

Yes. You are.

You just gave yourself an alternate reason to join. And you lend your support to the things an American Fascist Party does, which they do use, to deliver their promised atrocity.

The events of yesterday shocked everyone—with the exception of those who were pretending to be shocked.

But for millions of us, it wasn't a surprise. We've been watching what Republicans do and say.

An attempt to overthrow democracy was always the promise.

And still is.

I'd like to speak the obvious necessary things about the Republican Party, the most central of which is that this is not an organization that is participating in democracy.

Rather, they are cynically utilizing our democracy's vulnerabilities.

The last two Republican Presidents to enter the White House did so without the popular vote.

The last Republican President to enter the White House with the popular vote did so in 1989.

Yet, when they win, they behave as though they have the mandate that comes with a landslide.

For example, they upend the healthcare program.

They give out trillions in corporate welfare.

They start torture programs.

They start surveillance programs.

They lie us into wars.

They gerrymander at every level they can. They deliberately disenfranchise. They make our elections so imbalanced they can get less votes than Democrats but win 60% of the seats.

They are not interested in democracy. They are not participating in a democracy.

When a Democrat actually does win the popular vote—by a lot—they behave as if they are a majority opposition.

They stall. They filibuster. They delay. They engage in deliberate sabotage to gain political advantage.

They are not participating in our democracy.

Every argument against raising the minimum wage involves pointing to some other part of our broken system as if it were a beloved cultural treasure to defend rather than just the next unacceptable thing that needs fixing.

“How is it fair to pay people making minimum wage $30k a year when high school teachers start at that?” as if stagnant wages for teachers were an unrelated matter; don’t worry, Bill, we’ll get to it.

Everyone should have the means to survive and thrive and if the current system doesn't provide for that then nuts to the current system; we shouldn't work for it, it should work for us.

This is (pretty obviously to me) the real reason our leaders are so resistant to giving people the relief money needed to combat Covid.

They can't risk exposing the truth that you can actually just give people the money they need and nothing will break.

Our leaders are working to protect a system, but they shouldn't work for the system, they should work for us. The survival and thriving of human beings is the goal. Any part of any system that doesn't work toward that goal can be jettisoned.

Is this obvious, it feels obvious.

That new attack piece about Seth Abramson is full of easily debunked false claims. Whenever the mainstream media gets annoyed at an indie pundit like Seth, it just publishes a bunch of bullshit about him, and most people mistakenly believe it. They've done the same thing to me.

The sad part is that when the author of that piece tried to smear a bunch of mainstream media journalists for daring to compare notes with him, they all responded by lying and said they've never compared notes with him. Even though Abramson has proof that they have.

This is the EXACT same strategy that certain mainstream media outlets used against me in 2017-2018. First they lied about me. Then they attacked my mainstream media associates for associating with a "fake news" pundit like me. Then some in the media felt compelled to disown me.

Sadly, it didn't matter that I had overwhelming proof that everything said about me in those attack pieces was false. When you defend yourself, no matter how factually, the average observer merely decides you're being "defensive" and therefore guilty as charged.

Ask yourself why the mainstream media is choosing now to dishonestly attack Abramson. The media's ratings are way down now that Trump is gone. Abramson presumably still has his entire niche audience intact. So the media gets jealous and takes it out on him.

Met a Brazilian-American Lyft driver from San Diego who passionately attacked the racism of Republicans, then switched to passionately defending Bolsonaro.

If I were Thomas Friedman, I could tell you what this means.

Met a Haitian-American in a restaurant who said he'd always vote for Democrats because of the immigration issue, but that he has conservative beliefs too. "I don't want to pay for someone's abortion!", he declared.

Met a Latino Lyft driver from San Jose who said that while he was liberal, California was getting too liberal for him and he was considering moving to San Antonio.

Again, not being Tom Friedman, I am unable to offer any commentary on the political and policy implications of these conversations.

I guess my only thought is that political opinions are pretty complex and multidimensional, out there in the real world.

(end)

NEW: @RudyGiuliani in GA hearing "Let me conclude by saying ... our Founding Fathers, miraculously, probably envisioned everything that would happen to us. They even envisioned this. A disputed election. Cheating. Stealing. And they made a choice. They made a choice of where to

2/ put the responsibility in a difficult situation like that. Article I, Section II of the of Constitution puts that responsibility right here, in the legislatures of the several states. You are responsible for the selection of the electors. Not the Governor. Not your Secretary

3/ of State, who is covering up everything that he can cover-up. Not anybody else, but you. It's your power. It doesn't come from the state constitution. It comes from the United States Constitution. You are not subjected to needing a special session. The governor has no right,

4/ really, to interfere. He has no right to call a special session or not call a special session. The Constitution has taken him out of the process. The Constitution put the power in the state legislature, so strong, that you can take that power back right up to the last moment,

5/ you can take it back two minutes before the electoral votes are counted, because ultimately it's your responsibility. You delegated it to them in the first place. And if you feel they are exercising it improperly, it is your obligation to stop them from doing it. And you KNOW

I reckon a lot of you probably view me as a crazy left winger. And that may well be fair, but if you’re wondering how I got here , I’m gonna have a crack.
In my 20s I had pretty much zero interest in politics. I grew up in Central Qld, surrounded by conservative influences.

Towards the end of the Howard years I began to feel that what he was doing wasn’t right, probably starting when they changed the rules retrospectively in the wharfie dispute. But it was even more troubling when he began adopting Hanson’s racist immigration views, and children

Overboard was a shameful chapter in racist dog whistling. I was disappointed that he spent the proceeds of the mining boom on Johnny’s Battlers instead of future proofing our economy and building a sovereign wealth fund. His failure to implement any sort of climate policy was

His biggest failure though, in my opinion. Despite that, I admired his guts with the gun reform he achieved following Port Arthur.
It was with renewed hope that I rode the #Kevin07 wave to a change in government. I felt hopeful that Australia was going to be a world leader in

The fight against climate change. How disappointed I was, as Rudd and the Greens completely botched a golden opportunity. Then Rudd showed a streak of cowardice I still cannot comprehend after miners spent a few bucks on tv ads attacking the RSPT. Julia jumped in the hot seat