USA Far Right Watch

[Irrev-Black]

Brown shirts for the immigration officers, too?

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/ryan-zin ... 258583b5de

[stylofone]

Government shutdowns, insurrections, Trump worship, more theocracy... it's business as usual in the US House. Expect more madness when the funding stopgap expires.

Opinion
The People’s House is back in business — and crazier than ever

The House “chaos caucus,” which turned the lights out in the chamber for 22 days, has found its man.

Archive link, hope it works. Otherwise, paywalled link below
https://archive.is/p4Lv3

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions ... p-speaker/

[stylofone]

Contemplating what the founding fathers did or didn't believe is failing right now, especially since Trump's post-truth SCOTUS majority seized power. The chaos in the house might impede normal political movements, but chaos is usually the launching point for fascism.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/202 ... tian-trump

EDIT corrected typo, changing "funding fathers" to "founding fathers". Funding fathers are not a historical thing, they are rich old men who get what they want through political donations and outright bribes.

[pipbarber]

All the English speaking conservative movements seem to be drifting inextricably toward authoritarianism, in one form or another. We in Australian are thankfully some way behind the Gop and the Torries, but Dutton is the right man for the job of catching up.

I think that the far right movement in the US needs to be contextualised a little because i don't think it's an aberration that can be destroyed in an electoral cycle. The neoliberalism that has driven and defined conservatives for 40 years is being quietly abandoned, as a banner position. Beside anything, it's not environmentally sustainable, which translates as not electorally sustainable either and the promises of trickle down monetary theory are so manifestly false that it really is difficult to maintain the doctrine with a straight face. Oddly, it's the left adjacent parties, (Dems, ALP etc) that seem to be clinging to these old ideas, at least outwardly, while conservatives formulate an alternative approach which appears to be anti-democratic, cultural and drawing on racism and patriarchy for support. The left adjacents are floundering.

The nouveau conservative movement is still all in for neoliberal economic theory, but they're discarding the badges and slogans and placards contingent to 'economic management' in exchange for what looks a hell of a lot like fascism. It's all so depressingly predictable too. It's almost like a whole bunch of people actually want to live through the 1930s. Which raises a question around historical dialectical determinism, maybe it is real? Nah....we're all just out of ideas, and the only place the conservatives can find them is the same place they've always found them, in the past. But!....and it's a big but...it's more than the democrats have, more than the ALP and amazingly, it may even be more than UK labor has, by the time Brits can vote again. And last but not least, it was more than NZ labor could offer up.

If the US, or any anglo franchise, falls into a full fascist condition, the adjacent left need to own their own contribution to it, in my opinion.

Rambling sunday arvo reflections.

[stevebrooks]

All the English speaking conservative movements seem to be drifting inextricably toward authoritarianism,

I would have to correct you there, they are, in fact, intrinsically authoritarian, it's part of their nature, but due to societal pressure and mainly democratic politics in most western countries they are compelled to hide this authoritarian nature, and it remained hidden until quasi-authoritarians started taking over in many countries and bloomed when Trump took over in the US and gave them implicit support by courting open Authoritarians. That's my take anyway.

But on to the subject of my post, why I came here. It appears the third in line to the US Presidency, the far right conservative speaker of the house, Mike Johnson, allows a far right conservative organisation to scan all the data on both his phone and laptop, yes you heard that right, they are scanning his devices, the devices that may have US secrets on, yes indeed!

Johnson, a Republican who was first elected to Congress in 2016, spoke in 2022 about how he installed software called Covenant Eyes on his devices during a panel called "War on Technology" at Cypress Baptist Church in Benton, Louisiana, Rolling Stone reported.

"It scans all the activity on your phone, or your devices, your laptop, what have you," Johnson said of the service, which currently costs $17 a month.

It has been described as a potential security breach;

"This opens up the Speaker to a real security risk. To allow a non secure outside source full access to the Speaker of the House's phones and computers is a security breach waiting to happen."

I am reading this and thinking WTF? No, it's not a potential security breach, it is an actual, ongoing security breach, this data is being scanned and sent where, to whom before the report is sent to his son. Who sees it, do they have national security clearance, are they trusted body? Fuck no, he's just sending all the sensitive data that may be on his laptop and phone and whatever other devices he uses to an outside conservative body. Including email? PDF's of security issues, discussions with other Republican's, recordings etc? Fuck me this is huge, it is in fact Trump huge, talk about Hillary's emails that actually stayed on her private server, this guy is just knowingly sending his out to whoever, why isn't this a bigger story?

https://www.newsweek.com/mike-johnson-p ... ns-1841054

[pipbarber]

Where on earth do the GOP find these people?

Mike Johnson demonstrates that there does not appear to be a discernible base to the barrel. I've given up trying to guess who will emerge next and what weird fucking angle they have xtian fascism. So...we can intuit from this information that Mike had some kind of pron addiction? But now he's ok because a far right xtian group vet his web searches? 3rd in line for the presidency....

[stevebrooks]

Good news everyone, Kentucky had an election, a Dem governor running for re-election versus a far right MAGA Republican supported by none other than Donald J Trump, guess who won? If you guessed the Rep you guessed wrong, not only did the Dem win re-election, taking nearly every county, but he won by larger margins in nearly every county than he won last election. It was being said before the results that the results of the Kentucky and Ohio elections could have a large bearing on the 2024 elections.....well guess the Rep's are going to lose.

Just to add further, for Kentucky of the 6 US house delegates 5 are Rep's and one is a Dem, but election for governor count the people, not the districts, so that makes a huge difference, Kentucky is a Dem state with Rep representatives. It's also Mitch McConell and Paul Rand's State, so altogether a good result and indeed good news. It's being described as a massive win for Dem's.

[stylofone]

Good news everyone

Aside from reminding me of Professor Farnsworth's hilarious catchphrase, this made me look up the news and discover that abortion rights also had a win in Ohio. If the Dems can just get their shit together, there are ways to win. Abortion is just the start, they are coming for contraception too.

Prof-GoodNews.jpg (29.2 KiB) Viewed 1912 times

https://time.com/6332769/ohio-abortion- ... nt-passes/

[stevebrooks]

Good news everyone

Aside from reminding me of Professor Farnsworth's hilarious catchphrase, this made me look up the news and discover that abortion rights also had a win in Ohio. If the Dems can just get their shit together, there are ways to win. Abortion is just the start, they are coming for contraception too.


Prof-GoodNews.jpg

https://time.com/6332769/ohio-abortion- ... nt-passes/

Good news indeed, but it does go to show there are a few "key" issues that can swing an election, this is where the Dem's need to focus, things like mass shooting, gun control laws are actually quite popular even in southern states, and with Trump et all pushing 2nd amendment rights perhaps the Dems should focus on sensible gun laws, abortion rights is also a key issue and it seems it could easily swing voters to the dems, but all around good news for both Kentucky and Ohio, very nice.

[stevebrooks]

Ah I missed that one as well, Issue 2 in Ohio also passed, what is Issue 2, legalise marijuana lol! And that passed by even more than Issue 1, we can see where priorities are here;

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/202 ... -ohio.html

I see the yes on Issue 2 was actually far more diverse than Issue 1, counties that voted solid NO for Issue 1 were much closer for Issue 2, so a lot more rural voters were keen that Issue 2 passed.