“So all the GOP-voting pensioners gonna hand back their Social Security and Medicare funds, right? RIGHT?” asks Mehdi Hasan.
Boebert is a parody of a parody.
Whar’s your shootin’ iron, Annie Oakley?
Update: Not to put too fine a point on it.
More graphic body camera footage from January 6th insurrection released last week made clear again the degree of violence present in the assault on the Capitol.
“You’re gonna die tonight!” one rioter screamed at police defending a doorway. Another clip shows rioters dragging an officer who had fallen into the mob amid hand-to-hand combat.
The Washington Post Editorial Board agrees that emerging video shows that the assault was “better planned and more dangerous than it seemed” in news footage shot from a distance that day:
The Justice Department announced this week that law enforcement authorities have arrested more than 535 people, an average of about three every day since Jan. 6. The rioters did $1.5 million of damage to the Capitol building. The insurrectionists allegedly assaulted some 140 police officers. So far, authorities have charged 50 people with using a deadly or dangerous weapon or causing serious bodily injury to an officer. But far more appear to have been involved: The FBI is still trying to identify more than 300 people investigators believe committed violent acts, including more than 200 believed to have assaulted police officers. These were not tourists.
Looking at you, Rep. Andrew S. Clyde (R-Ga.).*
Nearly 150 Capitol and D.C. Metro police were injured in the mayhem. One died, along with several rioters. Those included Ashli Babbitt, famously shot by a Capitol security officer. The former president, Fox News host Tucker Carlson, and Republican politicians such as Rep. Paul Gosar of Arizona are trying to martyr-ize Babbitt into an American Horst Wessel, argues Matthew Rozsa at Salon.
Prosecutors also argue that the havoc was far from spontaneous, assembling evidence that far-right activists planned for violence, even preparing a “quick reaction force” site. Testimony from alleged participants suggests that members of the Oath Keepers stashed guns in a Virginia hotel, brought paramilitary gear, used military-style formations to assault the Capitol, conducted tactical training meetings in advance of Jan. 6 and moved to erase what they described as “all signal comms about the op” afterward.
Because Republican senators rejected a Jan. 6 commission, some questions about the assault might never be answered definitively, such as exactly what Mr. Trump did and did not do while insurrectionists attacked lawmakers. But prosecutors are showing that this was not some run-of-the-mill riot; it was a violent incursion into the nation’s seat of government conducted by dangerous extremists and encouraged by the president, who asked them to descend on Washington. This should not be another issue for partisan disagreement. No American should minimize or forget the horror of Jan. 6.
This was not a boat accident, nor a “normal tourist visit.” It was an insurrection.
* It just occured to me that Andy Clyde was the name of an early 20th century comic actor bset known from “Hopalong Cassidy” films and as Grandpa McCoy’s pal in “The Real McCoys.”
Since we’re halfway through 2021 (already?) I thought I’d apprise you of some of the latest and most noteworthy Blu-ray reissues I’ve picked up so far this year. Any reviews based on Region “B” editions (which require a multi-region Blu-ray player) are noted as such; the good news is that multi-region players are now fairly cheap. More next week!
The Hot Spot (Kino-Lorber) – Considering he accumulated 100+ feature film credits as an actor and a scant 7 as a director over a 55-year career, it’s not surprising that Dennis Hopper is chiefly remembered for the former, rather than the latter. Still, the relative handful of films he directed includes Easy Rider, The Last Movie, Colors, and this compelling 1990 neo-noir, based on Charles Williams’ 1955 novel “Hell Hath No Fury”.
Don Johnson delivers one of his better performances as an opportunistic drifter who wanders into a one-horse Texas burg. The smooth-talking hustler snags a gig as a used car salesman, and faster than you can say “only one previous owner!” he’s closed the deal on bedding the boss’s all-too-willing wife (Virginia Madsen), and starts putting the moves on the hot young bookkeeper (Jennifer Connelly). You know what they say, though…you can’t have your cake and eat it too. Toss in some avarice, blackmail, and incestuous small-town corruption, and our boy finds he is in way over his head.
Kino’s 2K restoration is excellent; picture and audio quality display a vast improvement over the relatively lackluster 2000 MGM DVD. Extras include a new commentary track by entertainment journalist and author Bryan Reesman, new (short) interviews with cast members Virginia Madsen and William Sadler, and a remastered vintage trailer for the film.
Jazz on a Summer’s Day (Kino Classics/Indie Collect) – Bert Stern’s groundbreaking documentary about the 1958 Newport Jazz Festival is not so much a “concert film” as it is a fascinating and colorful time capsule of late 50s American life. Don’t get me wrong, there are plenty of gorgeously filmed numbers spotlighting the artistry of Thelonius Monk, Anita O’Day, Dinah Washington, Louis Armstrong, et.al. at the peak of their powers.
The effect is like “being there” in 1958 Newport on a languid summer’s day. If you’ve ever attended an outdoor music festival, you know half the fun is people-watching, and Stern obliges. Stern breaks with film making conventions of the era; this is the genesis of the cinema verite music documentary, which wouldn’t come to flower until a decade later with films like Don’t Look Back, Monterey Pop, Woodstock and Gimme Shelter.
Indie Collect’s 4 K restoration pops with vivid primary colors. The audio quality is outstanding. Extras include an essay about the making of the film by jazz critic Nate Chinen, an absorbing feature-length 2011 documentary by Shannah Laumeister Stern called Bert Stern: Original Madman (Stern was a fascinating, Zelig-like figure-I had no inkling of his achievements outside of Jazz on a Summer’s Day, which is the only film he ever directed) and a new audio commentary by music journalist Natalie Weiner. A terrific package.
Memories of Murder (The Criterion Collection) – Buoyed by its artful production and knockout performances, this visceral and ultimately haunting 2003 police procedural from director Joon-ho Bong (Parasite) really gets under your skin. Based on the true story of South Korea’s first known serial killer, it follows a pair of rural homicide investigators as they search for a prime suspect.
Initially, they seem bent on instilling more fear into the local citizenry than the lurking killer, as they proceed to violate every civil liberty known to man. Soon, however, the team’s dynamic is tempered by the addition of a more cool-headed detective from Seoul, who takes the profiler approach. The film doubles as a fascinating glimpse into modern South Korean society and culture.
The 4K digital restoration (supervised by cinematographer Kim Hyung Ku and approved by the director) and new 5.1 surround DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack makes my Palm DVD copy superfluous. There are several commentary tracks; two from 2009 with the director and crew members, and a new one with critic Tony Rayns. Other extras include a new interview with Bong about the real-life crime spree the film was based on, a 2004 “making of” doc, deleted scenes, a 1994 student film by Bong, and much more.
The Parallax View (The Criterion Collection) – Alan J. Pakula’s 1974 “conspiracy a-go-go” thriller stars Warren Beatty, who delivers an excellent performance as a maverick print journalist investigating a suspicious string of untimely demises that befall witnesses to a U.S. senator’s assassination in a restaurant atop the Space Needle. This puts him on a trail that leads to an enigmatic agency called the Parallax Corporation.
The screenplay is by David Giler and Lorenzo Semple Jr. (based on the 1970 novel by Loren Singer, with a non-credited rewrite by Robert Towne). The narrative contains obvious allusions to the JFK assassination, and (in retrospect) reflects the political paranoia of the Nixon era (perhaps this was serendipity, as the full implications of the Watergate scandal were not yet in the rear view mirror while the film was in production).
The supporting cast includes Hume Cronyn, William Daniels and Paula Prentiss. Nice work by cinematographer Gordon Willis (aka “the prince of darkness”), who sustains the foreboding, claustrophobic mood of the piece with his masterful use of light and shadow.
The new, restored 4K digital transfer is a revelation. The audio track retains the original mono mix, but is also a substantial upgrade from the 1999 Paramount DVD (which I think I’ve nearly worn out…if that’s possible with digital media). Extras include archival interviews from 1974 and 1995 with Pakula, a new program on DP Willis, and a new introduction by filmmaker Alex Cox. I’m awarding this package my highest rating: 4 tin foil hats!
Radio On (BFI; be advised that this Blu-ray is Region “B” locked) –You know how you develop an inexplicable emotional attachment to certain films? This no-budget 1979 offering from writer-director Christopher Petit, shot in stark monochrome is one such film for me. That said, I should warn you that it is not going to be everyone’s cup of tea, as it contains one of those episodic narratives that may cause drowsiness for some after about 15 minutes. Yet, I am compelled to revisit this one annually. Go figure.
A dour London DJ (David Beames), whose estranged brother has committed suicide, heads to Bristol to get his sibling’s affairs in order and attempt to glean what drove him to such despair (while quite reminiscent of the setup for Get Carter, this is not a crime thriller…far from it). He has encounters with various characters, including a friendly German woman, an unbalanced British Army vet who served in Northern Ireland, and a rural gas-station attendant (a cameo by Sting) who kills time singing Eddie Cochran songs.
As the protagonist journeys across an England full of bleak yet perversely beautiful industrial landscapes in his boxy sedan, accompanied by a moody electronic score (mostly Kraftwerk and David Bowie) the film becomes hypnotic. A textbook example of how the cinema can capture and preserve the zeitgeist of an ephemeral moment (e.g. England on the cusp of the Thatcher era) like no other art form.
BFI’s reissue package is a dream come true for admirers of the film (I am a full-fledged cult member). The new 4K restoration was struck from the original camera negative, and it looks amazing. Audio quality is outstanding as well (especially important with that great music soundtrack). There are hours of extras; the most interesting one for me is a new 52-minute feature called “A Little bit Kitsch, But Ice Cold: Retro-futurism in Focus” an enlightening retrospective with director Petit and BFI Video Publishing’s Vic Pratt (a super-fan of the film).
More reviews at Den of Cinema
— Dennis Hartley
Interesting (read: appalling) tidbit from @MichaelCBender‘s new book, which I’ve just started to read: Former guy told people he launched the Soleimani airstrike because of his upcoming impeachment trial (no. 1): He wanted to placate GOP senators who urged the strike. (p. 41)
Cipollone and Barr and their staffs had a suicide pact under which, in essence, they’d all resign if Trump ever fired one of them for refusing to do something too insane, or unethical. (p. 49)
Ok, here’s one: Because [cough] fg thought Rudy was so good on TV, he wanted Rudy to be trial counsel in impeachment no. 1 (which would have been a huge conflict, because Rudy was a co-conspirator). They managed to talk fg out of this by bringing in … Dersh. (p. 50) (and Sekulow and Starr and others)
This is going to be the story of fg’s post presidency: endless revelations of how everyone around him knew he was an incompetent nutjob and struggled to keep him from doing incompetent and nutty things while pretending publicly he wasn’t incompetent and nutty.
Well, actually not everyone. Some people around him did urge him to do incompetent and nutty things, either because they were themselves incompetent and nutty, or because they were trying to curry his favor.
That’ll be part of the story that goes into the history books too. A sick ecosystem of pathology, sycophancy, denial, and grift.
Oh, so classy. Page 109:
“‘We gotta be hitting the mick,’ Brad [Parscale] said about Biden, using a derogatory term to refer to the Democrat’s Irish heritage.”
P. 113
“[Ronna Romney McDaniels’s] mom’s side of the family was largely supportive of Trump, and the Romney side less so. … Mitt Romney … said he hadn’t voted for Trump in 2016 and wouldn’t again in 2020, either.”
Former guy’s reaction to the NYT’s report that he spent part of a night in the WH bunker:
“‘Whoever [leaked] that, they should be charged with treason! They should be executed!'”
(p. 157)
Oh, totally fine; nothing to see here. Reaction at the White House after protesters were attacked at Lafayette Park before the FG’s photo op there:
“Inside the outer Oval, aides erupted in high-fives.”
(p. 169)
fg takes Gen. Milley to task for apologizing for Lafayette Park: “That’s weak.”
GM: “Not where I come from…. It had to do with … the uniform and the apolitical tradition of the US military.”
fg: “I don’t understand ….”
GM: “I don’t expect you to understand.”
(pp. 177-8)
So fg was mad at Jared for supposedly causing him not to respond more strongly to the Floyd protests: “I’ve done all this stuff for the Blacks—it’s always Jared telling me to do this. And they all fucking hate me, and none of them are going to vote for me.”
(pp. 206-07)
fg potentially exposing a whole bunch of people to covid all day on 10/1 after receiving a + rapid test.
(pp. 276-77)
Just skimming through this and obviously barely scratching the surface. There’s no index! At some point I’m going to have to sit down and actually read this before another one of these books comes out
which probably will be tomorrow
Are you ready for the punchline?
Originally tweeted by George Conway (@gtconway3d) on July 10, 2021.
Now go back and read what he said about the Trump staff…
I don’t know what game he and KellyAnn are playing and frankly I don’t care anymore. It’s one of many mysteries of this era but far down on the list of importance.
Update:
I try not to post every outrage of the day because it’s just so tiring. Besides, that’s what twitter is for. But, come on. This is absurd:
A 19-year-old woman was charged with a hate crime after allegedly “stomping on a ‘Back the Blue’ sign” at a gas station in Panguitch.
According to the affidavit of probable cause, a Garfield County police officer was conducting a traffic stop for speeding at a gas station when the officer saw a woman “stomping on a ‘Back the Blue’ sign next to where the traffic stop was conducted, crumble it up in a destructive manner and throw it into a trash can all while smirking in an intimidating manner towards me.”
The officer writes they asked the woman where she had gotten the sign, and she stated it was her mother’s. According to the affidavit, the officer told the woman that the local Sheriff’s Office produced those specific signs and that they believed “she had acquired it in our community.”
After reading the woman her Miranda rights, the officer stated she gave “inconsistent stories” about where she found the sign, eventually stating she found it on the ground.
“Due to [the woman] destroying property that did not belong to her in a manner to attempt to intimidate law enforcement, I placed her under arrest,” the affidavit says.
According to the affidavit, the allegations are being treated as a “hate crime enhanced allegation” due to “the demeanor displayed by [the woman] in attempts to intimidate law enforcement while destroying a ‘Pro Law Enforcement’ sign.”
The Utah Code states a person who commits any primary offense — such as misdemeanor property destruction — with the intent to “intimidate or terrorize another person or with reason to believe that his action would intimidate or terrorize that person” is subject to a class B misdemeanor primary offense becoming a class A misdemeanor.
The code also defines “intimidate or terrorize” as “an act which causes the person to fear for his physical safety or damages the property of that person or another.” According to the code, the act “must be accompanied with the intent to cause or has the effect of causing a person to reasonably fear to freely exercise or enjoy any right secured by the Constitution or laws of the state or by the Constitution or laws of the United States.”
The woman faces up to a year in prison or a fine of up to $2,500.
It has to be a joke, right? An unarmed woman exercising her right to free speech by tearing up a sign caused a cop to fear for his physical safety? Or is it that it’s a hate crime to tear up a sign?
But hey, in a country where changing the name of Mr Potatohead is considered tantamount to political repression and asking people to wear masks during a deadly pandemic is worse than sending them to the gas chamber, I guess this makes sense.
The thing is that this isn’t about some campus brouhaha or even poor old Trump being denied his twitter. It’s the cops doing this. The state. And they are being egged on by the same people who violently attacked the cops on January 6th.
We are one screwed up country.
Looks like there’s some rumbling in the First Family In Exile:
It’s DONALD TRUMP’S most frequent complaint: people profiting off his name. The latest offender? His son’s girlfriend, MAGA’s own Eva Perón, KIMBERLY GUILFOYLE. Aides told Playbook that Trump has been openly griping that Guilfoyle joined ERIC GREITENS’ campaign for Senate in Missouri as national campaign chair, and he’s becoming increasingly short with Guilfoyle.
“Trump thinks Greitens is problematic, and that Kim is annoying,” said one Trump adviser. “He said, ‘Why the f— is she working for him?’”
Another adviser said Trump would not endorse Greitens if the primary were today, citing the scandal that forced him to resign as governor three years ago: allegations that he tied up, sexually assaulted and blackmailed a St. Louis hairdresser with whom he had an affair in 2015. A March poll conducted by Trump’s former pollster TONY FABRIZIO shows Greitens with a 40-point lead over the next closest contender.
Trump has been huddling with other candidates in the competitive race to replace GOP Sen. ROY BLUNT, including Rep. BILLY LONG (R-Mo.), who paid homage to him at Mar-a-Lago this spring, and Missouri A.G. ERIC SCHMITT, who visited Trump twice, once at Mar-a-Lago and another time at Bedminster this year. One Trump adviser said Greitens has the disadvantage of being associated with MIKE PENCE because his former chief of staff, NICK AYERS, ran his gubernatorial campaign.
Multiple advisers said Trump has been concerned that attaching Guilfoyle’s name to Greitens will look like an implicit endorsement from him. The first warning it would not came in a Washington Examiner story in April by David Drucker about Guilfoyle’s new gig. It said her affiliation with Greitens would not even mean an endorsement from her boyfriend DONALD TRUMP JR., let alone his father.
Since then, there’ve been signs that Guilfoyle is on the outs: She’d been nudging Trump’s team to join the Make America Great Again Action super PAC before finally being added to its roster late last month as national finance chair. NYT’s Maggie Haberman reported this week that both RUDY GIULIANI and his son ANDREW have also been pressuring Trump to support Greitens.
Guilfoyle wrote in a text that the notion that she and Trump are at odds is false.
Guilfoyle IS annoying, that’s for sure. But I think the real news buried in this little family saga is that one of the reasons Trump doesn’t like Greitans (it can’t really be the sex scandal — I mean …) is because he’s loosely affiliated with Mike Pence. This grudge is strong.
By the way, Junior will dump Kim in a heartbeat if daddy tells him to. I’m not sure she would care. Greitans is more her type of guy anyway. Recall:
Her 2018 dismissal from Fox News, reportedly over sexual harassment allegations, make her a pretty lousy bridge between women and the president, who has himself been credibly accused of sexual misconduct and rape, all of which he has forcefully denied. But new details about her alleged firing reported by the New Yorker’s Jane Mayer on Thursday would seem to disqualify her entirely.
According to Mayer, Guilfoyle was abruptly booted from Fox News’ The Five well before her contract was up after her former assistant filed a complaint alleging she “was frequently required to work at Guilfoyle’s New York apartment while the Fox host displayed herself naked, and was shown photographs of the genitalia of men with whom Guilfoyle had had sexual relations”
The draft complaint also alleged that Guilfoyle spoke incessantly and luridly about her sex life, and on one occasion demanded a massage of her bare thighs; other times, she said, Guilfoyle told her to submit to a Fox employee’s demands for sexual favors, encouraged her to sleep with wealthy and powerful men, asked her to critique her naked body, demanded that she share a room with her on business trips, required her to sleep over at her apartment, and exposed herself to her, making her feel deeply uncomfortable.
When the network began looking into the allegations in 2017 as part of its broader internal inquiry into sexual misconduct, Mayer reported, Guilfoyle offered her assistant money to keep quiet and threatened her with retaliation if she spoke up. The former assistant, who was not identified in the New Yorker’s report, was eventually paid more than $4 million by Fox News over the matter, and Guilfoyle was sacked.
It’s hard to see how hiring this woman benefits Greitans but any affiliation with Trump, is better than nothing, I guess, even if they all remind people every day that they are sexual assaulters. In fact, I guess that’s a selling point among the MAGAs.
There was one spot of good news amid the search for the dead in Surfside, Fla. A cat named Binx, who had lived on the ninth floor of the collapsed building, was found alive and reunited with his family.
“I’m glad that this small miracle could bring some light into the lives of a hurting family today and provide a bright spot for our whole community in the midst of this terrible tragedy,” Miami-Dade County Mayor Daniella Levine Cava told reporters at a press conference on Friday.
Levine Cava said a volunteer who feeds cats on the street recognized the cat in the vicinity of the building and brought the cat to an animal shelter, where it was positively identified.
Gina Nicole Vlasek, the co-founder of the Miami Beach cat rescue group The Kitty Campus, posted about Binx on Facebook. The cat was brought to the shelter on Thursday night after being found near the rubble, she wrote.
Friday “was one of the most amazing days,” she wrote, because “one of the survivors came to see the cat and to determine if it was her families cat and IT WAS!”
Apparently, they have set out lots of traps and volunteers are on the lookout for other animals that may have survived.
It’s the little things…
In a speech to the conservative gathering, Brooks, who is running for U.S. Senate with former President Donald Trump’s endorsement, stated, “Our choice is simple: we can surrender and submit, or we can fight back.”
Brooks invoked soldiers in the American Revolution who “fought at Valley Forge,” the site of one of the Continental Army’s winter encampments, adding, “that’s the kind of sacrifice we have to think about.”
Brooks has faced both a censure effort and a lawsuit from House Democrats for telling Trump supporters at a rally shortly before the Capitol riot, “today is the day American patriots start taking down names and kicking ass.”
Brooks asked attendees at CPAC on Friday if they are “willing to fight for America” and whether America is “worth fighting for,” declaring, “Do it! Do it! Do it!”
Brooks also painted a grim and hyperbolic picture of a country led by Democrats, telling attendees he has “never felt such fear for the future of our country” because “dictatorial socialists want to cancel America.”
Brooks, in his speech, reiterated his belief in Trump’s false claims that the 2020 election was stolen through widespread voter fraud. “They attack our republic by engaging in unparalleled voter fraud and election theft activities,” he said of Democrats.
Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-N.Y.) is suing Brooks and Trump, as well as Donald Trump Jr. and Rudy Giuliani, for their alleged roles in inciting the Jan. 6 riot. Brooks’ legal team has sought to dismiss the lawsuit by arguing Brooks was acting in his official capacity as a congressman and is thus immune to such civil litigation.
The far-right wing of the GOP made its presence known at the event on Friday, which featured booths selling merchandise promoting the fringe QAnon conspiracy movement and cards touting a “7-pt. Plan to restore Donald J. Trump in days, not years.” Attendees were also reportedly concerned about conspiracy theorist Alex Jones and white nationalist Nick Fuentes making appearances.
Since when do they do CPAC in the middle of the summer?
By the way:
Greg Sargent summarizes William Saletan’s analysis of Republican voting machinations:
Saletan writes:
All over the country, Republicans are tightening state election laws. They say they just want to prevent fraud, not stop Black Americans or other Democratic constituencies from voting. But there’s a simple way to test that claim: What do these Republicans think of early in-person voting? Unlike mail ballots, which in theory could be faked in ways that in-person ballots couldn’t (though in reality, mail ballots aren’t), early voting at a polling place is essentially identical, in terms of security, to voting on Election Day. So letting people vote early and in person doesn’t make it easier to cheat. It just makes it easier to vote.
Nope. Republicans want to stop that, too. Doesn’t matter if you are a legal voter or not.
By margins of 40-50 points, Republicans in Economist/YouGov polling “consistently said it should be harder.” Even via early voting, Saletan adds:
From the standpoint of preventing fraud, it makes no difference whether the period for early voting, whether in person or by mail, is long or short. Either way, the same risks and security measures apply. Yet Republicans want to constrict this period. In May, when a Reuters/Ipsos survey asked about “shortening the time window for early or absentee voting,” more Americans opposed that idea than supported it. But Republicans strongly supported it, 65 percent to 23 percent. In March, when a Des Moines Register poll asked about a proposal to “change the early voting period in Iowa with fewer days allowed to request and cast absentee ballots,” most Iowa voters rejected that proposal. But Republicans endorsed it, 71 percent to 24 percent.
In poll after poll, a third or more of Republicans oppose making early voting available for two weeks prior to Election Day.
When polls ask about “early voting” in general, the number goes up. Last month, in a Navigator survey, 47 percent of Republican voters opposed “expanding early voting access by requiring all states to offer 15 days of early voting.” In Texas, 60 percent of Republican voters supported “prohibiting counties from offering more than 12 hours a day of early voting during the last week of early voting.” In Pennsylvania, 59 percent of Republican voters favored a proposal to “ban early voting.”
They even object to counting votes “even if cast by eligible voters” if they end up voting in the wrong precinct on Election Day.
That phrase, “even if cast by eligible voters,” says it all. For many Republicans, and by some measures most Republicans, the crackdown on ballot access goes well beyond concerns about fraud. They object to people voting early, voting at alternative polling places, or getting Election Day off from work, even if the security measures are the same. They agree with Trump that “far too many days are given to vote.” That’s not a movement for ballot integrity. It’s a movement to constrict democracy.
This should not surprise anyone. I don’t know why some lefty nonprofit does not simply put in heavy media rotation the famous clip from 1980 of movement conservatism godfather Paul Weyrich stating for posterity, “I don’t want eveybody to vote.”
“Now many of our Christians have what I call the “goo goo” syndrome. Good Government. They want everybody to vote. I don’t want everybody to vote. Elections are not won by a majority of people. They never have been from the beginning of our country, and they are not now. As a matter of fact, our leverage in the elections quite candidly goes up as the voting populace goes down.”
The only democracy Republicans will endorse is one they can leverage in their favor by squeezing down the number of people who cast ballots. Their ideas are unpopular. Their economic policies have shrunk the middle class and kept real incomes stagnant (if not actively suppressed) since Weyrich gave that speech. Republicans are killing off their own voters by promoting resistance to vaccinations and masks. And they will take America down with them if they cannot rule it.
The only people they are fooling are the ones they are killing.