Freedom House: Impact of "long-term democratic decline has become increasingly global in nature."

Opening:

You don't understand, JFK HAD to have been killed by a conspiracy worthy of his importance.

It couldn't have been just a deranged "little Communist" as Jackie said.

The violent, abrupt and tragic end of Camelot demands a more important, powerful, sinister, and conspiratorial cause. That's what this is all about. That's what it's always been about (JFK assassination conspiracy theories). JFK could only have been killed by really powerful people, by this logic.

The sad, awful, and scary truth is that anyone of any importance or goodness can die abruptly in the most random, senseless, and petty way possible. It's hard for us to accept that, as human beings. But that's just how it is.

I think he said at some point that he was in Tyler, Texas giving speeches for his US Senate campaign

He was traveling a lot in those days. But if not, maybe he genuinely doesn't remember exactly where he was? I dunno!

Furthermore, both father and son George Bush are known for being excellent at remembering names and faces but terrible at remembering facts and dates. Dyslexia or something similar probably runs in the family - GHWB's third son (after Dubya and Jeb!) Neil Bush (the one who has gotten in serious legal trouble multiple times) was actually diagnosed with severe dyslexia as a child. Perhaps there's something going on there? Again, I dunno.

Both 41 and especially 43 were notorious for mangling the English language ("Bushisms" ). Perhaps they've likewise had issues with certain aspects of their memories, in addition to the lying, dissembling, half-truths, and pathological secrecy that comes with being a Bush.

Maybe GHWB was involved in some sort of covert op on behalf of the CIA or whomever on 11/22/1963 that's super-classified but had nothing to do with the JFK assassination. Again, who knows?

Remember how after 9/11 "the whole country" was "united" around Bush?

Just ask Bill Maher or Susan Sontag (oh wait, she’s no longer with us). Or Democrats who were running for re-election in 2002, or John Kerry in 2004. Or Phil Donahue or The Chicks (formerly known as The Dixie Chicks).

And lest we forget, many hundreds if not thousands of Muslim men in the US were rounded up and unlawfully detained in the days and weeks after 9/11. Some were tortured while in detention. Many immigrants were deported. Families were torn apart, and people lived in fear. Guilt by the most tenuous of association, to put it mildly.

Hate crimes against Muslims and people who “looked” Muslim (notably Sikhs) escalated after 9/11. The Bush administration itself was directing law enforcement to infiltrate mosques and aggressively question Muslim families. John Ashcroft created what amounted to a Muslim registry long before Trump threatened to in the 2016 campaign.

Muslim children were told by their classmates that they or their parents were responsible for 9/11 and should “go back to where they came from.” Many teachers and parents tolerated and even encouraged this abuse.

Meanwhile, Congresswoman Barbara Lee got tons of hate and death threats for daring to vote no on the blank check given to Bush by Congress to fight a permanent war on “terror.”

All of this was facilitated by the mainstream media, and mainstream politicians. The “uniting” was a uniting in fear of the Muslim “Other” and revanchist, aggressive, violent jingoism.

“But America is so POLARIZED these days! Can’t we unite around BIPARTISANSHIP?”

No offense, but the last time there was across the board bipartisanship in American politics, the US launched an unprovoked and illegal war of aggression and an open-ended “war on terror” (which in practice was a war on Muslims, and others who were deemed “Other”, foreign, and ”un-American”). The last time there was strong bipartisanship, the US government was torturing human beings in black sites without charge. The last time there was strong bipartisanship, Dick Cheney was at the height of his power. The last time there was strong bipartisanship, the road to President Donald Trump, Charlottesville, QAnon, and January 6 was being aggressively paved.

Take one look at those people in that other party and tell me again that Democrats need to be more timid, more respectful, more polite, more BIPARTISAN. Please.

I’m sorry, but I can’t and won’t unite with people who want people like me, a left-liberal and Democrat, literally dead. I just can’t. I’m not forgiving enough for that.

Hey all, think Lincoln should’ve been more conciliatory and “bipartisan” with the Southern secessionists? Why was mean old Abe not willing to “compromise” with the Confederates?

/rant

Kinda like how after 9/11 "everyone" was "united" around Bush. Bill Maher? Susan Sontag? Oops.

And lest we forget, many hundreds if not thousands of Muslim men in the US were rounded up and unlawfully detained in the days and weeks after 9/11. Some were tortured while in detention. Many immigrants were deported. Families were torn apart, and people lived in fear. Guilt by the most tenuous of association, to put it mildly.

Hate crimes against Muslims and people who “looked” Muslim (notably Sikhs) escalated after 9/11. The Bush administration itself was directing law enforcement to infiltrate mosques and aggressively question Muslim families. John Ashcroft created what amounted to a Muslim registry long before Trump threatened to in the 2016 campaign.

Muslim children were told by their classmates that they or their parents were responsible for 9/11 and should “go back to where they came from.” Many teachers and parents tolerated and even encouraged this abuse.

Meanwhile, Congresswoman Barbara Lee got tons of hate and death threats for daring to vote no on the blank check given to Bush by Congress to fight a permanent war on “terror.”

All of this was facilitated by the mainstream media, and mainstream politicians. The “uniting” was a uniting in fear of the Muslim “Other” and revanchist, aggressive, violent jingoism.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't the GOP propped up by the dark money of like five billionaires?

If I, a nobody with no particular expertise, know this, surely the Biden-Harris administration and all of the Democrats in Congress (and their staff) know this too, yes?

Shouldn’t there be a comprehensive and aggressive campaign against Republicans on this issue? I can’t imagine having a handful of unbelievably wealthy people covertly buying our democracy so they can destroy it (and profiteer even more as a result) is popular among many voters across the political spectrum. But again, I’m not an expert.

Marjorie Taylor Greene praises Louis Farrakhan and NoI for espousing COVID conspiracy theories.

The recent allegations regarding extensive Trump and GOP complicity in 1/6 are both shocking...

…and completely unsurprising.

Is there a word for that? Trump did it all the time. Normalizing the grotesque, the horrific. From the very moment he went down his stupid fucking escalator in June 2015 to call Mexican immigrants drug dealers, murderers, and rapists, and it got worse from there.

Scratch that, go further back, to 2011 when he promoted Birtherism on mainstream media platforms, and it got worse from there.

No, scratch THAT, go further back still, to 1987, when he placed multiple front-page ads in New York newspapers calling for the death penalty for five black and Latino teenagers who had been wrongfully convicted for the brutal rape of a jogger in Central Park. And it got worse from there.

It just keeps getting worse with Trump, and the Republicans in general, from Nixon to Reagan to Gingrich and the Bushes and Cheney to Palin and the Tea Party crazies, to Trump and all the literal Nazis and the QAnon fanatics and all the other MAGA cultists...

Republican/Trump/Right-Wing Horror: always shocking, never surprising.

"I guess these people are more upset about the election than you are."

- Donald Trump to Kevin McCarthy, on January 6, 2021.

He's plotting a comeback, a "Restoration" if you will. He very nearly destroyed our democracy the first time around. We can't let him come back in three years, or ever.

Stay safe.

Exposing the big money behind the American Far Right - we need a master list.

Off the top of my head:

Peter Thiel
Robert and Rebekah Mercer
Koch network
Rupert Murdoch
Adelsons
Steve Mnuchin
Wilbur Ross
Walton family
Scaife Foundations
DeVos/Prince dynasty
Joseph Coors’s family
Art Pope
Bradley Foundation
John M. Olin Foundation
US Chamber of Commerce

Many others I’m surely forgetting. Who are some of the other big players? Some of them are more local than others…but all of them bankroll the worst political movements in our country, enemies of democracy, friends of the Trump Crime Family.. .