Norm Ornstein and Thomas Mann "the Republican party has become "an insurgent outlier"
Last edited Sun May 6, 2012, 04:18 PM - Edit history (1)
Norm Ornstein and Thomas Mann on PBS Newshour interviewed about their book: "It's Even Worse than It Looks":
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/politics/jan-june12/congress_05-03.html
THOMAS MANN: We do believe there are two profound drivers of our dysfunctional politics.
The first is the mismatch between our political parties that are parliamentary-like, ideologically polarized, internally unified, and set on destroying the other. But the second factor, which is, frankly, overlooked in the press among pundits, by scholars and almost everyone else, is that one of our political parties, namely the Republican Party, has become an insurgent outlier.
They are ideologically extreme, contemptuous of centuries worth of policy, economics and social, scornful of compromise, no use much for facts, evidence, and science, and really not accepting of the political legitimacy of the other party. That makes a big difference.
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= new reply since forum marked as read
People continue to hope they can get something for nothing, that others are "out to get them", and of course the biggest fraudulent idea: problems ignored will go away. Then there is the famous concept of "the Big Lie": If you are going to tell people a lie, make it a Big one (they'll be less likely to question it) - and keep repeating it. Eventually, people will accept it as the truth because everybody keeps repeating it as if it's the truth. - Adolf Hitler.
Watching Fox News network makes people stupid - University study - the Alternet
(all emphases my own_Bill USA)
Yet another study has been released proving that watching Fox News is detrimental to your intelligence. World Public Opinion, a project managed by the Program on International Policy Attitudes at the University of Maryland, conducted a survey of American voters that shows that Fox News viewers are significantly more misinformed than consumers of news from other sources. What’s more, the study shows that greater exposure to Fox News increases misinformation.
So the more you watch, the less you know. Or to be precise, the more you think you know that is actually false. This study corroborates a previous PIPA study that focused on the Iraq war with similar results. And there was an NBC/Wall Street Journal poll that demonstrated the break with reality on the part of Fox viewers with regard to health care. The body of evidence that Fox News is nothing but a propaganda machine dedicated to lies is growing by the day.
•91 percent believe the stimulus legislation lost jobs
•72 percent believe the health reform law will increase the deficit
•72 percent believe the economy is getting worse
•60 percent believe climate change is not occurring
•49 percent believe income taxes have gone up
•63 percent believe the stimulus legislation did not include any tax cuts
•56 percent believe Obama initiated the GM/Chrysler bailout
•38 percent believe that most Republicans opposed TARP
•63 percent believe Obama was not born in the U.S. (or that it is unclear)
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Of course, when the vote doesn't go your way - have riot (google "Brooks Brothers Riot"
to stop the accurate counting of the votes - and then have your partisans on the Supreme court for the first and only time in the U.S.A.'s history abort an election and appoint your puppet tothe Presidency.
The Miami "Riot Squad", where are they now? - WaPo
[link:http://www.huffingtonpost.com/shannyn-moore/artificial-protestors-are_b_254276.html|Manufactured Protestors are Killing Democracy
]
Monday, January 24, 2005
As we begin the second Bush administration, let's take a moment to reflect upon one of the most historic episodes of the 2000 battle for the White House -- the now-legendary "Brooks Brothers Riot" at the Miami-Dade County polling headquarters.
This was when dozens of "local protesters," actually mostly Republican House aides from Washington, chanted "Stop the fraud!" and "Let us in!" when the local election board tried to move the re-counting from an open conference room to a smaller space.
With help from their GOP colleagues and others, we identified some of these Republican heroes of yore in a photo of the event.
Some of those pictured have gone on to other things, including stints at the White House. For example, Matt Schlapp, No. 6, a former House aide and then a Bush campaign aide, has risen to be White House political director. Garry Malphrus, No. 2 in the photo, a former staff director of the Senate Judiciary subcommittee on criminal justice, is now deputy director of the White House Domestic Policy Council. And Rory Cooper, No. 3, who was at the National Republican Congressional Committee, later worked at the White House Homeland Security Council and was seen last week working for the Presidential Inaugural Committee.
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http://www.wsws.org/articles/2000/nov2000/riot-n29.shtml
(all emphases my own_Bill USA)
On November 22, a violent crowd of about 150 Republican Party protesters rampaged through Miami's County Hall after the canvassing board decided to concentrate its recount on the approximately 10,000 “undervotes”—ballots for which no presidential choice had been registered by the original machine count. The Republican demonstrators banged and kicked on the doors and windows of the 19th floor office where the board had moved the count, as well as physically assaulting a number of Democratic Party representatives on the scene.
Not long after the Republican rampage, the board decided to stop its manual recount of the county's presidential ballots altogether. The hand recount had been authorized the previous day by the Florida Supreme Court. It is widely acknowledged in the press that the board's action meant that hundreds of votes, mostly for Democratic candidate Al Gore, went uncounted as a result.
These facts have been barely reported in the media because they provide further proof that the Republicans and Bush have been working relentlessly from Election Day on to gain Florida's 25 electoral votes by means of voter intimidation and fraud. One of their key strategies has been to stop the counting of votes. The press, however, has been quick to legitimize the Republicans' tactics. At a press conference organized by the Gore campaign on Tuesday one reporter asked the Democratic candidate: “In terms of your challenge in Miami-Dade, what is wrong with Republicans showing up at the election canvassing board and expressing their displeasure at the process?”
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