George Rebane
[This article, sans update, was published here in the 25oct23 issue of The Union.]
Recently I attended a luncheon sponsored by a local Republican club that featured as speaker one of the party’s eight candidates for US Senate. She gave a barnburner talk outlining all the familiar iniquities of the Democrats both in Sacramento and Washington. Specifically, she reprised the Democrats’ work in
- Always raising taxes;
- Issuing more stifling regulations;
- Mismanaging the economy;
- Indoctrinating Neo-Marxism in the media, education, and entertainment;
- Watering down critical curricula in our schools – dumbing down students;
- Rewarding criminals and punishing victims;
- Promoting trans-gendering in schools, denying parental rights to raise their children;
- Maintaining wide open borders for illegal alien entry;
- Projecting foreign policy weakness, inviting bad actors to make war;
- Etc, etc.
The problem with her enthusiastic rhetoric was that her Republican audience knew all that stuff, and most could have given that speech themselves. What was sorely missing, and has been missing for years at such gatherings, is recognition of the dire straits the party is in, and what would be required for its resurgence in California.
Recounting the above list yet one more time is nothing but imitating a long-playing echo chamber which might be of interest to those conservatives who don’t pay attention to what is going on in the country and the world. The problem is that most of those folks don’t show up at such luncheons and meetings.
So, the Republican Party, irrelevant statewide and nationally chaotic, continues to ignore the fact that it can right none of the liberal and woke wrongs without first regaining its stature as a recognized can-do political force in the country. Endlessly repeating and pointing out the passing signposts to socialism has done nothing to change the direction of the country, and doing the same thing over and over again only confirms the definition of ignorance.
If Republicans are not putting their energies into planning and making progress on the party’s road to resurgence, then the rest of it will only be an ongoing stream of empty rhetoric growing weaker with the passing years.
[27oct23 update] An added thought. Given how other states are adopting our public policy insanities, California’s cancer has been aggressively metastasizing across the land. The reason is clear and hangs on ‘other people’s money’ that can best be understood in light of what Garrett Hardin (q.v.) taught us about the behavior of commons (more here and here). California has been very successful in taxing ‘the rich’, regulating the bejeezus out of everyone, and getting the feds to pony up every time we get our tit in a wringer, that it seems like a good idea for the folks in Ohio and Nebraska to copy. As our snowballing national debt attests, with everyone piling on, this commons awaits its inevitable fate.
rebanesruminations.com 
376 responses to “The Reprobate Republicans (updated 27oct23)”
George, to answer your question above regarding whether Republicans need to adopt he policies of democrats to regain favor in California, I would say no, but they do need to moderate many of their positions.
Republican positions today are even more restrictive than they were in the early 80s with Reagan….who I was no fan of, but was much closer to middle of American thought than California Republicans today.
In August you posted about proposed changes to the California Republican platform to soften their stance on abortion and same sex marriage, which the party then rejected at their convention in September. The whole point of that effort was to open more potential voters in the middle.
In my humble opinion these two issues plus immigration reform with DACA and a path to citizenship would need to be moderated to recapture many California voters. In the case of abortion that would be less than Roe but at least 24 weeks to catch more than 50% of voters. On same sex marriage it would need to be full approval. Frankly almost everyone below the age of 40 thinks this is a non issue including the vast majority of younger republicans. On immigration even most California Hispanic voters agree there needs to be better control at the border, but they think the people already here deserve fairer treatment, thus DACA and the path.
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Juan and Steve. The underlying premise is that the federal government can help the people of the USA. it is pretty clear at this point that such premise is faulty. Time to get rid of the majority of the federal government which is the source of the vast majority of our problems. Unlike during Reconstruction, federal intervention into our lives is unnecessary.
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“In my humble opinion these two issues plus immigration reform with DACA and a path to citizenship would need to be moderated to recapture many California voters”
My reading of GOP voters is they can do without those voters.
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“62% of Americans support Roe (and that is before Dobbs)”
That’s a moot point. Roe is dead.
“70% support achieving carbon neutrality”
It’s unclear to me there will be any votes in favor of middle class shivering and hunger.
“70% believe in stricter gun laws”
I don’t, and I’ve got guns. You?
“90% believe in mandatory universal background checks”
Those exist now for sales. Doesn’t work well, but I can live with them.
“66% support banning military style assault weapons”
Can’t do it. Sorry.
“60% believe in immigration reform that includes DACA and a path to citizenship for people already in the US”
That might have been true a few years ago, but NOT NOW.
“66% of Americans say democracy is in danger due to the January 6th insurrection”
-Bullshit… there was no “insurrection”.
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Frisch is hilarious. “If the Rs would just be sorta like Dems, they’d get more votes”
The fact is if the Rs in CA did everything that Frisch suggested, they would still be pounded as NAZIs, racists, etc, etc…
Frisch fails to acknowledge reality.
CA is losing population due solely to the Dems running the place into the toilet.
The Dems are now doing complete 180s on policy, due to rampant crime and loss of quality of life issues.
Frisch can’t understand why CA conservatives don’t just give up their principles and get along with the insane folks so they can get elected.
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From The Guardian:
Lewiston police have named Robert Card as a “person of interest” and said he should be considered “armed and dangerous”. An active manhunt involving hundreds of officer is under way.
Card is a firearms instructor at a US army reserve training facility in Maine, according to a state police bulletin seen by the AP news agency.
SO, that guy is beyond the reach of civilian gun laws.
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He was also just discharged from a mental hospital. Shootings are symptomatic of our mental health problem in this country. Fix the mental health problem and now no more shootings. Government does not work because it often seeks to cure symptoms rather than the disease.
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But of course, there is no “fixing” the mental health crisis… there will always be someone in a mental health crisis, and there is no practical way to assure it isn’t someone who is a firearms instructor in the U.S. Army.
So, a show of hands, please… who wants to turn in their guns?
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That Card guy is in a lot of trouble. He brought a firearm to “gun free zone” businesses.
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What guns? We don’t have any guns🤷🏻♂️
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The mental health problem is cured by giving people hope so that they can find meaning and purpose in life. Our government destroys hope by screwing up the economy, by over spending, by driving our issue into massive debt. The American people are good people and don’t need an overbearing government. The experiment in technocracy has been an epic failure. It is time to get back to individual liberty and away from collective control. Individual liberty builds hope. It is the only answer.
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I think both Scott and Greg have missed the whole point of my post, you don’t have to convince me that you are not racist nazis, or even the California democratic party, or even individual democratic party candidates, you need to convince the voters, and that is the epic fail that George originally posted about. The California Republican party has failed to create a narrative that convinces the majority of California voters that they can govern effectively, will represent their interests, and will have their backs. That is the reality…it is why they are in the minority.
When Greg counter argues the polling results above with HIS perception of them its an exercise in individual futility..it does not matter what he believes it matters what the voters believe and act on.
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It is difficult to govern from the middle when the left is siphoning off money from the top.
Yes, I am sure you think YOUR perception of polling results is the truth… but then you think that “assault weapons” are something you can have banned.
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Debating the gun issue here is derivative to George’s original post.
“If Republicans are not putting their energies into planning and making progress on the party’s road to resurgence, then the rest of it will only be an ongoing stream of empty rhetoric growing weaker with the passing years.”
I ask what is your plan for the road to resurgence?
I have given you a pathway–be more relevant and in touch with the voters demographics, values, and priorities.
I don’t think you can do that in a state where 47% of registered voters are democrats compared to 23% republican, where the number of independent voters are beginning to decline, where 47% of decline to state voters lean democratic and 26% lean republican, and where 45% of the electorate are non-white, without making some substantial changes to be more relevant.
You might start by not blogging in support of the Oath Keepers who are sitting in prison now, the positive attributes of slavery, and sounding like you fell off the John Birch bandwagon in 1962.
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Referring back to George R’s original post, the Dems are blamed for things I don’t think you can attribute to one political party – but I understand it plays well in the media.
A snapshot of the economy cannot be solely attributed to the party in power at that time.
I imagine the economy is like a large oil tanker, once it has momentum in a certain direction it can take a decade for a course correction to be notice.
“When Jimmy Carter took office in January 1977, unemployment had reached 7.4 percent. Carter responded with an ambitious spending program and called for the Federal Reserve (the Fed) to expand the money supply. Within two years, inflation had climbed to 13.3 percent.”
https://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/disp_textbook.cfm?smtID=2&psid=3360#:~:text=When%20Jimmy%20Carter%20took%20office,had%20climbed%20to%2013.3%20percent.
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Looks like I called it in my 24 October 2023 at 10:42 PM.
Mike Johnson not only wants to control women’s vaginas, he wants to control what people do with their assholes.
“In 2003 Johnson wrote: “There is clearly no ‘right to sodomy’ in the Constitution. And the right of ‘privacy of the home’ has never placed all activity with the home outside the bounds of the criminal law.”
The wacky MAGA doodle contingent like Mike, and I guess the rest of the Republicans in the House were just to exhausted and wanted to get back to work to care how much of an extremist Johnson is.
Just another example of why the Republicans keep losing.
“Sodomy” and “sodomite” are some of the ugliest words in the English language. They of course are derived from the Canaanite city of Sodom, whose destruction along with Gomorrah is related in Genesis 19. Most people assume that homosexuality was the grounds for this divine retribution and that this is the reason that gay men have been branded “sodomites.” The word itself, used as implying a sexual sin, does not appear until A.D. 395 in letters between Saint Jerome and a priest Amandus, but the details of the act and the nature of the sin are not explained.
A growing consensus about sexual orientation is that it primarily genetically determined, so gays and lesbians may not have any choice in the matter. There are two alternative theological positions that follow from the conservative Christian position: (1) If homosexuals are inherently evil, then that means that God created them such; or (2) more orthodox and acceptable is the view that all humans are created in the image of God and all that God creates is good. Therefore, if God creates gays and lesbians the way there are, then God must intend that they are an integral part of the human community.
Interestingly enough, Jesus did not interpret the sin of Sodom as sexual. First, Jesus says nothing specific about the sin of homosexuality anywhere in the Gospels. He does of course speak of sexual sins, but all of us, regardless of our sexual orientation, commit a few of these. Second, when Jesus instructs his disciples to preach in the towns of Israel, Jesus warns that those who do not receive them peacefully will be judged more harshly than the people of Sodom and Gomorrah (Matt. 10: 5-15).”
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Posted by: Individual Anal Pleasure| 26 October 2023 at 01:26 PM
Jeez jeffy……put anything you want up your butt, assuming it will fit of course ….no one here cares!
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au contraire fishes on dope, Mike Johnson wants you to bend over so he can discipline you.
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Posted by: Juan’s Chocolate Starfish| 26 October 2023 at 02:12 PM
Funny…..if somebody dares criticize fat, middle aged men shaking their equipment at children you’re there to defend them. Same now with homosexuals even though it really wasn’t the focus of the thread just something you desperately, desperately wanted to interject.
Does your wife know yet?
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Frisch 1136a
“You might start by not blogging in support of the Oath Keepers who are sitting in prison now, the positive attributes of slavery, and sounding like you fell off the John Birch bandwagon in 1962. ”
I have never blogged in support of the Oath Keepers, have never written of the positive attributes of slavery and eschew Bircherisms. Thanks for not noticing… you’re batting .000.
However, there is brand-spanking new case law that is running roughshod over the thirty year old state Assault Weapon (and the large capacity magazine) ban… it’s unconstitutional. Period.
I can’t wait until a new AR-15 in 6.5 Grendel is under the xmas tree for me. Not this Christmas, maybe next.
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I was addressing George, so I’m still batting 1000.
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In your dreams.
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There is a realignment coming. It is gonna be epic. Buckle up.
https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2023/10/26/politics/us-strikes-facilities-syria/index.html
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I think Barry is correct that there is a realignment coming,
It’s the realignment of former Republicans and Independents who support American democracy and responsible constitutional governance with Democrats to protect the nation from authoritarian rule. Democrats should welcome this realignment to save the Republic.
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The realignment is certainly between those who value liberty and those who side with authoritarian rule. I would beg to differ on your assessment, however. Democrats support technocracy and the leviathan government. Establishment Republicans support the same thing but a lighter version. These people are not progressives, as they support a return to that which spawned our birth – tyranny of government. Progress is the advancement towards individual freedom combined with self-restraint not a return to government control of the people of ancient times. Only partisan Republicans and partisan Democrats support their respective parties at this point. The realignment in the USA started this week with the new speaker Johnson. It is the culmination of efforts since the Tea Party to reign in government spending and control. The century long era of big government has proven to be a failure and will die a slow and exhausting death, but the government will not go out without a fight.
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“who support American democracy and responsible constitutional governance…”
Lefties are so cute when they talk about the Constitution.
We do not have an “American democracy” – we have an American Republic.
Democrats want mob rule with the Constitution being merely a loose outline that can be interpreted so vaguely as to be almost meaningless.
Democrats today have become the tyrants our founders got rid of.
And far too many Rs want to join along just a few steps behind.
Our Republic was a grand and ambitious experiment that is succumbing to the exact pressures that the founders warned us of long, long ago.
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SteveF 1136am – Did you make up the part about Oath Keepers?
Given the current make-up of California’s population, I know of no effective plan for GOP resurgence. We are way too far gone to work for a reasonable comeback. The only solution for makers (individuals and businesses) is to separate themselves from the takers, hence the exodus. The state is irretrievably in the tank. (See also update to above post.)
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“It’s the realignment of former Republicans and Independents who support American democracy and responsible constitutional governance with Democrats to protect the nation from authoritarian rule.”
So, people who formerly were Republicans and formerly were independents are becoming Democrats in order to govern according to Democratic principles.
We now have “election deniers”, “climate deniers”, “COVID deniers” in order to give license to our overseers (Democrats) to ignore opinions they want to run roughshod over.
Now we have Democrats aligning with the real Holocaust deniers in looking the other way when Jews are again slaughtered. Never again means never again, folks.
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“It’s the realignment of former Republicans and Independents who support American democracy and responsible constitutional governance with Democrats to protect the nation from authoritarian rule.”
Protect American democracy sounds so good, doesn’t it?
Steve could taste victory with the latest struggle for the Speakership… but no Democrat reached across the aisle. Surprise, surprise.
How much should folks in Truckee shiver this winter? Steve?
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Well, the shooter in Maine is no more. He offed himself in a trailer at a recycling company he had worked at in the past.
So, people, how do you write gun law that protects against soldiers who go nuts?
A gold star for the forehead of Lauren Boebert who challenged the suitability of folks who think AR stands for automatic rifle for writing gun laws… this may be my first citation of her saying something appropriate.
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How is this for a solution to my poser above?
“A well-regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.”
Any objections?
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Losing their own team in a big way –
Progressive commentator calls out San Francisco as ‘terrifying’ ‘nightmare’: ‘You’re going to get robbed’
‘But you know what else isn’t effective? Using taxpayer money, funneling it to non-profits so they can literally buy crack pipes,’ Ana Kasparian claimed
Progressive political commentator Ana Kasparian pulled no punches in her assessment of how bad liberal mecca San Francisco has become thanks to rising crime, homelessness, and Democrat policies.
During the latest episode of businessman and commentator Patrick Bet-David’s podcast, the “Young Turks” co-host called the California city a “nightmare” and warned visitors, “Your car’s going to get broken into, okay? You’re going to get robbed.”
The conversation began with Bet-David bringing up Kasparian’s X post from last month in which she claimed, “California is without question a shit show under Newsom. But I guess propping up proven failures is what the Democratic Party excels at these days.”
Kasparian, a Los Angeles native, told the podcast’s co-hosts she believes her hometown and California still have “a lot of potential,” but added, “there have been some policies implemented that have been disastrous.”
She took aim at Gov. Gavin Newsom, D-Calif., and the state government, stating, “So, Gavin Newsom and the current Democratic legislature in the state of California have engaged in this trend of decriminalizing everything and refusing to regulate things.” She mentioned that the state government has done this with prostitution, for example.
“No one is safe, everyone’s angry, and you see all sorts of terrible stuff happening right there in broad daylight in the middle of the street.”
“They did the same thing with drugs,” she continued, adding, “So what do you see in California? A bunch of people shooting up, OK? And smoking crack all over the place.”
Kasparian added, “I’m sorry, I’m not interested in seeing that! I don’t think we should be, you know, dealing with that on the metro system. Why do taxpayers have to deal with that?”
“The Young Turks” co-host then tore into San Francisco: “San Francisco is terrifying. And it’s hilarious to me because the business community there wants to put lipstick on a pig. They want to put out this $4 million ad campaign pretending as though everything in San Francisco is all hunky-dory.”
Kasparian wasn’t finished. She added, “I mean, it’s just not right. There are certain issues that we’ve had for a long time – the drug war was a failure, and so going back to the drug war I don’t think is going to be effective.”
She then asked, “But you know what else isn’t effective? Using taxpayer money, funneling it to non-profits so they can literally buy crack pipes and hand them out at skid row.”
Kasparian has made waves in recent months as a progressive tired of failing leftist policies and talking points. During the summer, she ripped leftists for promoting “gender-affirming care” – or transgender medical procedures for minors – stating that puberty blockers can cause “irreparable harm” to children.
More recently, the commentator ripped the left for obsession with race and gender, stating, , “The biggest ‘change’ that some of you might have noticed with me is that I’m done with the identitarian garbage. I’m done with it. It is a giant distraction.”
https://www.foxnews.com/media/progressive-commentator-calls-san-francisco-terrifying-nightmare-youre-going-get-robbed
😉
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Why Republicans keep losing
If we tax billionaires too much, they won’t be able to buy the essentials they need, like NFL franchises, islands, and tax deductible think tanks founded exclusively to legitimize fringe beliefs about how billionaires shouldn’t have to pay taxes.
The CBO says that the House’s Israel aid bill is not offset at all. It will add 12.5 billion to the deficit in the next decade.
Cuts to the IRS will decrease revenue by 26.7 billion.
Ken Paxton, that fine and slightly impeached Texas representative of the DOJ, admit in a tv interview and on Tucker Carlson’s little thing that he blocked the counting of 2.5 million mail-in ballots from Harris county and if he hadn’t Biden would have won Texas.
The only way Republicans can win is by manipulating and limiting the rights of the public to cast their vote.
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So, Jeff 720a, that’s why half a billion Zuckerbucks was spent buying registrars of voters in 2020?
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Gregory seems to forget that his guy Trump is the biggest political loser in modern history. Biden , not my personal choice, will win easily. Trump is the only thing that keeps the dems afloat. He’s a dream come true for them.
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There you go again. Run out of warm and fresh donkey jizz?
Trump will be your president too, Punchy. Yours, mine and George’s.
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So Gregory believes that Trump the loser is going to be our next President. Gregory, will you oppose Trump in this election?
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The polls don’t seem to agree with you, Punch. He isn’t “Trump the loser” with anyone of consequence.
Unless something happens, Trump is rolling towards the presidency. I don’t know who I’ll be voting for… mainly because I don’t know if there will be a Libertarian on the ballot worth voting for.
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Wishful thinking Gregory. Trump could be in the slam by then. His history is that of being a loser the only President in modern history to lose the House, Senate and re-election in one four year term. Many things will happen between now and then including the resolution of over 90 felony indictments. He’s the best ting the Dems have going right now. He’s using the election as a fundraiser for his legal bills in case you haven’t heard.
“Trump’s Save America leadership PAC reported more than $24 million in expenses over the first six months of the year, with the vast majority of those costs – more than $21 million – going toward legal consulting for Trump and his associates.”
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Throwing the leading GOP candidate for President in jail in an election year would cement our status as a mature Banana Republic, while cash flows from places like China and Ukraine into Biden family accounts from the family monkey business, selling access to the Big Guy.
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Here’s some light reading for punchy:
https://themessenger.com/opinion/biden-family-loans-hunter-influence-peddling-foreign-money
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…..punchy doesn’t read links.
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the links then come to punchy!
“In July, Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) released an unclassified FBI record which included allegations to the agency of Biden and his son, Hunter, being paid $5 million each by a Ukrainian energy executive when the senior Biden was vice president. Most of the media has shown an utter lack of curiosity in following the money. However, the House Oversight and House Ways and Means committees have made strides in tracking millions of dollars which they allege were sent to Biden family members through a labyrinth of shell companies and accounts.”
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Can you show me the proof that there were cash flows from places like China and Ukraine into Biden family accounts ? It is a fact that Trump is under indictment for 91 felonies and that is now in the courts. Show me the indictments against the Biden Family Gregory.
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What a simple creature.
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I know Pablo, “The Circle” is suffering from a bad case of mind warp.
On rightwing media Hunter rumors run 2 to 1 to presidential candidate articles, that is how obsessed the right is about all the Hunter “smoke”.
Who are the crack addicts…the right wing is blowing way more Hunter crack smoke than the recovering Hunter is.
Just another indicator that the rightwing has flipped their clown car into a ditch.
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It isn’t about Hunter crack smoke.
Thanks for chiming in, Jeff, but drop the clown car meme next time.
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“Finally, on June 30, 2020, the source was reinterviewed and delivered the bombshell allegation that he/she had been told by Mykola Zlochevsky, the owner of Ukrainian energy company Burisma, that he had paid then-VP Joe Biden and Hunter bribes of $5 million apiece to get a Ukrainian prosecutor fired.”
https://nypost.com/2023/10/29/opinion/anatomy-of-a-biden-family-coverup-executed-by-our-own-fbi-and-doj/
None of this is new to folks who have been paying attention.
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Show me the indictments against the Biden Family Gregory. Trump has 92
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Show me the guilty verdicts, before and after appeals.
This is election interference, pure and simple. You’re afraid of the people voting in Trump again.
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