i think it is going catastrophically under-reported that the most likely reason bill cassidy may flip on RFK is because he's been told in no uncertain terms that he'll be murdered if he votes against him
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They’re more afraid of primaries than death threats, face it, they’re weasels and they’re in it for the notoriety and the insider trading and the free eggs (shut up, weasels fucking love eggs)
Yeah if it was death threats keeping them from voting how they wanted to, they could simply retire, or not seek re-election. I think they would LOVE for us to believe that though, I expect to hear that excuse a lot at some point in the future.
There are Rs who got crossways with Donald, and as a result were forced into retirement or voted out, but they didn’t suffer otherwise apart from being Donald’s occasional rhetorical targets. Which is a bit unfortunate for this particular narrative.
Yup. And Tom Thillis specifically has been fine being a thorn in Trump’s side for a long while now, he was def involved in taking down Robinson here in NC. He hasn’t suddenly become scared of death threats, he’s scared of losing a primary.
The GOP in NC has gerrymandered our state so that they can have almost veto proof control with minority of voters choosing them, but their extremism will keep costing them in statewide races. If they successfully primary Tillis and Cooper runs, lol. No Trump on ballot even better.
If we make it through this and there is the possibility of some accounting, maybe from FSB files, we're going to find that an unfortunately large number of Western pols have been bribed, blackmailed or threatened into compliance these past years.
Bow down to your orange Jesus, Lindsey. Kneel before his golden toilet. Sing praises to his holy combover. Kiss his tiny, tiny, fingers. Read from his book of lies (and more lies). Bless the virgin Melania. Drink from his cup of hate. Donald Trump is now your lord and savior & you are his bitch.
I have no idea what happens in the next few years, don't even feel confident making educated guesses like I used to. But it is not inconceivable that Putin's regime falls in the coming years.
I remember him saying as much. Maybe my memory is odd and I just saw it. He was going through airports and they were hounding him. He had to have security it was so bad.
So i think that this kind of thinking has been rampant among GOP electeds since 2017, but can we talk about the chance that so far, it has never amounted to anything more than implied threats? Hell, trump has been in the line of fire from his own constituents more often than any GOP congressman has.
the throughline with all of their actions is the same: depowering and isolating America, turning it into a failed state (and a platform to do the same to other countries), at the behest of their foreign masters
It would be really funny if all these crackpots he is putting in 25th amendment him. I know it won't happen, but it's nice to have a fun little fantasy every now and then.
I guess! Because yeah, I don't get it either. I assumed Trump would immediately forget about him the day after the election. But I guess some real PROMISES were made or something lol.
This has been kind of the surprise for me too. It seems kind of like Trump is more loyal to some of these folks than I’d had reason to suspect. Kind of expected him to stiff them once he won.
This is what I expected as well. Surely Trump can find another stooge as bad as Kennedy but with less baggage. Maybe because he lost on Gaetz he doesn't feel like he can lose another one.
Yeah. Although I said something like this and somebody said "it's important to him that he has a Kennedy" and the light dawned. He thinks this maniac has aristocratic glamor and star power! Possibly?
I mean I didn't even think he'd keep MUSK around. Which I guess means I really am still naive about just how much that level of money gets you lol. I never would have thought ANYONE would be in a room with that guy on purpose, money or not!
Gabbard is a feather in their cap since she is a “former Dem” (which we know is bullshit but is effective on a lot of people). A degree of this in RFK Jr as well
For Trump himself, I think a huge part of it is simply that it makes the people who care about good government really upset (including those in his first admin who held him back). Which I guess is a kind of dominance but not exactly the same. That it has real consequences is no matter to him.
Want to get back at Fauci and everyone else who pushed him to take actual public health measures? Appoint someone who will destroy everything they care about. Get back at Milley and the other generals who take service seriously? Appoint a drunken lout at DOD. Etc., etc.
"According to Suetonius’ writings, Caligula planned to make Incitatus [his favorite horse] a consul, the highest elected public official of the Roman Republic."
Agree and want to add that I wasn't worried about it two weeks ago when I thought it'd be like his first term. Put a goofball into office, beef with them and fire them after two months, replace w new goof, rinse, repeat. I'm not so sure it'll be like that again now. I don't know what it will be now.
The Elon Musk dimension of the second term is also unprecedented. Trump 1 was working within the nominations system not inviting cuckoos if not the government agencies to back door everything.
He's going to do terrible things that fit in with the fascist ideals of "survival of the fittest," and he's deeply compromised and susceptible to blackmail.
I think this has been a growing problem for years. I don’t think we fully understand how important RFKjr is to the moronic bro science crowd. Fuck Cheryl Hines too.
Cheryl Hines is an attention seeking clown. Her career in Hollywood is way past over (not that she really had one anyway) so of course she’s all in. I’m looking forward to RFK Jr. getting caught screwing his aide or a lobbyist. You know it’s going to happen…
Like all GOP, he would likely face threats of a primary challenger backed by Trump rhetoric and Musk dollars. They are all running scared against the Musk-Trump admin.
If these and other threats are true, the press needs to be more aggressive about asking reps if they are receiving death threats because staff may start leaking they are if this becomes a public issue.
This is probably true but I will again observe that a substantial proportion of US school board members got death threats from 2020-2021 and they mostly went about their business.
I don’t think a GOP senator could endure for one week what a board member or teacher in a progressive school district has to endure for their entire careers.
I think its more like death threats from the people who had Epstein killed, not just calls and threats from constituents. I still think they should vote against, but had this realization yesterday and, yeah, the architects of this whole thing are not letting any one person get in the way.
Seriously, I think this matters a lot. Silently acquiescing to death threats is letting fascism win. Resigning citing death threats at least makes it clear to the public the nature of their enemy. If you want to protect your family, leave politics. Staying in won't protect them.
Your family will not become safe if you vote to confirm RFK Jr. They will not become safe if you do everything you can to bring us a fascist regime. As long as you hold power, they will threaten you and those you love. Fight back or get the fuck out.
Then you're a better person than I am, I don't know if I'd be able to put the lives of elderly parents or young children on the altar of the greater good. I feel that one can only offer oneself on the altar. (And have a great-grandfather who did just that.)
If you can't do the job you're elected to do, you shouldn't do the job.There are plenty of people who can and do perform the job and their families are fine. Besides, if you think you're at risk in office, you're at risk outside it, too. Helping the people who want to kill your family isn't courage
Right, but if you can’t do the only job you are there to do, due to death threats, resign. Anyone incumbent in the House right now especially KNOW exactly what they signed up for and sought re-election to be there. They don’t have to say why they are resigning, but why stay?
Up until now I get that. But now it’s the country’s security. They are putting everyone’s lives at risk, including their families, by confirming Tulsi.
im not saying you're correct, but I'll just add that there was alot of rumors about just how Sen. Alexander changed his mind about evidence at the first impeachment
I think the most likely scenario is that Bill is a Republican, and like all Republicans he's a fucking ghoul out to kill us all for his own enrichment.
Even if there were “Good Republicans,” fascists ALWAYS purge their own ranks. There is no reason to count on anyone still in the party standing up to him.
Why are we giving this ghoul the benefit of the doubt? Why did ANYONE think for a second he wouldn't just immediately fall in line like all Republicans do every time? That he was one of the few to vote to convict Trump is meaningless, because again, the Republican party LIKES to have a few stooges
to point to now and then who dissent from the party line when it's utterly meaningless. That some of the idiot rabble of the party were mad at him is just proof that most Republicans are fucking idiot sycophants.
Everyone who has crossed Trump has gotten a flood of death threats, this has been happening since J6 at least, and it has received basically zero coverage.
"trump sickos are not his fault" is the flip side of certain dems' stance that they must 'meet voters where they are': a disbelief that politicians can actually change minds through leadership
I think this makes sense for threats from random lone individuals. Threats that are organized by a political faction to change the course of national governance need to be put on display for all to see.
Why would anyone think death threats aren’t being levied? It’s absolutely how upper Master Putin does business and Elon and Donnie John love doing their Masters Bidding
I don’t think it’s like this. I think it’s fear of MAGA base. Years back Graham spoke about it. Then a couple of senators who left after J6 spoke of the threats against them. They know Trump only needs to say certain things against them for the base to turn violently against
Putin regularly kills his dissident political opponents and naysayers. Sorry but it simply is NOT surprising this tactic is being used by two of his acolytes and the cult at large.
Yes, and it's a prison of their own making. They made a bunch of crazy promises to violent lunatics, and now that they have the trifecta the lunatics know who to lean on to get those promises fulfilled.
still a fucking disaster for the rest of us though, if there’s any hope of republicans becoming more sane/willing to stand up to Trump in the absence of threats, it should be pursued
I agree. It doesn't help at all that it doesn't seem like anyone making threats is ever punished? Have any of the people shutting down hospitals and schools been caught and punished? If so, I'm not hearing about it at all.
If that's true, voting for him will only make it *more* likely that he'll be murdered. Every act of acquiescence gives Trump and his gang more power. There's no logic by which confirming his nominees, especially his henchman as head of the FBI, would make Cassidy or anyone else safer.
They've had 8 years and roughly a thousand opportunities to check Trump's power - including blocking him from ever again taking office. Anyway, my point wasn't about what Cassidy is psychologically capable of but about the inevitable consequences of more acts of acquiescence.
You mean like those billionaires who lined up to be ambassadors?
Billionaires do NOT work.
They certainly do NOT work for "the people."
They work to enjoy US Secret Service protection overseas, while they have ensured their native country BURNS.
Yeah, I could see this. It’s why I’m also worried they may be able to jam through a terrible reconciliation bill that would ordinarily divide their caucus, despite a tiny House majority. If the penalty for opposing is possible death, it’s easier to get everyone in line.
Federal Protective Service seem to be telling people they're taking orders from Elon Musk and DOGE, judging from the way people talked about the effort to enter the USAID building yesterday.
But not a care in the world that RFK will be responsible for the death of a whole lot of other people including a bunch of kids and maybe even Bill Cassidy.
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We blew it. We failed. And now we're paying the price for that failure.
I hope we get a second chance. But I'm not sure we will. And if we do, I'm not sure it will go any better next time.
I guess we'll see.
I think about that a lot.
It's not a conspiracy, it's just inconvenient to acknowledge.
At least that's what Trump has told them.
And Gabbard? I dunno, maybe he thinks she's hot.
We really, really have to get this time machine fixed. https://www.historyinmemes.com/2024/04/18/did-a-roman-emperor-really-make-a-horse-a-senator/
There are Republicans that would loose their mind if Obama had someone from S Africa put in charge of 🇺🇸 Govt. to get rid of FBI,CIA & FDIC
If Rep. don’t stand up for USA,
it’s over.
National electeds in the GOP are just wimps.
Short-term, it reduces or eliminates the GOP's majority.
Long-term, some seats may even flip & permanently reduce the GOP's majority, or even flip the majority & control.
Everyone has a right to defend themselves.... EVEN those that are NOT magats
https://www.shreveporttimes.com/story/news/2025/01/31/louisiana-senator-bill-cassidy-faces-pressure-to-confirm-rfk-jr-from-own-delegation-clay-higgins/78081782007/
But while I think that's true for one individual, it doesn't seem to be working great for society that this is all hidden.
If Cassidy didn't want the responsibility then he shouldn't have taken the fucking job.
Every one is under duress as if they and their family will be killed or injured
He may be working to get his family out of the country if this guess is true
Billionaires do NOT work.
They certainly do NOT work for "the people."
They work to enjoy US Secret Service protection overseas, while they have ensured their native country BURNS.
“{faint whimpering sounds}” ~ spineless fuckers in the gop
- Kevin Roberts, engineer behind the presidential immunity clause and Project 2025 author