Any LGBT+ Republican individual out here?

[laguyinhou]

On 2/14/2024 at 9:43 PM, hntnhole said:

One particular failed US policy stands out to me:  I simply cannot understand why Biden lets Netanyahu push him around, along with Blinken and all the rest.  How can the US allow itself to be so closely associated with what amounts to genocide of innocent kids, families, starving for the barest of necessities.  More, where are all the hundreds of thousands of these unfortunates - herded South - supposed to go when the IDF determines it's time to blow up all the refugees too? 

I know that the election is coming up.  There are about 6.5 million Jewish folks in the US, and about half that number of Arabs, I know Biden needs the liberal Jewish vote, and maybe he can figure out a way to win MI, which is home to many of Arab descent. 

But really ... Clearly Nettie believes that the Trumpanzee will give him all the rope he needs to lay waste to half the Levant unless he's voted out of office in Israel first.  I don't understand what appears to be Biden's "kid-glove" handling of the ongoing and expanding crises in the Middle East. The current state of affairs in that area is - to my mind anyway - simply inexcusable, and our diplomats do not seem able to wring one scintilla of cooperation out of the Israeli War Cabinet.  

 

Biden has always used old school diplomacy-quietly urging Netanyahu to stop. Fort Bend County, Texas was the first Democratic Party org in the nation to pass a ceasefire resolution, and the Texas Democratic Party followed suit. Now, we're seeing more and more county and state Dem parties call for ceasefire, which is EXACTLY what Biden needs. It shows the Dem Party at large sees ceasefire as the only viable path forward.

However, Netanyahu is-and always has been-an authoritarian. Hopefully the criminal investigation working its way through Israeli courts will result in him being removed. I hold some hope for this, as the judiciary and population at large wants a ceasefire. Netanyahu is another Trump, and he has a whole group of his own magats.

All I know is this: the soul of our country is at stake. The choice on the ballot this November isn't Trump or Biden, it's Christofascist theocracy or democracy-and if the former wins out...many of us won't see 2030. 

[viking8x6]

9 hours ago, laguyinhou said:

All I know is this: the soul of our country is at stake. The choice on the ballot this November isn't Trump or Biden, it's Christofascist theocracy or democracy-and if the former wins out...many of us won't see 2030.

IMO if the former wins out, most of us will see 2030... to our sorrow.

[suBBcuBB4DOMBBear]

On 2/11/2024 at 8:33 PM, barefucker44 said:

I dont trust Nikki

I don't trust her either. A waste of a campaign. 

[suBBcuBB4DOMBBear]

Just wanted to add my voice in here. I fully plan on voting R in November. I'm tired of the roadblocks to common sense infrastructure in security. I also don't want war. Amazing how I used to consider myself liberal. Thank you all for adding your voices here.

[hntnhole]

15 minutes ago, suBBcuBB4DOMBBear said:

Just wanted to add my voice in here

Thanks for your input. 

I think every viewpoint is equally important, regardless of which side of the aisle one aligns oneself with.

[suBBcuBB4DOMBBear]

1 minute ago, hntnhole said:

Thanks for your input. 

I think every viewpoint is equally important, regardless of which side of the aisle one aligns oneself with.

I agree as well. Just cause I have a viewpoint doesn't mean that I am right. And I like learning from other men as to why they feel the way they do. That said, I'm absolutely voting R in November.

[BootmanLA]

I do find it interesting that so often, the voices most clearly supporting Republican policies tend to belong to relatively new accounts (I mean, literally, the ONLY forum in which @suBBcuBB4DOMBBear has posted, so far, is this one, and ONLY on this topic). It's almost as though someone were creating accounts specifically to come articulate a point at odds with most of the members here (which, to be clear, is certainly a right anyone can exercise).

But again - as @hntnhole and @viking8x6 and so many others have asked: why? What policies - and not nebulous, generic, bland statements like "commonsense infrastructure in security" - do you think will be different, and beneficial to society, under a Republican administration? And more importantly, why do you think those policies are more important than, enough to outweigh, the clearly documented anti-LGBT positions that the GOP is itching to implement - and that the Dobbs decision should demonstrate they WILL implement, as soon as a conservative Supreme Court allows them to?

[BootmanLA]

Here's another morsel to chew over: For decades, the Voting Rights Act of 1965 (as amended and re-enacted repeatedly) bars discriminatory practices in elections, including voter registration, districting, or any other election-related laws, and it provided two main methods for enforcement - that is, ensuring that states provided fair elections.

Section 5 of the VRA required certain jurisdictions with a history of voting rights violations (as defined in Section 4 of the VRA) to submit all proposed changes to election laws for preclearance, either by the US Department of Justice or by the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. That ensured that states couldn't just keep making minor changes to unconstitutional voting laws, and forcing the government to sue anew after every change, dragging out resolution of the underlying discrimination.

Unfortunately, while the Supreme Court long ago upheld the constitutionality of Section 5, in 2013 it decided Shelby County v. Holder, which held that the formula in Section 4 was too old to be legally relevant any longer, which effectively gutted Section 5. In theory, Congress could pass a new Section 4 with an updated formula that addressed only more recent discrimination, but Republicans in Congress are dead set against that, because - to no one's surprise - most cases of governments trying to violate the Voting Rights Act have been by conservative - which, in modern terms, means Republican - government officials. And again, to no one's surprise, Republican governmental officials went on a spree of passing new restrictions on voting after Shelby County, because there was nothing stopping them.

That leaves the second means of enforcement - Section 2, which allows lawsuits against governmental entities which enact  or administer discriminatory election practices. Historically, a large number of those challenges were filed by affected individuals - someone who lived in a district that was allegedly drawn in violation of the VRA. Or someone who would have to provide a different kind of ID to vote. It's been understood since the beginning of the VRA that individuals had that right - called standing - to sue. And in reports from both chambers of Congress accompanying passage of amended versions of the VRA, Congress has expressly declared its understanding that individuals can sue under this law.

But the Department of Justice can also sue to enforce federal laws, and some far-right legal minds have seized on this, claiming that since the statute doesn't specifically SAY that individuals have standing to sue, they can't. Only the DOJ can, according to this line of thought. And that is a huge problem, because the DOJ doesn't have the resources to bring lawsuits against every discriminatory election practice, even more especially now that preclearance is dead.

And a Trump-appointed judge in Arkansas, followed by an appellate court decision written by another Trump-appointed judge, have held that, in fact, Section 2 does NOT provide an individual right to sue. That's a decision the Supreme Court will almost certainly have to take up, because at least some other circuits have expressly held that individuals CAN sue under Section 2.

If this conservative-tilted Supreme Court - which is even more so than the one that decided Shelby County - agrees with this appellate decision, it will mean all but the most egregious discriminatory practices in election laws will go unchecked, because the DOJ just doesn't have the resources to sue in every case.

Which means more and more Republican state governments will pass laws to ensure they will ALWAYS win a majority in state elections (because it's so easy, with modern computer tools, to gerrymander a majority (or even a supermajority) in a state legislature even when the population of a state is much more evenly divided - or even when it leans more to the left. 

And one reason there are so many Trump-appointed judges willing to follow these fanciful legal theories is that in the last two years of President Obama's term, the US Senate (under Mitch McConnell's control) simply stopped approving judicial nominations Obama submitted, leaving scores of seats unfilled for the next president (including a Supreme Court seat that went vacant for a year). I suspect if Clinton had won in 2016, McConnell would have kept all those vacancies open for another four years - or until a Republican president was elected.

[NWUSHorny]

10 hours ago, suBBcuBB4DOMBBear said:

 Amazing how I used to consider myself liberal.

Trump has certainly scrambled the coalitions. The loudest MAGAs I know were proud Democrats 20 years ago or less. Whereas the staunch small government types with mostly libertarian social views that were once the core of the Republican coalition have been forced out of the party entirely.

[BootmanLA]

13 minutes ago, NWUSHorny said:

Trump has certainly scrambled the coalitions. The loudest MAGAs I know were proud Democrats 20 years ago or less. Whereas the staunch small government types with mostly libertarian social views that were once the core of the Republican coalition have been forced out of the party entirely.

The "former Democrats" who became MAGAts, in my experience, were the ones who always held views like "we need to do something about all THOSE people coming here" and "I believe in social programs but not when it's all wasted on THOSE people". They're the ones who cheered Reagan for denouncing mythical "welfare queens" and who thought Clinton's "welfare reform" was a great idea. A few came to realize, after Dobbs, that the MAGA/GOP group were serious about their threats about same-sex marriage and sodomy laws, but far too many still think "it won't happen" - just like far too many educated women voters felt comfortable voting for Republicans because they thought Roe was secure.

[hntnhole]

14 hours ago, BootmanLA said:

I do find it interesting that so often, the voices most clearly supporting Republican policies tend to belong to relatively new accounts

Actually, considering ^,  I wonder if our enemies have discovered this site, and are here trying to infiltrate, or worse, collect names .... should worse come to worse in November.

I would gladly cast my vote - on any level - for MR. BOOTMAN - should he run for office.  

[suBBcuBB4DOMBBear]

8 hours ago, hntnhole said:

Actually, considering ^,  I wonder if our enemies have discovered this site, and are here trying to infiltrate, or worse, collect names .... should worse come to worse in November.

I would gladly cast my vote - on any level - for MR. BOOTMAN - should he run for office.  

Hey, I'm just new. Sorry, I didn't mean to cause an issue. Just thought it was interesting that there was a topic for this. Sorry I couldn't reply earlier, but I was maxed out on daily message board replies. 

[barefucker44]

On 2/17/2024 at 1:19 PM, suBBcuBB4DOMBBear said:

Just wanted to add my voice in here. I fully plan on voting R in November. I'm tired of the roadblocks to common sense infrastructure in security. I also don't want war. Amazing how I used to consider myself liberal. Thank you all for adding your voices here.

There aren't too many classical liberals left or so it seems.  I have nothing against classical liberals, we need two voices, but most of the dem leadership seems to be anything but that.

[Heir2012]

I have a friend who is gay and votes Republican. We have good discussions in which we challenge each other, consider the other's views, and manage to end the conversation still friends. While our political views are important, we know how to exist outside of them as well. It's a tricky thing, but we manage. 

[suBBcuBB4DOMBBear]

2 hours ago, barefucker44 said:

There aren't too many classical liberals left or so it seems.  I have nothing against classical liberals, we need two voices, but most of the dem leadership seems to be anything but that.

Absolutely. Dem leadership has been disappointing to me to say the least. Dogma runs both ways. I don't consider myself any particular ideology. I just prefer what works without having to please the bases.