#david jolly

[tomorrowusa]

« Today's Republican Party has embraced American weakness. »

— Former Rep. David Jolly of Florida, who has quit the GOP, commenting on Republican office holders obsequiously groveling to Donald Trump and not calling out his pro-Putin and anti-NATO diatribes. At MSNBC (see video below).

Make it stick to them like gum on a sidewalk...

"Republicans are the party of American weakness."

The hidden slogan of MAGA is AMERICA WORST.

[sordidamok]

Florida Man Tells The Truth For Once.

[justinspoliticalcorner]

S.V. Dáte at HuffPost:

WASHINGTON — Donald Trump attempted a violent coup to remain in power the last time he was president, so why would he step down at the end of his term if he’s elected a second time, particularly knowing that prison may await him once he leaves office? To a range of increasingly alarmed authoritarianism scholars and Republican officials and consultants, the answer is simple: He will never leave willingly. “The signs are all there that he would not leave voluntarily,” said Heather Cox Richardson, a history professor at Boston College. “After all, he did his best to stay in office in 2021, sparking an insurrection to do it, and he has vowed to use the power of the presidency more forcefully in a possible second term.”

David Jolly, a former Republican congressman from Florida, which is now Trump’s home state, agreed that a second Trump term could mean the end of American democracy as it has existed for 236 years. “If Trump gets reelected, all bets are off on the Constitution surviving the tests he’ll throw at it,” he said. “His movement would support anything he tries, regardless of constitutional provisions.” “Trump is so unpredictable that anything could happen. Literally anything,” said GOP pollster Frank Luntz, who added that Trump’s hold on his base of supporters today is “even stronger and more intense” than it was in 2016. Trump’s campaign staff did not respond to multiple queries about whether he would honor the constitutionally prescribed end of his second and final term, but his statements through the years suggest that he does not see the Constitution as necessarily binding.

As the 2020 election approached, Trump repeatedly suggested that he was owed a third term, because so much of his first was consumed with a Justice Department investigation into his campaign’s coordination with Russia to help him win in 2016. And as Election Day grew closer and he lagged far behind Democrat Joe Biden in the polls, Trump floated a postponement of the vote because of the coronavirus pandemic — an idea quickly shot down by then-Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. More recently, while repeating his lie that the 2020 election had been “stolen” from him, Trump last year called for the “termination of all rules, regulations, and articles, even those found in the Constitution,” so he could be immediately reinstated as president. Despite this, many if not most Republicans ― even those who dislike Trump and think he betrayed his oath with his actions leading up to and on Jan. 6, 2021, when a mob he had incited attacked the U.S. Capitol to keep him in power ― believe that those who worry about a second Trump term morphing into a dictatorship are catastrophizing. [...]

Learning The Powers Of The Presidency

Trump’s authoritarian tendencies go back decades, but were not particularly noteworthy coming from a New York City real estate developer or, later, a television game show host. In 1990, following the brutal crackdown of protests in Beijing, Trump said: “When the students poured into Tiananmen Square, the Chinese government almost blew it. Then they were vicious, they were horrible, but they put it down with strength. That shows you the power of strength.” As he began campaigning for president in 2015, his rhetoric began to grow more ominous. He proposed rounding up every undocumented immigrant in the United States for deportation and banning the entry of all Muslims into the country. He also continued his public admiration for murderous dictators like Russia’s Vladimir Putin, even calling him a better leader than U.S. President Barack Obama. In 2016, Trump professed respect for North Korea’s Kim Jong Un for killing his uncle and others as a way to consolidate power. “It’s incredible. He wiped out the uncle. He wiped out this one, that one,” Trump said.

After winning the presidency later that year, Trump moderated his tone somewhat, and focused on bringing people into his administration he believed would win him respect. He recruited, for example, former Marine Corps Gen. James Mattis for defense secretary, Marine Corps Gen. John Kelly to run the Department of Homeland Security, and ExxonMobil chairman Rex Tillerson as secretary of state. Yet almost without exception, these well-regarded leaders wound up leaving after clashes with Trump, and the former president now attacks them personally as part of the “swamp” or the “deep state” that was supposedly always out to thwart him. As Trump’s term progressed, more and more of his original staff departed, to be replaced by those whose primary qualification appeared to be personal loyalty to him. By the final months, many of those in key roles had the “acting” qualifier in their titles — meaning they had not been confirmed to their jobs by the Senate. [...]

Making Fascism Great Again

Another “mistake” Trump will likely learn from was neglecting to fill the upper echelons of the military and the intelligence services with devoted acolytes. On June 1, 2020, when Trump exhibited his most authoritarian display to date by ordering the violent clearing of Lafayette Square across Pennsylvania Avenue from the White House so that he could walk to a nearby church to be photographed holding a Bible, he was accompanied by Joint Chiefs Chair Mark Milley and Defense Secretary Mark Esper. Both men within days apologized for their presence, calling it inappropriate. Trump and his top aides were incensed by what they considered disloyalty, which came on top of the military’s refusal to take part in crackdowns on protests across the United States in response to the murder of a Black man by police in Minneapolis. Those statements and positions, Boston College’s Richardson believes, were critical seven months later, when Trump understood that he could not depend on the military to back his coup attempt. “The resistance of the military to Trump’s demands three years ago, during the June 2020 crisis, was so crucially important,” she said. To this day, Trump and his allies disparage Milley, Esper and other top military leaders as disloyal — which all but guarantees that Trump, should he return to the White House, will work hard to have loyalists in those and other key positions by 2028, Steele and others said. [...]

And this time, Trump could have a much stronger incentive to not leave office. Although as president he would almost certainly be able to end any federal prosecution against himself, he would not have that power over criminal cases against him in New York and Georgia, the latter of which could potentially bring him decades in prison. They warn that if Trump has had four years to purge those loyal to the Constitution out of government — including the upper ranks of the military, the Justice Department, the Secret Service and the intelligence community ― and replaced them with those primarily loyal to him, then there will be no realistic way of forcing him to leave the White House when his term is up. “He will be attempting to appoint collaborators,” Eisen said. “If Donald Trump is elected president in 2024, there is literally no predicting the future of representative democracy in America. The one thing we can be sure of, if past is prologue, is that there is no length to which he would not go to remain in power, including attempting to delay or cancel the 2028 election altogether,” said Mac Stipanovich, a longtime Republican consultant in Florida. “The man is a no-kidding existential menace to the republic.”

HuffPost's S.V. Dáte explains why Donald Trump, if he gets elected again, would refuse to leave office if he is likely facing prison time, even though he legally cannot run for a third term.

If Trump would get elected again, democracy and the Constitution would be dead in the USA and dictatorship will reign.

[naphelion]

a very merry dadmas to those of you who celebrate

[northernfireart]

"And it's snowing! I love snow!" :D

[dooweeedooguy]

Since there are a lot of people who just watch New Who and dont watch Classic, I feel like I need to clarify this for ALL of you...

these two fine fellows, although they play the same character... ...they do NOT play the same character

...hopefully y'all understand w/o having me going into depth lol

[glendylucast]

Under The Tree, WIP

This is not a happy Christmas song what the hell, Ed Sheeran why? Why?

The final render might be different, but I love this final sketch, so you guys can have this.

Pose referenced by this Vos Videmus's render

[oautincorrectquotes]

Hook: have you heard of murphy’s law?

Charming: yes

Hook: have you heard of Cole’s law?

Charming: I have not.

Hook: it is thinly sliced cabbage

Charming: you remember I’m armed right?

[hooked-on-swanics]

Cackling at the realization that the opening title’s like token/icon/thing moving among the trees in S3E17 The Jolly Roger is, in fact, David’s truck, bouncing along— presumably with a clueless Henry behind the wheel. Bc iirc, the only notable thing that happens with David’s truck this episode is the demise of those mailboxes when he lets Henry drive it (in the hopes, as we know, that Henry will think they’re cooler than Killian and his stolen boat joyrides and his talking to Henry like a person)

Anyway it’s just so fun to me seeing what they chose to highlight in the title card animation for each episode. Sometimes it’s obvious, sometimes it’s silly, and sometimes it’s angsty and poignant with a hidden little extra touch of meaning when it’s touched on in such a prominent yet quiet place as the episode’s title theme, and this one just made me giggle

[tomorrowusa]

That distant boom you hear is Vladimir Putin's head exploding at frustration with the upcheck of the alliance led by President Biden.

Ret. Adm. James G. Stavridis, former Supreme Commander of NATO, commenting on this week's NATO summit in Lithuania and President Biden's visit to Finland – currently NATO's newest member.

Adm. Stavridis was in conversation with Joy Reid and David Jolly on MSNBC.

Putin's unprovoked and illegal invasion has had the direct opposite effect on NATO. The alliance is stronger than ever with the recent addition of Finland, impending addition of Sweden, and the eventual addition of Ukraine.

When Joe Biden was in Helsinki he stood in the same building where Donald Trump cowered before Vladimir Putin in July of 2018. That's the contrast Adm. Stavridis couldn't get over.

Biden was warmly welcomed by NATO allies and leaders of Nordic countries. That's a contrast to how other leaders openly made fun of Trump in 2019.

Trump keeping classified nuclear secrets next to his Mar-a-Lago toilet is a perfect metaphor for the current Republican attitude on national security and international stability.

[all-action-all-picture]

"It's a snapshot of a world that has disappeared". Referring to the "Everybody's Talking" sequence in Margate from the Only Fools and Horses episode The Jolly Boys' Outing.

First shown on UK television on Christmas Day 1989 but set over an August Bank Holiday weekend.

[starmaniamania]

Part 1 of Malaika's End-of-Starmania Behind the scenes documentary! (Posted Jan 2025)

[leoreadss]

What 2 and 7 have in common?

Did you know the question that runs around TikTok in which a person says that in an autism assessment one of the questions was 'what 2 and 7 have in common?' and the 'correct' answer is that they are both numbers?

Well my personal answer is that the 2 represents Aziraphale (soft and jolly) and the 7 represents Crowley (tall and snappy dresser), so the thing they have in common is that they are husbands of the most ineffable couple that humanity have ever seen since the beginning of time and before actually cause they were there.

[marchentraume]