Tuesday, February 22, 2022

IF McCONNELL DISAPPROVED OF RICK SCOTT'S NEO-BIRCHER AGENDA, IT WOULD NEVER HAVE BEEN RELEASED

Rick Scott, the chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, has just released an extreme-right policy document ahead of the 2022 midterms. He and the leader of the Republicans in the Senate, Mitch McConnell, would like everyone to believe that this is all Scott's idea, and that McConnell is not endorsing it. Politico falls for this:
Rick Scott pushes own GOP agenda as McConnell holds off

Senate Republican leaders have no plans to release an alternative agenda as they try to win back the majority this fall. So Rick Scott is pursuing his own plan.

The Florida Republican senator is devising a conservative blueprint for Republicans to enact should they win Senate and House majorities this fall. Among Scott’s priorities: completing the border wall and naming it after former President Donald Trump, declaring “there are two genders,” ending any reference to ethnicity on government forms and limiting most federal government workers — including members of Congress — to 12 years of service.

It’s a bold move for the first-term senator and National Republican Senatorial Committee chair. But Scott said the 31-page GOP agenda he’s crafted is separate from his work chairing the party’s campaign arm, adding that it’s “important to tell people what we’re gonna do.” It’s a clear break from Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, who has declined to release a GOP agenda heading into the midterms.
People who should know better, like this Media Matters reporter, are falling for Scott and McConnell's good-cop/bad-cop act:


McConnell knows how to play this game. He knows that this document will rally the base with its pounds and pounds of red meat. Yet he also knows that it might put off swing voters a wee bit, so he's declaring that Republican senators and Senate aspirants are, by and large, the souls of moderation -- nothing to be afraid of! It's the same rope-a-dope Glenn Youngkin pulled off in Virginia, when he made sure that Trumpist and culture-war voters knew he was a Trumpist and a culture warrior, while he fooled suburbanites into believing that he was just a moderate dad in fleece.

This document is a nasty piece of work. While Democrats sing hymns of praise to bipartisanship, Scott tells us:
The militant left now controls the entire federal government, the news media, academia, Hollywood, and most corporate boardrooms – but they want more. They are redefining America and silencing their opponents.

Among the things they plan to change or destroy are: American history, patriotism, border security, the nuclear family, gender, traditional morality, capitalism, fiscal responsibility, opportunity, rugged individualism, Judeo-Christian values, dissent, free speech, color blindness, law enforcement, religious liberty, parental involvement in public schools, and private ownership of firearms.
It's practically the Protocols of the Elders of Liberalism, and this is just the preamble.

The education plan? Recite the Pledge of Allegiance every day -- that's mandatory, as is standing for the national anthem. No teacher tenure. "Voluntary prayer" (which, to the right, always means coerced prayer) can't be prevented. No "political or social indoctrination" in our schools (although every student must be taught "to love America because, while not perfect, it is exceptional, it is good, and it is a beacon of freedom," which is totally not "indoctrination").

It gets worse. "Government will never again ask American citizens to disclose their race, ethnicity, or skin color on any government forms" -- or, in Jamelle Bouie's paraphrase, “we will make it illegal to measure racial inequality or try to ameliorate it.”

Scott wants to "strengthen qualified immunity" for police officers. He wants to "force prosecutors to prosecute" -- if I'm reading this correctly, he wants the federal government to override the judgments of state and local elected attorneys general.

Scott wants to build the wall and name it after Trump. He wants Georgia-style election laws nationwide. He wants a drastic reduction in non-military spending: "Other than disaster relief, the federal government must stop spending money on non-essential state and local projects until the budget is balanced." His plan is unswervingly anti-abortion, completely supportive of adoption agencies that discriminate against LGBT parents, and brutal toward trans people.


There's also this:
All Americans should pay some income tax to have skin in the game, even if a small amount. Currently over half of Americans pay no income tax.
This is the only item on the Scott agenda to which I can imagine an objection from D.C. Democrats -- possibly.


All this toxicity, and today's gold medalist in the missing-the-point Olympics is Maggie Haberman:


This much nastiness and that's your takeaway, Maggie?

Republicans hate us. They hate us if we're non-white, they hate us if we're LGBT, they hate us if we're women and not traditionalist, they hate us if we vote for the "Democrat Party" for any reason -- and they will crack down on us mercilessly if given half the chance. That's the correct takeaway.

This should be treated as an official party platform, because that's what it is. It's yours, too, Mitch. Don't try to slither away from it.
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