California May Have a Random Celebrity Republican as Governor Soon

[Elixir]

Mayhem, chaos, pain and suffering - all major parts of the Retaliban toolkit.
THE CRUELTY IS THE POINT

Are you kidding me? Its hardly just a Republican thing. Many here on this forum seem to take delight in the Covid-19 deaths of anti-vaxxers, especially several prominent right wing radio hosts. Physician heal thyself.

Disagree--we like seeing them hoisted by their own petard. We don't favor general cruelty.

Exactly. The death of right wing talk show hosts is no cause for sadness in any case; they are major purveyors of false news, conspiracy theories and even wars when convenient. But it's not a yuk yuk all by itself.
But when they are anti-vaxers who die of COVID, it's just too ironic to refrain from at least a snort or a sniggle.
I think I'd react in similar fashion if an anti-parachute lib'rul jumped out of a plane and splatted himself on the pavement.
The cruelty is NOT the point, the irony is the point.

 

[Jason Harvestdancer]

Mayhem, chaos, pain and suffering - all major parts of the Retaliban toolkit.
THE CRUELTY IS THE POINT

Are you kidding me? Its hardly just a Republican thing. Many here on this forum seem to take delight in the Covid-19 deaths of anti-vaxxers, especially several prominent right wing radio hosts. Physician heal thyself.

Disagree--we like seeing them hoisted by their own petard. We don't favor general cruelty.

Disagree. You personally don't seem to generally favor cruelty, but there are definitely some in this forum - nay, this very thread - who obviously do It is as if they drink some magical elixir of cruelty each morning.

 

[Lumpenproletariat]

None of the alternate candidates is any good. However, the least objectionable is Major Singh.

Paffrath is the most impressive, but he's too much of a back-slapping "Get to know me!" celebrity promising everything but the moon, while Singh is serious and much more modest and realistic about the limits. (And anyway, since Singh wears a turban, you prove you're not a bigot by voting for him.)

The California recall is something which offers a slight hope for change, so it's good to encourage it, and maybe in a future recall there will be a serious candidate to vote for.

In the meantime, the replacement governor will not be substantially worse than the incumbent. Elder is at least right about opposing the minimum wage law and labor union domination of the government.

It's good to recall virtually any Governor and send a message, in any form possible, that some kind of change is needed in the public decision-making system.



Should GAVIN NEWSOM be recalled (removed) from the office of Governor?

⬤ YES

〇 NO


Candidates to succeed GAVIN NEWSOM as Governor if he is recalled:

Vote for ONE

〇 JOHN R. DRAKE (D)

〇 LARRY A. ELDER (R)

〇 KEVIN PAFFRATH (D)

〇 ADAM PAPAGAN (I)

etc.

⬤ MAJOR SINGH (I)

etc.

〇 JEFF HEWITT (L)




Perhaps a better choice is to omit voting for any replacement candidate at all -- leave it blank. There should be more than only 46 choices, like in the 2003 recall when there were about 150.

Ordinarily a Libertarian would be a good choice, but right now any Republican or Libertarian victory would be taken as an anti-vaxer victory and rejection of mask or vaccination mandates.

Adam Papagan would be OK, but his website is not quite serious enough. (Some of the candidates have no website at all.)

What we really need is a candidate who would pledge to step aside and have a committee do the executive functions, with the members of the committee chosen by lot.

Perhaps also a candidate who would pledge to institute a Direct Democracy Commission to study the possibility of instituting some form of direct democracy in the future and reducing reliance on charismatic speech-makers whose only qualification to hold power is their talent for pandering to the mob and power elites and manipulating audiences to vote for them.

There could be improvement in the recall procedure, but overall a change is needed in the direction of MORE direct control by voters, not away from it in the direction of further domination by demagogue speech-makers. So for now the recall system should be safeguarded and encouraged.

 

[lpetrich]

Mayhem, chaos, pain and suffering - all major parts of the Retaliban toolkit.
THE CRUELTY IS THE POINT

Are you kidding me? Its hardly just a Republican thing. Many here on this forum seem to take delight in the Covid-19 deaths of anti-vaxxers, especially several prominent right wing radio hosts. Physician heal thyself.

I remember when right-wingers mourned the death of Osama bin Laden. Except that that didn't happen. They did the opposite.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Mayhem, chaos, pain and suffering - all major parts of the Retaliban toolkit.
THE CRUELTY IS THE POINT

Are you kidding me? Its hardly just a Republican thing. Many here on this forum seem to take delight in the Covid-19 deaths of anti-vaxxers, especially several prominent right wing radio hosts. Physician heal thyself.

Disagree--we like seeing them hoisted by their own petard. We don't favor general cruelty.

Several right-wing radio hosts? That many have died recently?

 

[marc]

Disagree--we like seeing them hoisted by their own petard. We don't favor general cruelty.

Several right-wing radio hosts? That many have died recently?

At least 4 have recently.

Marc Bernier, Phil Valentine, Jimmy DeYoung, and Dick Farrel

 

[Jarhyn]

Disagree--we like seeing them hoisted by their own petard. We don't favor general cruelty.

Several right-wing radio hosts? That many have died recently?

At least 4 have recently.

Marc Bernier, Phil Valentine, Jimmy DeYoung, and Dick Farrel

Not to mention the fact that many of us express confliction in our feelings surrounding it, recognizing pointedly that our shaudenfruede is tragic, and not without bitter against the sweet.

Still, these deaths add all the more ammunition to my belief that death is a necessary aspect of life, and takes the monsters even as it takes the saints.

 

[TomC]

At least 4 have recently.

Marc Bernier, Phil Valentine, Jimmy DeYoung, and Dick Farrel

Not to mention the fact that many of us express confliction in our feelings surrounding it, recognizing pointedly that our shaudenfruede is tragic, and not without bitter against the sweet.

Still, these deaths add all the more ammunition to my belief that death is a necessary aspect of life, and takes the monsters even as it takes the saints.

Schadenfreude is the key word here.

I feel bad when someone with a history of drunk driving dies in a car wreck. But not all that much.
I feel much worse for the victims of drunk drivers.

They all died, or worse. But the people who broadcasted the opinion that vaccination was more dangerous than remaining unvaccinated,
sorry, I want your idiotic spew shown for what it is. Delusions of partisan grandeur, killing and maiming many people who were ill informed enough to believe you and your tripe.
Tom

 

[Jarhyn]

At least 4 have recently.

Marc Bernier, Phil Valentine, Jimmy DeYoung, and Dick Farrel

Not to mention the fact that many of us express confliction in our feelings surrounding it, recognizing pointedly that our shaudenfruede is tragic, and not without bitter against the sweet.

Still, these deaths add all the more ammunition to my belief that death is a necessary aspect of life, and takes the monsters even as it takes the saints.

Schadenfreude is the key word here.

I feel bad when someone with a history of drunk driving dies in a car wreck. But not all that much.
I feel much worse for the victims of drunk drivers.

They all died, or worse. But the people who broadcasted the opinion that vaccination was more dangerous than remaining unvaccinated,
sorry, I want your idiotic spew shown for what it is. Delusions of partisan grandeur, killing and maiming many people who were ill informed enough to believe you and your tripe.
Tom

Exactly. It's similar to a lot of tragedies of failed ethics. It's OK to be glad Japan surrendered while also being shocked by the abject horror of what happened to make that come about.

When you are on the wrong side of the border between good and evil, you still have to walk through the evil to get back to good, and the stain of that will add to the stain you previously got just by being thrown there.

It's all tragic, and all the more reason to do everything you can to avoid ever finding yourself in the situation to begin with.

To be sure, these deaths deliver our society away from evil, but the deaths still stain us. Nonetheless we are allowed to celebrate being a step further from that evil even as we mourn the stains we earned to get there.

 

[TSwizzle]

None of the alternate candidates is any good.

There are two or three candidates that would be fine for the short term.

However, the least objectionable is Major Singh.

You're having a laugh.

 

[Shadowy Man]

We should do away with normal elections and term limits and just have recalls whenever enough people are upset with how things are going. I’m sure that would make for a better functioning democracy, right?

 

[TomC]

We should do away with normal elections and term limits and just have recalls whenever enough people are upset with how things are going. I’m sure that would make for a better functioning democracy, right?

You're just making fun of Californians, aren't you?

Yeah, that's low hanging fruit.
Tim

 

[Politesse]

We should do away with normal elections and term limits and just have recalls whenever enough people are upset with how things are going.

No, no, only in the rare event that some people are unhappy that a candidate from "the other party" won the previous election.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

They all died, or worse. But the people who broadcasted the opinion that vaccination was more dangerous than remaining unvaccinated,
sorry, I want your idiotic spew shown for what it is. Delusions of partisan grandeur, killing and maiming many people who were ill informed enough to believe you and your tripe.
Tom

They were spreading a message of death. They got their own message. When someone hoists themselves with their own petard don't expect sympathy from me.

 

[lpetrich]

At the very least, California ought to have a runoff if none of the replacement candidates gets a majority of the votes. Just like what it currently does: a nonpartisan primary followed by a top-two runoff.

 

[lpetrich]

Latest Polls Of The California Recall Election | FiveThirtyEight
Holding firm at Keep 53.3% Remove 42.7%

Of Gavin Newsom's possible replacements, Larry Elder is at 22.3% and Kevin Paffrath at 8.3%. All the others are less than 5% each.

Larry Elder argues slave owners are ‘owed reparations’ during appearance on Candace Owens’ show

The Black conservative radio host argued that slavery was legal and slave owners deserve compensation

Conservative radio host and politician Larry Elder said during a July 18 appearance on Prager University’s “The Candace Owens Show,” that an argument could be made in favor of reparations for slave owners whose legal “property” was taken from them after the Civil War.

He noted that some slaveowners were indeed compensated when slavery was ended in some places.

Also,

Elder, who is in the midst of a campaign to replace California Gov. Gavin Newsom in the state’s recall election, has been in the news recently following accusations made by ex-fiancé Alexandra Datig who claimed Elder verbally and emotionally abused her.

In August, Datig told Politico about an alleged incident in 2015 where Elder took a .45 pistol out of a bedroom nightstand in an act of “silent scorn” and “anger” while the two were arguing.

Datig called it a “Phil Spector moment,” referring to the infamous record producer who shot and killed his girlfriend, Lana Carson, in 2003. “At the same time,” she added, “I’m also very fearless and, having grown up around guns, I didn’t take it seriously.”

Elder issued a statement denying any wrongdoing, as published by The Los Angeles Times and on social media.

“I have never brandished a gun at anyone,” he tweeted. “I grew up in South Central; I know exactly how destructive this type of behavior is. It’s not me, and everyone who knows me knows it’s not me. These are salacious allegations.”

 

[TSwizzle]

It is unfortunate that Elder is constantly touted as being ahead in the polls as he is quite a turn off to potential "yes" voters which works in Newsom's favor.

 

[TomC]

It is unfortunate that Elder is constantly touted as being ahead in the polls as he is quite a turn off to potential "yes" voters which works in Newsom's favor.

Is Elders ahead in the polls?

If he is, is an informed electorate a problem for you? It sounds like it is.
Tom

 

[lpetrich]

It is unfortunate that Elder is constantly touted as being ahead in the polls as he is quite a turn off to potential "yes" voters which works in Newsom's favor.

TSwizzle, what did you expect?

If Republicans wanted a candidate with a lot less baggage, they would have lined up behind him/her.

‘A complete shock’: the rightwing contrarian leading the California recall race | California | The Guardian

The outspoken libertarian radio talkshow host entered the recall campaign just days before the filing deadline. He has zoomed to the top of a long list of candidates running against the state’s Democratic governor – perhaps both despite and because of his divisive, contrarian politics.

Elder opposes the minimum wage and gun control. He’s said he doesn’t believe that a gender wage gap exists, and has called the climate crisis a “crock”. He has suggested that fatherless families drive up crime rates in Black communities. In three decades on air, Elder has made a name disseminating controversy.

His most extreme views are not only out of line with those of the majority of voters – but also with the views of many of the state’s Republicans.

...
Earlier this year, Elder blamed Barack Obama for the deaths of George Floyd and other Black men, writing that the former president should have encouraged citizens to better “comply with the police” to avoid being shot.

During the coronavirus crisis, he has given a platform to Covid-19 conspiracy theorists, including a self-identified physician who promoted the false claim that coronavirus vaccines were being pushed in minority communities as “population control”. Elder has said he has been vaccinated but has vowed to repeal California’s mask and vaccine requirements if he wins the governorship.

...
The radio host’s rightwing views and his repeated, deliberate bending of truth and statistics to support his views on crime and policing “are particularly problematic given the racial reckoning following the murder of George Floyd”, Erika D Smith wrote in a column for the Los Angeles Times.

“His policies are so opposite of what the majority of Californians believe,” Smith told the Guardian.

...
The celebrity pundit’s politics and policies are “in a lot of ways more consistent with the views of national Republicans” than California Republicans, said Corrin Rankin, the California GOP Central Valley vice-chair.

Then about how Trumpian LE is.

 

[lpetrich]

California recall: Larry Elder seeks to force out Gavin Newsom by advocating everything California opposes. - The Washington Post

“Gavin Newsom and his allies have painted me as some kind of an extremist,” Elder told The Washington Post after the San Diego stop. He answered questions via email, with the campaign citing his busy media schedule, including interviews with conservative commentators Candace Owens and Dinesh D’Souza. “They can’t defend his abysmal record, so the next best thing they can do is to attack and slander me.”

Elder entered the field just before the July 16 filing deadline, announcing on the Fox News show “Hannity,” an apt marker for how he would position himself. No other Republican in the recall had captivated conservatives. Suddenly, there was a chance to replace Newsom with one of the movement’s most prominent Black figures, who had appeared on the network hundreds of times.

Then on how Trumpie he is.

Newsom and the Democrats have worked particularly hard to make Elder unacceptable to women. In 2000, Elder cited male and female answers to a questionnaire to argue that “women know less than men about political issues, economics, and current events.” In a 2002 book, he laid out “legitimate business reasons” for employers to ask if potential employees planned to get pregnant.

Elder has recanted none of it, telling reporters that “government should not be intruding into the relationship between employer and employee.”

Other Republicans have barely registered, like San Diego Mayor Kevin Faulconer. He debated LE last month.

“I’m going to make sure that our California daughters have every opportunity given to our California sons,” Faulconer told reporters after a debate in Sacramento last month, calling Elder “unfit” to be governor. “If you’re going to take those positions, stand up and defend them.”

LE did not answer.

A campaign tailored to conservative voters has, in a few ways, moved Elder to the right. In a taped interview with the Sacramento Bee, Elder said that Biden had won the 2020 election “fair and square.” Within a day, he had asked conservative interviewers for a “mulligan,” saying falsely that there were valid questions about the result.

In golf, a mulligan is an extra shot allowed after a poor shot.

ast week, when the Supreme Court allowed a strict Texas abortion law to go into effect, Elder told reporters that with the Democratic supermajority in Sacramento, “there is zero possibility that all of a sudden those two-thirds [majorities] are going to suddenly become pro-life like Larry Elder.” Hours later, antiabortion activist Lila Rose tweeted that Elder had pledged to act on the issue, vetoing any abortion funding and appointing judges who shared his view. Elder’s campaign denounced the “scaremongering” but did not deny Rose’s specifics.

Seems like he wants to have it both ways, to promise to implement right-wing policies and to object to anyone making a big issue out of him doing so.

The next day, Elder told radio host Mark Levin that 88-year old Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) was in a “worse mental condition than even Joe Biden,” and he would replace her with a Republican should she die or resign when he was governor. Democrats pounced again.

“People spoke in the last election, and they said they wanted to send Democrats to the United States Senate,” Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) said at the Saturday rally with Newsom. “And Larry Elder says, just give me the chance and I’m going to turn all of that upside down.”