this post was submitted on 26 Dec 2023
301 points (98.1% liked)

News

23267 readers
3506 users here now

Welcome to the News community!

Rules:

1. Be civil


Attack the argument, not the person. No racism/sexism/bigotry. Good faith argumentation only. This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban. Do not respond to rule-breaking content; report it and move on.


2. All posts should contain a source (url) that is as reliable and unbiased as possible and must only contain one link.


Obvious right or left wing sources will be removed at the mods discretion. We have an actively updated blocklist, which you can see here: https://lemmy.world/post/2246130 if you feel like any website is missing, contact the mods. Supporting links can be added in comments or posted seperately but not to the post body.


3. No bots, spam or self-promotion.


Only approved bots, which follow the guidelines for bots set by the instance, are allowed.


4. Post titles should be the same as the article used as source.


Posts which titles don’t match the source won’t be removed, but the autoMod will notify you, and if your title misrepresents the original article, the post will be deleted. If the site changed their headline, the bot might still contact you, just ignore it, we won’t delete your post.


5. Only recent news is allowed.


Posts must be news from the most recent 30 days.


6. All posts must be news articles.


No opinion pieces, Listicles, editorials or celebrity gossip is allowed. All posts will be judged on a case-by-case basis.


7. No duplicate posts.


If a source you used was already posted by someone else, the autoMod will leave a message. Please remove your post if the autoMod is correct. If the post that matches your post is very old, we refer you to rule 5.


8. Misinformation is prohibited.


Misinformation / propaganda is strictly prohibited. Any comment or post containing or linking to misinformation will be removed. If you feel that your post has been removed in error, credible sources must be provided.


9. No link shorteners.


The auto mod will contact you if a link shortener is detected, please delete your post if they are right.


10. Don't copy entire article in your post body


For copyright reasons, you are not allowed to copy an entire article into your post body. This is an instance wide rule, that is strictly enforced in this community.

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
 

The Mackinac Republican Leadership Conference often lures a who’s who of GOP power players to Michigan. Wealthy donors shake hands with presidential candidates, who give rousing speeches to packed audiences in hopes of winning the conference’s straw poll.

The event is typically a money-maker for its sponsor – the Michigan Republican Party – helping to fund get-out-the-vote efforts and support campaigns to get Republicans elected throughout the state.

But this year’s conference was decidedly different.

The only presidential candidate to show up was Vivek Ramaswamy, who was mostly polling in the single digits. The line-up of speakers included failed Arizona gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake; Zuby, a British rapper who occasionally appears on Fox News; and, conservative provocateur Dinesh D’Souza, who ultimately did not show up.

The biggest draw was actor Jim Caviezel, a promoter of QAnon conspiracy theories, who had a hit movie this summer but is perhaps best known for playing Jesus in “The Passion of the Christ” movie 20 years ago. He was paid a $110,000 fee to attend and give a 25-minute speech.

The event, simply put, was “a disaster,” said Warren Carpenter, an active party member and former district chair.

top 18 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] FlyingSquid@lemmy.world 55 points 10 months ago (1 children)

If you had to sum up the nation's conservatives in three words, "incompetent dumpster fire" would be those three.

[–] ininewcrow@lemmy.ca 2 points 10 months ago (1 children)

I'd shorten it to just "dumpster fire"

[–] graveyardchickenhunt@lemmy.world 6 points 10 months ago

Incompetent seems pretty spot on since it can't even burn the trash.

[–] YoBuckStopsHere@lemmy.world 44 points 10 months ago

The current GOP is only funding Trump and the States get nothing. Almost like a Dictator or something.

[–] NABDad@lemmy.world 41 points 10 months ago (3 children)

I just listened to the This American Life podcast episode about this.

I enjoyed the schadenfreude, particularly listening to different people talk about how the new leader must be a deep-state plant put in place by the Democrats to destroy the GOP in Michigan. No, you dipshits, you voted for her to be your leader. You wanted someone who fully bought into Trump's lies about the last election, and (big shock) the person you chose is a complete moron.

There were also two Muslim dudes complaining that despite being elected to leadership positions in the Michigan GOP (they ran unopposed), they were cut out of involvement and planning. They claim it is because they are Muslim. The leader says it's not true, but they have screenshots of communications with her that back up their story. Got real "sheep desperately trying to support the wolf party" vibes from them.

We need more GOP organizations like this. Once the GOP has completely self-destructed, we can go to work on the Democrats, and maybe end up with a government that actually cares about people instead of billionaires.

I don't think it will ever happen, but it's still nice to see the GOP unwittingly destroying themselves.

[–] CluckN@lemmy.world 6 points 10 months ago

I think I heard that one, didn’t they have a volunteer who kept saying she was cooking the books and they were going broke? They asked for a comment and she replied with something weird like, “Why answer your question when I have questions?”.

[–] Ibex0@lemmy.world 3 points 10 months ago

Once the GOP has completely self-destructed

They're currently favored to win the WH and Senate. They already control the House and SCOTUS.

Self destruction has been predicted since Obama won in 2008, but they're doing pretty well.

[–] TransplantedSconie@lemm.ee 2 points 10 months ago

I'm listening to it now lmao

The idiots can be summed up in one line from one of the GOP members talking about their frustration:

"What I believe isn't fact. I don't know what I believe anymore."

[–] Kobol@kbin.social 32 points 10 months ago

This is older news (the Mackinac conference was months ago). Since then:

  1. Karamo and the state party attorney are attempting to sue the trust that owns the local GOP HQ so she can sell it to pay off some of the party debt.

  2. Comerica Bank says the party defaulted on a big loan

  3. a state GOP in-person meeting had their venue cancel due to threats of Israel-Gaza war protestors showing up. Karamo was radio silent to party members and announced an online meeting at the last minute. This pissed a ton of folks off because Karamo does this to control who can speak during meetings. Anti-Karamo party members organized a separate in person meeting where they discussed removing her.

  4. it's revealed instead of the usual millions of dollars the party would have leading into a presidential election year, the party only has around $35k and over $600k debt.

  5. her running mate joined the calls for her removal and the GOP is gathering signatures for her removal.

Latest local news on this infighting:
https://www.detroitnews.com/story/news/politics/2023/12/25/kristina-karamos-running-mate-wants-meeting-to-discuss-her-removal/72023000007/

[–] Neato@kbin.social 21 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (2 children)

The biggest draw was actor Jim Caviezel, a promoter of QAnon conspiracy theories, who had a hit movie this summer but is perhaps best known for playing Jesus in “The Passion of the Christ”

This film is The Sound of Freedom, for anyone wondering.

57%/99% on Rotten Tomatoes. And $250M worldwide gross vs a $14.5M budget. Jesus Christ.

[–] WashedOver@lemmy.ca 16 points 10 months ago

I recall early on reports that said domestic theaters were sold out online but empty in person in the opening weeks. I don't think I heard too much more than that on what was going on beyond baiting the early numbers to convince many this was a big hit.

Still 250M worldwide seems pretty impressive for a Qanon hyped up piece with the inspiration of the project being accused of sexual misconduct by 5 women and accusations of sexual groping of child trafficking victims in the process. But it turns out he had a Mexican judge state one of the victims was over 18 so the groping was a non issue? He was also resigned from the foundation he setup due to other issues.

Then one of the backers of the movie being accused of felony child kidnapping which was recently dropped I see due to a misunderstanding of the victim's families?

Amazing this movie got out of the gate with these issues. I do recall the theme being early on being if you didn't support this project you were a child abuser so it turns out that had a pretty big impact?

[–] mosiacmango@lemm.ee 3 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

To go deeper, this is a very fictionalized account of a "save the children" agent that has stated that he goes across the world and saves children from trafficing.

Of course, in typical GOP fashion, it come out that sexually harassed and abused often married coworkers, via unsolicited nudes and by coercing having ti have sex with him on "missions" as a "cover."

Also, the "child saving" was often a group of heaviky armed white men descending into a deeply poor and rural town flashing thousands of dollars to have young children brought to them, and its a point of contention that this might have generated new trafficking, not stopped it. The claims made about freed or saved people from the founder generally have no evidence or collaboration from anyone else, even the people saved.

He has since been ousted by his charity, and started a new one while denying all claims.

[–] Mediocre_Bard@lemmy.world 16 points 10 months ago

She appeared at MAGA rallies and ran a failed campaign for Michigan’s secretary of state in 2022 with false claims such as the notion that “authoritarians” inside the US believe “that if they can corrupt battleground election systems, they can control America. This nefarious plot is real and it’s happening.”

Yes. That is what she is doing.

[–] Blackout@kbin.social 14 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

I love how they grift each other. I also love how they elected a black woman to lead while being ignorant of the rampant racism with conservatives in this state. They all say they aren't and then in the next sentence say something disparaging about minorities.

[–] mateomaui@reddthat.com 11 points 10 months ago

and, conservative provocateur Dinesh D’Souza, who ultimately did not show up.

Hey, maybe things are getting better.

[–] douglasg14b@lemmy.world 3 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Oh look, the consequences of your actions.

Now that the consequences are reality and no longer predictions, think the voters of Michigan will realize their folly and self correct?

[–] Twentytwodividedby7@lemmy.world 5 points 10 months ago

What the fuck are you talking about? MI flipped blue for Biden and the House, Senate, and Governor all flipped blue

[–] Dagwood222@lemm.ee 3 points 10 months ago

This is the analogy I've been using for years.

Nixon's 'Southern Strategy' gave the base beer. Reagan upped the game and gave them grain alcohol punch, and George W. went with 100 proof white lightning. Trump gave them meth. You can have a functional alcoholic, but not a functional meth addict.