Republicans admit "We're blackmailed!" - David Brin

[ThoughtCriminal]

https://davidbrin.blogspot.com/2024/10/republicans-admit-were-blackmailed-plus.html

Remember Madison Cawthorn, the rising young Republican star Congressmember, who was suddenly dumped by the GOP, for revealing ‘orgies’ amid upper ranks of the party? That huge over-reaction - destroying him for offhand (and likely stoned) remarks on shock radio - reflected almost-certain desperation to silence truth; otherwise he'd a got a slap on the wrist.

But was it true? I've long posited that the behavior of so many top GOPpers – e.g. Lindsey Graham and Ted Cruz – can only be explained by blackmail. Mere corruption is insufficient, because any merely-corrupt official can say ‘that’s enough bribery for this year; if I keep saying more shit, I’ll look suspicious or insane.’
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Now, yet another Republican Rep has spoken out, even more explicitly than Cawthorn. Tennessee Congressman Tim Burchett warns that fellow Republicans in the House of Representatives have been lured into honeytraps with sex workers and drugs.
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[Arne]

1. Eyes Wide Shut.

[grumpyduck]

2. Lured into honeytraps?

If they weren't assholes to begin with, they wouldn't have been "lured."

[ThoughtCriminal]

3. In my observation

The more someone preaches morality, the more likely they are to be desperate to commit the sins they condemn

[2naSalit]

6. Or...

To cover them up.

[I_UndergroundPanther]

19. The Republican national convention

Comes to town sex workers and porn shops and porn video rentals are in very high demand. One Republican convention in Milwaukee crashed Grindr’s servers.

[ThreeNoSeep]

4. David Brin is an amazing thinker

Observant, talented and skilled in multiple disciplines.

[DBoon]

5. so much for the party of traditional moral values

[krkaufman]

7. GOP Congressman as source

Seems possible, but with a single GOP Congresscritter as source, I’d want a lot more vetting of the info.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

10. Two. Read the excerpt again (one ex-) . . . . nt

[Ned Low]

8. Yeah, probably...

... does anyone remember John Jenrette?

[Aristus]

21. I remember his wife and her...ahem...attention-getting antics.

[mwb970]

9. republicans can resist anything except temptation.

[markodochartaigh]

11. Cawthorn rear ended a police officer in Collier County

and a few weeks later he was made an honorary deputy in Lee County, just to the north of Collier County.

https://www.wcnc.com/article/traffic/madison-cawthorn-florida-trooper-car-crash-dashcam-video/275-4697f632-6bc8-4a87-b2ad-8f8dce1a595f

https://www.wfla.com/news/florida/ex-congressman-madison-cawthorn-made-honorary-deputy-in-florida/

[PurgedVoter]

12. David Brin is one of my Favorite Authors

The depth of his stories is nearly unequaled. He can give you the feeling that a nice solid book filled with details, is only a tiny slice of the history before the story and and that even more will happen after the story. Star Tide Rising was the first book I read by him, and it locked me in as a fan.

[ThoughtCriminal]

17. The uplift series was great

And his 1982 essay regarding the Fermi Paradox may still be one of the best explorations of the subject.


The Controversy Concerning Extraterrestrial Intelligent Life
https://adsabs.harvard.edu/full/1983QJRAS..24..283B

[PurgedVoter]

18. My own favorite theory is based entirely on humor.

Earth never stops talking and the more civilized races in the universe all consider it rude to interrupt.

A second and more likely theory is based on accurate timing. With accurate timing a carrier wave is not needed to transmit data, and the amount of energy needed is considerably less. Without the key, at a distance it would be hard to extract information from background noise.

There is another good possibility. It is quite likely that our radio visibility will be nearly gone in less than a hundred years. As we are now mostly cable and moving to optical cable a lot of our signals are becoming quiet at a distance. 5g as far as I know would only be detectable from a relatively close distance and would require large arrays pointed in our direction and located in the right place. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/is-e-t-eavesdropping-on-our-phone-calls/

So if other races match ours for technical progress, the window to spot them may be short and relatively small.

[JoetheShow]

13. If you look up republican in the thesarus it will "see coward"

I'm sure there is an element of power hunger in their acceptance of the orange Jesus but I think cowardice explains most of it. TSF is an outsider. He is a way to get the judges and crazy/bigot vote but I think most of it is fear. All it takes is a few phone calls or threats of shootings and a hammer to the head of the Speaker's husband. Suddenly all the cowards get in line or fall silent.

[Upthevibe]

14. bookmarking - Re: Blackmailing....n/t

[AZ8theist]

15. IT HAS TO BE BLACKMAIL....

There's NO WAY Lindsay Graham could flip 180 degrees so quickly on Dotard unless Putin supplied compromat.

Just no way...........

As far as Cruz.....well, he's such a spineless sleazebag blackmail isn't even needed for him to flip flop on anything.

Also...never forget that the anti-LGBTQ party CRASHED the Grindr app during the Repuke convention in Milwaukee.

What does that tell ya??

[DSandra]

16. Kompromat is one of the ways that Putin operates

Read more about it here:

Understanding the use of Kompromat in Russian Politics: An Excerpt from Alena V. Ledeneva’s “How Russia Really Works”

[roscoeroscoe]

20. Good stuff

from the wonderful David Brin. Recommend 'Startide Rising' for any science fiction readers.