There are sane conservatives

It's just that their political representatives are ideological fanatics, in thrall to the Fox News / News Max / Breitbart demographic, bought by big business or just willing to say and do anything to advance their careers.

They wouldn't be allowed to write it if it wasn't true.

From the Guardian's coverage of the less-than-thrilling debate between De Santis and Haley:

A question about climate change, and what each candidate is willing to do about it, has – as expected – yielded little useful information. 

DeSantis promised to tear up the “Biden’s green new deal” while Haley said she opposed “extremes” in policy and transitioned the conversation over to the topic of crime. 

Last summer, during the first Republican presidential debate, a pointed question from a young activist elicited slightly more interesting results. Alexander Diaz, a young conservative who is part of the American Conservation Coalition (ACC), a youth conservative group that pushes for action on the climate crisis, asked candidates what they would do to improve the party’s standing on climate policy. None of the candidates at that time raised their hands to affirm that climate change was real.

So, there you go.  Even though 2023 was just declared the hottest year on the instrumental record AND all the top ten years are the last ten years, one candidate wants to nix climate action just because a Democrat did it, and the other can't actually talk about it at all.  And neither is actually willing to say they think it is happening.

And the terrifying thing is they are both infinitely better options than the goon who (unless the courts save the Republican Party from its membership's atavistic urges) is back to his favourite trick of implying people he doesn't like aren't proper Americans.

Hannity II

Another conflict of interest / undisclosed relationship type thingy is emerging, involving Sean 'Death of Journalism' Hannity and people who got frequent boosts on his show, without Mr Hannity bothering to acknowledge that he had a relationship with them beyond the studio:

For months, Fox News’s Sean Hannity has promoted Henssler Financial and its Principal and Managing Director, Bil Lako. Hannity has featured articles from Lako on his website, and had Lako appear as a special guest on his radio show. Describing Lako as a “good friend”, and his “financial adviser”, Hannity failed to disclose that he stood to financially benefit from promoting Henssler.

Most recently, Lako wrote an analysis piece on Hannity.com criticizing the cost of the Special Counsel, writing,

“The funding is built into the congressional budget, so if you were really wondering, the citizens pick up the tab. That’s right, a political game funded by taxpayer dollars. Shocker!” Corporate documents and U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) records have revealed that Hannity is secretly a co-owner of Henssler Financial’s affiliate, Henssler Capital. His advertisement of the financial advisory firm came as the group sought and received millions of dollars in funding from investors.

Buried within Henssler Financial’s 2018 brochure are a list of its affiliates, including Henssler Property Management and the aforementioned Henssler Capital. It states, “[Henssler Capital] is owned by Dr. Gene, Mr. William G. Lako, Jr., Mr. Christopher E. Reeves, and SPMK II, LLC.”

Hannity’s involvement with Henssler Capital is shielded via his use of a shell company, SPMK II, based in Georgia. Shell companies such as the one managed by Hannity are typically able to keep their beneficiaries secret, however when a company enters into a Limited Partnership, the representative of the company must sign official documentation. In 2007, Hannity certified to the Georgia Secretary of State that he is the Manager of the General Partner SPMK II.

I'm sure Sean will quickly and efficiently respond to this, and clear everything up.

Nope, looks like he's using Twitter to grizzle about how the liberal media are on a witch hunt, fixated with smearing good honest Republicans and decent folk:

Up next we’ll show you the media's new sick and twisted obsession about President Trump. @seanspicer on that and more.

— Sean Hannity (@seanhannity) 21 April 2018

Dude!  The birth certificate!  The emails!

Another example of Mr Hannity's projection / complete lack of self awareness / supreme mastery of irony.  Or plain brazen desperation to deflect attention away from his increasingly compromised position.

Sean Hannity (hopefully, the fist of many)

Then the other day:  Sean Hannity mourns the death of journalism, having personally viciously stabbed it repeatedly.



Who says Americans don't do irony?

Love the "Coming Up: Newt Gingrich" in the corner. Newts live in swamps, don't they?

And now this:

Hannity declared––and brought up Rush Limbaugh‘s words agreeing––that the media is obsessed with trying to “tear this President down” and they’re going after big supporters like himself because he “challenge[s] their rigid radical left-wing ideology” and “expose[s] the deep state.”

The Fox News host went on to say he’s at least “honest” about who he is and declare, “The media is guilty of every single solitary thing they’ve been accusing me of.”

Someone needs to explain to Sean Hannity what 'projection' means in psychology.

Oh, Sean, I guess this outpouring suggests you know you might be in a little bit of trouble. Still, I guess you've got lots of friends out there, because it isn't like you're a professional rightwing media thug or anything.

"Schadenfreude" is the word we are all groping for.