ex-POTUS* makes the same old speech and the Big Lie at CPAC today, around 3:40 pm ET

Likely there will be Daniel Dale or Aaron Rupar to tweet about the Trump blather.

As for the insurrection, it was as if it had never happened. It will shock you how much the it never happened.

Tom Cotton inveighed against anti-cop mobs—but only in the context of Portland and without seeming to have any self-awareness about the cop-killing Trump flag-waving elephant in the room.

The only pols I saw reference the insurrection directly were Ted Cruz, who did so only to mock AOC for fearing for her life, and Josh Hawley who received a standing ovation for boasting that he had objected to the election even after the Capitol was besieged.

And so for three days in Orlando, the Republican party made sure the election fraud “truths” were abided by without question and the events of January 6 were altogether disappeared.

[…]

For readers who have never had the pleasure of attending, let me paint you a little impressionistic picture of the archetypes we saw back then:

• Reagan-era holdover in a bad suit speckled with dandruff regaling uninterested young reporters about the old days.
• Grover Norquist wannabe who can cite chapter and verse from God and Man at Yale and wants to tell you about his recent Washington Times op-ed.
• Pimply, awkward college Republican boys who are often keeping either their sexuality or fascist sympathies (or both) in the closet. They fancy themselves either the next Fred Barnes or Karl Rove. Or, in recent years, the next Charlie Kirk.
• Nerdy postgraduates carrying their resumés around in a briefcase, treating CPAC like a job fair.
• Pretty, blonde college girls quickly finding out that the boys on the trip with them are either virgins or frequenting Craigslist M4M.
• Late twenties, mid-level congressional aide/ blogger/ PR flack who only shows up for the happy hours and then get a little creepy with the blonde College Republican gals.
• Doe-eyed youth on a church group trip to DC wearing pro-life and/or anti-gay flair.
• Older women who sit through every single panel during their one week hiatus from the Topeka phone bank they started organizing after first getting inspired by the Eagle Forum.
• Guys in Revolutionary War garb.
• Up-and-coming young “content creators” with their pajama boy cameraman.
• Down-and-going comedians who used to be the dinner entertainment on the National Review cruise. (“Did you know that when Obama got elected they changed the name to Ear Force One?” Buh-dum-bum.)
• Upper-middle-class Republican activists who are active blog commenters and have just enough money to blow on a vacation to DC because they hope they might meet Ed Morrissey.
• Dance-offs between Flat Tax Guy and Fair Tax Guy.
• Dave Weigel.

Put it all together and you can see why there was a general sense that this was the GOP’s Creature Cantina.

thetriad.thebulwark.com/…

x

Plus a bonus “anatomy of CPAC attendees” for your enjoyment. https://t.co/YP5qt9mbGW— Tim Miller (@Timodc) February 28, 2021

HOW TO WATCH

---

CPAC has a live stream set up on its website, C-SPAN will live stream as well. Trump's speech will also be available on television on C-SPAN 1 and FOX News.

---

Tommy Zegan, who is an expat on a permanent visa, said that it took 6-months to prepare the statue. Zegan and three other men in Rosarito, Mexico, molded the statue and painted it before transporting it to Orlando this weekend.

He’s also trying to sell it for $100,000.

The statue was slammed by Trump’s critics as an example of hypocrisy, since Trump has a very large evangelical Christian base (who overwhelmingly attend CPAC every year) and the bible condemns idolatry, particularly of the golden kind.

But Zegan, who was a youth pastor for two decades, says that’s exactly the opposite of what he was trying to communicate.with his work, which is titled, “Trump and his magic wand” — a reference to a remark from former President Obama who said that Trump did not have a magic wand to bring manufacturing jobs back to the U.S.

[…]

Zegan hopes to sell the statue because he says that he spent his “life savings” of $50,000 to make it.

deadstate.org/…

“For many, the fealty never ends. But part of Trump's bet when his campaign became serious was that the party would bend to him, he would not bend to the party. He was right.”

— Daniel Dale (@ddale8) February 27, 2021

<

p class=”is-empty-p”>