The Craziness That is the GOP Now

So it's been done. Republicans voted to oust Lix Cheney from her positino in their party because she wouldn't support the lie that Donald Trump won the election last November. Insane that's still going on. So here we are.

I love quoting Republicans themselves on this situation.

The insanity that is today's Republicans Party.

Joe Walsh has been speaking up about them for some time.

We must vote them all out.

Missouri's Senator Josh Hawley Gets More Media

And thank goodness. We can never forget the January 6 treasonous, traitorous, killing insurrection and attack on our nation's Capitol.

What Gives Me Hope

This is, of course, what's happening to the GOP, the Republican Party presently and it's from the inside. They're doing it to themselves.

I just hope they collapse before they bring down the nation.

Things You Think You Know

I was sure, once Richard Nixon was gone, that Republicans had done their worst and we would never again, at least in my lifetime, ever do as badly as that man in the White House again.

I couldn't have been more wrong.

The Republican Party's Big Lie

The bad news, the Republicans' Big Lie is an attack on our vote, our votes, our election, our democracy and so, our nation and people.

The good news, it's one more thing, along with the former President, that's tearing down and apart the Republican Party.

Americans Need to Know and Understand and Fight What the Republicans Are Doing

From Heather Cox Richardson, once more. No one evaluates what's going on politically in America currently any better and informs, instructs us all.

Josh Marshall at Talking Points Memo articulated today what many have been reluctant to say: What is at stake in the Big Lie and all the Republican efforts to keep it in play—the shenanigans in the secret Maricopa County, Arizona, recount; the censuring of Republicans who voted to impeach the former president; the expected removal of Wyoming Representative Liz Cheney from a leadership role in the party; and so on—is not the past election of 2020, but the upcoming election of 2024.

The Republican Party has demonstrated that it intends to control the government in the future, no matter what most Americans want. Iowa, Georgia, Montana, and Florida have already passed voter suppression laws, while other states are considering them. (Governor Ron DeSantis signed Florida’s bill yesterday live on the Fox News Channel.)

As Marshall points out, though, making sure that states return only Republicans to Congress is also about controlling the White House. Republican lawmakers are purging from state election machinery members of their own party who refused to change the outcome of the 2020 election and give a victory to Trump. The former president has fed speculation that he still hopes to overturn the 2020 election, but Marshall looks forward: Is it really possible to think that in 2024, members of the new Trump party will protect the sanctity of any election that gives a victory to a Democratic candidate? If Republicans capture the House in 2022, will they agree to certify electoral votes for a Democrat? In 2020, even before the current remaking of the party in Trump’s image, 139 House Republicans contested them.

Trump is systematically going after leading members of the Republican Party, determined to remake it into his own organization. Several former senior White House officials told Ashley Parker and Josh Dawsey of the Washington Post that “[t]he defeated ex-president is propelled primarily by a thirst for retribution, an insatiable quest for the spotlight and a desire to establish and maintain total dominance and control over the Republican base.” Republican strategist Brendan Buck noted that Trump seems to relish fighting, rather than victory to achieve an end. “Usually,” Buck said, “a fight is the means to an end, but in this case fighting is the end.”

The Republicans are consolidating their control over the machinery of government in a way that indicates they intend to control the country regardless of what Americans actually want, putting Trump and his organization back in charge. Democrats have proposed the For the People Act (H.R. 1 and S. 1), which would start to restore a level playing field between the parties. The For the People Act would sideline the new voter suppression bills and make it easier to vote. It would end partisan gerrymandering and stop the flow of big money into elections permitted after the 2010 Citizens United decision.

But Republicans are determined to stop this measure. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) is especially engaged in its obstruction. He has called it a “partisan takeover” that would “give Washington Democrats unprecedented control over 50 states’ election laws.” He recognizes that restoring a level electoral playing field would hamstring the Republicans’ ability to win elections. Defeating the act is McConnell’s top priority.

The story of how Republican leaders embraced voter suppression and gerrymandering starts back in the 1980s, though the mechanics of overturning a presidential election are new to 2020. Still, their undermining of our democratic system begs the question: Why are leading Republicans surrendering their party, and our nation, to a budding autocrat?

Two days ago, when asked if he is concerned about the direction of his party, McConnell told reporters that he is not paying attention to it because the Democrats are trying “to turn American into a socialist country,” and that “[o]ne-hundred percent of our focus is on stopping this new administration.”

Quote of the Day -- On Insurrection and January 6

"If we minimize what happened on Jan. 6th and if we appease it, then we will be in a situation where every election cycle, you could potentially have another constitutional crisis, If you get into a situation where we don't guarantee a peaceful transfer of power, we won't have learned the lessons of Jan. 6." --Liz Cheney, Republican, Arizona

Missourians, I Give You Senator Josh Hawley

And please keep in mind, folks, these videos were created by fellow members of the Republican Party. More. We must, must vote this man out of office, Missourians.

Missouri's Senator Josh Hawley, From Republicans

Ladies and gentlemen, Missouri's own demagoguing Republican Party Senator Joshua, Josh, Hawley. Note that it's from fellow Republicans. Let's vote him out, fellow Missourians. Vote him out. We must. For our state, sure, but for the nation, too, no exaggeration.

Three Months Ago Today

Never forget.

We must never forget.

Senator Hawley said WHAT??

Nearly unbelievably, our own Missouri Senator Josh Hawley posted this yesterday on Twitter: "Erin & I were sickened to hear of the violent attack at the Capitol yesterday by an extremist follower of Louis Farrakhan. We pray for the family of Officer Evans & for others injured in the line of duty. Thanks to the brave men & women of the USCP for their tireless service."

What the what?? Suddenly he's "sickened to hear of the violent attack at the Capitol"? First, this attacker was was out of his mind, google it, and second, it's no way even remotely close to the extent of the attack the previous President and this same Senator Hawley himself instigated at and against that same Capitol of ours January 6 this year. No way even remotely close. Shame on you, Senator Hawley. You're showing some serious chutzpah here, sir and we are no way fooled.

The Incredible Republican Party Year -- So Far

Think about it. In about 2 months this year, it's nearly unimagninable what the Republican Party has done---has gotten away with, really. First, on Janurary 6, of course, the Republican Party President lead an insurrection, an attack on our nation's Capitol and our government resulting in death and harming fellow citizens.This from the supposed "law and order" party. Then, more recently, they followed that up just last week with voting down, every one of their members in Congress voting down a financial relief plan for the nation, for Americans during the worst, most killing, deadly international pandemic in the last more than 100 years. Incredible. Loet's hope, hope, they have now, with this last one, done their worst. For the rest of the entire year. Hey, we can hope.

Quote of the Day -- Where We Are Now Edition

"It's so depressing that Donald Trump can incite a violent insurrection and mismanage a pandemic catastrophically in ways that destroy countless lives and livelihoods, but then GOP voter loyalty remains unwavering because they get truly fired up about Dr. Seuss & Mr. Potato Head." --Brian Klaas @brianklaas

Quote of the Day -- Insane Republican Party Edition

"From 9/11 truthers to Barack Obama birthers to 2020 Election liars to January 6th deniers. Ugh." --Bill Kristol @BillKristol Thanks, Republicans!

Important Quote of the Day

"If confirmed, I will supervise the prosecution of white supremacists and others who stormed the Capitol on January 6, a heinous attack that sought to disrupt a cornerstone of our democracy."

--Judge Merrick Garland, today, in his opening remarks before the Senate Judiciary in his testimony to become our nation's next Attorney General.

To which I and a lot of us out here can only say kudos and thank you, sir. Let's do this.

Link:

Merrick Garland says he will prosecute rioters, white supremacists

Republican Party Collapsing

I tell you, folks, it's just a beautiful, beautiful day, isn't it?

Have a wonderful, wonderful day, y'all. 

Think happy thoughts.

A Day Full of Great News!

I tell you what, sure it's cold outside, bitter cold but good to great news keeps busting out all over.

"According to a new Quinnipiac poll, 75% of Republicans want Trump to continue to lead the party. But 21% don’t, and between 24% and 28% blame him for the January 6 riot."

"That split," writes Heather Cox Richardson, "means the Republican Party, which was already losing members over the insurrection, stands to lose even more of its members if it continues to defer to the former president."

Source:

Moving On? No. – BillMoyers.com

Fantastic, Breaking Insurrection Lawsuit News!

Yes! The little issue of the attack on our Capitol isn't done with yet, thankfully. This broke in the last hour.

Lawsuit accuses Donald Trump, Giuliani and others of conspiring to incite Capitol riot

The suit alleges that Trump and others violated the 1871 Ku Klux Klan Act.

A bit from the article:

Former President Trump, his attorney Rudy Giuliani, the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers conspired to violate the 1871 Ku Klux Klan Act, which prohibits any actions designed to prevent Congress from carrying out its duties, when they incited the Jan. 6 riot at the Capitol, a new lawsuit from the chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee alleged.

The insurrection was the result of a carefully orchestrated plan by Trump, Giuliani and extremist groups like the Oath Keepers and Proud Boys, all of whom shared a common goal of employing intimidation, harassment and threats to stop the certification of the Electoral College, said Rep. Bennie Thompson, a Democrat from Mississippi.

“The Defendants each intended to prevent, and ultimately delayed, members of Congress from discharging their duty commanded by the United States Constitution to approve the results of the Electoral College in order to elect the next President and Vice President of the United States,” the lawsuit said. “Pursuing a purpose shared by Defendants Trump and Giuliani as well as Defendant Proud Boys, Defendant Oath Keepers played a leadership role of the riotous crowd and provided military-style assistance sufficient to overcome any Capitol Police resistance.”

Here's where it gets really good, at least to me--

With the benefit of not having to prove criminal allegations beyond a reasonable doubt, the civil lawsuit, filed Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., on behalf of Thompson in his personal capacity by the NAACP and civil rights law firm Cohen Milstein Sellers & Toll, sought unspecified compensatory and punitive damages. The lawsuit is suing Trump in his personal capacity, alleging that he acted outside the scope of his office when inciting the rioters.

So yes! Yet more great news today! The worst of the bitter cold winter is behind us and we're going to get this treasonous, traitorous excuse for a leader, excuse for a President yet!

So happy Fat Tuesday, everyone! Happy Mardi Gras! Definitely time and reasons to celebrate!

Yet more goodness today:

Ms. Pelosi is. ON. IT. - Announces Independent Commission to Investigate the Capitol Insurrection

Texas storm shows what it looks like to have a president of all the United States

Undaunted: Dems are Getting Things Done

GOP Senator Mitch McConnell on Then-President Donald Trump and His Guilt

From Republican Party Senator Mitch McConnell's own words and mouth yesterday after Trump's acquittal on his impeachment trial and charges. 

This, ladies and gentlemen, is a very full and complete indictment of then-sitting Republican Party President Donald J Trump on a treasonous, traitorous insurrection and attack on our vote, our votes, our election and nation's Capitol right down to our very Democracy itself.

" January 6th was a disgrace.

American citizens attacked their own government. They used terrorism to try to stop a specific piece of democratic business they did not like.

Fellow Americans beat and bloodied our own police. They stormed the Senate floor. They tried to hunt down the Speaker of the House. They built a gallows and chanted about murdering the vice president.

They did this because they had been fed wild falsehoods by the most powerful man on Earth – because he was angry he’d lost an election.

The House accused the former president of, quote, ‘incitement.’ That is a specific term from the criminal law.

Let me put that to the side for one moment and reiterate something I said weeks ago: There is no question that President Trump is practically and morally responsible for provoking the events of that day.

The people who stormed this building believed they were acting on the wishes and instructions of their president.

And their having that belief was a foreseeable consequence of the growing crescendo of false statements, conspiracy theories, and reckless hyperbole which the defeated president kept shouting into the largest megaphone on planet Earth.

The issue is not only the president’s intemperate language on January 6th.

It is not just his endorsement of remarks in which an associate urged ‘trial by combat’.

It was also the entire manufactured atmosphere of looming catastrophe; the increasingly wild myths about a reverse landslide election that was being stolen in some secret coup by our now-president.

I defended the president’s right to bring any complaints to our legal system. The legal system spoke. The Electoral College spoke. As I stood up and said clearly at the time, the election was settled.

But that reality just opened a new chapter of even wilder and more unfounded claims.

The leader of the free world cannot spend weeks thundering that shadowy forces are stealing our country and then feign surprise when people believe him and do reckless things.

Sadly, many politicians sometimes make overheated comments or use metaphors that unhinged listeners might take literally.

This was different.

This was an intensifying crescendo of conspiracy theories, orchestrated by an outgoing president who seemed determined to either overturn the voters’ decision or else torch our institutions on the way out.

The unconscionable behavior did not end when the violence began.

Whatever our ex-president claims he thought might happen that day… whatever reaction he says he meant to produce… by that afternoon, he was watching the same live television as the rest of the world.

A mob was assaulting the Capitol in his name. These criminals were carrying his banners, hanging his flags, and screaming their loyalty to him.

It was obvious that only President Trump could end this.

Former aides publicly begged him to do so. Loyal allies frantically called the Administration.

But the president did not act swiftly. He did not do his job. He didn’t take steps so federal law could be faithfully executed, and order restored.

Instead, according to public reports, he watched television happily as the chaos unfolded. He kept pressing his scheme to overturn the election!

Even after it was clear to any reasonable observer that Vice President Pence was in danger… even as the mob carrying Trump banners was beating cops and breaching perimeters… the president sent a further tweet attacking his vice president.

Predictably and foreseeably under the circumstances, members of the mob seemed to interpret this as further inspiration to lawlessness and violence.

Later, even when the president did halfheartedly begin calling for peace, he did not call right away for the riot to end. He did not tell the mob to depart until even later.

And even then, with police officers bleeding and broken glass covering Capitol floors, he kept repeating election lies and praising the criminals.

In recent weeks, our ex-president’s associates have tried to use the 74 million Americans who voted to re-elect him as a kind of human shield against criticism.

Anyone who decries his awful behavior is accused of insulting millions of voters.

That is an absurd deflection.

74 million Americans did not invade the Capitol. Several hundred rioters did.

And 74 million Americans did not engineer the campaign of disinformation and rage that provoked it.

One person did...

From the article:

Transcript: Mitch McConnell’s Trump impeachment speech

More on that Impeachment Trial

Again, from Heather Cox Richardson

February 13, 2021 (Saturday)

Today the Senate acquitted former president Donald Trump of the charge of inciting an insurrection. Fifty-seven senators said he was guilty; 43 said he was not guilty. An impeachment conviction requires a two-thirds majority of the Senate, so he was acquitted, but not before seven members of his own party voted to convict him.

The only real surprise today was this morning, when five Republicans joined 50 Democrats to vote in favor of calling witnesses.

That vote came after Representative Jaime Herrera Beutler (R-WA) last night released a statement recounting an angry conversation between House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) and Trump during the violence, in which Trump refused to call off the rioters and appeared to taunt McCarthy by telling him that the rioters were “more upset about the election than you are.” Herrera Beutler’s statement suggested that Trump had deliberately abandoned Vice President Mike Pence and the lawmakers to the insurrectionists, although Trump’s lawyer had definitively declared during the trial that Trump had not been told that Vice President Mike Pence was in danger.

The vote to hear witnesses threw the Senate into confusion as senators were so convinced the trial would end today that many had already booked flights home. The House impeachment managers said they wanted to call Herrera Beutler to testify; Republican supporters of Trump warned they would call more than 300 witnesses, including House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Vice President Kamala Harris.

After the two sides conferred, the House managers gave up demands for witnesses in exchange for reading Herrera Beutler’s statement into the record as evidence. While there was a widespread outcry at what seemed to be a Democratic capitulation, there were reasons the Democrats cut this deal. Witnesses to Trump’s behavior, like McCarthy, did not want to testify and would have been difficult. The Republicans as a group would have dragged the process on well into the spring, muddying the very clear story the impeachment managers told. They allegedly said that if the Democrats called witnesses, they would use the filibuster to block all Democratic nominees and legislation.

So much pundits have noted.

But today was not just about Trump; it was part of a longer struggle for the future of the country.

Trump’s lawyers proceeded in the impeachment trial with the same rhetorical technique Trump and his supporters use: they flat-out lied. Clearly, they were not trying to get at the truth but were instead trying to create sound bites for right-wing media, the same way Trump and the rest of his cabal convinced supporters of the big lie that he had won, rather than lost, the 2020 election. In that case, they lied consistently in front of the media, but could not make anything stick in a courtroom, where there are penalties for not telling the truth.

In the first impeachment hearings, Trump supporters did the same thing, shouting and lying to create sound bites, and while the sworn testimony was crystal clear, their antics left many Americans convinced not of the facts but that then-President Trump was being persecuted by Democrats who were trying to protect Hunter Biden. So, while it’s reasonable to imagine that witnesses would illustrate Trump’s depravity, it seems entirely likely that, as Trump’s lawyers continued simply to lie and their lies got spread through right-wing media as truth, Americans would have learned the opposite of what they should have.

Instead, the issue of Trump’s guilt on January 6 will play out in a courtroom, where there are actual rules about telling the truth. Trump’s own lawyers suggested he should answer for his actions in a court of law, and in a fiery speech after the vote, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell set up the same idea. But even if that does not happen, the Capitol rioters will be in court, keeping in front of Americans both the horrific events of January 6 and their contention that they showed up to fight because their president asked them to.

The constant refrain of the January 6 insurrection mirrors the Republicans’ use of sham investigations to convince people that Democrats are criminals—think, for example, of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s emails—except, this time, the cases are real. This should address the problem of manufactured sound bites, and should benefit the Democrats with voters, especially as Republicans are now openly the Party of Trump.

McConnell tried to address the party’s capitulation immediately after the vote with a speech blaming Trump for the insurrection and saying that his own vote to acquit was because he does not think the Senate can try a former president. This is posturing, of course; McConnell made sure the Senate did not take up the House’s article of impeachment while Trump was still in office, and now says that, because it did not do so, it does not have jurisdiction.

McConnell is trying to have it both ways. He has made it clear he wants to free the Republican Party from its thralldom to Trump, and he needs to do so in order to regain both voters and the major donors who have distanced themselves from party members who support the big lie. But he needs to keep Trump voters in the party. So he has bowed to the Trump wing in the short term, hoping to retain its goodwill, and then, immediately after the vote, gave a speech condemning Trump to reassure donors that he and the party are still sane. He likely hopes that, as the months go by and the Republicans block President Biden’s plans, alienated voters and donors will come back around to the party. From this perspective, the seven Republican votes to convict Trump provide excellent cover.

It’s a cynical strategy and probably the best he can do, but it’s a long shot that it alone will enable the Republicans to regain control of the House and the Senate in 2022. For that, the Republicans need to get rid of Democratic votes.

That need was part of what was behind the party’s support for Trump’s big lie. The essence of that lie was that Trump won the 2020 election because the votes of Democrats, especially people of color, were illegitimate. Republican lawmakers were happy to sign on to that big lie: it is a grander version of their position since 1986. Even now, those Republicans who backed the big lie have not admitted it was false. Instead, they are using the myth of fraudulent Democratic votes to push a massive attack on voting rights before the 2022 election.

But they are no longer setting the terms of the country’s politics. By refusing to engage with the impeachment trial, Biden and his team escaped the trap of letting Trump continue to drive the national narrative. Instead, they are making it a priority to protect voting rights. At the same time, they are pushing back against the Republican justification for voter suppression: that widespread voting leads to Black and Brown voter fraud that elects “socialists” who redistribute money from “makers” to “takers.” Biden’s team is using the government in ways that are popular with voters across the board: right now, for example, 79% of Americans either like Biden’s coronavirus relief package or think it is too small.

It was disheartening today to see that even trying to destroy the American government was not enough to get more than seven Republican senators to convict the former president. But it is not at all clear that tying their party to Trump is a winning strategy.

Link:

How to Channel your Impeachment Anger