Republican Assault on Democracy and March Towards Fascism

[LFC]

Stupid, gullible, or insane? Or all of the above?

Trump Asked For Probe Into Whether China-Made Thermostats Hacked Election, Book Says

[andydp]

Oct 11, 2021 17:19:03 GMT LFC said:

Stupid, gullible, or insane? Or all of the above?

Trump Asked For Probe Into Whether China-Made Thermostats Hacked Election, Book Says

I thought it was microwaves…

[LFC]

Oct 5, 2021 20:15:46 GMT LFC said:

A group of patriots is calling for fascist attorney Josh Eastman to be investigated and potentially disbarred in California. To me his actions sound an awful lot like conspiring to overthrow a federal election and he should be imprisoned for his actions.

His employer, a conservative fascist think tank, is defending him. Fascism is now not just rampant in the Republican Party, it's a bedrock principle supported by the overwhelming majority.

The Claremont Institute, a conservative think tank that ex-Trump legal adviser John Eastman works for as a senior fellow, on Monday defended Eastman’s memo to then-President Donald Trump and then-Vice President Mike Pence that laid out how the latter could hijack the 2020 election certification process to keep Trump in power.

The organization released a statement that spun Eastman’s memo, which blatantly sought to help Trump subvert the election, as mere “legal advice” that has “since been maliciously misrepresented and distorted by major media outlets.”

The statement attempted to whitewash Eastman’s actions by presenting two points that give a misleading narrative of the lawyer’s memo.

Then there's this fascist double-speak.

The Claremont Institute complained that it and Eastman have faced “censorship” even from the right-wing Federalist Society, which has “refused to allow” the lawyer to “discuss essential constitutional questions.”

“These attempts to limit the Claremont Institute’s and John Eastman’s ability to express their views mark a dangerous escalation in the censorship now threatening American democracy,” the organization wrote without a hint of irony.

[LFC]

The Michigan Republican Party is replacing the honest with the faithful.

Republican Party leaders across the battleground state of Michigan have quietly worked in recent weeks to replace incumbent county election officials with newcomers, some of whom have sought to undermine the public's faith in the 2020 vote.

The trend focuses on four-member county canvassing boards, the bipartisan panels in charge of verifying records and importantly, certifying results. It comes in the midst of an internal party struggle over whether to accept Democratic President Joe Biden's win last year.

On Nov. 1, two members of each board — one Republican and one Democrat — will begin new four-year terms.

Out of Michigan's 11 largest counties, Republicans have nominated new individuals for the positions in eight, according to a Detroit News investigation. In at least four of the counties — 36%— the incumbent GOP canvasser wanted to be renominated but wasn't.

Democrats are concerned that the new canvassers, spurred by former President Donald Trump, will refuse to approve future results or use their positions to interfere in the process. Mark Brewer, former chairman of the Michigan Democratic Party and an elections attorney, labeled the unfolding situation in the state "unprecedented."

The movement has left people on the sidelines, such as Michelle Voorheis, who has served on the Genesee County Board of Canvassers for 13 years. Genesee County Republicans didn't renominate her for another four-year term. In an interview, Voorheis, who used to chair the county GOP, said she believes it's because she's made statements on social media defending the outcome of the last election.

"I don’t know going into the 2022 elections. I don’t know how the canvass is going to go because there is a big learning curve," said Voorheis of the upcoming midterm election in which Michigan will choose a governor.

"Nobody ever even cared about this until now,” she added of canvassing boards.

The panels are not where you want "fringe" people serving, said Chris Thomas, Michigan's former longtime elections director, because the members must have an interest in working together and protecting the stability of the electoral process.

It would create a "mess" if 10 to 15 counties refuse to certify the results in the coming years, forcing state officials and potentially the courts to intervene, Thomas said.

And that's the whole point, Mr. Thomas.

[LFC]

Herschel Walker doesn't seem to understand the kind of people he's "pal'ing around with" when he becomes a candidate for the Republican Party. Maybe he just took a few too many hard shots in his playing career.

Herschel Walker, the football great who embraced Trump and is seeking the Republican nomination to challenge Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-GA), has called off a fundraising event in Texas with an anti-vaccine film producer who had a graphic of needles formed as a swastika in her Twitter profile picture.

[pnwguy]

Oct 14, 2021 15:43:47 GMT LFC said:

Herschel Walker doesn't seem to understand the kind of people he's "pal'ing around with" when he becomes a candidate for the Republican Party. Maybe he just took a few too many hard shots in his playing career.

Herschel Walker, the football great who embraced Trump and is seeking the Republican nomination to challenge Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-GA), has called off a fundraising event in Texas with an anti-vaccine film producer who had a graphic of needles formed as a swastika in her Twitter profile picture.

In a Republican primary, that's a Feature, not a Flaw.  Association at all with Nazi symbolism is a two-fer:  fascism AND anti-semitism.

[LFC]

What's happening with the Fascist American Republican of Traitors apparatchik Jeff Clark? Looks like his employer feels a bit of shame in hiring a fascist who literally attempted to overturn a democratic and fair election.

Jeffrey Bossert Clark, the former Trump DOJ official who sought to use the power of the federal government to block Biden’s win last year, received a subpoena on Wednesday from the House panel investigating the Jan. 6 attack.

Within hours of the subpoena being announced, Clark’s name and bio no longer appeared on the website of the conservative legal organization where has been working. TPM reported in August that Clark had been hired by the New Civil Liberties Alliance, a D.C.-based nonprofit that describes itself as aimed at “tam[ing] the unlawful power of state and federal agencies.”

NCLA doesn’t promote itself as an all-in, MAGA outfit. Rather, since its 2017 founding, NCLA has positioned itself as being part of a longer-term, conservative effort aimed at challenging the modern administrative state.

But it has taken on COVID-19 public health measures as part of that effort. In August, for example, it filed a class-action lawsuit against Michigan State University’s vaccine mandate. It also represented a George Mason University professor who, in NCLA’s words, fought the school’s “scientifically unsound vaccination mandate.”

But after the Jan. 6 Committee announced the subpoena on Wednesday, the group’s webpage listing Clark as Director of Strategy and Chief of Litigation was removed. A hiring announcement released in July was also removed.

[LFC]

I guess a few of these folks don't like to show their fascism in public, especially when running for statewide office in a fairly purple state.

Here’s Virginia GOP Gov candidate Glenn Youngkin when asked this afternoon about the flag from the Jan 6th insurrection which supporters pledged allegiance to at Youngkin campaign rally last night.

Youngkin: “So to be clear I don’t think … if that … I wasn’t involved so I don’t know. but if that is the case then we shouldn’t pledge allegiance to that flag. and oh by the way I’ve been so clear there is no place for violence … none, none in America today.”

Great, so no place for violence. How about treason, fascism, and the destruction of democracy?

[AnBr]

.

Attachments:

[LFC]

What does calling for imprisonment of somebody whose only crime is that they don't support The Big Lie make you? Well in Arizona it apparently makes you the Republican frontrunner for the top office in the state.

Kari Lake, the frontrunner for the GOP gubernatorial nomination in Arizona after an endorsement by former President Trump, has called for the imprisonment of the state’s Secretary of State, Katie Hobbs along with other election officials and various journalists over the 2020 election. Hobbs is also a leading Democratic candidate for governor. Arizona holds its next gubernatorial election in 2022 and the state will certainly be hotly contested in the 2024 presidential election.

This captures another dimension of 2022 and 2024 as turning point elections. As we’ve discussed in other reporting, Republicans are working diligently to replace conservative Republicans who didn’t support the Big Lie, especially in roles that will play a key role in election administration. So a particularly bad 2022 for Democrats could set up a 2024 election in which the presidency is essentially pre-stolen.

Every prediction of Trump bringing fascism with him has or is coming true. Every ... single ... one.

[AnBr]

There are some posts that need some other reaction than a thumbs up.

[goldenvalley]

Oct 18, 2021 14:45:53 GMT AnBr said:

There are some posts that need some other reaction than a thumbs up.

I've started a number of responses but realized I have nothing new or original to add.  I'm not getting numb, just getting tired of repeating the same things.  I continue to be amazed that we are living in a bad political novel.

[AnBr]

House select committee votes unanimously to refer Steve Bannon to DOJ for criminal contempt charges

[LFC]

Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WIlling Fascist Stooge) digs in to give aid and comfort to our domestic enemies.

The Republican senator is reportedly using his leverage as a senator to, at least temporarily, block the confirmation of Matt Graves, whom President Biden named as his pick to lead the U.S. attorney’s office in Washington, D.C. Since January of this year that office has overseen more than 600 prosecutions related to the Jan. 6 Capitol attack. So far, more than 100 insurrectionists have pleaded guilty to charges related to the attack.

Johnson’s spokesperson Alexa Henning acknowledged to Business Insider that Johnson is one of the Republicans in the Senate who is holding up Graves’ confirmation. Henning also confirmed the information to NBC. Henning said that Johnson’s “hold” on the Graves proceedings is designed to put pressure on the Justice Department to respond to a letter that Johnson and a handful of other Republicans sent to the DOJ this summer, demanding “information” on the supposed “unequal application of justice between the individuals who breached the Capitol on Jan. 6, and those involved in the unrest during the spring and summer of 2020,” Johnson said in a press release in June.

Essentially, those Republicans — Johnson, along with Sens. Tommy Tuberville (R-AL), Mike Lee (R-UT), Rick Scott (R-FL), and Ted Cruz (R-TX) — are demanding the DOJ look at charges against protesters arrested during George Floyd demonstrations last summer in the same light as charges against those who violently stormed the Capitol earlier this year. “Despite these numerous examples of violence occurring during these protests, it appears that individuals charged with committing crimes at these events may benefit from infrequent prosecutions and minimal, if any, penalties,” the members of Congress complained, referring to the racial justice protesters. Why, they wondered, weren’t the insurrectionists treated the same?

Well, as we know, those guys were attempting to halt the certification of President Biden’s electoral college victory; i.e., they were participants in an unsuccessful coup.

Johnson is using that bad faith comparison to hold Graves’ confirmation hostage.

[LFC]

The fascist attorney who wrote the memo telling Trump how Pence could steal the election for him is now claiming that he didn't really mean it. Pathetic.

John Eastman, the Trump legal adviser behind the infamous memo (which had two similar drafts) detailing various strategies for then-Vice President Mike Pence to thwart the 2020 election certification, is insisting that he totally didn’t think those options were legit and were, in fact, totally bonkers, and Eastman does not believe in ideas that are bonkers, thank you very much!

Eastman told the National Review that the memos were “internal discussion memos” merely describing “available scenarios that had been floated,” and that somebody on Trump’s legal team “had asked” Eastman to write them.

“I was asked to kind of outline how each of those scenarios would work and then orally present my views on whether I thought they were valid or not, so that’s what those memos did,” the conservative lawyer said.

Unfortunately, Eastman couldn’t “recall” which legal team member gave him that task because he has too many darn phone calls.

“It was by a phone conversation, and I’ve gone back in my phone records, and I have so many calls, I can’t tell, you know, which call it was,” he told the National Review.

Eastman insisted he doesn’t actually believe in the memo’s jaw-dropping argument that House GOP could replace Biden’s electoral votes, and “anybody who thinks that that’s a viable strategy is crazy.”

The lawyer also claimed he disagreed with the memos’ assertion that the vice president is the “ultimate arbiter” of which electoral votes could be counted. Eastman said that argument “doesn’t make a whole lot of sense” given that “we know the vice president is very likely to be one of the contenders for the office that he’ll be deciding.”

In one particularly bold moment in the interview, Eastman tried to paint himself as defender against Trump’s more extreme attacks on the election, claiming that he was the one who convinced the then-president that Pence couldn’t cancel the votes entirely. So Trump settled for the idea that Pence could just give states time to certify new electors instead, according to Eastman.

“Call me the white-knight hero here, talking [Trump] down from the more aggressive position,” the attorney told the National Review.

[Bact PhD]

Oct 22, 2021 17:21:00 GMT LFC said:

The fascist attorney who wrote the memo telling Trump how Pence could steal the election for him is now claiming that he didn't really mean it. Pathetic.

John Eastman, the Trump legal adviser behind the infamous memo (which had two similar drafts) detailing various strategies for then-Vice President Mike Pence to thwart the 2020 election certification, is insisting that he totally didn’t think those options were legit and were, in fact, totally bonkers, and Eastman does not believe in ideas that are bonkers, thank you very much!

Eastman told the National Review that the memos were “internal discussion memos” merely describing “available scenarios that had been floated,” and that somebody on Trump’s legal team “had asked” Eastman to write them.

“I was asked to kind of outline how each of those scenarios would work and then orally present my views on whether I thought they were valid or not, so that’s what those memos did,” the conservative lawyer said.

Unfortunately, Eastman couldn’t “recall” which legal team member gave him that task because he has too many darn phone calls.

“It was by a phone conversation, and I’ve gone back in my phone records, and I have so many calls, I can’t tell, you know, which call it was,” he told the National Review.

Eastman insisted he doesn’t actually believe in the memo’s jaw-dropping argument that House GOP could replace Biden’s electoral votes, and “anybody who thinks that that’s a viable strategy is crazy.”

The lawyer also claimed he disagreed with the memos’ assertion that the vice president is the “ultimate arbiter” of which electoral votes could be counted. Eastman said that argument “doesn’t make a whole lot of sense” given that “we know the vice president is very likely to be one of the contenders for the office that he’ll be deciding.”

In one particularly bold moment in the interview, Eastman tried to paint himself as defender against Trump’s more extreme attacks on the election, claiming that he was the one who convinced the then-president that Pence couldn’t cancel the votes entirely. So Trump settled for the idea that Pence could just give states time to certify new electors instead, according to Eastman.

“Call me the white-knight hero here, talking [Trump] down from the more aggressive position,” the attorney told the National Review.

Had the whole thing been successful, Eastman would be proud in taking full credit for the idea.

[pnwguy]

Oct 22, 2021 18:10:41 GMT Bact PhD said:

Had the whole thing been successful, Eastman would be proud in taking full credit for the idea.

"Lock him up!  Lock him up!  Lock him up! ...."

[andydp]

Oct 22, 2021 18:43:17 GMT pnwguy said:

Oct 22, 2021 18:10:41 GMT Bact PhD said:

Had the whole thing been successful, Eastman would be proud in taking full credit for the idea.

VICTORY HAS A HUNDRED FATHERS AND DEFEAT IS AN ORPHAN 

Popularized by President John F. Kennedy , but coined by the Italian diplomat, and son-in-law of Mussolini, Count Caleazzo Ciano (1903-44). 1942.

[LFC]

This is how fascism works. (Paywalled.) Rep. Jim Banks should be censured for lying about his position on the Jan 6 Republican Insurrection committee and his supposed right to receive any information that it has subpoenaed.

Where Things Stand: GOPer Tries To Cosplay As Jan 6 Committee Member

Let’s go back in time for a minute. Back when House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) was putting together a panel of House members to participate in the Jan. 6 select committee to probe the insurrection, she rejected two of Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy’s (R-CA) panelist picks (the Jims) — Reps. Jim Jordan (R-OH) and Jim Banks (R-IN).

The decision was rooted in her correct understanding that both of the Jims would use the committee’s probe of the Capitol attack as a platform for spewing the Big Lie and other Trumpy nonsense and conspiracy theories, thus likely derailing the serious work of the committee. Both Jims not only voted to overturn the election results on Jan. 6, but they also both signed onto a request out of Texas asking the Supreme Court to invalidate election results in Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.

In retaliation for Pelosi’s move against the Jims, McCarthy pulled all of his Republican picks from the panel, leaving only Reps. Liz Cheney (R-WY) and Adam Kinzinger (R-IL) as GOP members (who joined out of their own volition). Both have been highly critical of Trump for some time and have, at least thus far, taken their assignments very seriously, signing off on all of the committee’s subpoenas and publicly supporting each layer of the committee’s investigation. Cheney is the committee’s vice-chair.

But one of the Jims, Jim Banks, is apparently now trying to play dress up — pretending to be a member of the panel probing the insurrection.

And Cheney made Banks’ bizarre maneuverings public on Thursday during a House floor speech. The remarks were made just before the full House voted 229-202 (with a surprising number of Republicans joining) to hold Steve Bannon in contempt of Congress. According to Cheney, Banks apparently has sent letters to various government agencies, claiming to be a ranking member of the Jan. 6 committee. He is most definitely not even a member of the committee, let alone a ranking one. He even reportedly admitted as much in his letters.

“I would like to introduce for the record a number of letters the gentlemen from Indiana has been sending to federal agencies, dated September 16, 2021, for example, signing his name as the ranking member of the committee [that] he’s just informed the House that he’s not on,” Cheney said during her House floor remarks today.

Here’s a video of her remarks, but I’ll dig into one of the letters he reportedly sent below:


Both CNN and Politico obtained copies of one of Banks’ letters, sent to Interior Secretary Deb Haaland. In that letter, Banks claimed to be a ranking member of the Jan. 6 committee and asserted that the “minority party” in Congress should be privy to the same information provided to the majority. He requested that any information Haaland shares with the select committee also be sent to him directly. You can read the short, weird letter here, courtesy of Politico reporter Olivia Beavers.

[LFC]

TPM provides an observation of the obvious: the Trumpistas don't believe any of the rules apply to them. In full:

Trumper Privilege
If the rules shouldn't apply to you suddenly everything starts to seem unfair.

My colleague Nicole Lafond already discussed this in the post immediately below this one. But it’s so bizarre I simply have to discuss it as well. As Nicole noted, Kevin McCarthy and Trump toady Jim Banks want what I guess we could call backsies on the whole Jan 6th committee thing.

Republicans had plenty of opportunities to get a commission or committee in which they not only had complete control over who served on the Republican side but veto power over any significant action the body took. They refused that and after stonewalling for months ended up with one that gave the final say on membership to Nancy Pelosi. Pelosi accepted some McCarthy nominations but put her foot down in the case of two reps who are such consistent supporters of the Big Lie and the insurrection that it was absurd to place them on the committee investigating either. Now Banks is sending letters to executive departments claiming that he is in fact that rightful ranking member (i.e., top Republican) on the committee.

The most generous read of this is that it’s yet more Trumper theater. It seems unlikely that any Biden appointee at any relevant department is going to get confused about who’s on the committee. They watch TV too. But it is of a piece with the larger story. We get to try to overthrow the Republic and equal billing on the committee charged with investigating what we did. We also get to stonewall and block the investigation from starting for months. But if you decide to do it without us – because we refused to participate – well, we still get to participate.

This is hardly a surprising move from the crew that lost the election and lost fairly badly but aren’t interested in the course open to people who lose elections: admitting you lost and moving on.

We’ve spoken a lot about Trumpism as the grievance politics par excellence. Every political movement has grievances of some sort. There’s nothing wrong with that. Indeed, petitioning for the “redress of grievances” is literally written into the constitution. But Trumpism is basically all grievances and grievances in a way that is the flip side of accountability. Rules aren’t fair – when they’re applied to us. The law is “very unfair,” as Trump often puts it – when it’s applied to us. Elections are fair – as long as we win.

Is this privilege or lack of accountability or is it really simply a politics of power? It is really no different from the authoritarian impulse and hyper-masculinity politics that pervades Trumpism. We should have the power. Because we should. And anything that stands in the way of that is by definition unfair. Because we should have power.

If you buy a house and you show up to move in and someone else has set up shop in several of the rooms, well, that’s not fair. Because it’s your house. If the only legitimate power is yours then everything in a democracy turns out to be unfair. This kind of grievance politics masquerades as defensive when it is in fact purely aggressive.

It is all of a piece.

[LFC]

Rolling Stone provided a list of fascists in Congress who were involved with Trump in pushing along the Jan. 6 Republican Insurrection. There isn't a name on it that will shock or even mildly surprise any of you. They're all loud and proud of their fascism.

As the House investigation into the Jan. 6 attack heats up, some of the planners of the pro-Trump rallies that took place in Washington, D.C., have begun communicating with congressional investigators and sharing new information about what happened when the former president’s supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol. Two of these people have spoken to Rolling Stone extensively in recent weeks and detailed explosive allegations that multiple members of Congress were intimately involved in planning both Trump’s efforts to overturn his election loss and the Jan. 6 events that turned violent.

Rolling Stone separately confirmed a third person involved in the main Jan. 6 rally in D.C. has communicated with the committee. This is the first report that the committee is hearing major new allegations from potential cooperating witnesses. While there have been prior indications that members of Congress were involved, this is also the first account detailing their purported role and its scope. The two sources also claim they interacted with members of Trump’s team, including former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, who they describe as having had an opportunity to prevent the violence.

The two sources, both of whom have been granted anonymity due to the ongoing investigation, describe participating in “dozens” of planning briefings ahead of that day when Trump supporters broke into the Capitol as his election loss to President Joe Biden was being certified.

“I remember Marjorie Taylor Greene specifically,” the organizer says. “I remember talking to probably close to a dozen other members at one point or another or their staffs.”

These two sources also helped plan a series of demonstrations that took place in multiple states around the country in the weeks between the election and the storming of the Capitol. According to these sources, multiple people associated with the March for Trump and Stop the Steal events that took place during this period communicated with members of Congress throughout this process.

Along with Greene, the conspiratorial pro-Trump Republican from Georgia who took office earlier this year, the pair both say the members who participated in these conversations or had top staffers join in included Rep. Paul Gosar (R-Ariz.), Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.), Rep. Mo Brooks (R-Ala.), Rep. Madison Cawthorn (R-N.C.), Rep. Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.), and Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Texas).

“We would talk to Boebert’s team, Cawthorn’s team, Gosar’s team like back to back to back to back,” says the organizer.

And Gosar, who has been one of the most prominent defenders of the Jan. 6 rioters, allegedly took things a step further. Both sources say he dangled the possibility of a “blanket pardon” in an unrelated ongoing investigation to encourage them to plan the protests.

“Our impression was that it was a done deal,” the organizer says, “that he’d spoken to the president about it in the Oval … in a meeting about pardons and that our names came up. They were working on submitting the paperwork and getting members of the House Freedom Caucus to sign on as a show of support.”

The organizer claims the pair received “several assurances” about the “blanket pardon” from Gosar.

“I was just going over the list of pardons and we just wanted to tell you guys how much we appreciate all the hard work you’ve been doing,” Gosar said, according to the organizer.

The rally planner describes the pardon as being offered while “encouraging” the staging of protests against the election. While the organizer says they did not get involved in planning the rallies solely due to the pardon, they were upset that it ultimately did not materialize.

[LFC]

Josh Marshall explains what the Rolling Stone piece does and doesn't tell us.

If we’re looking for a specific smoking gun where Paul Gosar or Mo Brooks says, “Hey, once you get there, storm the barricades and beat up the cops who try to stop you and take the members of Congress hostage” we’re all being way to literal about what happened here and basically making an argument in advance that lets most of the key players off the hook.

The big plot was to overturn the results of the election. The President and his congressional allies were working on that at the DOJ and in Congress. They also planned a big rally in the Capitol to menace and overawe members of Congress. They got them riled up at the rally and then literally told them to march on the Capitol. They knew there were various rightist paramilitaries in that crowd – Proud Boys, Oath Keepers, etc. They knew they had told them that Congress was stealing the election from Trump and that they should go to Capitol Hill and make them stop. My best guess is that people like Trump and Mark Meadows didn’t want to know all the details of precisely what was going to happen once the mob got to the barricades. But that’s really always how these things work.

We already appear to have reporting that Bannon knew and was trying to foment the kind of siege that actually occurred. And we can see pretty clearly that this was the plan because the reaction to the storming of the Capitol complex from folks like Bannon and indeed Trump himself wasn’t dismay or outrage but glee. That’s what they were looking for. This remains perhaps the most important part of the whole investigation: the period of hours in which Trump gleefully watched his supporters try to hunt down the members of Congress and indeed Trump’s Vice President and refused efforts to calm the situation or order federal troops to stop the assault on the Capitol.

The defenders of the Jan 6th insurrection want to argue that the rally was just like any other example of Americans exercising their right to peaceful protest. No different from the March on Washington or the Women’s March in the first days of Trump’s presidency. The only problem was when individuals decided to break down the barricades and … well Trump and Paul Gosar and Mo Brooks … well, that wasn’t their fault. Who could have predicted, etc.?

To the best of my knowledge this report doesn’t change the facts on this basic issue. But we are fools if that’s what we’re looking for. Or if that is the standard we’re applying to this inquiry.

Meanwhile a number of Democrats are taking this opportunity to call out the Treason Caucus. Good. There are now two sides in America; those who support or at least believe the insurrection was no big deal and Americans. Democrats have to act on this truth every chance they get.

Several Democratic House members have seized on the new Rolling Stone magazine article on the Capitol insurrection to call for the expulsion of the pro-Trump hardliners in Congress who were allegedly involved in planning the rallies on Jan. 6 that preceded the deadly attack.

“Any member of Congress who helped plot a terrorist attack on our nation’s Capitol must be expelled,” Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) declared via Twitter on Sunday night.

“Those responsible remain a danger to our democracy, our country, and human life in the vicinity of our Capitol and beyond,” she tweeted.

Fellow New York Democrat Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-NY) slammed the “cabal” of GOP lawmakers identified in the Rolling Stone article who “not only incited but also aided and abetted the insurrection.”

“There’s no place for insurrectionists in the US Congress,” Torres tweeted. “Expel any and all accomplices.”

Reps. Eric Swalwell (D-CA) and David Cicilline (D-RI) echoed similar demands for removal.

“Any Member who had knowledge of or helped plan the January 6 attack on the Capitol needs to be immediately expelled from Congress,” Cicilline tweeted. “They cannot be trusted with the future of our democracy and country.”

[LFC]

Admitted felon (acceptance of that pardon is an admission of guilt) Steve Bannon continues his fascist tirades.

Right-wing broadcaster Steve Bannon claimed this week that there had been a "coup" against then-President Donald Trump following the 2020 presidential election.

Bannon, a former Trump adviser, kicked off his Monday War Room program by promoting a conspiracy theory claiming that members of the Oath Keepers had secretly worked with the FBI to instigate the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol.

"Did you ever see Steve Bannon whine about all the crap they pulled on Russia?" Bannon asked, referring to the investigation into Russia's interference in the 2016 election. "The answer is no. It is what it is. And guess what? We're crushing this illegitimate regime in this crib. OK? So, Benny [Thompson], suck on that. OK?"

"So do not think that you're going to intimidate us in any way, shape or form," he continued. "When independent voters see this they're going to be outraged. What did the FBI know, what did the national security apparatus know, what does [FBI Director Christopher Wray] know, what does Merrick Garland know and what did they not tell the president of the United States? What did they not tell Donald Trump?"

Bannon added: "What did they plan? What did they plot? And what did they hide from Donald J. Trump when he was commander-in-chief. This is an outrage. You talk about coups. I can show you a coup and we will show you a coup. No conspiracy. We're going to connect hard dots."

[LFC]

Interesting takes on the Rolling Stone reporting.

Legal experts including a Harvard professor and a top election and voting rights law attorney are weighing in on Sunday night's bombshell report from Rolling Stone naming members of Congress and the Trump administration who were involved in the planning and organizing of the January 6 rally and/or "Trump's efforts to overturn his election loss," according to two of the planners of the "Stop the Steal" rally.

Harvard professor, CNN Analyst, Grip Mobility CEO, well-known national security expert and former Obama Homeland Security official Juliette Kayyem says clearly: "Mark Meadows, just three words: call your lawyer."

[LFC]

From prior posts I made:

The Claremont Institute, a conservative think tank that ex-Trump legal adviser John Eastman works for as a senior fellow, on Monday defended Eastman’s memo to then-President Donald Trump and then-Vice President Mike Pence that laid out how the latter could hijack the 2020 election certification process to keep Trump in power.

The organization released a statement that spun Eastman’s memo, which blatantly sought to help Trump subvert the election, as mere “legal advice” that has “since been maliciously misrepresented and distorted by major media outlets.”

The statement attempted to whitewash Eastman’s actions by presenting two points that give a misleading narrative of the lawyer’s memo.

John Eastman, the Trump legal adviser behind the infamous memo (which had two similar drafts) detailing various strategies for then-Vice President Mike Pence to thwart the 2020 election certification, is insisting that he totally didn’t think those options were legit and were, in fact, totally bonkers, and Eastman does not believe in ideas that are bonkers, thank you very much!

Eastman told the National Review that the memos were “internal discussion memos” merely describing “available scenarios that had been floated,” and that somebody on Trump’s legal team “had asked” Eastman to write them.

“I was asked to kind of outline how each of those scenarios would work and then orally present my views on whether I thought they were valid or not, so that’s what those memos did,” the conservative lawyer said.

[snip]

Eastman insisted he doesn’t actually believe in the memo’s jaw-dropping argument that House GOP could replace Biden’s electoral votes, and “anybody who thinks that that’s a viable strategy is crazy.”

Really, John? Let's roll the video!

Former Trump legal adviser John Eastman told an undercover progressive activist on camera that he stood by his blueprint on how Mike Pence could subvert the 2020 election for Trump – despite insisting as recently as last week to the National Review that he totally didn’t believe those ideas could work.

• Eastman told the activist that there was “no question” that his legal reasoning was solid.

• Eastman also said that the reason why Pence ultimately didn’t go along with the lawyer’s plot was because the then-vice president was “establishment guy at the end of the day.”

• So much for Eastman’s backtracking last week, when he told the National Review that the memo’s main argument that Pence is the ultimate arbiter of certifying the Electoral College votes “doesn’t make a whole lot of sense,” and that the idea that House Republicans, upon theoretically being given the power to do so by Pence, could replace Biden electoral votes with Trump votes was “crazy.”

As a side note this is what James O'Keefe and Project Veritas would like to be able to do except that they're royal f***-ups who desperately try to create narratives out of thin air and then deceptively splice video to support their lies. I guess getting the sensationalism you want using accurate and honestly presented quotes is hard.