Republican Assault on Democracy and March Towards Fascism

[LFC]

Another deranged fascist that came out of the U.S. military's officer corps. It's frightening how many of them there are.

Here’s just the latest revelation from these Jan 6th related texts we keep hearing about. In a way it’s more of the same but the details are telling. This one turns on Rep. Scott Perry (R-PA), yet another far-right House member, now the head of the Freedom Caucus. In the days after Biden was declared the winner of the 2020 election he was texting Mark Meadows insisting that Meadows get DNI John Ratcliffe (another House right-winger who Trump had installed as chief of US intelligence based on essentially no professional background) to have the NSA “immediately seize and begin looking for international comms related to Dominion.” Basically he was pushing the idea that China had hacked Dominion’s voting machines to make Biden the winner.

In other words, this is pure Giuliani/Sidney Powell Kracken nonsense. But here it’s a member of Congress advising the White House Chief of Staff. He was also convinced that it was “the Brits who helped quarterback this entire operation” and that then-CIA Director Gina Haspell was covering up for them. He insisted the Italians were also in on it.

You get the idea. Pretty insane stuff.

But here’s the part that jumped out to me. Perry is a retired Brigadier General. Among other things he was an Army helicopter pilot and he flew missions in Iraq. A Brigadier General is a one star. So the first rung on the four rank gradations of being a general officer. It’s a little different than I thought from the CNN article. He was in the Pennsylvania Army National Guard. So even though his career stretched over four decades he wasn’t a full time soldier. He also had a business career that spanned much of this period.

The point though is that this isn’t someone who just heard what the NSA was from listening to Rush Limbaugh. With a general’s rank you’re going to have at least some general understanding of how US intelligence works and one would hope some idea of what’s insane and what’s not. Perry serves on the House Foreign Affairs Committee.

It’s certainly not lost on me that the US military officer corps especially is heavily stocked with conservatives. A lot of people who are very conservative. But I still like to hope that general officers don’t participate in trying to overthrow the state, even post-retirement. Alas, this seems to be hoping for too much.

[LFC]

Gaetz is throwing a hissy fit over being accurately described as an incendiary nutjob by McCarthy and Scalise.

Knives Out

After New York Times reporters Alexander Burns and Jonathan Martin released new phone call recordings of House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) and Minority Whip Steve Scalise (R-LA) privately calling out Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) as a security threat in wake of the Jan. 6 Capitol attack, Gaetz put out a statement on Tuesday night mocking the two leaders for “holding views” about him and Trump “that they shared on sniveling calls with [then-House GOP conference chair] Liz Cheney, not us.”

• “This is the behavior of weak men, not leaders,” Gaetz said.

• McCarthy and Scalise made the comments during a private call on Jan. 10, saying Gaetz was “putting people in jeopardy” with his active role in helping Trump incite the Capitol attack.

• The two Republican leaders also called out Rep. Mo Brooks (R-AL) in the call, with McCarthy opining that the Alabama lawmaker had acted worse than Trump on Jan. 6.

Here’s one of the call tapes:

[goldenvalley]

Apr 27, 2022 15:38:48 GMT LFC said:

We now have recordings for that short period after the January 6 Republican Insurrection when Kevin McCarthy and other Republicans were actually worried about inciting violence. That didn't even last a month.

Days after the deadly Capitol insurrection, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) wanted to rein in several far-right lawmakers who pushed then-President Trump’s efforts to subvert the 2020 election results, out of concern that they would incite violence against other lawmakers, audio recordings of a Jan. 10 call with GOP leaders obtained by the New York Times detail.

In the audio recordings obtained by the Times, which are included in the forthcoming book titled “This Will Not Pass,” McCarthy is heard specifically calling out Reps. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) and Mo Brooks (R-AL). McCarthy viewed the actions of both of the GOP congressmen, who are prominent boosters of the Big Lie, as a threat to the security of other lawmakers and the Capitol complex.

Additionally, McCarthy and other GOP leaders are heard in the call discussing several other far-right lawmakers who issued incendiary comments supporting Trump’s election steal scheme, such as Reps. Lauren Boebert (R-CO) and Barry Moore (R-AL).

On the call, McCarthy asserted that “tension is too high” and the “country is too crazy” for members to continue to push inflammatory rhetoric about the 2020 election.

“He’s putting people in jeopardy,” McCarthy said, referring to Gaetz. “And he doesn’t need to be doing this. We saw what people would do in the Capitol, you know, and these people came prepared with rope, with everything else.”

House Minority Whip Steve Scalise (R-LA) is also heard in audio recordings agreeing with McCarthy’s concerns with Gaetz.

“It’s potentially illegal what he’s doing,” Scalise said.

When it came to Brooks, McCarthy specifically took issue with the GOP congressman’s remarks at the “Stop the Steal” rally that occurred hours before the insurrection. Brooks told the crowd that it was “the day American patriots start taking down names and kicking ass.” In McCarthy’s view, Brooks’ words were a greater offense compared to that of Trump, who urged his supporters to “fight like hell” to overturn the election results.

“You think the President deserves to be impeached for his comments?” McCarthy asked rhetorically. “That’s almost something that goes further than what the President said.”

At one point, McCarthy signaled that he planned to advise the far-right lawmakers to halt their troubling actions.

“Our members have got to start paying attention to what they say, too, and you can’t put up with that,” McCarthy said.

Twilight Zone theme music again... Instead of stripping Brooks, Gets, Bobert, MTG of committee assignments he strips Cheney of them.  Something very dark and powerful was at work then.  How is it that Cheney and the other guy didn't fall prey to it?

[jackd]

People with ethics and class are always a minority.

[goldenvalley]

Apr 27, 2022 17:16:28 GMT jackd said:

People with ethics and class are always a minority.

True, but these folks on the recording were scared shitless for a while.  I'd think that would count for something.

[Bact PhD]

Apr 27, 2022 18:50:14 GMT goldenvalley said:

Apr 27, 2022 17:16:28 GMT jackd said:

People with ethics and class are always a minority.

True, but these folks on the recording were scared shitless for a while.  I'd think that would count for something.

Soooo, what either (a) calmed those initial fears or (b) scared them further shitless such that fighting the January 6 crowd was a non-starter— I’m thinking the threat of getting primaried by someone even more bonkers was such a sufficiently scary proposition. In other words , yes, something dark at work.

[LFC]

A former Republican judge (HW Bush pick) wrote and op-ed on The Big Lie and the plan to steal the election in 2024.

Nearly a year and a half later, surprisingly few understand what January 6 was all about.

Fewer still understand why former President Donald Trump and Republicans persist in their long-disproven claim that the 2020 presidential election was stolen. Much less why they are obsessed about making the 2024 race a referendum on the "stolen" election of 2020, which even they know was not stolen.

January 6 was never about a stolen election or even about actual voting fraud. It was always and only about an election that Trump lost fair and square, under legislatively promulgated election rules in a handful of swing states that he and other Republicans contend were unlawfully changed by state election officials and state courts to expand the right and opportunity to vote, largely in response to the Covid pandemic.

The Republicans' mystifying claim to this day that Trump did, or would have, received more votes than Joe Biden in 2020 were it not for actual voting fraud, is but the shiny object that Republicans have tauntingly and disingenuously dangled before the American public for almost a year and a half now to distract attention from their far more ambitious objective.

That objective is not somehow to rescind the 2020 election, as they would have us believe. That's constitutionally impossible. Trump's and the Republicans' far more ambitious objective is to execute successfully in 2024 the very same plan they failed in executing in 2020 and to overturn the 2024 election if Trump or his anointed successor loses again in the next quadrennial contest.

The last presidential election was a dry run for the next.

From long before Election Day 2020, Trump and Republicans planned to overturn the presidential election by exploiting the Electors and Elections Clauses of the Constitution, the Electoral College, the Electoral Count Act of 1877, and the 12th Amendment, if Trump lost the popular and Electoral College vote.

The cornerstone of the plan was to have the Supreme Court embrace the little known "independent state legislature" doctrine, which, in turn, would pave the way for exploitation of the Electoral College process and the Electoral Count Act, and finally for Vice President Mike Pence to reject enough swing state electoral votes to overturn the election using Pence's ceremonial power under the 12th Amendment and award the presidency to Donald Trump.

The independent state legislature doctrine says that, under the Elections and the Electors Clauses of the Constitution, state legislatures possess plenary and exclusive power over the conduct of federal presidential elections and the selection of state presidential electors. Not even a state supreme court, let alone other state elections officials, can alter the legislatively written election rules or interfere with the appointment of state electors by the legislatures, under this theory.

The Supreme Court has never decided whether to embrace the independent state legislature doctrine. But then-Chief Justice William Rehnquist, and Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas in separate concurring opinions said they would embrace that doctrine in Bush v. Gore, 20 years earlier, and Republicans had every reason to believe there were at least five votes on the Supreme Court for the doctrine in November 2020, with Amy Coney Barrett having just been confirmed in the eleventh hour before the election.

[LFC]

TPM presents 5 Points On How GOP Leaders Feared Their Extremist Colleagues After Jan. 6. This point shows how quickly McCarthy's nascent spine withered and died, just like most Republicans who have dared to speak up against the insanity just a little bit.

3  McCarthy’s Tough Guy Talk Apparently Fizzled With Gaetz And Brooks In Addition To Trump

It’s well established at this point that McCarthy, for all his handwringing, ultimately chickened out of his private plan to urge President Donald Trump to resign in wake of the Jan. 6 attack. But apparently the GOP leader, who told fellow leaders on the Jan. 10 call that he would be “calling” Gaetz, ultimately never got around to having a talk with the Florida lawmaker or Brooks.

Gaetz indicated as much in his scathing response to the tapes on Tuesday, saying that McCarthy and Scalise “held views about President Trump and me that they shared on sniveling calls with Liz Cheney, not us.”

“This is the behavior of weak men, not leaders,” the Florida Republican said.

And Brooks told the New York Times that he didn’t recall McCarthy ever having a direct conversation with him about his remarks at the Trump rally.

[pnwguy]

Un-sanitation men

www.thebulwark.com/trumps-garbage-men/

[LFC]

Apr 28, 2022 13:51:49 GMT pnwguy said:

Un-sanitation men

www.thebulwark.com/trumps-garbage-men/

It's all about power. From your link.

“If this isn’t impeachable, I don’t know what is.”

From this link.

"I didn't get to be leader by voting with five people in the conference," the Times' reporters quote McConnell as telling a friend by way of explaining his change of heart.

[goldenvalley]

From the retired judge that Ted Cruz clerked for and is seen to be very conservative.  He outlined the Trump plan for 2020 which included the independent state legislature doctrine.

The independent state legislature doctrine says that, under the Elections and the Electors Clauses of the Constitution, state legislatures possess plenary and exclusive power over the conduct of federal presidential elections and the selection of state presidential electors. Not even a state supreme court, let alone other state elections officials, can alter the legislatively written election rules or interfere with the appointment of state electors by the legislatures, under this theory.

The Supreme Court has never decided whether to embrace the independent state legislature doctrine. But then-Chief Justice William Rehnquist, and Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas in separate concurring opinions said they would embrace that doctrine in Bush v. Gore, 20 years earlier, and Republicans had every reason to believe there were at least five votes on the Supreme Court for the doctrine in November 2020, with Amy Coney Barrett having just been confirmed in the eleventh hour before the election.

I guess Ruth Bader Ginsburg foiled the plan by not dying soon enough for Coney Barrett to take part in the decisions.  Further, he says:

Trump and his allies and supporters in Congress and the states began readying their failed 2020 plan to overturn the 2024 presidential election later that very same day and they have been unabashedly readying that plan ever since, in plain view to the American public. Today, they are already a long way toward recapturing the White House in 2024, whether Trump or another Republican candidate wins the election or not.

Trump and Republicans are preparing to return to the Supreme Court, where this time they will likely win the independent state legislature doctrine, now that Amy Coney Barrett is on the Court and ready to vote. Barrett has not addressed the issue, but this turns on an originalist interpretation of the Constitution, and Barrett is firmly aligned on that method of constitutional interpretation with Thomas, Alito, and Gorsuch, all three of whom have written that they believe the doctrine is correct.

Only last month, in a case from North Carolina the Court declined to hear, Moore v. Harper, four Justices (Alito, Thomas, Gorsuch and Kavanaugh) said that the independent state legislature question is of exceptional importance to our national elections, the issue will continue to recur and the Court should decide the issue sooner rather than later before the next presidential election. This case involved congressional redistricting, but the independent state legislature doctrine is as applicable to redistricting as it is to presidential elections.

As it stands today, Trump, or his anointed successor, and the Republicans are poised, in their word, to "steal" from Democrats the presidential election in 2024 that they falsely claim the Democrats stole from them in 2020. But there is a difference between the falsely claimed "stolen" election of 2020 and what would be the stolen election of 2024. Unlike the Democrats' theft claimed by Republicans, the Republicans' theft would be in open defiance of the popular vote and thus the will of the American people: poetic, though tragic, irony for America's democracy.

[LFC]

Josh Marshall has background on the highly conservative former judge who wrote about the Republican blueprint to steal all future elections along with an excellent description of the Independent State Legislature theory that is utterly insane but is embraced by partisan hack SCOTUS. It's very worth the read if you want to understand how Republicans, with the backing of SCOTUS, will simply throw out election results they don't like in any state where they control the legislature.

[LFC]

Chris Hayes explains what was happening when Pence said "I'm not getting in that car." The explanation that the Secret Service, as controlled by a loyal Trump flunky, desperately wanted to take him away from the Capitol to prevent certification of the election is the most likely explanation of what happened. We were literally one step from a successful coup, aided and abetted by partisan hack SCOTUS which would have approved the state legislatures absolute dominion to throw out the election results in their states.

[goldenvalley]

Apr 29, 2022 19:20:10 GMT LFC said:

Chris Hayes explains what was happening when Pence said "I'm not getting in that car." The explanation that the Secret Service, as controlled by a loyal Trump flunky, desperately wanted to take him away from the Capitol to prevent certification of the election is the most likely explanation of what happened. We were literally one step from a successful coup, aided and abetted by partisan hack SCOTUS which would have approved the state legislatures absolute dominion to throw out the election results in their states.

Wow that Congress Member's statement about what it would mean to have Congress leave the building was a revelation to me.  I hadn't thought about it in those terms...mob drives Congress (and VP) out of the building equals a coup.  Why wasn't Pence out talking about this in the immediate aftermath.  This failure of so many people who knew so much about Trump and his people all kept their mouths shut while Trump's behavior was ongoing, while he was running for re-election.  Craven behavior. 

[pnwguy]

The plotters don't really care to remain hidden. They are proud of their work to overthrow democracy.

[goldenvalley]

Apr 30, 2022 22:04:23 GMT pnwguy said:

The plotters don't really care to remain hidden. They are proud of their work to overthrow democracy.

This is why I doubt the results of the Select Committee on 1/6 will make much impact. So many people will say "Yeah 1776!!!" like the plotters.  I don't know if enough people who are largely tuned out will tune into this and will be horrified, let alone enough to turn out to vote to keep the crazies out of office.

[LFC]

Why yes, Trump was interested in outright shooting of Americans he didn't like. Are any of you surprised?

At the height of the nationwide protests over the police murder of George Floyd, then-President Donald Trump asked if authorities could simply shoot the Black Lives Matter protesters who had taken to the streets in Washington, D.C. and elsewhere, according to a new memoir.

The account came from former Defense Secretary Mark Esper, whose memoir was quoted by Axios Monday.

“Can’t you just shoot them? Just shoot them in the legs or something?” Trump asked of the protestors, according to Axios’ report on Esper’s book.

[goldenvalley]

May 2, 2022 16:51:08 GMT LFC said:

Why yes, Trump was interested in outright shooting of Americans he didn't like. Are any of you surprised?

At the height of the nationwide protests over the police murder of George Floyd, then-President Donald Trump asked if authorities could simply shoot the Black Lives Matter protesters who had taken to the streets in Washington, D.C. and elsewhere, according to a new memoir.

The account came from former Defense Secretary Mark Esper, whose memoir was quoted by Axios Monday.

“Can’t you just shoot them? Just shoot them in the legs or something?” Trump asked of the protestors, according to Axios’ report on Esper’s book.

That's the tough talkin' plain language guy everyone loved.  I'm sure he wasn't the only person in America thinking and saying that.  Especially the ones that watched Fox News and social media feeds that replayed the burning of the police station in Minneapolis, and the square in Portland on continuous loop.  They were quite convinced that this was happening all over the country.

I'm sure it was said about the rioters in LA 30 years ago over Rodney King being beaten and about the riots in places like LA and Detroit in the '60's.  Americans can't abide property destruction...beat or shoot people eh! but don't damage anything.

[jackd]

Unfortunately, that property damage does more to damage effots to clean up police behavior than it contributes to needed change. As you point out, it gets played on a continuous loop on right wing media. It also encourages "tough on crime" regimes in cities.

[LFC]

And as we saw in the BLM protests property crime is convenient for bad actors, both basic criminals and right-wing domestic terrorism trying to stir up trouble and propaganda.

[LFC]

Vague laws and the associated risk of unpredictable courts and the expense of a legal defense are fascist tools. The Republicans are gleefully deploying them at education. They can then be used to attack educators who were never given guidance and are simply doing the best they can. What a great way to open up the pathway for religious mediocrity to come prancing in.

Political observers have been theorizing for some time that the Republican Party’s current war on education and school-related issues is all part of a broader effort to create a political illusion. The right-wing media and right-wing politicians are seemingly using each other to make enough noise about faux cultural grievances that it’s impossible to tell where the noise originated in the first place.

Are kindergarteners in Florida being exposed to LGBTQ or gender identity issues in an age inappropriate way? Are math textbooks in Texas indoctrinating kids to become liberal cyborgs? No, but asking the question gives the question a life of its own.

And education advocates have been sounding the alarm on the issue for some time — that education-gagging laws sweeping red states across the nation are also being written in a way that makes them difficult to implement on any sort of practical level.

The advocacy group Pen America published some findings from its ongoing research this week, tracking the various K-12 education-targeting laws being passed around the U.S. This month, the group looked at the “guidance documents” that have been put forth in states that have passed new laws restricting what’s taught in public schools — whether it’s amorphous bans on the teaching of “Critical Race Theory,” i.e. talking about systemic racism in the classroom, outlawing specific library books or, as has become increasingly popular in red states in recent weeks, introducing copy-cat versions of Gov. Ron DeSantis’ (R) “Don’t Say Gay” bill.

As Pen America describes it, guidance documents are put together by state officials after a law has been passed to give schools practical steps to ensure they’re following the new laws. But, as the advocacy group writes, “instead of clarifying the laws, guidance documents have muddied the waters, further eroding academic freedom and students’ right to learn.”

The group found that, since January 2021, almost 200 of these “education gag” bills have been proposed in 40 states, with 19 becoming law. Several other states have passed similar bans on various versions of the GOP’s fake education-related boogeymen via executive action.

But the majority of the bills that have become law either have not come with “guidance documents” to help schools implement the laws or the state’s tips for incorporating the new bans into school policy were just as vaguely written as the language of the bills themselves.

[LFC]

20 Years Of Democratic Backsliding Got Us To The Roe Reversal

If the Supreme Court overturns Roe v. Wade in the near future, as a leaked draft opinion Monday night indicated it likely will, the ruling will represent one of the least popular decisions in recent history by arguably the least representative body in American politics.

In other words: A win for generations of Republican operatives who’ve sought to eliminate abortion rights — despite Roe’s overwhelming, decades-long popularity — and stack the court with an ideological, conservative majority. It’s part of a pattern known as democratic backsliding, or a decline in the quality of small-d democracy.

Four of the five justices reportedly behind the anti-Roe majority were appointed by presidents who lost the popular vote, and all of them were confirmed by senators representing a minority of voters.

They got there through a concerted political effort — an effort that members of the court have acknowledged in public.

“Will this institution survive the stench that this creates in the public perception that the Constitution and its reading are just political acts?” Justice Sonia Sotomayor wondered aloud in December, during oral arguments for the pending abortion case.

To legal observers of the court’s recent trajectory, the question is overdue.

“The stench that she describes is already very apparent to those of us who pay close attention to the court,” said Joseph Fishkin, a professor at UCLA School of Law.

The five justices that Politico reported make up the court’s anti-Roe majority — Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett — are the only justices in American history whose nominations were supported by senators representing fewer voters than the senators who opposed them.

[LFC]

This author notes that there has been a link between losses in democracy and abortion bans. They really do appear to be the authoritarians' tool.

New York Times writer Max Fisher flagged a piece he published back in September 2021 here:

[LFC]

McCarthy must be regretting his momentary lapse in judgement when he was scared into actually speaking the truth. You can bet he'll never let THAT happen again.

Uh Oh, The Tapes Are Still A-Comin’

New York Times reporters Jonathan Martin and Alex Burns on Wednesday released more recorded audio of House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy’s (R-CA) frantic private calls to fellow House GOP leaders explicitly acknowledging that Trump was responsible for the Jan. 6 Capitol attack.

• McCarthy fretted during a Jan. 8 call that the process of potentially getting rid of Trump via the 25th Amendment “takes too long,” according to the new tape.

• McCarthy also floated reaching out to President-elect Joe Biden to ensure a smooth transition of power, the audio reveals.

[pnwguy]

May 5, 2022 14:30:44 GMT LFC said:

McCarthy must be regretting his momentary lapse in judgement when he was scared into actually speaking the truth. You can bet he'll never let THAT happen again.

The most important news story of the day is this criminal leaker