Republican Assault on Democracy and March Towards Fascism

[RichTBikkies]

May 12, 2021 5:53:45 GMT pnwguy said:

Tom Friedman's passionate call to focus on the GOP before they destroy democracy.

Not THAT Tom Friedman, surely?

[LFC]

May 12, 2021 5:53:45 GMT pnwguy said:

Tom Friedman's passionate call to focus on the GOP before they destroy democracy.

www.nytimes.com/2021/05/11/opinion/liz-cheney-gop.html

Republican = Fascist. Period. End.

[indy]

I hardly think the beginning of the end can be traced to Liz Cheney. Her dad maybe but it's been a slowly unfolding train wreck that started at least two decades ago. The end of the end was January 6, 2021. We are now in the post-apocalyptic phase. I mean, jesus, if Biden winning by a huge margin was cause for a sacking of the capitol, imagine what a NARROW victory by a Democratic candidate will mean? Especially if they don't happen to be a white male?

[LFC]

Republicans are attempting to rewrite history as the House hearings on the Jan. 6 Republican Insurrection. This is fascism. It's not coming, it's here, and it's scary as f***.

Not only are House Oversight Republicans refusing to blame former President Donald Trump for his actions that led to the January 6 attack, but they are actually trying to paint Trump and his mob as the real victims.

“It was Trump supporters who lost their lives that day, not Trump supporters who were taking the lives of others,” said Rep. Jody Hice (R-GA) during a hearing Wednesday on the insurrection with two late-Trump administration officials, former acting Defense Secretary Christopher Miller and former acting Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen. Hice went on to mention Ashli Babbitt, the Trump supporter who was fatally shot as she tried to climb through a broken window into the hallway that leads to the House chamber.

Rep. Paul Gosar (R-AZ), who has been accused of helping organize the Stop the Steal rally on January 6 that turned into the mob, described Babbitt as a “veteran wrapped in an American flag,” and called her killing an “execution.”

The comments are part of a GOP attempt to rewrite the history of what happened when a violent mob descended on the Capitol, trying to overthrow an election Trump and other members of their party told them was rigged.

Gosar tried to paint the insurrection as not actually violent, bringing unwilling witnesses along a line of questioning-turned-monologue about the fact that no firearms were confiscated that day from members of the mob. In the past, Trump and Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) have done the same thing.

[LFC]

David Kurtz is succinct in Let the Record Clearly Show...

Four months after the worst insurrection since the Civil War, the House GOP ousted one of its leaders for not condoning the vast Trump-led conspiracy to overturn the election that culminated with the insurrection. That Liz Cheney is a firebrand conservative and the scion of one of conservatism’s leading families for the last half century only sharpens the point. American democracy may be past the event horizon and we still not know it.

[pnwguy]

May 12, 2021 16:39:30 GMT LFC said:

Republicans are attempting to rewrite history as the House hearings on the Jan. 6 Republican Insurrection. This is fascism. It's not coming, it's here, and it's scary as f***.

Not only are House Oversight Republicans refusing to blame former President Donald Trump for his actions that led to the January 6 attack, but they are actually trying to paint Trump and his mob as the real victims.

“It was Trump supporters who lost their lives that day, not Trump supporters who were taking the lives of others,” said Rep. Jody Hice (R-GA) during a hearing Wednesday on the insurrection with two late-Trump administration officials, former acting Defense Secretary Christopher Miller and former acting Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen. Hice went on to mention Ashli Babbitt, the Trump supporter who was fatally shot as she tried to climb through a broken window into the hallway that leads to the House chamber.

Rep. Paul Gosar (R-AZ), who has been accused of helping organize the Stop the Steal rally on January 6 that turned into the mob, described Babbitt as a “veteran wrapped in an American flag,” and called her killing an “execution.”

The comments are part of a GOP attempt to rewrite the history of what happened when a violent mob descended on the Capitol, trying to overthrow an election Trump and other members of their party told them was rigged.

Gosar tried to paint the insurrection as not actually violent, bringing unwilling witnesses along a line of questioning-turned-monologue about the fact that no firearms were confiscated that day from members of the mob. In the past, Trump and Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) have done the same thing.

"We have always been at war with Eastasia"

[goldenvalley]

May 12, 2021 17:47:31 GMT pnwguy said:

May 12, 2021 16:39:30 GMT LFC said:

Republicans are attempting to rewrite history as the House hearings on the Jan. 6 Republican Insurrection. This is fascism. It's not coming, it's here, and it's scary as f***.

"We have always been at war with Eastasia"

Gee Congressman.  When you mount an insurrection your side might suffer casualties.  You can't make omelets without breaking eggs.  

[LFC]

A group of goose stepping former top-ranking military officers signed on to a letter pushing The Big Lie. It is now incumbent on all military personnel to stand up for America and at least some of them are. They swore and oath. Time to see if it means anything to them.

Half a year after now-President Joe Biden won the 2020 election — picking up 306 electoral votes and defeating former President Donald Trump by more than 7 million in the popular vote — Trump cultists continue to push the debunked conspiracy theory that the election was stolen from him. Some of those believers are veterans of the United States military, and veterans who don't buy into the president's lie are speaking out against those who do.

On Monday, May 10, an open letter from a far-right pro-Trump group called Flag Officers 4 America was released — and the letter, which was signed by 124 retired generals and admirals, promoted the false claim that the 2020 election was stolen from Trump and that Trump, not Biden, was the real winner. The letter read, "Under a Democrat Congress and the Current Administration, our Country has taken a hard left turn toward Socialism and a Marxist form of tyrannical government which must be countered now by electing congressional and presidential candidates who will always act to defend our Constitutional Republic." And Politico's Bryan Bender reports that other U.S. military veterans are calling the group out and doing so forcefully.

"As news of the letter spread," Bender reports, "it set off a round of recriminations among current and former military members. One serving Navy officer, who did not want to be identified publicly, called it 'disturbing and reckless.'"
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Jim Golby, described by Bender as "an expert in civil-military relations," was vehemently critical of the Flag Officers 4 America letter and denounced it as a "shameful effort to use their rank and the military's reputation for such a gross and blatant partisan attack." And Bender quotes Adm. Mike Mullen, who formerly chaired the Joint Chiefs of Staff, as saying, "I think it hurts the military, and by extension, it hurts the country." Mullen described the letter as being full of "right-wing Republican talking points."

Bender notes that the Flag Officers 4 America letter "was striking for several reasons."

"It is not unusual for retired officers to take sides in electoral politics and endorse candidates," Bender explains. "But its fiery, even angry, language and conspiracy-mongering struck multiple long-time observers as particularly out of bounds and dangerous. Coming outside the campaign season was also seen as rare, if not unprecedented."

The rhetoric in the Flag Officers letter sounds like something that would come from a far-right outlet like WorldNetDaily or One America News. The letter read, "The Current Administration has launched a full-blown assault on our Constitutional rights in a dictatorial manner, bypassing the Congress, with more than 50 Executive Orders quickly signed, many reversing the previous Administration's effective policies and regulations. Moreover, population control actions such as excessive lockdowns, school and business closures, and most alarming, censorship of written and verbal expression are all direct assaults on our fundamental Rights. We must support and hold accountable politicians who will act to counter Socialism, Marxism and Progressivism."

Of course, the notion that the Biden Administration is run by "Marxists" is downright laughable. Biden, a centrist Democrat, is hardly viewed as a role model by actual far-left Marxist groups around the world — and in 2020, he was endorsed by right-wing anti-Trump conservatives who include Carly Fiorina, Cindy McCain, former U.S. Sen. Jeff Flake and former Ohio Gov. John Kasich, among many others.

The far-right Republicans who signed the Flag Officers letter include retired U.S. Army Lt. Gen. William Boykin — who has been expressing anti-Islam and Christian nationalist views and serves as executive vice president of the theocratic Family Research Council — and retired U.S. Army Brig. Gen. Don Bolduc, who is running for a U.S. Senate seat in New Hampshire in the 2022 election. This isn't the first time Bolduc has run for the U.S. Senate; in 2020, he lost a GOP senatorial primary to Bryant "Corky" Messner, who lost to incumbent Democratic U.S. Sen. Jeanne Shaheen in the general election.

Another veteran who signed the Flag Officers letter is retired Vice Adm. John Poindexter, who served as deputy national security adviser under President Ronald Reagan and was a leading figure in the Iran-Contra scandal.

[LFC]

Liz Cheney has been hitting the media circuit and tearing into Trump and his Congressional supporters. TPM has five takeaways but this is the one that, while not surprising, is the best example of the danger of the right. Decades of carefully cultivated rage by the GOP and Faux News working hand in hand has born its fetid fruit.

Cheney believes some Republicans aren’t speaking out against Trump’s falsehoods due to safety concerns

Cheney stated that it’s “very important” to stand up for what’s right, before claiming that many of her colleagues fear for their safety if they were to speak out against Trump’s baseless claims.

“I know that there are many members who have expressed concern about their own security,” Cheney said. “And I think that’s an important point to think about as well, that we now live in a country where members’ votes are affected because they’re worried about their security, they’re worried about threats on their lives. So I think that’s part of it.”

Cheney added that despite the majority of the Republican Party’s failure to speak out against election fraud falsehoods like she does, it’s her responsibility as an elected official to “tell the truth.”

[LFC]

Cheney isn't the only one pushing back but those who are constitute a minority of the party. Here's a list of some of the current liars trying to defends the Jan. 6 Republican Insurrection. These people must be forever branded as traitors.

Rep. Andrew Clyde (R-GA) likened the mob of Trump supporters that breached the Capitol on Jan. 6 to a “normal tourist visit” and denied that the attack was an insurrection.

Rep. Paul Gosar (R-AZ) misleadingly characterized Ashli Babbitt, an insurrectionist shot and killed by a Capitol Police officer when she tried to jump through a window smashed by the mob outside of the House chamber, as a “veteran wrapped in an American flag” who was “executed.”

Rep. Jody Hice (R-GA) accused Democrats of “cherry-picking” former President Trump’s words at a “Stop the Steal” rally hours before the Capitol attacks, when the then-President urged his supporters to “fight like hell” to overturn the election results.

[LFC]

Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R-Texass) gets taken to task by Chuck Freaking Todd. He's another to add to the list of traitors to America.

Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R-TX) on Sunday got into a testy exchange with MSNBC’s “Meet the Press” host Chuck Todd when grilled on the GOP’s embrace of the big lie, following the House GOP’s vote to oust Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY) as the No. 3 Republican for refusing to buy into former President Trump’s election fraud falsehoods.

After defending House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy’s (R-CA) false suggestion that his caucus is done pushing the bogus claims of election fraud that led to Cheney’s ouster as its conference chair, Todd took Crenshaw to task by asking about the GOP congressman’s record of refusing to accept that a free and fair election was held in November.

Todd pointed out that the GOP congressman signed onto Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton’s (R) unsuccessful lawsuit that sought to overturn election results in several key battleground states.

Crenshaw’s feathers were ruffled.

“You guys in the press painted that as some extreme action. Of course, it wasn’t,” Crenshaw said. “That amicus brief was a simple question of the Supreme Court in saying, ‘can you please speak to this question of whether process changes in the election last minute, not approved by the legislature can be deemed constitutional?’ It was a question. They didn’t want to answer that question.”

Crenshaw added that he voted to certify the Joe Biden’s electoral victory, which happened hours after the deadly Capitol insurrection that former President Trump incited.

When Todd took Crenshaw to task by pointing out that the Texas attorney general’s lawsuit that he signed on to was weaponized by Trump, the GOP congressman insisted that it’s “time to move on” from the big lie that led to the breaching of the Capitol.

This is an awesome exchange. I wonder if Chuck Todd bought his new pair of balls off of eBay.

“You guys in the press love doing this, and I get it, right, that the press is largely liberal, they’re largely pro-Democrat,” Crenshaw said, prompting Todd to hit back.

“No, no, no. Don’t start that,” Todd said. “There’s nothing lazier than that excuse.”

Crenshaw then accused Todd of attempting to make him “take the bait.”

Todd wasn’t having it.

“I’m not trying to bait you. I’m try to figure out why do we sit here and have a political party that is basically rallying around this bizarre lie and mythology that the former president is doing,” Todd said. “You guys want to say, ‘hey, pay no attention to this, that we in the press are bringing it up.’ It’s the former president.”

[LFC]

Scam propaganda group Project Veritas sounds like they may have crossed yet another legal line. One big question is who the hell is funding this?

A cohort of rightwing activists hatched a plan during Donald Trump’s administration to discredit his perceived foes – including a honey trap plot that used “female undercover operatives” – in an attempt to catch and discredit government employees criticizing the former president, the New York Times reported.

Their efforts included a “planned sting operation” targeting Trump’s then national security adviser, HR McMaster, and clandestine surveillance against FBI staffers, with the goal of exposing anti-Trump opinions in the law enforcement agency, according to the newspaper.

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The work against FBI staffers was orchestrated by Project Veritas, a conservative organization, and carried out from a $10,000-a-month rental home in Washington’s Georgetown neighborhood, the paper reported. Project Veritas has long used sting operations against Democratic politicians, advocacy groups, and media outlets.

At this luxe home, “female undercover operatives” scheduled dates with FBI employees, hoping to surreptitiously record them making derogatory statements about Trump. They used fake dating app profiles to attract FBI members, the paper said.

Female activists who worked at this house had “Project Veritas code names”, such as “Tiger” and “Brazil”. Those residing at this house were instructed not to receive postal mail addressed to their legal names. If they used a ride-share app to get home, the driver had to stop before arriving there, to make sure no one saw where they really lived, the New York Times said.

An ex-British spy, Richard Seddon, was recruited by a security contractor to train Project Veritas activists “to infiltrate trade unions, Democratic congressional campaigns and other targets.”

It’s not known whether Trump’s aides knew about these efforts.

However, Barbara Ledeen, who was reportedly among the participants in efforts against McMaster, told the Times that she was brought on by an individual “with access to McMaster’s calendar”. The newspaper points out that at the time, Ledeen worked as a staffer on the Senate judiciary committee when it was helmed by the Republican Iowa senator Charles Grassley.

[LFC]

Bill Barr abused his power as AG to punish the owner of a Devin Nunes parody account. The fact that he became personally involved in such a ridiculous lawsuit is scary and is another illustration of just how much of a threat to American freedom Republicans really are when they have power.

Legal experts sounded the alarm after a bombshell court filing was unsealed showing the Department of Justice under Bill Barr attempted to use a secret grand jury subpoena to learn the identity of a parody account on Twitter that is critical of Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA).

"The Justice Department under President Trump secretly obtained a grand-jury subpoena last year in an attempt to identify the person behind a Twitter account dedicated to mocking Representative Devin Nunes of California, according to a newly unsealed court document. But Twitter fought the subpoena, as well as an associated gag order barring the company from talking about it publicly. Twitter executives raised skepticism about whether the Justice Department might be abusing federal criminal law-enforcement power to retaliate against a critic of Mr. Nunes, a Republican who is a close ally of Mr. Trump, in violation of the First Amendment," The New York Times reported Monday.

The subpoena was withdrawn after Biden took office, but the new documents show Twitter blasting the subpoena.

"It appears to Twitter that the Subpoena may be related to Congressman Devin Nunes's repeated efforts to unmask individuals behind parody accounts critical of him. His efforts to suppress critical speech are as well-publicized as they are unsuccessful," Twitter wrote in a motion opposing the unmasking of the author. "Given Congressman Nunes's numerous attempts to unmask his anonymous critics on Twitter—described in detail herein—Twitter is concerned that this Subpoena is but another mechanism to attack its users' First Amendment rights."

"Over the past two years, Congressman Nunes and his campaign committee have brought at least nine lawsuits—including in this district—against individuals, the media, and one research and intelligence firm for either their disagreement with his political actions and policies, publishing statements that Congressmen Nunes deemed critical of himself, or hosting critical statements with which Congressman Nunes disagreed," the social media company argued.

There are calls to investigate and potentially take away Barr's law license as well as the assistant U.S. attorney who signed the subpoena. Clear justification should have to be made. Failing that they need to be punished for abuse of their office.

[Deleted]

Bar bars Barr. The headline practically writes itself.

So much for the party of personal liberty. For them First Amendment boils down to just religious freedom, which is freedom to abuse.

[pnwguy]

May 18, 2021 20:25:30 GMT @probabilistic3 said:

Bar bars Barr. The headline practically writes itself.

So much for the party of personal liberty. For them First Amendment boils down to just religious freedom, which is freedom to abuse.

When your religion is Power, every action is freedom to abuse.  

[LFC]

Want an example of "The Deep State?" This. Republicans have proven that they are the ones who use the federal government to attack their perceived political enemies. Once again "every accusation is a confession."

In recent years, a security unit meant to protect Commerce Department officials morphed into a force so aggressive that its members rifled through employees’ offices and combed through social media sites for criticism of the census process under the Trump administration, according to the Washington Post.

The Investigations and Threat Management Service (ITMS) also looked specifically through the department’s servers for usage of Chinese words, leading to investigations of Asian American employees.

“A recent OIG inquiry has found that the deputation of ITMS under this program does not authorize ITMS to conduct criminal investigations and is intended only for the protection of the Secretary and Department critical assets — meaning facilities and people,” wrote former Deputy Assistant Secretary John Costello in an internal report last fall. “This raises significant questions as to whether ITMS has been exceeding its delegated authority or acting beyond its legal remit in its investigations.”

Investigators would reportedly disguise themselves in face masks and, armed with lock-picking kits, conduct such actions as breaking into a worker’s cabinet. The training for investigators entailed trailing ITMS supervisor George Lee as he wildly swerved through roads in the Shenandoah Mountains — supposedly part of a program to teach the newcomers surveillance skills.

New leaders of the department under President Joe Biden ordered a pause on all criminal investigations in March, followed by a suspension of all activities two weeks ago.

[LFC]

Grinding down local government with threats of violence. The MAGAts are primed for another insurrection at any level of government they think they can overthrow. That's how it's done, son. That's how it's done.

The day before pro-Trump rioters overtook the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., two supervisors in deep red Shasta County, California opened their chamber doors to the public, in violation of the Board of Supervisors’ earlier vote to continue holding meetings virtually.

Once inside, some in the crowd began threatening the supervisors tuning in remotely.

“When Joe Biden’s long winter sets and the dark night comes in this country, do you think you’re going to get to see the dawn?” one in-person attendee, Timothy Fairfield, asked the supervisors. “No, you will not. Flee now while you can. Because the days of your tyranny are drawing to a close, and the legitimacy of this government is waning.”

“When the ballot box is gone,” Fairfield added, “there is only the cartridge box. You have made bullets expensive. But luckily for you, ropes are reusable.”

The two supervisors who opened the doors to in-person attendees were eventually censured by full board for their actions. But they also got what they wanted: In a 3-2 vote the following day, around the same time the military and law enforcement were establishing a perimeter around the Capitol, the supervisors decided to hold future meetings in-person.

That would not be the end of it. The tempers that flared in January have only grown in the months since. Now, the three supervisors who attended remotely are the subject of a recall campaign that is roiling Shasta County.

More than a year into the pandemic, and after months of political turmoil in this small Northern California county, that recall has come to signify much more than a dispute over public health policy. Rather, it’s the latest battleground in the American culture wars, a volatile mix of political absolutism and a willingness, by some, to try and make their neighbors feel afraid.

“It is highly charged here, it’s extremely tense,” local journalist Doni Chamberlain told TPM in an interview. “It’s almost the only thing people talk about when you go anywhere.”

[goldenvalley]

May 25, 2021 20:39:39 GMT LFC said:

Grinding down local government with threats of violence. The MAGAts are primed for another insurrection at any level of government they think they can overthrow. That's how it's done, son. That's how it's done.

The day before pro-Trump rioters overtook the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., two supervisors in deep red Shasta County, California opened their chamber doors to the public, in violation of the Board of Supervisors’ earlier vote to continue holding meetings virtually.

Once inside, some in the crowd began threatening the supervisors tuning in remotely.

“When Joe Biden’s long winter sets and the dark night comes in this country, do you think you’re going to get to see the dawn?” one in-person attendee, Timothy Fairfield, asked the supervisors. “No, you will not. Flee now while you can. Because the days of your tyranny are drawing to a close, and the legitimacy of this government is waning.”

“When the ballot box is gone,” Fairfield added, “there is only the cartridge box. You have made bullets expensive. But luckily for you, ropes are reusable.”

The two supervisors who opened the doors to in-person attendees were eventually censured by full board for their actions. But they also got what they wanted: In a 3-2 vote the following day, around the same time the military and law enforcement were establishing a perimeter around the Capitol, the supervisors decided to hold future meetings in-person.

That would not be the end of it. The tempers that flared in January have only grown in the months since. Now, the three supervisors who attended remotely are the subject of a recall campaign that is roiling Shasta County.

More than a year into the pandemic, and after months of political turmoil in this small Northern California county, that recall has come to signify much more than a dispute over public health policy. Rather, it’s the latest battleground in the American culture wars, a volatile mix of political absolutism and a willingness, by some, to try and make their neighbors feel afraid.

“It is highly charged here, it’s extremely tense,” local journalist Doni Chamberlain told TPM in an interview. “It’s almost the only thing people talk about when you go anywhere.”

With the lumber industry mostly closed down up there, what little mining there was played out, the major source of money for the county is tourism and government jobs...a massive lake up there (now half empty) and some gorgeous country to view. A massive wildfire up there in 2018.  State of Jefferson signs all around. 

[LFC]

The Proud Boys are attempting to take over the Republican Party and county government in the biggest suburb of Las Vegas (paywalled). Threats of violence are, of course, involved because of course they are. It's now the new Republican normal.

Here’s yet another chapter in the unfolding story of extremist groups and threats of violence seeping into political life in communities across the US in the aftermath of Trump and January 6th. In this case it’s an attempted Proud Boy takeover of the county Republican party in Clark County, Nevada, which is basically the Greater Las Vegas metropolitan area. (About three-quarters of the state’s population lives in Clark County.) As in the other cases we’ve discussed in recent days, the situation includes a confluence or amalgam of ordinary, if contentious, factional political battles with organized threats of violence and efforts to use force to take control of party committees.

An overview of the situation is: what counts at this point as ‘mainstream’ Republicans are battling for control of the Clark County party with members of the local Proud Boys or at least extremist leaders associated with the Proud Boys. Three key leaders of the latter group are Rudy Clai, Matt Anthony and Paul Laramie. (Clai is the guy waving the flag in the picture above at a September 2020 pro-Trump ‘boat parade’.)

According to local GOP officials and seemingly confirmed by reputable news accounts, these three and the faction they lead have issued a number of threats against local party officials, particularly female party officials. Two Republican women who hold public office in the state have told The Las Vegas Review-Journal that they’ve been threatened by the pro-Trump extremist leaders, as has the current board of the Clark County GOP.

Yesterday, the Clark County GOP canceled a scheduled meeting that was supposed to be held today. According to current county party leaders, the Proud Boys group had planned to mobilize gangs of their supporters to prevent supporters of the current party leadership from entering the meeting. With only the Proud Boys types able to get in, they would then elect a new party leadership and take over the party organization. At the press conference announcing the cancelation the Clark County GOP leaders also showed social media posts and Telegram channel content from these extremist leaders containing violent, anti-Semitic and neo-nazi material.

The press conference where they announced all this is covered here. There is a related controversy over whether party leaders recruited various Proud Boys to swell the party rolls to make possible a successful censure vote against Republican Secretary of State Barbara Cegavske, who has resisted the Big Lie.

I don’t think we can rule out the possibility that the party’s rank and file actually support the Proud Boys group. They’re the local leaders most associated with Trump and most aggressive in pushing the Big Lie. They’re suing the party, basically claiming their being barred from participating because they’d win. It’s quite possible that this is at least partly true. Who knows? I don’t think we need to settle that question to see the larger picture. What does seem clear is that threats of violence and what amounts to paramilitary violence are becoming part of the effort to control the county GOP in the county that includes the great majority of the population of the state.

I’m still trying to get a handle on what precisely is going on in this case. If you’re from the area and know more, please get in touch. For now it simply seems clear that we have another case where violence and threats of violence are becoming integrated, normalized within conventional civic and political life.

[LFC]

Republicans vote against additional security funding for the Capitol. Why should they? The majority know who the targets would be for future violence and it's not them. They're wearing their brown shirts and virtual swastikas with pride. The Squad was no help either.

A $1.9 billion emergency funding bill to boost security at the US Capitol in the wake of the January 6 insurrection barely passed the House on Thursday. The measure, which would also provide additional personal security for lawmakers facing an intensifying wave of threats and harassment in Washington and their home districts, received no Republican support, and exposed fissures within the Democratic Party over the issue of increasing funding for any police force.

The bill ultimately passed on Thursday, following last-minute negotiations led by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, with 213 votes for the bill and 212 against.

Every voting Republican voted no on the bill, claiming that it cost too much money and that there was no guarantee the funding would be properly spent enhancing security. Those votes followed recent statements from Republicans that downplayed or outright fabricated facts about the violence that transpired at the Capitol on January 6.

More strikingly, Democrats were not unified among themselves. Left-wing members of the House, including the members of the so-called Squad, broke from the party out of what could be described as a defund-the-police rationale.

Democratic Reps. Cori Bush (MO), Ilhan Omar (MN), and Ayanna Pressley (MA) voted against the legislation; Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (NY), Jamaal Bowman (NY), and Rashida Tlaib (MI), voted present, which means they officially took no position.

The defection is a sign of fissures within the party over how to think about police reform and the use of force, a policy domain that has been a source of intense national debate since the protests that swept the nation last year following George Floyd’s death at the hands of Minneapolis police.

It also appears to be a carefully aimed warning shot by the Squad, illustrating that, when they’re unified, they have the ability to torpedo Democratic legislation. The Democratic Party relies on a narrow majority in the House to pass any one of its bills.

[goldenvalley]

Someone traced how a video Senator Cruz shared about a woke military being emasculated got from pro-Russian sites to a US Senator's Twitter feed in about a week.  

Alexander Reid Ross, a fellow at the UK's Centre for the Analysis of the Radical Right who specializes in mapping the spread far-right propaganda, told Insider that he had monitored the meme as it spread from pro-Russian and far-right networks to Cruz's Twitter feed over the course of a week

[LFC]

Let's pass laws to take power from specific people!

Arizona Republicans are looking to put an end to the state’s top election official’s ability to defend election laws in court. Recently added language to the state’s budget package, which could be passed by the legislature as soon as this week, deprives Democratic Secretary of State Katie Hobbs of any role in elections-related litigation. The bill rests that authority solely with the state’s attorney general, who currently is a Republican, Mark Brnovich.

But there’s a catch. The measure sunsets in Jan. 2023 — presumably because, come the 2022 election, the attorney general could be a Democrat. Or, perhaps, the secretary of state could be a Republican.

That provision is just one example of how the refusal to come to terms with President Trump’s loss has empowered fringe actors to cast doubt on the 2020 election, while making Secretary Katie Hobbs a villain to the far-right.

[pnwguy]

May 26, 2021 23:30:19 GMT LFC said:

Let's pass laws to take power from specific people!

Arizona Republicans are looking to put an end to the state’s top election official’s ability to defend election laws in court. Recently added language to the state’s budget package, which could be passed by the legislature as soon as this week, deprives Democratic Secretary of State Katie Hobbs of any role in elections-related litigation. The bill rests that authority solely with the state’s attorney general, who currently is a Republican, Mark Brnovich.

But there’s a catch. The measure sunsets in Jan. 2023 — presumably because, come the 2022 election, the attorney general could be a Democrat. Or, perhaps, the secretary of state could be a Republican.

That provision is just one example of how the refusal to come to terms with President Trump’s loss has empowered fringe actors to cast doubt on the 2020 election, while making Secretary Katie Hobbs a villain to the far-right.

Next up: State law that defines Donald J. Trump as the eternal ruler of America, succeeded upon death by Donald Jr. and then by his first born son. That solves the problem with elections and voter eligibility. Make them superfluous. ALEC will write the bills for all Republican controlled legislatures.

[pnwguy]

Moscow Mitch, take a bow
thebulwark.com/mitch-mcconnell-saw-the-insurrection-clearly-and-then-decided-he-liked-it

[jackd]

The only thing important to Mitch is that he regain leadership of the Senate. Every bit as much of a narcissist as Trump.