Republican Assault on Democracy and March Towards Fascism

[LFC]

Tennessee has become a perfect example of what Republican fascism looks like. (archive link) It's a fascinating read of how democracy has pretty much died. Here's the finish. This is what happens when the drug of super majority control still isn't enough.

There is another element: Call it the lesson of Sumner County, the place where Republicans won everything, control everything, and yet still feel aggrieved and victimized. As in Hungary or Poland or as in Venezuela, the experience of radicalism can make people more radical. Total control of a political system can make the victors not more magnanimous, but more frustrated, not least because they learn that total control still doesn’t deliver what they think it should. No county commission or state legislature can possibly meet the demands of a quasi-religious movement that believes it has God on its side and that its opponents herald the apocalypse. But that doesn’t mean they give up. It just means they keep trying, using any tool available. Eventually they arrive at the point described by Tom Lee, the lawyer for the Sumner County Election Commission: “It’s not enough to get your majority and get your way—they have to make the minority lose their voice.”

On the tape leaked to The Tennessee Holler after the expulsion of Pearson and Jones, this dynamic is powerfully revealed. Grim Republican legislators talked about what they think is really at stake, and it isn’t megaphones. “If you don’t believe we are at war for our republic,” one of them says to the group, “with all love and respect to you, you need a different job.” They don’t believe that this is a normal political competition, either, or that their opponents are a normal, legitimate, small-d democratic opposition. Democrats, says another, “are not our friends.” They “destroy our republic and the foundation of who we are.” At one point, an apocalyptic tone creeps into the conversation: “The left wants Tennessee so bad because if they get us, the Southeast falls and it’s ‘game over’ for the republic.” So urgent and so dramatic is this challenge that some of them have come to believe that rules might have to be broken: “You gotta do what’s right, even if you think it might be wrong,” one of them says.

You gotta do what’s right, even if you think it might be wrong. Fight for the republic, because otherwise it will be “game over”: The language itself wouldn’t be unusual, if this were a radical minority fighting for its very existence. But this is the Republican Party, the party that controls pretty much everything in Tennessee. They are going to win the next election, and probably the one after that. Yet they sound as if winning isn’t enough: They also want their opponents to fall silent, and they are doing what they can to make that happen.

[pnwguy]

The audio portion is here, since not everyone has the same podcast players



This is more disturbing than usual, including how many of our fellow citizens are All In to support these cretins

[LFC]

Michigan has rounded up the traitorous fake electors who were ready to overthrow our government. This smug asshole is one of them. My Schadefreude Meter is straining.

[pnwguy]

Jul 20, 2023 17:30:24 GMT LFC said:

Michigan has rounded up the traitorous fake electors who were ready to overthrow our government. This smug asshole is one of them. My Schadefreude Meter is straining.

Georgia will probably not go after theirs but Shapiro could have PA keep the ball rolling.  And AZ, WI, and NM don't have GOP governors.  Let's get this party started...

[LFC]

Jul 20, 2023 20:57:47 GMT pnwguy said:

Georgia will probably not go after theirs but Shapiro could have PA keep the ball rolling.  And AZ, WI, and NM don't have GOP governors.  Let's get this party started...

It looks like this Georgia boy (archive link) doesn't feel so confident about his odds.

Lawyers for Georgia’s former Republican Party chair are again trying to fend off their client’s possible indictment into possible criminal interference with the 2020 presidential election.

Ex-GOP chair David Shafer was within his constitutional rights when he cast an “alternate” Electoral College ballot for then-President Donald Trump and therefore should not be criminally charged, Shafer’s lawyers told Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis.

The attorneys made their case in 13-page letter sent to Willis on July 18. Willis is expected to seek an indictment against several individuals in August, and she has previously identified Shafer as one of the targets of her investigation.
But Shafer, who presided over the Dec. 14, 2020, meeting of the alternate GOP electors, is protected by the First, Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments, his lawyers told Willis. “Such actions are not and cannot be criminal or criminalized, and any attempt to do so is a direct assault on these most highly protected constitutional freedoms.”

The lawyers attached an “expert declaration” from Todd Zywicki, a George Mason University law professor who specializes in laws governing presidential elections and transitions. Shafer’s actions, Zywicki wrote, were “lawful, reasonable, proper and necessary, and any suggestion that they could be ‘criminal’ ignores legal and historical precedent, the reasoned advice of counsel received and the plain language of the Constitution, federal and Georgia law.”

A spokesman for the Fulton DA’s office declined to comment.

The letter to Willis was sent on the same day Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel filed criminal charges against 16 phony electors for doing essentially the same thing Shafer and his 15 fellow false electors did in a committee room at the state Capitol here. Like the electors in Georgia, Michigan’s GOP electors, in casting their votes for Trump and Pence, said they were “the duly elected and qualified electors.”

“That was a lie,” Nessel said in statement. She added that the electors may have believed “the now-debunked myths of vote tampering or ballot dumps” and may have “genuinely believed that this was their patriotic duty,” but that did not give them “legal justification to violate the law and upend our Constitution.”

Willis could take a similar stance with Shafer and some of the other false electors in Georgia, although her office has given immunity deals to at least eight of the Georgia GOP’s 16 false electors, a lawyer for those individuals has said. Recent campaign disclosures show the state GOP paid out more than $340,000 to lawyers representing the false electors during the first six months of this year.

So immunity deals for who, the 8 dumbest fish? No wonder this tubby traitor is scared.

[AnBr]

[goldenvalley]

The Tennessee Legislature's attempt to outlaw the carrying of signs in the Capitol building and in public galleries has been temporarily enjoined.  Apparently the Legislature was quite upset that parents of students in the Covenant School where a shooting occurred last spring were silently holding signs about gun control, so they passed a rule outlawing them and had 3 people removed from a hearing for holding signs. 

Now this is a 1st Amendment case in that the government was suppressing speech (silent speech).  The Legislature is populated by a large number of snowflakes who don't want to hear or see contrary opinions on the issue of gun control.

[LFC]

Tennessee's legislature has gone full metal fascist, allowing total silencing of the minority based on only the Speaker's say-so. As the article I posted above notes, Tennessee is a fascist states in so many ways. But ... FREEDUMB!

Tennessee House Republicans used their majority to pass floor rules for the special session to silence Democratic lawmakers and the protestors that filled the state House. They also rejected dozens of Democrat-proposed bills that would have placed more restrictions on gun ownership, instead spending their time attempting to advance bills that would allow for more guns on school grounds. The legislation would’ve dialed back restrictions on certain people, like off-duty law enforcement officers, former members of the military and Tennesseans with enhanced carry permits, to carry in school zones.

The chaotic week began with lawmakers setting new House floor rules for the special session. Republicans, who hold an overwhelming majority in the House, passed a new rule allowing the Speaker of the House to limit or stop other lawmakers from speaking if he felt their speech was disrupting legislative business. The rule went so far as to give the Speaker the power to block representatives from speaking on the House floor for up to three days. And if a second offense is committed, lawmakers can be suspended indefinitely, according to the new rule.

[goldenvalley]

Aug 28, 2023 21:52:14 GMT LFC said:

Tennessee's legislature has gone full metal fascist, allowing total silencing of the minority based on only the Speaker's say-so. As the article I posted above notes, Tennessee is a fascist states in so many ways. But ... FREEDUMB!

Tennessee House Republicans used their majority to pass floor rules for the special session to silence Democratic lawmakers and the protestors that filled the state House. They also rejected dozens of Democrat-proposed bills that would have placed more restrictions on gun ownership, instead spending their time attempting to advance bills that would allow for more guns on school grounds. The legislation would’ve dialed back restrictions on certain people, like off-duty law enforcement officers, former members of the military and Tennesseans with enhanced carry permits, to carry in school zones.

The chaotic week began with lawmakers setting new House floor rules for the special session. Republicans, who hold an overwhelming majority in the House, passed a new rule allowing the Speaker of the House to limit or stop other lawmakers from speaking if he felt their speech was disrupting legislative business. The rule went so far as to give the Speaker the power to block representatives from speaking on the House floor for up to three days. And if a second offense is committed, lawmakers can be suspended indefinitely, according to the new rule.

And it's already been used:

Republican lawmakers on Monday [Aug 28] voted to silence a Democratic member of the so-called Tennessee Three during an already tense House floor session after determining the young Black member violated newly enacted rules designed to punish disruptive members.

The move was directed at Rep. Justin Jones, which prohibited him from speaking and debating on bills for the remainder of the floor session. The vote prompted loud cries and chants that drowned out proceedings for several minutes even after the House speaker ordered the gallery to be cleared out.

Moments prior, Jones had been criticizing legislation that would have allowed more law enforcement officers in schools and began listing other resources that the state should be providing.

House Speaker Cameron Sexton had warned Jones not to stray off topic. Under new rules adopted by the GOP-dominant chamber last week, members can be silenced anywhere from a day to the rest of the year for not sticking to the bill being debated.

“What our schools need are mental health professionals,” Jones said. “We need funding for mental health, for counselors. We need to pay our teachers better. We don’t need more police in our schools.”

Sexton then ruled Jones out of order, setting up a vote on whether to quiet him for the rest of Monday’s session.

What happened next was a chaotic flurry of legislative proceedings, where Democrats outraged at the decision to move ahead with trying to silence Jones for the day began pleading with and trying to convince their GOP colleagues to change their minds. Republican lawmakers remained unconvinced, however, with 70 GOP members voting to silence Jones. Democratic members then angrily left the chamber with Jones

[pnwguy]

The Fascist States of America. Let's get it started!

apnews.com/article/election-2024-conservatives-trump-heritage-857eb794e505f1c6710eb03fd5b58981

"Trumpland, Trumpland, Uber Alles..."

[goldenvalley]

Anne Applebaum, who I tend to think of as foreign policy person, has an article about Tennessee politics in the Atlantic.  It's looking grim there with the editor of Tennessee Holler, an online newspaper that follows politics closely, having the front of his house shot at. We've all read about the silencing of opposition on the gun control issue but there is more happening and not just in the statehouse.  Read the whole thing, but the below struck me:

There is another element: Call it the lesson of Sumner County, the place where Republicans won everything, control everything, and yet still feel aggrieved and victimized. As in Hungary or Poland or as in Venezuela, the experience of radicalism can make people more radical. Total control of a political system can make the victors not more magnanimous, but more frustrated, not least because they learn that total control still doesn’t deliver what they think it should. No county commission or state legislature can possibly meet the demands of a quasi-religious movement that believes it has God on its side and that its opponents herald the apocalypse. But that doesn’t mean they give up. It just means they keep trying, using any tool available. Eventually they arrive at the point described by Tom Lee, the lawyer for the Sumner County Election Commission: “It’s not enough to get your majority and get your way—they have to make the minority lose their voice.”

On the tape leaked to The Tennessee Holler after the expulsion of Pearson and Jones, this dynamic is powerfully revealed. Grim Republican legislators talked about what they think is really at stake, and it isn’t megaphones. “If you don’t believe we are at war for our republic,” one of them says to the group, “with all love and respect to you, you need a different job.” They don’t believe that this is a normal political competition, either, or that their opponents are a normal, legitimate, small-d democratic opposition. Democrats, says another, “are not our friends.” They “destroy our republic and the foundation of who we are.” At one point, an apocalyptic tone creeps into the conversation: “The left wants Tennessee so bad because if they get us, the Southeast falls and it’s ‘game over’ for the republic.” So urgent and so dramatic is this challenge that some of them have come to believe that rules might have to be broken: “You gotta do what’s right, even if you think it might be wrong,” one of them says.

You gotta do what’s right, even if you think it might be wrong. Fight for the republic, because otherwise it will be “game over”: The language itself wouldn’t be unusual, if this were a radical minority fighting for its very existence. But this is the Republican Party, the party that controls pretty much everything in Tennessee. They are going to win the next election, and probably the one after that. Yet they sound as if winning isn’t enough: They also want their opponents to fall silent, and they are doing what they can to make that happen.

I'm shocked at the change in the state I left in 1982 in the era of Gov Lamar Alexander who worked for Howard Baker at one time, Al Gore, and Jim Sasse.  TN was increasingly the destination for industry being non union but open to growth and was improving its K-12 schools. 

[goldenvalley]

Looks like Alabama is faced with having to go with the US District Court order on having a special master draw Congressional districts.  We'll see if the legislature finds a way to slow walk this past the 2024 elections.

The Supreme Court on Tuesday refused Alabama’s request to reinstate a congressional map drawn by Republican lawmakers that had only one majority-Black district, paving the way for a new map to be put in place before the 2024 election.

Alabama’s request to keep its map was the second time in under a year that it had asked the Supreme Court to affirm a limited role of race in establishing voting districts for federal elections, in what amounted to a defiant repudiation of lower-court rulings. In the latest twist in the case, the lower court had found that the state had brazenly flouted its directive to create a second majority-Black district or something “close to it.”

The court’s order gave no reasons, which is often the case when the justices decide on emergency applications. There were no public dissents. The ruling clears the way for a special master and court-appointed cartographer to create a new map.

The special master in the case submitted three proposed maps on Monday, the deadline set by the three-judge federal court. All of them included a second majority Black district.

The final decision will be up to the three federal judges who oversee the case.

No opinion issued just denial of the motion to stay.

[goldenvalley]

I never thought it would be necessary for an American president to give a speech like this during my lifetime.  It's like we are living in Philip Roth's The Plot Against America set in the 1930s.  (speech in Arizona dedicating the John McCain Library)

And there is something dangerous happening in America now. There is an extremist movement that does not share the basic beliefs in our democracy: the MAGA Movement.

Not every Republican, not even a majority of Republicans, adhere to the MAGA extremist ideology. I know because I’ve been able to work with Republicans my whole career. But there is no question that today’s Republican Party is driven and intimidated by MAGA Republican extremists. Their extreme agenda, if carried out, would fundamentally alter the institutions of American democracy as we know it.

My friends, they’re not hiding their attacks. They’re openly promoting them — attacking the free press as the enemy of the people, attacking the rule of law as an impediment, fomenting voter suppression and election subversion.

Did you ever think we’d be having debates in the year — stage of your careers where banning books — banning books and burying history?

Extremists in Congress — more determined to shut down the government, to burn the place down than to let the people’s business be done.

Our U.S. military — and this in not hyperbole; I’ve said it for the last two years — is the strongest military in the history of the world. Not just the strongest in the world — in the history of the world. It’s the most diverse, the most powerful in the history of the world. And it’s being accused of being weak and “woke” by the opposition.

One guy in Alabama is holding up the promotion of every — hundreds of these officers.

Frankly, these extremists have no idea what the hell they’re talking about. (Laughter.) No, I’m serious.

They’re pushing a notion the defeated former President expressed when he was in office and believes applies only to him. And this is a dangerous notion: This president is above the law, with no limits on power.

Trump says the Constitution gave him, quote, “the right to do whatever he wants as President,” end of quote. I’ve never even heard a president say that in jest. Not guided by the Constitution or by common service and decency toward our fellow Americans but by vengeance and vindictiveness.

We see the headlines. Quote, “sweeping expansion of presidential power.” Their goal to, quote, “alter the balance of power by increasing the President’s authority over every part of the federal government,” end of quote.

What do they intend to do once they erode the constitutional order of checks and balances and separation of powers? Limit the independence of federal agencies and put them under the thumb of a president? Give the President the power to refuse to spend money that Congress has appropriated if he doesn’t like what it’s being spent for? Not veto — he doesn’t like what it’s being spent for — it’s there. Get rid of longstanding protections for civil servants?

Remember what he did as he was leaving office: He imposed a new thing, the Civil Service — but then he imposed a new pro- — schedule. “Schedule F,” it was called. These civil servants had to pledge loyalty to the President, not the Constitution. It did not require that they had any protections, and the President would be able to wholesale fire them if he wanted, because they had no so- — no — no Civil Service protection. One of the first things I got rid of when I became President.

Just consider these as actual quotes from MAGA — the MAGA movement. Quote, “I am your retribution.” “Slitting throats” of civil servants, replacing them with extreme political cronies. MAGA extremists proclaim support for law enforcement only to say, “We…” — quote, “We must destroy the FBI.”

It’s not one person. It’s the controlling element of the House Republican Party.

Whitewash attacks of January 6th by calling the spearing and stomping of police a leg- — quote, a “legitimate political discourse.”

Did you ever think you’d hear leaders of political parties in the United States of America speak like that? Seizing power, concentrating power, attempting to abuse power, purging and packing key institutions, spewing conspiracy theories, spreading lies for profit and power to divide America in every way, inciting violence against those who risk their lives to keep America safe, weaponizing against the very soul of who we are as Americans.

This MAGA threat is the threat to the brick and mortar of our democratic institutions. But it’s also a threat to the character of our nation and gives our — that gives our Constitution life, that binds us together as Americans in common cause.

None of this is surprising, though. They’ve tried to govern that way before. And thank God, they failed.


But they haven’t given up. Just look at recent days: their accusations against — of treason — treason against the major new net- — news network because they don’t like its coverage. I don’t know what the hell I’d say about Fox if that becomes the rule. (Laughter.)

But think about it. I’m joking, but think about it.

Tomorrow, I have the honor of overseeing the change of responsibilities of the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff of the United States military from one genuine hero and patriot, General Mark Milley, to another, General CQ Brown — both — both defining leaders of our time.

And yet, here is what you hear from MAGA extremists about the retiring patriot general honoring his oath to the Constitution: quote, he’s “a traitor,” end of quote. “In times gone by, the punishment…” — quote, “In times gone by, the punishment would’ve been death,” end of quote.

This is the United States of America. This is the United States of America.

And although I don’t believe even a majority of Republicans think that, the silence is deafening. The silence is deafening.

[jackd]

Biden isn't simply fear mongering; the danger is very real and the election could be very close in the swing states where it will be won or lost.

[goldenvalley]

Here is what will be increasingly our future in the run up to the November 2024 elections. Yeah the man was probably mentally unbalanced, but he was armed and demanding to see a governor who is a Democrat.  There was method to his madness and persistence.

A man who was looking for Gov. Tony Evers of Wisconsin was arrested with a handgun inside the State Capitol in Madison on Wednesday, posted bail and then returned with an “AK-47-style” rifle and was arrested again, a state spokeswoman said.

The man, who was shirtless and had a dog on a leash, initially approached the security desk outside the governor’s office shortly before 2 p.m., Tatyana Warrick, a spokeswoman for the Wisconsin Department of Administration, said in a statement.

The man said he would not leave until he saw the governor, Ms. Warrick said. Because it is illegal to openly carry a firearm inside the State Capitol, officers with the Wisconsin State Capitol Police took the man into custody on a weapons charge, she said.

The man, whose name was not released, was taken to the Dane County Jail. The gun, which the man was carrying in a holster, was seized as evidence, and the dog was turned over to animal control officers. The man then bailed himself out of jail, Ms. Warrick said.
The statement did not say how much he posted, and Ms. Warrick said she did not have that information.

Hours later, at about 9 p.m., the man appeared outside the Capitol building with a loaded “AK-47-style” rifle, and again asked to see the governor, Ms. Warrick said.

Capitol Police and Madison Police officers began talking to him and searched his backpack, Ms. Warrick said. They found a collapsible police-style baton, which was illegal for him to carry without a valid concealed-carry permit, Ms. Warrick said.

“Based on concerning statements made by the man, officers took him into custody shortly before midnight for a psychiatric evaluation,” Ms. Warrick said. “The rifle was seized by Capitol Police for safekeeping and the baton was seized as evidence.”

[https://www.youtube.com/@uniqu]

For fuqs sake just check out my democratic youtube channels. Fuq the repulicans out there who think Joe Biden is doing a bad job. JOE BIDEN 2024 !!!

www.youtube.com/@uniquegirlsfun196/
www.youtube.com/channel/UCz3Os_aWrWJ7ATr9pIgsBLw
www.youtube.com/@jonathanresslerbigfat

PS - I'll just send them over to you again and again in case you miss it.


Jonathan Blake Ressler
6800 Willow Wood Dr Apt 907, Boca Raton, FL 33434-3506

[e-mail]

[https://www.youtube.com/@uniqu]

For fuqs sake just check out my democratic youtube channels. Fuq the repulicans out there who think Joe Biden is doing a bad job. JOE BIDEN 2024 !!!

www.youtube.com/@uniquegirlsfun196/
www.youtube.com/channel/UCz3Os_aWrWJ7ATr9pIgsBLw
www.youtube.com/@jonathanresslerbigfat

PS - I'll just send them over to you again and again in case you miss it.


Jonathan Blake Ressler
6800 Willow Wood Dr Apt 907, Boca Raton, FL 33434-3506

[e-mail]

[pnwguy]

The Robert Kagan essay in this week’s WaPo has a lot of journalists depressed, for good reason. Kagan takes the blinders off on the dictatorship ahead, if the Dems and independents don’t wake the F*ck up.

It’s a long piece but I recommend it to anyone with access.

[AnBr]

Link?

[Bact PhD]

Dec 4, 2023 3:16:01 GMT AnBr said:

Link?

I believe pnwguy is referring to this piece, a chilling analysis:

www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/11/30/trump-dictator-2024-election-robert-kagan/

The third paragraph:

The magical-thinking phase is ending. Barring some miracle, Trump will soon be the presumptive Republican nominee for president. When that happens, there will be a swift and dramatic shift in the political power dynamic, in his favor. Until now, Republicans and conservatives have enjoyed relative freedom to express anti-Trump sentiments, to speak openly and positively about alternative candidates, to vent criticisms of Trump’s behavior past and present. Donors who find Trump distasteful have been free to spread their money around to help his competitors. Establishment Republicans have made no secret of their hope that Trump will be convicted and thus removed from the equation without their having to take a stand against him.

[pnwguy]

podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-lincoln-project/id1551582052?i=1000639728430

A great interview from the leader of The Lincoln Project with historian Heather Cox Richardson.

[goldenvalley]

[goldenvalley]

Am I having some strange nightmare?

Federal emergency response personnel directed employees operating Saturday in hard-hit Rutherford County, N.C., to stop working and move to a different area because of concerns over “armed militia” threatening government workers in the region, according to an email sent to federal agencies helping with hurricane response in the state. 

Around 1 p.m. Saturday, an official with the U.S. Forest Service, which is supporting recovery efforts after Hurricane Helene along with the Federal Emergency Management Agency, sent an urgent message to numerous federal agencies warning that “FEMA has advised all federal responders Rutherford County, NC, to stand down and evacuate the county immediately. The message stated that National Guard troops ‘had come across x2 trucks of armed militia saying they were out hunting FEMA.’”
“The IMTs [incident management teams] have been notified and are coordinating the evacuation of all assigned personnel in that county,” the email added.

Two federal officials confirmed the authenticity of the email, though it was unclear whether the quoted threat was seen as credible. The National Guard referred questions to FEMA when asked about the incident. One Forest Service official coordinating the Helene recovery said responders moved to a “safe area” and that at least some work in the area — which included clearing trees off dozens of damaged and blocked roads to help search-and-rescue crews, as well as groups delivering supplies — was paused.

ETA One person has been arrested in connection with this. It appears there are no truckloads of people. Yet another situation in which the former president's supporters are playing partisan games with people's tragedies.