Category: Republican Reality

GOP lawmakers who oppose background checks now very concerned about shootings

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Republicans continue to block efforts in Congress to pass gun control legislation.

House Republicans, nearly all of whom voted against legislation to require a background check prior to all gun purchases, are now blaming President Joe Biden and other Democratic officials for a rise in the number of shootings and homicides.

In a series of tweets from their official caucus Twitter account on Tuesday, Republicans in the House noted a recent Fox News story about an increase in the number of shootings in major cities in 2021 so far compared to the first half of last year. “Welcome to Joe Biden’s America,” they tweeted, and paraphrased Fox contributor Joe Concha: “The common thread these are all cities run by Democrat Mayors.”

Several members of the caucus shared the tweets or offered their own similar assessments. Continue reading.

Here’s how extremism not only goes unpunished in today’s GOP — it is encouraged

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Joe Scarborough, the Never Trump conservative and former Republican congressman who co-hosts “Morning Joe” on MSNBC with his liberal wife, Mika Brzezinski — and who rooted for now-President Joe Biden in the 2020 election — recently described his former party as consisting of ultra-conservative politicians like Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming and QAnon extremists who think Cheney is too far to the left. Journalist Molly Jong-Fast, in an op-ed published by the Daily Beast on July 8, discusses extremism with the 2021 GOP and argues that extremism is difficult to resist among modern Republicans.

“This is the Republican brand now: death before decency,” Jong-Fast writes. “What Roy’s colleague Paul Gosar learned from Trumpism is that working with terrifying far-right extremists is totally cool. Gosar is now even more far-right than Steve King, who was censured for his white nationalist statements back when Republicans at least pretended to give a shit. Now, Gosar is being praised by White nationalist Nick Fuentes — and minority ‘Leader’ Kevin McCarthy is fine with that, just like he’s fine with Marjorie Taylor Greene raving about the Jews and Matt Gaetz (R-Sex Creep) staying on the House Ethics Committee so that he could question the head of the FBI while continuing to be investigated by the FBI.”

Jong-Fast continues, “Meanwhile, Stop the Steal speaker Mo Brooks is now running for Senate in Alabama. Brooks, who was a planner of the January 6 rally, according to a deleted video from Ali Alexander, claims in a new civil filing that he only spoke at the rally-turned-riot because the White House told him to. That was in the same legal filing in which he said he believes that Trump still won the election. Trump did not.” Continue reading.

Giuliani compares defending Trump in court to defending ‘terrorists’

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Rudy Giuliani’s law license was suspended in the state of New York over his ‘professional misconduct.’

Responding to his recent suspension from practicing law in the state of New York, Rudy Giuliani on Saturday compared his work as former President Donald Trump’s lawyer to that of lawyers defending terrorists who “have killed innocent people.”

A panel of judges of the New York Supreme Court determined in June that Giuliani had violated the New York Rules of Professional Conduct for lawyers by making false claims that there had been fraud in the 2020 presidential election win by Joe Biden and that “false statements made by respondent constitute uncontroverted proof of respondent’s professional misconduct.”

In its decision, the panel pointed out, “Respondent repeatedly represented to the court that his client, the plaintiff, was pursuing a fraud claim, when indisputably it was not. … Respondent’s mischaracterization of the case was not simply a passing mistake or inadvertent reference. Fraud was the crown of his personal argument before the court that day.” Continue reading.

Nullification is the true threat to voting rights in America

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As Republican lawmakers continue their efforts to prevent voting expansion across the United States, it appears there are bigger issues than just voter suppression. In a piece published by The Bulwark, the author Linda Chavez explained how and why the bigger problem actually centers on nullification. 

“The biggest threat to democracy now is less that voting laws are too restrictive than it is that votes, once lawfully cast, are counted and the results accepted by losers as well as winners,” she wrote.

Expressing concern about Republican efforts to reconstruct the Voting Rights Act (VRA) she touched on how dangerous their efforts are to democracy. “Instead of trying to re-write the VRA to overturn court decisions that were anything but radical, democracy advocates should concentrate on limiting the power of partisan losers to overturn the will of the people.” Continue reading.

Trump ripped William Barr as a ‘phony’ who would have ‘licked the floor’ if he’d won: new book

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Donald Trump ripped into Attorney General Bill Barr as a “phony” who “would have licked the floor if I won,” after the former president unsuccessfully tried to get U.S. attorneys in swing states to open investigations into his false claims of election fraud, according to Landslide, a new book from journalist Michael Wolff.

The Daily Beast reports that it obtained a copy of Landslide in advance of its publication next week. 

“‘Trump had been personally calling around to various U.S. attorneys in swing state districts, among them his appointee William McSwain in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania,’ to try and convince them to open their own probes,” the Daily Beast reports. “When they did not, Trump blamed his A.G., saying that ‘if I had won, Barr would have licked the floor if I asked him to. What a phony!'” Continue reading.

‘They’re playing the long game’: Legal experts warn post-Trump Supreme Court ‘laying foundations’ for right-wing turn

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The U.S. Supreme Court that Donald Trump and Mitch McConnell rigged in their favor did not veer quite as far to the right in this past term as some feared, but legal experts cautioned that they’re “laying foundations” for a more conservative future.

The twice-impeached one-term president managed to ram through a third justice weeks before losing the Nov. 3 election, but analysts were somewhat surprised by the number of unanimous rulings and the decisions on the Affordable Care Act and a few other cases, reported The Guardian.

“I think we at the ACLU can to some degree breathe a sigh of relief,” said David Cole, national legal director for the American Civil Liberties Union. “It’s nowhere near as bad as people thought.” Continue reading.

Toyota to stop donating to GOP lawmakers who objected to certifying Biden’s win

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Toyota announced Thursday that its political action committee would no longer make donations to Republican members of Congress who objected to certifying the presidential election results in January, after uproar over newsthat the automaker’s corporate PAC had supported those lawmakers at a higher level than other PACs.

“Toyota is committed to supporting and promoting actions that further our democracy,” the company said in a statement Thursday. “We understand that the PAC decision to support select Members of Congress who contested the results troubled some stakeholders. We are actively listening to our stakeholders and, at this time, we have decided to stop contributing to those Members of Congress who contested the certification of certain states in the 2020 election.”

Supporters of President Donald Trump overran the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, in large part to protest the certification of Joe Biden’s victory because Trump asserted, and they might have believed, that the election was “stolen.” The violent siege left five people dead, including a police officer; two other officers who were on duty that day later died by suicide. Continue reading.

CPAC Agenda Shows Trump Still Controls the Republican Party

A key upcoming conservative event features a list of participants – and notable absentees – that displays the former president’s continued grasp over the Republican Party.

They lost the White House, control of the U.S. Senate and failed to gain back control of the House. But conservatives are partying like it’s 2019.

Donald Trump – no longer president, not yet a candidate – will be the headline speaker this weekend at the Conservative Political Action Conference meeting in Dallas. Also speaking will be his son Donald Trump Jr. and a slew of Trump loyalists, including former Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf, Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, Rep. Madison Cawthorn of North Carolina, Rep. Lauren Boebert of Colorado and former Trump medical adviser Ronny Jackson of Texas.

Not scheduled to appear? Conservatives like Sen. Mitt Romney of Utah and Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming, both of whom voted against Trump during the 45th president’s impeachment and Senate trial. Nor are there announced appearances by those who might be mulling a 2024 run, such as former Vice President Mike Pence or former Trump Cabinet members Mike Pompeo and Nikki Haley. Continue reading.

QAnon has receded from social media — but it’s just hiding

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On the face of it, you might think that the QAnon conspiracy has largely disappeared from big social media sites. But that’s not quite the case. 

True, you’re much less likely to find popular QAnon catchphrases like “great awakening,” “the storm” or “trust the plan” on Facebook these days. Facebook and Twitter have removed tens of thousands of accounts dedicated to the baseless conspiracy theory, which depicts former President Donald Trump as a hero fighting a secret battle against a sect of devil-worshipping pedophiles who dominate Hollywood, big business, the media and government.

Gone are the huge “Stop the Steal” groups that spread falsehoods about the 2020 U.S. presidential elections. Trump is gone as well, banned from Twitter permanently and suspended from posting on Facebook until 2023. Continue reading.

Texas Republicans renew efforts to pass voting restrictions in special session

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Republican lawmakers in Texas on Thursday launched their second effort this year to pass new voting restrictions after Democrats blocked them in May with a dramatic walkout at the state Capitol.

The legislature convened Thursday for a special session called by Gov. Greg Abbott (R) to enact a laundry list of conservative priorities, including a ban of transgender athletes on youth sports teams and beefed-up border security. But Abbott has made clear that “election integrity” is a top priority, and Republicans filed bills in the House and Senate that include many of the same voting provisions they sought to enact earlier in the year.

The new election proposals include a number of restrictions championed by former president Donald Trump. The measures would ban several election programs implemented last year to help people vote during the coronaviruspandemic, including drive-through voting and 24-hour and late-night voting. Voting rights advocates noted that voters of color used these programs disproportionately, meaning they could disproportionately feel the impact of the restrictions. Continue reading.