Tag: GOP now the cult of Trump

The appalling reason why Republican lawmakers may have joined the Texas lawsuit

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More than 100 Republican lawmakers and nearly half of state attorneys general have signed on to a Texas lawsuit challenging President Donald Trump’s election loss, and a top political analyst revealed an alarming reason why they’re willing to upend democracy.

Texas attorney general Ken Paxton asked the U.S. Supreme Court to invalidate votes from Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, and 106 GOP House members and 17 other state attorneys general signed on to the challenge.

“I get a question all the time from my friends, people in Washington, outside of Washington — why are Republicans doing this?” Washington Post reporter Robert Costa told MSNBC’s “Morning Joe.” “Why are they behaving this way? Isn’t President Trump going out the door?”

“That’s not what they think,” Costa added. “He’s not going away. There’s a growing acceptance, while he may be at Mar-A-Lago in 2021, he will not run from the scene. He may prepare to run in 2024. Even if he doesn’t, he’s going to be meddling in primary races in 2022, so many of these Republicans are operating sometimes out of loyalty, sometimes to be sharing in the theatrics of the moment and sometimes out of fear.” Continue reading.

Republicans have ‘concerns’ about Trump — but won’t let reporters quote them by name about it

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During his decades on the congressional beat, John Bresnahan has spent countless hours listening to the private concerns of his congressional sources.

Democrats expressed private concerns about Bill Clinton’s indiscretions with White House intern Monica Lewinsky. Republicans confessed private concerns about George W. Bush’s handling of the Iraq War. Democrats shared private concerns about Barack Obama’s aloofness to the backroom negotiations where Congress gets its real work done.

But then came Donald Trump. And, boy, did his party’s lawmakers ever have concerns. And those concerns? The most private ever. Continue reading.

Here’s what happened when a Georgia lawmaker scrutinized the Trump campaign’s list of allegedly illegal votes

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When Georgia state Rep. Bee Nguyen (D) reviewed a list of voters who President Trump’s campaign claimed cast illegal ballots in the state, three names caught her eye: two friends and a constituent.

For days, Nguyen pored over public records, spoke with voters by phone and even knocked on doors in person to vet the Trump list. She found that it included dozens of voters who were eligible to vote in Georgia — along with their full names and home addresses.

On Thursday, when a data analyst who compiled the list told a panel of state lawmakers that it proved thousands of voters cast ballots in Georgia who should not have, Nguyen was ready. Continue reading.

In Blistering Retort, 4 Battleground States Tell Texas to Butt Out of Election

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The attorneys general of Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin and Georgia asked the Supreme Court to reject a lawsuit from Texas seeking to overturn President-elect Joe Biden’s victories.

WASHINGTON — In blistering language denouncing Republican efforts to subvert the election, the attorneys general for Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin and Georgia asked the Supreme Court on Thursday to reject a lawsuit that seeks to overturn the victories in those states by President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr., calling the audacious effort an affront to democracy and the rule of law.

The lawsuit, filed by the Republican attorney general of Texas and backed by his G.O.P. colleagues in 17 other states and 106 Republican members of Congress, represents the most coordinated, politicized attempt to overturn the will of the voters in recent American history. President Trump has asked to intervene in the lawsuit as well in hopes that the Supreme Court will hand him a second term he decisively lost.

The suit is the latest in a spectacularly unsuccessful legal effort by Mr. Trump and his allies to overturn the results, with cases so lacking in evidence that judges at all levels have mocked or condemned them as without merit. Legal experts have derided this latest suit as well, which makes the audacious claim, at odds with ordinary principles of federalism, that the Supreme Court should investigate and override the election systems of four states at the behest of a fifth. Continue reading.

Conservative writer explains why ‘the soul of the Republican Party’ has been lost

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This week, Republican supporters of President Donald Trump were dealt yet another legal blow when the U.S. Supreme Court refused to even consider one of their Pennsylvania-related election lawsuits. One GOP lawsuit after another has unsuccessfully tried to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election, claiming, without evidence, that Trump was the victim of widespread voter fraud and that former Vice President Joe Biden isn’t really president-elect. 

But Never Trump conservative Jonathan V. Last, writing in The Bulwark this week, argues that while the GOP’s election lawsuits haven’t been a success from a legal standpoint, they have been a raging success from a political standpoint.

Last explains, “Everyone laughs at how stupid the Trump lawsuits are. Can you believe these morons? They lose everywhere! Even Republican judges keep slapping them down! How embarrassing for Trump! But that’s the wrong way to think about Trump’s actions since November 3, because his goal hasn’t been to keep the office of the president — it’s been to keep the Republican Party.” Continue reading.

Even in Defeat, Trump Tightens Grip on State G.O.P. Lawmakers

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In Pennsylvania, the president’s false claims of a rigged vote may inflame the party base for years to come. One lawmaker said that refusing to back up his assertions would “get my house bombed.”

Last week, allies of President Trump accused Republican leaders in Pennsylvania of being “cowards” and “liars” and of letting America down.

Mr. Trump himself called top Republicans in the General Assembly in his crusade to twist the arms of officials in several states and reverse an election he lost. The Pennsylvania lawmakers told the president they had no power to convene a special session to address his grievances.

But they also rewarded his efforts: On Friday, the State House speaker and majority leader joined hard-right colleagues — whom they had earlier resisted — and called on Congress to reject Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s 81,000-vote victory in Pennsylvania. Continue reading.

Tensions over Minnesota election outcome on display as Senate panel meets

At GOP-led hearing on election integrity, Secretary of State Steve Simon warns of ‘disinformation.’ 

Disinformation and conspiracy theories about this year’s vote are a danger to election workers and democracy itself, Minnesota Secretary of State Simon warned Tuesday at a state Senate hearing called to examine the election’s integrity.

With the presidential race’s outcome under continued but unsuccessful legal attack by President Donald Trump and allies, Republican state Sen. Mary Kiffmeyer of Big Lake raised questions about pandemic-driven changes to Minnesota’s voting procedures that have since been the subject of court wrangling.

Still, Kiffmeyer, a former secretary of state and frequent critic of Simon, said in a subsequent press release that “so far, claims of widespread fraud have not held up under scrutiny or in the courts.” Continue reading.

As Trump Rails Against Loss, His Supporters Become More Threatening

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The president’s baseless claims of voting fraud have prompted outrage among his loyalists and led to behavior that Democrats and even some Republicans say has become dangerous.

With a key deadline passing Tuesday that all but ends his legal challenges to the election, President Trump’s frenzied campaign to overturn the results has reached an inflection point: Certified slates of electors to the Electoral College are now protected by law, and any chance that a state might appoint a different slate that is favorable to Mr. Trump is essentially gone.

Despite his clear loss, Mr. Trump has shown no intention of stopping his sustained assault on the American electoral process. But his baseless conspiracy theories about voting fraud have devolved into an exercise in delegitimizing the election results, and the rhetoric is accelerating among his most fervent allies. This has prompted outrage among Trump loyalists and led to behavior that Democrats and even some Republicans say has become dangerous.

Supporters of the president, some of them armed, gathered outside the home of the Michigan secretary of state Saturday night. Racist death threats filled the voice mail of Cynthia A. Johnson, a Michigan state representative. Georgia election officials, mostly Republicans, say they have received threats of violence. The Republican Party of Arizona, on Twitter, twice called for supporters to be willing to “die for something” or “give my life for this fight.” Continue reading.

Inauguration planning the latest thing to enter the controversy zone

Republicans oppose recognizing Biden will be inaugurated

A meeting of the Joint Congressional Committee on Inaugural Ceremonies turned sour Tuesday, when Republican leaders on the typically uncontroversial panel rejected a resolution that would assert that Joe Biden is president-elect.

Republicans on Capitol Hill have been slow to acknowledge the election results, in deference to President Donald Trump, who continues to deny his clear defeat despite recounts affirming them, states certifying electors and loss after loss in court cases challenging Biden’s win.

House Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer, D-Md., offered a motion recognizing that the group was preparing for the inauguration of Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris, a member of the Senate, during a closed-door meeting of the JCCIC in Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer’s office. Continue reading.

Conservative law professor slams Ted Cruz’s push to throw our out 6.9 million Pennsylvania votes

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Pennsylvania is among the battleground states where President Donald Trump and his Republican supporters have been trying to overthrow the results of the 2020 presidential election. So far, Republican lawsuits in Pennsylvania — where President-elect Joe Biden won 20 electoral votes — have been unsuccessful. But Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas is saying that if one of those lawsuits makes it to the U.S. Supreme Court, he would make the oral arguments in favor of it. And one of the people on the right who is slamming Cruz for making that offer is Kimberly Wehle, a conservative law professor.

On Monday, December 7, Cruz told Fox News, ” (The) petitioner’s legal team has asked me whether I would be willing to argue the case before the Supreme Court, if the Court grants certiorari. I have agreed, and told them that, if the Court takes the appeal, I will stand ready to present the oral argument.”

The two-term Texas senator added, “As I said last week, the bitter division and acrimony we see across the Nation needs resolution. I believe the Supreme Court has a responsibility to the American people to ensure, within its powers, that we are following the law and following the Constitution.” Continue reading.