Tag: GOP the party of corruption

The making of Madison Cawthorn: How falsehoods helped propel the career of a new pro-Trump star of the far right

Washington Post logo

Cawthorn has emerged as one of the most visible figures among newly arrived House Republicans, who have promoted baseless assertions and pushed a radicalized ideology that has become a driving force in the GOP

Madison Cawthorn was a 21-year-old freshman at a conservative Christian college when he spoke at chapel, testifying about his relationship with God. He talked emotionally about the day a car accident left him partially paralyzed and reliant on a wheelchair.

Cawthorn said a close friend had crashed the car in which he was a passenger and fled the scene, leaving him to die “in a fiery tomb.” Cawthorn was “declared dead,” he said in the 2017 speech at Patrick Henry College. He said he told doctors that he expected to recover and that he would “be at the Naval Academy by Christmas.”

Key parts of Cawthorn’s talk, however, were not true. The friend, Bradley Ledford, who has not previously spoken publicly about the chapel speech, said in an interview that Cawthorn’s account was false and that he pulled Cawthorn from the wreckage. An accident report obtained by The Washington Post said Cawthorn was “incapacitated,” not that he was declared dead. Cawthorn himself said in a lawsuit deposition, first reported by the news outlet AVL Watchdog, that he had been rejected by the Naval Academy before the crash. Continue reading.

‘People want Armageddon: : GOP insiders say Republicans will move to impeach Biden if they retake the House

AlterNet logo

During former President Donald Trump’s two impeachment trials — one for trying to bully a foreign power into interfering in a U.S. election, the other for inciting the violent insurrection of January 6 — it wasn’t unusual to hear Republicans commenting that impeachments are bad because they are so divisive. But journalist Mark Leibovich, in a New York Times articlepublished on February 16, stresses that Republicans in Congress will be singing a very different tune if they regain control of either the U.S. House of Representatives or the U.S. Senate in the 2022 midterms.

“In a broader sense, officials of both parties have suggested that regular impeachments may just become one of several regular features of a new and bitter normal in our politics,” Leibovich writes. “Previously rare or unthinkable measures could simply start happening all the time.”

Leibovich pointed to Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina as a perfect example of a Republican who flip-flops on impeachment. The former 2016 Trump critic turned devoted Trump sycophant decried both of Trump’s impeachments as an outrage, but he recently suggested that Vice President Kamala Harris could be impeached in the future. Continue reading.

Fundamentalism and authoritarianism: How the party of ‘law and order’ became the party of crooks and crime

AlterNet logoWhatever happened to the Republicans as the “party of law and order”? True, Richard Nixon, who first branded the party that way, was lying when he famously said, “I am not a crook.” Both Watergate and the Iran-Contra scandal rank among the most notorious examples of executive branch lawlessness in our nation’s history. But through it all, the narrative commitment to the brand never wavered. It was a source of moral and political strength, always to be contrasted with “soft on crime” Democrats, however contrary the front-page facts might be.

But not anymore. As noted here by Jennifer Mercieca, a historian of rhetoric whose book, “Demagogue for President: The Rhetorical Genius of Donald Trump” (table of contents here), will be published next year, it’s the Democrats who are the party of law and order in the impeachment drama, while the GOP is the party of conspiracy:

Democrats, led by Speaker Nancy Pelosi, are betting that public opinion will move toward impeachment and removal once more information is made public. To try to shape public opinion they are relying on a law-and-order frame that tells Americans that the impeachment inquiry is legitimate and legally justified.

Democrats are positioning themselves as the only ones willing to uphold the rule of law and the Constitution.

View the complete November 24 article by Paul Rosenberg from Salon on the AlterNet website here.

Republicans Shift Defense of Trump While He Attacks Another Witness

New York Times logoWith Gordon Sondland prepared to testify this week, Republicans backed away from complaints about secondhand information and instead offered a blunter defense: The president did nothing wrong.

WASHINGTON — House Republicans, bracing for another week of impeachment hearings, asserted on Sunday that President Trump had done nothing wrong because his plans for Ukraine to investigate his political rivals never came to fruition — even as the president complicated their efforts by attacking another witness.

On a day of back-and-forth on Twitter and the morning television talk shows that are a staple of Sundays in Washington, Speaker Nancy Pelosi invited Mr. Trump to testify before the House Intelligence Committee, while the president’s allies shifted their emphasis away from the defense they offered last week, when they stressed that witnesses had only secondhand information against him.

That argument may not work much longer, because lawmakers are about to hear from crucial witnesses who had direct contact with the president, including Gordon D. Sondland, a donor to and an ally of Mr. Trump who served as his liaison to Ukrainian officials while the president withheld — but later released — $391 million in military aid to Ukraine.

View the complete November 17 article by Sheryl Gay Stolberg on The New York Times website here.