Tag: Trump attempt to steal a second term

Four more indicted in alleged Jan. 6 Oath Keepers conspiracy to obstruct election vote in Congress

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Four more Oath Keepers associates have been indicted and three were arrested in Florida in recent days in the Jan. 6 breach of the U.S. Capitol, bringing the number of co-defendants charged in the largest conspiracy case from that day to 16, court records show.

Joseph Hackett, 51, of Sarasota, Fla., Jason Dolan, 44, of Wellington, Fla., and William Isaacs, 21, of Kissimmee, Fla., each face multiple counts in an indictment handed up Wednesday and unsealed Sunday in Washington. The three appeared Thursday before U.S. magistrates in Tampa, West Palm Beach and Orlando.

The name of a fourth defendant not known to be in custody was redacted. Continue reading.

‘Inside Job?’: Republican strategist explains how GOP’s vote against the Jan. 6 commission really looks

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Conservatives seem happy to lie about everything from election fraud to Sandy Hook, until it’s time to go to court.

One Republican strategist has a relatively different take on the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol. While an overwhelming number of Americans have blamed former President Donald Trump for inciting the insurrection, one strategist actually views the entire ordeal as an “inside job.” 

On Friday, May 28, Rick Wilson appeared on The Dean Obeidallah Show where he expressed frustration over House and Senate Republicans’ failure to support the establishment of the Jan. 6 commission. where he expressed frustration over House and Senate Republicans’ failure to support the establishment of the Jan. 6 commission.While the commission would have opened the door for a thorough investigation into the U.S. Capitol insurrection, Republican lawmakers managed to block the effort by way of the filibuster. 

According to the longtime Republican, the lawmakers’ efforts appear to be relative to an “inside job.” When asked how Democratic lawmakers should move forward politically, Wilson laid out his arguments. Continue reading.

Senate meltdown reveals deepening partisan divide

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An unexpected Senate meltdown this week is prompting Democrats to re-evaluate what they can realistically accomplish this year in Congress.

Senators were up until 2:52 a.m. on Friday trying to hammer out a deal on how to move forward on a bipartisan bill to improve U.S. competitiveness with China. In the end, the two sides couldn’t reach an agreement and had to punt the legislation into next month.

Less than 12 hours later, a bill to establish a bipartisan commission to investigate the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol failed on a mostly party-line vote, even though it passed the House a week earlier with 35 Republicans supporting it. Continue reading.

COMMENTARY: The United States is at the mercy of those who think they’re God’s elect

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I’m going to try connecting things that don’t at first seem related. They are the fight over a commission to investigate the January 6 insurrection; the disproportional number of covid deaths in states run by Republican governors; this week’s shooting massacre in San Jose, Calif., and every other one like it; and, let’s see, what else? Well, feel free at the end of this piece to add your own examples. There are plenty more.

All have in common the political concept that God divided the world between the elected and the unelected, that is, between His chosen and everyone else deserving of eternal damnation. (They deserve what’s coming to them, in other words.) For the chosen, anything is possible. For God’s enemies, God’s law. All politics, all historical struggle over power and limited resources, can be seen through a lens in which everything begins with the chosen and ends with the chosen. It’s a closed circuit—politically, religiously, economically and every way that matters. Important for you to understand is this: it’s impervious to democracy, morality, justice and the truth. If you want to keep this republic of ours, you’ve got to keep these people away from power.

The commission

The Republicans in the United States Senate this morning filibustered a bipartisan House bill that would have created an independent ideologically neutral commission to investigate the January 6 sacking and looting of the United States Capitol. The United States Congress created such commissions after the Oklahoma City bombing in the 1990s and the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001. Along with being good for democracy and patriotism, a commission of this kind is the right thing to do. Continue reading.

Sen. Murkowski delivers pointed criticism of fellow Republicans, including McConnell, who oppose Jan. 6 commission

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On the eve of the failure of a measure that would form a commission to investigate the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) told reporters that the decision facing senators is about more than “just one election cycle.”

Murkowski made the remarks in an extraordinary exchange at the Capitol on Thursday night. It comes as Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) has been urging Republican senators to oppose the establishment of an independent commission, which he argued is “extraneous,” and as relatives of the late Capitol Police officer Brian D. Sicknick plead with senators to back the legislation.

“They don’t want to rock the boat,” Murkowski said of Republican senators who oppose the commission. “They don’t want to upset. But again, it’s important that there be a focus on the facts and on the truth. And that may be unsettling, but we need to understand that.” Continue reading.

Senate GOP blocks legislation on Jan. 6 commission

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Senate Republicans on Friday blocked legislation to form a commission to probe the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol.

Senators voted 54-35 on the House-passed bill, falling short of the 10 GOP votes needed to get it over an initial hurdle and marking the first successful filibuster by Republicans in the 117th Congress. 

GOP Sens. Lisa Murkowski (Alaska), Mitt Romney (Utah), Susan Collins(Maine), Bill Cassidy (La.), Rob Portman (Ohio) and Ben Sasse (Neb.) broke ranks and voted to advance the legislation. Continue reading.

The GOP’s brazen move to strip power from a fraud-narrative-busting secretary of state — again

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Georgia Republicans earlier this year passed new voting restrictions, leading corporations including Major League Baseball to protest. What followed was a big to-do about whether that was an overreaction. The bill didn’t exactly match up with Democrats’ claims of a modern-day “Jim Crow,” and many of the new provisions were within the mainstream of even blue states.

But the bill was also watered-down from much-bolder proposals that had previously passed, including one transparently targeted at limiting voter drives by Black churches. Mix in the effort’s proximity to Republicans losing the state for the first time in 28 years — and to similar efforts in other GOP-controlled states despite no proof of actual, significant voter fraud — and it wasn’t difficult to draw conclusions about why this was done.

And there was perhaps one part of the law that best drove home how much this was aimed at gaming the system. It removed Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger (R) from the state election board. This effectively allowed the GOP-controlled state legislature to appoint a majority of the board. Continue reading.

Republicans Create the Doubts, Then They ‘Investigate’ Them

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Wisconsin Republicans are particularly nihilistic, and they have been ever since the arrival of Scott Walker in the state’s politics.

[State Assembly Speaker Robin] Vos in a Wednesday interview said he was giving the investigators a broad mandate to spend about three months reviewing all tips and following up on the most credible ones. In addition to the grant spending, he said they may look into claims of double voting and review how clerks fixed absentee ballot credentials.

“Is there a whole lot of smoke or is there actual fire? We just don’t know yet,” Vos said…Vos said he is hiring three form er law enforcement officers along with an attorney who will oversee them. As contractors with the Legislature, they will have subpoena power. Anyone they subpoena will be immune from criminal prosecution, he said. 

Wisconsin Republicans are peculiarly nihilistic, and they have been ever since the arrival of Scott Walker in the state’s politics. (Thanks again, Charlie Sykes). Wisconsin cops have a history of being particularly biased and violent. So to oversee the farce, Vos is bringing some of these people out of retirement, handing them subpoena power, and turning them loose to ratfck an election result that most of them likely believe was the product of some sort of magical swindle they learned about 1o minutes ago on the radio. Continue reading.

A whole new level’: Harvard law professor says not even Nixon would have made the legal claims Trump is

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In response to a lawsuit from Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-CA), Donald Trump responded that he can’t be sued for anything he did as the president. MSNBC host Lawrence O’Donnell noted that it sounded a lot like former President Richard Nixon, who said, “when the president does it, it’s not illegal.”

But when Harvard law professor Laurence Tribe reviewed the excuse and explained that not even Nixon would have made the excuses that Donald Trump is. 

In a case involving a civil case against Nixon, the Supreme Court decided that when a president is exercising his/her official duties as president that he/she cannot be liable. It’s hard to claim that Trump’s speech inciting an insurrection because he lost an election is an official duty as president. Continue reading.

‘They wouldn’t care if I was dead’ — staffer fallout from Jan. 6 continues

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Denial of insurrection, always-on work culture piles on trauma

A congressional staffer froze recently when elevator doors opened and there stood a member of the House who has downplayed the violence of the Jan. 6 insurrection. Some congressional employees are shaken by what they see as the whitewashing of the attack, and the denials have reignited lingering trauma.

One House employee who works in the Capitol building and heard the rioters banging on their office door said seeing the lawmakers try to erase the destruction is jarring.

Thirteen staffers interviewed by CQ Roll Call, who were granted anonymity to speak candidly about their mental health and how they are coping, point to comments like those from Rep. Andrew Clyde. Despite helping barricade the House chamber from rioters, the Georgia Republican downplayed the events of Jan. 6 at a hearing earlier this month as“acts of vandalism” and said the rioters were “orderly” and looked like “a normal tourist visit.” Continue reading.