Last Call For The Trump Tear-Apart Twist

The Republican Party is imploding, and the non-Trump loyalists are suddenly realizing -- far too late, mind you -- that they will never be allowed to remain as Republicans.

The Republican Party is entering a period of political powerlessness in Washington badly fractured from within, lacking a unifying message and set of principles and missing a clear bench of national leaders — a party with internal divisions and outside obstacles so significant that it may not easily weather the splintering underway.

While all parties go through reckonings after losing power, the G.O.P. has lost the popular vote in seven of the last eight presidential elections and, for the first time since Herbert Hoover, ceded the White House, Senate and House in a single term. President Trump is staring down a second impeachment, members of his administration have resigned in protest of his actions, and senators from his party have called for him to do the same.

What’s more, the party’s political messaging is likely to be inspected intensely by social media platforms that have already barred Mr. Trump and others on the far right. Business and corporate donors are threatening to cut off the party’s financial spigot, and tech companies are stifling Mr. Trump’s ability to raise money online, the lifeblood of his political operation.

But the most acute danger for the health of the party, and its electoral prospects to retake the House and Senate in 2022, is the growing chasm between the pro-Trump voter base and the many Republican leaders and strategists who want to reorient for a post-Trump era.

“Have you heard what some of these folks waving MAGA flags are saying about Republicans?” said Representative Peter Meijer, Republican of Michigan, whose first days in Congress this month were marked by evacuations to escape from a mob. “They don’t identify themselves as Republicans.”

Mr. Meijer was among the Republicans who voted to affirm President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s Electoral College victory last week, in the proceedings that rioters incited by Mr. Trump interrupted. The vote set off another round of vitriol and threats.

“Our expectation is that somebody will try to kill us,” said Mr. Meijer, an Iraq war veteran. “That is the scenario that many of us are preparing for.”

 

Yes, this is a sitting Republican predicting there will be assassination attempts against Republicans in Congress by Trump voters.

 

Stop and think about this.

 

I will repeat this.

 

This is a sitting Republican predicting there will be assassination attempts against Republicans in Congress by Trump voters.

Mike DuHaime, a Republican strategist who served as a top adviser for Chris Christie in his 2016 run for president, said the violence at the Capitol represented a breaking point for his party’s relationship with Mr. Trump.

“Now the two camps are, who is a Trump sycophant and who is not,” Mr. DuHaime said. “That spells doom until we can get past Trump.”

Mr. Trump won 74.2 million voters, a Republican record, even in defeat in 2020. Some party leaders fret that as of now, they cannot win with Mr. Trump, and they cannot win without him. Right-wing voters have signaled that they will abandon the party if it turns on Mr. Trump, and more traditional Republicans will sour if it sticks by him.

The twin losses last week in Georgia, where the Republican incumbents yoked themselves closely to Mr. Trump and his baseless accusations of election fraud, not only cost Republicans control of the Senate but also offered a warning sign for the future. The dynamics mirrored the 2018 midterm elections, when Mr. Trump’s divisive brand of politics was better at mobilizing Democrats than Republicans when he was not on the ballot himself.

In the coming days, the specter of more violence is clear and present. The National Guard said Monday that it was planning to deploy up to 15,000 troops in the nation’s capital for the inauguration, and the F.B.I. warned in a bulletin about the potential for armed protests at all 50 state capitols between now and the inauguration.

 

It looks like the predictions of a violence-filled start to the Biden era is coming true.

The Brewing Bevinstan Booting Of Beshear

Kentucky Republicans, now controlling more than three-fourths in both chambers of the general Assembly, are now threatening to impeach and remove Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear at will, and frankly they have more than enough votes to do it.

 

Kentucky’s Republican House Speaker David Osborne says a committee will be formed to determine whether Gov. Andy Beshear should be impeached, after four citizens submitted a petition asking for it.

Though the House can receive impeachment petitions at any time, the creation of an official impeachment committee is unusual, said Frankfort attorney Anna Whites.

Whites worked for former Democratic House Speaker Greg Stumbo. She said during Stumbo’s tenure, impeachment petitions would be sent to the Judiciary or Rules Committee for review, and then in most cases, “they would be determined not to be worth moving forward on.”

“I think it is unusual to immediately appoint a committee to review it prior to letting Judiciary or Rules have a first look at it, since they have experience in this,” Whites said.

Osborne was a member of the Rules Committee when Stumbo was speaker and White said “he is clearly familiar with this process.”

The four citizens who filed the petition asking for Beshear to be impeached are Jacob Clark of Grayson County, Tony Wheatley of Mercer County, Randall Daniel of Bullitt County and Andrew Cooperrider of Fayette County.

Cooperrider is the owner of Lexington coffee shop Brewed, which continued to provide indoor dining during Beshear’s coronavirus restrictions in November and December.

The petitioners accuse Beshear of violating the Kentucky Constitution by imposing restrictions during the coronavirus pandemic, including the mandatory closure of non-essential businesses and in-person religious services early on during the state of emergency.

The Kentucky Supreme Court ruled in November that Beshear has the power to issue orders that attempt to slow the spread of the virus.

Speaker Osborne said on Friday that the House doesn’t have a choice but to “take action” on the impeachment petition.

“The constitution is very brief and very vague about what we have to do. But we have to take it seriously. This is a serious issue, regardless of whether anything comes of it or not,” Osborne said.

As of Friday, Osborne said he has not read the petition yet.

The petition was filed after the “Impeach Beshear” rally last Tuesday, which featured a yard sign that said “make hanging traitors great again.”

Beshear’s communications director Crystal Staley called the petition, “silly and completely unjustified,” comparing it to rhetoric that spurred the riot at the U.S. Capitol last week.

“The Kentucky Supreme Court ruled every step the Governor has taken is legal. But more concerning, this is the type of dangerous, angry rhetoric and disinformation that led to Wednesday’s attack on the U.S. Capitol and our very democracy. People are watching and listening. Everyone has a duty to be responsible,” Staley said.

 

Kentucky's Constitution works just like the federal one on impeachment, the House impeaches and brings charges, the Senate tries and needs a two-thirds majority to convict and remove. The KY GOP has 75 of 100 seats in the House and 28 of 38 seats in the Senate, meaning they can convict and remove Beshear and Lt. Gov. Jackie Coleman at will, in which case the next person in line is Senate President Robert Stivers.

This is an open threat to Beshear, folks.

Our Little White Supremacist Domestic Violence Problem, Con't

The FBI is taking the extraordinary step of warning law enforcement agencies across the country that violent insurrections are being planned at all 50 state capitol buildings and again at the US Capitol next week in advance of Joe Biden's inauguration.

The FBI is reportedly monitoring plans for armed protests against Donald Trump’s election defeat in all 50 US state capitols and at the US Capitol in Washington between Saturday and 20 January, the day Joe Biden will be inaugurated as president.

ABC News said it had obtained an internal bulletin which detailed calls for the “storming” of state, local and federal courthouses and buildings, if Trump is removed from power before inauguration day.

House Democrats formally introduced an article of impeachment in Washington on Monday, charing Trump with inciting an insurrection in regard to the riot at the US Capitol last week, which left five dead and has led to multiple arrests.

Democrats also called on Vice-President Mike Pence to implement the 25th amendment to the constitution and remove Trump from power.

That effort seems unlikely to succeed. Any impeachment trial in the Senate is not likely to be held until after Trump has left office.

Nonetheless, ABC reporter Aaron Katersky said the FBI had “received information about an identified armed group intending to travel to Washington DC on 16 January [Saturday]. They have warned that if Congress attempts to remove [Trump] via the 25th amendment a huge uprising will occur.”

 

Republicans will continue to screech that Trump, and by extension the Republicans who enabled Trump's awful behavior, cannot suffer the consequences of inciting a terrorist insurrection because it might cause more terrorist insurrections, so we can only do absolutely nothing. 

So odd how giving in to the terrorist demands are reasonable when the terrorists are American white supremacists.

At least the Capitol Police are starting to take things seriously.

Capitol Police briefed Democrats on Monday night about three more potentially gruesome demonstrations planned in the coming days, with one plot to encircle the U.S. Capitol and assassinate Democrats and some Republicans.

On a private call Monday night, new leaders of the Capitol Police told House Democrats they were closely monitoring three separate plans that could pose serious threats to members of Congress as Washington prepares for Democrat Joe Biden’s presidential inauguration on Jan. 20.

The first is a demonstration billed as the “largest armed protest ever to take place on American soil.”

Another is a protest in honor of Ashli Babbitt, the woman killed while trying to climb into the Speaker’s Lobby during Wednesday’s pro-Trump siege of the Capitol.

And another demonstration, which three members said was by far the most concerning plot, would involve insurrectionists forming a perimeter around the Capitol, the White House and the Supreme Court, and then blocking Democrats from entering the Capitol ― perhaps even killing them ― so that Republicans could take control of the government.

The members of Congress whom HuffPost spoke to Monday night were extremely concerned by the call.

“It was pretty overwhelming,” one member said.

Officials on the call warned lawmakers about sharing too much information with the media, saying that divulging specific dates, times and countermeasures could aid the organizers of the plots. HuffPost is not disclosing certain information, such as who appears to be organizing these plots and when they are to take place.

One member was explicit that these groups were trying to get journalists to report on their demonstrations.

“Some of their main communications to organize these have been cut off, so they’re purposely trying to get the media to report on this as a way to further disseminate information and to attract additional support for their attacks,” this member said.

 

Again, these are white supremacist domestic terrorists, folks. They want to kill Democrats and overthrow the election to put Trump in power. 

It's way past time to start considering them as such, starting with Donald Trump.

StupidiNews!

• Six Congolese park rangers were ambushed and killed at a gorilla sanctuary by poachers Monday, the attack at Virunga National Park is the deadliest there since 12 rangers were killed in April.
• Two Democratic Congresswomen, Bonnie Coleman of New Jersey and Pramila Jayapal of Washington, have tested positive for COVID-19 in the wake of last week's US Capitol attack.
• The US Supreme Court has once again refused to take up several cases filed by the Trump campaign falsely claiming that the 2020 presidential election was stolen by "election fraud".
• Acting Department of Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf has abruptly resigned and is being replaced by current Trump FEMA chief Pete Gaynor ahead of next week's inauguration.
• NASA will extend its Mars InSight rover and Jupiter Juno spacecraft missions into 2022 and 2025 respectively in order to explore more of the Martian surface and Jupiter's moons and rings.