The Big Lie, Con't

Kansas GOP Sen. Roger Marshall is one of the Republican Party's chief insurrectionists, and told CNN's Pamela Brown on Saturday that the country is "so ready to move on" from January 6th. Of course, that's a complete lie, as the Kansas City Star takes Marshall to task for.

All Roger Marshall wants is for Americans to put his role in that little insurrection thing in the rearview mirror.

On Saturday, CNN’s Pamela Brown pressed the freshman U.S. senator from Kansas about his vote to toss out millions of Americans’ ballots in Arizona and Pennsylvania, and about his joining Texas’ lawsuit to invalidate President Joe Biden’s decisive victory. Marshall was one of only six GOP senators who voted against certifying the Electoral College results on Jan. 6, just hours after a berserk mob invaded the U.S. Capitol, killing at least five people, including one police officer. (Marshall had company in the vote with his Missouri neighbor, Sen. Josh Hawley, natch.)

So does he have any regrets, or concerns that his actions contributed to the fact that fully 70% of Republican voters think the election was illegitimate, Brown asked?

Of course not. “Look, Pamela, it’s, we’re just so ready to move on,” he said, beaming his TV smile. “I made a decision based upon the facts that I knew at that point in time. … But it’s time to move on. It’s time for this country to heal. It’s time for a spirit of forgiveness to be happening.”

Normally, saying “I’m sorry” precedes the expectation of forgiveness.

And he isn’t sorry, since he still didn’t back down from his vague claims about nonexistent voter fraud. “I was concerned then,” he told Brown, “and still am today,” that the election wasn’t aboveboard. (Just the presidential part of it, of course — he’s raised no objection to Republicans’ strong down-ballot showing around the country.)

This isn’t the first time Marshall has urged America to “move on.” In late January, he insisted that a second impeachment trial for Donald Trump would divide us too much, and that “this country has to heal.”

That’s an odd prescription from a doctor-turned-politician who makes it a regular practice to pick at the country’s culture war wounds. His Twitter feed and official press releases often read like a MAGA “Mad Libs.”

Biden’s address last week was “the lowest energy speech I have ever personally heard on the House floor,” he said. “Dem Senators” want to “enact their radical agenda & tip the scales of power in their favor,” he tweeted. He joined fellow firebrand Sen. Joni Ernst of Iowa introducing the eye-rollingly named TASTEE Act, or Telling Agencies to Stop Tweaking What Employees Eat Act of 2021, “pushing back against the Left’s ‘War on Meat’ and ‘Meatless Mondays.’”

Marshall certainly has meat on his mind — red meat for his Breitbart sound bite base. But if he really thinks it’s “time for this country to work together and focus on the goals that we can solve together,” as he said to Brown, he could start by apologizing for being one of the leading proponents of the Big Lie about the election.

 

Of course no Republican is going to do this, because there are no good Republicans. Arizona's "election audit" farce continues with actual January 6th terrorists participating in the vote recounting and CNN found 70% of Republicans still believing that the election was stolen.

To believe Marshall's additional lie about the GOP wanting to move on is even more harmful than believing the Big Lie he helped to spread 100 days ago, because it clearly shows that Marshall doesn't want to be linked to the inevitable violence he knows is coming.

Also, someone should ask Sen. Marshall about the murder of Aviva Okeson-Haberman, a 24-year-old KC radio journalist who was killed last week in her apartment. She covered social justice for NPR station KCUR.

Someone needs to hold Marshall and his fellow insurrectionists accountable, because otherwise the Big Lie is here to stay.

Debra Ell, a Republican organizer in Michigan and fervent supporter of former president Donald Trump, said she has good reason to believe the 2020 presidential election was stolen.

“I think I speak for many people in that Trump has never actually been wrong, and so we’ve learned to trust when he says something, that he’s not just going to spew something out there that’s wrong and not verified,” she said, referring to Trump’s baseless claims that widespread electoral fraud caused his loss to President Biden in November.

In fact, there is no evidence to support Trump’s false assertions, which culminated in a deadly insurrection at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6. But Ell, a Republican precinct delegate in her state, said the 2020 election is one of the reasons she’s working to censure and remove Jason Roe from his role as the Michigan Republican Party’s executive director — specifically that Roe accepted the 2020 results, telling Politico that “the election wasn’t stolen” and that “there is no one to blame but Trump.”

“He said the election was not rigged, as Donald Trump had said, so we didn’t agree with that, and then he didn’t blame the Democrats for any election fraud,” said Ell, explaining her frustration with Roe. “He said there was no fraud — again, that’s something that doesn’t line up with what we think really happened — and then he said it’s all Donald Trump’s fault.”

Nearly six months after Trump lost to Biden, rejection of the 2020 election results — dubbed the “Big Lie” by many Democrats — has increasingly become an unofficial litmus test for acceptance in the Republican Party. In January, 147 GOP lawmakers — eight senators and 139 House members — voted in support of objections to the election results, and since then, Republicans from Congress to statehouses to local party organizations have fervently embraced the falsehood.

In Washington, normally chatty senators scramble to skirt the question, and internal feuding over who is to blame for the Jan. 6 insurrection has riven the House Republican leadership, with tensions between House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) and Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming, the No. 3 House Republican, spilling into public view. Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) is facing a Trump-aligned primary challenger in her 2022 race, inspired by her call for Trump to resign after the Jan. 6 attack and her later vote to convict him over his role in inciting the insurrection.

Local officials, too, are facing censure and threats — in states from Iowa to Michigan to Missouri — for publicly accepting the election results. And in Arizona’s largest county, a hand recount of 2.1 million votes cast in November is underway by Republicans who dispute the results, in yet another effort to overturn the results of the November contest.

The issue also could reverberate through the 2022 midterms and the 2024 election, with Trump already slamming Republicans who did not resist the election results. For Republicans, fealty to the falsehood could pull the party further to the right during the primaries, providing challenges during the general election when wooing more moderate voters is crucial. And for Democrats, the continued existence of the claim threatens to undermine Biden’s agenda.

 

The longer this goes on, the more another deadly insurrectionist terrorist attack -- or worse -- becomes likely, if not inevitable.

Sunday Long Read: A Plain Story About Being Black

The CBC's Omarya Issa and Ify Chiwetelu explore not just being Black in Canada, but being Black in the Prairie provinces and the history, culture, and future of being Black in Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba in this week's Sunday Long Read.

 

What does it mean to be Black in Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba? It is impossible to limit more than 200 years of recorded Black presence on the Prairies to a single definition.

The CBC project Black on the Prairies began with a conversation among colleagues in the spring of 2020. The Prairies, like the rest of the country, were gripped by the rallying cry of “Black Lives Matter.”

That conversation revealed a mutual desire to share the fullness of Black life on the Prairies. These stories are vital and urgent, especially during what the United Nations has labelled the International Decade for People of African Descent.

This project does not position the Prairies as Black ancestral territory or homelands. To be Black on the Prairies is to be part of a colonial legacy that begins on the ancestral lands of the First Nations and Métis people of this region. We aim to recognize Black and Indigenous peoples’ shared histories and affirm our ongoing relationships.

Through five themes — Migration, Putting in Work, Black and Indigenous Relations, Politics and Resistance, and Black to the Future — this project places Black people's experiences at the centre of the Prairie narrative.

These stories explore the richness, complexity, depth and multiplicity of Black Prairie life — past, present and future. They highlight achievements and histories that affirm the influence of Black life on the Prairies and challenge assumptions about its newness.

Bringing this project to life involved contributions from a 10-person community advisory board. They shared insights, curiosities and perspectives, ensuring that Black on the Prairies authentically represents a diversity of experiences and histories. To them, we are incredibly grateful.

In this project, you will find personal essays, articles, audio stories, images and more. We invite you to enter through any door.

Welcome to Black on the Prairies.

Having been born in a Great Plains state myself, I discovered a lot of similarities and some important differences in this journey, but it's definitely a history lesson worth taking in here.

Pull up a chair, as this is a good one.

It's About Suppression, Con't

Trump wants an army of "poll watchers" to discredit elections, and GOP state legislatures are delivering in nearly 20 states.

 

Voting rights activists are sounding alarms about Republican efforts in key states to empower partisan poll watchers and expand voter challenges – arguing it could lead to voter intimidation that recalls dark chapters in US history.

Bills in several states would grant new authority to poll watchers – who work on behalf of candidates and political parties – to observe voters and election workers. Critics say it could lead to conflict and chaos at polling places and an improper targeting of voters of color.

In Texas, a measure under consideration by the Republican-controlled legislature would grant partisan poll watchers the right to videotape voters as they receive assistance casting their ballots.

And in Florida, a sweeping election bill passed Thursday by Republicans in the state legislature specifies that partisan observers must be able see the ballots as canvassing boards work to authenticate voters’ signatures on absentee ballots. There are no limits on how many ballots poll watchers can challenge. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, a Republican, has indicated he will sign the law.

Meanwhile, in Georgia, the state’s controversial new voting law makes it explicit that any Georgian can challenge the qualifications of an unlimited number of their fellow voters. The new law comes after a Texas group, True the Vote, teamed up with Georgia activists last year to question the qualifications of more than 360,000 voters ahead of two Senate runoff elections.

Most counties dismissed True the Vote’s challenges, but Georgia’s new statute requires local election administrators to consider these challenges, threatening them with state sanctions if they don’t.

“If you believe that these challenges aren’t going to be racially targeted, then you are crazy,” said Marc Elias, a leading Democratic election lawyer who has sued on behalf of voting rights groups to stop the Georgia law from taking effect. “This is going to become a tool of voter suppression by Republicans in the state of Georgia.”

The moves to empower partisan actors come after record numbers of voters turned out in 2020. States relaxed election rules to allow more voting by mail and the use of drop boxes to avoid spreading Covid-19. That turnout surge in states such as Georgia helped Democrats seize the White House and the majority in the US Senate.

As part of their failed efforts to overturn the election results, former President Donald Trump and his allies repeatedly argued fraud could have occurred because Trump-aligned poll watchers lacked sufficient access to the voting and counting process in several states. There is no evidence of widespread fraud in the 2020 election.

Around the country, Republican legislators have responded with measures that grant more authority to poll watchers. A new analysis by the liberal-leaning Brennan Center for Justice found that, as of April 15, lawmakers in 20 states had introduced at least 40 bills to expand poll watchers’ powers.

 

There is a long, brutally racist history of "poll watchers" challenging Black voters in this nation, and we're headed back to an era where every vote cast by a Black person is challenged and disenfranchised. It won't be pretty.

And that's the point.

Last Call For Retribution Execution, Con't

Republicans are taking another shot at ending Rep. Liz Cheney's career, confident this time that they have the numbers to remover her from the House GOP's number 3 post.

Top Republicans are turning on Rep. Liz Cheney, the party’s highest-ranking woman in Congress, with one conservative leader suggesting she could be ousted from her GOP post within a month.

Why it matters: The comments by Reps. Steve Scalise, the minority whip, and Jim Banks, chairman of the Republican Study Committee, carry weight because of their close relationship with House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) — who is openly feuding with Cheney. 

Banks (R-Ind.), leader of the largest conservative caucus in the House, told Axios Friday that Cheney's continued criticisms are "an unwelcome distraction," and he questioned whether she would retain her leadership role in a month. 

Banks' comments were echoed more diplomatically by Scalise (R-La.), the No. 2 Republican in the House. 

During an interview with Axios on Friday, he said of Cheney: "This idea that you just disregard President Trump is not where we are, and, frankly, he has a lot to offer still.”
Earlier in the week, McCarthy himself told reporters: "If you're sitting here at a retreat that's focused on policy, focused on the future of making American next-century, and you're talking about something else, you're not being productive."

Cheney (R-Wyo.) told reporters during several interviews at a GOP retreat in Orlando, Florida, that anyone challenging the 2020 election results should be disqualified from a presidential campaign in 2024, and that she herself would not rule out a run. 

She also said a commission to examine the Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection should be narrowly focused — not the wide-ranging probe McCarthy favors. 

In addition, Cheney characterized a memo Banks wrote about how the party could retain working-class voters as "neo-Marxist."

What they're saying: Banks said such comments detracted from a unified focus about how to beat the Democrats in the 2022 midterms. 

"That’s what we got out of Liz Cheney, which doesn’t help us remain focused on that single goal," the congressman said during an interview he offered to Axios. 

"Her lack of focus on that, while being focused on other things, and proving her point, was an unwelcome distraction." 

“The sort of sideline distractions at the GOP retreat will only serve to hold us back from being focused on that nearly unanimous goal we have as a conference," Banks added.

Asked whether he thought Cheney, who serves in the No. 3 party role as GOP conference chair, will retain that position in a month, Banks said, "I don't know."

 

So what's different now as opposed to when Republicans failed to oust her in February and failed miserably?

Two words: Donald Trump. Trump has gotten through to Steve Scalise, and Scalise and his crew want Cheney gone after her comments on 2024. Expect this time for Cheney to actually be removed from her post.

The purge continues. The only thing that matters to the GOP is loyalty to Dear Leader Trump.

The Worst-Case COVID Scenario

India has now reached the cascade failure stage of "reopening too early" as daily new cases of COVID-19 have gone from 15k to 400k in the matter of weeks.

India recorded more than 400,000 new COVID-19 cases for the first time on Saturday as it battles a devastating second wave, and the country's massive new vaccination drive was hampered in some areas by shortages of the shots.

Authorities reported 401,993 new cases in the previous 24 hours, after 10 consecutive days of more than 300,000 daily cases. Deaths jumped by 3,523, taking the country's total toll to 211,853, according to the federal health ministry.

The surge in infections has overwhelmed hospitals, morgues and crematoriums and left families scrambling for scarce medicines and oxygen. And while India is the world's biggest producer of COVID-19 vaccines, shortages of the shots in some states hindered the opening of vaccinations for all adults.

West Bengal state was unable to start a drive aimed at adults aged between 18 and 45 due to a shortage of shots and urged the federal government to provide more supplies, a senior state health official said, declining to be named as he was not authorised to speak with media.

Arvind Kejriwal, the chief minister of the hard-hit state of Delhi on Friday urged people not to queue at vaccination centres, promising more vaccines would arrive "tomorrow or the day after".

Eastern Odisha state said on Friday it had received a consignment of 150,000 shots but would only allow a few people to get shots due to lockdown restrictions preventing movement.

In Ahmedabad, the main commercial city in Prime Minister Narendra Modi's home state of Gujarat, hundreds of people lined up for their shots.

"I took my first dose and I am appealing to all students to take the vaccine and be safe," said Raj Shah, a 27-year-old student in the city.

India has received 150,000 Sputnik-V vaccine doses from Russia and millions more doses will follow, an Indian foreign ministry spokesman said on Saturday.

 

When I said we were in for the long haul against COVID, I meant it. The Biden Administration is getting supplies to India, but the reality is this is now a runaway train. Lockdowns until the fire is out may stop the spread, but it also prevents people from getting vaccinated. This is the worst-case scenario that would have happened here under a second Trump term, and it's happening in a country with four times our population.

 

The curve has gone exponential.

What's happening in India now is prima facie evidence of what this virus can do to a susceptible population when there is premature breakdown of social distancing and universal masks. (Rise of variants doesn't help this cause either). Vaccinate first. Relax next. pic.twitter.com/9j6dniriMg

— Vincent Rajkumar (@VincentRK) April 30, 2021

 

Unless President Modi can contain this disaster, we could see a million daily new cases at this rate. The death toll could be catastrophic. We lost 500,000 plus people in this country and the death toll isn't done here. India in 2021 could dwarf that number.

Get vaccinated, is all I'm saying.

Going Postal, Con't

Republicans are VERY ANGRY that the US Post Office was monitoring right-wing online threats to federal post office building and postal workers after January 6th, and they DEMANDED HEARINGS about this OUTRAGE.

The only problem is that in the hearing, the Chief Postal Inspector of the post office testified the USPS was given authority to monitor Americans in 2017. By Trump and the GOP. Who used this power for years secretly, including to monitor Black Lives Matter protesters after George Floyd's death last summer.

 

The U.S. Postal Service’s law enforcement arm began monitoring social media posts following the Black Lives Matter protests that erupted in Minnesota and across the nation after George Floyd was killed in police custody in May 2020, according to congressional aides and lawmakers who attended a briefing this week on the program.

Last week, Yahoo News revealed that analysts with the U.S. Postal Inspection Service have been trawling Americans’ social media posts to track political protests as part of its Internet Covert Operations Program, known as iCOP. The news prompted more than two dozen Republican lawmakers to demand that the USPS provide information on the program.

 

Then the GOP found out something they probably wish they had left alone.

During a Wednesday briefing before the House Oversight Committee, Chief Postal Inspector Gary Barksdale told lawmakers that iCOP began in 2017 to investigate potential crimes, such as drug and firearms trafficking transported by the mail system, but then moved into monitoring protests last spring because of the potential threat to Postal Service workers and buildings. An uptick in threats against Postmaster General Louis DeJoy was also a factor in iCOP’s continued focus on monitoring protests, according to a GOP aide who attended the briefing.

A leaked intelligence bulletin from March about iCOP’s work largely focused on social media posts on the right-leaning Parler platform, as well as Facebook and other sites. According to those who attended the hearing, Barksdale would say only that the work was “incident-specific,” but did not provide further details.

“The chief postal inspector was unprepared to the point of incompetence,” Rep. Nancy Mace, R-S.C., told Yahoo News. “He couldn’t tell me when this program started, how much money is spent on it or where the authority to spy on Americans came from.

“The complete inability to give us answers to basic questions was unacceptable,” Mace added.

Still, new details about iCOP’s work did emerge, according to several people who attended the briefing. Barksdale began his testimony with a dramatic video of a mail truck engulfed in flames during the protests that erupted in Minnesota after Floyd's death.

The footage was intended to illustrate why iCOP resources were dedicated to tracking protests on social media, according to a GOP aide.

Concerns about the USPS’s social media surveillance comes amid a series of controversies surrounding the agency. During the 2020 presidential campaign, Democrats accused DeJoy, who was appointed by President Donald Trump, of removing mailboxes and sorting machines to influence the November election, which had a record number of mail-in ballots.

Yet now it’s Republicans leading the charge against the USPS, after it emerged that iCOP was monitoring right-wing social media accounts following the Jan. 6 riot at the Capitol. It’s unclear if news that the program was also tracking protests related to Black Lives Matter will prompt Democratic lawmakers, who have so far been silent about the program, to join their GOP colleagues in asking for more answers.

Barksdale’s appearance Wednesday did not appease Republican lawmakers. “I was not satisfied with their answers,” Rep. Andy Biggs, R-Ariz., told Yahoo News.

“Their theory of the case is, they’ve got to protect their workers and properties,” Biggs said. “I asked, 'If you already have engagement with other agencies like FBI, Homeland Security, NSA, whatever, then why aren’t you asking them for help?'

“Why not just call the agencies whose job it is, who are probably already surveilling American citizens?” he said.

The chief postal inspector told lawmakers those agencies “would not cooperate,” so the USPS “made an executive decision” to have iCOP patrol social media, searching for potential threats from upcoming protests, Biggs told Yahoo News.

 

And I remind you, the decision to monitor American's social media posts were all made under the Trump regime, with the blessing of Regime officials.  If GOP lawmakers are just now finding this out, well. Once again, it was Louis DeJoy who made this decision to boot.

Sowing, awesome, reaping, man reaping sucks though.

Last Call For No Mas On The Wall

President Biden is scrapping the Trump regime's Pentagon plans to use the US military to build Trump's wall, canceling the contracts, and recovering $14 billion in wasted taxpayer funds.

The Biden administration is returning to the Pentagon billions in funds diverted by President Donald Trump to build the wall at the southwestern border, and plans to cancel all related construction contracts, an administration official told ABC News on Friday.

"Border wall construction under the previous administration tied up more than $14 billion in taxpayer funds, shortchanged our military, and diverted attention away from genuine security challenges, like human traffickers. Rushed and haphazard wall construction also resulted in serious life, safety, and environmental issues," the official said.

Amid its ongoing review to determine the fate of Trump's border wall, the Biden administration also said it would launch two new projects along the 1,900-mile U.S.-Mexico border: one to fill holes in the Rio Grande Valley levee system left by the wall construction project, and another to address soil erosion in a 14-mile stretch of barrier construction by the Trump administration near San Diego, California.

Neither project would involve building new border fencing, the administration official told ABC News. It's not yet clear when the Biden administration will complete its review of the overall Trump-era project.

"As Federal agencies continue to review the problems created by the prior Administration’s border wall construction and develop their plans, today they will start taking initial steps consistent with the President’s Proclamation to reaffirm our commitment to the military and protect border communities," the official said in a statement.

 

That's the good news: the border wall grift is dead. The bad news is that Trump's wasteful grifting has turned the Rio Grande into a potential death trap in the era of climate change.

Lawmakers from both parties, including Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, and Rep. Vicente Gonzalez, D-Texas, have called on the Biden administration to address the gaps left in the federal levee system in southern Texas ahead of hurricane season, to help prevent flooding. Angry local officials threatened to plug the gaps themselves and seek reimbursement from the federal government down the line.

The Department of Homeland Security said in a statement later Friday afternoon it was acting to "protect border communities."

"Construction under the prior administration blew large holes into the Rio Grande Valley’s flood barrier system to make way for a border wall. The flood barrier system had long provided low-lying regions of Hidalgo County, Texas, protection from catastrophic flooding, and these breaches have threatened local communities. DHS will start work to quickly repair the flood barrier system to protect border communities. This work will not involve expanding the border barrier," the DHS statement said.

 

So yes, another multi-billion dollar mess to clean up thanks to Trump.

The State of DC Statehood, Con't

Forget the District of Columbia ever becoming a state any time soon, President Manchin won't allow it.

 

Sen. Joe Manchin III told reporters in his home state of West Virginia on Friday morning that he does not support the bill to make D.C. the nation’s 51st state, according to audio provided by the Democrat’s office and a report from WVNews.

Manchin, a key swing vote in the closely divided Senate, said he believed a constitutional amendment, rather than legislation, would be required to admit D.C. as a state. His stance deals a major blow to statehood advocates who were hoping for his support after the bill passed the House last week.

Manchin cited findings from the Justice Department under Presidents Ronald Reagan and Jimmy Carter and comments from then-Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy in reaching his decision.

“They all came to the same conclusion: If Congress wants to make D.C. a state, it should propose a constitutional amendment. It should propose a constitutional amendment and let the people of America vote,” Manchin said in a radio interview with Hoppy Kercheval of West Virginia’s MetroNews, the full audio of which was provided to The Washington Post by Manchin’s staff.

Manchin was among four in the Senate Democratic caucus who had yet to reveal their positions on statehood; all the other Democratic senators have said they support the idea, but Republicans have been vocally opposed. (One Democrat, Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire, co-sponsored a statehood bill in the last Congress but has not signed on as a co-sponsor this year.)

The Washington, D.C. Admission Act passed the House 216 to 208 last week, along strict party lines, for the second time in history. Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) has said that “we will try to work a path to get [statehood] done.”

 

Forget it, Chuck. It's Manchintown.

Ridin' With Biden, Con't

The Bidens are getting a cat for the White House, and that means First Dogs Champ and Major Biden are in for some training.

 

Ruff times could be ahead for the Biden family dogs — they're soon going to be joined at the White House by the family's cat.

"She's waiting in the wings," first lady Jill Biden told NBC's "TODAY" show co-anchor Craig Melvin of the first feline in an exclusive interview with her and President Joe Biden.

Melvin noted the addition might be especially difficult for the younger of the Biden's two German shepherds, Major. The rambunctious 3-year-old rescue dog has had some trouble adjusting to life in the White House and has received some additional training after allegedly being involved in a pair of "nipping" incidents earlier this year.

Jill Biden said Major is prepared.

"That was part of his training. They took him into a shelter with cats," she said. "He did fine."

 

They're good dogs, Bront. 

Also, remember how the Former Guy didn't have any pets because the concept of loving /caring for something other than himself was that totally foreign and alien to him?

Yeah.

Meathead Matt's #MeToo Moment, Con't

Embattled child predator GOP Rep. Matt Gaetz is going on a very loud Trumpian rally tour with Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene next month to try to distract the public from his sexual assault problems.

Matt Gaetz is going on tour. With Marjorie Taylor Greene.

Rocked by a steady stream of leaks about a federal investigation into alleged sex crimes, the Florida congressman is planning to take his case on the road by holding rallies across the nation with Greene, another lightning rod member of Congress.

Their targets? So-called RINOs and “the radical left.“

Together, they plan to attack Democrats and call out Republicans they deem as insufficiently loyal to former President Donald Trump, such as the 10 GOP House members who voted for his second impeachment after the Jan. 6 Capitol riots.

Gaetz and Greene will kick off their barnstorming “America First Tour” on May 7 in the mega-conservative Florida retirement community known as The Villages, a must-stop for any Republican candidate hoping to win the state or generate grassroots excitement. The idea is to send a message from the two controversial Republicans: They’re not canceled, they’re not going to be quiet and the infamy their critics attribute to them is translatable as fame and power in the conservative movement.

“The radical left is coming for you. And they know I'm in the way. Come stand with me as we fight back together against this radical president and his far left agenda,” Gaetz says in a new radio ad rallying conservatives to The Villages event.

Gaetz’s decision to step forward comes after weeks of national headlines and top-of-the-news-hour TV coverage related to the revelation that he is the subject of a federal sex-crimes investigation.

Of course Gaetz might not be able to make the tour if he's, you know, indicted and remanded to court custody awaiting trial because he's an obvious flight risk.

A confession letter written by Joel Greenberg in the final months of the Trump presidency claims that he and close associate Rep. Matt Gaetz paid for sex with multiple women—as well as a girl who was 17 at the time.

“On more than one occasion, this individual was involved in sexual activities with several of the other girls, the congressman from Florida’s 1st Congressional District and myself,” Greenberg wrote in reference to the 17-year-old. “From time to time, gas money or gifts, rent or partial tuition payments were made to several of these girls, including the individual who was not yet 18. I did see the acts occur firsthand and Venmo transactions, Cash App or other payments were made to these girls on behalf of the Congressman.”

The letter, which The Daily Beast recently obtained, was written after Greenberg asked Roger Stone to help him secure a pardon from then-President Donald Trump.

In late 2020, Greenberg was out of jail and in communication with Stone. A series of private messages between the two—also recently obtained by The Daily Beast—shows a number of exchanges between Greenberg and Stone conducted over the encrypted messaging app Signal, with communications set to disappear. However, Greenberg appears to have taken screenshots of a number of their conversations.

“If I get you $250k in Bitcoin would that help or is this not a financial matter,” Greenberg wrote to Stone.

“I understand all of this and have taken it into consideration,” Stone replied. “I will know more in the next 24 hours I cannot push too hard because of the nonsense surrounding pardons.”

“I hope you are prepared to wire me $250,000 because I am feeling confident,” Stone wrote to Greenberg on Jan. 13.

In a text message to The Daily Beast, Stone said that Greenberg had tried to hire him to assist with a pardon but he denied asking for or receiving payment or interceding on his behalf. He did, however, confirm he had Greenberg prepare “a document explaining his prosecution.”

 

So good luck with the rally tour, I'm guessing it's going to be cut short.

 

Real short.

 

And soon.

Last Call For Retribution Execution, Con't

Trumpist Republicans like Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt continue to literally criminalize dissent while screaming about how liberals might criminalize dissent, complete with broad winking and nodding to everyone that turning an "unlawful assembly" into racketeering conspiracy charges for people not present  would never be used against white Oklahomans, just the non-white ones.

Governor Stitt signed a bill adding unlawful assembly to Oklahoma's Racketeer-Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act.

“This is one of many bills passed this session that is aimed at curbing the increase in rioting we have seen over the past year,” said Rep. Mark Lepak, R-Claremore. “Many otherwise peaceful protests are being co-opted by individuals whose goal is to create and escalate uncontrollable confrontation and mayhem, which is certainly not free speech. What is different about this bill is that it is targeted at those who organize, promote, and otherwise incite the riots, violence, looting, and property damage we’ve seen, even if they are not physically present. These bad actors need to be held accountable for their actions in order to keep both peaceful protestors and the public safe.”

Oklahoma's RICO Act is based on the federal government's statute by the same name which was passed in 1970.

The act allows prosecution and civil penalties for racketeering as part of a criminal enterprise.

Sen. Julie Daniels, R-Bartlesville added, “Free speech and peaceful assembly are rights guaranteed under the constitution, and I have previously authored legislation protecting those rights—but riots are unlawful assemblies that can lead to the destruction of private and public property, injuries, and even death,” Daniels said. "Those who organize an unlawful assembly or arrange to disrupt a lawful assembly should be held accountable for their actions.”

We know Republicans are already criminalizing dissent to charge Democrats with felonies at the state level (and the only reason Georgia state Rep. Park Cannon was ultimately not charged with two felony counts and a total possibility of eight years behind bars was that the Fulton County DA refused to press charges) so we shouldn't be even remotely surprised at this nonsense.

The bottom line however is that the law is patently unconstitutional, and very clearly targeted at turning any Black Lives Matter protest into an "unlawful assembly" allowing then police to round up "those who organize, promote, and otherwise incite" across the state.

Hopefully the courts rip this one to pieces, otherwise Republicans in Oklahoma will absolutely abuse this.

Our Little White Supremacist Domestic Terrorism Problem, Con't

So turns out that thanks to Bush-era Warren Terrah rules, the amount of explosives involved in the white supremacist domestic terrorism plot to kidnap and kill Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer by Trumpist insurrectionists apparently qualifies for WMD charges against the terrorists.

A federal grand jury brought additional charges on Wednesday against three men accused of plotting to kidnap Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer, saying they planned to use weapons of mass destruction to blow up a bridge.

Adam Fox, 40, of Wyoming, Michigan; Barry Croft Jr., 45, of Bear, Delaware; and Daniel Joseph Harris, 23, of Lake Orion, Michigan, were charged with knowingly conspiring to use weapons of mass destruction against persons or property, the U.S. Justice Department said.

Fox, Croft and Harris along with Brandon Caserta, Ty Garbin and Kaleb Franks were arrested and charged in October with conspiring to grab Whitmer, a Democrat, from her vacation home in Antrim County, a rural area in northern Michigan.

Prosecutors said the men, who face up to life in prison if convicted, were part of a plot by a right-wing militia extremist group known as the Wolverine Watchmen to abduct Whitmer in retribution for public health orders she imposed to reduce the spread of the coronavirus.

In the new indictment, Fox, Croft and Harris were accused of planning to destroy a bridge near Whitmer's vacation home in order to hinder the response by law enforcement.

The indictment also said that on Sept. 12, 2020, Fox and Croft stopped to inspect the underside of a highway bridge for a place to mount an explosive charge.

The next day, Fox ordered $4,000 worth of explosives for an undercover FBI agent posing as a co-conspirator, the indictment said. It added that about three weeks later, Fox and Harris made payments toward the explosives, the indictment said.

The new indictment also accused Croft and Harris of possessing a "destructive device" that was not registered as required by federal law. It said Harris also possessed an unregistered semiautomatic assault rifle.

Lawyers for the men were not immediately available for comment.

 

And before we go "Hey Zandar, aren't you against PATRIOT Act abuses especially being used against American citizens?" the answer to that is an unqualified yes, but this is not an abuse. I remind you that this was an organized conspiracy to kidnap the governor of Michigan, strap a bomb to her in order to hold her ransom, and to demand changes to COVID-19 public health regulations or to kill her otherwise. 

This is straight-up the textbook definition of terrorism here, the use of the threat of lethal force in order to enact political changes through fear or terror. Putting these guys in an iron box for a lifetime is not an abuse. (Killing them for it would be an abuse.)

Don't mistake me for a prison abolitionist. There's a wide area between "ban prisons!" and "Reform them to be humane!" and these guys are exhibit A as to why prisons exist in all countries.

These guys are terrorists. Lock them up.

Ridin' With Biden, Con't

President Biden made his first joint address to Congress last night, laying out a massively ambitious program that Republicans instantly despised and gave no indication in GOP Sen. Tim Scott's rebuttal that anything has changed since the Trump regime, other than they believe Trump is still in charge.

President Joe Biden’s address to a joint session Congress was the most ambitious ideological statement made by any Democratic president in decades—couched in language that made it sound as if he wasn’t making an ideological argument at all.

Make no mistake that he was. He called for trillions in new spending in a robust expansion of government’s role in multiple arenas of American life in ways that would have been impossible to contemplate in Barack Obama’s presidency. He plunged into subjects—racial and class inequities, immigration, gun violence—that were rubbed raw until bleeding in Donald Trump’s.

Usually these issues are framed with a question: Which side are you on? Though Biden is rarely described as gifted orator, his speech was a remarkable performance in part because it didn’t soar and largely didn’t even try to. In plain-spoken language, he depicted a breathtakingly large agenda as plain common sense. Instead of imploring partisans to take sides, he projected bewilderment that any practical-minded person of any persuasion could be opposed.

Under a pose of guilelessness, Biden’s speech was in fact infused with political guile. The agenda he promoted to expand both free pre-school and community college, to subsidize the shift to a low-carbon economy, to fund a massive way of new public works construction by taxing the very wealthy, represented years of pent-up demand by progressives. But much of the money would be spent in ways designed to break up the Trump coalition, which was powered heavily by middle- and lower-middle class whites who do not have college degrees with contempt for many parts of the progressive agenda.

Referring to his infrastructure proposal, Biden argued: “Nearly 90 percent of the infrastructure jobs created in the American Jobs Plan do not require a college degree. Seventy-five percent don't require an associate’s degree. The American Jobs Plan is a blue-collar blueprint to build America.”

The bet is that material gains—i.e. a recovery that produces lots of working class jobs and allows families to more easily educate their children—can trump the cultural grievances that sent many of these people into the conservative movement over the past two generations, beginning with George Wallace’s hardhat supporters and later becoming a flood of “Reagan Democrats.”

In fact there was a nod—was it subconscious, or were Biden and his speechwriters thinking of it explicitly?—to one of Reagan’s great arguments, made in 1981 when a 38-year-old Biden had already been in the Senate for eight years. At his first inaugural address, Reagan declared, “Government is not the solution to our problem, government is the problem.”

Speaking Wednesday to Congress, in which social distancing made the audience on the House floor a small fraction of its usual size for a presidential address, Biden explicitly rejected the conservative notion of government as an outside or hostile force, as distinct from average Americans. “Our Constitution opens with the words, ‘We the People.’ It’s time we remembered that ‘We the People’ are the government,” Biden implored. “You and I. Not some force in a distant capital. Not some powerful force we have no control over. It’s us. It’s ‘We the People.’”

The passage was a notable reminder of the arc of Biden’s career. For most of his half-century in government, Biden has been operating in a climate in which Democrats of his generally centrist ilk had to practice defensive politics. They knew that the union movement that had been the foundation of the old Democratic coalition was steadily weakening. They knew that decadeslong erosion of respect in government and nongovernment institutions had helped fuel a contempt-driven conservative movement. To support Democrats, many people needed constant reassurance that candidates weren’t brazenly or irresponsibly liberal.

The speech was another marker suggesting that the ideological pendulum may have finally swung again at the closing end of Biden’s half-century in Washington.

For his part, Biden believes people are ready to support aggressively activist government if the debate is taken out of the realm of symbolism and political abstraction and into the realm of concrete realities of people’s lives. He celebrated the success in soaring far past his goal of 100 million vaccination shots in the first 100 days, and called vaccine distribution in his term, “one of the greatest logistical achievements our country has ever seen.”

 

Maybe less a pendulum swing and more a swift and badly needed correction after the horrible Trump regime, but I'll take it. After my generation being told from birth that "Government itself is evil, and must be fought every step of the way", we finally are coming around to "Government doing good for the people is possible if the right people are in charge" and it's...amazing.

Especially in the 21st century, the argument has gone from "Is government bad?" to "Can government be good?" to "Is government even necessary?"

The answer, in the Biden era, is the Obama promise given form: Yes we can.

Last Call For Retribution Execution, Con't

The GOP now exists to do Dear Leader Trump's bidding, and the purging of the heretical and the apostate continues as the party attacks the insufficiently loyal.

 

Former Sen. Kelly Loeffler (R-Ga.) is calling on Georgia’s top law enforcement official to investigate Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger (R) for his handling of the 2020 election.

Loeffler sent a letter on Wednesday to state Attorney General Chris Carr requesting a probe into whether Raffensperger used his office to advance his personal political interests during the 2020 election cycle, alleging that he “politicized and minimized voters’ legitimate concerns about changes to Georgia’s elections” that came about in response to the coronavirus pandemic.

“This request is not about the outcome of an election, but about the loss of confidence in our elections and the importance of holding elected officials accountable for upholding the law and carrying out their constitutional duties,” Loeffler wrote.

“If voters don’t trust the electoral process and their elected officials, we risk sustained damage to voter participation in our state,” she added.

The letter lays out a slew of allegations against Raffensperger, including that he failed to adequately address absentee voting and other procedural issues in Georgia’s widely panned 2020 primary elections. The letter also faults Raffensperger for recording a January phone call with former President Trump, during which Trump sought to pressure him to “find” enough votes to reverse President Biden’s victory in the state.

Other charges listed in the letter include that Raffensperger entered into a consent decree that changed the signature verification process for absentee balloting without informing the Republican-led state legislature. That claim echoes one made in a lawsuit filed last year by pro-Trump attorney Lin Wood.

Raffensperger’s office has claimed that the consent decree did not significantly alter the signature review process, and that it therefore did not require the approval of the state general assembly. Carr himself was the one who signed the settlement agreement for the state.

“Georgians deserve answers regarding these issues and to understand the impact these and other matters may have on future elections,” Loeffler wrote in her letter. “Failure to acknowledge these issues and irregularities will lead to a continued loss of trust in our elections.”

Carr’s office declined Loeffler’s request on Wednesday, saying that, as the lawyer for Georgia’s executive branch, the attorney general cannot investigate its own client.

“Under the Georgia Constitution, the Department of Law is the lawyer Executive Branch of government – which includes the Secretary of State’s Office,” a spokesperson for the Attorney General's Office said in a statement. “As such, we cannot investigate our own client on these particular matters. We’ve forwarded the letter to our client for their review and appropriate response.”

 

Note Raffensperger is being accused of what Republicans across the country did, including the Trump regime: enriching themselves at the public's expense. And frankly, I'm pretty okay with him going to jail over that, especially if what he did was done at Gov. Brian Kemp's orders.

Raffensperger turning on Kemp would be amazing. I'd love to see all of them go down.

Republicans are still Republicans. Let them all burn for their sins.

Ukraine In The Membrane: A Rudy Awakening Edition

The FBI had Rudy Giuliani's wake-up call this morning, serving a warrant at his Manhattan apartment in the Ukraine lobbying case.

Federal investigators in Manhattan executed a search warrant on Wednesday at the Upper East Side apartment of Rudolph W. Giuliani, the former New York City mayor who became President Donald J. Trump’s personal lawyer, stepping up a criminal investigation into Mr. Giuliani’s dealings in Ukraine, three people with knowledge of the matter said.

One of the people said the investigators had seized Mr. Giuliani’s electronic devices.

Executing a search warrant is an extraordinary move for prosecutors to take against a lawyer, let alone a lawyer for a former president, and it marks a major turning point in the long-running investigation into Mr. Giuliani.

The federal authorities have been largely focused on whether Mr. Giuliani illegally lobbied the Trump administration in 2019 on behalf of Ukrainian officials and oligarchs, who at the same time were helping Mr. Giuliani search for dirt on Mr. Trump’s political rivals, including President Biden, who was then a leading candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination.

The United States Attorney’s office in Manhattan and the F.B.I. had for months sought to secure a search warrant for Mr. Giuliani’s phones.

Under Mr. Trump, senior political appointees in the Justice Department repeatedly sought to block such a warrant, The New York Times reported, slowing the investigation as it was gaining momentum last year. After Merrick B. Garland was confirmed as President Biden’s attorney general, the Justice Department lifted its objection to the search.

While the warrant is not an explicit accusation of wrongdoing against Mr. Giuliani, it shows that the investigation has entered an aggressive new phase. To obtain a search warrant, investigators need to persuade a judge they have sufficient reason to believe that a crime was committed and that the search would turn up evidence of the crime.

Spokesmen for the F.B.I. and the U.S. attorney’s office declined to comment.

 

If I'm Rudy's lawyer I am begging him to hole up somewhere and stay silent, but like Trump, Giuliani is a narcissist and the odds of Giuliani ending up on Tucker Carlson this week are 99.97% and the odds of him incriminating himself on nationwide cable TV during said inevitable appearance on the White Power Hour is at least 95%.

I'll have the story for you tomorrow or Friday, I'm sure.