15 search results for "Ron Johnson dumbest"

There are a number of crazy political events taking place right now, from the Paxton trial in the Texas senate to the GOP threat to remove a Democratic Supreme Court Justice in Wisconsin and the impending impeachment of Joe Biden. (Oddly, the only one that’s justified in the one in Texas, brought by Republicans against a Republican so corrupt even they couldn’t ignore it.) We also have trials against former president Trump in civil and criminal court pending in five different jurisdictions. Oh, and we’re also looking at a possible government shutdown. It’s a lot.

The one place that seemed relatively sane, at least by comparison, was the U.S. Senate. Sure they had a some big dramatic fights last year over President Biden’s legislative agenda but they were pretty standard policy battles that mostly took place within the Democratic caucus. The Supreme Court confirmation hearings for Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson were as ugly as usual but they didn’t feature a lot of fireworks. All in all it’s been a fairly functional institution lately.

But that’s not to say that the Republicans haven’t been playing any games at all. Rand Paul, R-Ky., has Paul has abused the power given to any Senator to block nominations to the executive branch by putting holds on all State Department nominees in order to force the foreign relations committee to “access COVID-19 documents being held by various government agencies.” His complaint is that he’s only allowed to read the documents in private and isn’t allowed to take them out. As a result, no ambassadors are being confirmed.

Texas Senator Ted Cruz likewise held up State Department nominees for months because he wanted the president to reimpose sanctions on the Nord Stream 2 pipeline. He generously released them when Biden did what he wanted.

In case you were wondering, there is nothing in the constitution that grants an individual senator this power. It’s simply one of the  Standing Rules of the United States Senate which has been around forever but never was used to block entire categories of nominees until fairly recently. This could be changed, but like so many of the undemocratic rules of the Senate which have no place in a modern democracy there is no will to do it.

The holds by those GOP Senators are not all that surprising. Republicans have traditionally been hostile to the State Department going all the way back to the McCarthy era when old Tailgunner Joe claimed that it was crawling with commies. (With that epithet gaining new currency on the right lately, I expect we’ll see it rolled out again.) They tended to think of diplomats as being pretty useless, preferring the big stick to the soft talk, which translated to reflexive support for military solutions to all foreign policy questions.

That’s why the actions by freshman Senator Tommy Tuberville, R-Al., are so astonishing. I never thought I’d see the day that any Alabama politician would even dream of holding up the promotions and assignments of military officers but that’s what’s happening. The worship of the uniformed services in the deep south has always run deep and anyone who questioned it would be called to task for their lack of patriotism. Yet here we have this former college football coach telling the officer corps of the U.S. Military that he could not care less if they get their promotions and assignments because he basically thinks they’re all a bunch of “woke” pansies who don’t know how to fight.

Tuberville, it must be noted, has never served in the military. either does he have any political experience. He was elected because he used to coach football in Alabama until he moved to Florida and decided to run for the Senate in 2020. He’s been there for two whole years and has made a name for himself as the densest member of the body and that’s saying something considering that Wisconsin Senator Ron Johnson was just re-elected last fall.

The alleged “issue” that has caused Tuberville to take on the Pentagon is about the military policy that allows time off and pay for service members to travel to another state if they are stationed someplace that has banned abortion. The military won’t provide abortions nor does it pay for them. All it will do is give a soldier or sailor the ability to end a pregnancy without having to go AWOL and lose their pay. Tuberville says this is unacceptable and has now held up hundreds of promotions including the upcoming changing of the guard at the Joint Chiefs.

That is the stated reason for his hold but it’s clear that he also has another agenda. Tuberville, the military expert, believes that the military isn’t macho enough. The navy is so woke they’re doing all kinds of gay and girly stuff on board ships:

Tuberville responds to the Navy Secretary by saying the Secretary has to get wokeness out of the Navy because “we’ve got people doing poems on aircraft carriers” pic.twitter.com/JiTgCrFb2q

— Acyn (@Acyn) September 6, 2023

Nobody tell the Senator that George “Blood and Guts” Patton was so woke, he wrote this and many other poems:

Just thought I'd leave a poem from a noted military lib here just in case anyone from the US Senate happens by pic.twitter.com/JwcwUcjNEp

— Josh Moon 🇺🇸 (@Josh_Moon) September 7, 2023

Coach Tuberville (he prefers to be called that instead of Senator) doesn’t know or care about any of that. The secretaries of the three branches of the service made a rare public plea to end this madness and he smugly retorted that he’s going to hold out until he gets what he wants. And you can be sure he’ll keep insulting the military until they stop being so woke, which I assume means getting back to some serious sexual harassment and gay bashing, the way he no doubt taught his boys during locker room pep talks.

The Democrats are not going to give in to this dullard by agreeing to take on the tedikous task of confirming each officer individually in a floor vote because that would be giving into Tuberville’s bullying nonsense and rewarding more of this adolescent transgressive Republican behavior. It’s up to the Republicans to police their own and while some have tepidly objected to what he’s doing, they just don’t seem to have the energy to deal with him, not even when he’s attacking the military, the last institution in American government that Republicans had still held in some esteem. Now that it’s “woke” too, all bets are off.

Tuberville is an imbecile who has no idea what he’s doing but clearly loves the attention. He’s listening to the far right fringe that has decided the US Military is “woke” because it includes women and LGBT members and the military has made the correct decision to ensure that service members don’t behave like stupid brutes. He’s too ignorant to understand that he’s tearing down the last pillar of the Republican Party’s claim to patriotism. The only flag they’re allowed to salute these days are those giant blue Trump flags. Old Glory is just another symbol of America’s descent into wokeness.

Salon

I think Ron Johnson speaks for the 25% of the Republican Party that has completely lost its grip on reality. That’s a lot of people.

In an interview with conservative Wisconsin radio host Vicki McKenna, herself a vocal coronavirus vaccine skeptic, Johnson launched into a condemnation of “vaccine passports,” a credential that would allow businesses to verify vaccination status.

But Johnson also went a step further, declaring he sees “no reason to be pushing vaccines on people,” arguing their distribution should be “limited” to those most vulnerable to coronavirus, and asking, “if you have a vaccine, quite honestly, what do you care if your neighbor has one or not?”

Johnson said he is “getting highly suspicious” of the “big push to make sure everybody gets the vaccine,” stating it’s “not a fully approved vaccine” but also arguing that the fact it is 95% effective means only a limited number of people need to be vaccinated.

The comments put Johnson at odds with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, who spent much of the last Senate recess urging Republican men to get vaccinated amid public opinion polling that shows they are the least likely to do so.

Johnson is one of the Senate’s most prolific promoters of coronavirus pseudoscience, holding hearings last year as the chair of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee to promote unproven treatments like Hydroxychloroquine.

32%. That’s the share of residents in Carbon County, Wyoming, which voted for former President Donald Trump by a 53-point margin in 2020, who are vaccine hesitant, according to an estimate from the Centers for Disease Control. That’s compared to just a 7% hesitancy rate in San Francisco County, California, which went for President Joe Biden by 73 points.

I called Ron Johnson the dumbest man in the Senate long before this Trumpian nonsense. And, by the way, even if he decides not to run, Mo Brooks and Tommy Tuberville and God knows how many other Trumpish fools will take his place. The GOP Senate has become a cesspool of morons.

Natasha Bertrand reports:

Democratic leaders are asking the FBI for an urgent briefing arising out of concern that members of Congress are being targeted by a foreign operation intended to influence the 2020 presidential election, according to a letter they released publicly on Monday.

Among the Democrats’ concerns is that a Senate investigation being led by Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) has become a vehicle for “laundering” a foreign influence campaign to damageDemocratic presidential nominee Joe Biden, according to two people familiar with the demand.

Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer demanded the all-Congress briefing Monday, citing “specific” intelligence that a foreign influence operation targeted lawmakers to “launder and amplify disinformation in order to influence congressional activity.”

Though the letter did not mention the Johnson investigation, it included a classified addendum that the two sources say identified the probe as one of the sources of their concern.

“We are gravely concerned, in particular, that Congress appears to be the target of a concerted foreign interference campaign, which seeks to launder and amplify disinformation in order to influence congressional activity, public debate, and the presidential election in November,” Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Schumer (D-N.Y.) wrote in their letter, which was also signed by the chair of the House Intelligence Committee, Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), and the vice chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.).

All four Democratic signatories are members of the Gang of Eight, a group of eight lawmakers who are briefed on classified intelligence by the executive branch.

Asked about Democrats‘ contention, Johnson, who chairs the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, told POLITICO: “They‘re simply wrong.“

“And Schiff is the last person to talk,“ he added.

Keep in mind that Ron Johnson is easily the dumbest Senator and that includes James Inhofe. He might even be the dumbest ever.

Anyway:

[…]

The probe centers on claims that a Democratic public-relations firm sought to leverage Hunter Biden’s role on the board of a Ukrainian energy company, Burisma, to influence the State Department under the Obama administration. Johnson has asked several former State Department officials to testify, and he is eyeing subpoenas as soon as this week if they do not agree to appear for depositions voluntarily.

Johnson renewed his demand for transcribed interviews and documents from the former officials days after a Ukrainian lawmaker — Andriy Derkach, who has met with Trump’s personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani to discuss investigating the Biden family — used a news conference to accuse the Bidens and Amos Hochstein, a former special envoy for international energy affairs at the State Department, of an elaborate conspiracy to steal hundreds of millions of dollars from Ukraine.

The last time senators were briefed on election security and foreign influence operations, Democratic lawmakers confronted Johnson behind closed doors about his investigation, arguing that it threatens the integrity of the 2020 election and relies on Russian disinformation to tar a political opponent.

They cited in particular Johnson’s initial effort to subpoena Andrii Telizhenko, who has pushed unsubstantiated claims about coordination between the Ukrainian government and the Democratic National Committee in 2016. Johnson dropped plans to subpoena Telizhenko after the FBI’s foreign influence task force briefed senators about him, focusing on concerns over his credibility.

Last week, Sen. Gary Peters of Michigan, the top Democrat on the Homeland Security Committee, renewed his request for defensive briefings from the FBI as Johnson’s investigation intensifies.

Some Senate Republicans, too, have previously signaled unease with Johnson’s investigation. In December, Sen. Richard Burr (R-N.C.), who was chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee at the time, privately told Johnson that his inquiry could aid Russia, according to two congressional sources familiar with the meeting. And Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) warned in February that any derogatory information coming out of Ukraine about any American should be vetted by intelligence agencies because “Russia is playing us all like a fiddle.”

This is ridiculous, ofcourse. But it has one good thing going for it. It means when they start shrieking about political investigations in the next congress the Democrats can tell them to go to hell.

Ron Johnson, R-Wi:

“Right now, all people are hearing about are the deaths. I’m sure the deaths are horrific, but the flip side of this is the vast majority of people who get coronavirus do survive.

“I’m not denying what a nasty disease COVID-19 can be, and how it’s obviously devastating to somewhere between 1 and 3.4 percent of the population. But that means 97 to 99 percent will get through this and develop immunities and will be able to move beyond this. But we don’t shut down our economy because tens of thousands of people die on the highways. It’s a risk we accept so we can move about. We don’t shut down our economies because tens of thousands of people die from the common flu … getting coronavirus is not a death sentence except for maybe no more than 3.4 percent of our population (and) I think probably far less.”

About 38,000 people die in auto accidents each year. 1 to 3.4 percent of the population of the US is many millions of deaths.

Johnson is a millionaire businessman proving once again that you can make a whole lot of money even if you are barely sentient. Is this a great country or what?

Senator Johnson for the defense

by digby

The Republicans are forced to send out the dumbest US Senator to make the case for Donald Trump, I guess because he’s so clueless he doesn’t know when he’s making a fool of himself — a requirement in the current situation. I wonder if they plan on making him one of the president’s defenders in the Senate trial.

Here is Senator Ron Johnson on Meet the Press this morning. It’s almost painful to watch:

CHUCK TODD:

And joining me now, two senators who traveled together to Ukraine in September, spoke to President Zelenskiy about the withheld security assistance. It’s Democrat Chris Murphy of Connecticut and Republican Ron Johnson of Wisconsin. Senator Johnson, I’m going to begin with you. You’re join us from — I know you’re in your home there in Oshkosh. So, Senator, welcome back to Meet the Press. Let me just start with your reaction to what the president tweeted about Ambassador Yovanovitch on Friday.

SENATOR RON JOHNSON:

Good morning, Chuck. Well, you know, I thought it was kind of interesting when President Trump was leaving the White House, going to Atlanta, and people were talking about his behavior. He said, “You know, my behavior is caused by, by you. You know, the constant torment, I mean, the investigations.” So, you know, listen, I would prefer he not, you know, provide that type of tweet, but you know, my concern — and let me start out with something else here, Chuck, because I don’t want to argue every point. Something we agree on. As Americans, we all share the same goal. We want a safe, prosperous, secure America. We’re compassionate. We compare about each other. And generally, generally, we solve our political differences at the ballot box, not in the streets or through impeachment. I think that is really — as we talked the other day, that’s the divide that is tearing this country apart and that’s what I’m primarily concerned about.

Lugubrious nonsense coming from a Trump supporter. Blaming the other side for “tormenting” the monstrous freak in the White House — a man who just this week pardoned war criminals and sat in the oval office with the dictator to whom he just gave permission to invade another country and ethnically cleanse America’s allies.

Can’t we all get along?

CHUCK TODD:

I want to get into a little bit of the specifics, so I’m going to get you to react to something that the ambassador said about — particularly about what Rudy Giuliani was doing. Take a listen to her testimony.

(BEGIN TAPE)

AMBASSADOR YOVANOVITCH:

I obviously don’t dispute that the president has the right to withdraw an ambassador at any time, for any reason, but what I do wonder is why it was necessary to smear my reputation.

(END TAPE)

CHUCK TODD:

That’s a fair question for her to ask.

SENATOR RON JOHNSON:

Sure it is. And again, I have no problem with the ambassador. She hosted me when I was over — made one of my trips over there. But you know, one thing I want to point out is the damage that is being done to our country through this entire impeachment process. You know, it’s going to be very difficult for future presidents to have a candid conversation with a world leader because now we’ve set the precedent of leaking transcripts. It’s going — you know, the weakening of executive privilege is not good. And by the way, those individuals that leaked this, you know, if their interest was a stronger relationship with Ukraine, they didn’t accomplish it. Having this all come out into public has weakened that relationship, has exposed things that didn’t need to be exposed. You know, when I was in Ukraine with Senator Murphy, one of the points I was trying to make is, as we left that meeting, let’s try and minimize this. Let’s talk about this is a timing difference in terms of funding. Senator Murphy’s on the Appropriations Committee. We will restore the funding. I came back and I talked to Senator Durbin. He offered an amendment. That same day, the funding was released. So, this would have been far better off if we would have just taken care of this behind the scenes. We have two branches of government.

Right. We must cover up the president’s crimes for the good of the country. Unless, of course, it involves fellatio.

SENATOR RON JOHNSON:

Most people wanted to support Ukraine. We were trying to convince President Trump. And so, the whole — I mean, again, I listened to the Washington Post article lionizing this whistleblower. Listen, if the whistleblower’s goal is to improve our relationship with Ukraine, he utterly —

CHUCK TODD:

Let me ask you —

SENATOR RON JOHNSON:

— or she utterly failed. And again, if they consider that’s part of —

Ukraine would have been so much better off if only they’d been allowed to be Trump’s puppet in sabotaging the 2020 election and letting Russia off the hook for what they did in 2016. Maybe they could have framed some innocent people for the crime and held a big public hanging. That would have made Trump and Putin very happy. And that’s really all that matters, isn’t it?

CHUCK TODD:

Let me pick up on what you said there about all this going public because you actually raise an interesting question about this. Why was the president so insistent that President Zelenskiy had to be public about announcing an investigation? And I ask that because, you know, one of the foundations of due process in this country is actually not to publicly announce who you’re investigating, because you may be investigating somebody who’s innocent. And yet the president wanted Ukraine to violate one of our great protections in the rule of law and publicly announce an investigation regardless of whether there’s guilt or not. Why did he want to go public?

SENATOR RON JOHNSON:

I’m not sure that’s the case. I certainly understand that President Trump wanted to find out what was happening in 2016 and what — you know, how did this false narrative about Russian collusion with his campaign occur. That, I know, because that’s from my first-hand testimony. What I also know is when I, when I sprung that on President Trump in my August 31st phone call, he completely denied there was any kind of, any kind of arrangement that Ukraine had to do something before he’d release that funding. And this is what has not been reported from that phone call. At the tail end — It was a pretty long phone call. We talked about a bunch of other things, but at the very end he wrapped it up by saying, “You know, Ron, I’ve got a hurricane I have to deal with, but I hear what you’re saying. We’re reviewing this. I think you’re going to like my decision.” So, he was already leaning toward providing that funding on August 31st. My guess is that this never would have been exposed, that funding would have been restored, and our relationship with Ukraine would be far better off than it is today.

“How did this false narrative about Russian collusion occur.” That’s Bill Barr bullshit and there is no guarantee that Barr and his accomplices in the DOJ aren’t working right now on their end of the conspiracy to put some people on trial for this. It is one of the most dangerous possibilities we face here. So far there is little evidence that Barr’s DOJ is going to resist this authoritarian turn.

Anyway, despite all the evidence we’ve seen from numerous witnesses inside the administration, they persist in saying that the facts are not the facts. Johnson is so stupid I’m not sure he can comprehend them. But its pretty clear that Republican voters wouldn’t care even if it were true. 

If only everyone would just shut up about Trump’s crimes all that would have happened is Biden and the Democrats would have been unjustly smeared and Russia would be happy. Why oh why can’t people see that that is the right way to have handled this?

Did I mention that he was very dumb?

CHUCK TODD:

Again, you seem to say –you seem to blame this on everybody but the president. It was the president’s actions —

SENATOR RON JOHNSON:

No, I’m not blaming anybody, Chuck.

CHUCK TODD:

Well, you are. You’re blaming everybody else for the reason we’re in this situation, other than the president. Isn’t the president’s own behavior, which raised all of these yellow and red flags, isn’t that why we’re here?

SENATOR RON JOHNSON:

Again, I’m sympathetic with President Trump, as he’s been tormented from the day after he was — the election. You know, a quick, little quote from the lawyer of the whistleblower. This is ten days after his inauguration, “who has started the first of many steps, rebellion, impeachment will follow ultimately.” Now, if this whistleblower was, you know, to be lionized by the Washington Post, maybe we ought to take a look at, you know, who he hired. You know, he could have hired an unbiased officer of the court. He — instead, he hired Mark Zaid, who said, “Coup has started, first of many steps, impeachment will follow ultimately.” Now —  

And that’s not an unbiased officer of the court. So, there’s something going on here, Chuck. That’s my point.

Again with the poor, poor Trumpie and his tormenters. He can’t help but commit crimes over and over and over again. He’s just so upset.

By the way, the whistleblower didn’t hire Zaid. The whistleblower’s lawyer did. And anyway, they’ re defense lawyers fergawdsakes. They are not required to be unbiased! Not that it matters. For some reason, Republicans believe that the only people allowed to be involved in anything to do with Trump must be members of the Trump cult. We know this because anyone who isn’t is called a partisan hack or a “Never-Trumper” which is akin to being a traitor to America. Why they think that’s convincing to anyone but themselves remains a mystery.

CHUCK TODD:

Well, let me ask —

SENATOR RON JOHNSON:

Something is going on —

CHUCK TODD:

I feel like —

SENATOR RON JOHNSON:

It’s dividing this country. Go ahead.

Says the sanctimonious Trump defender with a straight face.

Todd comes up with a zinger here. Good for him:

CHUCK TODD:

Let me ask you this. No, let me ask you this. You brought up — you’re the one that brought up this idea that impeachment was something that the left wanted to do immediately. I’m going to quote from you, sir. November 1st, 2016, you’re asked about Hillary Clinton and you said this before the election, “She purposely circumvented the law. This was willful concealment and destruction. I would say, yes, high crime or misdemeanor.” You were talking about impeachment before that election with Hillary Clinton. How should I not — how should viewers not look at what you’re doing here and you’re just reacting as a partisan, that if Trump were a Democrat you’d be ready to convict him?

SENATOR RON JOHNSON:

First of all, understand, that’s before an election. I’m trying to hammer out the political differences before an election. And by the way, I completely agree with that. I mean, I — we’d been investigating the whole Hillary Clinton email scandal — the exoneration of her. You know, that was not an investigation to really dig out the truth. It was —

CHUCK TODD:

So, you think it was legit to advocate impeachment before the election — you’re criticizing Democrats for advocating —

SENATOR RON JOHNSON:

I never —

CHUCK TODD:

— impeachment days after the inauguration.

SENATOR RON JOHNSON:

You’d have to listen to what the question was. I don’t think I said impeachment right there at all, Chuck. So, again, no, I was just pointing out what Hillary Clinton had done and I was hoping that people would not elect her, and they didn’t. And that’s probably, I think, one of the main reasons that she was not elected is what she did with that private server —

CHUCK TODD:

All right.

SENATOR RON JOHNSON:

— which was completely intentional. I mean, it baffles me that she was not indicted, quite honestly. But now that we know, based on the Strzok-Page texts, which I know I’m not supposed to bring up —

I don’t think I have to explain why that is such a sophistry. He used the term “high crimes and misdemeanors” which only applied to impeachment.

This man is a US Senator, speaking for the president of the United States. He’s very rich and successful proving, once and for all, that assuming intelligence based upon that criteria is a grave mistake.

CHUCK TODD:

Let me ask you this last question–

SENATOR RON JOHNSON:

But I mean that’s — you know, that’s a problem.

CHUCK TODD:

— about partisanship. Why shouldn’t, why shouldn’t viewers assume that you’re looking at President Trump through a Republican lens here because you were already much tougher, ready to go to, ready to go to impeachment on Hillary Clinton with no evidence that anything that happened with that server somehow got into foreigners’ hands, when we actually had evidence regarding what happened at the DNC?

SENATOR RON JOHNSON:

So, I guess what I suggest, Chuck, is I got a letter last night from Representatives Jordan and Nunes asking for basically my telling of events. I’ll be working on that today. So, I will lay out what I know in terms of this and —

CHUCK TODD:

So, are you going to testify?

SENATOR RON JOHNSON:

— to a certain extent, some of my perspective. Now, you know, they’re not going to call me because certainly Adam Schiff wouldn’t want to be called by the Senate. There’s going to be a separation there. But I think I will reply to that and I’ll supply my telling of events, which is difficult to do in eight or ten minutes on a show like this.

CHUCK TODD:

Fair enough.

SENATOR RON JOHNSON:

But Chuck, going back to — we are a divided nation. I am highly concerned about that. I know you are as well.

CHUCK TODD:

Okay.

SENATOR RON JOHNSON:

We need to start understanding the other person’s perspective, and that’s what’s not happening right now.

I think we understand your perspective Senator. You are a very stupid Trump sycophant whose brain is rotted by Fox News.  The division isn’t caused by people being mean to poor Donald Trump. It’s caused by a Republican party that has gone insane and a corrupt, venal president so far in over his head that he is being manipulated by the worst people in the world. 

.

The GOP hits a new low

This man could end up in the US Senate, thanks to the nihilist GOP:

Herschel Walker on the federal climate change bill: “They continue to try to fool you that they are helping you out. But they’re not. Because a lot of money it’s going to trees. Don’t we have enough trees around here?” #gapol #gasen

https://t.co/1HpulYTJl4

— Greg Bluestein (@bluestein) August 22, 2022

Georgia Republican Senate nominee Herschel Walker is criticizing the sweeping climate, health-care and deficit-reduction bill signed into law by President Biden arguing that it includes wasteful spending to combat global warming and asking, “Don’t we have enough trees around here?”

The former NFL football player, who was encouraged to run by former president Donald Trump, has made a series of head-scratching comments that have drawn ridicule. In a July 9 appearance, he spoke about climate change, suggesting that Georgia’s “good air decides to float over” to China, replacing China’s “bad air,” which goes back to Georgia, where “we got to clean that back up.”

In an appearance Sunday,according to an account by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Walker reiterated his opposition to the Inflation Reduction Act, signed by Biden last week, that invests in curbing global warming, among other things.

“They continue to try to fool you that they are helping you out. But they’re not,” Walker said. “Because a lot of money, it’s going to trees. Don’t we have enough trees around here?”

It’s possible Walker may have been referring to a provision in the law that allocates $1.5 billion to the U.S. Forest Service’s Urban and Community Forestry Program.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.) rankled some fellow Republicans last week when he said his party could fall short of retaking the Senate, citing “candidate quality” as an issue. While McConnell didn’t name names, Walker is among those widely believe to be underperforming in his race to unseat Sen. Raphael G. Warnock (D).

Walker told the Journal-Constitution over the weekend that he was unfazed by McConnell’s comments.

“I don’t ever worry about stuff like that,” Walker said. “When I got into this race, I got in this race to win it for the people. I said, ‘Guys, I’m here for the people of Georgia.’ I’m not worried about what people say.”

The Journal-Constitution reported that Walker spoke after an event Sunday with the Republican Jewish Coalition in Sandy Springs, Ga.

Warnock’s campaign did not comment on Walker’s remarks, but Dan Gottlieb, a spokesman for the Georgia Democratic Party, told The Washington Post that they show that Walker is unprepared to serve in the Senate.

“The few policies Walker can articulate, like his support for a nationwide abortion ban and opposition to legislation to reduce drug costs for seniors, are harmful to Georgians. But his inability to demonstrate even the most basic understanding of other key issues shows he isn’t ready to represent Georgia in the U.S. Senate,” Gottlieb said.

In June, Walker faced a string of controversies, including that he has two sons and a daughter with different women whom he had not spoken about publicly.

The Journal-Constitution debunked previous claims by Walker that he had worked in law enforcement and had been an FBI agent. The Daily Beast reported that Walker had a 10-year-old son out of wedlock whom he hadn’t discussed publicly. The left-leaning news site reported that Walker had another 13-year-old son with a different woman as well as an adult daughter he fathered as a college student. Walker has spoken on the campaign trail about his close relationship with another son, 22-year-old Christian.

Walker, who in the past has chided absentee Black fathers, confirmed the Daily Beast’s reporting and said he never hid his other children.

“I have four children. Three sons and a daughter. They’re not ‘undisclosed’ — they’re my kids,” Walker said in a statement sent to The Washington Post. “Saying I hide my children because I don’t discuss them with reporters to win a campaign? That’s outrageous. I can take the heat, that’s politics, but leave my kids alone.”

I’ve long held that Ron Johnson from Wisconsin is the dumbest man in the US Senate and that’s saying something. We have a new contender. If this man manages to unseat Rafael Warnock, a spectacular Senator, we will know for sure that the GOP’s nihilist turn is complete. They are soulless destroyers.

I have often said that Senator Ron Johnson was the dumbest Senator and I think his behavior during the Trump years, especially regarding the pandemic, has proved that. But that doesn’t mean that he hasn’t been very useful to his fellow rich people:

In November 2017, with the administration of President Donald Trump rushing to get a massive tax overhaul through Congress, Sen. Ron Johnson stunned his colleagues by announcing he would vote “no.”

Making the rounds on cable TV, the Wisconsin Republican became the first GOP senator to declare his opposition, spooking Senate leaders who were pushing to quickly pass the tax bill with their thin majority. “If they can pass it without me, let them,” Johnson declared.

Fact-based, independent journalism is needed now more than ever.Donate

Johnson’s demand was simple: In exchange for his vote, the bill must sweeten the tax break for a class of companies that are known as pass-throughs, since profits pass through to their owners. Johnson praised such companies as “engines of innovation.” Behind the scenes, the senator pressed top Treasury Department officials on the issue, emails and the officials’ calendars show.

Within two weeks, Johnson’s ultimatum produced results. Trump personally called the senator to beg for his support, and the bill’s authors fattened the tax cut for these businesses. Johnson flipped to a “yes” and claimed credit for the change. The bill passed.

The Trump administration championed the pass-through provision as tax relief for “small businesses.”

Confidential tax records, however, reveal that Johnson’s last-minute maneuver benefited two families more than almost any others in the country — both worth billions and both among the senator’s biggest donors.

Dick and Liz Uihlein of packaging giant Uline, along with roofing magnate Diane Hendricks, together had contributed around $20 million to groups backing Johnson’s 2016 reelection campaign.

The expanded tax break Johnson muscled through netted them $215 million in deductions in 2018 alone, drastically reducing the income they owed taxes on. At that rate, the cut could deliver more than half a billion in tax savings for Hendricks and the Uihleins over its eight-year life.

But the tax break did more than just give a lucrative, and legal, perk to Johnson’s donors. In the first year after Trump signed the legislation, just 82 ultrawealthy households collectively walked away with more than $1 billion in total savings, an analysis of confidential tax records shows. Republican and Democratic tycoons alike saw their tax bills chopped by tens of millions, among them: media magnate and former Democratic presidential candidate Michael Bloomberg; the Bechtel family, owners of the engineering firm that bears their name; and the heirs of the late Houston pipeline billionaire Dan Duncan.

Usually the scale of the riches doled out by opaque tax legislation — and the beneficiaries — remain shielded from the public. But ProPublica has obtained a trove of IRS records covering thousands of the wealthiest Americans. The records have enabled reporters this year to explore the diverse menu of options the tax code affords the ultrawealthy to avoid paying taxes.

The drafting of the Trump law offers a unique opportunity to examine how the billionaire class is able to shape the code to its advantage, building in new ways to sidestep taxes.

The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act was the biggest rewrite of the code in decades and arguably the most consequential legislative achievement of the one-term president. Crafted largely in secret by a handful of Trump administration officials and members of Congress, the bill was rushed through the legislative process.

As draft language of the bill made its way through Congress, lawmakers friendly to billionaires and their lobbyists were able to nip and tuck and stretch the bill to accommodate a variety of special groups. The flurry of midnight deals and last-minute insertions of language resulted in a vast redistribution of wealth into the pockets of a select set of families, siphoning away billions in tax revenue from the nation’s coffers. This story is based on lobbying and campaign finance disclosures, Treasury Department emails and calendars obtained through a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit, and confidential tax records.

For those who benefited from the bill’s modifications, the collective millions spent on campaign donations and lobbying were minuscule compared with locking in years of enormous tax savings.

A spokesperson for the Uihleins declined to comment. Representatives for Hendricks didn’t respond to questions. In response to emailed questions, Johnson did not address whether he had discussed the expanded tax break with Hendricks or the Uihleins. Instead, he wrote in a statement that his advocacy was driven by his belief that the tax code “needs to be simplified and rationalized.”

“My support for ‘pass-through’ entities — that represent over 90% of all businesses — was guided by the necessity to keep them competitive with C-corporations and had nothing to do with any donor or discussions with them,” he wrote.

Pro-Publica has more on this story. It is a stunning expose that shows just how corrupt that grotesque tax bill really was.

The latest from the dumbest US Senator is really something.

A Republican senator suggested in a private conversation Saturday, without evidence, that the FBI knew more about the planning before the Jan. 6 Capitol riot than it has revealed so far, according to a video obtained by The Washington Post.

The comments from Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), made after a political event at a Wauwatosa, Wis., hotel, reflect the spread of an unfounded claim that has traveled from far-right commentators to Tucker Carlson’s Fox News show to the highest levels of the GOP.

“I don’t say this publicly, but are you watching what’s happening in Michigan?” Johnson said while discussing the Capitol attack with some of the event’s attendees. “. . . So you think the FBI had fully infiltrated the militias in Michigan, but they don’t know squat about what was happening on January 6th or what was happening with these groups? I’d say there is way more to the story.”

Johnson’s Michigan comment appears to be a reference to the alleged kidnapping plot targeting Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D) that was disclosed by state and federal authorities in October. Some defendants have recently argued in court that they were entrapped by FBI operatives who stoked their anger against Whitmer, facilitated meetings and paid for hotels and other costs related to the scheme. Without that involvement, those defendants have argued, they would have had no intention of harming Whitmer.

No credible evidence has emerged that the FBI had detailed foreknowledge of a violent assault on the Capitol or that its agents or operatives played a role in fomenting it. No specific claim of FBI involvement has surfaced in court filings made in the hundreds of cases filed against alleged Capitol assailants.

But the allegations have persisted in recent weeks as Republican supporters of former president Donald Trump, who falsely claimed the 2020 presidential election was stolen and encouraged his supporters to march on the Capitol as Congress counted electoral votes on Jan. 6, have consistently sought to finger other culprits for the breach of the Capitol.

In the early hours and days after the riot, some Trump supporters sought to blame left-wing provocateurs. More recently, House Republicans have made the claim that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) is at fault.

And Johnson, one of Trump’s most fervent congressional supporters, has for months raised numerous questions about the circumstances surrounding the attack, including the security failures and the nature of the events. He has taken exception, for instance, with describing the attack as an “armed insurrection.”

In the recording captured Saturday, Johnson explained his view that “by and large those folks were peaceful protesters” and that the news media and Democrats are “painting 75 million Americans who voted for Trump as attached with domestic terrorists.”

“I’m just pushing back on that narrative,” he said, adding that he was “not happy with those guys that stood on the Capitol and created the acts of violence. . . . I’ve said that repeatedly and strongly.”

Johnson’s comments questioning the FBI’s knowledge before the riot, however, are new.

While an FBI field office in Norfolk issued a report the day before the riot that warned about calls for violence at the Capitol on an Internet message board, it went unheeded by Capitol Police and other agencies. The report did not reference confidential informants or undercover agents.

A report that two Senate committees issued in June cited “critical breakdowns involving several federal agencies,” including the FBI, and it faulted those agencies for not issuing more-formal warnings that could have improved the security posture. It said the FBI did not take seriously other online messages that suggested violence at the Capitol was a real possibility.

Asked whether Johnson believes the FBI played a role in encouraging the attack or sat by while it was planned and executed, Johnson spokeswoman Alexa Henning pointed to the Senate report’s findings indicating that the Justice Department, of which the FBI is part, had failed to create an “integrated security plan” and said the senator was simply asking key questions in his comments over the weekend.

“The revelation of the depth of the FBI’s involvement in the Governor Whitmer plot raises questions as to whether it had infiltrated Jan. 6 agitator groups as well,” Henning said in a statement. “The senator continues to call on the FBI and DOJ to be transparent. To date, they have not been.”

The FBI declined to comment. Director Christopher A. Wray defended the bureau in March, saying the Norfolk report was appropriately handled as “unverified” information, but he said internal intelligence-sharing practices would be reviewed in light of the violence on Jan. 6.

The alleged Michigan plot does illustrate that the bureau has attempted to infiltrate and disrupt domestic extremist groups, which Wray called a “metastasizing” threat in testimony to Congress.

Right-wing websites first claimed in June that undercover FBI agents or informants were among those who breached the Capitol, allegations that spread quickly through the conservative media ecosystem.

The claims were based on the false assumption that those named in numerous court filings as “unindicted co-conspirators” were federal agents or informants. Carlson, for instance, said on his June 15 show that “in potentially every single case, they were FBI operatives.”

In fact, under federal case law, federal prosecutors cannot refer to federal operatives as “co-conspirators,” because they are acting on behalf of the government, not as part of the conspiracy. Instead, “unindicted co-conspirators” are referred to as such for other reasons, including a lack of evidence to file charges or an after-the-fact cooperation agreement with prosecutors.

But some far-right House Republicans have spread the claims, including Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.), who sent a letter to Wray the day after Carlson’s show aired asking “to what extent” the agency had infiltrated key “militia groups” and whether operatives were “merely passive informants or active instigators” on Jan. 6.

A day later, Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Tex.) repeated the allegations on the House floor, calling them “scary stuff” and “Putin kind of activity.” Gaetz has not received a reply to his letter, an aide said Monday.

But those suggestions have not publicly spread into the ranks of Senate Republicans, who have been less inclined than their House colleagues to question the evidence-based narrative surrounding Jan. 6.

That’s good. But I won’t be surprised it it does.

It is certainly the case that the FBI has in the past entrapped some deluded Muslim “lone wolf” extremist types into breaking the law. But the idea that the “deep state” is responsible for the insurrection is really far-fetched, particularly since Donald Trump was the one who incited it. Was he in on the plot?

The good news is that he may not run again. I’m sure he’ll either be a big Fox News star or the head of a major right wing think tank if he decides to retire, though. This kind of stupidity is extremely valuable to the burgeoning GOP neo-fascist movement.

Meanwhile, he continues to be a blight on public health:

“It’s time for Americans to reclaim their freedom,” he said in a recent statement opposing President Biden’s vaccination rules for federal employees.

Kurt is heard addressing Johnson at the end of the four-minute recording: “I just want to let you know there truly is a surge in Georgia. I work in hospice. So I just want to make sure you’re encouraging people to get the vaccine.”

“I’m not going to do that,” Johnson responded as his supporters jeered Kurt. “I don’t encourage or discourage.”

Before leaving the room, Kurt said: “But you’re saying things that are counterproductive and not scientific. So I just wanted you to know.”

He is very dim. He knows nothing.

Sen. Ron Johnson, Republican of Wisconsin, spreader of conspiracy theories about the Jan. 6 Trump insurrection, is “the dumbest man in the Senate.” Digby awarded Johnson that title one year ago. Johnson, she wrote, “is a millionaire businessman proving once again that you can make a whole lot of money even if you are barely sentient.”

Wealth is a poor measure of intelligence, as the maskless, eclipse-gazing, last resident of the Oval Office displayed for all the world.

Not that the marketer of plastic packaging is uncolorful himself. He too has a flair for the shameless if not the clueless. Thursday afternoon he objected to dispensing with the formal reading when Democrats introduced their $1.9 trillion, 628-page relief bill. Johnson insisted that clerks read the entire thing however many hours that required.

Jim Newell of Slate takes up the tale in appropriately colorful fashion:

Johnson says that he’s submitting the Senate clerks to this trial of vocal-cord durability not to be a jerk, but because the “American people deserve to know what’s in it.” It’s hard to think of a less effective way to inform the American people about what’s in a bill than by forcing an hourslong recitation of incomprehensible legislative language on the Senate floor, but that’s the message.

And when that’s done, Johnson and other Republicans have more plans for dragging out the process. After the bill text has been read aloud—and Middle America is out with pitchforks, infuriated by learning through C-SPAN that the legislation would strike the semicolon in subparagraph 4(b) from Section 2104 of the Semiconductor Transparency Act of 1986—there’s a period of up to 20 hours of debate, followed by the rapid-succession, open-amendment process known as a “vote-a-rama.”

All God’s children got amendments, dontcha know, and the opposition typically offers hundreds on a major bill like this. Only a few actually come to a vote. But it’s a rapid-fire affair often lasting well into the night, as it did during the budget debate in February.

The ringleader of this show is, again, Ron Johnson. Johnson is trying to set up a process, as he told reporters Thursday, to “make sure that all the amendments that are offered are actually voted on.” This would involve Republican senators working in shifts on the floor to ensure that the body doesn’t tire out. “I was in a business that had continuing shift operations in manufacturing,” he told reporters, “so this is, this is just what we did.” (Gumming up the machines to delay output—it’s Manufacturing 101.) Johnson and his gang could also try to force the reading of each amendment, if they wanted to. The Senate, and its accumulated detritus of forgotten 18^th-century procedure, is theirs to do with it what they wish.

To streamline the process, Democrats worked to settle disagreements among themselves before introducing the bill, Newell reports. Republicans will propose divisive amendments aimed at peeling off even one Democratic senator. Even one defector would kill the bill if Republicans are unified in opposition.

Republicans in Congress have partisaned themselves into a corner here. The country is hurting so badly after a year in near-quarantine that Americans could care less if the bill passes on a bipartisan basis. They would rather have relief checks in hand than watch Republicans delay them to score political points (USA Today):

More than two-thirds of Americans (68%) said that $1,400 stimulus checks should remain in the stimulus package even if it meant the bill had no support from the opposite party. Democrats have proposed a $1.9 trillion relief package that includes $1,400 stimulus checks; some Republicans have complained that that amount for checks, and the total cost of the bill, are too large.

However, 53% of Republicans polled, agreed that $1,400 direct payments should be left untouched in the bill. About two-thirds (65%) of independents and 85% of Democrats agreed.

Overall, 53% of Americans said $1,400 checks to the public are about the correct amount; 28% of the public would like to see larger payments issued, while 14% think the amount should be reduced.

Nowhere in the ‘‘American Rescue Plan Act of 2021’’ does the word stimulus appear, although that is how Monmouth and others frame these payments. So it bears noting how easily these checks (named “recovery rebates”) went from being about relief to economic stimulus. Relief is about helping people. Stimulus is about helping the economy. The framing speaks to what what you value. Pay attention to who uses which language. This is insidious.

Long before his headfirst dive down the rabbit hole, I’ve been chronicling the adventures of the man I’ve often described as the dumbest man in the US Senate. He pulled out all the stops in today’s hearing about January 6th. Honestly, he’s worse than the looniest talk radio host.

Aaron Rupar at Vox followed the fireworks:

Ron Johnson of Wisconsin … used his questioning time during Tuesday’s Senate hearing to read excerpts from a January 14 article published by the Federalist that argues “agents-provocateurs” and “fake Trump protesters” were behind the assault on the Capitol, rather than actual Trump supporters, as was the case.

“I think these were the people that probably planned this,” said Johnson, after reading from the article.

Ron Johnson is using his questioning time during the Capitol security hearing to promote a conspiracy theory that the January 6 insurrectionists weren't actually Trump supporters, but were "provocateurs" and "fake Trump protesters" pic.twitter.com/t72QkHDbaG

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) February 23, 2021

Ron Johnson is using his questioning time during the Capitol security hearing to promote a conspiracy theory that the January 6 insurrectionists weren’t actually Trump supporters, but were “provocateurs” and “fake Trump protesters” pic.twitter.com/t72QkHDbaG— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) February 23, 2021

But as anybody who has watched videos of the January 6 insurrection can attest, the mob that breached the Capitol in a riot that left five dead waved Trump flags and chanting things like, “We want Trump!”

And the rioters were in Washington, DC, in the first place to attend a “Stop the Steal” rally Trump promoted heavily, before being riled up by Trump in a speech in which he invoked “fighting” more than 20 times just before the unrest at the Capitol began.

Furthermore, as observers of right-wing internet forums took note of in the weeks before January 6, the insurrection was clearly organized online by Trump supporters who weren’t trying to hide what they hoped to achieve.

On January 6, armed Trumpist militias will be rallying in DC, at Trump's orders. It's highly likely that they'll try to storm the Capitol after it certifies Joe Biden's win. I don't think this has sunk in yet.

— Arieh Kovler (@ariehkovler) December 21, 2020

Finally, many insurrectionists arrested in connection with the riot have cited their support for Trump as the reason they were in Washington, DC, on January 6 in the first place, saying things like “I’m here to see what my President called me to DC for.”

Despite all this evidence, hardcore Trump supporters in Congress have repeatedly tried to shift blame for the insurrection onto others, impugning everyone from House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to antifa.

Johnson has been one of the worst offenders in this regard. During a Fox News appearance earlier this month, he suggested Pelosi was somehow responsible for the insurrection because as speaker of the House she didn’t do more to make sure Capitol security was adequate.

Ron Johnson absurdly floats that Nancy Pelosi is somehow responsible for a MAGA mob descending on the Capitol for a deadly insurrection pic.twitter.com/hUi6SydEe1

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) February 7, 2021

Then just two days ago, Johnson was back on Fox News lamenting enhanced security measures at the Capitol, falsely claiming the idea that some Trump supporters are “armed insurrectionists” couldn’t be “further from the truth.” That comment received no pushback from host Maria Bartiromo, but it ignores the reality that the reason the Capitol is militarized in the first place is the January 6 attack by Trump supporters on the legislative branch, which at the time was in the process of certifying Biden’s Electoral College win.

Johnson wasn’t the only person who tried to shift blame during Tuesday’s hearing. Under questioning from Johnson, former Capitol Police Chief Steven Sund said he didn’t believe the attack on the Capitol was foreseeable.

“A breach of the Capitol was not something anybody anticipated,” Sund said.

But Sund is wrong. Chatter on right-wing internet forums in the weeks leading up to January 6 made clear that Trump supporters were not only planning to gather in DC but hoped to “storm government buildings” and “kill cops.” (Officer Brian Sicknick died after rioters breached the Capitol.)

Congress is somehow debating whether this insurrection was planned before January 6th, or if it was planned by Trump supporters.

Here's the kind of conversation that was happening on 8kun on 1/5.

"As many Patriots as can be… We will storm the government buildings, kill cops." pic.twitter.com/bKEuJTJaPQ

— Ben Collins (@oneunderscore__) February 23, 2021

There’s more on two of the Big Lie’s most vociferous collaborators, Josh Hawley and Ted Cruz, at the link. It seems pretty clear that even if the insurrectionists had found Pelosi, Pence and McConnell and done their worst, these people would be finding reasons to excuse it. But that’s understandable because they are complicit. If they hadn’t eagerly stroked Trump’s massive ego by pumping up the absurd conspiracy theories around the “stop the steal” nonsense, this might not have happened.