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The GOP’s monkey wrench gang

Published by Tom Sullivan on September 15, 2023

Sabotuers of Democracy unite

A friend with roots in the theater once told a Netroots audience about his journey from the closet to being authentically himself. When finally he came out to actress Bea Arthur, she replied, “Joel, are you the last to know?” Joel died of pancreatic cancer several years ago.

“Are you the last to know?” comes to mind because spread across the internet today is a quote from retiring Utah Sen. Mitt Romney that may wind up on his tombstone: “A very large portion of my party really doesn’t believe in the Constitution.”

Commenting on Romney’s remarks to The Atlantic‘s McKay Coppins, Jamelle Bouie writes, “Faced with a conflict between partisan loyalty and ideological ambition on one hand and basic principles of self-government and political equality on the other, much of the Republican Party has jettisoned any commitment to America’s democratic values in favor of narrow self-interest.”

Republican commitment to the Constitution is highly situational. They are at times “fixated” on it, reading in meanings when attempting to subvert the very democratic processes it established, and ignoring the will of voters that the Constitution secures when that will turns against them.

Here’s what that looks like when people do it with the Bible.

“Republicans,” Bouie observes, “do seem to believe in the Constitution, but only insofar as it can be wielded as a weapon against American democracy — that is, the larger set of ideas, intuitions, expectations and values that shape and define political life in the United States as much as particular rules and institutions.”

Examples are plentiful not just inside the Beltway but out in state legislatures former Ohio Democratic chair, David Pepper, calls “laboratories of autocracy.”

Wisconsin Republicans mean not only to undo the results of the recent state Supreme Court election that Judge Janet Protasiewicz won by a whopping 11 points. They also mean to (illegally) replace Wisconsin Elections Commission (WEC) administrator Meagan Wolfe for being insufficiently Trumpy after the state narrowly awarded its electoral votes to Joe Biden in 2020. In a party-line vote Thursday, the Republican-majority state Senate voted to remove Wolfe (Democracy Docket):

The move is the final legislative step in a long and winding process that was fueled by Republican conspiracies surrounding the 2020 presidential election. As a nonpartisan elections official, Wolfe was nominated to lead WEC by the commission itself in 2019 and confirmed with unanimous support by the Wisconsin Senate. WEC is a bipartisan commission that was formed in 2016 to serve as the state’s election regulatory agency and carries out a wide range of election administration-related functions for the state. 

Yet following the 2020 election, Republicans in the state Senate turned on Wolfe, first calling for her resignation in 2021.

In June, WEC deadlocked on a vote to nominate Wolfe for a second term as three Democratic commissioners abstained from the vote. In accordance with state law, this stalemate meant that Wolfe would remain in the position as a holdover. Republicans in the state Senate then declared that WEC had nominated Wolfe for reappointment, and began the process that ultimately led to today’s removal. 

Some GOP activists want more, Ari Berman reports: “I don’t call for Meagan Wolfe’s ouster,” one election denialist said at a legislative hearing last week. “I call for her arrest.”

The senate has no authority to remove Wolfe, claims Wisconsin Attorney General Josh Kaul (D). There will be a lawsuit. But the lawsuit could wind up before the Democratic majority state Supreme Court that Republicans are working to sabotage.

Attorney Marc Elias of Democracy Docket warns that in advance of the 2024 elections Republicans are working to aid election vigilantes in mounting massive voting challenges:

Tucked into Georgia’s massive anti-voting law was a provision to make it easier for partisan vigilantes to engage in mass voter challenges. As I wrote when the law passed in 2021, the portion allowing mass voter challenges was the worst provision of a very bad law. Last year, nearly 100,000 Georgia voters had their registrations, and thereby their right to vote, challenged by election vigilantes.

But limited by federal statutes, GOP operatives now mean to circumvent limits “by outsourcing voter purges to third-party groups,” Elias writes. “Election officials will be deluged by voter challenges as voters navigate a maze of disinformation about how to ensure they can vote and have their vote counted.”

One new company, Eagle AI, claims to have developed a product that uses public data sets to flag voter registrations it deems potentially fraudulent. As expected, one of the Republican attorneys leading the anti-voting movement, Cleta Mitchell, has enthusiastically endorsed it, while wealthy conservatives have reportedly provided at least some of its funding.

[…]

Another project, the Voter Reference Foundation (VoteRef), has been hard at work since 2021 collecting, compiling and making public state voter files, which contain a list of a state’s registered voters, their vote history and identifying information. Since state voter files often include full names, addresses, dates of birth and other personal information, they can easily be misused to harass and intimidate voters as well as file mass challenges of voters.

Where there is one, there are more, and conservative donors and activists to employ them against political adversaries.

Elias adds:

States need to act urgently to enact clear laws that forbid private voter challenges. There is  no reason for any citizen to have their right to vote challenged or taken away based on a spreadsheet submitted by someone they don’t know and have never met. States should similarly prohibit in person challenges at the polls and ensure partisan observers do not disrupt the voting process.

It’s like fighting the Hydra.

Fearmongering for the rubes

Published by digby on September 14, 2023

Nobody’s calling for mask mandates. That doesn’t mean the right wingers aren’t having a hissy fit anyway.

They just love to whine and they love it so much they even make up things to whine about:

As Americans fend off a late summer COVID-19 spike and prepare for a fresh vaccine rollout, Republicans are raising familiar fears that government-issued lockdowns and mask mandates are next.

It’s been a favorite topic among some of the GOP’s top presidential contenders. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis told reporters that people are “lurching toward” COVID-19 restrictions and “there needs to be pushback.” South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott posted online that the “radical Left” seeks to bring back school closures and mandates. And former President Donald Trump urged congressional Republicans to stop the Biden administration from bringing back COVID-19 “mandates, lockdowns or restrictions of any kind.”

“The radical Democrats are trying hard to restart COVID hysteria,” Trump told supporters in Rapid City, South Dakota, during a recent campaign stop. “I wonder why. Is there an election coming up by any chance?”

While some individual schools and colleges have implemented temporary mask requirements, there is no sign that anyone in federal or state leadership is considering widespread COVID-19 restrictions, requirements or mask mandates. The administrations of several Democratic governors denied that any such moves are even under discussion. The overriding sentiment is to leave the decisions to individuals.

“No COVID-19 public health restrictions or mask requirements are being considered by the Murphy administration,” said Christi Peace, spokesperson for New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy.

“There are no impending mass lockdowns or mask mandates for New Mexico,” said Jodi McGinnis Porter, spokeswoman for the New Mexico Department of Public Health.

It was largely the same message from Democratic governors’ offices in several other states that responded to an inquiry about whether any COVID-19 mandates were under consideration. That included Connecticut, Kansas, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Michigan and Oregon.

Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, a Democrat, made clear his opposition to COVID-19 lockdowns as well as mask and vaccine mandates when he was campaigning for office last year: “This is an area where I think folks got it wrong,” he said of school and business shutdowns. His office echoed the same sentiment in its response to the AP this week, saying, “The administration’s view is that there is no need to impose restrictions.”

In the two most populous Democratic-led states, California and New York, the state health departments recommend getting the updated vaccine, but have no requirements for the shot or mask wearing. New York Gov. Kathy Hochul was asked during a news conference Wednesday about whether she would consider mask or vaccine mandates: “We are in a place where we’re seeing low numbers; not requiring such actions today,” she said.

There will be no mask mandates but there might be censure and condemnation from right wing fanatics against those who wear them. They are certainly trolling like mad on social media, saying they not only won’t stand for anyone telling them to wear masks, they don’t want anyone else wearing them voluntarily either. That’s really a thing.

“Excruciatingly painful”

Published by digby on September 14, 2023

Marge the sadist:

On a sweeping patio overlooking the golf course at his private club in Bedminster, N.J., former President Donald J. Trump dined Sunday night with a close political ally, Marjorie Taylor Greene.

It was a chance for the former president to catch up with the hard-right Georgia congresswoman. But over halibut and Diet Cokes, Ms. Greene brought up an issue of considerable interest to Mr. Trump — the push by House Republicans to impeach his likely opponent in next year’s election.

“I did brief him on the strategy that I want to see laid out with impeachment,” Ms. Greene said in a brief phone interview…

Ms. Greene, who has introduced articles of impeachment against Mr. Biden, said she told Mr. Trump that she wanted the impeachment inquiry to be “long and excruciatingly painful for Joe Biden.”

Ain’t she sweet?

She would not say what Mr. Trump said in response, but she said her ultimate goal was to have a “long list of names” — people whom she claimed were co-conspirators involved in Biden family crimes. She said she was confident Mr. Trump would win back the White House in 2024 and that she wanted “to go after every single one of them and use the Department of Justice to prosecute them.”

This is a very sick and dangerous person. No wonder Trump loves her so much.

DeSantis Meddling

Published by digby on September 14, 2023

I’m not sure what DeSantis thinks he’s getting out of this but it’s so on brand I just have to mention it. If there’s anything offensive and destructive going on in Republican politics he wants to be in the middle of it:

In the high-stakes fight that is threatening to shut down the federal government next month — and tear House Republicans apart — Ron DeSantis is taking sides.

The Florida governor spent about 30 minutes on the phone Wednesday with conservative Reps. Chip Roy of Texas, Thomas Massie of Kentucky and Bob Good of Virginia — leaders of the cadre that is pushing House Speaker Kevin McCarthy to embrace a shutdown if Democrats won’t agree to hard-right policy demands.

DeSantis’ message, according to a person familiar with the call: “I got your back. Keep fighting.”

The call is the latest signal that DeSantis is working to insert himself into the spending fight on the Hill in a bid to elevate his standing among Republican primary voters.

“Ron DeSantis knows that both parties — including the current and previous administration — are to blame for Washington’s reckless spending spree,” said DeSantis campaign spokesperson Andrew Romeo. “He is urging congressional Republicans to hold the line in this current spending standoff and end days of rubber stamping multi-trillion dollar spending bills that harm the American people.”

DeSantis spent three terms in the House and is a founding member of the House Freedom Caucus, the hard-line group that is pushing McCarthy to fight harder against Democrats on spending and other members — and threatening his gavel if he doesn’t.

Still, it’s notable DeSantis is associating himself with McCarthy’s internal foes as tensions inside the House GOP reach a boiling point. Inside a closed-door conference meeting Thursday, McCarthy exploded at his critics.

“If you think you scare me because you want to file a motion to vacate, move the fucking motion,” he said, referring to the ouster maneuver that has been discussed by Good and other lawmakers.

The person who described the phone call did so on the condition of anonymity. A spokesperson for Roy, who has served as an informal leader of the conservative splinter group, declined to comment. A spokesperson for McCarthy did not immediately respond to a message seeking comment on DeSantis’ role.

In other recent signs of his interest in the spending fight, DeSantis released a video knocking the “D.C. establishment” for spending too much. And in an interview with CBS’ Norah O’Donnell, he blamed both Democrats and Republicans for overspending.

I guess on the politics he’s making a play for the fiscal extremists to beat back Ramaswamy? Or maybe it’s because he’s an extremist himself and really wants to deliver the death blow to America as we’ve known it. I’m betting on the latter. I see him becoming Ted Cruz Jr in the future if he can get Rick Scott or Marco Rubio out of the way.

What would you think if you saw this headline?

Published by digby on September 14, 2023

It sure looks like the left is going after the prosecutors and FBI doesn’t it?

Au contraire:

Federal prosecutor Lesley Wolf, who had been part of U.S. Attorney David Weiss’ team investigating Hunter Biden, got such a barrage of credible threats that she sought security help from the U.S. Marshals Service, according to previously unreleased testimony from an FBI official to the House Judiciary Committee last week. Two IRS agents on the case have accused Wolf of making decisions that appeared favorable to Biden. A Justice Department spokesman declined to comment.

Special counsel Jack Smith and his team have long been protected by an armed security detail, as is Robert Hur, the special counsel appointed to investigate classified documents found at President Joe Biden’s home and office.

I’d guess the threats against Hur are coming from the right as well.

We have right wing terrorists threatening law enforcement to such an extent they have had to create a special unit to deal with them. And apparently, almost half the country is ok with this because they are going after those who are prosecuting Donald Trump. And they are also threatening law enforcement because it is supposedly going too soft on Joe Biden and his son.

The spokesperson says none of this is partisan or political. Oh. Yes. It. Is.

The chrome alloy wheel$ of justice

Published by Tom Sullivan on September 14, 2023

Turn slowly and can be pricey

Remember Kim Davis?

The Guardian:

A federal jury has awarded $100,000 to a Kentucky couple who sued the former county clerk Kim Davis over her refusal to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples.

Davis, the former Rowan county clerk, drew international attention when she was briefly jailed in 2015 over her refusal, which she based on her belief that marriage should only be between a man and a woman.

A jury in Ashland, Kentucky, awarded David Ermold and David Moore each $50,000 after deliberating on Wednesday, according to lawyers for Davis. A second couple who sued, James Yates and Will Smith, were awarded no damages on Wednesday by Judge David Bunning.

Bunning sent Davis to jail for five days in 2015 after holding her in contempt of court. She was parodied on Saturday Night Live and embraced by conservative politicians who traveled to Kentucky to support her.

Here’s a novel idea:

Bunning ruled last year that Davis violated the constitutional rights of the two couples. In the ruling, Bunning reasoned that Davis “cannot use her own constitutional rights as a shield to violate the constitutional rights of others while performing her duties as an elected official”.

It’s not clear if Davis can put up a GoFundMe to help pay her judgment. Around the time Davis went to jail, and in response to another case involving discrimination against same-sex couples, the site updated its terms of service to deny access to campaigns “in defense of formal charges or claims of heinous crimes, violent, hateful, sexual or discriminatory acts.”

That language seems to have been updated and broadened to prohibit “User Content that reflects, incites or promotes behavior that we deem, in our sole discretion, to be an abuse of power or in support of terrorism, hate, violence, harassment, bullying, discrimination, terrorist financing or intolerance of any kind reflects an abuse of power relating to race, ethnicity, national origin, religious affiliation, sexual orientation, sex, gender, gender identity, gender expression, disabilities or diseases.”

Maybe Mike Huckabee can help. Again.

Threats and rumors of threats

Published by Tom Sullivan on September 14, 2023

Welcome to the third world

U.S. Capitol Police officer Eugene Goodman runs past Sen. Mitt Romney, R-Utah during second Trump impeachment trial.

At least one Republican congressman told Sen. Mitt Romney (R-outcast), McKay Coppins recounts in The Atlantic, that he “wanted to vote for Trump’s second impeachment, but chose not to out of fear for his family’s safety.” A Republican senator in leadership urged Romney not to vote to convict Trump dujring his second impeachment trial. “You can’t do that, Romney recalled someone saying. Think of your personal safety, said another. Think of your children.”

Romney tells Coppins he is paying $5,000 per day out of pocket for security since Jan. 6, 2021. On his way to work with a police excort that day, he recalls: If somebody wants to shoot me, he thought, what good is it to have these guys in a car behind me?

Romney is not the only one worried about his security. Along with special prosecutor Jack Smith and Fulton County, Georgia, D.A. Fani Willis, other officials are now targets (NBC News):

Prosecutors and FBI agents involved in the Hunter Biden investigation have been the targets of threats and harassment by people who think they haven’t been tough enough on the president’s son, according to government officials and congressional testimony obtained exclusively by NBC News.

It’s part of a dramatic uptick in threats against FBI agents that has coincided with attacks on the FBI and the Justice Department by congressional Republicans and former President Donald Trump, who have accused both agencies of participating in a conspiracy to subvert justice amid two federal indictments of Trump.

The threats have prompted the FBI to create a stand-alone unit to investigate and mitigate them, according to a previously unreleased transcript of congressional testimony.

“We have stood up an entire threat unit to address threats that the FBI employees’ facilities are receiving,” Jennifer L. Moore, then an executive assistant director of human resources for the FBI, told the House Judiciary Committee in June. “It is unprecedented. It’s a number we’ve never had before.”

Trump wants revenge for his two impeachments. And, as he campaigns for president, he insists that his congressional allies put up a colorful distraction from his multiple indictments and trials. An impeachment inquiry of President Joe Biden, Trump hopes, aims to paint Biden as just as corrupt as Trump. Trump knows that the press won’t hesitate to take the “both sides” bait and carry water for him. He’s probably right.

Speaker Kevin McCarthy of California is giving Trump and his MAGA radicals in the House just what they want. Or else they’ll strip him of his speakership. And he probably can’t afford Romney’s security.

The Hill reports some dissension in the ranks:

Rep. Don Bacon (R-Neb.) said Tuesday that Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) should hold a vote on whether to pursue an impeachment inquiry into President Biden, while saying he would likely vote against it.

“I think it’s the right thing to do,” Bacon said of holding such a vote. “But you know, [former Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.)] set the standard. She did an inquiry last time without a vote.”

Bacon noted that while he was in favor of a vote, he would likely not vote for the inquiry. He said for there to be an impeachment inquiry, there needs to be “some kind of direct evidence towards the president.”

“I think the American people want a better, better governance and higher bar. Impeachment should be rare,” Bacon said, adding that he doesn’t think it is “good” for the country.

Marcy Wheeler is keeping up with the MAGA impeachment inquiry more closely than I. So, a few of her incisive posts this morning.

Wheeler continues, “Hill reporters who are too scared to write, in their own voice, that McCarthy has opened an impeachment inquiry BECAUSE he has no evidence of wrongdoing should maybe instead ask Don Bacon how many weaks [sic] of shut-down it’ll take before he’ll vote to replace McCarthy with an adult.”

Don’t hold your breath.

Romney call it quits

Published by digby on September 13, 2023
The cover image for Romney: A Reckoning by McKay Coppins, a portrait of Mitt Romney on a dark background

Yep:

Shortly before 2 p.m. on the day of the vote, Romney left his office and walked to the Capitol, where he waited in his hideaway for his turn to speak. Minutes before going on the floor, he received an un­expected call on his cellphone. It was Paul Ryan. Romney and his team had kept a tight lid on how he planned to vote, but somehow his former running mate had gotten word that he was about to detonate his political career. Romney had been less judgmental of Ryan’s acquiescence to Trump than he’d been of most other Republicans’. He believed Ryan was a sincere guy who’d simply misjudged Trump.

And yet, here was Ryan on the phone, making the same arguments Romney had heard from some of his more calculating colleagues. Ryan told him that voting to convict Trump would make Romney an outcast in the party, that many of the people who’d tried to get him elected president would never speak to him again, and that he’d struggle to pass any meaningful legislation. Ryan said that he respected Romney, and wanted to make absolutely sure he’d thought through the repercussions of his vote. Romney assured him that he had, and said goodbye.

I wonder who called Ryan to alert him about Romney’s impending apostasy? I’d bet on McConnell.

This is from an excerpt in the Atlantic from McKay Coppins’ new Romney biography. Romney seems to have said “fuck it” (or, more likely, “fudge it”) and decided to just let it all hang out. The stuff he says about McConnell is … well, totally unsurprising but damning nonetheless.

I have my issues with Romney. He is a plutocrat whose political philosophy is basically trickle down economics, low taxes and traditional religious cultural values. But he and a handful of others have been unique during the Trump years in his willingness to buck the cult. It hasn’t been easy for him, I’d imagine. So kudos to him for that.

But, you know, he could have done something really useful in those first two years. He could have left the GOP and become a Democrat or an Independent. That would not have been unprecedented. Sure, he would not have been re-elected in Utah, but so what? He’s retiring anyway. According to Coppins, he thought about it. But even Romney couldn’t bring himself to switch parties.

If he wanted to make a statement that would have been a very important one: he was the Republican nominee for president and just 10 years later he was forced to leave the party. That says everything.

Gaetz’s move

Published by digby on September 13, 2023

That was a good interview by Phillips. Gaetz thinks he’s going to best McCarthy. And he will make his life miserable. But who does he think will take MyKevin’s place?