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GOP Watch Keeping an Eye on Republicans for You - Page 14

“Patriotism means to stand by the country. It does not mean to stand by the president or any other public official, save exactly to the degree in which he himself stands by the country. It is patriotic to support him insofar as he efficiently serves the country. It is unpatriotic not to oppose him to the exact extent that by inefficiency or otherwise he fails in his duty to stand by the country. In either event, it is unpatriotic not to tell the truth, whether about the president or anyone else.” ― Theodore Roosevelt Welcome to GOP Watch keeping an eye on Republicans for you. The Republican Party is using lies, hate, fear, alterative facts and whataboutism to stay in power and protect a comprised and corrupt Donald J. Trump, the Republican Party and Putin. The GOP is a danger to America and Americans.
By Daniella Diaz and Kristin Wilson, CNN

(CNN) The House on Friday overwhelmingly supported a measure condemning the military coup in Myanmar that ousted the country's civilian leader, Aung San Suu Kyi. But some conservative Republicans didn't support the measure, and it's unclear why. Every House Democrat backed it, while 14 Republicans voted against it and GOP Rep. Paul Gosar of Arizona voted present. The measure was a suspension bill, which are typically passed via voice vote, but earlier in the week Republicans forced recorded votes on five bipartisan pieces of legislation. more...
The video circulating on Twitter shows the crowd cheering the suggestion of a coup in the US
Stuti Mishra

Michael Flynn, a former national security adviser under the Donald Trump administration, has said that a Myanmar-like coup — in which the military overthrew a democratically elected government — “should happen” in the US. Appearing in Dallas, Texas, at a QAnon conference, Mr Flynn was asked during a Q&A session by a member of the audience: “I want to know why what happened in Myanmar can’t happen here?” The video circulating on Twitter shows the question receiving cheering from the crowd. In response, Mr Flynn said: “No reason. I mean, it should happen here.” more...
“It should happen,” Flynn declared of the violent, deadly military coup at a wild QAnon conference in Dallas for “patriots.”
headshot
By Mary Papenfuss

Avowed QAnon disciple and confessed felon retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn has called for a Myanmar-like military coup in America. “It should happen,” Donald Trump’s former national security adviser said in an astonishing declaration at a QAnon conference Sunday. Myanmar’s military violently seized control of the country from its civilian government in late January, detained democratically elected leader Aung San Suu Kyi and top party members, and killed more than 700 protesters as of early this month. The military justified its action by claiming unproven “election fraud.” Flynn presented his dark vision of a military coup and dictatorship in the U.S. in response to a question from the audience at the conference. more...
By JONATHAN LANDRUM Jr.

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Several documentary filmmakers — some backed by NBA superstars — are shedding light on the historically ignored Tulsa Race Massacre of 1921, one of the most horrific tragedies in American history. LeBron James and Russell Westbrook are among those releasing documentaries based on the racially motivated massacre. The projects come during the 100th anniversary of the massacre in Greenwood, a Black-owned business district and residential neighborhood in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Each documentary uniquely takes a deep dive into how the thriving Greenwood community — dubbed Black Wall Street because of the number of Black-owned businesses — was decimated in a two-day attack by a white mob. In the aftermath, at least 300 Black people were killed. More than a thousand homes were burned and others looted, leaving roughly 10,000 residents displaced and homeless and the Black business district destroyed. more...
Bill rushed to floor of state senate in middle of the night. Leading US House Democrat calls new law ‘shameful’. ‘Un-American and wrong’: Biden blasts Texas voting bill
Martin Pengelly

Republicans in the Texas Senate muscled one of the most restrictive voting measures in the US to the cusp of law on Sunday, after rushing the legislation to the floor in the middle of the night. The sweeping measure, Senate Bill 7 or SB7, passed on party lines around 6am, after eight hours of questioning by Democrats who have virtually no path to stop it. The bill must still clear a final vote in the Texas House later on Sunday in order to reach Governor Greg Abbott, who is expected to sign it. “I have grave concerns about a bill that was crafted in the shadows and passed late at night,” said one Democratic state senator, Beverly Powell. In closed-door negotiations, Republicans added language that could make it easier for a judge to overturn an election and pushed back the start of Sunday voting, when many Black churchgoers go to the polls. The 67-page measure would also eliminate drive-thru voting and 24-hour polling centers, both of which Harris county, a Democratic stronghold, introduced last year. more...
Republicans are trying to rig (steal) future elections.

Countrywide campaigns for secretaries of state underscore new Republican focus to take control of election administration
Sam Levine

Republicans who have embraced baseless claims about the 2020 election being stolen are now running to serve as the chief elections officials in several states, a move that could give them significant power over election processes. The campaigns, first detailed by Politico last week, underscore a new focus to take control of election administration. Secretaries of state, who are elected to office in partisan contests that have long been overlooked, wield enormous power over election rules in their state, are responsible for overseeing election equipment, and are a key player in certifying – making official – election results. Winning secretary of state offices across the country would give conspiracy theorists enormous power to wreak havoc in the 2024 presidential election, including potentially blocking candidates who win the most votes from taking office. more...
Michael McGough

When it comes to the big lie that propelled the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol by Donald Trump's supporters, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) had positioned himself in the past as somewhat more reasonable than his counterpart in the House, Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Bakersfield). But in joining McCarthy in opposing an independent commission to investigate the Jan. 6 insurrection, McConnell has shown that, as the late George Wallace once said about the two major parties, there’s not a dime’s worth of difference between the Republican leaders. After suggesting that he might be open to arguments in favor of a commission, McConnell last week came out against the idea, calling the House proposal for an independent panel “slanted and unbalanced.” more...
Tim O'Donnell

Former New Jersey Gov. Thomas Kean (R), the former chair of the 9/11 Commission, weighed in on Republican senators' decision to block the creation of a similar exploration of the Jan. 6 Capitol riot. "It saddens me because there was no real, public reason for turning it down," he told The Guardian. "I guess some people were scared of what they'd find out. That's not a good reason for turning it down." Kean and his vice chair, former Rep. Lee Hamilton (D-Fla.) aren't viewing the news in a vacuum, however. Hamilton told USA Today that any investigation can get off-track, but "if you follow the arguments of the opponents, we would never investigate anything," while Kean added that "if we can't do it for this one, can we do it for [the handling COVID-19 pandemic]? That's very sad." In short, he told PBS NewsHour, Congress is setting the precedent that it is "incapable of telling the American people the truth about something very important that happened." Read more at The Guardian, USA Today, and PBS NewsHour. more...
By Natalie Colarossi

A growing number of Democrats are calling for President Joe Biden to form a commission to investigate the attack at the U.S. Capitol on January 6, after Republican lawmakers blocked a bill that would have allowed Congress to do so. On Friday, 35 GOP Senators blocked a bill that was passed in the Democratic-led House that sought to form a bipartisan commission to investigate the events of Capitol riot. The House-approved bill was modeled after a 9/11 style commission, and sought to establish a 10-person committee, evenly split between Democrats and Republicans, tasked with investigating the facts and circumstances of the assault. Five people died as a result of the Capitol riot, when a mob of pro–Donald Trump supporters sought to disrupt the congressional certification of Joe Biden's electoral victory. more...
By Manu Raju, Chief Congressional Correspondent

(CNN) House Democrats are actively considering mounting a probe of their own into the January 6 US Capitol attack, signaling they don't plan to let the issue go away in the aftermath of Senate Republicans derailing the creation of an outside commission to probe the deadly insurrection. Speaker Nancy Pelosi has made clear repeatedly that moving to create a select committee has always remained a fallback option -- something that would require the support of a majority of the Democratic-led House to create. And a number of Democrats said on Friday that they believe Pelosi will indeed create the new committee -- and that the caucus would strongly support such an effort. "That's her next move," one senior House Democrat said Friday. more...
“They should tell Donald Trump,” the Republican Accountability Project urges in its new ad.
By Lee Moran

Ex-President Donald Trump’s vitriolic blog posts are used to dispel a major Republican talking point in a conservative group’s damning new ad. “Republicans say they want to move on past the 2020 election,” the narrator begins in Republican Accountability Project’s latest spot, released Thursday. The 76-second clip cuts to various screenshots of Trump’s blog, where he repeatedly rants about the 2020 election and baselessly claims that it was stolen from him. Sens. Ted Cruz (Texas), Lindsey Graham (S.C.) and Marco Rubio (Fla.) then appear on-screen, declaring that it’s time to move forward. “If Republicans want to move on from the 2020 election, they should tell Donald Trump,” the narrator concludes. more...
By Daniella Diaz, CNN

Washington (CNN) Former House Speaker Paul Ryan is set to criticize former President Donald Trump and his hold on the Republican Party during a speech Thursday night, according to excerpts obtained by CNN. Ryan, a critic of the former President in the past, is expected to say at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, California, that Republicans must move away from the "populist appeal of one personality" because "then we're not going anywhere." "Once again, we conservatives find ourselves at a crossroads. And here's one reality we have to face: If the conservative cause depends on the populist appeal of one personality, or on second-rate imitations, then we're not going anywhere. Voters looking for Republican leaders want to see independence and mettle," Ryan is expected to say. more...
“We’ve got to get to the bottom of this shit,” the normally amiable Sen. Jon Tester (D-Mont.) said. “Jesus."
By BURGESS EVERETT and NICHOLAS WU

Senate Republicans are ready to filibuster a proposed independent commission to investigate the Capitol riot, as GOP opposition swelled in the final days before the vote expected later Thursday. Several undecided Republicans came down against advancing the commission ahead of the vote, despite efforts by Sen. Susan Collins of Maine to broker a compromise. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell has taken an increasingly hard public and private line against establishing the new panel to probe the Jan. 6 Capitol attack by pro-Trump insurrectionists, dubbing the commission idea “extraneous” on Thursday. Senate Minority Whip John Thune of South Dakota said in an interview that his party is not willing to provide the 10 votes needed to start debate on the bill: “At the moment, no.” more...
By Katelyn Polantz, CNN

(CNN) A federal judge on Wednesday wrote that Donald Trump's "Big Lie" that the 2020 election was stolen from him could still inspire some of the former President's supporters to take up arms, as they did in January during the deadly US Capitol insurrection. The judge's blunt assessment of the current, charged political climate came in a legal decision about a defendant who was drawn to Washington, DC, in January. And it adds to a growing chorus of warnings from the officials most closely weighing the aftermath of the Capitol riot about what the threat level still might be. "The steady drumbeat that inspired defendant to take up arms has not faded away; six months later, the canard that the election was stolen is being repeated daily on major news outlets and from the corridors of power in state and federal government, not to mention in the near-daily fulminations of the former President," Judge Amy Berman Jackson of the DC District Court wrote in an opinion to keep defendant Cleveland Meredith Jr. in jail because he could endanger the public if released. more...
Minority leader Mitch McConnell opposes a bill for a 9/11-style panel that could unearth embarrassing facts about the role of Trump and his supporters
Hugo Lowell

Top Senate Republicans are making a concerted effort to quash the creation of a 9/11-style commission to investigate the Capitol attack, deeply endangering the bill’s passage amid fears about what a high-profile inquiry into the events of 6 January might uncover. The Republican Senate minority leader, Mitch McConnell, has said he opposes the commission bill in its current form and several Republicans who have previously expressed support said they could no longer back it. McConnell’s opposition brings into sharp relief the treacherous path ahead for the legislation, which Senate Democrats could introduce as soon as this week, according to a source briefed on the matter. more...
The vast majority of House Republicans voted against a bipartisan, 9/11-style panel – no surprise from a party still in thrall to Trump
David Smith

“Tuesday, September 11, 2001, dawned temperate and nearly cloudless in the eastern United States.” So begins the report of the 9/11 commission, which investigated the terrorist attacks 20 years ago with bipartisan support. Will there be a similarly limpid introduction to a similarly weighty (567 pages) study of the deadly insurrection at the US Capitol in Washington on 6 January? Not if Republicans can help it. The formation of a January 6 commission passed the House of Representatives on Wednesday evening thanks to the Democratic majority and 35 Republicans. But 175 Republicans voted against it. It will be a similar story in the Senate, where the minority leader, Mitch McConnell, announced his opposition earlier on Wednesday. more...
The American Jewish Congress called on the congresswoman to apologize and retract her comments, saying "such comparisons demean the Holocaust & contaminate American political speech."
By Allan Smith

Republican lawmakers this weekend blasted Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., for comparing the House mask mandate to the Holocaust. The Republicans who criticized Greene were among those who either voted to impeach former President Donald Trump earlier this year or, in addition, voted to strip Greene of her committee assignments. Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., recently ousted from GOP leadership after she continued to refute Trump's electoral falsehoods, lambasted Greene’s comparison as "evil lunacy" in a tweet. Rep. Adam Kinzinger, R-Ill., and one of three Republican House members to vote both for Trump's impeachment and to strip Greene of her committee assignments, tweeted that Greene's remarks amount to "Absolute sickness." more...
Republicans cared about Benghazi but do not give a shit about the coup attempt, the insurrection and the sacking of the U.S. Capitol.

Analysis by Maeve Reston and Stephen Collinson, CNN

(CNN) The growing Republican blockade against the creation of a bipartisan commission to investigate the US Capitol insurrection on January 6 has crystallized the party's fixation with the 2022 midterm elections. Even on a grave matter of national security, the GOP has concluded that the political price for standing with former President Donald Trump is preferable to the electoral cost of breaking with the disgraced former President. More than four months after Trump stoked the January 6 rebellion with his lies about the 2020 election, the vast majority of GOP lawmakers demonstrated this week that they see no upside for revisiting the dangerous events that unfolded at the Capitol even if it means that Americans will never get a full explanation of how close Trump's supporters came to overthrowing democracy -- findings that could prevent a similar incident from happening again. more...
Liz Cheney rips Kevin McCarthy for withholding 'important information' about Capitol riot
By David Edwards

Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY) on Sunday suggested that House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) is withholding "important information" about the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol. During an interview on Fox News, Cheney told host Chris Wallace that she was ousted from Republican leadership because she refused to be "complicit" in spreading former President Donald Trump's so-called "Big Lie" about the 2020 election being stolen. Wallace noted that Cheney has argued that Trump is "dangerous" for the Republican Party and for the country. "I ask this about both McCarthy and Elise Stefanik (R-NY)," Wallace said. "Are they being complicit in what you consider the Trump lies?" more...
Trevor Noah’s show called out Republican efforts to rewrite history about the insurrection.
By Lee Moran

“The Daily Show with Trevor Noah” on Wednesday went back in time to rip Republicans over their desperate attempts to rewrite history about the Jan. 6 insurrection. The Comedy Central show turned GOP lawmakers’ downplaying of the violence into a ’50s style educational video. It contrasts comments from lawmakers with footage of the violent mob of then-President Donald Trump’s supporters storming the U.S. Capitol. video...
By Clara Hill

The Lincoln Project has published a new attack ad targeting the Republican party after its ouster of Rep Liz Cheney from her leadership role in the House of Representatives. The conservative anti-Trump group shared the 38-second new video titled “Allegiance” on YouTube on 17 May, and it showcases the unwavering dedication to former president Donald Trump among nearly every elected Republican. “I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America” is repeated by a round of voices while images from classic symbols of American national identity are shown in the background, such as the flag and the Statue of Liberty. It is then contrasted to footage from the insurrection at the Capitol Building on 6 January. more...
Defending white people from being called a terrorist is apparently more important than defending America from terrorism.
By Dean Obeidallah, MSNBC Opinion Columnist

In the weeks after the 9/11 terrorist attack, former President George W. Bush famously declared in a joint address to Congress: "Either you are with us or you are with the terrorists." Apparently to today’s Republicans, that axiom only applies if the terrorists are brown or Black — because when it comes to the overwhelmingly white mob that attacked the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, the GOP is doing everything it can to whitewash and downplay the attack. But what we saw that day was by definition an “insurrection,” as well as an act of “domestic terrorism.” Period. That’s not hyperbole or my opinion. FBI Director Christopher Wray labeled it the latter in testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee in March. more...
By Tom Porter

Some GOP senators oppose the creation of a commission to investigate the Capitol riot because they fear it will distract from their 2022 midterm campaigns, Republican whip Sen. John Thune has said. Thune told CNN on Wednesday that there was concern among members that a commission "could be weaponized politically and drug into next year." "I want our midterm message to be on the kinds of things that the American people are dealing with: That's jobs and wages and the economy and national security, safe streets and strong borders - not re-litigating the 2020 elections," Thune told CNN. "A lot of our members, and I think this is true of a lot of House Republicans, want to be moving forward and not looking backward. Anything that gets us rehashing the 2020 elections I think is a day lost on being able to draw a contrast between us and the Democrats' very radical left-wing agenda." more...
Christopher Wilson

False claims, intraparty feuds and the need to potentially replace millions of dollars in equipment are among the issues that continue to plague a partisan election audit ordered by Arizona Republicans seeking to prove that the 2020 presidential race was stolen. After months of court battles, a review of the November election vote in Maricopa County — where the majority of Arizonans reside — was begun at the instruction of the GOP-controlled state Senate late last month. To conduct the audit, Arizona Senate Republicans brought in a private Florida-based company, Cyber Ninjas, whose founder and CEO, Doug Logan, has pushed false claims of fraud in the 2020 election. Numerous Republicans nationwide have followed former President Donald Trump’s lead in recent months to insist that the election was somehow illegitimate — a claim unsupported by facts. more...
Republicans say Jan. 6 attack was not an ‘armed’ Attack even though rioters had mace, knives and a stun gun, as well as makeshift weapons like flagpoles, fire extinguishers and at least one had a gun.

Andrew Solender Forbes Staff

The Department of Justice on Monday filed a superseding indictment against Maryland resident Christopher Alberts alleging he carried a semi-automatic handgun on Capitol grounds on Jan. 6, undercutting Republican claims the attack was orderly and largely unarmed. Alberts was arrested attempting to flee from law enforcement on Jan. 6, carrying with him an unlicensed Taurus G2C pistol and a high-capacity magazine, according to the court documents. Federal prosecutors also allege in the indictment Alberts resisted arrest and “knowingly engaged in an act of physical violence” on Capitol grounds. Alberts, who has pleaded not guilty, appears to be the only person charged so far with carrying a firearm during the attack, but other weapons wielded by rioters include mace, knives and a stun gun, as well as makeshift weapons like flagpoles and fire extinguishers. more...
By Devan Cole, CNN

Washington (CNN)When the House on Wednesday overwhelmingly approved legislation intended to counter a rise in anti-Asian hate crimes amid the coronavirus pandemic, 62 GOP members voted against the measure, which was also opposed by one Republican senator when it cleared that chamber last month. more...
Ultimately, 35 Republicans joined Democrats in approving the commission.
By MELANIE ZANONA, NICHOLAS WU and OLIVIA BEAVERS

House GOP divisions were on full display Wednesday as dozens of Republicans broke with their party leadership and former President Donald Trump to support a proposed commission investigating the Jan. 6 siege on the Capitol. The measure, which would task a bipartisan 10-person commission with delivering a report on the causes and facts of the insurrection by the end of the year, passed the House by a 252-175 vote with every Democrat and 35 Republicans in support. more...
From Donald Trump on down, Republicans are increasingly opposed to investigating the Jan. 6 riot. Democrats must find the truth with or without them.
Kurt Bardella

It makes no sense to expect congressional Republicans to be willing partners in any effort to investigate the Jan. 6 Capitol attack that the FBI has labeled domestic terrorism. Their former president's partisans stormed the building, and they themselves are trying to erase history. Exhibit A: Rep. Andrew Clyde of Georgia, who during a House Oversight and Reform Committee hearing last week characterized the violence of Jan. 6 as a “normal tourist visit.” Never mind that there's a photograph of Clyde barricading a door to the House floor. more...
Kevin Breuninger

House Republicans voted Friday to make Rep. Elise Stefanik their conference chair, days after ousting Rep. Liz Cheney over her opposition to former President Donald Trump’s continued influence in the party and her denouncements of his “big lie” that the 2020 election was rigged. Republicans convened around 8:30 a.m. ET at the Congressional Visitors Center, the same room where they expelled Cheney from the No. 3-ranking position by a voice vote two days earlier. The vote for Stefanik was conducted by secret ballot. The final tally was 134-46. more...
Eliza Relman

Rep. Liz Cheney said some of her Republican colleagues in Congress are opposed to a bipartisan commission to investigate the January 6 Capitol riot because they helped provoke the attack or are otherwise culpable. Cheney, who was ousted from leadership by her own party on Wednesday, has repeatedly called for a bipartisan commission comprising retired officials with subpoena power to investigate the attack on the Capitol. But GOP leadership and many other lawmakers are opposed to a commission solely focused on the deadly assault. Instead, they want to expand the focus to include violence that resulted from Black Lives Matter protests last summer. "There is real concern among a number of members of my own party about a January 6 commission," Cheney said. "That kind of intense, narrow focus threatens people in my party who may have been playing a role they should not have been playing." more...
Hallie Jackson and Dartunorro Clark | NBC News

More than 100 influential Republicans plan to release a call for reforms within the GOP alongside a threat to form a new party if change isn't forthcoming, a person familiar with the effort said. The statement, set to be released Thursday, involves a "Call for American Renewal," a credo that declares that it is imperative to "either reimagine a party dedicated to our founding ideals or else hasten the creation of such an alternative." The push will include 13 yet-to-be-revealed principles that the signatories want the GOP to embrace. more...
Republicans are the party of cancel culture, if you do not go along with the lies Republicans tell they will cancel you.

Liz Cheney on Wednesday said she would ‘lead the fight’ to create a stronger Republican party.
Joan E Greve

Senator Lindsey Graham, a close ally of Donald Trump, argued Liz Cheney was ousted as House Republican conference chair because she “has taken a position regarding former President Trump which is out of the mainstream of the Republican”. That “position” seems to be acknowledging the fact that Trump lost the 2020 presidential election and thus Joe Biden is the legitimately elected president. “Today’s decision by the House Republican Conference regarding Congresswoman Cheney was not about her vote for impeachment,” Graham said. “It was about her belief President Trump should be purged from the GOP and those who objected to the results of the 2020 election should be disqualified from future leadership positions. more...
Donald Trump's hero, Andrew Jackson, showed a campaign based entirely on political comeuppance can work. For the GOP today, it could also be a winning strategy.
By David Mark, political analyst

From time to time, House members who have been elected to top party positions get deposed from those coveted roles. Usually, these internecine bouts of political bloodletting happen when an election has gone poorly and rank-and-file lawmakers want a proverbial head to roll. It's a sign of the unorthodox political times we're in that on Wednesday, we witnessed a rare instance of change in party leadership in the midst of a congressional term. House Republicans voted out Liz Cheney of Wyoming as chair of the House Republican Conference, the No. 3 position in House GOP leadership, over her unwillingness to keep quiet about former President Donald Trump's lies that the 2020 election was stolen. more...
Nathan Bomey USA TODAY

A federal judge on Tuesday rejected the National Rifle Association's Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing, forcing the nonprofit to defend itself against the state of New York's lawsuit against the organization – a case that could result in the group's dissolution. U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Harlin Hale of Dallas ruled that the pro-gun-rights group did not file its bankruptcy petition "in good faith" but instead did so "to gain an unfair litigation advantage" and "to avoid a state regulatory scheme." Those purposes are not a proper use of the bankruptcy code, the judge ruled. more...
Phil Hands | Wisconsin State Journal

It appears that U.S. Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., will lose her leadership position in the House Republican caucus, because she refuses to buy into the "big lie" that the 2020 election was stolen from Donald Trump. Once upon a time, Ronald Reagan talked about the Republican Party as a big tent that welcomed lots of different types of people and ideologies. Today the tent is small, and the only idea that is welcome is unwavering loyalty to a reality TV star who incited his followers to riot at the U.S. Capitol in an attempt to overturn the results of a legitimate election. more...
Senator says McCarthy ‘trying to silence others in the party’ in service of Trump
Martin Pengelly in New York

The only woman in Republican Senate leadership complained about cancel culture on Monday, regarding the imminent removal of Liz Cheney, the only woman in Republican House leadership, because she opposes Donald Trump’s big lie that the presidential election was stolen. The Iowa senator Joni Ernst told reporters: “I feel it’s OK to go ahead and express what you feel is right to express and, you know, cancel culture is cancel culture no matter how you look at it. Unfortunately, I think there are those that are trying to silence others in the party.” “Cancel culture” has become a shibboleth of the modern Republican party, repeatedly invoked when public figures become embroiled in controversy regarding opinions or statements deemed to be racist, sexist or otherwise unacceptable. more...
Sophia Ankel

Trump allies are growing increasingly concerned about the future after former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani's office and apartment were raided by federal agents this week, according to CNN. On Wednesday, Giuliani, who acted as Trump's former attorney, was the target of two raids in which investigators seized several of his electronic devices as well as a computer belonging to his personal assistant. The searches were in connection to a criminal probe into Giuliani's dealings in Ukraine, The New York Times reported. Trump's allies and former members of his inner circle are now reportedly becoming increasingly worried about further raids and upcoming FBI investigations. more...
By Celine Castronuovo

Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds (R) on Friday signed into law a new bill condemned by housing advocates and city officials that would allow landlords to turn away tenants who receive Section 8 vouchers to help them pay rent. The bill, which passed in both chambers of the Republican-controlled Iowa General Assembly in March, prohibits counties from adopting laws that would prohibit a landlord “from refusing to lease or rent out a dwelling unit to a person because of the person’s use of a federal housing voucher issued by the United States department of housing and urban development.” The measure, which goes into effect Jan. 1, 2023, will override laws preventing the practice currently in place in three Iowa cities: Des Moines, Iowa City and Marion. more...
Trump and his supporters are the real traitors they attacked the capitol and incited an insurrection and attempted a coup.

Tom Porter

Utah Sen. Mitt Romney was loudly booed when he took to the stage at a state Republican Party conference Saturday, according to a video published by the Salt Lake Tribune. In the footage, the delegates start to boo when Romney takes to the stage and the jeering grows louder as he tries to speak. Romney is one of the most prominent critics of former President Donald Trump. He was the only Republican who voted to convict Trump in the former president's first impeachment trial, and one of 9 Republicans who voted to convict Trump in his second impeachment trial. According to the Tribune, delegates shouted insults at Romney, accusing him of being a "traitor" and a "communist." more...
By Fredreka Schouten, CNN

(CNN) 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.  more...
The alleged incident occurred while Rep. Mark Samsel was substitute teaching at a public school in his hometown of Wellsville.
JOHN HANNA and ANDY TSUBASA FIELD

TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — A Kansas House member was arrested for possible misdemeanor battery in what authorities said Friday was an incident involving a student while he was substitute teaching at a public school in his hometown. Republican Rep. Mark Samsel was booked Thursday into the local county jail and released on a $1,000 bond. His arrest came after a student reported an incident Wednesday at school in his hometown of Wellsville, a town of about 1,700 people some 55 miles (89 kilometers) southwest of Kansas City. Samsel, 36, has yet to be formally charged with a crime but has a first appearance scheduled in district court for May 19 in Franklin County, said County Attorney Brandon Jones. Kansas law says battery is either causing bodily harm to another person or physical contact with someone else “done in a rude, insulting or angry manner,” and is punished by up to six months in jail. more...
By Bill McCarthy

One day after President Joe Biden pledged to cut U.S. greenhouse gas emissions in half, Fox News and Fox Business Network personalities repeatedly and baselessly claimed that the move would also force Americans to say goodbye to hamburgers and steaks. "To meet the Biden Green New Deal targets, America has to, get this, America has to stop eating meat," said Fox Business Network host Larry Kudlow, a former economic adviser to President Donald Trump, on April 23. "No burger on July 4. No steaks on the barbecue." Biden’s climate plans do not include restrictions on red meat consumption, a White House official confirmed to PolitiFact. Biden never mentioned red meat when he announced his plan to reduce U.S. greenhouse gas emissions by 50% to 52% below 2005 levels by 2030, a move that would double the U.S.’s commitment under the 2015 Paris climate agreement. more...
In Houston, election officials found creative ways to help a struggling and diverse work force vote in a pandemic. Record turnout resulted. Now the G.O.P. is targeting those very measures.
By Nick Corasaniti

HOUSTON — Voting in the 2020 election presented Zoe Douglas with a difficult choice: As a therapist meeting with patients over Zoom late into the evening, she just wasn’t able to wrap up before polls closed during early voting. Then Harris County introduced 24-hour voting for a single day. At 11 p.m. on the Thursday before the election, Ms. Douglas joined fast-food workers, nurses, construction workers, night owls and other late-shift workers at NRG Arena, one of eight 24-hour voting sites in the county, where more than 10,000 people cast their ballots in a single night. “I can distinctly remember people still in their uniforms — you could tell they just got off of work, or maybe they’re going to work; a very diverse mix,” said Ms. Douglas, 27, a Houston native. more...
"Not to say that what’s going on now is right but we couldn’t find one instance of you complaining and calling that out when President Trump was president,” Wallace noted.
Justin Baragona

Fox News anchor Chris Wallace confronted Texas Gov. Greg Abbott on Sunday, pointing out that while the Republican governor has been outspoken about migrant children abuses during the Biden administration he was silent on the issue during President Donald Trump’s term. With conservatives describing the recent surge of unaccompanied minors at the southern border as an unmitigated disaster and crisis, Abbott rushed to hold a press conference last week after state officials received some tips that migrant children were subjected to sexual abuse at a temporary shelter in San Antonio. more...
With red states set to gain seats, the GOP is ready to disadvantage Democrats and deliver the US House
Tom McCarthy

Republicans believe they have a great chance to win control of the US House of Representatives in 2022, needing a swing of about six seats to depose Nancy Pelosi as speaker and derail Joe Biden’s agenda. To help themselves over the top, they are advancing voter suppression laws in almost every state, hoping to minimize Democratic turnout. But Republicans are also preparing another, arguably more powerful tool, which experts believe could let them take control of the House without winning a single vote beyond their 2020 tally, or for that matter blocking a single Democratic voter. That tool is redistricting – the redrawing of congressional boundaries, undertaken once every 10 years – and Republicans have unilateral control of it in a critical number of states. more...
Republicans do not have an issue with cancel culture when they are the ones using it; remember Freedom fries and what they did to the Dixie chicks. Republicans only hate cancel culture when it is used against them.

“The hypocrisy and the doublespeak and the shiny objects and the lying continues,” lamented the CNN anchor.
By Lee Moran

CNN’s Don Lemon on Tuesday reeled off a long list of things that Donald Trump has attacked or called to be banned or boycotted to show why the former president is the real “king of cancel culture.” Trump this week demanded his supporters boycott companies and organizations — including Coca-Cola and Major League Baseball — for opposing Georgia’s new voting restrictions. Though he frequently echoes the right-wing cry against “cancel culture,” Trump is actually one of its biggest proponents, Lemon pointed out. more...
By Brian Stelter, CNN Business

New York (CNN Business) The Anti-Defamation League is calling for Fox News to fire Tucker Carlson. "Given his long record of race-baiting, we believe it is time for Carlson to go," ADL CEO Jonathan Greenblatt says. There is zero indication that Fox will take such a step -- or even reprimand Carlson. But the ADL's call, delivered in a letter to Fox News Media CEO Suzanne Scott, underscores the extreme and unsettling nature of Carlson's anti-immigration commentary. Carlson, the highest-rated host on Fox News, drew condemnations for his comments about "replacement" on another Fox show Thursday evening. more...
By Josh Dawsey, Lori Rozsa and David A. Fahrenthold

On Thursday night, the Mar-a-Lago Club hosted a dinner for more than 100 people, put on by a conservative activist group, at which its owner, former president Donald Trump, spoke for more than an hour. On Friday, the club was booked again, for a lunch fundraiser to benefit Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.). Arkansas gubernatorial candidate Sarah Sanders and Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) also have fundraisers scheduled at the club this weekend. And Saturday night, the Republican National Committee has reserved Mar-a-Lago for a 400-person banquet. The price tag for that dinner: more than $100,000, according to a person involved in the planning. The GOP is still Donald Trump’s party. The clearest proof of that: It is still finding ways to pay Donald Trump money. more...
By Grace Panetta

The National Republican Congressional Committee debuted a bright-yellow pre-checked recurring donation box on its donation page with a startling ultimatum. The message from House Republicans' campaign arm, which on Wednesday caught the eye of many reporters, warns people that if they opt-out of recurring donations and "UNCHECK this box, we'll have to tell Trump you're a DEFECTOR & sided with the Dems." more...
Opinion by Greg Sargent

Perhaps we should be thankful that Rep. Jody Hice is running to be the new chief of elections in Georgia, with the enthusiastic backing of former president Donald Trump. That’s because the Republican’s candidacy is exposing vile truths about the GOP’s ongoing slide into authoritarianism with dispiriting but useful clarity. We need to retheorize what’s right in front of our noses. Republicans have launched new voter-suppression efforts everywhere, while Democrats are pushing reforms to thwart those tactics and make voting easier. Yet this is often covered as a “partisan” struggle, as if each side were trying to manipulate election rules to its advantage in a manner that was vaguely equivalent. more...
Tom McCarthy

Hundreds of bills nationwide target people of color whose full participation in future elections is seen by Republicans as a threat. At campaign rallies, Donald Trump specialized in crafting political slogans whose catchiness obscured the lack of actual policy behind them: lock her up, America First, build the wall, drain the swamp. But there was one Trump slogan that turned out to have a shocking amount of policy behind it – hundreds of pieces of legislation nationwide in just the last three months, in fact, constituting the most coordinated, organized and determined Republican push on any political issue in recent memory. The slogan was “stop the steal,” a tendentious reference to Trump’s big lie about the November election result. And the policy behind it was aggressive voter suppression, targeting people of color, urbanites, low-income communities and other groups whose full participation in future elections is seen by Republicans as a threat. more...
By John Bowden

Fox News host Chris Wallace challenged Republican Sen. Roy Blunt (Mo.) on Sunday to defend the GOP on the issue of the national debt. On "Fox News Sunday," Wallace displayed graphics indicating that the national debt grew by trillions during former President Trump 's term in the White House, while asking Blunt whether the GOP had any "credibility" on the issue after their votes for the Republican tax reform plan in 2017 that lowered the corporate tax rate. "[H]aven't you lost your credibility on this issue?" Wallace asked. more...
By Janie Boschma, Fredreka Schouten and Priya Krishnakumar, CNN

(CNN) Lawmakers in all but three states have introduced bills aimed at restricting ballot access, according to a new tally by the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University. Their latest report finds 361 bills restricting voting have been introduced in 47 states as of March 24. The total, released Thursday morning, marks a 43% rise in the number of bills introduced since Brennan last released a count a little over a month ago. The Brennan Center's previous tally identified 253 restrictive bills in 43 states in February. more...
By Ed Kilgore

As controversy continues to swirl around Georgia’s new restrictive election law, attention should be paid to what Republicans are doing along the same lines in other states. Republican state legislators are sponsoring a blizzard of new voting restrictions, advancing 55 bills in 24 states. CBS News and FiveThirtyEight have published helpful state-by-state overviews, and the Brennan Center for Justice has all the details you’d want. But it’s important to look at the general patterns. There is a lot of noisy GOP voter-suppression activity in states where Democrats hold a gubernatorial veto, such as Michigan. And three not-terribly-competitive states — Iowa, Arkansas, and Utah — actually preceded Georgia in enacting restrictive new voting laws. But the real threat to voting rights has mostly emerged in states, like Georgia, that were highly competitive last November and are currently controlled by a GOP governing trifecta. more...
By Annie Grayer and Caroline Kelly, CNN

(CNN) House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy tried to rewrite history on Thursday by claiming that he was not involved in former President Donald Trump's efforts to overturn the election in a heated exchange during a news briefing. When asked by CNN's Manu Raju why it was acceptable for him to support Trump's efforts to overturn the presidential election in Congress but to criticize Democrats for doing the same in a contested Iowa US House race, McCarthy repeatedly rejected the notion that he was trying to overturn the election at all. "You're saying something that is not true," the California Republican said when Raju stated that Trump had tried to overturn the election results in Congress and McCarthy supported that effort. McCarthy's explanation flies in the face of reality. Trump tried to pressure Congress to overturn the election and McCarthy raised no concerns about it. He also backed a Texas lawsuit to invalidate millions of votes, and ultimately voted in favor of overturning the election results of two states during votes that took place after the January 6 insurrection at the Capitol. more...
American Airlines and Dell Technologies publicly declared their opposition to Republican legislative proposals that would impose new restrictions on voting.
Alexa Ura

(THE TEXAS TRIBUNE) – Multiple major corporations based in Texas spoke out Thursday in opposition to Republicans’ legislative proposals to further restrict voting in Texas. Corporate giants American Airlines, based in Fort Worth, and Dell Technologies, headquartered in Round Rock, were among the first to take a position. American Airlines took specific aim at Senate Bill 7, which would impose sweeping restrictions that take particular aim at local efforts meant to make it easier to vote — like extended early voting hours. Senate Republicans advanced that measure in a 2 a.m. vote Thursday. more...
Sarah Al-Arshani

A former Department of Justice official denied an accusation by GOP Rep. Matt Gaetz, saying the claims are false and merely a way to distract from the investigation into whether Gaetz violated federal sex trafficking laws. In an interview with Fox News' Tucker Carlson on Tuesday, Gaetz said that David McGee, now a lawyer at Beggs & Lane, a law firm in Pensacola, Florida was going after his family for money to help conceal the DOJ investigation. McGee told The Daily Beast the reports of extortion were "completely, totally false." more...
ROBERT REICH

Republicans are outraged—outraged!—at the surge of migrants at the southern border. House minority leader Kevin McCarthy has declared it a crisis, "created by the presidential policies of this new administration." Arizona congressman Andy Biggs has claimed that "right now is probably the most dramatic [surge] I've seen at the border in my lifetime." In a statement released last Tuesday, Former President Donald Trump was outraged. "Our country is being destroyed!" he proclaimed, blaming the Biden administration for "causing death and human tragedy." But in fact, despite the surging hysteria from Republican ranks, there is no surge of migrants at the border. more...
Greg Sargent

Perhaps we should be thankful that Rep. Jody Hice is running to be the new chief of elections in Georgia, with the enthusiastic backing of former president Donald Trump. That’s because the Republican’s candidacy is exposing vile truths about the GOP’s ongoing slide into authoritarianism with dispiriting but useful clarity. We need to retheorize what’s right in front of our noses. Republicans have launched new voter-suppression efforts everywhere, while Democrats are pushing reforms to thwart those tactics and make voting easier. Yet this is often covered as a “partisan” struggle, as if each side were trying to manipulate election rules to its advantage in a manner that was vaguely equivalent. more...
By Elliot Hannon

Shortly after a group of Black business executives called on corporate America to do more in pushing back against restrictive voting bills making their way through state legislatures, a handful of Georgia’s highest-profile companies took stronger public stands against the state’s recently passed voting law. The state is home to a host of America’s biggest companies—including Coca-Cola, Delta Air Lines, Home Depot, and Aflac—all of which are facing criticism for not being more vocal in opposition to the Georgia voting bill, which was signed into law last week after weeks of winding its way through the state Legislature. On Wednesday, two of the state’s biggest companies, Delta and Coca-Cola, issued more forceful denunciations of the new law. more...
By Kate Sullivan and Maegan Vazquez, CNN

(CNN) President Joe Biden on Friday called a sweeping elections bill signed into law in Georgia "Jim Crow in the 21st Century" and "an atrocity" and called on Congress to pass voting rights legislation that would counter restrictions Republicans are trying to push through at the state level across the country. "Recount after recount and court case after court case upheld the integrity and outcome of a clearly free, fair, and secure democratic process," Biden said in a statement released by the White House, referring to the 2020 election, when he became the first Democratic presidential candidate in nearly three decades to win the state. Georgia is the first presidential battleground to impose new voting restrictions following Biden's victory in the state, but the bill, which Republican Gov. Brian Kemp signed into law Thursday evening, is part of a national Republican effort to restrict access to the ballot after the 2020 election saw record turnout. "This is Jim Crow in the 21st Century. It must end," Biden said in the statement, noting how the restrictions disproportionately target Black voters. more...
Democrats have described the law as the new Jim Crow. The Republican governor signed it under a painting of a place where Black people were once enslaved.
Tasneem Nashrulla BuzzFeed News Reporter

Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp on Thursday signed into law a series of controversial voting restrictions decried by Democrats as "Jim Crow 2.0" — and he did so alongside a group of white men and in front of a painting of a plantation where Black people were once enslaved. In a Twitter thread Friday, Philadelphia Inquirer columnist Will Bunch pointed out that Kemp signed the bill under the image "of a notorious slave plantation in Wilkes County, GA." The painting appears to depict a brick house on the Callaway Plantation in Washington, Georgia, which was once a 3,000-acre plantation owned by a family of enslavers and is now open for public tours. "In 2021, the irony of Kemp signing this bill — that makes it illegal to give water to voters waiting on the sometimes 10-hour lines that state policies create in mostly Black precincts — under the image of a brutal slave plantation is almost too much to bear," Bunch tweeted. more...
A brutal political incentive pushes GOP leaders to embrace policies that hurt their own constituents.
By Teri Kanefield, attorney and author

A simple formula, or what we might call a neat magic trick, allows Republican Party leaders to retain the support of their "base" even as they enact policies that hurt their own voters. Two competing storylines highlight exactly how this is playing out right now. The Republican Party claims to be the party of the working class. On Feb. 26, Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, told supporters at the Conservative Political Action Conference that the GOP was "the party of steelworkers and construction workers and pipeline workers and taxicab drivers and cops and firefighters and waiters and waitresses and the men and women with calluses on their hands who are working for this country." And yet just a few days later, 49 Republican senators — including Cruz — voted against President Joe Biden's $1.9 trillion Covid-19 relief bill (one senator was absent). more...
Tracy Connor

A week after taking part in the Capitol riots, Jorge Riley resigned from the board of the Sacramento Republican Assembly, an activist conservative group. But the fact that Riley is now facing charges in connection with the Jan. 6 insurrection didn’t stop the assembly from honoring him this week. The Sacramento Bee reports that Riley holds a trophy in a Facebook post about the ceremony, which recognized his 11 years on the board. more...
In a floor speech, Sen. Bob Menendez described Sen. Ron Johnson's remarks as a "hurtful," "racist" and a “stain” on his office.
By MARIANNE LEVINE

Sen. Bob Menendez (D-N.J.) ripped GOP Sen. Ron Johnson on Tuesday after the Wisconsinite suggested that he would be more afraid if Black Lives Matter protesters, not Donald Trump supporters, had stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6. In a floor speech, Menendez described Johnson's remarks as a "hurtful," "racist" and a “stain” on his office. “I get that no one likes to be called racist, but sometimes there’s just no other way to describe the use of bigoted tropes that for generations threatened Black lives by stoking white fear of African Americans — and Black men in particular,” Menendez said. more...
The intelligence community's assessment raises some difficult questions for Trump and Giuliani, but they're not the only ones in an awkward position.
By Steve Benen

The Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) this week released a declassified intelligence community assessment on foreign threats to our 2020 elections, and the top-line takeaway was important: Russia once again targeted our political system for the express purposes of giving Donald Trump power. Indeed, as we discussed yesterday, Vladimir Putin and the Kremlin relied on the same cast of characters as their 2016 effort: the U.S. intelligence community specifically focused attention on Russian influence agent Konstantin Kilimnik who was responsible for trying to "denigrate" then-candidate Joe Biden in order to "benefit" Donald Trump's re-election prospects. But as important as these revelations are, they're not the only lessons to be learned from the intelligence community's findings. This week's ODNI report also made clear that many leading Trump administration officials deliberately misled the public about foreign threats, especially related to alleged Chinese election interference. more...
Newsbreak

On an invitation-only call last week, Sen. Ted Cruz huddled with Republican state lawmakers to call them to battle on the issue of voting rights. Democrats are trying to expand voting rights to “illegal aliens” and “child molesters,” he claimed, and Republicans must do all they can to stop them. If they push through far-reaching election legislation now before the Senate, the GOP won’t win elections again for generations, he said. Asked if there was room to compromise, Cruz was blunt: “No.” more...
Travis Gettys

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) is demanding a meeting with U.S. Marine Corps leadership to discuss criticism of Fox News host Tucker Carlson -- igniting brutal ridicule. The broadcaster has faced widespread criticism from veterans, active-duty troops and an official Marine force social media account for mocking women who serve in uniform, and Cruz wants to meet with military leaders to tell them to lay off Carlson and other critics. "Under Biden, the military is launching political attacks to intimidate Tucker Carlson & other civilians who criticize their policy decisions," Cruz tweeted. "Officials in uniform are being used for the campaign. I've demanded a meeting with the Commandant of the USMC to put a stop to it." more...
And it’s not going over well.
By Aaron Rupar

Two recent tweets from members of Congress illustrate how, in the wake of President Joe Biden signing the Covid-19 relief bill, Republicans are trying to “have their cake and vote against it, too,” as Barack Obama once put it. That $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan, which Biden signed into law last Thursday, didn’t receive a single Republican vote, even though recent polling shows a majority of Republican voters have said they somewhat or completely support it. The popularity of the legislation puts Republican members of Congress in a bind: How does one message against a bill that most Americans like, and that will cut child poverty in half, while also juicing an economy that’s been ravaged by the year-long pandemic? Some Republicans, perhaps understandably, are instead opting to instead focus on culture war distractions like whether Dr. Seuss is being “canceled.” But others are shamelessly trying to take credit for Democratic policy right after they voted against it. more...
Cuomo’s Democratic allies abandoning him over credible allegations further shows how Republicans only know how to deflect and excuse their own leaders’ misconduct.
Michael Tomasky

A month ago, after the Senate delivered its impeachment verdict, I wrote a column talking smack about Ben Sasse over his post-verdict Facebook statement. Sasse voted to convict Donald Trump, so he was getting a lot of mainstream cred at the time, and some of his statement was unobjectionable, but then he got to the part where he wrote that “if we were talking about a Democratic president, most Republicans and most Democrats would simply swap sides. Tribalism is a hell of a drug…” The point of the column was that no, Democrats would not behave toward a Democratic president who incited an armed siege against the temple of our democracy in anything like the same way Republicans behaved toward Trump. I thought it was a strong argument, but of course, since there was no Democratic chief executive accused of serious wrongdoing, it was largely hypothetical. more...
In statehouses around the country — most notably, in Georgia — lawmakers are rolling out legislation that would make it a lot harder to vote.
By NOLAN D. MCCASKILL

Former President Donald Trump’s debunked claims of widespread voter fraud and a stolen election galvanized his supporters who stormed the Capitol in January. Now, his rhetoric is turning into policies that are moving through GOP-dominated state legislatures: a rollback of voting access. In statehouses around the country — most notably, Georgia — lawmakers are rolling out legislation that would make it a lot harder to vote. They’re considering dozens of restrictive bills to purge voters from rolls, limit early and absentee voting, add voter ID requirements and eliminate automatic and same-day voter registration. In short, bills are being introduced to prevent something that didn’t happen in 2020 — widespread voter fraud — from recurring in 2022, 2024 and beyond. more...
*** Trump lied about Mexico paying for the wall, he lied about the Russian investigation. Trump lied to the American people about the coronavirus and that lie lead to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Americans. Trump lied about the election and caused the sacking of the capital in a coup attempt and yet Alabama Republicans think he was a great president. Something is serious wrong with the way Alabama Republicans thinks makes a great president. ***

By Sarah Polus

The Alabama Republican Party will honor former President Trump for being "one of the greatest and most effective presidents in the 245-year history of this Republic," Fox News reported. At a Saturday evening reception held at Mar-a-Lago, the party will present Trump with a framed resolution that grants him the honor. "The resolution, basically, it just talks about the greatness of Donald J. Trump, how he made America great again and I hope other states will follow suit," Perry Hooper Jr., a former state representative and a member of the state party’s executive committee, told Fox News. more...
By Jordain Carney

Republicans are going on the attack against the newly signed $1.9 trillion coronavirus bill as they scramble to find a messaging foothold against Democrats' first big win heading into 2022. GOP lawmakers, who voted in unison against the legislation, are gambling that they'll be able to tamp down the bill’s popularity in the long run, even as polls have shown it garners broad approval, including from their own voters. The focus among congressional Republicans is twofold: highlighting provisions they hope will be damaging to Democrats and accusing their political opponents of trying to take credit for an economic recovery Republicans say was set in motion by the Trump administration. more...
"Had the tables been turned, and President Trump won the election and those were tens of thousands of Black Lives Matter and Antifa protesters, I might have been a little concerned," Johnson said.
By BEN LEONARD

In an interview on conservative talk radio, Sen. Ron Johnson, one of former President Donald Trump’s strongest supporters, said he didn’t feel threatened by rioters violently storming the Capitol. Instead, he said, he might have been scared if the participants were Black Lives Matter or Antifa supporters — a comment with strong racial overtones. “Even though those thousands of people that were marching to the Capitol were trying to pressure people like me to vote the way they wanted me to vote, I knew those were people that love this country, that truly respect law enforcement, would never do anything to break the law, and so I wasn't concerned,” Johnson (R-Wis.) said in an interview on conservative radio host Joe Pag’s show Thursday. more...
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