Republicans are sick of losing, and we’re gonna do whatever it takes to win.
Steve Daines, incoming chair of the National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC).
Outrageous!
An online dictionary defines ‘outrageous’ as:
- shockingly bad or excessive
”an outrageous act of bribery’‘ - very bold, unusual, or startling
“her outrageous leotards and sexy routines”
In recent years more and more acts seem outrageous, at least compared to behavior of say, 10 years ago. We seem to be less civil, less engaged, less friendly. Much of that behavior stems from the actions of politicos and their followers, but it also reaches deeper into our neighborhoods and casual interactions with others we encounter during the exercise of our daily lives.
I thought it would be interesting to catalog some of these interactions, and hopefully cause some to consider their own contribution to the weakening of the fabric that was once considered essential in American life.
My hope is to keep the list updated with the latest instances of outrageous behavior that come to my attention. Of course, if you have other examples, I’d love to share them with other visitors. Feel free to leave examples in the comment section.
Outrage #1: Republicans in Georgia nominate Herschel Walker for the United States Senate.
The members of the Republican Party of Georgia nominated former University of Georgia football star, Herschel Walker to represent them in the “world’s greatest deliberative body.” Walker, with no legislative or political experience, was endorsed by former president Donald John Trump, and apparently the people of Georgia are okay with whatever Trump wants.
During a recent campaign event in Georgia, speaking on the topic of climate change, Walker said:
Since we don’t control air, our good air decided to float over to China’s bad air. So when China gets our good air, their bad air got to move. So, it moves over to our good air space. Then — now we got we to clean that back up.
Herschel Walker, Republican U.S. Senate nominee, Georgia
Of course, as we’re reported before, this isn’t Walker’s first brain freeze. Actually, his brain seems to be frozen much more often than it is operates normally. Of course it’s entirely possible his version of normal is different from the rest of us.
Another example of the genius of Walker (and the people who nominated him to represent them among some of the brightest minds in the country):
“If you don’t believe in the country, leave and go somewhere else. If it’s the worst state, why are you here? Why don’t you leave? Go to another — there’s, what, 51 more other states that you can go to?
Herschel Walker, apparently one of the smartest Republicans in Georgia
It’s possible that Walker wins this election against the incumbent, Reverend Raphael Warnock. If he does, we should consider eliminating the Senate. It will have become a haven for idiots. (See: Marsha Blackburn). And maybe this is the method Republicans have agreed upon as the quickest way to destroy democracy in the United States — elect enough unqualified people to important positions in the government that it implodes.
Say What?
“If you don’t believe in the country, leave and go somewhere else. If it’s the worst state, why are you here? Why don’t you leave? Go to another — there’s, what, 51 more other states that you can go to?
Herschel Walker, Republican nominee for the U.S. Senate from Georgia
Definition of the Day
Republican Party
noun
— a system of religious veneration and devotion directed toward a particular figure or object.
— a misplaced or excessive admiration for a particular person or thing.
Also see: cult
Republicans vs. Democracy
GOP power brokers are making sure that our political institutions work at every turn against majority rule. Controlling many more state legislatures than Democrats, Republicans gerrymander Democrats into oblivion in congressional and state legislative elections.
They then block Democratic efforts at redistricting reform in the Senate with the use of the filibuster, another essential antidemocratic instrument. To further obstruct voting and thwart the will of popular majorities in the administrative machinery of government, their gerrymandered legislatures pass laws expressly designed to suppress voter participation, making it harder (or, in the case of baseless voter roll purges, impossible) for some groups to access the ballot.
And then they cement their hold on the whole system by packing the courts with right-wing judges to enforce all the exclusion.
They are fortified in all this self-entrenchment by Supreme Court decisions like Shelby County v. Holder (2013) and Brnovich v. Democratic National Committee (2021), which have dismantled the Voting Rights Act and weakened the Constitution, which had both been for a brief shining moment effective guardians of the voting rights of the people.
In short, the leaders of the GOP — not just Trump, mind you — are using every trick in the book to stifle majority rule and to erase popular democracy in the same way they have been working to erase science and history.
The majority of Americans are caught in a vicious circle of anti-democracy.
Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD), in “Unthinkable:Trauma, Truth, and the Trials of American Democracy
Dark Side of the Swamp
“I truly feel sorry for our friend. He’s never had a days peace. On the other side of this, he’s exposed a very dark side of the swamp that’s far worse than I ever imagined and I am not particularly optimistic for the future.”
Fox celebrity Sean Hannity to White House Chief of Staff, Mark Meadows – December 12, 2020
Select Committee Filing Narrows Meadows Inquiry
In a 68-page filing on April 22, 2022 in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia (Case No. 1:21-cv-3217-CJN), the Select Committee to Investigate the January 6 Attack on the United States Capital (Select Committee) posits that because of information they’ve obtained from other sources, they are now able to narrow the focus of the issues they need Meadows to address with the Committee to “seven discrete topics”:
- Testimony regarding non-privileged documents (including text and email communications) that Mr. Meadows has already provided to the Select Committee in response to the subpoena, and testimony about events that Mr. Meadows has already publicly described in his book and elsewhere;
- Testimony and documents regarding post-election efforts by the Trump campaign, the Trump legal team, and Mr. Meadows to create false slates of Presidential electors, or to pressure or persuade state and local officials and legislators to take actions to change the outcome of the 2020 Presidential election;
- Testimony and documents relating to communications with Members of Congress in preparation for and during the events of January 6th;
- Testimony and documents regarding the plan, in the days before January 6th, to replace Acting Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen with Mr. Jeffrey Clark so that the Department could corruptly change its conclusions regarding election fraud;
- Testimony and documents relating to efforts by President Trump to instruct, direct, persuade or pressure Vice President Mike Pence to refuse to count electoral votes on January 6th;
- Testimony and documents relating to activity in the White House immediately before and during the events of January 6th; and
- Testimony and documents relating to meetings and communications with individuals not affiliated with the federal government regarding the efforts to change the results of the 2020 election.
Background
On September 23, 2001, the Select Committee issued a subpoena to Mark Meadows, former White House Chief of Staff under former president Donald Trump. Meadows agreed to appear before the Committee to provide testimony on December 8, 2021. Meadows, on December 7, 2021 informed the Committee that he had changed his mind and would not appear the following day as originally agreed.
Instead, Meadows filed suit against House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and members of the Select Committee. The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in Washington, asks the court to invalidate two subpoenas that the panel had issued to Meadows and Verizon, the carrier for his prior personal cell phone, calling them “overly broad and unduly burdensome.”
On December 14, 2021, the House voted 222-208 to hold the former White House Chief of Staff in criminal contempt of Congress for failing to cooperate with the Committee.
The most recent filing by the Select Committee asks that Meadows’ suits be dismissed
Committee Report rationale for contempt citation
In it’s report filed in the House (Report:117-216), the Committee explains it’s rationale for the charge:
“To be clear Mr. Meadow’s failure to comply, and this contempt recommendation, are not based on good-faith disagreements over privilege assertions. Rather, Mr. Meadows has failed to comply and warrants contempt findings because he has wholly refused to appear to provide any testimony and refused to answer questions regarding even clearly non-privileged information — information that he himself has identified as non-privileged through his own document production.
Mr. Meadow’s relevant documents and testimony are necessary to the Select Committee’s investigation for many additional reasons. Mr. Meadows also reportedly participated in meetings and communicated with senior Department of Justice (DOJ) officials about unsupported election-fraud claims and litigation aimed at disrupting or overturning the election results. Mr. Meadows reportedly participated in a contentious meeting at the White House with private individuals and others linked to Mr. Trump’s re-election campaign during which Mr. Trump and others discussed seizing voting machines and invoking certain laws including the National Emergencies Act for election-related purposes because of purported fraud in the election. Mr. Meadows reportedly joined a January 2 call with Mr. Trump and State and Federal officials to discuss overturning certain States’ electoral college results on January 6, and later sent the former Vice President’s staff a memo drafted by a Trump campaign lawyer urging the Vice President to delay or decline the counting of votes from certain States. Mr. Meadows was also reportedly in contact with at least one of the individuals who planned and organized a January 6 rally, one of whom may have expressed safety concerns to Mr. Meadows about the event. In short, Mr. Meadows appears to have participated in, and been a witness to, critically important communications and events that took place before and on January 6, and the Congress is entitled to hear his first-hand testimony regarding his actions and knowledge. The Select Committee expects such testimony to be directly relevant to its report and recommendations for legislative and other action.”
Why Do Republicans Hate Fair Elections and Fair Debates?
The Republican National Committee voted UNANIMOUSLY to withdraw from the primary organizer of general-election debates, called the Commission on Presidential Debates “biased” and unwilling to “serve the interest of the American people.”
The motion virtually guarantees potential nominee Donald Trump would avoid any forum which reminds voters just how dim he really is. Expect the GOP to propose debates that require hosts from Fox (Not)News, and then attack the Dems as cowards for refusing to participate in the charade.
About the Commission:
The Commission on Presidential Debates (CPD) was established in 1987 to ensure, for the benefit of the American electorate, that general election debates between or among the leading candidates for the offices of President and Vice President of the United States are a permanent part of the electoral process. CPD’s primary purpose is to sponsor and produce the quadrennial general election debates and to undertake research and educational activities relating to the debates. The organization, which is a nonprofit, nonpartisan, 501(c)(3) corporation, sponsored all of the presidential debates in 1988, 1992, 1996, 2000, 2004, 2008, 2012, 2016, and 2020.
To meet its ongoing goal of educating voters, the CPD is engaged in various activities beyond producing and sponsoring the presidential debates. Its staff prepares educational materials and conducts research to improve the quality of debates.
Further, the CPD provides technical assistance to emerging democracies and others interested in establishing debate traditions in their countries. In recent years, the staff worked with groups from Bosnia, Burundi, Colombia, Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana, Haiti, Jamaica, Lebanon, Niger, Nigeria, Peru, Romania, Trinidad and Tobago, Uganda, and the Ukraine, among others. Finally, the CPD coordinates post-debate symposia and research after many of its presidential forums.
Best Explanation Yet!
Judge Says Florida Legislature Racist
Chief United States District Judge, Mark E. Walker, quotes liberally from the speeches and writings of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King in his ruling declaring Florida’s new voting law unconstitutional:
“On August 28, 1963, Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his famous “I Have a Dream” speech on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. In its most memorable passage, he said, “I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.”
Many know and celebrate Dr. King’s speech — or at least its second half, given extemporaneously after Mahalia Jackson called on Dr. King to tell the crowd about his dream. But most do not know that, only three years later, Dr. King told NBC News “that dream that I had that day has in many points turned into a nightmare.” As he explained, Dr. King had “come to see that we have many more difficulties ahead and some of the old optimism was a little superficial and now it must be tempered with a solid realism. And I think the realistic fact is that we still have a long, long way to go…”
Likewise, while this Court lauds the idealism of Dr. King’s dream in 1963, this Court is not so naive to believe that the Florida Legislature would not pass an intentionally discriminatory law in 2021. We do not live in a colorblind society — not that this was ever Dr. King’s point.
The evidence bears that out. In Florida, White Floridians outpace Black Floridians in almost every socioeconomic metric. In Florida, since the end of the Civil War, politicians have attacked the political rights of Black citizens. [emphasis mine] In Florida, though we have come far, “the realistic fact is that we still have a long, long way to go.” For the past 20 years, the majority in the Florida Legislature has attacked the voting rights of its Black constituents. They have done so not as, in the words of Dr. King, “vicious racists, with [the] governor having his lips dripping with the words of interposition and nullification,” but as part of a cynical effort to suppress turnout among their opponents’ supporters. That, the law does not permit.”
Accordingly,
IT IS ORDERED:
- This Court declares that § 101.69(2), Florida Statutes (2021), as amended by SB 90, is unconstitutional.
- This Court declares that § 97.0575(3)(a), Florida Statutes (2021), as amended by SB 90, is unconstitutional.
- This Court declares that the prohibitions against “engaging in any activity with the intent to influence or effect of influencing a voter” under § 102.031(4)(a)-(b), Florida Statutes (2021), as amended by SB 90, is unconstitutional.
- In Case No. 4:21cv187, Plaintiffs are entitled to no relief under the Americans with Disabilities Act on Count III of their amended complaint, ECF No. 45.