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ChrisWeigant

(946 posts)
Fri Mar 25, 2022, 09:22 PM Mar 2022

Friday Talking Points -- The Circus Comes To Town

Lo, how far the moralistic mavens of the Republican Party have fallen! They keep attempting to take the moral high road so they can piously point out all the failings of their political opponents in this realm... but they keep being undermined by fellow Republicans who have embraced the new amoralism Donald Trump ushered in to the GOP.

During the week's big television event -- the Supreme Court confirmation hearings -- Republicans repeatedly clutched their pearls over supposedly light sentences for child pornography crimes which were handed down by Ketanji Brown Jackson during her tenure as a federal judge. Meanwhile, yet another prominent GOP Senate candidate was accused by his spouse of abuse (which also reportedly included physically abusing his children, leaving one son with a "swollen face, bleeding gums, and loose tooth" ). This brings the total up to (by our count) three Republican candidates for the United States Senate who have been accused of physically abusing their partners. One has withdrawn from the race, but the other two -- Herschel Walker in Georgia and newly-accused Eric Greitens of Missouri -- are still running. Greitens (in case you've forgotten) previously had to resign the governor's office when it was alleged he tried to blackmail the hairdresser he was having an affair with, using a nude video he shot of her while sexually assaulting her. Two of these three candidates have been endorsed by Trump. The moralists in the GOP have not denounced anyone concerned, of course.

But Trump proved this week that his endorsements are actually conditional -- mostly on the candidate actually being in a position to win. He's worried about his waning influence in the party, and chalking up a bunch of losses for his favored candidates certainly wouldn't help him in that regard. So he publicly yanked his endorsement of Mo Brooks for Senate, a guy so previously devoted to Trump and his Big Lie that he appeared at the January 6th rally with Trump and urged the crowd to: "start taking down names and kicking ass" while asking them: "Are you willing to do what it takes to fight for America?" In other words, not exactly a never-Trumper. But he had the temerity to publicly urge that the party might want to move on from the continuing obsession over the 2020 election Big Lie, and he also had the misfortune of not doing very well in the polls, so Trump announced he was "withdrawing my Endorsement [sic].... Election Fraud [sic] must be captured and stopped or we won't have a Country [sic] anymore." After being thrown under the Trump bus, Brooks shot back by accusing Trump of being so obsessed with his Big Lie that he had continued to urge -- even recently -- that Brooks somehow find a way to get Congress to hold its own coup and reinstate Trump. Here's how Brooks put it:

President Trump asked me to rescind the 2020 elections, immediately remove Joe Biden from the White House, immediately put President Trump back in the White House, and hold a new special election for the presidency. As a lawyer, I've repeatedly advised President Trump that January 6 was the final election contest verdict and neither the U.S. Constitution nor the U.S. Code permit what President Trump asks. Period.


What all this proves -- other than more confirmation that Donald Trump is downright delusional about how this country's laws and Constitution work -- is that Trump is perfectly willing to withdraw his endorsement of anyone. Which he has not done in any other Senate race, no matter what despicable crimes his chosen candidates have been accused of. So much for that moral high road, folks.

GOP moralists turned a blind eye to all of it, because they were busy training their fire on Jackson, during her Supreme Court confirmation hearings in the Senate. They insinuated that Jackson was some sort of apologist for child porn criminals, while conveniently ignoring the fact that they were essentially making it all up out of whole cloth. Yes, Jackson handed down lighter sentences than the guidelines allowed -- just like a whole bunch of Trump-appointed federal judges who were never questioned about the issue by any Republican on the committee during their confirmation hearings. A legal writer for the conservative National Review called Senator Hawley's initial faux outrage an "allegation [that] appears meritless to the point of demagoguery." That's what the conservative press was saying, mind you. Senator Mitt Romney responded to the attacks by channelling his inner Gertrude Stein: "It struck me that... the attacks were off course... there is no 'there' there."

It was all part of the nomination process circus, of course. Republicans knew going in that they didn't have any chance of derailing Jackson's confirmation, so instead they concentrated on getting their faces on television in the worst way they could think up. Here's how one Washington Post article summed it up:

The pedophilia smear put the lie to Republicans' assurances that they would conduct the hearings with dignity.

"We won't try to turn this into a spectacle," proposed Sen. Charles E. Grassley (Iowa), the committee's ranking Republican.

"It won't be a circus," promised Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (S.C.).

Even Sen. Ted Cruz (Tex.), a regular ringmaster, said "this will not be a political circus."

Then the clown car rolled in. Republicans used their opening statements to portray Jackson, the first Black woman nominated to the high court, as not just a pedophile enabler but also a terrorist sympathizer with a "hidden agenda" to indoctrinate Americans with the "racist vitriol" of critical race theory.


Because clowns gotta clown, y'know?

Child porn wasn't the only subject Jackson was attacked over, of course. There was Lindsey Graham who -- in the midst of a complaint about Democrats making a judge's personal religiosity an issue, mind you -- had the gall to ask Jackson: "on a scale of one to ten, how faithful would you say you are?... Do you attend church regularly?" Jackson had just reminded Graham that "there's no religious test [for holding government office] in the Constitution under Article 6," to no avail.

The entire week of hearings boiled down to nothing short of a Republican "airing of the grievances," as they raked up every past imagined slight over their own nominees from roughly the past three decades. Which Jackson had nothing to do with, of course, but hey, they had to complain about something. That's when they weren't going after Jackson with heavily-tinged racial insinuations, of course, since she is the first Black woman who will sit on the highest court in the land.

Only two pieces of real news emerged from the circus this week. One was that Jackson does indeed intend to recuse herself from an affirmative action case that involves Harvard University, where Jackson currently sits on a board.

The second is that maybe it's not just Roe v. Wade Republicans are itching to overturn. Maybe they're also going to take a run at revoking the legality of contraception (enshrined in the Supreme Court Case Griswold v. Connecticut) or even interracial marriage (Loving v. Virginia). No, seriously. You just can't make this stuff up.

Senator Mike Braun of Indiana, in a video interview this week, was asked if his stance on Roe -- which is essentially that the issue never should have been "federalized" and left instead for the individual states to decide -- also meant that he would support returning the question of interracial marriage back to the states. The reporter plainly asked -- twice -- about the issue, clearly using the term "interracial marriage" both times he asked. Here's how Braun answered the first question ("That same basis to something like Loving versus Virginia, the Supreme Court case that legalized interracial marriage -- should that be left up to the states?" ):

When it comes to issues, you can't have it both ways. When you want that diversity to shine within our federal system, there are going to be rules and proceedings that are going to be out of sync with maybe what other states would do. That's the beauty of the system and that's where the differences among points of view in our 50 states ought to express themselves.


The reporter, clearly stunned, asked the same question again in a slightly different way: "So you would be OK with the Supreme Court leaving the question of interracial marriage to the states?" Braun responded:

Yes. I think that's something -- if you're not wanting the Supreme Court to weigh in on issues like that, you're not going to be able to have your cake and eat it too. I think that's hypocritical.


Senator Braun later (rather unbelievably) tried to walk back his answers, stating he "misunderstood a line of questioning that ended up being about interracial marriage," but it's painfully obvious from watching the video that there was no misunderstanding -- the question was clear as the finest crystal. He just got caught admitting the truth, that's all.

Judge Jackson, when asked whether the Supreme Court's ruling on gay marriage created "a conflict between what people may believe as a matter of their religious faith and what the federal government says is the law of the land" had the perfect answer to those who wish to return America to a country where "states' rights" trumped individual civil liberties in so many ways: "That is the nature of a right. When there is a right, it means there are limitations on regulation, even if people are regulating pursuant to their sincerely held religious belief."

But for the most part (and as usual) the entire hearing circus was nothing short of Kabuki theater, and Ketanji Brown Jackson will be confirmed to the high court next week. Where she will, without doubt, add another voice of reason to a court sorely in need of it, after seeing what Republicans long for a return to.

Out in the real world, the Russian invasion of Ukraine entered its second month, and President Joe Biden continues to show how effective an American president can be when he shows real leadership to our European allies and the rest of the world. A big goal of Vladimir Putin all along was to weaken (if not destroy) the NATO alliance, a project he was happy to leave to Donald Trump but had to undertake himself with Biden in the White House. And Biden is right when he states that NATO is stronger and more united than ever as a direct result.

There wasn't much domestic political news this week (outside of the Senate hearings, that is). On the Democratic side, the possibility of dethroning Iowa as the "first in the nation to vote" state moved one step closer to happening. But there's no guarantee this will actually happen (we wrote about the issue yesterday, for those interested).

Over on the Republican side of the aisle there was the usual chaos, delusional behavior, and the downright reprehensible.

Chaos: Ginni Thomas, wife of a Supreme Court justice, was revealed to be in close communication with Trump chief of staff Mark Meadows throughout the whole post-election period, as she urged him to do anything under the sun to reinstall Trump as president. This came as no surprise to anyone who has ever heard of her, we should mention.

Delusional: Donald Trump filed a lawsuit against none other than Hillary Clinton (and 47 others, just for good measure) because he is still miffed about the 2016 election. The only question this delusional lawsuit raises is: "How long will it be before it is laughed out of court?"

And finally, downright reprehensible: what is it with Michigan? A state senator (Republican, of course) was sentenced to a year in probation for groping a nurse practitioner while being treated for COVID. He blamed the disease, but as the nurse's attorney put it: "COVID does not make you grab women. That is not a side effect of COVID." The state senate majority leader is taking a pass on disciplining the guy in any way, of course. A few months back, over in the Michigan house, the speaker (you guessed it -- another Republican!) was accused of sexually assaulting his sister-in-law for years "while she was an underage teen." Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the Republican Party that Trump built. You'd think that with all that hyperventilating over child porn sentences a few of them would care about such things, but sadly you'd be wrong.

Also downright reprehensible: one of the people who participated in the January 6th attempted insurrection fled to Europe rather than be arrested, lived for months in Ukraine, but has now claimed asylum in Belarus. Here's what he had to say after being formally granted asylum from one of the two countries attacking Ukrainian civilians: "Today I have mixed feelings. I am glad Belarus took care of me. I am upset to find myself in a situation where I have problems in my own country."

To date, we haven't heard a single Republican condemn him for doing so. Which, these days, isn't exactly what we'd call surprising.





To begin, we must mark the passing of another pioneer for the cause of women in high government office. Madeline Albright died this week, after leading what can only be called an extraordinary life. Here's how the New York Times opened its obituary:

Madeleine K. Albright, a child of Czech refugees who fled from Nazi invaders and Communist oppressors and then landed in the United States, where she flourished as a diplomat and the first woman to serve as secretary of state, died on Wednesday in Washington. She was 84.

The cause was cancer, her daughter Anne said.

Enveloped by a veil of family secrets hidden from her for most of her life, Ms. Albright rose to power and fame as a brilliant analyst of world affairs and a White House counselor on national security. Under President Bill Clinton, she became the country's representative to the United Nations (1993-97) and secretary of state (1997-2001), making her the highest-ranking woman in the history of American government at the time.


The Times also reprinted her final opinion piece for them, written just before Russia actually invaded Ukraine. Some parts of it were not so much "prophetic" as just the product of a very sharp mind in world diplomacy and politics:

Should [Russian President Vladimir Putin] invade, it will be a historic error.

. . .

Mr. Putin has for years sought to burnish his country's international reputation, expand Russia's military and economic might, weaken NATO and divide Europe (while driving a wedge between it and the United States). Ukraine features in all of that.

Instead of paving Russia's path to greatness, invading Ukraine would ensure Mr. Putin's infamy by leaving his country diplomatically isolated, economically crippled and strategically vulnerable in the face of a stronger, more united Western alliance.


Requiescat In Pace, Secretary Albright.

Of course, an obvious choice for any award with the word "impressive" in it would be Ketanji Brown Jackson, who showed an almost superhuman amount of patience and levelheadedness when faced with the howling idiocy that is today's Republican Party, but judges are supposed to be considered apolitical, so we decided she doesn't qualify on the grounds she's not officially a Democrat.

We should at least give an Honorable Mention to Senator Cory Booker -- the only Black senator on the Judiciary Committee -- for using his question time to point out to the hearing and to the entire country what an astoudingly historic moment this was for all Americans, especially Black women. He got rather emotional at times, but then that's to be expected when you consider all the history that went before this particular moment in time.

But the Most Impressive Democrat Of The Week this week goes to a man merely running for a political job. A Democratic candidate for a House seat announced this week that he was suspending his campaign for an extraordinary reason:

For the past eight months, U.S. Air Force veteran Mark Lindquist has been focused on his campaign for Congress in Minnesota's largest district. But in recent days, the Democrat has been captivated by another potential calling: "Am I willing to die for Ukraine's freedom?"

The answer, Lindquist said, has been a resounding yes -- prompting him to put his political aspirations on hold to heed Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky's call to action.

Now the former Air Force staff sergeant, who served as an intelligence analyst, says he will join the newly formed international legion to fight Russian forces in Ukraine.

"That's the moment when it hit me," Lindquist told The Washington Post, referring to Zelensky's plea for help made just days after Russia invaded Ukraine. "I'm not married. I have no kids. I'm an able-bodied, 40-year-old military member with no strings attached. How can I not go? Because I know I can help either on the humanitarian side or bringing the training of the American military to this fight."


That is impressive indeed. The willingness to lay down your life for your fellow countrymen is impressive on its own -- which Lindquist already did, serving six years in the Air Force -- but the willingness to do so for a foreign country fighting a brutal invasion is just amazing. He explained his reasoning further:

The next several days were filled with conversations with friends and family. While most understood his intentions, he said not all of them agreed. Some pointed out he could have a greater impact representing his state's 7th District, which stretches across much of western Minnesota, in the U.S. House.

. . .

Yet seeing the world "on the brink of World War III" shifted Lindquist's priorities, he said.

"It's not that I don't think that politics here are important," he said. "It's that worrying about it right now feels like raking the leaves before a tornado strikes. I know the U.S. will still be here after 2022, but can we say the same about Ukraine?"


We must admit we haven't checked the rules, but we would strongly urge Lindquist to stay on the ballot, even if he is still away fighting on Election Day. Absentee candidates almost never win elections as a general rule, but being absent for such an extraordinary reason might just be looked on favorably by voters in a conservative district, who knows?

Either way, no matter what the rules allow, we have to acknowledge his resolve by awarding him the Most Impressive Democrat Of The Week. Stay safe, Staff Sergeant Lindquist.

[Unfortunately, Mark Lindquist is both a private citizen and a candidate for office, and we do not provide contact information for non-politicians or links to campaign websites, so you'll have to search his information on your own if you'd like to let him know you appreciate his efforts.]





We have no idea if there is some deeper story here, because in all of the news reports we saw this was merely a minor footnote to the main story. But until we hear any mitigating details, we're going to give this week's Most Disappointing Democrat Of The Week award to Representative Anna Eshoo.

The big story was that for the first time in 20 years, a sitting member of the House of Representatives was found guilty this week of multiple felonies. The member in question is a Republican. Here's the basic story:

A federal jury on Thursday found Rep. Jeff Fortenberry (R-Neb.) guilty of three felonies for lying to and misleading the FBI about his knowledge of campaign donations made with funds from a foreign national.

The jury returned the verdicts after less than three hours of deliberations after a weeklong trial in Los Angeles, The Associated Press reported. Fortenberry faces a possible prison sentence of up to five years on each count, as well as fines.


For once, not only Nancy Pelosi but also Kevin McCarthy urged Fortenberry to immediately resign his seat, now that he is a convicted felon. He doesn't have to, though. HuffPost had an interesting point about the rules:

Felons are eligible to run for and serve in Congress, but the vast majority choose to resign under threat of expulsion. Congressional rules also bar members from voting on legislation after a felony conviction unless their constituents reelect them.


So he could hang tough and keep cashing his paychecks, up to the point where the House votes to expel him. He can also continue running for re-election, even if he does so from a jail cell (most people are unaware of it, but being convicted of a crime does not bar you from running for federal office -- several presidential campaigns have actually been run from a jail cell, in fact). But no matter what Fortenberry ultimately chooses to do, there was one jaw-dropping detail from the reporting:

A Democratic colleague of Fortenberry's, Rep. Anna Eshoo of California, testified on his behalf on Wednesday, telling jurors she considered him "honest" and "honorable."


Um... wait, what? Seriously?

As we said, we don't have any other information about why Eshoo felt it was the right thing to do to stick up for a guy that the jury only took three hours to find guilty on all counts. It is downright mystifying.

But until we hear any differently, we have to say that Anna Eshoo easily qualifies for this week's Most Disappointing Democrat Of The Week. It's one thing to issue some tepid statement of support in the press, but it's an entirely different kettle of fish to actually testify as a character witness in a federal felony trial. What was she thinking?

[Contact Representative Anna Eshoo on her House contact page, to let her know what you think of her actions.]




Volume 656 (3/25/22)

Well, after watching all the Senate hearings this week (our motto, as always: "We watch so you don't have to!" ), we find our thoughts are a bit disjointed, which has led to the talking points having no real fixed focus this week. But hey, it's been that kind of week, really.



Can you afford not to?

For once, Republicans might just use the grammatically-proper form of the opposition party. Which leaves an opening (which is why they usually drop the "-ic" from the end, incidentally).

"It seems that House Republicans are all excited about a new campaign slogan for the midterm election season. They are road-testing the following question, which they intend to use in lots of ads this fall: 'Can you afford a Democratic government?' They use the capital-D version, referring to the Democratic Party. Their point is that all the ideas that Democrats have actually cost money, and they're going to try to get the voters to shy away from any spending which might improve people's lives. But there's an even deeper question to ask in response, and even though I am a capital-D Democrat, this question uses the lowercase-D: 'How can we afford not to have a democratic government?' Because Republicans are doing everything they can to tear down the right of every American to easily and painlessly cast their ballots. The Republican Party looks on approvingly at a insurrectionist mob attacking the United States Capitol, calling them 'tourists' who are engaging in 'legitimate political discourse.' No matter what Democrats do while they are in power, Democrats would never launch such blatant attacks on democracy itself or stand by and cheer while others do so. So I say to the House Republicans: we can't afford not to have a democratic government, which is why we're fighting against all your attempts to change it into something else."



Get what things done?

There's another theme Republicans are contemplating as well that needs to be laughed off the stage.

"Republicans are going to make the downright laughable attempt at getting the American voters to believe that they are the ones who will 'get stuff done.' But this is nothing short of a joke. The last time they were in power, the only thing they accomplished was to pass the biggest and least-popular tax cut in American history -- without paying for it, of course. And now they've got all sorts of dangerous ideas they want to accomplish. Just look at the states where Republicans are in control, if you want to see what a Republican Congress will try to 'accomplish.' They'll try to make voting as hard as possible for the poorest Americans, in the hopes of driving down their voting rates. They want to have 'elections police' to intimidate any voters who do clear all the hurdles to casting their ballot. They'll launch a nationwide war on transgendered youth, because they think this will work out better than their old standard of demonizing gay people. They will attempt to outlaw all abortion -- which means rape victims and incest victims will be forced to give birth to children that result from these crimes. They want to ban the teaching of the entire history of slavery and racism, because it might make some White child feel bad. Make no mistake about it -- they have shown us all who they are and what they stand for. Don't be fooled by gauzy promises about 'freedom' or whatever else they use -- this is what Republicans want to get done. It is who they are."



Not the fringe but the base

Kudos to the brilliant minds at Meidas Touch for pointing this one out, in a scathing new ad.

"When people tell you who they are, you should believe them. Marjorie Taylor Greene is a shameless example of Republicanism today, and she is unafraid to point it out. As she put it: 'We're not the fringe. We are the base of the party.' The days of pretending that the ugliness that Donald Trump unleashed in the Republican Party is some sort of small faction that has no real power are long over, folks. In fact, it is the Republicans who actually are fighting against the insanity, the conspiracy theories, the glorification of violence, the love for Vladimir Putin, and the embrace of outright authoritarianism over democracy within their own party that are now the real fringe, because the never-Trump faction is so tiny. The lunatics are indeed in charge of the asylum, and they have been for a while now. As Greene not only admits but brags about. Voters should take her at her word, because she is right. When you vote for Republicans, this is what you are voting for. They are not the fringe -- they are the Republican Party, period. No matter how much they might try to hide it during an election."



Brownshirts in Colorado

Think that's too much? Well, you decide:

"A lawsuit has been filed in Colorado by the N.A.A.C.P. and others accusing a rightwing group of intimidating voters in the most horrific ways imaginable. The group travels to neighborhoods with a high number of people of color in them and bangs on people's doors. They carry weapons and display some sort of fake badges, in an effort to give the impression that they are some sort of law enforcement agency. They confront voters and accuse them of casting fraudulent ballots. Then they take photos of the person's house. This is a textbook example of voter intimidation, and the only real question is why private groups had to sue them rather than the Colorado legal system bringing criminal charges against them. This is where Trumpism and the Big Lie have led us, folks. Armed fake law enforcement intimidating voters for no reason other than they are likely to vote for the other political party. There's a word for this sort of thing and it is 'fascism.' It's hard to call it anything else, really."



Maybe look in the mirror?

Still searching for that unicorn? Maybe it's been here all along?

"Some states are so obsessed with proving there is some sort of grand conspiracy to commit massive voter fraud on such a gargantuan scale that it could flip state elections that they are creating law enforcement units just to sniff all this fraud out. The only problem is they're looking for something which barely exists and when individual cases appear, they often seem to involve Republican voters. Case in point is Donald Trump's White House chief of staff and his wife. Mark Meadows and his wife voted in North Carolina in 2020, despite not having a home there or living there. This is voter fraud, plain and simple, and others have actually gone to jail for years for committing this crime. Both apparently signed voter forms that clearly warned that falsely attesting they lived in the state was a Class I felony. So maybe those looking for rampant voter fraud should maybe look at this blatant incidence of voter fraud? I'm sure if found guilty, all those Republicans from Trump on down will want the Meadowses to get the stiffest possible prison term for their crimes, right?"



Judicial activism is what conservatives now want

There was one excellent commentary to this week's Supreme Court confirmation hearings that made this point -- and it is a good one.

"Conservatives used to decry what they called 'judicial activism,' which they defined as 'legislating from the bench.' To their minds, judges shouldn't make new laws with their decisions, they should instead be guided by both the laws as written and previous case law in how they rule. But these days, conservatives want as much judicial activism as they can get, whether this means throwing out or rewriting voting rights laws passed by Congress or overturning decades-old decisions that conservatives didn't like or just giving the Republican Party every partisan edge imaginable. This all used to be what they had denounced as 'judicial activism,' but now that they've got a big majority on the Supreme Court they are all but drooling for the court to be as activist as possible. How times have changed...."



Rolling in his grave

This one is short and sweet, because it's a pretty easy concept to grasp and it uses the worst insult that you used to be able to lob at an upstanding Republican.

"I certainly never thought I'd see the day when rightwing media personalities and sitting Republican politicians parrot Russian propaganda or even create their own words of praise for Putin and the Kremlin. Then the Kremlin does them the favor of using these Republicans' words internally in Russia to add flavor to the propaganda they feed their own citizens. Talk about 'fellow travellers' and 'useful idiots!' I can't help think of what Ronald Reagan would say if he had lived to see such disgraceful actions from members of his own party. My guess is he'd say exactly what almost all Americans think when they hear Republicans offer excuses for Putin: 'For shame!' Unless Reagan chose to use even stronger language to denounce such idiocy, that is."




Chris Weigant blogs at: ChrisWeigant.com
Follow Chris on Twitter: ChrisWeigant
Full archives of FTP columns: FridayTalkingPoints.com
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Friday Talking Points -- The Circus Comes To Town (Original Post) ChrisWeigant Mar 2022 OP
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