U.S. And International Politics

[Rick Plant]

‘Rot wasn’t just Donald Trump’: Neal Katyal says Jan 6. Committee has proof implicating GOP leaders



Culpability for former President Donald Trump's coup attempt extends far across the GOP, former acting Solicitor General Neal Katyal explained on MSNBC on Friday.

"We're starting to see more incriminating evidence leak out, we're seeing just how deep the plan to steal the election of 2020 was. Newly revealed text messages obtained by CNN show Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) and Congressman Chip Roy (R-TX) going right to Mark Meadows in full support of the claims of fraud being pushed by Trump and the MAGA team," MSNBC anchor Jason Johnson reported.

For analysis, Johnson interviewed Katyal and Watergate prosecutor Jill Wine-Banks.

"We know that it's bad and exposes what the Republicans were trying to do, but what can DOJ do with the text messages with the case that they're currently pursuing?" Johnson asked.

"I think they can do a lot," Katyal replied. "And even before we get to DOJ, I think it paints a bigger picture about what the January 6th investigation is all about. And I think a lot of us have been wondering, 'Why is it that the Republican Party hasn't cared more about what happened on January 6th?' Right after it happened, Mitch McConnell and others condemned it and the like. And I think these texts today, Jason, start to point to an answer, which is that the rot wasn't just Donald Trump. It goes to many leaders in the party."

The extent of the rot was discussed by the panel.

Wine-Banks argued viewers should give a break to GOP senators who voted to accept the Electoral College results. Only six GOP senators voted to overturn the election after the Jan. 6 insurrection.

Katyal disagreed, he argued that the culpability extended to every Republican who voted against convicting Trump in his second impeachment trial.

Watch:

[Rick Plant]

GOP fails to keep Democrat Abby Finkenauer from challenging Chuck Grassley for US Senate



The Iowa Supreme Court on Friday ruled that former Rep. Abby Finkenauer (D-IA) qualified to run for U.S. Senate in Iowa.

The court overruled a district court decision that would have kept Finkenauer off the ballot.

"The ruling ends a tense week for Finkenauer, a former U.S. representative who is vying for the Democratic nomination to take on Republican U.S. Sen. Chuck Grassley," the Des Moines Register reported. "A pair of Republicans brought the challenge against Finkenauer: Kim Schmett, a former chair of the Polk County Republicans, and Leanne Pellett, co-chair of the Cass County Republicans."

Grassley has served in public office since winning his campaign for the legislature in 1958 and has served in the Senate since 1981.

"Finkenauer is seen as the front-runner in the three-candidate Democratic primary for the U.S. Senate race. She is competing against Mike Franken, a retired Navy admiral, and Glenn Hurst, a doctor and Minden city council member. Finkenauer has led in fundraising and secured a range of endorsements," the newspaper reported."

Finkenauer celebrated the court ruling on social media:

The GOP’s attempts to undermine ballot access and our election process were pathetic and desperate.

Today they lost.

With a unanimous decision by the Iowa Supreme Court, we're still in this fight and we WILL beat Chuck Grassley in November.

It's a good day for our democracy.

https://twitter.com/Abby4Iowa/status/1515022369231982599

[Rick Plant]

Greg Abbott's truck inspections an utter failure as state admits no traffickers were found



On Friday, at a joint meeting in Weslaco with Tamaulipas Gov. Francisco Javier García Cabeza de Vaca, Texas Department of Public Safety Director Steve McCraw made an admission: The controversial enhanced truck inspections by Republican Gov. Greg Abbott have yielded no actual cases of human trafficking or drug trafficking, the supposed basis for the inspections in the first place.

Abbott, however, was quick to claim that it was "no surprise" that this had happened — because the drug cartels knew the inspections were coming and stopped using commercial vehicles ahead of the policy going forward.

This comes as Abbott has come under heavy criticism for the inspections, which have snared traffic along the roads of entry into the United States and resulted in a protest blockade of Mexican truck drivers.

Experts have warned the backups could cause shortages of produce and worsen inflation throughout the country; gubernatorial candidate Beto O'Rourke has slammed Abbott as an "economic arsonist," and even GOP state Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller slammed the policy as bad for business.

AFP

[Rick Plant]

Marjorie Taylor Greene and Matt Gaetz funnel thousands of dollars to Trump’s ‘coup memo’ lawyer



Attorney John Eastman, who was still trying to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election as recently as last month, has received thousands of dollars from a joint fundraising committee set up by MAGA Reps. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) and Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA).

Politico reports that Gaetz and Greene's committee Put America First forked over at least $25,000 to Eastman's law firm, the Constitutional Counsel Group.

"It's unclear what Eastman's firm is doing for the lawmakers," notes Politico. "The committee reported at least three separate payments to the firm — one that amounted to $10,000 on Sept. 13, 2021, a $5,277.08 payment on Dec. 15, 2021, and another $10,000 payment on Jan. 14 of this year."

Eastman is currently under investigation by the California Bar Association for his efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election and he faces the risk of disbarment.

Eastman was the author of the infamous "coup memo" that urged former Vice President Mike Pence to reject the certified 2020 election results from multiple swing states so that the election could be decided by Republican-controlled state legislatures.

https://www.politico.com/minutes/congress/04-15-2022/payments-to-eastmans-firm/


Matt Gaetz and Marjorie Taylor Greene pay $25k to firm linked to lawyer behind Trump ‘coup memo’
Marjorie Taylor Greene and Matt Gaetz paid a combined more than $25,000 in the last two years to a legal group tied to the lawyer

Right-wing firebrand Representatives Marjorie Taylor Greene and Matt Gaetz paid a combined more than $25,000 in the last two years to a legal group tied to the lawyer who devised a plot for then-Vice President Mike Pence to overturn the election results.

The money was paid via Put America First, a fundraising organisation operated by Ms Greene and Mr Gaetz.

Ms Greene, a freshman congresswoman from Georgia, raised $1.07m in the first three months of 2022 as she heads into reelection, according to her campaign’s filing to the Federal Election Commission.

The report showed that her campaign also paid $10,000 on 14 January of this year to the Constitutional Counsel Group, which is affiliated with John C Eastman, the lawyer who concocted a plan for Mr Pence to essentially steal the presidential election results. The New York Times’s Shane Goldmacher first reported the expenditure.

Mr Eastman, who worked with former president Donald Trump to challenge the 2020 presidential election results, spoke at the “Stop the Steal” Rally before the January 6 riot at the Capitol.

More notably, he infamously drew up the “Eastman Memo”, which featured a plot in which Mr Pence would have interrupted the certification of Arizona’s Electoral College votes by saying Arizona had sent “multiple slates of electors”. Mr Pence would then have to set aside election results from other states the Trump campaign disputed, which reduce the number of Electoral College votes from 538 to 454. At that point, Mr Pence would have certified Mr Trump as the winner of the 2020 election.

But Mr Pence rejected the plan, despite Mr Trump imploring Mr Pence to “to do the right thing”. Mr Pence has since said he did not have the right to overturn the 2020 election.

“President Trump is wrong,” he said. “I had no right to overturn the election.”

The Independent has reached out to Mr Eastman and Ms Greene’s campaign for comment.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/gaetz-greene-coup-memo-trump-b2059015.html

[Rick Plant]

GOP's Mike Lee and Chip Roy election texts exposed 'half-baked' attempt to save Trump



According to the Washington Post's Aaron Blake, CNN's release of a trove of texts from Sen Mike Lee (R-UT) and Rep. Chip Roy (R-TX) to former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows exposed how shoddy and ill-planned the attempt to steal the 2020 election was as the lawmakers fumbled around to find evidence to fit their pre-conceived conclusions.

CNN reported the two lawmakers were frantically communicating with each other and Meadows leading up to the Jan. 6 election certification vote that was disrupted by supporters of Donald Trump who had exhorted them to descend on Washington D.C. that day for a "Stop the Steal" rally.

What the texts revealed was two lawmakers who went from believing the White House could help them make the case that the election was stolen, to begging for help, to dismay at what they were presented to resigning and dismay that there was no case to made to fit their plans.

According to Blake, the texts and desperation they revealed had a sadly comical quality to them, including the ultimately misguided belief that attorney Sidney Powell would come through with irrefutable evidence of fraud.

"The texts reinforce the Keystone Kops nature of the effort, and they also shed light on internal GOP misgivings about the electoral fraud evidence that was being presented — reservations that few Republicans actually shared publicly," he wrote. "As Election Day gave way to late November, then December and early January, it was clear Powell’s 'Kraken' was indeed mythological. And the texts reinforce that the two GOP lawmakers understood that, as they pleaded for something — anything — to work with as they publicly sought to legitimate Trump’s claims."

Blake added, "One of the effort’s defining features was how half-baked it was. And Lee’s texts reinforce that. In addition to complaining about the evidence presented (or the lack thereof), he repeatedly argued that the Trump campaign needed states to submit alternative slates of electors for any of it to work: Congress needed competing slates from which to choose."

As the analyst notes, even that plan was doomed from the start because former vice president Mike Pence was not agreeable to overturning the election results or derailing the vote certification.

In the end, Roy admitted they had been chasing their tails, texting, "The President should call everyone off. It’s the only path. If we substitute the will of states through electors with a vote by Congress every 4 years... we have destroyed the electoral college... Respectfully," before advising Trump, "Give a statesman speech. End strong.”

You can read more here:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/04/15/lee-roy-meadows-texts/

[Rick Plant]

Ron DeSantis' radical agenda is 'the death rattle of white supremacy': MSNBC panel



In a discussion about the Florida "Don't Say Gay" bill, panelists couldn't help but observe the radicalized agenda for America that Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) has for achieving his own far-right vision.

Host Julian Castro explained that the changing America is moving forward whether the far-right wants to or not.

"As our country makes strides accepting people of all backgrounds, Republicans want to go slam the brakes on that progress," he said. "Last week DeSantis approved a 15-week ban on abortions and no exceptions for rape or incest. There's the so-called 'don't say gay' law, limiting how teachers and students can express themselves in school."

He went on to say that Republicans are going up against Disney after the company reaffirmed its support of LGBTQ+ people.

Daily Beast columnist Wajahat Ali called out DeSantis from the start, saying that his bigotry is just more of the extremist behavior the GOP is known for.

"Yeah, what we are witnessing right now is the death rattle of white supremacy that has become a death march," Ali said. "If you want to see the blueprint for how the GOP wants to achieve the minority rule — and as a minority rule for white Christian men exclusively — then you have to look at Florida. Specifically, they don't care about democracy. They don't care about rule of law. They don't care about rights. They just care about winning and owning the libs. They want to violently hijack this country and take the DeLorean back to 1953."

He listed off some of the things in the Republican agenda like attacking women's rights and refusing to allow women the ability to get an abortion even if she's raped, molested or endured human trafficking. He noted the schools and private companies who are being punished for embracing diversity and equality. Republicans are passing voter suppression laws. The GOP is also banning books that talk about civil rights and equality while intimidating school boards, teachers and anyone "who is not in lockstep with this radicalized vision of America."

"This is the blueprint for the GOP moving forward and DeSantis has raised over $100 million. So, it's successful and we should not discount this."

Former Rep. David Jolly (R-FL) warned that this kind of politics will continue as long as the public continues to reward it. Once the public decides that they support women, equality and people of color and will vote against leaders who endorse these ideas, the GOP will evolve their campaigns or face extermination.

See the full panel below:

[Rick Plant]

The GOP's war on Disney is headed for failure



According to a report from Politico's Derek Anderson, the Republican party's full-on attack on the Disney Company for supporting the LGBTQ community is likely headed nowhere just as a previous battle with the NFL over Black Lives Matter was a major flop.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) has been leading the charge against the entertainment giant after they criticized Florida's so-called "Don't say gay" bill he signed, and that has led some conservatives to join his war to the point where they have gone off the rails with accusations of ped*philia.

As Anderson wrote, "The attempt by Republicans to demonize one of America’s most beloved and trusted corporations seems so quixotic on its face that it invites a simple question: not 'Why would they do this?' or even 'Why would they think it could be done?' but 'Why would it even seem advantageous to try?'"

The answer, he explained is that culture wars have generally been effective for the GOP over the years and the Republicans have never been shy about falling back on what worked before despite cultural changes.

"The story of fighting back against that gradual, seemingly inevitable leftward cultural creep is more or less the story of conservatism itself. The incentives and pressures that have led conservatives on this particular quest, however — one that’s not only almost certainly hopeless, but that has led them into sinister rhetorical territory in referring to opponents of the law as 'groomers,' or manipulative ped*philes — are quite modern, and reveal how much both our cultural and political landscape have shifted over just the past decade of American life, " he wrote, before adding that America has been down this road before.

"The approach recalls the anti-gay crusades of the 1970s," he explained. "But to argue that corporate America is engaged in a mass conspiracy to turn your kids gay decidedly does not."

He continued, "The GOP attacks on Disney are reminiscent above all else of their unsuccessful campaign against the NFL, with its support for the Black Lives Matter movement. Both are among the few remaining monocultural institutions in American life and present an irresistible opportunity to make a broader case about the national 'character.' Ideological conservatives are nowhere near the rooms in which decisions about those institutions’ publicly-professed politics are made, and therefore seek to steer the conversation from the outside. And in both cases, conservatives have conflated corporate messaging with support for extreme edge cases within each issue, like police abolition or medical youth gender transition, hoping that Americans will do the same."

He then warned that hard-right conservatives may win over the base with their attacks -- but at the risk of alienating the masses.

"If you’re an ambitious Republican like Ron DeSantis, it’s a potential opportunity to win the base’s fealty. In going on the offense against Disney, he and other Republicans like Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene are betting they can do that without alienating the vast middle," he wrote. "But in their choice of target, and the hateful and off-putting character of their attack to all but the most extremely online conservative activists, they’ve unwittingly revealed just how little leverage they really wield when it comes to America’s cultural mainstream."

You can read his whole piece here:

https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2022/04/17/why-the-gop-turned-on-disney-00025639