U.S. Politics

[Rick Plant]

Kentucky Congressman Hal Rogers apologizes for cursing at Democrat over masks

WASHINGTON —A senior Republican lawmaker from Kentucky apologized late Tuesday for using an expletive when Democratic Rep. Joyce Beatty asked him to put his mask on while in the Capitol.

The confrontation was just the latest dust-up in the House over mask-wearing, which many Republicans have refused to do.

Earlier Tuesday, Beatty, D-Ohio, ran into Rep. Hal Rogers, R-Ky., outside her congressional office. Rogers, who has served in Congress since 1981, was maskless when they entered an elevator.

Beatty asked him to put on his mask and Rogers begrudgingly agreed, she said in an interview with The Associated Press shortly after it happened. Rogers proceeded to take his mask off when they got off the elevator and the two crossed paths again upon entering a train in the Capitol complex. That is when the interaction became hostile.

Beatty once again asked Rogers to put his mask back on.

"He poked me in the middle of my back and said, 'Get on the train,'" she said. "And I said, 'Don't you ever touch me.'"

According to Beatty, Rogers replied, "Kiss my a—."

In a video obtained by The AP, Beatty can be heard asking Rogers for an apology on the train.

"I hate to think if it had been reversed and a man of color ... they would have ushered him off the floor," Beatty said.

In a statement shortly after the incident, Rogers said he met with Beatty and apologized.

"My words were not acceptable and I expressed my regret to her, first and foremost," the congressman said.

The apology came less than two hours after all 56 members of the Congressional Black Caucus, which Beatty chairs, stood on the steps of the House and demanded Rogers' apology.

"For a member of the U.S. House of Representatives tells another member to kiss his a—, I'm telling you today that is not the America that we will accept," Rep. Val Demings, D-Fla., told reporters on the steps.

Beatty said she alerted House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Md., about the incident and will file a complaint with House Committee on Ethics. Several Republican lawmakers have racked up thousands of dollars in fines for going maskless on the House floor.

https://www.wlky.com/article/kentucky-hal-rogers-cursing-democrat-over-masks/39017839

[Rick Plant]

Florida Senator Marco Rubio attempted to dishonestly distort Val Demings record on crime and she totally owned him in this tweet. Demings is challenging Rubio in the Florida Senate race.


 

[Rick Plant]

Hate and division is all the GOP promotes. They ban books at schools and implement bogus "critical race theory" laws in order to go after teachers who taught about slavery and civil rights for decades. Now DeSantis wants to go after gay people. Just more of the GOP fascism and oppression they want to install in America.

Florida GOP's 'Don't Say Gay' bill ignites national condemnation



Opponents of bigotry and censorship are raising their voices in protest after Florida's GOP-controlled Senate Education Committee on Tuesday advanced legislation that would effectively prohibit teachers from discussing sexual orientation and gender identity in primary grades or at any level "in a manner that is not age-appropriate."

"It is always appropriate for kids to talk about themselves, their experiences, and their family. These are not taboo subjects, but banning them makes them seem so."

Dubbed the "Don't Say Gay" bill by critics, S.B. 1834 and its companion, H.B.1557, would also require all school districts' trainings on "student support services" to adhere to the guidelines, standards, and frameworks established by the Florida Department of Education (DOE). But as the ACLU of Florida pointed out, the state DOE "currently excludes anti-bullying resources intended to help prevent LGBTQ+ youth suicides."

Kara Gross, legislative director of the ACLU of Florida, said Tuesday in a statement that "this government censorship bill seeks to ban classroom discussions related to sexual orientation and gender identity in schools. If passed, it would effectively silence students from speaking about their LGBTQ+ family members, friends, neighbors, and icons."

In addition, said Gross, "it would bar LGBTQ+ students from talking about their own lives and would deny their very existence. It is always appropriate for kids to talk about themselves, their experiences, and their family. These are not taboo subjects, but banning them makes them seem so."

After Florida's Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis voiced support for the legislation earlier this week, President Joe Biden tweeted: "I want every member of the LGBTQI+ community—especially the kids who will be impacted by this hateful bill—to know that you are loved and accepted just as you are. I have your back, and my administration will continue to fight for the protections and safety you deserve."

Equality Florida, the state's largest organization dedicated to ending discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity, has launched a petition people can use to tell lawmakers to oppose legislation that the group says "is meant to stigmatize LGBTQ people, isolate LGBTQ kids, and make teachers fearful of providing a safe, inclusive classroom."

"If we don't speak up now, and act, Republicans will keep fighting to make laws like DeSantis' hateful 'Don't Say Gay' bill the norm," warned Patrick Gaspard, president of the Center for American Progress.

According to Gross, the "dangerously vague provisions" in S.B. 1834 and H.B. 1557 "would have a chilling effect on support for LGBTQ+ youth because it creates new costly liabilities for school districts. Under the bill, any parent who thinks that a classroom discussion was inappropriate or who is unsupportive of a district's policies would be given broad powers to sue for damages and attorneys' fees."

Jeffrey Sachs, a researcher at PEN America, recently noted that GOP lawmakers across the U.S. have introduced at least 137 bills that aim to limit the ability of teachers and students to discuss gender, racism, and other topics—including a growing number of proposals to establish so-called "tip lines" that would empower parents to discipline teachers.

In an opinion piece published Wednesday, Washington Post columnist Greg Sargent argued that this tidal wave of restrictive education bills has "an obvious purpose: to make teachers feel perpetually on thin ice, so they shy away from difficult discussions about our national past rather than risk breaking laws in ways they cannot themselves anticipate."

"But there's another, more pernicious goal driving these bills that might well succeed politically precisely because it remains largely unstated," Sargent continued. "The darker underlying premise here is that these bills are needed in the first place, because subversive elements lurk around every corner in schools, looking to pervert, indoctrinate, or psychologically torture your kids."

The "combination of... vagueness and punitive mechanisms such as rights of action and tip lines" is intentionally designed to promote self-censorship, wrote Sargent. "Precisely because teachers might fear that they can't anticipate how they might run afoul of the law—while also fearing punishment for such transgressions—they might skirt difficult subjects altogether."

He added:

Florida-based strategist Rick Wilson, who has broken with the GOP and knows from within how Republicans prosecute such culture wars, calls this a new "snitch culture" that's taking hold of his former party.

"They want teachers to be scared in the classroom," Wilson says. "We're going to see test cases... all over this country." As Wilson notes, the entire point is to put the base on high alert for "apostasy."

The roots of this run deep. As a great episode of the "Know Your Enemy" podcast details, calls for maximal parental choice and control in schools have been used by the right for decades as a smoke screen to sow fears and doubts about public education at its ideological foundations. The move from restricting race discourse to more "snitch" lines is perfectly in sync with that history.

Gross, meanwhile, said that the Florida bill "does nothing to help and support our youth." To the contrary, it "will have a real and devastating impact on LGBTQ+ youth, who already experience higher rates of bullying, homelessness, and suicide."

"Legislators," she added, "should oppose this bill and instead pass proposals that protect all students and truly address the challenges so many LGBTQ+ youth face in Florida schools."

https://www.rawstory.com/don-t-say-gay/

[Rick Plant]

The only way the GOP can win is by cheating and stealing elections which is why they keep trying to do it.

Ohio Republicans throw temper tantrum as attempts to cheat with gerrymandering shot down

It takes a real dirtbag sensibility to claim the Ohio Supreme Court demanding districts in line with the Ohio Constitution voters overwhelmingly amended that actually represent Ohioans’ political preferences and still give your party a majority is somehow the real gerrymandering.

Nevertheless, that’s what we’re seeing from many Ohio Republican Statehouse politicians confronted with the possibility they may have to finally actually compete in competitive elections.

The childish temper tantrum being thrown by Ohio politicians upset they’ve been stopped from cheating their way into reelection with rigged districts is sadly completely unsurprising.

This is what happens when people who never face accountability are actually held accountable.

Just because the Ohio Supreme Court won’t let them get away with cheating, the politicians who keep trying to cheat don’t get to complain now about election calendar disruptions when they could’ve just acted constitutionally from the beginning.

First, we need to go over the history. Ohio Republicans have controlled redistricting since the 1990’s, and since the 1990’s they’ve stacked the deck in their favor, more egregiously with each passing decade. In 2015, more than 71% of voters amended the Ohio Constitution to snuff out gerrymandering of state House and Senate districts, and nearly 75% did so again for U.S. Congressional districts in 2018.

Instead, this fall, Ohio Republicans gave voters more supermajority gerrymandering of the Ohio House, more supermajority gerrymandering of the Ohio Senate, and absurdly disproportionate continued gerrymandering of Ohio’s U.S. Congressional districts.

Maps were proposed to the commission that actually represent the 54-46 Republican to Democratic political split of Ohioans, as averaged over 16 partisan statewide elections, directly mirroring the 1.9 million to 1.6 million Republican to Democratic registered voter split of Ohioans.

GOP leaders instead awarded themselves more supermajorities, with a House breakdown of 62 seats to 37 Dems, and 23 to 10 in the Senate, according to their own figures. Dave’s Redistricting App projected a 65-seat GOP supermajority in the House. Meanwhile, Republicans in the state legislature passed a congressional map along party lines that awarded themselves a 11-2 GOP-to-Democratic map with two potential toss-ups.

The Ohio Supreme Court declared these efforts unconstitutional gerrymanders and ordered them to be redrawn.

The Ohio Redistricting Commission returned to work this winter and produced a second map, based on their original gerrymandered map, and once again it passed along partisan lines, this time with Republicans giving themselves a 57 GOP to 42 Dem split in the Ohio House, and a 20 GOP to 13 Dem breakdown in the Senate.

In the House, 12 of the “Democratic leaning” seats in the GOP plan were tossups, with a Dem favor of only 50-51%. All of the GOP-leaning seats favored Republicans by more than 52%.

On Monday, the Supreme Court struck down this second attempt as well.

“The (Ohio Redistricting Commission’s) choice to avoid a more proportional plan for no explicable reason points unavoidably toward an intent to favor the Republican Party,” the 4-3 majority wrote in its ruling.

This is when the childish hysterics began.

Even though the deciding vote came from Republican Chief Justice Maureen O’Connor, GOP politicians whined of a “liberal” court, not standing up against gerrymandering, but somehow trying to enforce Democratic gerrymandering.

That might be a line that sells to unthinking rubes, but anybody paying attention knows that at no point did either Democrats or anti-gerrymandering advocates offer a map that would give Democrats a majority in either chamber of the General Assembly or U.S. Congressional districts.

In fact, all maps offered by Democrats and independent groups preserved the GOP’s majority, and the court itself cited the same 54/46 partisan split of Ohioans statewide election results bear out.

The infantile GOP response to the court can be summed up thusly: How dare you hold us accountable for trying to cheat. By not letting us cheat, you’re gerrymandering yourselves!

Fair, competitive maps are not gerrymandering. Acting in bad faith to produce imbalanced maps that maximize every advantage possible for your party and maximize every disadvantage possible for the opposition party, that’s gerrymandering.

Gerrymandering pushes politicians to extremes, denies voters their voice, opens the door to corruption, radicalizes political discourse, kills compromise, and disintegrates democracy. Gerrymandering poisons everything.

Politicians who would gerrymander themselves to victory in rigged districts are not acting in good faith. They’re afraid of competing on a level playing field in a general election. Why? I don’t know.

Maybe they’re more comfortable appealing to their rabid base than they are to the broad general electorate that actually comprises all Ohioans and all of their constituents.

Maybe they’re more comfortable knowing they can get away with doing whatever they want without ever facing any accountability because their primary voters will just keep returning them to positions of public trust no matter what corruption goes down on their watch.

Whatever the case, it doesn’t really matter because Chief Justice O’Connor has stood up for the American Republic despite them. And of course, now she’s facing calls for her impeachment because of it.

Vying to replace her, as she is prevented by age from running for reelection, is Supreme Court Justice Sharon Kennedy who dissented in the rulings and would’ve allowed GOP politicians to cheat voters every four years ad infinitum.

Elections really do have consequences, and this whole spectacle in many ways is Ohio’s last stand for fair elections.

https://ohiocapitaljournal.com/2022/02/10/ohio-republicans-throw-temper-tantrum-as-attempts-to-cheat-with-gerrymandering-shot-down/

[Rick Plant]

Trump’s mishandling of classified material lands under investigation by House Oversight Committee



Donald Trump is facing yet another investigation into alleged misconduct as president of the United States.

On Thursday, the House Committee on Oversight and Reform announced it has launched an investigation into the boxes of Trump documents that the Archivist of the United States obtained at Mar-a-Lago, citing a Washington Post report.

"The National Archives and Records Administration has asked the Justice Department to examine Donald Trump’s handling of White House records, sparking discussions among federal law enforcement officials about whether they should investigate the former president for a possible crime, according to two people familiar with the matter. The referral from the National Archives came amid recent revelations that officials recovered 15 boxes of materials from the former president’s Mar-a-Lago residence in Florida that were not handed back in to the government as they should have been, and that Trump had turned over other White House records that had been torn up," the newspaper reported. "Archives officials suspected Trump had possibly violated laws concerning the handling of government documents — including those that might be considered classified — and reached out to the Justice Department, the people familiar with the matter said."

Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-NY), the committee's chairwoman, said she was "deeply concerned that these records were not provided to [National Archives and Records Administration] promptly at the end of the Trump Administration and that they appear to have been removed from the White House in violation of the Presidential Records Act (PRA)."

“I am also concerned by recent reports that while in office, President Trump repeatedly attempted to destroy presidential records, which could constitute additional serious violations of the PRA," she added.

Legal experts have blasted Trump for taking the documents.

“Former President Trump and his senior advisors must also be held accountable for any violations of the law,” Maloney said. “Republicans in Congress obsessively investigated former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton for her use of a private email server for official communications. Former President Trump’s conduct, in contrast, involves a former president potentially violating a criminal law by intentionally removing records, including communications with a foreign leader, from the White House and reportedly attempting to destroy records by tearing them up.”



https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/02/09/trump-archives-justice-department/

[Rick Plant]

Another phony right wing Republican trying to look "tough" in a commercial. And as usual, they have to depict violence against Democrats. GOP hatred and their violence is despicable.

Arizona GOP candidate's Super Bowl ad features him firing a gun at likenesses of Biden and Pelosi
https://www.rawstory.com/jim-lamon-arizona/

[Rick Plant]

GOP fascists hate America and their dream is to overthrow the government by force and turn it into an authoritarian dictatorship. They already tried on 1/6 and now they have their right wing funded "convoy" in Canada attempting to shut down the Canadian and American economies. Now GOP fascist Thomas Massie is openly endorsing an overthrow the government by force from a minority of their seditious traitors. These GOP fascists want far right wing extreme Americans to own nuclear and biological weapons to unleash on Americans they don't like. These fascists are mentally ill.   

Thomas Massie says Americans must own enough weapons to overthrow the government if 30-40% agree on ‘tyranny’



A U.S. Congressman is calling on Americans to own "sufficient" weaponry to overthrow the government, suggesting they should do so "if 30 to 40 percent agree" the nation is living under "tyranny."

"If 30 to 40 percent could agree that this was legitimate tyranny and it needed to be thrown off they need to have sufficient power without asking for extra permission – it should be right there and completely available to them in their living room in order to effect the change," U.S. Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) said in a video (below) posted by Right Wing Watch.

Congressman Massie, who recently came under fire for tweeting a quote by a neo-Nazi and falsely attributing it to French Enlightenment philosopher Voltaire, appeared on far-right Youtuber Tim Pool's show.

Pool's videos get "millions" of views each day, according to The Daily Beast, which adds he "has racked up more than a billion views and millions in earnings while dangerously whitewashing the far right."

Massie, known for his assault-weapons brandishing Christmas family photo this week was widely mocked for arguing against Medicare for All, because "Over 70% of Americans who died with COVID, died on Medicare.”

During Pool's show, according to Right Wing Watch, the YouTuber added that he believes the Second Amendment entitles Americans to own nuclear and biological weapons.

Watch video in link below:

https://www.rawstory.com/thomas-massie-2656635531/