Mediaboss Marketing

Republican Gov. Greg Abbott has been saying some certifiably zany stuff these days, from promising to eliminate rape in the Lone Star State to launching an all-out assault on gender-neutral childrens toys. But the real weirdness is brewing in the primary candidate pool, where a comedian, a fail son from a car dealership family and an accused war criminal are taking turns casting Abbott as a "Demonrat" in sheeps clothing.

Following the states abortion ban, many liberals threatened to flee Texas for good. Still, nothing would send them packing sooner than if an Abbott challenger were to move into the governors mansion. (It may sound like a long shot, but a recent poll by the Texas Politics Project found that only 41% of Texans approve of the governor's performance, the lowest number throughout his time in office.) Chad PratherComedian Chad Prather told Texas Scorecard that he has the solution to the states border crisis: detect, deter, detain, deport and defend. Ah yes, the alliterative five-D method will solve it all.

Likening border-crossers to an invasion, Prather said as governor, hed gladly give the mounted border agents a hand and be the first guy down there on horseback. (The cowboy didnt say whether hed be shirtless when mounting the stallion, but the Western revenge-fantasy does conjure images of another politician.)

When discussing the state's abortion ban, which doesn't include exemptions for rape, Prather told Texas Scorecard that the guilt of murder on top of the ignominy of rape does not help a woman. Perhaps most notable, though, was his sound, science-based understanding of biology during an attempt to poke holes in the pro-choice argument.

Local

Community

Journalism

Support the independent voice of Dallas andhelp keep the future of Dallas Observer free.

Keep Dallas Observer Free.

[After conception], the DNA of a human being is immediately imprinted on that person; that DNA is there for the rest of their life, he said. If we were to discover that on Mars, we would spend tens of trillions of dollars trying to protect that life.

Don HuffinesHis family may have gotten you a deal on your Hyundai, but Don Huffines is applying his salesmanship to the governors race. Now, hes set on persuading Texans that Abbott is allied with the LGBTQ-loving left.

On Tuesday, The Texas Tribune reported that the states child welfare agency had deleted a page providing LGBTQ youth with resources. The move came after Huffines slammed the agency in a video posted to Twitter, accusing them of promoting transgender sexual policies to kids.

As governor, I will ensure this predatory grooming of Texas kids ends, he wrote. Any adult who pushes the perverted LGBTQ agenda on our children will be promptly removed from all positions within Texas government agencies. Allen WestAllen West, the former Florida congressman who also served as chair of the Republican Party of Texas, is known for making memorable copy. This year, he scorned a New York Times reporter for wearing a mask, telling her she could remove her face diaper during their interview. Hed also railed against vaccine mandates even after West, who is unvaccinated, was hospitalized for COVID-19.

On Saturday, Wests social media account tweeted that hed been taking the horse dewormer ivermectin, an antiparasitic drug that public health officials have begged people to refrain from eating. Hed also taken the antimalarial medication hydroxychloroquine. Medical experts say neither should be usedto treat coronavirus.

But on Tuesday, West issued a statement saying hed been released from the hospital. He also wrote that hed gone on a 2-mile jog that morning: Neither a high-speed motorcycle crash nor COVID-19 can keep an old soldier down.

He again took the opportunity to vow that hed crush anyone who forced vaccine mandates in Texas.

Our bodies are our last sanctuary of liberty and freedom, West wrote. I will defend that for everyone, even the progressive socialist jackasses who must be saved from themselves.

Read this article:
Ahead of the 2022 Republican Primary, Texas' Gubernatorial Candidates are Saying Some Weird Stuff - Dallas Observer

Last week, the Republican members of the Senate Judiciary Committee published their report on new revelations into Donald Trumps efforts to discard the election results and remain in power. The important takeaway, Republicans conclude, is that Trumps interest in using the Justice Department to secure an unelected second term was based on legitimate complaints and reports of crimes. And anyway, he decided not to go through with the full Saturday Night Massacre coup plan that Justice Department lawyer Jeffrey Clark had urged upon him.

Conservative pundits have embraced this happy-ending interpretation. The story of Trump and the Justice Department, then, is not one of the presidents relentless pressure campaign on the nations top lawyers. It is, rather, a story of the president taking those lawyers advice and then, tragically, turning elsewhere, argues Byron York. Trump decided against it, insists Brit Hume. It is not to his credit that he even considered it, but his rejection should be part of any story on it.

That Trump decided against Clarks plan is certainly part of the story. But is it the important part of the story? That depends on his reasons for rejecting the plan. It would be one thing if Trump rejected the proposal on moral grounds but not even a Byron York could manage to type the words Donald Trump and moral in the same sentence. Instead, he simply judged the plan unlikely to succeed, much like a bank robber deciding not to crack a vault because its security system is too tough.

The important issue going forward is what Republicans will decide about the idea of overturning Democratic election victories. Here, the evidence is overwhelmingly negative. The Republican impulse is to rehabilitate all the participants in Trumps attempted coup.

An instructive episode is the protective cordon forming around John Eastman, the lawyer whose memo gave Trump his step-by-step playbook for using Mike Pence to discard the election results on January 6. Eastmans plan hinged on an extremely tenuous constitutional argument that the vice-president has unilateral power to discard any election result he decides is wrong, and throw the election to the House, which would decide the result on the basis of which party controlled the most state delegations. Even if Eastmans argument was valid and hardly any scholars take it seriously it would mean he had discovered a loophole that would allow the presidents party to retain power forever.

Eastmans effort to end American democracy has resulted in some professional blowback. If conservatives wanted to prove that the real takeaway from Trumps coup is that he decided against it, they would cut Eastman loose. Instead, they are rallying to his defense.

The Claremont Institute, a formerly highbrow cog in the conservative movement, defended Eastman against what it called a recent combined disinformation, de-platforming, and ostracism campaign. Claremonts defense is aggressively misleading:

Contrary to almost universally false news accounts, which have done great damage, John did not ask the Vice President, who was presiding over the Joint Session of Congress where electoral votes were to be counted on January 6, to overturn the election or to decide the validity of electoral votes. John advised the Vice President to accede to requests from state legislators to pause the proceedings of the Joint Session of Congress for 7 to 10 days, to give time to the state legislatures to assess whether the acknowledged illegal conduct by their state election officials had affected the results of the election.

Translated into English, Claremont is insisting that Eastman didnt ask Mike Pence to overturn the election he asked Mike Pence to refuse to certify the result and then throw the question over to the House, which would overturn the election. Its a bit like getting furious when people say Stalin executed millions of people, when the real story is that he ordered other people to do the executions but never fired a shot with his own hands.

Joining Eastmans pro bono defense team is J. Christian Adams. In a new column, Adams argues that Eastman did nothing wrong and is the victim of an oppressive orthodoxy.

Adams argues that Eastman merely fulfilled the highest ideals of the legal profession by representing a client in need of counsel. Calling Eastman a victim in the campaign to cancel attorneys who committed the sin of representing former president Trump, Adams reasons that Eastman was merely representing a client in need. Back in the old days of representing GITMO detainees, we called that the sacred right to legal counsel. In olden days, lawyers representing terrorists were allowed to fill their terrorist-clients heads full of reasons they werent guilty of trying to kill Americans, he pleads.

This would be a good argument if Trump were a criminal defendant. Actually, Trump is a criminal defendant. Hes facing charges in Manhattan and New York State for a lengthy list of alleged financial crimes. And, in fact, nobody is proposing to sanction the lawyers representing Trump in these cases, a fact that disproves Adamss claim that Eastman is merely being bullied for his unpopular client.

The finer points of legal ethics obviously do not interest Adams. He is closing ranks with Eastman out of a broader desire to rehabilitate the legal insurrection. And Adams is hardly some insignificant nut. He is a nut, all right, but one who possesses impeccable conservative-movement credentials. He worked in George W. Bushs Justice Department, served on the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, writes op-eds in the Washington Examiner, is invited by Republicans to testify in Congress as a credentialed expert, and is one of his partys leading voices on election security.

When J. Christian Adams shouts that Eastman is the victim of cancel culture, it signals what the Republican legal Establishment thinks about Trumps coup. Whatever regrets they have are dwarfed by their anger at the liberals for exposing the plot. They are going to try again.

Analysis and commentary on the latest political news from New York columnist Jonathan Chait.

Read the original:
Republicans Are Rehabilitating the Participants in Trumps Attempted Coup - New York Magazine

Congress held its first hearing last week on Arizona's utterly bonkers election "audit," and House Republicans participating in the discussion put on a highly discouraging display. For example, Republican Rep. Andy Biggs, the chair of the right-wing House Freedom Caucus, insisted "we don't know" who actually won Arizona's presidential election last year, despite reality.

At the same hearing, Biggs' fellow Arizonan, Republican Rep. Paul Gosar, peddled an incoherent conspiracy theory, which appeared to be based on strange claims from secret sources the congressman seemed to make up after having already peddled equally strange conspiracy theories based on equally strange claims from different secret sources whom Gosar also apparently made up.

For those inclined to be generous when assessing the state of the contemporary Republican Party, the likely argument is that folks like Biggs and Gosar are fringe figures, known for voicing extreme views. It's not as if the GOP is putting irresponsible officials in leadership positions, right?

It's against this backdrop that House Minority Whip Steve Scalise, a Louisiana Republican, followed in the fringe figures' footsteps yesterday. The Associated Press reported:

The House's second-ranking Republican, Rep. Steve Scalise, repeatedly refused to say on Sunday that the 2020 election wasn't stolen, standing by Donald Trump's lie that Democrat Joe Biden won the White House because of mass voter fraud. More than 11 months after Americans picked their president and almost nine months since Biden was inaugurated, Scalise was unwilling during a national television interview to acknowledge the legitimacy of the vote, instead sticking to his belief that the election results should not have been certified by Congress.

Remember, Scalise isn't some random backbencher with a low profile and limited influence. On the contrary, if Republicans take back the House in next year's midterm elections, the far-right Louisianan will likely become the House majority leader.

And yet, there he was on Fox News yesterday, getting pressed by host Chris Wallace to acknowledge that President Joe Biden legitimately won the 2020 presidential election. Acknowledging his own country's electoral reality, however, was a step Scalise simply would not take.

This is not a situation in which the GOP congressman is a shrinking violet, lacking the temperament to denounce ideas with which he disagrees. During the same interview yesterday, Scalise said those who equate Georgia Republicans' new voter-suppression law with Jim Crow are pushing "flat-out lies."

In other words, Scalise is capable of condemning ideas he finds objectionable in no uncertain terms. When it comes to the Republican Party's Big Lie, however, Scalise repeatedly insisted that states didn't follow election laws last fall to his satisfaction, which in his mind justifies his skepticism about the results.

Three times, Wallace tried to get Scalise to acknowledge the truth. Three times, the high-ranking GOP lawmaker refused.

A tiny number of congressional Republicans were displeased. Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming, for example, wrote via Twitter, "Millions of Americans have been sold a fraud that the election was stolen. Republicans have a duty to tell the American people that this is not true. Perpetuating the Big Lie is an attack on the core of our constitutional republic." Rep. Adam Kinzinger of Illinois called Scalise's rhetoric "unacceptable."

The duo, however, was part of a vanishingly small minority. For most congressional Republicans, Scalise's nonsense reflected a new normal.

The bottom line is unavoidable: The line between the GOP fringe on Capitol Hill and the GOP leadership has been blurred to the point that it hardly exists at all. When the #2 House Republican isn't lending credence to his party's Big Lie, House Republican Conference Chair Elise Stefanik is toying with a white-supremacist conspiracy theory and trying to blame House Speaker Nancy Pelosi for the Jan. 6 attack.

It was just last month, meanwhile, when House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy threatened private companies in the hopes of obstructing a bipartisan congressional investigation, which he soon followed by falsely claiming that the FBI had cleared Donald Trump of wrongdoing on Jan. 6.

There ought to be an important gap between the Republican Party's radicals and the GOP's leadership. In 2021, they appear to be reading from awfully similar scripts.

Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MSNBC political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "The Impostors: How Republicans Quit Governing and Seized American Politics."

See more here:
Why Steve Scalise's stance on the Republicans' Big Lie matters - MSNBC

Two GOP officials have urged Republicans in some cases to vote Democratic in the 2022 midterm elections as one of several ways to bolster the party from candidates they described as "pro-Trump extremists."

Miles Taylor, a Trump-era Department of Homeland Security chief of staff, and Christine Todd Whitman, a former Republican governor of New Jersey, wrote a New York Times op-ed article that ran Monday. Taylor is best known for anonymously writing a 2018 op-ed article in The Times describing a "resistance" of Trump administration officials working to tamper what he called the former president's "worst inclinations."

Together, Taylor and Whitman asked that the GOP's base consider supporting Democrats so "conservative pragmatists" could retake control of the party.

"Rational Republicans are losing the party civil war," they wrote. "And the only near-term way to battle pro-Trump extremists is for all of us to team up on key races and overarching political goals with our longtime political opponents: the Democrats."

They added: "It's a strategy that has worked. Mr. Trump lost re-election in large part because Republicans nationwide defected, with seven percent who voted for him in 2016 flipping to support Joe Biden, a margin big enough to have made some difference in key swing states."

The two argued that this move was necessary because the Republican leadership had "turned belief in conspiracy theories and lies about stolen elections into a litmus test for membership and running for office." Taylor and Whitman also renewed a threat for them and more than 100 other former GOP officials to try to start a new center-right party if Trump-backed candidates continued to win Republican primaries.

"The best hope for the rational remnants of the Republican Party is for us to form an alliance with Democrats to defend American institutions, defeat far-right candidates, and elect honorable representatives next year including a strong contingent of moderate Democrats," Taylor and Whitman wrote.

Their strategy would involve GOP voters supporting Democrats like Rep. Abigail Spanberger of Virginia, Rep. Elissa Slotkin of Michigan, and Sen. Mark Kelly of Arizona in what they called "difficult races" likely to feature Trump-supported Republicans. They also advocated defending what they called a "small nucleus of courageous Republicans" such as Reps. Liz Cheney, Adam Kinzinger, and Peter Meijer.

Kinzinger, for one, said in September that he thought the GOP shouldn't win a majority in the House if it were "pushing division and pushing lies." Cheney also said in September that she was not ready to cede the GOP to the "voices of extremism," adding that many Republicans in the House and the Senate had cheered her on privately in her fight against Trump.

The Republican National Committee did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Follow this link:
GOP officials are urging Republican voters to back Democrats in 2022 - Business Insider

Of the many crises that face the country, perhaps the most important is the coordinated Republican attack on voting rights. Since the beginning of the year, new laws have been enacted in 19 states that could disenfranchise minority voters by making it harder to vote. Once-rock-solid red states won by President BidenJoe BidenGruden out as Raiders coach after further emails reveal homophobic, sexist comments Abbott bans vaccine mandates from any 'entity in Texas' Jill Biden to campaign with McAuliffe on Friday MORE are leading the way.

In Arizona, a new statute threatens election officials with felony prosecution if ballots are mailed to voters who did not request them, while in Georgia it is a misdemeanor to distribute food and water to those waiting in line. The Georgia law also prohibits unsolicited mailing of absentee ballot applications and requires voters to submit identification to have their requests approved. Both states give the legislature the power to certify results, removing the secretary of state from carrying out this traditional formality.

In Arizona, Democrat Katie Hobbs certified Joe Bidens victory in the 2020 presidential election, while in Georgia Republican Brad Raffensperger formalized Bidens win despite Donald TrumpDonald TrumpPennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro enters governor's race GOP lawmakers introduce measure in support of Columbus Day Bannon's subpoena snub sets up big decision for Biden DOJ MOREs plea to find 11,780 votes, one more than Bidens winning margin.

In 15 other states, 35 bills have passed at least one chamber, making it easier for Republicans to interfere. For example, in Pennsylvania, Florida and Texas, Republicans want audits of the 2020 ballots. Pennsylvania Senate Republicans are demanding 2020 voters driver license information, partial Social Security numbers, changes in voter registration and information about whether ballots were cast by mail or in person. Gov. Tom WolfTom WolfPennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro enters governor's race Four Democratic governors agree to share gun crime data in effort to thwart violence Overnight Health Care Presented by EMAA Biden unravels Trump rule banning clinics from abortion referrals MORE, a Democrat, calls the ploy a sham.

The Freedom to Vote Act guarantees a national right to vote in federal elections. It expands voter registration; sets a minimum number of days and hours for early voting; reduces in-person wait times to no more than 30 minutes; permits postage-free absentee ballots that do not require either witnesses or notarization and will be counted seven days after the election if postmarked by Election Day.

Voters whose signatures are rejected must be notified and allowed to correct the issue. Poll-watchers are restricted in their proximity to those casting ballots, and polling places will be required on college campuses. The bill would curtail partisan gerrymandering and ban any prohibitions on the distribution of food and water to those waiting to vote.

Sen. Joe ManchinJoe ManchinUsing shared principles to guide our global and national energy policy Sinema's office denies report that she wants to cut 0B in climate spending Juan Williams: Women wield the power MORE (D-W.Va.), a key player in the voting rights drama, had this legislation written to his specifications, and all 50 Senate Democrats have voiced their support. Manchin has embarked on a quixotic quest to find 10 Republicans to back it.

But finding enough Republicans to overcome a Senate filibuster is an exercise in futility. Susan CollinsSusan Margaret CollinsBiden signs bill to help victims of 'Havana syndrome' The Hill's Morning Report - Presented by Facebook - After high drama, Senate lifts debt limit Here are the 11 GOP senators who helped advance the debt extension MORE (R-Maine), a frequent Manchin partner in bipartisanship, has voiced her opposition, saying the law has fundamental problems of federalizing state elections. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnellAddison (Mitch) Mitchell McConnellDemocrats are ignoring the only thing that matters The Hill's 12:30 Report - Presented by The National Columbus Education Foundation - Positive developments on COVID-19 treatments The Hill's Morning Report - Presented by Altria - Political crosscurrents persist for Biden, Dems MORE (R-Ky.) has pronounced the bill all-but-dead: We will not be supporting it. Sen. Lindsey GrahamLindsey Olin GrahamMost Senate Republicans don't want to see Trump run again Trump heads to Iowa as 2024 chatter grows GOP tries to take filibuster pressure off Manchin, Sinema MOREs (R-S.C.) opposition is even more succinct: Nope.

Once more, obdurate GOP opposition will kill meaningful legislation backed by Manchin, who nevertheless stubbornly clings to his beloved filibuster.

Todays Trump-led Republicans have abandoned the partys historic roots. After the Civil War, Republicans supported federal guarantees to ensure the right of African Americans to cast their ballots. When federal troops left the defeated Confederacy in 1877, Democrats purged Blacks from the voting rolls and voted them out of Congress.

In 1888, Republicans accused President Grover Cleveland and his Democratic congressional majorities of owing their existence to the suppression of the ballot by a criminal nullification of the Constitution and laws of the United States. Benjamin Harrison, who beat Cleveland that year, asked in his inaugural address: How shall those who practice election frauds recover that respect for the sanctity of the ballot which is the first condition and obligation of good citizenship? The man who has come to regard the ballot box as a jugglers hat has renounced his allegiance.

Harrison told Congress that denial of the franchise does not expend itself upon those whose votes are suppressed. Every constituency in the Union is wronged. He later accused those opposed to federal election involvement of racism, saying those animosities ought not to be confessed without shame and cannot be given any weight in the discussion without dishonor.

Donald Trumps 2020 loss magnified many Republicans fear of a future in which whites will soon be a racial minority. A recent poll found 84 percent of Trump voters worry that discrimination against whites will increase significantly in the next few years. Trumps obsession with his 2020 defeat, and his refusal to accept it, has given way to a Republican crusade to reform election laws that may result in disenfranchising enough minority voters to ensure Republican victories.

In a July speech, President Biden called these changes a 21st century Jim Crow assault. In the same address, Biden posed the same question to Republicans that famously dethroned anti-communist crusader Sen. Joseph McCarthy (R-Wis.) back in the 1950s: Have you no shame?

The answer is clear: no. Republicans have shamelessly concluded that winning doesnt necessarily mean garnering the most votes. Instead, its about rigging the system. They are todays new Dixiecrats. Historys discredited Dixiecrats would be proud.

John Kenneth White is a professor of politics at the Catholic University of America. His latest book is What Happened to the Republican Party?

Follow this link:
Republicans are today's Dixiecrats | TheHill - The Hill