We Lost the Battle for the Republican Party’s Soul Long Ago

[JKLivin]

Pence was a RINO WEF puppet piece of garbage.

And, yet, Trump contested two elections with Pence and had him in his Administration for four years. Who hires garbage people?

Duh, you aren't officially a piece of garbage until you show your true colors as a Soros lackey.

FYP

[zsn]

And, yet, Trump contested two elections with Pence and had him in his Administration for four years. Who hires garbage people?

Trump has been pretty honest that he listened to the wrong people the first time around. Won’t happen again, I’m betting.

A reminder that Trump chose Matt Gaetz, a drug using pedophile, for Attorney General despite knowing that the allegations were true.

Beat me to it!! Only the best people!! MAGA = Making Attorneys Get Attorneys

[KUTradition]

nothing quite says grasping at straws like a george soros burn

[jfish26]

And, yet, Trump contested two elections with Pence and had him in his Administration for four years. Who hires garbage people?

Trump has been pretty honest that he listened to the wrong people the first time around. Won’t happen again, I’m betting.

A reminder that Trump chose Matt Gaetz, a drug using pedophile, for Attorney General despite knowing that the allegations were true.

It would also seem prudent to ask Trump’s second choice for AG whether she, while the Attorney General of the State of Florida, was ever involved with a decision not to investigate or charge Gaetz.

[KUTradition]

smells kinda swampy…and not just cuz it’s florida

[Overlander]

nothing quite says grasping at straws like a george soros burn

Is it better to be Elons lap dog?

[jfish26]

This is pretty worthy of the Required Reading file.

December 23, 2024

https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.c ... er-23-2024

Today the House Ethics Committee released its report on its investigation of widely reported allegations that while in office, former representative Matt Gaetz (R-FL) had engaged in sexual misconduct and illicit drug use, shared inappropriate videos on the House floor, misused state records, diverted campaign funds for his own use, and accepted a bribe or an impermissible gift.

The report says that the committee found “substantial evidence” that Gaetz had, in fact, “regularly paid women for engaging in sexual activity with him”; “engaged in sexual activity with a 17-year-old girl”; “used or possessed illegal drugs, including cocaine and ecstasy, on multiple occasions”; “accepted gifts…in excess of permissible amounts”; arranged official help for one of his sexual partners, whom he falsely identified to the State Department as a constituent, in getting a passport; tried to obstruct the committee’s investigation; and “acted in a manner that reflects discreditably upon the House.”

The committee concluded that “there was substantial evidence that Representative Gaetz violated House Rules, state and federal laws, and other standards of conduct prohibiting prostitution, statutory rape, illicit drug use, acceptance of impermissible gifts, the provision of special favors and privileges, and obstruction of Congress.”

It “did not find sufficient evidence to conclude that Representative Gaetz violated the federal sex trafficking statute. Although Representative Gaetz did cause the transportation of women across state lines for purposes of commercial sex, the Committee did not find evidence that any of those women were under 18 at the time of travel.”

Gaetz is a staunch ally of President-elect Donald Trump, who tried to put Gaetz in charge of the Justice Department. That appointment would have him responsible for law enforcement across the United States. House speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) tried hard to keep the report hidden once Trump had tapped Gaetz for attorney general, saying he “strongly request[ed] that the Ethics Committee not issue the report.”

The Ethics Committee at first deadlocked over releasing it, but Andrew Solender of Axios reported today that two Republicans on the committee, Representative Dave Joyce (R-OH) and Andrew Garbarino (R-NY), switched their votes to join the Democrats supporting the release of the report.

Ethics Committee chair Michael Guest (R-MS) and Representatives Michelle Fischbach (R-MN) and John Rutherford (R-FL) all opposed releasing the report, saying that they lost jurisdiction after Gaetz resigned, which he did when Trump announced his intention of putting him in the office of attorney general. In their comments in the report, they said they “do not challenge the Committee’s findings” but object to their disclosure.

Republican Party leaders were willing to put a man their own committee says likely violated state and federal laws into the position of the nation’s highest law enforcement officer. That scenario reflects the extraordinary danger of a country in which one party’s supporters see themselves as the country’s only legitimate governing party.

In 1970, President Richard M. Nixon’s team worried that the Republican Party would hemorrhage voters in the upcoming midterm elections. That spring, Nixon announced that rather than ending the Vietnam War, he had sent ground troops into Vietnam’s neighbor Cambodia. In the protests that followed, members of the Ohio National Guard fired into a crowd at Kent State University, killing four protesters. Nixon’s clumsy suggestion that the protesters were responsible for the shooting began to turn middle-class white Americans, his key demographic, against him.

So Nixon’s advisors turned to a strategy they called “positive polarization.” They believed that dividing the country was a positive development because it stoked the anger they needed to get their voters to turn out. They deliberately turned against what they called “the media, the left, [and] the liberal academic community,” drawing voters to Nixon by accusing their opponents of being lazy, dangerous, and anti-American.

This polarization became a key technique of the Republican Party in the Reagan years, when talk radio hosts like Rush Limbaugh began to fill the airwaves with attacks on “feminazis,” liberals, and Black Americans who they claimed were trying to impose socialism on America. By 1990, a Republican group associated with then-representative Newt Gingrich (R-GA) compiled a list of words for Republican candidates to use when talking about Democrats. They included “decay,” “sick,” “greed,” “corruption, “radical,” and “traitor.” In contrast, candidates were encouraged to refer to Republicans using words like “opportunity,” “courage,” “principle(d),” “caring,” and “peace.”

Over the past thirty years, Republicans appear to have come to believe that nothing is more important than making sure Republicans control the government. Less competition has given rise to states like Florida that are essentially controlled by the Republicans. This, in turn, means there is very little oversight of the party’s lawmakers, making obviously problematic candidates able to survive far longer than they would if there were opposition to highlight poor behavior.

It also means that party members appear willing to overlook deeply problematic behavior in their own lawmakers, who come to feel immune, while attacking Democrats for what Republicans claim is the same behavior. Notably, in February of this year, in a closed hearing before the House Oversight Committee, Gaetz badgered President Biden’s son Hunter over his drug use. Hunter Biden responded that he had been “absolutely transparent” about his drug use and asked: “What does that have to do with whether or not you're going to go forward with an impeachment of my father other than to simply try to embarrass me?”

The answer is that while the drug use of private citizen Hunter Biden did not affect the U.S. government, the drug use of congressmember Matt Gaetz did. In a healthy political system, political opposition would have called out his behavior long before he was tapped to become one of the most important figures in the government.

Crucially, in such a system, state law enforcement would have pursued Gaetz, and his own party would have dropped him like a hot potato long before it had to face commentary like that of progressive journalist Brian Tyler Cohen, who today wrote: “Congratulations to Mike Johnson for trying to pressure the House Ethics Committee into burying a report that found the then-nominee for attorney general had engaged in sexual activity with a minor. Party of Family Values, am I right?”

The Republicans’ determination to hold on to the government at all costs showed in a different story that broke this weekend. Representative Kay Granger (R-TX) has been absent from Congress since midsummer. On Sunday, Carlos Turcios of the Dallas Express reported that he found the 81-year-old representative in a memory care and assisted living home. In the months since she went missing, her staff continued to submit material to the Congressional Record, making it look like she was still active.

Chad Pergram of the Fox News Channel reported that a senior Republican source explained why Granger retained her seat despite her incapacity. Referring to what Pergram called “the paper-thin [Republican] House majority,” the source said: “Frankly, we needed the numbers.”

Granger’s condition has reignited the national conversation about the age and capacity of our lawmakers, an issue very much on the table for the 78-year-old president-elect, whose own behavior has been erratic for a while now.

On Sunday, Trump spoke at Turning Point’s AmericaFest in Phoenix, where, as Aaron Rupar of Public Notice recorded, he entered as if he were at a professional wrestling event. He proceeded to deliver a speech much like his campaign speeches.

It had an important new element in it, though, that he had pioneered on social media the night before. He claimed that Panama is not treating the U.S. well, and threatened that he will “demand that the Panama Canal be returned to the United States of America in full, quickly, and without question.” On Sunday he posted on social media that he wants Greenland too. “For purposes of National Security and Freedom throughout the World, the United States of America feels that the ownership and control of Greenland is an absolute necessity.”

Panama’s president, José Raúl Mulino, responded that “every square meter of the Panama Canal and its adjacent zones is part of Panama, and it will continue to be. Our country’s sovereignty and independence are not negotiable.” Prime Minister Mute B. Egede of Greenland said: “Greenland is ours. We are not for sale and will never be for sale. We must not lose our long struggle for freedom.”

To my knowledge, Trump never mentioned taking the Panama Canal or Greenland during the campaign, and such dramatic action will likely undermine the principle that countries can’t just take over weaker neighbors. This principle is central to the United Nations, which holds that territorial integrity and sovereignty are “sacrosanct” and that members “shall refrain…from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state.” David Sanger and Lisa Friedman of the New York Times note that Trump’s aggression “reflects the instincts of a real estate developer who suddenly has the power of the world’s largest military to back up his negotiating strategy.”

In a healthy political system, pronouncements from an elderly president-elect that could upend 80 years of foreign policy would spark significant discussion from all quarters.

[dolomite]

So this is a“required reading” post? Actually just another boring diatribe.

[jfish26]

That sort of hand-waving is a form of denial, over the profound corruption (and I do not just mean financial) of your party.

[twocoach]

This is pretty worthy of the Required Reading file.

I am sure that Gaetz disclosed his drug use when he purchased the gun he owns... otherwise, I would expect him to be charged for the same crime that Hunter Biden was charged with.

Yeah, probably not.

[JKLivin]

This is pretty worthy of the Required Reading file.

I am sure that Gaetz disclosed his drug use when he purchased the gun he owns... otherwise, I would expect him to be charged for the same crime that Hunter Biden was pardoned for by his daddy.

FYP

[KUTradition]

This is pretty worthy of the Required Reading file.

I am sure that Gaetz disclosed his drug use when he purchased the gun he owns... otherwise, I would expect him to be charged for the same crime that Hunter Biden was pardoned for by his daddy.

FYP

you mad, bro?

[twocoach]

This is pretty worthy of the Required Reading file.

I am sure that Gaetz disclosed his drug use when he purchased the gun he owns... otherwise, I would expect him to be charged for the same crime that Hunter Biden was pardoned for by his daddy.

FYP

Presidential pardons are meant for exactly this action; throwing out bullshit convictions that are wrong or purely politically motivated.

[Sparko]

Gaetz lives to this day in a bubble of immature ignorance and privilege. But it is his evil intent which seems to be his north star.

[jfish26]

Gaetz lives to this day in a bubble of immature ignorance and privilege. But it is his evil intent which seems to be his north star.

And the Bible-beating Speaker of the House, with full (and likely, greater) knowledge of what was in the committee report, was openly in favor of burying it in service of Gaetz's confirmation as the country's chief law enforcement officer.

[JKLivin]

I am sure that Gaetz disclosed his drug use when he purchased the gun he owns... otherwise, I would expect him to be charged for the same crime that Hunter Biden was pardoned for by his daddy.

FYP

Presidential pardons are meant for exactly this action; throwing out bullshit convictions that are wrong or purely politically motivated.

Great. I assume you’ll have nothing to say when all of the January 6th pardons hit.

[Overlander]

Nice attempt at undermining the convictions of people who a jury convicted of trying to blow up a democracy.

[JKLivin]

Nice attempt at undermining the convictions of people who a jury convicted of trying to blow up a democracy.

Nope.

[twocoach]

FYP

Presidential pardons are meant for exactly this action; throwing out bullshit convictions that are wrong or purely politically motivated.

Great. I assume you’ll have nothing to say when all of the January 6th pardons hit.

Depends on what they did. There are probably very few who are still in jail. Most of the cases were little meaningless charges that I don't have a problem with being wiped off the books. There's probably no more than a few dozen who I feel were genuinely guilty of pretty heinous crimes who should not be pardoned. No one who assaulted an officer or planned the event should be pardoned.

[Overlander]

Nice attempt at undermining the convictions of people who a jury convicted of trying to blow up a democracy.

Nope.

Oh, that’s right. It was ANTIFA busting through those barriers.