LetMyPeopleVote
LetMyPeopleVote's JournalThe GOP wants to mock and make fun of President Biden's stutter
I had a stutter when I was young and I was fortunate enough to be able to discuss stuttering with President Biden back in 2019 at a couple of fundraisers. The GOP is seeking the audio tapes in order to use these tapes to mock President Biden's stutter.
https://twitter.com/Sky_Lee_1/status/1798026705950613553
Biggs admits that they want the audio to be able to use President Biden's stutter
https://twitter.com/atrupar/status/1798020902308765896
Mike Luckovich-Does an ankle monitor count as pants..???
https://twitter.com/mluckovichajc/status/1798070548733579443
Eyeing the 2024 ticket, Rubio joins a pitiful race to the bottom
In 2016, Sen. Marco Rubio sacrificed his self-respect in the hopes of advancing his ambitions. In 2024, it’s pitiful to see him do it again.
https://twitter.com/stevebenen/status/1797982707047416185
https://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/maddowblog/eyeing-2024-ticket-rubio-joins-pitiful-race-bottom-rcna155366
For the Florida Republican, this was the latest in a series of similar steps. In recent weeks, Rubio has refused to say whether he’d accept the results of the 2024 presidential election. Rubio has tried to pretend that Democrats are election deniers. Rubio has used increasingly hysterical partisan rhetoric, describing President Joe Biden as “demented,” and condemning White House officials as “wicked.” Rubio has even compared the U.S. justice system to Cuba’s and was caught lying about the jury instructions in Donald Trump's hush-money case.
A Washington Post fact-check piece this week noted that the senator has even begun peddling debunked claims about the 2020 presidential election.
Trump is setting a high bar for vice-presidential contenders. They appear to need to echo his debunked claims of election fraud in 2020. Rubio’s statements, especially regarding Georgia and Arizona — one from a notorious election conspiracy group; the other extrapolated from a small sample — likely pass the Trump test. But they fail the Pinocchio test.
And therein lies the point. Senators who want to be respected and taken seriously don’t behave like this. Senators looking to score points with Mar-a-Lago behave precisely this way.
There’s no great mystery here. Rubio wants to be a leading contender for Donald Trump’s 2024 ticket, which necessarily means the longtime lawmaker has to join the GOP’s race to the bottom, and engage in antics that he almost certainly recognizes as ridiculous......
After the 2016 election, Rubio ultimately became chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, and oversaw the panel when it investigated the connections between the Trump campaign and its Russian benefactors. The Rubio-led investigation ultimately uncovered, among other things, a “direct tie between senior Trump Campaign officials and the Russian intelligence services.”
After the 2020 election, when Trump was pressing GOP lawmakers to reject certification of Biden’s presidential election victory, Rubio was among the Republicans who ignored Trump’s pleas.
It appeared that the Floridian cared anew about his reputation. Those cares have apparently been discarded once again.
Or put another way, in 2016, Rubio sacrificed his self-respect in the hopes of advancing his ambitions. In 2024, it’s pitiful to see him do it again.
After Trump's conviction, will any Republicans ask him to quit?
In the wake of Donald Trump's felony conviction, Republican officials could call on him to quit the 2024 race. They're choosing not to.
https://twitter.com/stevebenen/status/1797680002538049627
https://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/maddowblog/trumps-conviction-will-republicans-ask-quit-rcna155215
Former Rep. Mo Brooks of Alabama, meanwhile, urged his party to replace Trump on the 2024 ticket, a sentiment that was echoed by former White House National Security Advisor John Bolton......
There answer is no, though as The Hill noted, Sen. Lisa Murkowski came relatively close.
Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) expressed frustration Friday over what she called the “distractions” of former President Trump’s legal dramas and declared “a Republican nominee without this baggage would have a clear path to victory.”
The Alaska Republican — who has made no secret of her disdain for Trump, and who recently criticized her GOP colleagues who made the trek to the Manhattan Criminal Courthouse to show their support for the defendant — didn’t come right out and say that Trump shouldn’t be the GOP nominee. She instead framed it as a preferred alternative in a hypothetical scenario: Murkowski apparently thinks a different Republican would find it easier to prevail in the general election......
Indeed, it included 13 Republican senators, four Republican governors, and 21 Republican U.S. House members. Each of these 38 officials were, at the time, incumbent GOP officeholders, and they all either withdrew their support for his candidacy, called on him to be replaced on their party’s national ticket, or both.
Eight years later, in the wake of Trump’s criminal conviction, the party’s standards are noticeably lower.
Criminal charges in GOP's fake elector scandal reach new heights
The Republicans' fake elector scandal from 2020 has now racked up indictment totals unseen since Watergate and Iran-Contra.
https://twitter.com/stevebenen/status/1798007685776097643
https://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/maddowblog/criminal-charges-gops-fake-elector-scandal-reach-new-heights-rcna155398
That total is still growing. The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported this morning that Wisconsin Attorney General Josh Kaul has filed felony forgery charges against three officials from Donald Trump’s 2020 team.
The charges are filed in Dane County Circuit Court against Kenneth Chesebro, a Wisconsin native and lead architect of the 2020 fake elector plan; former Dane County Judge Jim Troupis, who represented Trump in Wisconsin during the 2020 election; and Mike Roman, a former Trump aide who allegedly delivered Wisconsin’s slate of false elector paperwork to a Pennsylvania congressman’s staffer in order to get them to Vice President Mike Pence on Jan. 6, 2021.
.....For those keeping score, let’s count up the number of indictments currently pending in the scandal across multiple jurisdictions:
Arizona: 18 people have been indicted, including 11 fake electors and seven Trump aides.
Georgia: 19 people were initially indicted, including Trump, though some have since reached plea agreements with prosecutors.
Michigan: 16 people have been indicted, though there are several other prominent unindicted alleged co-conspirators, and there's a very real possibility that others will soon face related charges.
Nevada: Six people have been indicted, each of whom served as fake electors.
Wisconsin: Three people have been indicted.
To be sure, there is some overlap between the indictments — some of the key officials have been indicted in more than one jurisdiction — but it’s nevertheless a striking total, which might yet grow. Watch this space.
On targeting Hillary Clinton, Trump rewrites history (again)
When it comes to Hillary Clinton, Donald Trump is rewriting history so brazenly, he's even trying to distance himself from "lock her up" chants.
https://twitter.com/stevebenen/status/1797706275641528348
https://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/maddowblog/targeting-hillary-clinton-trump-rewrites-history-rcna155178
He quickly added, “I didn’t say, ‘Lock her up,’ but the people said, ‘Lock her up, lock her up.’” It was at that point, according to Trump, that he told his followed to “just relax” and move on from Clinton.
https://twitter.com/atrupar/status/1797257168548253746
For one thing, Trump didn’t “just relax”; he instead spent four years in the White House trying to prosecute Clinton. For another, the idea that Trump was some how detached from the “lock her up” mantra is every bit as ridiculous. As a Washington Post report summarized:
There are several instances in which Trump called explicitly for Clinton’s jailing and others in which he agreed with his supporters’ chants.
For now, let’s put aside the oddity of seeing the Republican blame his followers, as if they lack the class that he pretends to represent. Instead, what’s striking about his rhetoric is the degree to which Trump keeps trying to rewrite his own recent history.....
In reality, Trump desperately tried to weaponize federal law enforcement against his perceived foes, and the Biden administration appears to have literally nothing to do with the former president’s prosecutions.
Biden issues new executive action: Much of southern border to close at midnight
Biden issued long-expected executive actions on Tuesday to clamp down on migrants seeking asylum.
https://twitter.com/politico/status/1798022504595837408
https://www.politico.com/news/2024/06/04/biden-border-close-executive-action-migrants-00161483
The action and accompanying rule from the Biden administration allows the president to close the border in between ports of entry when there is an average of 2,500 crossings a day over a seven day period. That threshold, administration officials said, has already been hit over the past week.
The announcement represents an aggressive attempt by Biden to bolster his standing on the border in advance of the November election. Biden is expected to use a speech on Tuesday to highlight his unilateral efforts to resolve the crisis, while congressional Republicans — at the behest of Donald Trump — killed efforts to pass bipartisan border legislation earlier this year.
The president will be joined later on Tuesday by members of Congress and local and state leaders from border cities and states, in an effort to project consensus and political strength on a topic that has long dogged him politically. It’s expected to spur blowback from progressives and immigration advocates, who plan to speak out against the move Tuesday afternoon.
Biden issues new executive action: Much of southern border to close at midnight
Source: Politico
President Joe Biden issued long-expected executive actions on Tuesday to clamp down on migrants seeking asylum, and in doing so set the stage for the U.S. border with Mexico to be shut down between ports of entry at midnight.
The action and accompanying rule from the Biden administration allows the president to close the border in between ports of entry when there is an average of 2,500 crossings a day over a seven day period. That threshold, administration officials said, has already been hit over the past week.
The announcement represents an aggressive attempt by Biden to bolster his standing on the border in advance of the November election. Biden is expected to use a speech on Tuesday to highlight his unilateral efforts to resolve the crisis, while congressional Republicans — at the behest of Donald Trump — killed efforts to pass bipartisan border legislation earlier this year.
The president will be joined later on Tuesday by members of Congress and local and state leaders from border cities and states, in an effort to project consensus and political strength on a topic that has long dogged him politically. It’s expected to spur blowback from progressives and immigration advocates, who plan to speak out against the move Tuesday afternoon.
Read more: https://www.politico.com/news/2024/06/04/biden-border-close-executive-action-migrants-00161483
https://twitter.com/politico/status/1798022504595837408
Following guilty verdict, former Trump lawyer pans key GOP claim
Republicans desperately want people to believe Joe Biden was responsible for Donald Trump's prosecution. Even a former Trump lawyer called it "ridiculous."
https://twitter.com/stevebenen/status/1797725269421326545
As HuffPost noted over the weekend, even one of Trump’s former lawyers marveled at the inanity.
Former Trump attorney Joe Tacopina knocked Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.) for his “uneducated, unintelligent” claim that President Joe Biden is “weaponizing the justice system” on Saturday.
Asked to respond to Scott’s absurd claims, Tacopina, during an appearance on MSNBC, specifically said, “I sort of lost a lot of respect from what I just heard because he sounded so uneducated, unintelligent and made no sense at all.”.....
Tacopina added that Biden and officials from the Justice Department have “absolutely zero to do with the Manhattan district attorney’s office.”
https://twitter.com/Acyn/status/1797021153074258136
Complicating matters for Republicans, this isn’t the first time a former Trump lawyer has said the opposite of what the party wanted to hear. Ty Cobb, for example, has spoken out in ways the former president hasn’t liked; Timothy Parlatore has publicly strayed from the GOP script; and former Attorney General Bill Barr has been a thorn in Trump’s side as his legal crises have mounted.
Tacopina, in other words, has plenty of company.
Why a Senate Republican tantrum over Trump's conviction matters
Sen. Mike Lee and nine of his GOP colleagues aren't just furious about Donald Trump being held accountable, they're also throwing an important tantrum.
https://twitter.com/MarcuswevansSr/status/1797628826069168454
https://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/maddowblog/senate-republican-tantrum-trumps-conviction-matters-rcna155146
At the time, the Utahan still appeared eager to present himself to the public as a serious and principled lawmaker. Eight years later, Lee has adopted a dramatically different partisan posture in the wake of Trump’s criminal conviction. The Associated Press reported:
Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, circulated his own letter in which he suggested it was the White House that “made a mockery” of the rule of law and altered politics in “un-American” ways. He and other senators threatened to stall Senate business until Republicans take action. “Those who turned our judicial system into a political cudgel must be held accountable,” Lee said.
It is, by any fair measure, a curious document. The day after a jury of Trump’s peers held him accountable for his crimes, Lee took the lead in circulating this one-paragraph statement. On social media, the GOP senator declared, “Strongly worded statements are not enough. ... We are no longer cooperating with any Democrat [sic] legislative priorities or nominations, and we invite all concerned Senators to join our stand.”.....
The procedural nuances matter. The Senate, on a day-to-day basis, functions in large part by unanimous consent. Yes, the institution often appears slow and sclerotic, but determined members still have the capacity to make matters even worse through tactical delays.
And it appears that Lee and his far-right colleagues intend to do exactly that — not because Senate Democrats have done anything wrong, and not because the White House was responsible for Trump’s prosecution, but because of an imaginary conspiracy that Republicans prefer to treat as true.
Or put another way, Lee and nine other Senate Republicans will deliberately stand in the way of their institution doing the people’s business because local prosecutors held a private citizen accountable for his crimes. These GOP senators apparently believe their job is to elevate Trump’s interests above the nation’s interests.
What’s less clear, however, is the possible remedy. What, exactly, do Lee and his cohorts expect to happen? What ransom do they expect to be paid in order to allow the Senate to function as it should?
If the answer is that federal officials will somehow meddle in a local criminal matter, intervening to free Trump from accountability for his felonies, that isn’t going to happen — because it can’t.
Profile Information
Member since: Mon Apr 5, 2004, 04:58 PMNumber of posts: 146,746
