False fraud claims fanned Capitol riot. Now they're fueling GOP efforts to restrict voting.
When Congress voted last week, in the immediate aftermath of the Trump-fueled riot, to finalize the Electoral College results declaring Joe Biden the winner of November's election, bipartisan majorities in both the House and Senate joined dozens of courts around the country in concluding that there was not meaningful fraud in the election.

But despite those findings, Republicans in Georgia, Pennsylvania, Texas and likely other states including Michigan and Wisconsin are moving to roll back access to mail balloting, eliminate drop boxes, toughen voter identification laws and erect other barriers to the ballot in the name of improving voter security and restoring "faith" in the outcome.
"We are seeing a continued use of the voter fraud lie and thoroughly debunked conspiracy theories over the integrity of this election to drive a vote suppression agenda," says Wendy Weiser, who directs the Democracy Program at the Brennan Center for Justice at the New York University School of Law. ...

"This insurrection might have unmasked the strategy for what it really is, which is an anti-democratic effort to use lies to thwart our democratic system, in particular by repudiating the votes of Black and brown people." ...

https://www.cnn.com/2021/01/12/politics/...-restrict-laws/

"Truth Cannot Be Brought About by Lying"

Einer der besten Saetze ueberhaupt.

The case for consequences
Why Republicans have to be held accountable for the attack on Capitol Hill.

It’s been less than a week since a mob whipped up by President Donald Trump attacked the US Capitol in his name, and Republicans in Congress are already telling Americans to move on. What’s needed now is not punishment for insurrection, they say, but rather “healing” for a country rent by partisan fissures.
“To deliver a better America, partisans of all stripes must first unite as Americans and show that a peaceful transition has occurred,” House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy said in a Friday statement. “Impeaching the president ... will only divide our country more.”

But there has not been a “peaceful transition.” Five people are dead, and dozens injured, because the president’s supporters attacked Congress in an effort to disrupt its confirmation of President-elect Joe Biden’s victory.

Had such an attack been perpetrated by jihadists or a foreign power, Republicans would not want to simply move on: They would demand consequences, action to ensure that it never happened again. The reason they are not now is that it is their party, from President Trump on down, that bears responsibility for inciting this mob by insisting that the 2020 election was fraudulent. McCarthy himself voted against certifying Biden’s Electoral College victory — even after the House was attacked by marauders with zip ties and a hanging noose.

It is true that America needs healing, but of a very different kind. The country requires an aggressive treatment regimen to fight the illness at the heart of American democracy: the Republican elite’s willingness to stoke paranoid and violent fantasies prevalent among its base. It is not just Trump to blame, but also those Republicans who led the charge in trying to overturn the election result: people like Sens. Josh Hawley (MO) and Ted Cruz (TX), and Reps. Mo Brooks (R-AL), and Andy Biggs (R-AZ).

The clearest and simplest path forward is to hold these elites accountable: to punish them for what they’ve done, sending a signal that such behavior will not be tolerated in a democracy. ...

https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/...fedc32c19ef33b4

Zitat von Willie im Beitrag #140

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The case for consequences
Why Republicans have to be held accountable for the attack on Capitol Hill.

It’s been less than a week since a mob whipped up by President Donald Trump attacked the US Capitol in his name, and Republicans in Congress are already telling Americans to move on. What’s needed now is not punishment for insurrection, they say, but rather “healing” for a country rent by partisan fissures.
“To deliver a better America, partisans of all stripes must first unite as Americans and show that a peaceful transition has occurred,” House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy said in a Friday statement. “Impeaching the president ... will only divide our country more.”

But there has not been a “peaceful transition.” Five people are dead, and dozens injured, because the president’s supporters attacked Congress in an effort to disrupt its confirmation of President-elect Joe Biden’s victory.

Had such an attack been perpetrated by jihadists or a foreign power, Republicans would not want to simply move on: They would demand consequences, action to ensure that it never happened again. The reason they are not now is that it is their party, from President Trump on down, that bears responsibility for inciting this mob by insisting that the 2020 election was fraudulent. McCarthy himself voted against certifying Biden’s Electoral College victory — even after the House was attacked by marauders with zip ties and a hanging noose.

It is true that America needs healing, but of a very different kind. The country requires an aggressive treatment regimen to fight the illness at the heart of American democracy: the Republican elite’s willingness to stoke paranoid and violent fantasies prevalent among its base. It is not just Trump to blame, but also those Republicans who led the charge in trying to overturn the election result: people like Sens. Josh Hawley (MO) and Ted Cruz (TX), and Reps. Mo Brooks (R-AL), and Andy Biggs (R-AZ).

The clearest and simplest path forward is to hold these elites accountable: to punish them for what they’ve done, sending a signal that such behavior will not be tolerated in a democracy. ...

https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/...fedc32c19ef33b4

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Thousands sign petition to disbar Sen. Ted Cruz
Lawyers and law graduates believe the Texas senator incited violence at the U.S. Capitol.
https://www.11alive.com/article/news/pol...87-5e6ffc7a0518


American Democracy Survived Ted Cruz’s Demagoguery—This Time
Texas’s junior senator shares responsibility for inciting the mob that breached the U.S. Capitol. That’s brought him scorn from much of the country—but might win him fresh support from Trump Republicans.
https://www.texasmonthly.com/politics/te...mp-mob-capitol/


Ted Cruz accused of abetting sedition and inspiring pro-Trump riot by resisting Biden’s victory
Democrats say Texan helped inspire the mob in his ardor to curry favor ahead of a 2024 run. Cruz denounces ‘despicable act of terrorism.’
https://www.dallasnews.com/news/politics...bidens-victory/

WATCH: Sen. Ted Cruz's remarks moments before US Capitol stormed by pro-Trump rioters
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) called unproven claims of national election fraud a "profound threat" to the country.
https://www.kiiitv.com/article/news/poli...1e-d6edfab7c405

'Traitors to the country': Military veterans in Congress accuse Ted Cruz and Josh Hawley of helping incite the fatal violence on Capitol Hill
https://www.businessinsider.com/democrat...z-hawley-2021-1

‘I Don’t Know How You Can Live With Yourself’: Hawley, Cruz Increasingly Shunned After Capitol Attack
Sens. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) and Ted Cruz (R-Texas) are at a moment of reckoning for their firm alliances with President Trump, facing widespread condemnation at home and in Washington, D.C. in the aftermath of a brutal assault on the U.S. Capitol for their efforts to overturn the election.

The two senators have found themselves in an uncomfortable position after leading the charge to object to Biden electors – even after rioters stormed the building in an effort to overturn Biden’s victory, which caused other Republicans to walk back their support.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/andrewsolen...sh=4029d34a1f05

Commentary: U.S. Senate should expel Ted Cruz
As Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell noted in his speech before the Senate was stormed by Trump supporters, courts all across the country — many with judges who are Trump appointees — have thoroughly and completely rejected any claim of voter fraud.
https://www.expressnews.com/opinion/comm...uz-15853213.php

Sen. Tom Cotton blames DC riots on Hawley and Cruz for misleading Trump supporters
Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., placed a large amount of blame for Wednesday's riots on two of his fellow Republican senators who he believes misled President Donald Trump's supporters into believing the president could overturn the election.
https://katv.com/news/nation-world/sen-t...rump-supporters


Watch ‘Fox & Friends’ Fireworks After Geraldo Rivera Blames Trump, Cruz and Hawley for Capitol Riot (Video)
Fox News correspondent at large Geraldo Rivera placed the blame for Wednesday’s Capitol riot squarely on President Donald Trump and Senators Josh Hawley and Ted Cruz Friday morning.
“I think that what happened, history will judge him and it is something grotesquely disappointing to me, what happened,” said Rivera of the president, who directed supporters to descend on the nation’s capital this week in protest of President-elect Joe Biden election win.

Rivera, a friend of the president’s who has shared personal insights into his feelings, added, “I tell you, I blame Sen. Josh Hawley and Sen. Ted Cruz as much as I blame the president. Those are two brilliant men … They knew there was no constitutional, judicial or legislative path to overturn the election and yet they went along with the phony challenge to the Electoral College.”
https://www.thewrap.com/fox-news-geraldo...p-capitol-riot/


Tell Ted Cruz: You are responsible for inciting violence. Resign.
Violent extremists have attacked the US government, and taken over the capitol.
Texas Senator Ted Cruz incited this violence. He falsely said that the election was stolen and a conspiracy to overturn the will of the people.
Words matter, especially words from a powerful elected official. Tell Ted Cruz: Resign.
SPONSORED BY:
Boot Texas Republicans
https://actionnetwork.org/petitions/tell...violence-resign

‘Really dumb-a**’: Backlash from many fellow Republicans is swift for Josh Hawley and Ted Cruz
A Republican colleague rebuked him on the Senate floor. A home-state newspaper editorial board declared he has “blood on his hands.” But for Josh Hawley, the Missouri senator who staged an Electoral College challenge that became the focus of a violent siege of the U.S. Capitol, the words of his political mentor were the most personal.

“Supporting Josh Hawley ... was the worst decision I’ve ever made in my life,” former Missouri Sen. John Danforth told The Associated Press on Thursday. “He has consciously appealed to the worst. He has attempted to drive us apart and he has undermined public belief in our democracy. And that’s great damage.”

“Sen. Hawley was doing something that was really dumb-ass,” Sen. Ben Sasse, a fellow Republican from neighboring Nebraska, told NPR Friday. “This was a stunt. It was a terrible, terrible idea. And you don’t lie to the American people, and that’s what’s been going on.”

“There will be political fallout for his actions,” said Alice Stewart, a Republican strategist and former adviser to the 2016 presidential campaign of Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, who like Hawley, drew significant criticism for pushing ahead with the Electoral College challenge.
“The initial decision to oppose the will of the people was downright wrong,” Stewart said. “The post-insurrection calculation to continue the charade is fallacious and dangerous.”

Another Republican senator, granted anonymity by Politico, said this: “Their whole antic, if you will, is a lie. It’s built on a lie and both know that. To the degree that perpetuating this lie helped incite the crowd, that’s a responsibility that Ted and Josh sort of own, along with Donald Trump.” ...
https://www.chicagotribune.com/election-...puii-story.html

Editorial: Resign, Senator Cruz. Your lies cost lives.
https://www.houstonchronicle.com/opinion...st-15857293.php

The crackup of the Republican Party
There are no good political options for leaders going forward. The GOP is hopelessly divided, and there’s no putting Humpty Dumpty back together again.

... Interviews with dozens of Republican officials and strategists over the past few days illustrate the total confusion about the party’s direction. No one has a good handle on what the Grand Old Party will look like in the future. Among the establishment crowd, there’s a rough consensus that a future Republican Party won’t have anything to do with Trump anymore, a move that would precipitate a GOP split. Businesses are cutting off donations to Republican election denialists, social-media platforms are taking down extremist pro-Trump content, and even sympathetic celebrities want nothing to do with the disgraced president.

One former White House adviser said the MAGA die-hards are likely to end up forming their own party, given that they’re loyal to a person, not an institution. “There will be the Republican Party, the Democratic Party, and the Trumpists,” the source said. Remember: around 70 percent of Republicans still view Trump favorably, and 45 percent of Republicans say they support Trump more than the Republican Party. The trendlines are moving against Trump, but there’s still a significant share of Republicans who remain sucked into the president’s cult of personality. A divided GOP would cripple Republicans heading into what once looked like a productive midterm election. ...
https://www.nationaljournal.com/s/711982...2QMK636ICTDKJVM

Trump is missing in action as extremists plan more violence
President Trump is committing an unforgivable sin of omission this week.

Trump should be openly, sternly, and vociferously urging all his supporters not to protest or riot at capitol buildings across the nation in the next week, and he should be warning that even the slightest violence will be met with appropriate force, along with arrests and prosecution. Instead, he blathers that his inflammatory rally remarks last week were “totally appropriate,” and he still has said far more to praise his riotous supporters than to denounce them. ...
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opini...n-more-violence

Zitat von Hans Bergman im Beitrag #149

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Zitat von Willie im Beitrag #148

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Trump is missing in action as extremists plan more violence
President Trump is committing an unforgivable sin of omission this week.

Trump should be openly, sternly, and vociferously urging all his supporters not to protest or riot at capitol buildings across the nation in the next week, and he should be warning that even the slightest violence will be met with appropriate force, along with arrests and prosecution. Instead, he blathers that his inflammatory rally remarks last week were “totally appropriate,” and he still has said far more to praise his riotous supporters than to denounce them. ...
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opini...n-more-violence

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Nur für den unwahrscheinlichen Fall, dass Sie ganz vergessen :-)), das zu posten.

Videobotschaft des US-Präsidenten
Trump distanziert sich erneut von Gewalt
https://www.spiegel.de/politik/ausland/u...63-baa02635272a

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Pro-Trump Attorney Lin Wood Not of 'Sufficient Character' to Practice Law, Decides Judge
A Delaware Superior Court judge slammed pro-Trump attorney Lin Wood in a Monday decision, revoking Wood's right to represent ex-Trump aide Carter Page in a defamation suit stemming from the Mueller investigation.
"The conduct of Mr. Wood, albeit not in my jurisdiction, exhibited a toxic stew of mendacity, prevarication and surprising incompetence," Judge Craig Karsnitz wrote.

Karsnitz said that he is required to "ensure that those practicing before me are of sufficient character, and conduct themselves with sufficient civility and truthfulness," particularly when out-of-state counsel is selected. Wood is based in Georgia.
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2021/1/...ign=recommended

Trump impeachment: No unity until his morally bankrupt defenders get over him and repent
The people who have supported Trump need to come to terms with what they’ve done and with what they’ve allowed to happen — or it will happen again.

Donald Trump is impeached. He has now set two records: He is the first president to be impeached twice, and the first president to shatter the unbroken American history of the peaceful transfer of power. He has shown no remorse for his actions and he should be removed from office, even if it is 10 minutes before noon on Jan. 20, if that is all that is available.

The president’s supporters, however, now plead for understanding and inclusion, for lowering the temperature, for moving on. In speech after speech Wednesday on the floor of the House, the same Republicans who had no objections to the president’s incitement to insurrection now have deep concerns about parliamentary process, the rule of law and national unity.
This is moral charlatanism and I say to hell with it.

It is almost impossible to comprehend the sheer moral poverty of the people calling now for unity. Elected Republicans now admit they fear for their physical safety from their own constituents, but instead of thunderous defenses of the Constitution, we have soft mewling from people like Sen. Marco Rubio and his Bible-Verse-A-Day tweets, or the head-spinning duplicity of Sen. Lindsey Graham, who within days of saying “count me out” of any further sedition was jollying it up with the president on Air Force One.

The gold medal for hypocrisy should probably go to Kimberly Strassel of the Wall Street Journal, who demanded that Biden “show some grace,” that he “call on Democrats to stand down,” and that he “practice the healing” he and Kamala Harris promised during the campaign. “Why won’t he?” Strassel whined.

What Trump’s defenders lack in honesty, self-awareness or patriotism, they certainly make up for with pure, weapons-grade chutzpah. ...
https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2...fedc32c19ef33b4

Dana Bash@DanaBashCNN
Let's all take a step back and recognize that even after all that has happened,
Republican after Republican is still defending the president and his lies about the election.
12:27 PM · Jan 13, 2021

Ted Cruz’s Former Staffers Are ‘Disgusted’ by His New Low for Trump
Ted Cruz has long had a public reputation as an unctuous asshole. Even so, his staffers have tended to hold him in high regard as a kind and geeky man who treated his underlings well even while his fellow senators loathed him. Now, though, “most of Cruzworld is pretty disgusted” with the senator for choosing to back Donald Trump’s absurd claims of widespread election fraud, in the words of one former aide. As another former aide put it, “Everyone is upset with the direction things have gone, and the longer they’ve been with the senator, the more distaste they are expressing.”

They have asked themselves and each other how the candidate who began his political career as an unwavering “constitutional conservative” could allow himself to fall in line with Trump’s fraudulent and delusional election challenge; how the man they once viewed as deeply principled has been so willing to behave so cravenly. ...
https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2021/01/...p.html#comments

The post-Trump GOP, gutted
Republicans will emerge from the Trump era gutted financially, institutionally and structurally.

The big picture: The losses are stark and substantial.

What to watch: Conservatives hold power in the courts and state legislatures, two foundational pieces to rebuilding their party. But they likely will face a raging internal war over policies and political leaders as they grapple with a post-Trump world — whenever that might be.
https://www.axios.com/post-trump-republi...1480a4198b.html

They’ve Been Calling for Bloodshed the Whole Time Some on the right have supported violence for years now; the party has built its power on them.

... What happened last week should not have been a shock to any of us. It has been years that hard right-wingers — including but most definitely not limited to the man who is still president of the United States — have been openly threatening violence grounded in racist and misogynistic resentments. For years, they’ve made it clear that they see their only path to victory as being through bloodshed. What’s interesting is how those threats have been heard, and by whom they have been taken seriously before now.

Before the 2016 election, Trump friend and Republican operative Roger Stone went on Milo Yiannopoulos’s podcast and predicted that there would be voter fraud leading to a Hillary Clinton victory. “This election will be illegitimate,” Stone said. “The winner will be illegitimate. We will have a constitutional crisis. We will have widespread civil disobedience … It will be a bloodbath.” ...
https://www.thecut.com/2021/01/the-capit...threatened.html

That was even before 2016!

The Hoarse Whisperer@TheRealHoarse
I don’t think we’re going to see Trump’s healthcare plan, guys.
8:27 PM · Jan 14, 2021

Which the orange sycopath promised on "Day 1" in 2017.

Former GOP congressman says he's leaving party: 'This has become a cult'
Former Oklahoma GOP Congressman Mickey Edwards said that he is leaving his party because it has become a “cult” led by President Trump.

“This has become a cult. It’s no longer a political party. It’s a cult,” Edwards told Oklahoma's News 4 on Thursday. "It’s the kind of a cult that when the leader of the cult does anything, no matter what it is, or how awful it is, they voted.
https://thehill.com/homenews/state-watch...s-become-a-cult

‘Hell, Yes,’ Republicans Are Headed for a Bitter Internal Showdown
G.O.P. leadership would like to blunt President Trump’s influence over the party. Mr. Trump and his allies want to punish those who have crossed him. A series of clashes looms.
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/16/us/po...leadership.html

GOP divided over Liz Cheney's future
Republicans are divided over the future of House Republican Conference Chairwoman Liz Cheney (Wyo.) after her vote Wednesday to impeach President Trump.
https://thehill.com/homenews/house/53451...-cheneys-future

Impeachment trial tests Trump's grip on Senate GOP
President Trump’s relationship with Senate Republicans is facing its biggest test at its lowest point.

Many Republicans blame Trump for their loss of the Senate majority, and are furious that he put their lives in danger after an angry mob filled with people who believed his conspiracy theories about the election stormed the Capitol last week.
Now those Republicans have a chance to vote to convict Trump in an impeachment trial — if they choose to do it. They could also vote to permanently ban him from holding public office.
“It had been a very unhealthy marriage for a long time … and now you know a lot of Republicans are quite happy to be divorced,” said Doug Heye, a veteran GOP strategist and former Hill leadership aide. “There will still be political calculations that they make … but this is no longer a fractured relationship, it’s divorce.” ...
https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/5343...p-on-senate-gop

McConnell about to school Trump on political power for the last time
Donald Trump had a pretty good run in Washington — rampaging through the Republican Party, driving the media to distraction, enraging the Democrats and treating his own co-partisans in the Senate like a bunch of valets. But that’s all about to end. And I predict it will end with Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) — as the new minority leader — incinerating Trump’s political future for good.
https://thehill.com/opinion/campaign/534...r-the-last-time

We shall see.

Senate Republicans adrift ahead of Trump trial
GOP senators are largely without leadership guidance over how to judge Donald Trump during the second impeachment trial.
https://www.politico.com/news/2021/01/16...mp-trial-459708