The Juggler
Behind that bush over there. Posts: 47,258
Posted in the Trump thread. Here too, for good measure. Donald Trump has destroyed the republican party. Far right extremists want a new Trumpier Patriot party. Reasonable republicans want a more center-right party.
The democrats have a real chance to capitalize right now.
(Reuters) - Dozens of former Republican officials, who view the party as unwilling to stand up to former President Donald Trump and his attempts to undermine U.S. democracy, are in talks to form a center-right breakaway party, four people involved in the discussions told Reuters.
FILE PHOTO: U.S. President Donald Trump waves as he arrives at Palm Beach International Airport in West Palm Beach, Florida, U.S., January 20, 2021. REUTERS/Carlos Barria
The early stage discussions include former elected Republicans, former officials in the Republican administrations of Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, George W. Bush and Trump, ex-Republican ambassadors and Republican strategists, the people involved say.
More than 120 of them held a Zoom call last Friday to discuss the breakaway group, which would run on a platform of “principled conservatism,” including adherence to the Constitution and the rule of law - ideas those involved say have been trashed by Trump.
The plan would be to run candidates in some races but also to endorse center-right candidates in others, be they Republicans, independents or Democrats, the people say.
Evan McMullin, who was chief policy director for the House Republican Conference and ran as an independent in the 2016 presidential election, told Reuters that he co-hosted the Zoom call with former officials concerned about Trump’s grip on Republicans and the nativist turn the party has taken.
Three other people confirmed to Reuters the call and the discussions for a potential splinter party, but asked not to be identified.
Among the call participants were John Mitnick, general counsel for the Department of Homeland Security under Trump; former Republican congressman Charlie Dent; Elizabeth Neumann, deputy chief of staff in the Homeland Security Department under Trump; and Miles Taylor, another former Trump homeland security official.
The talks highlight the wide intraparty rift over Trump’s false claims of election fraud and the deadly Jan. 6 storming of the U.S. Capitol. Most Republicans remain fiercely loyal to the former president, but others seek a new direction for the party.
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The House of Representatives impeached Trump on Jan. 13 on a charge of inciting an insurrection by exhorting thousands of supporters to march on the Capitol on the day Congress was gathered to certify Democrat Joe Biden’s election victory.
Call participants said they were particularly dismayed by the fact that more than half of the Republicans in Congress - eight senators and 139 House representatives - voted to block certification of Biden’s election victory just hours after the Capitol siege.
Most Republican senators have also indicated they will not support the conviction of Trump in this week’s Senate impeachment trial.
“Large portions of the Republican Party are radicalizing and threatening American democracy,” McMullin told Reuters. “The party needs to recommit to truth, reason and founding ideals or there clearly needs to be something new.”
‘THESE LOSERS’
Asked about the discussions for a third party, Jason Miller, a Trump spokesman, said: “These losers left the Republican Party when they voted for Joe Biden.”
A representative for the Republican National Committee referred to a recent statement from Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel.
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“If we continue to attack each other and focus on attacking on fellow Republicans, if we have disagreements within our party, then we are losing sight of 2022 (elections),” McDaniel said on Fox News last month.
“The only way we’re going to win is if we come together,” she said.
The Biden White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
McMullin said just over 40% of those on last week’s Zoom call backed the idea of a breakaway, national third party. Another option under discussion is to form a “faction” that would operate either inside the current Republican Party or outside it.
Names under consideration for a new party include the Integrity Party and the Center Right Party. If it is decided instead to form a faction, one name under discussion is the Center Right Republicans.
Members are aware that the U.S. political landscape is littered with the remains of previous failed attempts at national third parties.
“But there is a far greater hunger for a new political party out there than I have ever experienced in my lifetime,” one participant said.
Reporting by Tim Reid; Additional reporting by Jarrett Renshaw; Editing by Soyoung Kim and Peter Cooney
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mickeyrat
up my ass, like Chadwick was up his Posts: 35,700
edited February 2021
Opinion: Trump left them to die. 43 Senate Republicans still licked his boots.
Senate votes to acquit Trump in second impeachment trial
On
Feb. 13, Republican senators cast enough votes to acquit former
president Donald Trump on an impeachment charge. (The Washington Post)
In the end, the darkest truth of Donald Trump’s crime came to light.
As
his marauders sacked the Capitol on Jan. 6 in their bloody attempt to
overturn the election, House Republican leader Kevin McCarthy called the
then-president and pleaded for Trump to call off the attack.
Trump
refused, essentially telling McCarthy he got what he deserved. Trump
was, in effect, content to let members of Congress die.
That damning account, in a statement
Friday night from Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler (Wash.), a Republican who
defended Trump during his first impeachment, momentarily threw the
Senate’s impeachment trial into chaos on its final day.
Trump’s lawyers, in their slashing, largely fictitious defense, claimed
that Trump was “horrified” by the violence, hadn’t known that Vice
President Mike Pence was in danger and took “immediate steps” to counter
the rioting.
But
Herrera Beutler revealed such claims to be a lie. When McCarthy
“finally reached the president on January 6 and asked him to publicly
and forcefully call off the riot, the president initially repeated the
falsehood that it was antifa that had breached the Capitol,” she wrote.
McCarthy, she continued, “refuted that and told the president that these
were Trump supporters. That’s when, according to McCarthy, the
president said: ‘Well, Kevin, I guess these people are more upset about the election than you are.’ ”
On
Feb. 13, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said former
president Trump could still be held accountable within the criminal
justice system. (The Washington Post)
Her
account wasn’t seriously or substantively refuted. On Saturday
afternoon, senators agreed that Herrera Beutler’s statement would be
entered into the trial record as evidence.
Even knowing this, most Republican senators, as long expected, voted to acquit Trump, a craven surrender to the political imperative not to cross the demagogue. But the impeachment trial
was not in vain, for it revealed the ugly truth: Trump knew lawmakers’
lives were in danger from his violent supporters, and instead of helping
the people’s representatives escape harm, Trump scoffed.
Republicans
scrambled to limit the damage of Herrera Beutler’s revelation. Senate
Republican leader Mitch McConnell, who had feigned being open to
conviction, abandoned the pretense and, minutes before the Senate
convened Saturday, emailed his Republican colleagues that he would vote to acquit.
On
the Senate floor, Trump counsel Michael van der Veen, a personal-injury
lawyer by day, tried in every way to demonstrate his indignation at the
late revelation. He shouted. He growled. He gesticulated madly. He
pounded the lectern. He stomped. He spit out words: “Antics.” “Rumor.”
“Report.” “Innuendo.” “False narrative!” He actually declared that “it
doesn’t matter what happened after the insurgence into the Capitol
building.” So what if Trump scoffed at McCarthy’s desperate entreaty to
save lawmakers’ lives?
Sputtering
like the Looney Tunes character Sylvester the Cat, van der Veen
declared: “Nancy Pelosi’s deposition needs to be taken. Vice President
Harris’s deposition absolutely needs to be taken. And not by Zoom. None
of these depositions should be done by Zoom. We didn’t do this hearing
by Zoom! These depositions should be done — in person, in my office, in
Philly-delphia!”
Sufferin’ succotash!
Laughter broke out in the chamber.
“I
don’t know why you’re laughing,” he responded. “It is civil process. …
I’ll slap subpoenas on a good number of people.” He seemed to think he
was arguing a slip-and-fall case in the Pennsylvania Court of Common
Pleas.
Republicans joined the theatrics.
On
the Senate floor, Sen. Ron Johnson (Wis.), an always-Trumper, was seen
pointing at Sen. Mitt Romney (Utah) and saying “blame you” in a raised
voice. Romney was one of five Republicans who joined all 50 Democrats in
voting to allow witness testimony.
Sen.
Mike Lee (Utah), another Trump ally, interrupted a presentation to
complain that the House impeachment managers “said something that’s not
true” — never mind that the Senate had sat in silence during hours of
falsehoods from Trump’s team.
After
Herrera Beutler’s revelations sparked a vote for witnesses, Senate
leaders brokered a compromise to keep the impeachment trial from
spiraling into endless discovery. Herrera Beutler’s statement would be
admitted as evidence, but this would “not constitute a concession by
either party as for the truth of the matters asserted by the other
party.”
Rep.
Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), the lead impeachment manager, claimed that “this
uncontradicted statement" provided “further decisive evidence of
[Trump’s] intent to incite the insurrection.”
Van
der Veen, in response, howled about due process and fairness being
“violently breached” — interesting words, given what his client did.
When
the yeas and nays were counted, seven Senate Republicans joined Herrera
Beutler in her courageous stand, voting along with all 50 Democrats to
convict Trump. The other 43 Republicans, some of whom, like McConnell,
feebly denounced Trump’s conduct even as they acquitted him, now have
the cowardly distinction of licking the boots of the man who left them
to die.
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
Louisiana Republican party voted to censure Republican Senator who voted for impeachment. Do you think they censured Trump for inciting an insurrection or at the very minimum did nothing to stop it? McConnell even stood up and said Trump was guilty of all accusations after the vote. And the Louisiana GOP feels like they need to censure this person. That is deep, deep level of despicable. I used to be a Republican and watcher of Fox News for a while. I don't agree with a lot of what the far left Dems want, but I'm glad not to be associated with this GOP.
Can’t wait til he gets off scot free from whatever comes up next, now that the TDS has effectively been established as a defense in two impeachment’s.
Scio me nihil scire
There are no kings inside the gates of eden
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mickeyrat
up my ass, like Chadwick was up his Posts: 35,700
meanwhile in Pennsylvania...
Pennsylvania G.O.P.’s Push for More Power Over Judiciary Raises Alarms
After fighting the election results, state Republicans are trying to increase their control of the courts. Outraged Democrats and good government groups see it as a new kind of gerrymandering.
When the Pennsylvania Supreme Court unanimously rejected a Republican attempt to overturn the state’s election results in November, Justice David N. Wecht issued his own pointed rebuke, condemning the G.O.P. effort as “futile” and “a dangerous game.”
“It is not our role to lend legitimacy to such transparent and untimely efforts to subvert the will of Pennsylvania voters,” wrote Justice Wecht, a Democrat who was elected to a 10-year term on the bench in 2016. “Courts should not decide elections when the will of the voters is clear.”
Now Pennsylvania Republicans have a plan to make it less likely that judges like Justice Wecht get in their way.
G.O.P. legislators, dozens of whom supported overturning the state’s election results to aid former President Donald J. Trump, are moving to change the entire way that judges are selected in Pennsylvania, in a gambit that could tip the scales of the judiciary to favor their party, or at least elect judges more inclined to embrace Republican election challenges.
The proposal would replace the current system of statewide elections for judges with judicial districts drawn by the Republican-controlled legislature. Those districts could empower rural, predominantly conservative areas and particularly rewire the State Supreme Court, which has a 5-to-2 Democratic lean.
Democrats are now mobilizing to fight the effort, calling it a thinly veiled attempt at creating a new level of gerrymandering — an escalation of the decades-old practice of drawing congressional and state legislative districts to ensure that political power remains in one party’s hands. Democrats are marshaling grass-roots opposition, holding regular town hall events conducted over Zoom, and planning social media campaigns and call-in days to legislators, as well as an enormous voter education campaign. One group, Why Courts Matter Pennsylvania, has cut a two-minute infomercial.
Republicans in Pennsylvania have historically used gerrymandering to maintain their majority in the legislature, despite Democratic victories in statewide elections. Republicans have controlled the State House of Representatives since 2011 and the State Senate since 1993.
Current schedules for the legislature make it unlikely the Republicans could marshal their majorities in the House and Senate to pass the bill by Wednesday and put the proposal before voters on the ballot in May. Passing the bill after that date would set up a new and lengthy political war for November in this fiercely contested state.
Republicans have some history on their side: Pennsylvania voters tend to approve ballot measures.
“You should be very suspicious when you see a legislature who has been thwarted by a Supreme Court in its unconstitutional attempts to rig the democratic process then trying to rig the composition of that Supreme Court,” said Wendy Weiser, the director of the Democracy Program at the Brennan Center for Justice.
She added, “It is way too much control for one branch to have over another branch, particularly where one of its charges is to reign in the excesses of the legislative branch.”
If the Republican bill becomes law, Pennsylvania would become just the fifth state in the country, after Louisiana, Kentucky, Mississippi and Illinois, to wholly map its judicial system into electoral districts, according to the Brennan Center. And other states may soon join Pennsylvania in trying to remake the courts through redistricting.
Republicans in the Texas Legislature, which is also controlled by the G.O.P., recently introduced a bill that would shift districts for the state appellate courts by moving some counties into different districts, causing an uproar among state Democrats who saw the new districts as weakening the voting power of Black and Latino communities in judicial elections and potentially adding to the Republican tilt of the Texas courts.
Gilberto Hinojosa, the chair of the Texas Democratic Party, called the bill a “pure power grab meant to keep Blacks and Latinos from having influence on courts as their numbers in the state grow.”
These judicial redistricting battles are taking shape as Republican-controlled legislatures across the country explore new restrictions on voting after the 2020 elections. In Georgia, Republicans in the state legislature are seeking a host of new laws that would make voting more difficult, including banning drop boxes and placing sweeping limitations on mail-in voting. Similar bills in Arizona would restrict mail-in voting, including barring the state from sending out mail ballot applications. And in Texas, Republican lawmakers want to limit early voting periods.
The nationwide effort by Republicans follows a successful four-year drive by the party’s lawmakers in Washington to reshape the federal judiciary with conservative judges. Led by Senator Mitch McConnell, until recently the majority leader, and Mr. Trump, the Senate confirmed 231 federal judges, as well as three new Supreme Court justices, over the former president’s four-year term, according to data maintained by Russell Wheeler, a research fellow at the Brookings Institution.
In a state like Pennsylvania, which has two densely populated Democratic cities and large rural areas, this could give outsize representation to sparsely populated places that lean more conservative, particularly if the legislature resorts to a gerrymandering tactic similar to one used in Pennsylvania in 2011.
“Republicans have been good at gerrymandering districts in Pennsylvania, or good in the sense that they’ve been successful,” said State Senator Sharif Street, a Democrat. “I think they would like to remain successful, and they are confident that they can gerrymander judicial districts.”
Republicans in the state legislature argue that their proposed move would give different regions of Pennsylvania more representation.
Russ Diamond, the Republican state representative who is sponsoring the bill, said in an email that regional representation was necessary for the judiciary “because the same statewide consensus which goes in making law should come to bear when those statutes are heard on appeal, are applied in practical real-life situations, and when precedent is set for the future of the Commonwealth.”
“The overall goal is to include the full diversity of Pennsylvania’s appellate courts,” Mr. Diamond added. “There is no way to completely depoliticize the courts, other than choosing judges via random selection or a lottery system. Every individual holds some political opinion or another.”
Geographic diversity, however, rarely equates to racial diversity in the courts. The four states that use judicial districts in state Supreme Court elections — Illinois, Louisiana, Mississippi and Kentucky — have never had more than one justice of color on the court at any given time, according to data from the Brennan Center.
While eight states use some form of judicial districts to elect judges, Pennsylvania’s proposal remains an outlier on a few key elements. First, a partisan legislature would have the power to redraw the districts every 10 years, whereas those elsewhere remain for longer or are based on statute. Additionally, the judicial districts in Pennsylvania would not be bound by or based on any existing legislative or congressional districts, created from scratch by the Republican-controlled legislature.
The move has caught the attention of national Democratic groups that are at the forefront of redistricting battles across the country.
“A decade ago, Pennsylvania Republicans gerrymandered themselves into majorities in the legislature and congressional delegation,” said Eric H. Holder Jr., the former United States attorney general and current chairman of the National Democratic Redistricting Committee. “Now that their grip on power has been forcibly loosened by the courts, they want to create and then manipulate judicial districts in a blatant attempt to undermine the independence of the judiciary and stack the courts with their conservative allies.”
Because the bill has already passed the House once, in 2020, it needs only to pass both chambers of the state legislature again to make it on the ballot.
Further stoking Democrats’ fears: The bill does not need the signature of Gov. Tom Wolf, a Democrat. Since it would be an amendment to the Constitution, it would head to the ballot as a referendum question to be voted on in the next election (if the bill passes before Wednesday, it would go to voters during the May primary). Historically, Pennsylvania voters have voted more in favor of ballot measures than against them, according to data from the National Conference of State Legislatures.
Good government groups have teamed up with Democrats to mount a huge voter education campaign, anticipating that the judicial question may soon be on the ballot. Progressive groups including the Judicial Independent Project of PA, a new coalition that includes the voting rights group Common Cause, have been holding digital town halls about the judicial redistricting proposal, with attendance regularly topping 100 people.
On a Thursday evening late last month, more than 160 people logged into Zoom to hear from coalition leaders about the bill and to hatch plans to further mobilize against it. Rebecca Litt, a senior organizer from a local Indivisible group, proposed a call-your-legislator day. Ricardo Almodovar, an organizing director with We the People PA, another progressive group, noted the graphics and other social media campaigns already underway to help educate voters.
“We’re also trying to humanize the courts,” Mr. Almodovar explained during a smaller session with southeastern Pennsylvania residents, sharing stories of how specific court decisions “impact our lives.”
Throughout the full, hourlong meeting, organizers repeatedly sought to make the stakes very clear.
“We are in the last legislative session of this,” said Alexa Grant, a program advocate with Common Cause. “So we are the last line of defense.”
Voting Rights, the 2020 Election and Political Fights in the Courts
Nick Corasaniti covers national politics. He was one of the lead reporters covering Donald Trump's campaign for president in 2016 and has been writing about presidential, congressional, gubernatorial and mayoral campaigns for The Times since 2011. @NYTnickc • Facebook
Sign Up for On Politics With Lisa Lerer
A spotlight on the people reshaping our politics. A conversation with voters across the country. And a guiding hand through the endless news cycle, telling you what you really need to know.
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
Can’t wait til he gets off scot free from whatever comes up next, now that the TDS has effectively been established as a defense in two impeachment’s.
Are you trolling? Cause it seems like you are.
Remember the Thomas Nine !! (10/02/2018)
1998: Noblesville; 2003: Noblesville; 2009: EV Nashville, Chicago, Chicago 2010: St Louis, Columbus, Noblesville; 2011: EV Chicago, East Troy, East Troy 2013: London ON, Chicago; 2014: Cincy, St Louis, Moline (NO CODE) 2016: Lexington, Wrigley #1; 2018: Wrigley, Wrigley, Boston, Boston 2020: Oakland, Oakland:2021: EV Ohana, Ohana, Ohana, Ohana 2022: Oakland, Oakland, Nashville, Louisville; 2023: Chicago, Chicago, Noblesville
Like many Trump supporters, conservative donor Fred Eshelman awoke the day after the presidential election with the suspicion that something wasn’t right. His candidate’s apparent lead in key battleground states had evaporated overnight.
The next day, the North Carolina financier and his advisers reached out to a small conservative nonprofit group in Texas that was seeking to expose voter fraud. After a 20-minute talk with the group’s president, their first-ever conversation, Eshelman was sold.
“I’m in for 2,” he told the president of True the Vote, according to court documents and interviews with Eshelman and others.
“$200,000?” one of his advisers on the call asked.
“$2 million,” Eshelman responded.
Over the next 12 days, Eshelman came to regret his donation and to doubt conspiracy theories of rampant illegal voting, according to court records and interviews.
Now, he wants his money back.
The story behind the Eshelman donation — detailed in previously unreported court filings and exclusive interviews with those involved — provides new insights into the frenetic days after the election, when baseless claims led donors to give hundreds of millions of dollars to reverse President Biden’s victory.
Trump’s campaign and the Republican Party collected $255 million in two months, saying the money would support legal challenges to an election marred by fraud. Trump’s staunchest allies in Congress also raised money off those false allegations, as did pro-Trump lawyers seeking to overturn the election results — and even some of their witnesses.
True the Vote was one of several conservative “election integrity” groups that sought to press the case in court. Though its lawsuits drew less attention than those brought by the Trump campaign, True the Vote nonetheless sought to raise more than $7 million for its investigation of the 2020 election.
Like many Trump supporters, conservative donor Fred Eshelman awoke the day after the presidential election with the suspicion that something wasn’t right. His candidate’s apparent lead in key battleground states had evaporated overnight.
The next day, the North Carolina financier and his advisers reached out to a small conservative nonprofit group in Texas that was seeking to expose voter fraud. After a 20-minute talk with the group’s president, their first-ever conversation, Eshelman was sold.
“I’m in for 2,” he told the president of True the Vote, according to court documents and interviews with Eshelman and others.
“$200,000?” one of his advisers on the call asked.
“$2 million,” Eshelman responded.
Over the next 12 days, Eshelman came to regret his donation and to doubt conspiracy theories of rampant illegal voting, according to court records and interviews.
Now, he wants his money back.
The story behind the Eshelman donation — detailed in previously unreported court filings and exclusive interviews with those involved — provides new insights into the frenetic days after the election, when baseless claims led donors to give hundreds of millions of dollars to reverse President Biden’s victory.
Trump’s campaign and the Republican Party collected $255 million in two months, saying the money would support legal challenges to an election marred by fraud. Trump’s staunchest allies in Congress also raised money off those false allegations, as did pro-Trump lawyers seeking to overturn the election results — and even some of their witnesses.
True the Vote was one of several conservative “election integrity” groups that sought to press the case in court. Though its lawsuits drew less attention than those brought by the Trump campaign, True the Vote nonetheless sought to raise more than $7 million for its investigation of the 2020 election.
I have his first two books. I was a dittohead back then. But that was before he was trumpy.
Remember the Thomas Nine !! (10/02/2018)
1998: Noblesville; 2003: Noblesville; 2009: EV Nashville, Chicago, Chicago 2010: St Louis, Columbus, Noblesville; 2011: EV Chicago, East Troy, East Troy 2013: London ON, Chicago; 2014: Cincy, St Louis, Moline (NO CODE) 2016: Lexington, Wrigley #1; 2018: Wrigley, Wrigley, Boston, Boston 2020: Oakland, Oakland:2021: EV Ohana, Ohana, Ohana, Ohana 2022: Oakland, Oakland, Nashville, Louisville; 2023: Chicago, Chicago, Noblesville
Never listened to Limbaugh but he once had a great cameo on Family Guy where he did his own voice. Brian becomes friends with him, and starts becoming a Republican. But Rush questions Brian's conservative values...leading to one of my favorite Family Guy exchanges....
Rush: Come on, Brian. Admit it. You're a liberal. Why try to be something you're not? Brian: But I AM a conservative, Rush! After all, I support the death penalty. Rush: Really, Brian? Well what about the four-year-old that was executed in Texas last week? Brian: They executed a four-year-old?!?!?!?! Rush: No...but just the fact that you were concerned proves you're not one of us.
Never listened to Limbaugh but he once had a great cameo on Family Guy where he did his own voice. Brian becomes friends with him, and starts becoming a Republican. But Rush questions Brian's conservative values...leading to one of my favorite Family Guy exchanges....
Rush: Come on, Brian. Admit it. You're a liberal. Why try to be something you're not? Brian: But I AM a conservative, Rush! After all, I support the death penalty. Rush: Really, Brian? Well what about the four-year-old that was executed in Texas last week? Brian: They executed a four-year-old?!?!?!?! Rush: No...but just the fact that you were concerned proves you're not one of us.
Yeah that was good. There was another one where Lois became a fox reporter and discovered that Rush and Michael Moore were the same person.
This guy just communicated the repub platform for 2024. Its a winner folks! The reader comments are hilarious, if you have time. Remember POOTWH waving that piece of paper he took out of his inner suit jacket pocket, claiming he had the "evidence?" This guy fills the bill.
By Tuesday morning, the residents of Colorado City, Tex., were getting anxious. More than 24 hours had passed since a deadly Arctic blast knocked out power across the state, leaving them without heat or electricity in below-freezing temperatures. To make matters worse, many also lacked running water, forcing them to haul in heavy buckets of snow each time they needed to flush their toilets.
Residents turned to a community Facebook group to ask whether the small town planned to open warming shelters, while others wondered if firefighters could do their job without water. But when Colorado City’s mayor chimed in, it was to deliver a less-than-comforting message: The local government had no responsibility to help out its citizens, and only the tough would survive.
“No one owes you [or] your family anything,” Tim Boyd wrote on Tuesday in a now-deleted Facebook post, according to KTXS and KTAB/KRBC. “I’m sick and tired of people looking for a damn handout!”
Boyd’s tirade, which also demanded that “lazy” residents find their own ways of procuring water and electricity, immediately drew backlash. Later on Tuesday, Boyd announced his resignation and admitted that he could have “used better wording.”
The controversy highlighted how one of the worst winter storms in decades is testing the limits of the embrace of self-sufficiency and rugged individualism in Texas. The state’s decision to skirt federal oversight by operating its own power grid is one of the main reasons that close to 3.3 million residentsin Texas still lacked electricity by early Wednesday morning, while outages in other hard-hit states had dwindled to less than one-tenth of that size. As of late Tuesday, grid operators still couldn’t predict when the lights might turn on, and advocates were warning that Texas’s poorest and most vulnerable residents were at risk of freezing to death. At least 10 deaths in Texas have been linked to the winter storm since Monday, according to the Houston Chronicle.
The failure to deliver basic services has angered countless Texans, including top-ranking elected officials. But in Colorado City, Boyd rejected the notion that municipal governments or utility companies had any obligation to provide paying customers with necessities like heat and running water during a catastrophic winter storm.
“The City and County, along with power providers or any other service owes you NOTHING!” he wrote on Facebook on Tuesday.
Boyd suggested that residents without electricity should simply “step up and come up with a game plan.” Those without running water could either deal with it, or “think outside of the box to survive and supply water to your family.” He did not offer any further guidance, such as where safe drinking water or reliable electricity could be found.
“Only the strong will survive and the weak will [perish],” he wrote.
Colorado City, home to roughly 4,000 people, is located between Abilene and the twin cities of Midland and Odessa, in a part of West Texas that’s best known for high school football and oil field jobs. Below-freezing temperatures aren’t uncommon in winter as winds sweep across the plains, but losing heat, power, water and the ability to cook at the same time was an unpleasant new experience for many in the area.
Although authorities across Texas encouraged residents to hunker down until power could be restored and avoid driving on dangerously icy roads, Boyd categorized those who were camped out in frigid homes and waiting for assistance as “lazy.”
“Folks God has given us the tools to support ourselves in times like this,” he wrote, claiming that those who expected the city to come to their aid were “sadly a product of a socialist government.”
In reality, community members were doing their best to help one another, offering to trudge through the snow to pick up supplies for neighbors or share water from their private wells. And as critics pointed out, even trying to access the emergency preparedness guide on Colorado City’s official webpage led to an error message.
Facing mounting anger on Tuesday, Boyd claimed that his comments “were taken out of context” and did not apply to the elderly, then continued to double down.
“I was only making the statement that those folks that are too lazy to get up and fend for themselves but are capable should not be dealt a handout,” he wrote in a post that was later deleted, according to local media outlets.
Boyd also claimed that he was speaking in his capacity as a private citizen, and had already resigned from his position as mayor of Colorado City. He added that his wife had been fired from her job “over things I said” and said that his family was facing “undeserved” harassment and death threats.
“I won’t share any of those messages from those names as I feel they know who they are and hope after they see this they will retract the hateful things they have said!” he wrote.
Boyd could not be reached for comment late Tuesday night, and it wasn’t immediately clear if he resigned before or after writing his controversial Facebook post. As of early Wednesday morning, he was still listed as mayor on Colorado City’s website, and city council agendas showed that he had served in that role as recently as last week.
Never listened to Limbaugh but he once had a great cameo on Family Guy where he did his own voice. Brian becomes friends with him, and starts becoming a Republican. But Rush questions Brian's conservative values...leading to one of my favorite Family Guy exchanges....
Rush: Come on, Brian. Admit it. You're a liberal. Why try to be something you're not? Brian: But I AM a conservative, Rush! After all, I support the death penalty. Rush: Really, Brian? Well what about the four-year-old that was executed in Texas last week? Brian: They executed a four-year-old?!?!?!?! Rush: No...but just the fact that you were concerned proves you're not one of us.
Yeah that was good. There was another one where Lois became a fox reporter and discovered that Rush and Michael Moore were the same person.
Never saw that one. I'll have to check it out.
Another Limbaugh cameo on Family Guy was in one of the Star Wars episodes. When Luke (Chris) is driving around in the desert, he puts on talk radio and it's Rush saying something like "So Lando Calrissian has been named curator of Cloud City. Afirmiatve action strikes again."
Never listened to Limbaugh but he once had a great cameo on Family Guy where he did his own voice. Brian becomes friends with him, and starts becoming a Republican. But Rush questions Brian's conservative values...leading to one of my favorite Family Guy exchanges....
Rush: Come on, Brian. Admit it. You're a liberal. Why try to be something you're not? Brian: But I AM a conservative, Rush! After all, I support the death penalty. Rush: Really, Brian? Well what about the four-year-old that was executed in Texas last week? Brian: They executed a four-year-old?!?!?!?! Rush: No...but just the fact that you were concerned proves you're not one of us.
Yeah that was good. There was another one where Lois became a fox reporter and discovered that Rush and Michael Moore were the same person.
Never saw that one. I'll have to check it out.
Another Limbaugh cameo on Family Guy was in one of the Star Wars episodes. When Luke (Chris) is driving around in the desert, he puts on talk radio and it's Rush saying something like "So Lando Calrissian has been named curator of Cloud City. Afirmiatve action strikes again."
Yeah, that line is classic. Blue Harvest is so friggin' funny. For those of us that grew up in the late 70's and watched Star Wars a million times, Seth nailed all of the subtle silly things in the movie.
No one owes you or your family anything; nor is it the local governments responsibility to support you during trying times like this! Sink or swim, it’s your choice! The City and County, along with power providers or any other service owes you NOTHING! I’m sick and tired of people looking for a damn hand out! If you don’t have electricity you step up and come up with a game plan to keep your family warm and safe. If you have no water you deal with out and think outside of the box to survive and supply water to your family. If you were sitting at home in the cold because you have no power and are sitting there waiting for someone to come rescue you because your lazy is direct result of your raising! Only the strong will survive and the week will perish. Folks, God Has given us the tools to support ourselves in times like this. This is sadly a product of a socialist government where they feed people to believe that the FEW work and others will become dependent for handouts. Am I sorry that you have been dealing without electricity and water; yes! But I’ll be damned if I’m going to provide for anyone that is capable of doing it themselves! We have lost sight of those in need and those that take advantage of the system and mesh them into one group!! Bottom line, quit crying and looking for a handout! Get off your ass and take care of your own family!
Bottom line - DON’T BE A PART OF A PROBLEM, BE A PART OF THE SOLUTION!
Full text from second post
All, I have set back and watched all this escalating and have tried to keep my mouth shut! I won’t deny for one minute what I said in my post this morning. Believe me when I say that many of the things I said were taken out of context and some of which were said without putting much thought in to it. I would never want to hurt the elderly or anyone that is in true need of help to be left to fend for themselves. I was only making the statement that those folks that are too lazy to get up and fend for themselves but are capable should not be dealt a handout. I apologize for the wording and some of the phrases that were used! I had already turned in my resignation and had not signed up to run for mayor again on the deadline that was February 12th! I spoke some of this out of the anger that the city and county was catching for situations which were out of their control. Please understand if I had it to do over again I would have just kept my words to myself and if I did say them I would have used better wording and been more descriptive.
The anger and harassment you have caused my wife and family is so undeserved....my wife was laid off of her job based off the association people gave to her and the business she worked for. She’s a very good person and was only defending me! But her to have to get fired from her job over things I said out of context is so horrible. I admit, there are things that are said all the time that I don’t agree with; but I would never harass you or your family to the point that they would lose there livelihood such as a form of income.
I ask that you each understand I never meant to speak for the city of Colorado City or Mitchell county! I was speaking as a citizen as I am NOT THE MAYOR anymore. I apologize for the wording and ask that you please not harass myself or my family anymore!
Threatening our lives with comments and messages is a horrible thing to have to wonder about. I won’t share any of those messages from those names as I feel they know who they are and hope after they see this they will retract the hateful things they have said!
No one owes you or your family anything; nor is it the local governments responsibility to support you during trying times like this! Sink or swim, it’s your choice! The City and County, along with power providers or any other service owes you NOTHING! I’m sick and tired of people looking for a damn hand out! If you don’t have electricity you step up and come up with a game plan to keep your family warm and safe. If you have no water you deal with out and think outside of the box to survive and supply water to your family. If you were sitting at home in the cold because you have no power and are sitting there waiting for someone to come rescue you because your lazy is direct result of your raising! Only the strong will survive and the week will perish. Folks, God Has given us the tools to support ourselves in times like this. This is sadly a product of a socialist government where they feed people to believe that the FEW work and others will become dependent for handouts. Am I sorry that you have been dealing without electricity and water; yes! But I’ll be damned if I’m going to provide for anyone that is capable of doing it themselves! We have lost sight of those in need and those that take advantage of the system and mesh them into one group!! Bottom line, quit crying and looking for a handout! Get off your ass and take care of your own family!
Bottom line - DON’T BE A PART OF A PROBLEM, BE A PART OF THE SOLUTION!
Full text from second post
All, I have set back and watched all this escalating and have tried to keep my mouth shut! I won’t deny for one minute what I said in my post this morning. Believe me when I say that many of the things I said were taken out of context and some of which were said without putting much thought in to it. I would never want to hurt the elderly or anyone that is in true need of help to be left to fend for themselves. I was only making the statement that those folks that are too lazy to get up and fend for themselves but are capable should not be dealt a handout. I apologize for the wording and some of the phrases that were used! I had already turned in my resignation and had not signed up to run for mayor again on the deadline that was February 12th! I spoke some of this out of the anger that the city and county was catching for situations which were out of their control. Please understand if I had it to do over again I would have just kept my words to myself and if I did say them I would have used better wording and been more descriptive.
The anger and harassment you have caused my wife and family is so undeserved....my wife was laid off of her job based off the association people gave to her and the business she worked for. She’s a very good person and was only defending me! But her to have to get fired from her job over things I said out of context is so horrible. I admit, there are things that are said all the time that I don’t agree with; but I would never harass you or your family to the point that they would lose there livelihood such as a form of income.
I ask that you each understand I never meant to speak for the city of Colorado City or Mitchell county! I was speaking as a citizen as I am NOT THE MAYOR anymore. I apologize for the wording and ask that you please not harass myself or my family anymore!
Threatening our lives with comments and messages is a horrible thing to have to wonder about. I won’t share any of those messages from those names as I feel they know who they are and hope after they see this they will retract the hateful things they have said!
i'd love someone to ask him to explain how those words were taken out on context. he's a fucking idiot and good thing he is no longer in a leadership position.
No one owes you or your family anything; nor is it the local governments responsibility to support you during trying times like this! Sink or swim, it’s your choice! The City and County, along with power providers or any other service owes you NOTHING! I’m sick and tired of people looking for a damn hand out! If you don’t have electricity you step up and come up with a game plan to keep your family warm and safe. If you have no water you deal with out and think outside of the box to survive and supply water to your family. If you were sitting at home in the cold because you have no power and are sitting there waiting for someone to come rescue you because your lazy is direct result of your raising! Only the strong will survive and the week will perish. Folks, God Has given us the tools to support ourselves in times like this. This is sadly a product of a socialist government where they feed people to believe that the FEW work and others will become dependent for handouts. Am I sorry that you have been dealing without electricity and water; yes! But I’ll be damned if I’m going to provide for anyone that is capable of doing it themselves! We have lost sight of those in need and those that take advantage of the system and mesh them into one group!! Bottom line, quit crying and looking for a handout! Get off your ass and take care of your own family!
Bottom line - DON’T BE A PART OF A PROBLEM, BE A PART OF THE SOLUTION!
Full text from second post
All, I have set back and watched all this escalating and have tried to keep my mouth shut! I won’t deny for one minute what I said in my post this morning. Believe me when I say that many of the things I said were taken out of context and some of which were said without putting much thought in to it. I would never want to hurt the elderly or anyone that is in true need of help to be left to fend for themselves. I was only making the statement that those folks that are too lazy to get up and fend for themselves but are capable should not be dealt a handout. I apologize for the wording and some of the phrases that were used! I had already turned in my resignation and had not signed up to run for mayor again on the deadline that was February 12th! I spoke some of this out of the anger that the city and county was catching for situations which were out of their control. Please understand if I had it to do over again I would have just kept my words to myself and if I did say them I would have used better wording and been more descriptive.
The anger and harassment you have caused my wife and family is so undeserved....my wife was laid off of her job based off the association people gave to her and the business she worked for. She’s a very good person and was only defending me! But her to have to get fired from her job over things I said out of context is so horrible. I admit, there are things that are said all the time that I don’t agree with; but I would never harass you or your family to the point that they would lose there livelihood such as a form of income.
I ask that you each understand I never meant to speak for the city of Colorado City or Mitchell county! I was speaking as a citizen as I am NOT THE MAYOR anymore. I apologize for the wording and ask that you please not harass myself or my family anymore!
Threatening our lives with comments and messages is a horrible thing to have to wonder about. I won’t share any of those messages from those names as I feel they know who they are and hope after they see this they will retract the hateful things they have said!
i'd love someone to ask him to explain how those words were taken out on context. he's a fucking idiot and good thing he is no longer in a leadership position.
Nothing was taken out of context, it's a bullshit excuse to avoid blame, which is all the GOP does anymore.
The party of personal responsibility no longer accepts any, and hasn't in some time.
I thought I heard he was not. I could not stand this loud mouth piece of shit...
The world is a better place today...
Sorry if that bothers people..
Certainly not a worse place. He is one of the primary culprits in the coarsening of discourse and politics in this country. While he may not have spread wild ass conspiracies, he demonized the opposing party and made every issue a case of life and death, good vs evil, etc. His legacy is breaking down the walls of decency
F this guy. He chose to be a complete dick to people in need. People who probably voted for him and put their trust in him as the leader of the town. To tell people it is their own fault that the electrical power they pay for is gone and they weren't taking care of their families because they weren't ready for it? To say they are looking for handouts? Then cry because people have been mean to him and that his wife lost her job after defending him. Chances are that if she is married to guy like that, she probably defended him and added some more choice observations of her own.
F this guy. He chose to be a complete dick to people in need. People who probably voted for him and put their trust in him as the leader of the town. To tell people it is their own fault that the electrical power they pay for is gone? To say they are looking for handouts? Then cry because people have been mean to him and that his wife lost her job after defending him. Chances are that if she is married to guy like that, she probably defended him and added some more choice observations of her own.
Haha, so true. Why are you in govt if you don't think it exists to help the citizens. What does he think a mayor does?
F this guy. He chose to be a complete dick to people in need. People who probably voted for him and put their trust in him as the leader of the town. To tell people it is their own fault that the electrical power they pay for is gone? To say they are looking for handouts? Then cry because people have been mean to him and that his wife lost her job after defending him. Chances are that if she is married to guy like that, she probably defended him and added some more choice observations of her own.
Haha, so true. Why are you in govt if you don't think it exists to help the citizens. What does he think a mayor does?
Worse: why are people voting for politicians who are determined to see government fail?
Comments
Donald Trump has destroyed the republican party. Far right extremists want a new Trumpier Patriot party. Reasonable republicans want a more center-right party.
The democrats have a real chance to capitalize right now.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-party-exclusive/exclusive-dozens-of-former-republican-officials-in-talks-to-form-anti-trump-third-party-idUSKBN2AB07P
Exclusive: Dozens of former Republican officials in talks to form anti-Trump third party
By Tim Reid
5 MIN READ
(Reuters) - Dozens of former Republican officials, who view the party as unwilling to stand up to former President Donald Trump and his attempts to undermine U.S. democracy, are in talks to form a center-right breakaway party, four people involved in the discussions told Reuters.
The early stage discussions include former elected Republicans, former officials in the Republican administrations of Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, George W. Bush and Trump, ex-Republican ambassadors and Republican strategists, the people involved say.
More than 120 of them held a Zoom call last Friday to discuss the breakaway group, which would run on a platform of “principled conservatism,” including adherence to the Constitution and the rule of law - ideas those involved say have been trashed by Trump.
The plan would be to run candidates in some races but also to endorse center-right candidates in others, be they Republicans, independents or Democrats, the people say.
Evan McMullin, who was chief policy director for the House Republican Conference and ran as an independent in the 2016 presidential election, told Reuters that he co-hosted the Zoom call with former officials concerned about Trump’s grip on Republicans and the nativist turn the party has taken.
Three other people confirmed to Reuters the call and the discussions for a potential splinter party, but asked not to be identified.
Among the call participants were John Mitnick, general counsel for the Department of Homeland Security under Trump; former Republican congressman Charlie Dent; Elizabeth Neumann, deputy chief of staff in the Homeland Security Department under Trump; and Miles Taylor, another former Trump homeland security official.
The talks highlight the wide intraparty rift over Trump’s false claims of election fraud and the deadly Jan. 6 storming of the U.S. Capitol. Most Republicans remain fiercely loyal to the former president, but others seek a new direction for the party.
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The House of Representatives impeached Trump on Jan. 13 on a charge of inciting an insurrection by exhorting thousands of supporters to march on the Capitol on the day Congress was gathered to certify Democrat Joe Biden’s election victory.
Call participants said they were particularly dismayed by the fact that more than half of the Republicans in Congress - eight senators and 139 House representatives - voted to block certification of Biden’s election victory just hours after the Capitol siege.
Most Republican senators have also indicated they will not support the conviction of Trump in this week’s Senate impeachment trial.
“Large portions of the Republican Party are radicalizing and threatening American democracy,” McMullin told Reuters. “The party needs to recommit to truth, reason and founding ideals or there clearly needs to be something new.”
‘THESE LOSERS’
Asked about the discussions for a third party, Jason Miller, a Trump spokesman, said: “These losers left the Republican Party when they voted for Joe Biden.”
A representative for the Republican National Committee referred to a recent statement from Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel.
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“If we continue to attack each other and focus on attacking on fellow Republicans, if we have disagreements within our party, then we are losing sight of 2022 (elections),” McDaniel said on Fox News last month.
“The only way we’re going to win is if we come together,” she said.
The Biden White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
McMullin said just over 40% of those on last week’s Zoom call backed the idea of a breakaway, national third party. Another option under discussion is to form a “faction” that would operate either inside the current Republican Party or outside it.
Names under consideration for a new party include the Integrity Party and the Center Right Party. If it is decided instead to form a faction, one name under discussion is the Center Right Republicans.
Members are aware that the U.S. political landscape is littered with the remains of previous failed attempts at national third parties.
“But there is a far greater hunger for a new political party out there than I have ever experienced in my lifetime,” one participant said.
Reporting by Tim Reid; Additional reporting by Jarrett Renshaw; Editing by Soyoung Kim and Peter Cooney
Opinion: Trump left them to die. 43 Senate Republicans still licked his boots.
In the end, the darkest truth of Donald Trump’s crime came to light.
As his marauders sacked the Capitol on Jan. 6 in their bloody attempt to overturn the election, House Republican leader Kevin McCarthy called the then-president and pleaded for Trump to call off the attack.
Trump refused, essentially telling McCarthy he got what he deserved. Trump was, in effect, content to let members of Congress die.
That damning account, in a statement Friday night from Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler (Wash.), a Republican who defended Trump during his first impeachment, momentarily threw the Senate’s impeachment trial into chaos on its final day.
Trump’s lawyers, in their slashing, largely fictitious defense, claimed that Trump was “horrified” by the violence, hadn’t known that Vice President Mike Pence was in danger and took “immediate steps” to counter the rioting.
But Herrera Beutler revealed such claims to be a lie. When McCarthy “finally reached the president on January 6 and asked him to publicly and forcefully call off the riot, the president initially repeated the falsehood that it was antifa that had breached the Capitol,” she wrote. McCarthy, she continued, “refuted that and told the president that these were Trump supporters. That’s when, according to McCarthy, the president said: ‘Well, Kevin, I guess these people are more upset about the election than you are.’ ”
Her account wasn’t seriously or substantively refuted. On Saturday afternoon, senators agreed that Herrera Beutler’s statement would be entered into the trial record as evidence.
Even knowing this, most Republican senators, as long expected, voted to acquit Trump, a craven surrender to the political imperative not to cross the demagogue. But the impeachment trial was not in vain, for it revealed the ugly truth: Trump knew lawmakers’ lives were in danger from his violent supporters, and instead of helping the people’s representatives escape harm, Trump scoffed.
Republicans scrambled to limit the damage of Herrera Beutler’s revelation. Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell, who had feigned being open to conviction, abandoned the pretense and, minutes before the Senate convened Saturday, emailed his Republican colleagues that he would vote to acquit.
On the Senate floor, Trump counsel Michael van der Veen, a personal-injury lawyer by day, tried in every way to demonstrate his indignation at the late revelation. He shouted. He growled. He gesticulated madly. He pounded the lectern. He stomped. He spit out words: “Antics.” “Rumor.” “Report.” “Innuendo.” “False narrative!” He actually declared that “it doesn’t matter what happened after the insurgence into the Capitol building.” So what if Trump scoffed at McCarthy’s desperate entreaty to save lawmakers’ lives?
Sputtering like the Looney Tunes character Sylvester the Cat, van der Veen declared: “Nancy Pelosi’s deposition needs to be taken. Vice President Harris’s deposition absolutely needs to be taken. And not by Zoom. None of these depositions should be done by Zoom. We didn’t do this hearing by Zoom! These depositions should be done — in person, in my office, in Philly-delphia!”
Sufferin’ succotash!
Laughter broke out in the chamber.
“I don’t know why you’re laughing,” he responded. “It is civil process. … I’ll slap subpoenas on a good number of people.” He seemed to think he was arguing a slip-and-fall case in the Pennsylvania Court of Common Pleas.
Republicans joined the theatrics.
On the Senate floor, Sen. Ron Johnson (Wis.), an always-Trumper, was seen pointing at Sen. Mitt Romney (Utah) and saying “blame you” in a raised voice. Romney was one of five Republicans who joined all 50 Democrats in voting to allow witness testimony.
Sen. Mike Lee (Utah), another Trump ally, interrupted a presentation to complain that the House impeachment managers “said something that’s not true” — never mind that the Senate had sat in silence during hours of falsehoods from Trump’s team.
After Herrera Beutler’s revelations sparked a vote for witnesses, Senate leaders brokered a compromise to keep the impeachment trial from spiraling into endless discovery. Herrera Beutler’s statement would be admitted as evidence, but this would “not constitute a concession by either party as for the truth of the matters asserted by the other party.”
Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), the lead impeachment manager, claimed that “this uncontradicted statement" provided “further decisive evidence of [Trump’s] intent to incite the insurrection.”
Van der Veen, in response, howled about due process and fairness being “violently breached” — interesting words, given what his client did.
When the yeas and nays were counted, seven Senate Republicans joined Herrera Beutler in her courageous stand, voting along with all 50 Democrats to convict Trump. The other 43 Republicans, some of whom, like McConnell, feebly denounced Trump’s conduct even as they acquitted him, now have the cowardly distinction of licking the boots of the man who left them to die.
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Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/538786-louisiana-gop-votes-to-censure-cassidy-over-impeachment-vote
Louisiana Republican party voted to censure Republican Senator who voted for impeachment. Do you think they censured Trump for inciting an insurrection or at the very minimum did nothing to stop it? McConnell even stood up and said Trump was guilty of all accusations after the vote. And the Louisiana GOP feels like they need to censure this person. That is deep, deep level of despicable. I used to be a Republican and watcher of Fox News for a while. I don't agree with a lot of what the far left Dems want, but I'm glad not to be associated with this GOP.
There are no kings inside the gates of eden
Pennsylvania G.O.P.’s Push for More Power Over Judiciary Raises Alarms
After fighting the election results, state Republicans are trying to increase their control of the courts. Outraged Democrats and good government groups see it as a new kind of gerrymandering.
By Nick Corasaniti
When the Pennsylvania Supreme Court unanimously rejected a Republican attempt to overturn the state’s election results in November, Justice David N. Wecht issued his own pointed rebuke, condemning the G.O.P. effort as “futile” and “a dangerous game.”
“It is not our role to lend legitimacy to such transparent and untimely efforts to subvert the will of Pennsylvania voters,” wrote Justice Wecht, a Democrat who was elected to a 10-year term on the bench in 2016. “Courts should not decide elections when the will of the voters is clear.”
Now Pennsylvania Republicans have a plan to make it less likely that judges like Justice Wecht get in their way.
G.O.P. legislators, dozens of whom supported overturning the state’s election results to aid former President Donald J. Trump, are moving to change the entire way that judges are selected in Pennsylvania, in a gambit that could tip the scales of the judiciary to favor their party, or at least elect judges more inclined to embrace Republican election challenges.
The proposal would replace the current system of statewide elections for judges with judicial districts drawn by the Republican-controlled legislature. Those districts could empower rural, predominantly conservative areas and particularly rewire the State Supreme Court, which has a 5-to-2 Democratic lean.
Democrats are now mobilizing to fight the effort, calling it a thinly veiled attempt at creating a new level of gerrymandering — an escalation of the decades-old practice of drawing congressional and state legislative districts to ensure that political power remains in one party’s hands. Democrats are marshaling grass-roots opposition, holding regular town hall events conducted over Zoom, and planning social media campaigns and call-in days to legislators, as well as an enormous voter education campaign. One group, Why Courts Matter Pennsylvania, has cut a two-minute infomercial.
Republicans in Pennsylvania have historically used gerrymandering to maintain their majority in the legislature, despite Democratic victories in statewide elections. Republicans have controlled the State House of Representatives since 2011 and the State Senate since 1993.
Current schedules for the legislature make it unlikely the Republicans could marshal their majorities in the House and Senate to pass the bill by Wednesday and put the proposal before voters on the ballot in May. Passing the bill after that date would set up a new and lengthy political war for November in this fiercely contested state.
Republicans have some history on their side: Pennsylvania voters tend to approve ballot measures.
“You should be very suspicious when you see a legislature who has been thwarted by a Supreme Court in its unconstitutional attempts to rig the democratic process then trying to rig the composition of that Supreme Court,” said Wendy Weiser, the director of the Democracy Program at the Brennan Center for Justice.
She added, “It is way too much control for one branch to have over another branch, particularly where one of its charges is to reign in the excesses of the legislative branch.”
If the Republican bill becomes law, Pennsylvania would become just the fifth state in the country, after Louisiana, Kentucky, Mississippi and Illinois, to wholly map its judicial system into electoral districts, according to the Brennan Center. And other states may soon join Pennsylvania in trying to remake the courts through redistricting.
Republicans in the Texas Legislature, which is also controlled by the G.O.P., recently introduced a bill that would shift districts for the state appellate courts by moving some counties into different districts, causing an uproar among state Democrats who saw the new districts as weakening the voting power of Black and Latino communities in judicial elections and potentially adding to the Republican tilt of the Texas courts.
Gilberto Hinojosa, the chair of the Texas Democratic Party, called the bill a “pure power grab meant to keep Blacks and Latinos from having influence on courts as their numbers in the state grow.”
These judicial redistricting battles are taking shape as Republican-controlled legislatures across the country explore new restrictions on voting after the 2020 elections. In Georgia, Republicans in the state legislature are seeking a host of new laws that would make voting more difficult, including banning drop boxes and placing sweeping limitations on mail-in voting. Similar bills in Arizona would restrict mail-in voting, including barring the state from sending out mail ballot applications. And in Texas, Republican lawmakers want to limit early voting periods.
The nationwide effort by Republicans follows a successful four-year drive by the party’s lawmakers in Washington to reshape the federal judiciary with conservative judges. Led by Senator Mitch McConnell, until recently the majority leader, and Mr. Trump, the Senate confirmed 231 federal judges, as well as three new Supreme Court justices, over the former president’s four-year term, according to data maintained by Russell Wheeler, a research fellow at the Brookings Institution.
In a state like Pennsylvania, which has two densely populated Democratic cities and large rural areas, this could give outsize representation to sparsely populated places that lean more conservative, particularly if the legislature resorts to a gerrymandering tactic similar to one used in Pennsylvania in 2011.
“Republicans have been good at gerrymandering districts in Pennsylvania, or good in the sense that they’ve been successful,” said State Senator Sharif Street, a Democrat. “I think they would like to remain successful, and they are confident that they can gerrymander judicial districts.”
Republicans in the state legislature argue that their proposed move would give different regions of Pennsylvania more representation.
Russ Diamond, the Republican state representative who is sponsoring the bill, said in an email that regional representation was necessary for the judiciary “because the same statewide consensus which goes in making law should come to bear when those statutes are heard on appeal, are applied in practical real-life situations, and when precedent is set for the future of the Commonwealth.”
“The overall goal is to include the full diversity of Pennsylvania’s appellate courts,” Mr. Diamond added. “There is no way to completely depoliticize the courts, other than choosing judges via random selection or a lottery system. Every individual holds some political opinion or another.”
Geographic diversity, however, rarely equates to racial diversity in the courts. The four states that use judicial districts in state Supreme Court elections — Illinois, Louisiana, Mississippi and Kentucky — have never had more than one justice of color on the court at any given time, according to data from the Brennan Center.
While eight states use some form of judicial districts to elect judges, Pennsylvania’s proposal remains an outlier on a few key elements. First, a partisan legislature would have the power to redraw the districts every 10 years, whereas those elsewhere remain for longer or are based on statute. Additionally, the judicial districts in Pennsylvania would not be bound by or based on any existing legislative or congressional districts, created from scratch by the Republican-controlled legislature.
The move has caught the attention of national Democratic groups that are at the forefront of redistricting battles across the country.
“A decade ago, Pennsylvania Republicans gerrymandered themselves into majorities in the legislature and congressional delegation,” said Eric H. Holder Jr., the former United States attorney general and current chairman of the National Democratic Redistricting Committee. “Now that their grip on power has been forcibly loosened by the courts, they want to create and then manipulate judicial districts in a blatant attempt to undermine the independence of the judiciary and stack the courts with their conservative allies.”
Because the bill has already passed the House once, in 2020, it needs only to pass both chambers of the state legislature again to make it on the ballot.
Further stoking Democrats’ fears: The bill does not need the signature of Gov. Tom Wolf, a Democrat. Since it would be an amendment to the Constitution, it would head to the ballot as a referendum question to be voted on in the next election (if the bill passes before Wednesday, it would go to voters during the May primary). Historically, Pennsylvania voters have voted more in favor of ballot measures than against them, according to data from the National Conference of State Legislatures.
Good government groups have teamed up with Democrats to mount a huge voter education campaign, anticipating that the judicial question may soon be on the ballot. Progressive groups including the Judicial Independent Project of PA, a new coalition that includes the voting rights group Common Cause, have been holding digital town halls about the judicial redistricting proposal, with attendance regularly topping 100 people.
On a Thursday evening late last month, more than 160 people logged into Zoom to hear from coalition leaders about the bill and to hatch plans to further mobilize against it. Rebecca Litt, a senior organizer from a local Indivisible group, proposed a call-your-legislator day. Ricardo Almodovar, an organizing director with We the People PA, another progressive group, noted the graphics and other social media campaigns already underway to help educate voters.
“We’re also trying to humanize the courts,” Mr. Almodovar explained during a smaller session with southeastern Pennsylvania residents, sharing stories of how specific court decisions “impact our lives.”
Throughout the full, hourlong meeting, organizers repeatedly sought to make the stakes very clear.
“We are in the last legislative session of this,” said Alexa Grant, a program advocate with Common Cause. “So we are the last line of defense.”
Nick Corasaniti covers national politics. He was one of the lead reporters covering Donald Trump's campaign for president in 2016 and has been writing about presidential, congressional, gubernatorial and mayoral campaigns for The Times since 2011. @NYTnickc • Facebook
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Feb. 14, 2021Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
1998: Noblesville; 2003: Noblesville; 2009: EV Nashville, Chicago, Chicago
2010: St Louis, Columbus, Noblesville; 2011: EV Chicago, East Troy, East Troy
2013: London ON, Chicago; 2014: Cincy, St Louis, Moline (NO CODE)
2016: Lexington, Wrigley #1; 2018: Wrigley, Wrigley, Boston, Boston
2020: Oakland, Oakland: 2021: EV Ohana, Ohana, Ohana, Ohana
2022: Oakland, Oakland, Nashville, Louisville; 2023: Chicago, Chicago, Noblesville
Like many Trump supporters, conservative donor Fred Eshelman awoke the day after the presidential election with the suspicion that something wasn’t right. His candidate’s apparent lead in key battleground states had evaporated overnight.
The next day, the North Carolina financier and his advisers reached out to a small conservative nonprofit group in Texas that was seeking to expose voter fraud. After a 20-minute talk with the group’s president, their first-ever conversation, Eshelman was sold.
“I’m in for 2,” he told the president of True the Vote, according to court documents and interviews with Eshelman and others.
“$200,000?” one of his advisers on the call asked.
“$2 million,” Eshelman responded.
Over the next 12 days, Eshelman came to regret his donation and to doubt conspiracy theories of rampant illegal voting, according to court records and interviews.
Now, he wants his money back.
The story behind the Eshelman donation — detailed in previously unreported court filings and exclusive interviews with those involved — provides new insights into the frenetic days after the election, when baseless claims led donors to give hundreds of millions of dollars to reverse President Biden’s victory.
Trump’s campaign and the Republican Party collected $255 million in two months, saying the money would support legal challenges to an election marred by fraud. Trump’s staunchest allies in Congress also raised money off those false allegations, as did pro-Trump lawyers seeking to overturn the election results — and even some of their witnesses.
True the Vote was one of several conservative “election integrity” groups that sought to press the case in court. Though its lawsuits drew less attention than those brought by the Trump campaign, True the Vote nonetheless sought to raise more than $7 million for its investigation of the 2020 election.
True The Vote lawsuit: How GOP donor Fred Eshelman came to want his money back - The Washington Post
Libtardaplorable©. And proud of it.
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https://www.boston.com/news/politics/2021/02/16/steve-bannon-trump-house-speaker
Libtardaplorable©. And proud of it.
Brilliantati©
Not many defeat lung cancer...
I have his first two books. I was a dittohead back then. But that was before he was trumpy.
1998: Noblesville; 2003: Noblesville; 2009: EV Nashville, Chicago, Chicago
2010: St Louis, Columbus, Noblesville; 2011: EV Chicago, East Troy, East Troy
2013: London ON, Chicago; 2014: Cincy, St Louis, Moline (NO CODE)
2016: Lexington, Wrigley #1; 2018: Wrigley, Wrigley, Boston, Boston
2020: Oakland, Oakland: 2021: EV Ohana, Ohana, Ohana, Ohana
2022: Oakland, Oakland, Nashville, Louisville; 2023: Chicago, Chicago, Noblesville
Rush: Come on, Brian. Admit it. You're a liberal. Why try to be something you're not?
Brian: But I AM a conservative, Rush! After all, I support the death penalty.
Rush: Really, Brian? Well what about the four-year-old that was executed in Texas last week?
Brian: They executed a four-year-old?!?!?!?!
Rush: No...but just the fact that you were concerned proves you're not one of us.
Pearl Jam bootlegs:
http://wegotshit.blogspot.com
www.headstonesband.com
By Tuesday morning, the residents of Colorado City, Tex., were getting anxious. More than 24 hours had passed since a deadly Arctic blast knocked out power across the state, leaving them without heat or electricity in below-freezing temperatures. To make matters worse, many also lacked running water, forcing them to haul in heavy buckets of snow each time they needed to flush their toilets.
Residents turned to a community Facebook group to ask whether the small town planned to open warming shelters, while others wondered if firefighters could do their job without water. But when Colorado City’s mayor chimed in, it was to deliver a less-than-comforting message: The local government had no responsibility to help out its citizens, and only the tough would survive.
“No one owes you [or] your family anything,” Tim Boyd wrote on Tuesday in a now-deleted Facebook post, according to KTXS and KTAB/KRBC. “I’m sick and tired of people looking for a damn handout!”
Boyd’s tirade, which also demanded that “lazy” residents find their own ways of procuring water and electricity, immediately drew backlash. Later on Tuesday, Boyd announced his resignation and admitted that he could have “used better wording.”
The controversy highlighted how one of the worst winter storms in decades is testing the limits of the embrace of self-sufficiency and rugged individualism in Texas. The state’s decision to skirt federal oversight by operating its own power grid is one of the main reasons that close to 3.3 million residents in Texas still lacked electricity by early Wednesday morning, while outages in other hard-hit states had dwindled to less than one-tenth of that size. As of late Tuesday, grid operators still couldn’t predict when the lights might turn on, and advocates were warning that Texas’s poorest and most vulnerable residents were at risk of freezing to death. At least 10 deaths in Texas have been linked to the winter storm since Monday, according to the Houston Chronicle.
The failure to deliver basic services has angered countless Texans, including top-ranking elected officials. But in Colorado City, Boyd rejected the notion that municipal governments or utility companies had any obligation to provide paying customers with necessities like heat and running water during a catastrophic winter storm.
“The City and County, along with power providers or any other service owes you NOTHING!” he wrote on Facebook on Tuesday.
Boyd suggested that residents without electricity should simply “step up and come up with a game plan.” Those without running water could either deal with it, or “think outside of the box to survive and supply water to your family.” He did not offer any further guidance, such as where safe drinking water or reliable electricity could be found.
“Only the strong will survive and the weak will [perish],” he wrote.
The Texas grid got crushed because its operators didn’t see the need to prepare for cold weather
Colorado City, home to roughly 4,000 people, is located between Abilene and the twin cities of Midland and Odessa, in a part of West Texas that’s best known for high school football and oil field jobs. Below-freezing temperatures aren’t uncommon in winter as winds sweep across the plains, but losing heat, power, water and the ability to cook at the same time was an unpleasant new experience for many in the area.
Although authorities across Texas encouraged residents to hunker down until power could be restored and avoid driving on dangerously icy roads, Boyd categorized those who were camped out in frigid homes and waiting for assistance as “lazy.”
“Folks God has given us the tools to support ourselves in times like this,” he wrote, claiming that those who expected the city to come to their aid were “sadly a product of a socialist government.”
In reality, community members were doing their best to help one another, offering to trudge through the snow to pick up supplies for neighbors or share water from their private wells. And as critics pointed out, even trying to access the emergency preparedness guide on Colorado City’s official webpage led to an error message.
Facing mounting anger on Tuesday, Boyd claimed that his comments “were taken out of context” and did not apply to the elderly, then continued to double down.
“I was only making the statement that those folks that are too lazy to get up and fend for themselves but are capable should not be dealt a handout,” he wrote in a post that was later deleted, according to local media outlets.
Boyd also claimed that he was speaking in his capacity as a private citizen, and had already resigned from his position as mayor of Colorado City. He added that his wife had been fired from her job “over things I said” and said that his family was facing “undeserved” harassment and death threats.
“I won’t share any of those messages from those names as I feel they know who they are and hope after they see this they will retract the hateful things they have said!” he wrote.
Boyd could not be reached for comment late Tuesday night, and it wasn’t immediately clear if he resigned before or after writing his controversial Facebook post. As of early Wednesday morning, he was still listed as mayor on Colorado City’s website, and city council agendas showed that he had served in that role as recently as last week.
Colorado City, Tex., Mayor Tim Boyd resigns after controversial Facebook post criticizing Texans without power - The Washington Post
Colorado City, Tex., Mayor Tim Boyd resigns after controversial Facebook post criticizing Texans without power - The Washington Post
Libtardaplorable©. And proud of it.
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Another Limbaugh cameo on Family Guy was in one of the Star Wars episodes. When Luke (Chris) is driving around in the desert, he puts on talk radio and it's Rush saying something like "So Lando Calrissian has been named curator of Cloud City. Afirmiatve action strikes again."
Pearl Jam bootlegs:
http://wegotshit.blogspot.com
Full text from original post
No one owes you or your family anything; nor is it the local governments responsibility to support you during trying times like this! Sink or swim, it’s your choice! The City and County, along with power providers or any other service owes you NOTHING! I’m sick and tired of people looking for a damn hand out! If you don’t have electricity you step up and come up with a game plan to keep your family warm and safe. If you have no water you deal with out and think outside of the box to survive and supply water to your family. If you were sitting at home in the cold because you have no power and are sitting there waiting for someone to come rescue you because your lazy is direct result of your raising! Only the strong will survive and the week will perish. Folks, God Has given us the tools to support ourselves in times like this. This is sadly a product of a socialist government where they feed people to believe that the FEW work and others will become dependent for handouts. Am I sorry that you have been dealing without electricity and water; yes! But I’ll be damned if I’m going to provide for anyone that is capable of doing it themselves! We have lost sight of those in need and those that take advantage of the system and mesh them into one group!! Bottom line, quit crying and looking for a handout! Get off your ass and take care of your own family!
Bottom line - DON’T BE A PART OF A PROBLEM, BE A PART OF THE SOLUTION!
Full text from second post
All, I have set back and watched all this escalating and have tried to keep my mouth shut! I won’t deny for one minute what I said in my post this morning. Believe me when I say that many of the things I said were taken out of context and some of which were said without putting much thought in to it. I would never want to hurt the elderly or anyone that is in true need of help to be left to fend for themselves. I was only making the statement that those folks that are too lazy to get up and fend for themselves but are capable should not be dealt a handout. I apologize for the wording and some of the phrases that were used! I had already turned in my resignation and had not signed up to run for mayor again on the deadline that was February 12th! I spoke some of this out of the anger that the city and county was catching for situations which were out of their control. Please understand if I had it to do over again I would have just kept my words to myself and if I did say them I would have used better wording and been more descriptive.
The anger and harassment you have caused my wife and family is so undeserved....my wife was laid off of her job based off the association people gave to her and the business she worked for. She’s a very good person and was only defending me! But her to have to get fired from her job over things I said out of context is so horrible. I admit, there are things that are said all the time that I don’t agree with; but I would never harass you or your family to the point that they would lose there livelihood such as a form of income.
I ask that you each understand I never meant to speak for the city of Colorado City or Mitchell county! I was speaking as a citizen as I am NOT THE MAYOR anymore. I apologize for the wording and ask that you please not harass myself or my family anymore!
Threatening our lives with comments and messages is a horrible thing to have to wonder about. I won’t share any of those messages from those names as I feel they know who they are and hope after they see this they will retract the hateful things they have said!
Thank you
Tim Boyd(citizen)
Colorado City mayor resigns, responds to his controversial Facebook post | KTXS
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The world is a better place today...
Sorry if that bothers people..
Nothing was taken out of context, it's a bullshit excuse to avoid blame, which is all the GOP does anymore.
The party of personal responsibility no longer accepts any, and hasn't in some time.
fuck him.
www.headstonesband.com