He should have been expelled long ago, but he fit right in with the general corruption, dishonesty and lack of integrity that the rest of the GOP wears like a badge of honor. They lie to their constituents, they lie when they take their oath of office to defend the Constitution, and they and their votes are for sale to the highest bidder. He fits right in with the them! If he wasn't so flagrant and obvious, that it calls attention to their own sleaziness, they'd happily embrace him forever. Even then, most of the GOP voted not to refer him.

Video: 221-204: The House votes to send Democrats’ resolution to expel Rep. George Santos (R-NY) to the House Ethics Committee.

#GOPCorrupt
#GOPLovesPower
#GOPLongGrift

https://flip.it/rV9bW0

The GOP only cares about winning and serving their masters, the obscenely wealthy. They embrace lying, cheating, voter suppression, corruption, and grift. Anything is OK if it gives them the power to take care of their wealthy benefactors or maintain the unholy alliance of fundamentalists, racists and criminals that gives them the votes needed to serve their benefactors. They couldn't care less about democracy or the American people.

Santos, McCarthy and the Shameless Republican Party https://www.democracydocket.com/opinion/santos-mccarthy-and-the-shameless-republican-party/

#GOPLies
#GOPHatesDemocracy
#GOPCorrupt
#GOPGrifts

"The hallmark of the modern Republican Party is its shamelessness. You can be many things and still be a Republican — in favor of free trade or opposed; pro-Ukraine or pro-Putin; even in favor of climate change legislation or against. However, you must not feel shame. You cannot admit mistakes. Hypocrisy is a virtue, not a vice. Most of all, never admit defeat.
...
The Republican Party today embraces crooks. It revels in cheating. It celebrates fraudsters.

In former President Donald Trump’s GOP, being a crook is the way to prove loyalty. It shows you belong to the in-crowd. Being convicted of a felony is a badge of honor similar to becoming a “made man” in the mob.

This explains the GOP’s continued embrace of Rep. George Santos (R-N.Y.). He is not a party outcast; he is its perfect embodiment. He lies with ease and adds a splash of not-so-subtle racism for the party faithful. Santos did not just lie about a few big things to get elected. He lied about inconsequential things, like being a star collegiate volleyball player at a college he did not attend. But, most importantly he did it all without shame.

When Republican operatives learned about Santos’ lies before the election, they were not aghast. They found it funny and looked the other way. They weren’t laughing at Santos for telling lies; they were laughing at the voters for believing them. Like the worthless trinkets Trump peddles to his gullible supporters, Santos was selling voters a garbage can full of lies and the GOP admired his ability to con voters into believing it. They knew he was a crook and they loved every minute of it.

Two years ago, when Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) trafficked in racism, antisemitism and conspiracy theories, Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) was willing to condemn her comments, even if he didn’t take action to punish her
...
With Santos, McCarthy dares not even hint at disapproval. Trump’s “Kevin” has become Santos’ lapdog. Even after McCarthy learned that Santos’ staff impersonated McCarthy’s chief of staff to fundraise and rip people off, he did not complain. The most impotent speaker in modern history has embraced Santos and his lies, big and small.

McCarthy ...Without any sense of irony, he appointed the fraudster to the Committee on Small Business and the Committee on Science, Space and Technology. McCarthy did it because he has no shame.
...
Democracy only works if we share certain core values in common — Democrats and Republicans, liberals and conservatives, young and old.

Politicians must feel shame to have a functioning democracy. I am not talking about civic virtue or political courage. I am talking about something more basic: common decency. Shared decency is what holds our democratic system together. It helps citizens of differing views to trust each other. It allows political leaders to act in good faith based on a common understanding that some behavior is simply out of bounds.

A party that mocks acts of common decency cannot be trusted to campaign fairly within the rules. When one party targets minority voters with gross acts of suppression and intimidation, we cannot celebrate the democratic process regardless of who wins. If election workers are subjected to partisan harassment and vilification, we cannot have a democracy that accurately counts votes or certifies results.

There is no easy solution for our current situation because the government can’t mandate decency. We also must realize that Democrats are helpless to make this better. Only Republicans can change their culture and restore decency to their party. For now, at least, there is no sign that Republicans want to restore honor and dignity to the Grand Old Party.
...
I have no illusions about our generation’s McCarthy. But I promise that if I ever run into him, I will stand up and shout: “You have done enough. Have you no sense of decency?” I doubt he will feel shame."

Article: McCarthy Appoints GOP Recipients of Fossil Fuel Cash to Environment Committee

Because they aren't even trying to hide the corruption anymore! We all know they are for sale!

#GOPCorrupt

https://flip.it/8rBgbL

More ignorance from the Republican GOP... They just proposed a ban on electric vehicle sales in Wyoming...

This is from the party of so-called less government control...

#GOPcorrupt

Part 2
“This is a protection operation,” Johnson told me, one designed to “protect the insurrectionists.” Because Jordan and other House Republicans are implicated in the events of Jan. 6, Johnson added, this is really “a self-protection operation.”"

Church Committee aide rips House Republicans: ‘A sad spectacle’
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/01/12/jim-jordan-gop-weaponization-committee-frank-church-trump/

#GOPLies
#GOPCorrupt
#GOPWontGovern
#GOPLovesPower
#GOPDisinfo

"In other words, the Church Committee led to serious, bipartisan reforms undertaken for the public good and in defense of the rule of law. The reforms were far from perfect, and serious abuses still do take place.

But intelligence oversight is much better than it was, and the Church Committee was key to that. Yet Republicans now want to turn their committee into a hyperpartisan weapon to spin the current “deep state” as more lawless than its previous iteration. Perversely, their goal is to place Trump beyond accountability and the law — and to portray people who sought to violently destroy democracy’s underpinnings as persecuted victims.

The best historical touchstone for today’s GOP effort is not the Church Committee, Johnson points out. It’s Sen. Joe McCarthy’s anti-communist witch hunts. “It’s a wrecking operation, more than anything constructive,” Johnson said of the Republicans’ committee.

The ultimate absurdity here is that Republicans are blocking exactly the sort of reform-and-accountability moment the Church Committee represented — which we need right now in the wake of similarly convulsive scandals — while hijacking its good name to that nefarious end.

“For them to appropriate the name of the Church Committee for the mischief that they’re up to," Johnson told me, "is wrenching for those of us who were involved.”":

"“This is a protection operation,” Johnson told me, one designed to “protect the insurrectionists.” Because Jordan and other House Republicans are implicated in the events of Jan. 6, Johnson added, this is really “a self-protection operation.”"

Church Committee aide rips House Republicans: ‘A sad spectacle’
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/01/12/jim-jordan-gop-weaponization-committee-frank-church-trump/

#GOPLies
#GOPCorrupt
#GOPWontGovern
#GOPLovesPower
#GOPDisinfo

"Because Rep. Jim Jordan is widely known as a statesman of world-historical stature, Republicans have been comparing the new investigative committee he will chair to the Church Committee of the 1970s. Just as that storied panel exposed rampant intelligence abuses, the Ohio Republican vows his committee will boldly expose contemporary “weaponizing of the federal government” that’s similarly corrupt, lawless and pervasive.

But the analogy doesn’t ring true to a onetime aide to Sen. Frank Church of Idaho, the former chairman of the Senate Select Committee to Study Government Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities, which was colloquially named for its chair.

“That is really an absurd comparison,” Loch Johnson, who wrote a book about his experiences as Church’s top staffer on that committee, said in a phone interview. “It’s really a sad spectacle.”

Yet the GOP attempt to reboot the Church Committee tells us a good deal about our current political moment, about the GOP-controlled House’s obvious intention to abuse its oversight function to protect former president Donald Trump and about what’s happened to today’s Republican Party.

Jordan’s committee will examine the executive branch’s “collection of information” on U.S. citizens, “including criminal investigations.” It will have access to highly sensitive information available only to the House Intelligence Committee. Republicans say Jordan’s panel will reveal how “the radical left” weaponized law enforcement against ordinary Americans.

The Church Committee of the mid-1970s actually did uncover extraordinary abuses by intelligence services directed at U.S. citizens — mostly of the left-wing variety. The committee was established after revelations that the CIA had been spying on antiwar activists for more than a decade, and its investigation probed FBI covert actions directed at the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. anti-Vietnam War protesters and many others (though some on the far right were also targeted).

It is widely understood that Republicans on today’s committee hope to paint a similarly lurid tale, this time depicting conservatives as mass victims of jack-booted oppression. But they are unlikely to find anything similar to what left-wing activists actually did experience in the 20th century.

“Driven by ideology and revenge,” is how Johnson, a professor emeritus at the University of Georgia, describes the new GOP committee. He predicts an endless “search for the mythical deep state,” the imagined instrument supposedly used by the left to persecute conservatives inside the MAGA information bubble.

Jordan’s committee will also likely seek to harass and undermine criminal investigations of Trump and even prosecutions of rioters who stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. We know this because GOP rage rises to its highest pitch in response to law enforcement activity directed at Trump. The GOP version of the Church Committee has no discernible aim of meaningful reform, but rather seeks to smear in advance what by all indications are legitimate law enforcement investigations into Trump.

“This is a protection operation,” Johnson told me, one designed to “protect the insurrectionists.” Because Jordan and other House Republicans are implicated in the events of Jan. 6, Johnson added, this is really “a self-protection operation.”

To be fair, Republicans have gotten some things right. The Justice Department’s inspector general found serious procedural failures in FBI wiretapping to investigate Russian electoral interference. But the IG deemed the investigation legitimately authorized, destroying a ubiquitous GOP talking point.

Which highlights another deep absurdity in the Jordan-Church comparisons.

Things such as that IG investigation and congressional oversight of our intelligence agencies constitute genuine achievements of the Church Committee and other post-Watergate reformers. During the Cold War and the era’s domestic turmoil, the intelligence services did become highly insular and engage in extraordinary abuses of power. That led to the creation of congressional intelligence committees and the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which attempts to restrain intelligence gathering within lawful bounds."

GOP fiscally conservative? That's just marketing BS/lies used to defund or eliminate social programs! They've never seen a tax cut for the rich they didn't fall all over themselves to pass! They are willing to sacrifice the financial and overall well-being of their constituents in order to manufacture culture war issues to evoke hatred and fear in their base.

Arizona taxpayers to pay over $200 million for former Gov. Ducey’s border wall 'political stunt'
https://www.alternet.org/arizona-taxpayers-200-billion-border/?utm_medium=email&recip_id=462208&list_id=2

#GOPInBedWithRich
#GOPLies
#GOPCorrupt
#GOPRacist

"The removal of Arizona’s makeshift shipping container border wall will cost taxpayers over $200 million to remove, AZCentral reports.

Former Arizona Republican Governor Doug Ducey, whose idea it was to build the wall during his term, agreed to its removal after he was sued by the Department of Justice in December, just two weeks before newly elected Democratic Governor Katie Hobbs assumed office. Hobbs has staunchly opposed construction of the wall, dismissing it as a “political stunt” for the media.

Ducey's agreement with the government also came before the wall could be completed, as protestors have recently interfered with its construction

The money for its “construction, administration and maintenance” came from $335 million stored by the Arizona Border Security Fund. And now with the removal comes the steep cost of $200 million, which includes take down, transport and work costs.

AshBritt, a Florida-based emergency management company was awarded the contract to build and tear down the containers “without the regular bidding process” because “their solution was the most expeditious due to the emergency nature of the work,” Arizona Department of Administration spokesperson, Megan Rose, confirmed.

Although Governor Katie Hobbs’ office declined to comment on the matter, she spoke out against the “politicization of immigration and ‘political stunts’ used to incite media attention” during her recent “State of the State” address."

Part 2

Congress must listen to working families and overhaul healthcare, minimum wage and education | Bernie Sanders | The Guardian https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/jan/09/congress-healthcare-minimum-wage-education-us-families

#GreedKills
#CorporateGreed
#GOPCorrupt
#GOPLovesPower
#GOPInBedWithRich

"...While psychologists tell us that the first four years of life are the most important in terms of human intellectual and emotional growth, it’s hard to deny that our childcare system is in disarray. The cost is unaffordable for many working parents, there are not enough slots available, the quality is spotty and the pay and benefits childcare workers receive is unconscionably low. This is not how we should be treating our children, the future of America.

The situation in K-12 education is not much better. For a variety of reasons – lack of respect, low pay, the stress of Covid and the politicization of school boards – thousands of gifted and dedicated teachers are quitting the profession, leaving students unprepared for the challenges they face as they enter the adult world. The future of this country depends upon the quality of education we provide our kids, and there is no reason why we cannot create the best public educational system in the world.

In terms of higher education, we face the absurd situation of hundreds of thousands of bright young people who have the desire and ability to get a college education but cannot do so because their families lack the money. How many great doctors, scientists, and teachers are we losing as a result? There are also millions of young people who need training in order to become skilled mechanics, carpenters, welders, and electricians who are not getting the post-high school training they need. Further, 45 million Americans are struggling with student debt – sometimes in the hundreds of thousands of dollars."

In terms of labor and our economy, we must recognize that we live in a period of more income and wealth inequality than at any time in the last hundred years. While the very rich become richer and three people now own more wealth than the bottom half of American society, 60% of American workers live paycheck to paycheck and millions are trying to exist on starvation wages. Meanwhile, we have a pathetic federal minimum wage of $7.25 per hour which has not been raised since 2009.

As more and more workers try to improve their standard of living by forming unions, they are facing fierce and illegal union busting from such employers as Starbucks, Amazon, McDonalds and other major employers.

There is a lot of discussion in the media about how “divided” our nation is and, on many issues, that is absolutely true. But what we don’t appreciate is that on some of the most important issues facing our country the American people – Democrats, Republicans, independents – are quite united.

The American people know we are being ripped off by the drug companies and they want lower prescription drugs prices.

The American people know that our healthcare system is outrageously expensive and they want universal and lower cost health care.

The American people know that education is essential to our lives and the future of this country and they want high quality and affordable education from childcare to graduate school.

The American people know that no one can survive on a $7.25-an-hour minimum wage, and they want to raise the minimum wage to a living wage.

The American people know that workers have a constitutional right to form unions and that corporations that engage in illegal union busting activities must be held accountable.

And these are just a few of the issues within the jurisdiction of the Help committee that a strong majority of the American people want us to address.

At a time when too many Americans are giving up on democracy, now is the time to attempt to restore faith in our government. Now is the time for Congress to have the courage to take on the lobbyists and powerful special interests and show the American people that our government can work for them, and not just the 1%. Let’s do it.""

Part 1

Over time, corporations and the wealthy have used donations and lobbying to structure our economy and government so that it serves their interests but not the interests of the people. The GOP especially has done virtually nothing but lavish tax cuts and regulation breaks on corporations and the wealthy. Their first order of business, besides decimating the ethics office and creating a committee to investigate the "weaponization" of the government against conservatives, was to again starve the IRS solely so that wealthy tax cheats don't have to pay their share. Besides throwing the red meat of culture war issues to their base, that will be all they do for the country. Yet the people keep voting them in!

Congress must listen to working families and overhaul healthcare, minimum wage and education | Bernie Sanders | The Guardian https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/jan/09/congress-healthcare-minimum-wage-education-us-families

#GreedKills
#CorporateGreed
#GOPCorrupt
#GOPLovesPower
#GOPInBedWithRich

"Americans are united on some of the most important issues facing our country and they want government to address them

I am proud to be assuming the chairmanship of the US Senate’s health, education, labor and pensions committee (Help), a committee with wide jurisdiction over some of the most important issues facing the American people. As I move into that position I’m thinking about how we can best address some of the serious challenges facing my fellow Vermonters and working families all across the country.

Today, in terms of health, we have a dysfunctional healthcare system in which we spend the astronomical and unsustainable sum of nearly $13,000 for every man, woman and child, twice as much as most developed countries and almost 20% of our GDP. Yet, despite that huge expenditure, 85 million Americans are uninsured or underinsured and we have worse health outcomes and lower life expectancy than many other nations. While the insurance companies make huge profits, over 500,000 people declare bankruptcy each year from medically related debt, and over 68,000 die because they can’t afford the care they need. Our complicated and fragmented system is so broken that it cannot even produce the number of doctors, nurses, dentists and mental health personnel that we desperately need.

As a nation, we must focus on the reality that the function of a rational healthcare system is to provide quality care for all, not simply huge profits for the insurance industry.

Today, as we pay by far the highest prices in the world for prescription drugs, the pharmaceutical industry is making record-breaking profits and more than a few executives in drug companies are becoming billionaires. Meanwhile, despite billions in government investment in prescription drug research and development, nearly one out of four Americans are unable to afford the medicine their doctors prescribe and too many seniors are splitting their lifesaving pills in half because they can’t afford them. And because Medicare doesn’t cover dental, hearing and vision, there are millions of seniors who are trying to survive without these basic healthcare needs.

The American people know that no one can survive on $7.25 an hour minimum wage
But it’s not just our healthcare “system” which needs a major overhaul. In terms of education, we need to take a hard look at how we are educating our kids – from childcare to graduate school."

Video: An aide for Rep. Santos (R-NY) impersonated Kevin McCarthy’s Chief of Staff to solicit money from GOP donors, per @CNBC.
#GOPCorrupt
#GOPGrifts

https://flip.it/sgvIdR

@TexasObserver
Speaking as a Texan, I find this political corruption corrupt at its core. Abbott needs to stop being part of the problem and resign immediately.

#AbbottResign
#GOPcorrupt

Part 2
GOP base blames everyone but their puppet masters for their predicament!
From stagnant wages to soaring costs for rent, medical, and prescription drugs—the so-called "conservative" voter never seems to figure out what's going on
“The comfort of the rich depends on an abundant supply of the poor.” Voltaire.

Will GOP Voters Ever Wake Up to How Much GOP Lawmakers Screw Them Over?| Common Dreams https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/will-gop-voters-ever-wake-up

#GOPLies
#GOPCorrupt
#GOPInBedWithRich
#GOPExploitsTheirBase
#GOPManipulatesTheirBase
#WantTheirSerfsBack

"You’d think the white base of the GOP would have figured out by now that the Republican elite are more interested in keeping their wages down than having them as neighbors, but the “Makers” of the party have executed a brilliant strategy to keep their own taxes low and profits high while suppressing the “Takers’” wages and benefits among the party’s base.

Truth be told, many in the GOP base were beginning to figure this out by the end of the disastrous presidency of trust-fund-baby George W. Bush.

He’d begun the privatization of Medicare with his Medicare Advantage scam in 2003; lied us into two unnecessary and illegal wars; borrowed around $4 trillion to fund a massive tax cut for his donors, family, and friends; and to top it all off was only in the White House because his brother was governor of Florida and threw 80,000 Black voters off the rolls just months before the 2000 election…and still needed his father’s friends on the Supreme Court to get him into office.

Bush Junior was also the least racist of the Republican presidents since Nixon, and put two Black people at the top of the State Department: many in the white GOP base never forgave him for Colin Powell or Condoleezza Rice.

All in all, most Americans — including a substantial margin of Republican voters — were done and over with Bush and the metaphorical horse he rode in on (as much as he wanted to emulate Reagan, Bush is afraid of horses which is why his Texas election-prop “ranch” was an old pig farm).
...
Obama’s ascension to the highest office in the land was a gift to the morbidly rich funders of the GOP: a “Black liberal from Chicago” being president broke the brains of the most reliable part of the GOP base.

The billionaires leaped to the opportunity. Resurrecting a meme from the tobacco industry’s “smoker’s rights” scam of the 1990s, they rolled out the 2009 version of the Tea Party, complete with millions of dollars to pay for buses, staged events, and well-funded PR operations to get it all into the media every day.

While the foreground was “taxed enough already” and “death panels,” the background was “Black man in the White House wants to give your tax dollars to his Black friends.” It was Nixon’s “Southern Strategy” all over again, only in a far more sophisticated form.

There’s a lot of truth to the internet meme: “Republicans have gotten over Trump’s sexual assaults, affairs, idolatry, greed, profanity and vulgarity…but they’ve never gotten over Obama being Black.”

By the end of Obama’s presidency, though, the Tea Party had become a caricature of itself: old white boomers with silly “Keep your government hands off my Medicare” signs wrote their own jokes.

So, with fellow billionaire (at least he said he was) Trump in the White House, the capstone funders of the GOP changed their brand positioning.

They plastered the word “freedom” all over everything, including the caucus they bought and paid for in Congress. They helped launch hundreds of Spanish-language radio stations to spread the gospel of “free markets” and “you, too, can have white privilege” to America’s fastest growing demographic group. Their media operations made billions and aligned themselves with Russia, Hungary, and other straight-white-male-power authoritarian states.

They even continue to financially support politicians who tried to overthrow the government of the United States.

Which brings us back to the question:

“When will Republican voters wake up to their own oppression at the hands of the GOP’s billionaire funders?”
My bet is that as long as Democrats continue to welcome racial and gender minorities into their party, Republican voters will stay with their nearly-all-white politicians. Particularly people like Steve “David Duke without the baggage” Scalise and Marjorie “Jewish space lasers” Greene.

Will investigations of Hunter Biden’s laptop or the FBI be enough for Republicans to re-energize their base and gain control of all of Congress and the White House by 2024?

Hold my popcorn…"

Part 1
GOP base blames everyone but their puppet masters for their predicament!
From stagnant wages to soaring costs for rent, medical, and prescription drugs—the so-called "conservative" voter never seems to figure out what's going on
“The comfort of the rich depends on an abundant supply of the poor.” Voltaire.

Will GOP Voters Ever Wake Up to How Much GOP Lawmakers Screw Them Over? | Common Dreams https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/will-gop-voters-ever-wake-up

#GOPLies
#GOPCorrupt
#GOPInBedWithRich
#GOPExploitsTheirBase
#GOPManipulatesTheirBase
#WantTheirSerfsBack

When will Republican voters figure out how badly they’re getting screwed by Republican politicians?

— Desperate workers struggle with soaring rents (courtesy of Republican-donor hedge funds);
— lack of healthcare (12 GOP-controlled states still refuse to expand Medicaid for under-$15,000/year workers) is literally killing Americans;
— wages have flatlined since Reagan declared war on workers in 1981 while the merely rich have become the morbidly rich;
— Americans pay 10 times as much as Canadians for some drugs because Republicans block any effort to bring competition to that marketplace;
— at the same time Trump and his GOP buddies in the House and Senate borrowed $1.7 trillion to fund a tax giveaway to his billionaire buddies, student debt passed the $1.7 trillion mark…

Yet somehow the “conservative” base voters never seem to figure it out. Why?

Most Republican voters don’t think much about it, but there are two very distinct layers to the GOP. It’s like a pyramid with a capstone at the very top.

The vast base of the pyramid are the white voters who Richard Nixon invited into the party after the Democrats embraced racial equality in 1964/1965 with the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act.

They mostly live in all-white neighborhoods, attend all-white churches, and send their kids to all-white schools. While most aren’t the Confederate-flag-toting “out and open” racists like the folks who showed up at the Capitol on January 6th, they’re nonetheless “uncomfortable” with nonwhite people. It’s their “culture,” they’ll tell you.

At the tippy-top of the pyramid, it’s capstone, are the handful of white billionaires who answered Lewis Powell’s 1971 call to get active and seize control of America’s political institutions.

They’ve funded think tanks in every state and at the federal level, sponsor anti-labor economics and political science professors in our colleges and universities, lever judges into positions all the way up to the Supreme Court, and pour a seemingly unending river of cash into Republican candidates for office.

These elite of the GOP live insular lives in their mansions with servants’ quarters and private security, travel on private jets, and vacation on private islands or their own personal super-yachts. They don’t really care that much about race because it’s not an issue in their daily lives: the people who enter the circle around them and their families are tightly regulated.

These conservative elite often own or are descended from the owners of America’s largest and most profitable businesses. Their issues, therefore, are their own income taxes and the regulation of their companies’ behavior.

They understand that Voltaire was dead serious when he said, “The comfort of the rich depends on an abundant supply of the poor.”

To keep their taxes low they fund movements to privatize public schools, gut “entitlements,” and oppose any sort of “welfare” aid to working class or poor people. To keep their businesses “free of government interference” they pay off politicians and hire judges to destroy unions, kneecap regulations, and spiff “conservative” media celebrities who lionized them as “job creators” and “geniuses.”

At least 3 House GOP leaders who dodged Jan. 6 committee subpoenas plan to haul in witnesses for their own investigations in the 118th Congress
https://news.yahoo.com/least-3-house-gop-leaders-201150946.html

#GOPCorrupt
#GOPLies
#GOPTreason
#GOPHypocrisy

"While some Trump administration officials have been indicted for refusing to cooperate with the January 6 select committee's investigation into the deadly siege at the US Capitol, several prominent House Republicans who'll soon have subpoena power of their own assailed the panel's legal authority and refused to testify.

The highest profile holdouts include House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy and House Judiciary Committee ranking member Jim Jordan of Ohio, who are vying to become House speaker and Judiciary chairman, respectively, in the next Congress after flipping control of the chamber this fall.

Fellow subpoena-defier Rep. Andy Biggs of Arizona serves on the Judiciary panel as well as the House Oversight and Reform Committee, which is gearing up to investigate presidential scion Hunter Biden's business dealings and, by extension, President Joe Biden.

Many of the GOP members who disregarded the January 6 probe offered varying reasons for not participating — ranging from complaining about the committee's public outreach to assailing the "baseless witch hunt." Their arguments could come back to haunt them if they try to flex the new majority party's powers next year only to have House Democrats recycle the precedent-setting rejections.

January 6 committee members unanimously voted on December 19 to refer McCarthy, Jordan, Biggs, and Rep. Scott Perry of Pennsylvania to the House Committee on Ethics for failing to comply with the subpeonas.

"The Rules of the House of Representatives make clear that their willful noncompliance violates multiple standards of conduct and subjects them to discipline," House investigators wrote in the executive summary of their final report. "The Committee also believes that each of these individuals, along with other Members who attended the December 21st planning meeting with President Trump at the White House, should be questioned in a public forum about their advance knowledge of and role in President Trump's plan to prevent the peaceful transition of power."

#GOPCorrupt
#GOPTreason

#GOPCorrupt

#GOPLies
#GOPCorrupt
#TrumpLies
#TrumpGrifts

Kevin McCarthy And Senior House Republicans Implicated In George Santos Fraud https://politicususa.substack.com/p/kevin-mccarthy-and-senior-house-republicans

#GOPHatesDemocracy
#GOPCorrupt
#GOPLovesPower

"Senior House Republicans knew that George Santos was lying about his educational and work history and even joked about it.

The George Santos scandal that House Republicans are attempting to sweep under the rug was already bad. Santos has confessed to defrauding the voters of New York’s Third Congressional District, but given how the Republican Party is being led by one of the nation’s most notorious alleged fraudsters, House Republicans were set to turn a blind eye and seat Rep. Santos anyway.

Then the story got much bigger.

The New York Post reported:

Senior House Republicans were apparently aware of the inaccuracies and embellishments in the member-elect’s resume, and the topic became a “running joke,” multiple insiders close to House GOP leadership told The Post over the weekend.

“As far as questions about George in general, that was always something that was brought up whenever we talked about this race,” said one senior GOP leadership aide. “It was a running joke at a certain point. This is the second time he’s run and these issues we assumed would be worked out by the voters.”

Kevin McCarthy and the GOP’s attitude appears to have been that if the voters didn’t catch on to Santos defrauding them, they weren’t going to do anything about it.

Since McCarthy and senior House Republicans knew that Santos was defrauding voters, this scandal is much bigger."

The corruption and hypocrisy of the Trump Administration and the GOP is boundless!!

Watch: House Democrat rips ex-Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin over 'smug rhetoric and staggering lies' - Alternet.org https://www.alternet.org/smug-rhetoric-and-staggering-lies/

#TrumpAdminCorrupt
#GOPCorrupt
#GOPHypocrisy

"Former Trump Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin is being accused – again – of lying to Congress and of breaking the law “to protect Trump’s taxes” by one of the top Democrats on the House Ways and Means Committee, which just won a nearly four-year fight to obtain the ex-president’s returns.

Tuesday night the Committee voted to release six years of Donald Trump’s taxes to the public, and while Americans are waiting for that to happen the Committee’s report has revealed several bombshells about Trump’s taxes, including that IRS did not perform mandatory audits of the sitting president’s returns.

U.S. Rep. Bill Pascrell, Jr. (D-NJ) Tuesday night posted video of him chastising then-Secretary Mnuchin during a congressional hearing in March of 2020. Pascrell is the Chairman of the Ways and Means Committee Subcommittee on Oversight.

“By refusing to turn over Donald Trump’s business and personal tax returns to this committee. I think you’re breaking the law. You have no legitimate legal rationale,” Pascrell told Mnuchin during the heated session.

Mnuchin, indignant, replied, “I am not breaking the law. You have a different interpretation. You’re not a judge and this will be determined by a court,” Mnuchin said.

“Neither are you,” Pascrell replied.

“Your stated reasons for stonewalling our requests,” Pascrell added, “you never cite any superseding legal basis. The only thing you suffer is smug rhetoric and staggering lies.”

As Pascrell accused Mnuchin of lying, the Treasury Secretary can be seen raising his eyebrows and writing a note.

After a few minutes of Pascrell reading federal law to Mnuchin he then criticized him for complying with two Republicans’ request for information on “Mr. Biden’s son’s tax returns,” presumably referring to Hunter Biden.

“We’ve learned recently that simultaneously you’ve been offering documents to the loyal opposition. When two Republican Senators asked you for the private financial information of Joe Biden’s family, your department practically tripped over themselves to provide it.”

Pascrell also blasted Mnuchin for the response he received from him letter, chastising a Mnuchin subordinate who accused him in writing of being “intemperate.”

“Being lectured on civility from someone who works for the President, President Trump, is like taking chivalry lessons from Jack the Ripper. It is impossible to be polite to corruption and people who break the law.”

Tuesday night Congressman Pascrell reiterated his accusation that Mnuchin had broken the law and lied to Congress.

“Years ago I called out trump treasury head Mnuchin for breaking the law to his face,” the New Jersey Democrat tweeted. “He lied on live TV. Tonight we learned I was right he broke the law to protect trump’s taxes.”

He also tweeted, “Tonight we learned the IRS failed to follow the law and did not audit donald trump for years. Oh yeah and trump was lying when he said he was under audit.”

“Republicans are fuming we just voted to publicly release trump’s tax returns. They’re making threats. Fact: in 2014 republicans voted to release the private tax info of 51 taxpayers as part of a sham probe. Republican lies and hypocrisy know no bounds,” Congressman Pascrell added."

GOP conspires to undermine democracy via the judiciary by stacking the courts with GOP partisans!

While advising Trump on judges, Conway sold her business to a firm with ties to judicial activist Leonard Leo https://www.politico.com/news/2022/12/20/trump-conway-leonard-leo-00074690

#PartisanCaptureOfJudiciary
#GOPCorrupt
#GOPLovesPower
#GOPHatesDemocracy
#GOPIsTheRichsBitch

"Longtime judicial activist Leonard Leo appears to have helped facilitate the sale of former White House senior adviser Kellyanne Conway’s polling company in 2017 — as she was playing a key role in advocating for Leo’s handpicked list of Supreme Court candidates
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The transaction came at a critical moment for Conway — shortly after her ownership of The Polling Company had come under scrutiny from a congressional oversight committee for potential “conflicts of interest,” likely creating pressure to unload it even though its value was unclear because she was its biggest asset and committed to her White House job.
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It’s the latest example of how Leo has used his network to secure and protect allies at the highest levels of government to successfully advance his decadeslong agenda of shifting the Supreme Court rightward for the next generation.
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If Leo helped facilitate the transaction, it could violate ethics laws designed to prevent executive branch employees from obtaining benefits from people with whom they interact in their official capacities, said Bruce Freed, president of the nonpartisan Center for Political Accountability, which tracks corporate spending in politics. Federal ethics laws prohibit executive branch employees from using their positions for private personal gain and from accepting gifts.

“It really shows Kellyanne as a vehicle for Leo, the leading role Leo has played and how Trump became his instrument,” said Freed, after reviewing the documents.
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The financial deal between Conway and CRC adds to an emerging picture of the extent to which groups associated with Leo — who now controls more than $1.6 billion in conservative donor funds — interacted with key players in the conservative movement’s efforts to reshape the judiciary. The New York Times first reported the windfall donation to a Leo-controlled group, among the largest single contributions ever to a political nonprofit.

Leo served on the board of a group led by Virginia Thomas, the wife of Supreme Court justice Clarence Thomas, and he and the Thomases have maintained a longstanding friendship. Leo’s network has been among the most prolific forces behind the new conservative majority, successfully advocating to confirm Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett as well as to block former President Barack Obama’s nominee Merrick Garland.
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Yet she lobbied inside the White House for the specific conservative justices Leo preferred as part of his decadeslong agenda of shifting the balance of the court sharply rightward, according to news reports, her recent memoir and other public records.
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During the same time frame Conway was a senior adviser to Trump, she was under pressure to sell The Polling Company. In a May 9 statement, then-House Oversight Committee Chair Elijah Cummings, a Democrat from Maryland, said the White House had not produced evidence of a certificate of divestiture. The sale to CRC a few months later reduced political pressure on her.

Ethics specialists pointed to the possible involvement of BH Fund as a key question looming over the sale.
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Brett Kappel, a lobbying and government ethics counsel at the Harmon Curran law firm in Washington who also reviewed the documents at POLITICO’s request, said the transactions appear to be connected.

“Based on the available documentation and the timing of the filings, it certainly appears as though these transactions are related,” said Kappel, who has represented candidates and political committees on both sides of the aisle. Still, Kappel cautioned it may depend on whether Conway was advising the president on court nominations at the same moment she sold to constitute a clear violation of ethics rules.

Kyle Herrig, president of Accountable.US, a non-partisan progressive group that investigates corporate influence in politics and alerted POLITICO to the financial records and timestamps, said it was concerned about whether the Leo-affiliated groups rewarded Conway for her advocacy by purchasing her business at a time when its value was unclear.

It also raises “serious concerns” about how Leo will use his new, “no-strings-attached” $1.6 billion windfall, arranged through a series of transactions that appear to have avoided tax liabilities, to influence the White House, Congress and the Supreme Court, said Herrig."