December 1, 2020

The junior tea party

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/nov/30/republicans-freedom-force-squad-burgess-owens?

A group of incoming Republican congresspeople intends to counter the “radical agenda” of the Democratic party, with the self-professed goal of becoming the Republican party’s alternative to “the Squad” – a group of progressive congresswomen of color including Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Ilhan Omar.

Calling themselves the Freedom Force, the Republicans say they will combat the “evil” of socialism and Marxism.

“We love our nation. This group will be talking against and giving a contrast to the hard left. We have the Freedom Force versus Squad; we have a group of people who believe in our country, believe in God, family, respect for women and authority, and another group who hates everything I just mentioned,” the Utah congressman-elect Burgess Owens told the Fox News host Laura Ingraham, speaking as a representative of the Freedom Force.

Owens said the group would aim to protect small business owners and the middle class. “Business ownership is the foundation of our freedom,” he said on Fox & Friends Weekend. “It’s where our middle class comes from.” He added that the middle class got its power from small businesses, while the left got its power “from misery.

snip//

As a final warning to Democrats, he added: “You’re collateral damage if you run a business and you want to go to church and you want to put your kids in school; you’re collateral damage – that’s the way the evil Marxists and socialists roll.”

snip//

November 30, 2020

The GOP: A party that cannot change

The GOP: A party that cannot change
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/11/29/gop-party-that-cannot-change/

snip//

Swap out “Green New Deal” for “Obamacare” or the “Clinton health-care plan,” and those sentences could have been spoken by any Republican in the past 20 years. Blunt went a little further than his new colleagues, and suggested Medicare and Medicaid might have been mistakes.

It is probably unrealistic to expect the GOP tune to change. Blunt rose to national prominence during the 1990s, when a Democrat left the country in decent shape, but conservative hysteria, driven by right-wing media, led to the election of a Republican who threw all that away with reckless decisions.

Malliotakis and Mace are entering Washington four years after another Democrat left the country in decent shape, but conservative hysteria, driven by right-wing media, led to the election of a Republican who threw all that away with reckless decisions.

Yes, the blunders differ — a disastrous war and a recession for Bush; a horrific pandemic “response” and a near-total loss of norms for Trump. Trumpism lacks the niceties that led too many observers to give “compassionate conservatism” the benefit of the doubt 20 years ago. And today’s GOP is far more open about its contempt for American ideals of equality and justice than 20 years ago.

The Republican Party of 2020 may look different from its earlier incarnations, but the fundamentals remain the same: The party is fearful of change, partial to fearmongering, hostile to free elections and running short on competence.

Don’t be surprised if the GOP of 2030 looks a lot like that, too.

November 11, 2020

The Long Shadow of the Reagan Years

The Long Shadow of the Reagan Years
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/10/opinion/donald-trump-reagan.html

snip//

The upheavals of our current era did not begin with Donald Trump, nor will they end now that he has been defeated. Nov. 4, 1980, was 40 years ago, a long time ago now. But in so many ways the cataclysms of 1980 created the world we live in today.

snip//

For the life of me I have never been able to understand how so many Republicans talk about their patriotism and their love of the flag and at the same time despise the very government the Constitution created. Is that what patriotism means now — hating governance, but getting all teary-eyed and sentimental about Exxon Mobil?

It’s this enduring frame of mind that still eats away at us. It explains, just to pick one example, Republicans’ hatred of the Affordable Care Act — and why they’ve been trying to repeal it for all these years, even while swearing that they’ll protect so many of its provisions.

Because since Mr. Reagan, it’s been apostasy to suggest that good governance could ever do anything to improve people’s lives. Even the resistance to mask-wearing can arguably be traced back to November 1980: Just look at all the people who find that a mandate to wear a mask to keep other people from actually dying is somehow suppression of their freedom.

Sure, blame Donald Trump for his inept pandemic response. But blame Ronald Reagan for encouraging people to hate their own government, or to view an individual sacrifice for the common good as some kind of tyranny. The pending erasure of Mr. Trump from the White House means that the tone will change in January, from cruelty to kindness, from narcissism to empathy. But Joe Biden will find it a greater challenge to alter the core belief, now held by so many Americans, that their government is the gravest threat to their freedom.

snip//

November 10, 2020

A Bill Barr politicized investigation altered documents...We should assume it will happen again.

THE LAST TIME BILLY BARR ORDERED A POLITICIZED INVESTIGATION, DOJ ALTERED DOCUMENTS FOR PUBLIC CONSUMPTION
https://www.emptywheel.net/2020/11/10/the-last-time-billy-barr-ordered-a-politicized-investigation-doj-altered-documents-for-public-consumption/

It is a fact that someone (or someones) who were part of the Jeffrey Jensen review of the Mike Flynn prosecution altered documents for public consumption. That is not speculation. It is not hyperbole. It is a fact, one that other outlets had better start replicating and enhancing if they want to prevent Barr’s green light on investigations into election irregularities, announced last night, from doing the same.

At a minimum, DOJ removed protective order footers from a set of documents shared with Sidney Powell on September 23, in advance of the first debate.

snip//

But those aren’t the only pieces of evidence that the Jeffrey Jensen investigation evolved from inventing an excuse to blow up the Flynn prosecution into an opportunity to set up campaign attacks for the President. Pro-Trump FBI Agent Bill Barnett gave an interview that was materially inconsistent with his actions during the Flynn investigation (and that claimed to be unaware of key pieces of evidence against Flynn). When DOJ released it, they redacted it in such a way as to hide complimentary comments from Barnett about Brandon Van Grack that would have completely undermined DOJ’s claimed reasons to throw out Flynn’s prosecution.

There are more signs of irregularities with this “investigation.” But this list by itself proves that DOJ, in an investigation personally ordered up by Billy Barr, used the “investigation” to package up propaganda to help Donald Trump. The package even seems to have served to tee up an attack Trump made on Joe Biden in the first debate.

As noted, last night Barr authorized what had previously been forbidden for over forty years, DOJ’s conduct of investigations into claims of irregularities ginned up by the very same lawyers — Sidney Powell and Rudy Giuliani — who invented the complaints about the Flynn prosecution. One of Barr’s investigations has already altered official documents to sustain false claims. That means there’s reason to believe he would do it again, to serve the same cause. Indeed, Trump’s election loss gives Barr’s a greater incentive to repeat the process, to ensure he is not replaced by someone who would treat these alterations as a crime.

A Bill Barr politicized investigation altered documents to serve propaganda in the past. We should assume it will happen again.