It is a mistake for Progressives to think that those who make up the Most Conservative Elements of the "NEW REPUBLICAN PARTY" ARE ALL CUT FROM THE SAME CLOTH. WHILE THEY MAY VOTE AS A BLOC,THE PRIMARY MOTIVATION DIFFERS FROM GROUP TO GROUP.
While They are usually Packaged Together, ULTRA CONSERVATIVE POLITICIANS HAVE REALIZED THAT FINDING THE ONE KEY ISSUE THAT DRIVES CERTAIN GROUPS OF VOTERS TO THE POLLS, OFTEN WILL TURN THEM INTO LOYAL ALLIES, who will support an agenda full of Issues They may care little about.
It could be GUN CONTROL, SAME- SEX MARRIAGE, GOVERNMENT SPENDING, SEPARATION OF CHURCH AND STATE, IMMIGRATION LAWS, REPRODUCTIVE MEDICINE etc. THE STRATEGY IS TO PUT FORTH AN UNCOMPROMISING, RIGID, AND VITRIOLIC POINT OF VIEW ON A PARTICULAR ISSUE, APPEALING TO THE BASER ELEMENTS OF HUMAN NATURE.
THE REASON: TO LEARN OF THE ONE ISSUE THAT EACH SECTION OF INDIVIDUAL VOTERS MOST IDENTIFIES WITH, AND MANIPULATE IT TO THEIR ADVANTAGE.
IT'S A TACTIC THAT REQUIRES NO INTELLECTUAL EFFORT ON THE PART OF THE LISTENER. THERE IS NO NEED TO UNDERSTAND, OR EVEN CARE ABOUT THE OPPOSITIONS POINT OF VIEW. IT PLAYS ON RAW EMOTION, WITHOUT THE NEED FOR CONTEMPLATION OR REFLECTION.
THE INDIVIDUAL IS ENCOURAGED NOT TO THINK ABOUT AN INTELLECTUAL JUSTIFICATION FOR THE OPINION THEY ARE SUPPORTING, BUT TO REACT TO THE WORDS OF THE AUTHOR AND\OR SPEAKER, AND ACCEPTING THE MESSAGE AS TRUE, AND WORTHY OF SUPPORT. THIS, IN TURN, ENCOURAGES AGREEMENT WITH OTHER OPINIONS.*
*THIS HAS BEEN THE GAMEPLAN FOR DONALD TRUMP, AND THE RUSS-PUBLICAN PARTY. PURE FASCISM. DON'T THINK...DON'T CARE.
What we saw last week on Capitol Hill was a national disgrace.
We all witnessed the violence and chaos when individuals, encouraged by the president, stormed the Capitol and attempted to overturn the election.
First and foremost, let me be clear: Those who committed these crimes should be prosecuted. Period.
This is America. For more than 200 years we have had fair elections and peaceful transitions of power.
That’s what our Constitution outlines. And that is what I swore an oath to uphold and defend when I served in the United States Navy, and again when I put my hand on the Bible last month in the United States Senate.
We are in the midst of a global pandemic. People are hurting in this country. Millions have lost their jobs. Families are going hungry. Many are worried about how they are going to pay their mortgages and rent and stay in their homes.
We have to continue working to help the people of Arizona, and the people of this country, get through this deadly pandemic.
America has succeeded because, even in moments of great division, we have been able to work together to solve our common challenges.
That is my focus in the coming days, weeks, and months ahead. Thank you for standing with me in that effort.
WASHINGTON (AP) — President-elect Joe Biden has selected Merrick Garland, a federal appeals court judge who in 2016 was snubbed by Republicans for a seat on the Supreme Court, as his attorney general, two people familiar with the selection process said Wednesday.
Biden is expected to announce Garland's appointment on Thursday, along with other senior leaders of the department, including former homeland security adviser Lisa Monaco as deputy attorney general and former Justice Department civil rights chief Vanita Gupta as associate attorney general.
In picking Garland, Biden is turning to an experienced judge who held senior positions at the Justice Department decades ago, including as a supervisor of the prosecution of the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing.
The pick will force Senate Republicans to contend with the nomination of someone they spurned in 2016 — refusing even to hold hearings when a Supreme Court vacancy arose — but Biden may be banking on Garland's credentials and reputation for moderation to ensure confirmation.
Garland was selected over other finalists including Alabama Sen. Doug Jones and former Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates. The people familiar with the process spoke on condition of anonymity.
If confirmed, Garland would confront immediate challenges, including an ongoing criminal tax investigation into Biden’s son, Hunter, as well as calls from many Democrats to pursue inquiries into Trump after he leaves office. A special counsel investigation into the origins of the Russia probe also remains open, forcing a new attorney general to decide how to handle it and what to make public.
Garland would also inherit a Justice Department that has endured a tumultuous four years and would likely need to focus on not only civil rights issues and an overhaul of national policing policies after months of mass protests over the deaths of Black Americans at the hand of law enforcement.
It was unclear how Garland’s selection would be received by Black and Latino advocates who had advocated for a Black attorney general or for someone with a background in civil rights causes and criminal justice reform.
Garland would also return to a Justice Department radically different than the one he left. The Sept. 11 attacks was years away, the department’s national security division had not yet been created and a proliferation of aggressive cyber and counterintelligence threats from foreign adversaries have made counties like China, Russia and North Korea top priorities for federal law enforcement.
But some of the issues from Garland’s first stint at the department persist. Tensions between police and minorities, an issue that flared following the 1992 beating of Rodney King in Los Angeles, remain an urgent concern particularly following a summer of racial unrest that roiled American cities after the May killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis.
And the FBI has confronted a surge in violent from anti-government and racially motivated extremists. That is a familiar threat to Garland, who as a senior Justice Department official in 1995 helped manage the federal government’s response to the bombing of a government building in Oklahoma City that killed 168 people. The bomber, Timothy McVeigh, who was later executed.
Garland has called the work the “most important thing I have done” and was known for keeping a framed photo of Oklahoma City’s Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in his courthouse office in Washington.
At the time of the bombing, Garland was 42 and principal associate deputy attorney general, a top lieutenant to Attorney General Janet Reno. He was chosen to go to Oklahoma City, the highest-ranking Justice Department official there, and led the prosecution for a month until a permanent lead prosecutor was named.
Garland was selected over other contenders for the job including former Alabama senator Doug Jones, who lost his Senate seat last month, and former Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates.
It is rare but not unprecedented for attorneys general to have previously served as judges. It happened in 2007 when President George W. Bush picked Michael Mukasey, a former federal judge in Manhattan, for the job. Eric Holder, President Barack Obama’s first attorney general, had also previously been a Superior Court judge.
Garland was put forward by former President Barack Obama for a seat on the Supreme Court in 2016 following the death of Justice Antonin Scalia, but Republicans refused to hold hearings in the final year of Obama’s term. The vacancy was later filled by Justice Neil Gorsuch during the Trump administration.
Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell refused to let the nomination move forward in the Senate in the final months of Obama’s tenure. He was criticized by Democrats this fall when he took the opposite approach toward confirming President Donald Trump’s Supreme Court pick, Amy Coney Barrett. He said the difference this time around was that the White House and Senate were controlled by the same political parties.
One year later, after the firing of FBI Director James Comey, McConnell actually floated Garland’s name as a replacement for that position, though Garland was said to be not interested.
Garland has been on the federal appeals court in Washington since 1997. Before that, he had worked in private practice, as well as a federal prosecutor, a senior official in the Justice Department’s criminal division and as the principle associate deputy attorney general.
Pelosi: House 'will proceed' to impeachment of Trump
DARLENE SUPERVILLE, ALAN FRAM AND MARY CLARE JALONICK
WASHINGTON (AP) — House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Sunday the House will proceed with legislation to impeach President Donald Trump, calling him a threat to democracy after the deadly assault on the Capitol.
Pelosi made the announcement in a letter to colleagues. She said the House will act with solemnity but also urgency with just days remaining before Trump is to leave office on Jan. 20.
“In protecting our Constitution and our Democracy, we will act with urgency, because this President represents an imminent threat to both,” she said.
“The horror of the ongoing assault on our democracy perpetrated by this President is intensified and so is the immediate need for action.”
Pelosi said that first the House will try to force Vice President Mike Pence and the Cabinet to oust Trump by invoking the 25th Amendment.
On Monday, House leaders will work to swiftly pass legislation to do that. If it is blocked by Republicans, which is almost certain, the House will convene for a full House vote Tuesday.
Pelosi explained that the resolution calls on Pence “to convene and mobilize the Cabinet to activate the 25th Amendment to declare the President incapable of executing the duties of his office.” Under the procedure, the vice president "would immediately exercise powers as acting President,” she wrote.
Pence is not expected to take the lead in forcing Trump out, although talk has been circulating about the 25th Amendment option for days in Washington.
Next, the House would move to consider the articles of impeachment, Pelosi said. The day for an impeachment vote was not set.
With impeachment planning intensifying, two Republican senators said they want Trump to resign immediately as efforts mount to prevent Trump from ever again holding elective office in the wake of deadly riots at the Capitol.
House Democrats were expected to introduce articles of impeachment on Monday. The strategy would be to condemn the president's actions swiftly but delay an impeachment trial in the Senate for 100 days. That would allow President-elect Joe Biden to focus on other priorities as soon as he is inaugurated Jan. 20.
Rep. Jim Clyburn, the third-ranking House Democrat and a top Biden ally, laid out the ideas Sunday as the country came to grips with the siege at the Capitol by Trump loyalists trying to overturn the election results.
“Let’s give President-elect Biden the 100 days he needs to get his agenda off and running,” Clyburn said.
Pressure was mounting for Trump to leave office even before his term ended amid alarming concerns of more unrest ahead of the inauguration. The president whipped up the mob that stormed the Capitol, sent lawmakers into hiding and left five dead.
Republican Sen. Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania on Sunday joined Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska in calling for Trump to “resign and go away as soon as possible."
“I think the president has disqualified himself from ever, certainly, serving in office again,” Toomey said. “I don’t think he is electable in any way.”
Murkowski, who has long voiced her exasperation with Trump’s conduct in office, told the Anchorage Daily News on Friday that Trump simply “needs to get out.” A third Republican, Sen. Roy Blunt, of Missouri, did not go that far, but on Sunday he warned Trump to be “very careful” in his final days in office.
Corporate America began to tie its reaction to the Capitol riots by tying them to campaign contributions.
Blue Cross Blue Shield Association's CEO and President Kim Keck said it will not contribute to those lawmakers — all Republicans — who supported challenges to Biden's Electoral College win. The group “will suspend contributions to those lawmakers who voted to undermine our democracy," Kim said.
Citigroup did not single out lawmakers aligned with Trump's effort to overturn the election, but said it would be pausing all federal political donations for the first three months of the year. Citi’s head of global government affairs, Candi Wolff, said in a Friday memo to employees, “We want you to be assured that we will not support candidates who do not respect the rule of law.”
House leaders, furious after the insurrection, appear determined to act against Trump despite the short timeline.
Late Saturday, Pelosi, D-Calif., convened a conference call with her leadership team and sent a letter to her colleagues reiterating that Trump must be held accountable. She told her caucus, now scattered across the country on a two-week recess, to “be prepared to return to Washington this week” but did not say outright that there would be a vote on impeachment.
“It is absolutely essential that those who perpetrated the assault on our democracy be held accountable,” Pelosi wrote. “There must be a recognition that this desecration was instigated by the President.”
Senate Majority Leader Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., has said an impeachment trial could not begin under the current calendar before Inauguration Day, Jan. 20.
Clyburn said that Pelosi "will make the determination as when is the best time” to send articles of impeachment to the Senate if and when they are passed by the House.
Another idea being considered was to have a separate vote that would prevent Trump from ever holding office again. That could potentially only need a simple majority vote of 51 senators, unlike impeachment, in which two-thirds of the 100-member Senate must support a conviction.
The Senate was set to be split evenly at 50-50, but under Democratic control once Vice President-elect Kamala Harris and the two Democrats who won Georgia's Senate runoff elections last week are sworn in. Harris would be the Senate's tie-breaking vote.
While many have criticized Trump, Republicans have said that impeachment would be divisive in a time of unity.
Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., said that instead of coming together, Democrats want to “talk about ridiculous things like ‘Let’s impeach a president’" with just days left in office.
Still, some Republicans might be supportive.
Nebraska Sen. Ben Sasse said he would take a look at any articles that the House sent over. Illinois Rep. Adam Kinzinger, a frequent Trump critic, said he would “vote the right way” if the matter were put in front of him.
The Democratic effort to stamp Trump's presidential record — for the second time — with the indelible mark of impeachment had advanced rapidly since the riot.
Rep. David Cicilline, D-R.I, a leader of the House effort to draft impeachment articles accusing Trump of inciting insurrection, said Sunday that his group had 200-plus co-sponsors.
The articles, if passed by the House, could then be transmitted to the Senate for a trial, with senators acting as jurors to acquit or convict Trump. If convicted, Trump would be removed from office and succeeded by the vice president. It would be the first time a U.S. president had been impeached twice.
Potentially complicating Pelosi's decision about impeachment was what it meant for Biden and the beginning of his presidency. While reiterating that he had long viewed Trump as unfit for office, Biden on Friday sidestepped a question about impeachment, saying what Congress did “is for them to decide.”
A violent and largely white mob of Trump supporters overpowered police, broke through security lines and windows and rampaged through the Capitol on Wednesday, forcing lawmakers to scatter as they were finalizing Biden’s victory over Trump in the Electoral College.
