DrLove
Diamond Member
As Sarah Longwell points out in this excellent column: "This trial is unique for having members of the jury who are not just not impartial, but are both witnesses and accomplices to the crime." Lock 'em up for sedition. ALL of 'em!
thebulwark.com
“Must I shoot a simple-minded soldier boy who deserts, while I must not touch a hair of a wily agitator who induces him to desert? I think in such a case to silence the agitator and save the boy is not only constitutional, but withal, a great mercy.” —Abraham Lincoln
Sens. Ted Cruz, Josh Hawley, Ron Johnson, and Lindsey Graham were happy to jump in front of every available television camera to discuss the “unprecedented allegations of voter fraud,” no matter how discredited those allegations were.
Graham reportedly even called Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, who told CBS that “Graham implied for us to audit the envelopes, and then throw out the ballots for counties who had the highest frequency error of signatures”—i.e. throw out all legal votes because a few of their neighbors might have voted illegally, but might not have. Better safe than sorry?
House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy said on November 5, “President Trump won this election, so everyone who’s listening, do not be quiet. We cannot allow this to happen before our very eyes.”
Rep. Louie Gohmert suggested that “violence in the streets” was the only option remaining to keep Joe Biden from becoming president after a federal judge rejected his lawsuit trying to force Vice President Mike Pence to overturn the election.
Newly elected North Carolina Rep. Madison Cawthorn told a Turning Point USA crowd that they should call their congressman and “lightly threaten” them in the name of “election integrity.” Representative Mo Brooks, also a major promoter of the conspiracy theory that the election was stolen, said in a fiery speech just prior to the attack on the Capitol, “Today is the day American patriots start taking down names and kicking ass.”
A few hours later, the rioters beat Capitol Police officer Brian Sicknick to death.
The list of Republican election truthers in Congress goes on and on. When Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton—already under FBI investigation for corruption—filed a lawsuit challenging the election results in four battleground states, he was joined by 126 House Republicans. Cruz offered to argue a parallel (ludicrous) case in front of the Supreme Court. Those lawsuits, like all the others, were summarily tossed.
And this is just the incomplete record of elected Republicans, which leaves aside Sidney Powell, Mike Flynn, Jenna Ellis, Rudy Giuliani, the RNC, and the entire right-wing media ecosystem.
So now, while those arrested for the Capitol attack are—rightly—facing hard time, the Republicans and members of Conservatism Inc. who filled these thugs’ heads with poison and pointed them toward the Capitol are “moving on,” their campaign funds flush with the millions they raised claiming they were going to “stop the steal.”
Hold Them All Accountable
The people who stormed the Capitol are facing the music. It’s up to us to make sure that the people who incited them do, too.
thebulwark.com
