Speaking to a gathering of Republican National Committee members and other party dignitaries on Saturday at his Mar-a-Lago private club, former President Donald Trump excoriated Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell for allowing the January 6 certification of the 2020 presidential election: “If that were Schumer instead of this dumb son of a bitch Mitch McConnell, they would never allow it to happen. They would have fought it.”
But if you think this means Trump is on the outs with Senate Republicans, consider the following tweet from National Republican Senate Committee chairman Rick Scott of Florida.
https://twitter.com/ScottforFlorida/status/1381606880070492167Trump was impeached twice, both times with good justification for illegal interference in the constitutional electoral process. He has a heaping list of legal problems that touch on everything from rape to treason. He’s authored an insurrection on the Capitol that risked the life of his own vice-president. And he’s attacking the leader of the Senate Republicans.
Yet, the Senate Republicans have just given him an award for being a champion of freedom and protecting constitutional rights.
On February 13, seven Republican senators voted to convict Trump of “incitement of insurrection.” Less than two months later, they’re presented him with a silver bowl.
I’d like to point out that Rick Scott was the CEO of Columbia/HCA when it committed what was then the largest Medicare fraud in history. In 2000, the company settled with the Justice Department and paid $840 million in criminal fines, civil damages and penalties.
The government settled a second series of similar claims with Columbia/HCA in 2002 for an additional $881 million. The total for the two fines was $1.7 billion.
On Scott’s 2010 campaign website, he admitted to the $1.7 billion fine, though the link is no longer on the site.
I’m still struggling to understand why anyone would vote for Rick Scott. It confused me that he was twice elected the governor of Florida despite being a crook. Then he was elected to the U.S. Senate in 2018. I also don’t get why McConnell put him in charge of the RNSC. Maybe he can see now why that was a poor decision.
At some point, the fact that we’re in a civil war with the Republican Party and their base voters is going to dawn on y’all. Not a “political” civil war, an actual civil war. Just because it isn’t fully cooking doesn’t change that fact.
They. Want. To. Kill. You.
At some point, hopefully before they’ve lost the House, Senate, and White House, it’ll dawn on the Democratic Party the same. Although with Manchin and Sinema doing their best to throw the war to the Republicans, I’m not counting on it.
I’ll keep repeating it: Self-disarming is an own-goal.
Safely owning and operating a firearm is not just a right, but a responsibility.
Or, we can keep pretending it’s 1998 and the Republicans are going to round a corner any time now, start acting sane, and be faithful partners in democracy, or whatever other delusions we want to live out while the country collapses.
I have been trying to convey this message in my county for a very long time. It took some effort, but I have finally convinced at least some local Dem Party leadership that we have moved into a completely different situation in a lot of areas in this country, and certainly in ours here. In my area, I have spent virtually my entire life here. I have deep roots, a very good understanding of how this county has evolved, and the perspective of knowing the Trump circle here for a very long time. And you are absolutely correct.
Not all of them. In fact, probably very few. Most all of them are just bluster. But make no mistake, there are people here who would kill me, and others, simply for the fact that I am an openly activist Democrat. We have had multiple death threats here, some quite overt, specific, and intimidating. Others are obviously the work of mentally disturbed people. But the motivations and the weapons of a disturbed individual are just as dangerous as those of a calculating right wing Trump motivated terrorist. Some of these people have been caught and prosecuted, and others are still out there, unidentified, with their overt threats still hanging over our heads. Local law enforcement here has been great about increasing patrols and presence when we have a need to have a gathering of Democrats in our local office, whether it be for a monthly Zoom meeting or a group activity in our headquarters. But we still recognize we need to have significant situational awareness, all of the time, and those who are responsible for insuring the security and safety of our Party members, volunteers, and officers are keenly aware of the potential danger here. I know a lot of people think this is just an over the top paranoia on the part of some of us, but it’s not. It is simply the world which we have awoken to, and recognized the fact that this is our new reality.
Most people will look at this sort of thing and think it’s just craziness on our part. Their experience is so far removed from this sort of thing that it just doesn’t seem possible that this kind of thing would actually go on in this country, But it is. January 6 was not a shock to me at all. I listened to all those people who stormed the capital, beat police officers, built a gallows to hang Democrats and RINO traitors. I watched their attitude, their confidence in the rightness of their mission, and I saw the very same people who live on my road with the Trump flags and banners still flying at their homes, who shop next to me at the grocery while wearing their MAGA hats and shirts, and who are probably mingling with me in the local outdoor store looking for very hard to find ammo. Two people here were part of the Oathkeeper’s line of people equipped with combat helmets, bulletproof vests, and radios who move steadily up the Capitol steps in “Ranger File” amid cheering protesters to breach the capital. They are under indictment for their Federal crimes, but they enjoy tremendous local support and have become celebrities of a sort among many, many people.
Don’t allow yourself to be fooled that this is just another part of the cyclical ebb and flow of our national politics, It’s not. It is different than anything that has happened in our lifetime. Don’t allow yourself to be caught off guard by a failure of imagination here. The stakes are much too high.
All of that.
I sincerely believe that if the Democrats lose the House and Senate in 2022, and the White House in 2024, that’s it. 90%+ of House Republicans and 80%+ of Senate Republicans support violent insurrection against the US Government if the Republican Presidential candidate loses the election. Elect a Cotton, Hawley or Scott, and you’re going to have a hard time convincing me that they won’t do whatever it takes to not lose their re-election.
Not to mention, state-level Republicans are going to make sure they retain the ability to overrule any pesky democratic results they don’t agree with leading up to a Cotton/Hawley/Scott re-election.
It’s also why I think it’s time to put to use all of the “dry powder” Democrats have been storing the past 20 years. It’s now or never. Nuke the filibuster and pass the legislation needed to save the country. There’s a couple dozen laws that could be passed that would establish the Democratic Party as a party of “the people”, leaving Republicans fighting themselves arguing how to oppose all of the popular legislation. But, Manchin and Sinema are probably OK with the collapse of the country because…they’re very serious Senators who truly value “bipartisanship”, something which literally hasn’t existed in decades.
Freedom’s just another word for “I take no responsibility.”