Tag: Trump and GOP trying to create a dictatorship

Arizona Republicans threaten to arrest fellow GOPers if they don’t turn over ballots for another recount: report

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According to a report from USA Today, the Republican majority in the State Senate is threatening to arrest members of the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors if they don’t turn over copies of mail-in ballots and voting machines so they can conduct another vote count of the 2020 presidential election results that led to Doinald Trump losing.

The report notes that the Maricopa board is also predominately Republican but that hasn’t stopped state senators from going after them.

“The Arizona Senate, controlled by Republicans, has threatened to hold the supervisors, nearly all Republicans, in contempt for not responding to subpoenas asking for copies of all the county’s mail-in ballots and access to voting machines. The Senate wants to perform its own audit,” the report states. “Some senators have even threatened to arrest the supervisors over the matter, and the body could vote on the contempt resolution as early as Monday.” Continue reading.

‘You’ve Created the Controversy. You’re the Arsonist Here’: Chuck Todd Rips Trump Sycophant Senator

“How about the moon landing? Are you going to hold hearings on that?” the host snarked

Meet the Press host Chuck Todd pulled no punches during an interview with staunch Trump ally Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wisc.) on Sunday morning.

After an explainer of Johnson’s and other officeholders’ planned attempt to subvert democracyby opposing the certification of the Electoral College vote for President-elect Joe Biden on Wednesday, the host laid into the Trump sycophant for pretending to try to fix a problem that the president and lawmakers, like Johnson, duped supporters into believing in the first place.

“You made an allegation that there was widespread fraud. You have failed to offer specific evidence of that widespread fraud. But you’re demanding an investigation on the grounds that there are allegations of widespread fraud,” the host said. Continue reading.

Top Republicans offer conflicting messages about Trump’s loss while campaigning in Georgia

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COLUMBUS, Ga. — When Vice President Pence took the stage here Thursday for a lunchtime rally with Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue, he said that President Trump was still fighting to win reelection, even though the electoral college formalized Joe Biden’s victory Monday.

But in television ads airing across the state, allies of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell are making a different argument: that Trump has lost the election, and Democrats could control Washington if they win these two seats on Jan. 5.

These very different messages highlight the conflict within the Republican Party about the best way to win an election that will determine control of the Senate. While Trump and his supporters continue to push baseless claims of voter fraud, McConnell’s allies have warned that Democrats would run rampant if they gain control of both houses of Congress and the presidency. Continue reading.

‘A dark, empty place:’ Public officials face personal threats as tensions flare

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State and local officials of both parties have warned that President Trump’s increasingly desperate tweets about election fraud are fueling the potential for violence as well as another ominous trend of 2020, in which public servants and others who disagree are targeted at their offices and homes with armed protests, harassing phone calls and stalkers.

Last week, an “enemies” list of state and federal officials who rejected Trump’s baseless election conspiracy theories floated up from the dark corners of the Web, with home addresses listed and red targets over their photos, the latest in a string of threats to public officials.

The list falsely accused swing-state governors, voting systems executives and the former top U.S. cybersecurity official responsible for securing November’s presidential election of “changing votes and working against the President” in a treasonous attempt to “overthrow our democracy.” The names from the list shared on social media included the hashtags #remembertheirfaces and #NoQuarterForTraitors. Continue reading.

Cruz Threatens To Hold Up Biden Nominees Until Trump Concedes

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) plans to obstruct every one of President-elect Joe Biden’s Cabinet confirmations unless Donald Trump concedes.

Trump, of course, has vowed never to do so.

“As long as there’s litigation ongoing, and the election result is disputed, I do not think you will see the Senate act to confirm any nominee,” Cruz said in an Axios interview on Wednesday. Continue reading.

Here’s what happened when a Georgia lawmaker scrutinized the Trump campaign’s list of allegedly illegal votes

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When Georgia state Rep. Bee Nguyen (D) reviewed a list of voters who President Trump’s campaign claimed cast illegal ballots in the state, three names caught her eye: two friends and a constituent.

For days, Nguyen pored over public records, spoke with voters by phone and even knocked on doors in person to vet the Trump list. She found that it included dozens of voters who were eligible to vote in Georgia — along with their full names and home addresses.

On Thursday, when a data analyst who compiled the list told a panel of state lawmakers that it proved thousands of voters cast ballots in Georgia who should not have, Nguyen was ready. Continue reading.

‘An Indelible Stain’: How the G.O.P. Tried to Topple a Pillar of Democracy

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The Supreme Court repudiation of President Trump was also a blunt rebuke to Republican leaders who had put their interests ahead of the country’s.

The Supreme Court repudiation of President Trump’s desperate bid for a second term not only shredded his effort to overturn the will of voters: It also was a blunt rebuke to Republican leaders in Congress and the states who were willing to damage American democracy by embracing a partisan power grab over a free and fair election.

The court’s decision on Friday night, an inflection point after weeks of legal flailing by Mr. Trump and ahead of the Electoral College vote for President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr. on Monday, leaves the president’s party in an extraordinary position. Through their explicit endorsements or complicity of silence, much of the G.O.P. leadership now shares responsibility for the quixotic attempt to ignore the nation’s founding principles and engineer a different verdict from the one voters cast in November.

Many regular Republicans supported this effort, too — a sign that Mr. Trump has not just bent the party to his will, but pressed a mainstay of American politics for nearly two centuries into the service of overturning an election outcome and assaulting public faith in the electoral system. The G.O.P. sought to undo the vote by such spurious means that the Supreme Court quickly rejected the argument. Continue reading.

Living people fire back at Republican fraud claims in error-ridden list of ‘dead voters’

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Conservative advocate Meshawn Maddock found herself at the center of controversy after highlighting a bogus voter fraud claim alleging that deceased voters had cast ballots in the 2020 presidential election. Like an overwhelming number of other Trump supporters, instead of verifying the validity of her claims, she aired her grievances on social media and left the public to do their own research. 

According to the local news outlet Bridge Michigan, Maddock released a list of more than 150 names of voters. It also publicized the addresses of the voters Maddock claimed were dead. According to Maddock, her list derived from a larger file that contained more than 2,000 names of people she claimed “voted in Wayne County by absentee ballot that are CONFIRMED deceased,”

It did not take long for social media users to fire back at Maddock. The outcome is no different than the frivolous post-election lawsuits being filed in courts across the country. Social media users quickly realized the problem with the list of names she released: many of the voters were, in fact, alive. Viewers also noted that some of the residential locations Maddock claimed were in Wayne County were actually in Oakland County. Continue reading.

Supreme Court rejects Texas lawsuit challenging swing-state election results

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The Supreme Court on Friday rejected a lawsuit filed by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton that sought to invalidate 10 million votes in four battleground states — Pennsylvania, Georgia, Michigan and Wisconsin — that President Trump lost.

Why it matters: It’s the latest and most significant legal defeat for Trump and his allies in their floundering attempt to overturn the 2020 election results. Trump tweeted Wednesday, “We will be INTERVENING in the Texas (plus many other states) case. This is the big one. Our Country needs a victory!”

What they’re saying: “The State of Texas’s motion for leave to file a bill of complaint is denied for lack of standing under Article III of the Constitution. Texas has not demonstrated a judicially cognizable interest in the manner in which another State conducts its elections. All other pending motions are dismissed as moot,” the Supreme Court wrote. Continue reading.