Comments by "wily wascal" (@wilywascal2024) on "See new Meadows texts sent to Republican lawmakers before January 6" video.

  1. "Call this civic barbarism. Instead of promoting the values of responsible citizenship, Trump, Republican leadership, and their media enablers have elevated and blessed the very worst among us. They are making many Americans less suited for self-government and more dangerous to their neighbors. And they are doing so for the reason some of the Founders most feared: To lead the mob against true democracy." ― Michael Gerson, from 'Trumpism is American Fascism' (NOTE: Gerson is a staunch life-long conservative, who served as former President George W. Bush's chief speech writer.) As political commentator and former Republican presidential advisor Mark McKinnon so aptly put it recently, "The Republican party is at dysfunction junction." May disagree with conservative ideology and with their stances on many issues, but do value and respect LOYAL opposition--a duty that the GOP has for too long forgotten and abdicated, putting personal and party interests before country. That is not only harmful to their party, it is harmful to our democracy and institutions. And it has come to represent a clear a present danger to our nation, a serious threat to our very security. All of this is mentioned because it is firmly believed that this is not a time for diplomatic, soft-spoken words. This is not a time to be timid or Pollyannaish about our current political landscape, but a time for frankness, a time for acknowledgment of defects, a time for courageously confronting stark unpleasant realities. Our democracy is a fragile construct, only as sturdy, vibrant, and enduring as we maintain it, requiring constant vigilance and due diligence. Just as we don't forget Pearl Harbor, or 9/11, even more so the attack against our nation's Capitol on January 6, 2021 by fascist Reich-wing domestic terrorists incited to insurrection by a deranged President against his own government must never be forgotten or forgiven. Thus, we MUST condemn both cowardly, corrupt Republican so-called "leaders" defying truth, justice, duty, democracy, and Constitution--and their dysfunctional political party that behaves as a cult--in the strongest possible terms, using the most muscular language that can be mustered. For it is necessary; the very fate of our nation depends upon it. Disaster was narrowly averted with the defeat of Trump, with Democratic control of the House and Senate, but the battle for the soul of this nation is far from over, and we must never again allow ourselves to become complacent. And so it is vitally imperative that we remind each other of this, that we impress these things upon our children and fellow citizens of this nation.
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  2. Toxic Trump and Republicans are traitors to America. They've been gaslighting Trump's Russian collusion and election fraud for years, and continue doing so. Trump should have been impeached and convicted after the Mueller Report, which didn't happen only because of A.G. Barr and Republicans, who were ultimately responsible for that failure. Then Congressional Republicans refused to impeach despite overwhelming evidence of Trump's Ukraine shakedown. The worst was the third time Republicans refused to impeach Trump after he incited a terrorist insurrection against his own government on the nation's Capitol. Republicans refused to even have a BIPARTISAN commission to investigate January 6. Moreover, throughout Trump's term and even after, Republicans have been KNOWINGLY spreading Russian propaganda designed to weaken America, kill Americans. So, when is Merrick Garland and the DOJ going to step up and hold Trump and his Republican accomplices accountable for their many FEDERAL crimes, or is Garland going to set the terrible, horrific precedent that a former President is a King and above the law? Just when America most needed a strong and courageous AG at the DOJ, we instead got a cowardly enabler in Merrick Garland.
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  3. What we are witnessing from so-called Republican "leaders" is just pure evil. They are either actively or silently complicit in fomenting Reich-wing domestic terrorist violence, Reich-wing insurrection, and Reich-wing undermining of our democracy and Constitution. It's crystal clear that Trump, Boebert, Greene, Gosar and other Republicans like them are fomenting Reich-wing domestic terrorism. The GOP has become radicalized to such an extent that it has essentially become a fascist terrorist organization, with members that fantasize and promote violence against their fellow Americans. While those Republican elected officials must be condemned and sanctioned, they are only a symptom of the disease poisoning a third of America, the most visible part of the cancer infecting our nation. The GOP has been mainstreaming radicalization of their voter base for decades, ALLOWING Reich-wing media and Reich-wing demagogues to take over the party, to the point it has become a fascist, nihilistic cult. Because just as now, Republican politicians and their plutocratic masters have always seen it as the ends justifying whatever means to win power. Remember the Republican Tea Party? This catastrophe with the GOP didn't start with Trump, who just exploited what the Republicans had already built. Republican politicians are only interested in helping themselves, sadly. It's not even really placing party before country, because they don't really care about the GOP, either, which is evidenced by their destruction of it; they only use that as a convenient vehicle for graft and to grift their voters and us taxpayers. You don't get denialism without nihilism, and Sen. Hirono hits the nail on the head when she said that "Republicans don't give a shit." GOP = fascism + nihilism The few patriots left in the Republican party are rejected by the vast majority of Republicans. Hard as it may be for some to believe or accept, it is to our own and our nation's peril to ignore, diminish, or dismiss that the GOP has become a fascist cult. Their fascism, nihilism and cultdom needs to be recognized, acknowledged, called out, condemned, and strongly opposed if we are to keep our democracy. A third of America has been successfully Talibinized, thanks to Reich-wing plutocrats, Reich-wing media, Reich-wing demagogues, and Reich-wing politicians. Republican cult is the new ISIS. Call them Talibangelicals, ISIS-KKK, Y'all Qaeda, Vanilla ISIS, Reich-whingers (the original English word for whiners), or QaBomb----they're all part and parcel of the current lunatic Reich-wing GOP. Republican politicians are appeasing fascist, seditious terrorists...because that's their voter base, radicalization and extremism is what they have cultivated, nourished, nurtured, exploited, and profited from for four decades. Reich-wing politicians, plutocrats, demagogues, media, white nationalist, Christian nationalist religious, sovereign citizens and Qanon leaders thought they could ride the tiger, too arrogant, greedy, and stupid to foresee that master would become slave, and the beast they created would soon come to consume them.
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  4. "Without accountability, an attempted autogolpe or insurrection is just practice." "What happened on January 6 is the very definition of sedition." ― Former Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson Why has Traitor Trump not been charged yet by the DOJ? That's what a lot of people are wondering! Not just prosecution of Trump, but all his accomplices, too! Obstruction charges outlined in the Mueller Report, the Ukraine extortion racket, inciting an insurrection, sedition, and federal election interference. The evidence is all in plain sight, where are the indictments, the arrests? Our democracy hangs in the balance; this is no time to play nice, there is no time to waste! The DOJ shouldn't be worried about appearances, either, because it's a matter of impartially enforcing the law and not setting bad precedent that encourages future lawlessness and authoritarianism by the Executive Branch. And because justice matters.
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  5. Merrick Garland: "Trump and Congressional Republicans screwed me out of a seat on the Supreme Court...that's why now as AG I can't prosecute them for the many crimes they've committed!" Merrick Garland’s House Testimony Demonstrated the Failure of His Hyper-Cautious Approach to His Job Despite Garland’s many efforts to not appear political by declining to investigate Trump and his cronies for possible crimes and by using DOJ resources to actively protect Trump from civil liability, Republicans are still portraying him as the most political attorney general in history. The other weakness of Garland’s timid approach was on full view during his opening statement and responses to Democratic members of Congress. “The essence of the rule of law is that like cases are treated alike. That there not be one rule for Democrats and another for Republicans; one rule for friends, another for foes,” Garland stated grandly. But by declining to investigate Trump and his associates, Garland is enabling further attacks on our democracy. (While proving inequity by putting Republicans above the law.) Crucially, the two parties are not the same. Garland’s standard sets up a false equivalency between the Democratic Party and a political party whose national leader, Donald Trump, incited and celebrated a violent assault on our nation’s Capitol to overthrow the results of a free and fair election and who continues to portray the insurrection as a glorious “protest.” To that end, in the middle of the attorney general’s testimony, Trump issued a statement highlighting Garland’s feebleness at failing to even investigate the organizers and leaders of the Jan. 6 events, declaring “the insurrection took place on November 3, Election Day. January 6 was the Protest!” Garland’s efforts to depoliticize the DOJ have proved to be an abdication of his responsibility to protect the rule of law. Take just a few examples: Garland’s failure to reconsider the obstruction of justice case against the former president, his deferral of an investigation of possible financial crimes by Trump and his organization to local prosecutors in New York City and Westchester, his use of the DOJ to protect Trump from defamation allegations, and his deferral of a soliciting of voter fraud felony probe in Georgia to local prosecutors there. By abdicating his responsibility, Garland is also opening the door for Trump to commit these possibly criminal abuses all over again, this time with the full support of the Republican Party, and maybe ultimately return to power. --Mark Stern "Try as he may, Merrick Garland cannot perform boring independence fast enough to outrun GOP claims that he’s a wild-eyed, violent socialist. And while the GOP currently exists only to cast everything you thought you believed into doubt, the real endgame is vigilantism. The endgame is to ensure that people mistrust government, election systems, school boards, (teachers, health care officials) the media, and the justice system enough to lend a hand in their destruction." --Dahlia Lithwick
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