Fake Elector Working for Sen. Ron Johnson

 

The fake elector scheme was a major component of the Malignant Loser's attempt to subvert the 2020 election, which he lost by some 8 million votes. The fake electors' role in that attempt is under investigation by a Federal grand jury. Now, it's reported that Wisconsin's atrocious Trumpist Sen. Ron Johnson (Sedition-WI) has one of Wisconsin's fake electors on his campaign staff.

The fake elector is Pam Travis, a longtime right-wing Republican activist, who authored a fundraising letter for Johnson that went out Monday asking for small dollar contributions to allegedly cover "yard sign printing costs."  She's been on Johnson's campaign staff since at least last April, according to the American Independent report. Johnson was one of a few Republican Senators (led by Sen. "Cancun Ted" Cruz) to vote against accepting President Biden's legitimate electors on January 6 after the violent insurrection at the Capitol had taken place. 

Johnson is running behind Dem candidate Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes for reelection in November. We can help ensure that Johnson is sent packing by supporting Barnes' campaign.

 

Ad Blasts Ron Johnson For Putting Party First

Wisconsin's stain on the Senate, the execrable Ron Johnson, when not pushing Kremlin talking points, is whitewashing the January 6 insurrection at the Capitol by domestic terrorists. Democracy for All 2021 has an ad blasting Johnson for putting the interests of the Trumpist party over the country's. Johnson is up for reelection in 2022, but hasn't announced that he will run. We need to turn up the heat to send him packing back to Oshkosh whether he runs or not.

Sen. Ron "Tiny" Johnson Is Obstructing The COVID Relief Bill (UPDATED)

The Dumbest Senator, Ron "Tiny" Johnson (QAnon -WI), wants you to wait for your stimulus checks, extended unemployment insurance, help to state and local governments for essential workers, money for openings schools safely, grants to small businesses to keep them afloat, money for COVID testing and tracing, etc.:

Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) will force Senate clerks to read aloud the entire $1.9 trillion covid-relief bill, delaying debate on it by about 10 hours.

“I will make them read their 600-700 page bill,” Johnson said, detailing his plan during an interview on a Milwaukee conservative talk radio show.

He also said he plans to force votes on a huge number of amendments to prolong the debate by several days.

“We need to keep this process going, so we can highlight how this is not covid relief, how this is a boondoggle for Democrats,” he said. “It’s a Democrat wish list setting things up for an even more socialist society, and it needs to be resisted and I’m going to lead the effort to resist it.”

Dammit, Wisconsin, how could you send this moronic asshole to Washington ... twice?!?

He's a sewer of bad faith, conspiracy theories, sedition- enabling, and Russian intelligence talking points. You'd be hard pressed to find a Republican in either the House or Senate who's been more destructive and mendacious over the course of his career.  Now you can add obstructionist to that.

UPDATE:  Tiny's ploy to slow down passage of the bill has been pwned in the most appropriately lame way.

(Photo:  The only thing not tiny about Tiny is his mouth.)

Monday Reading

 

As always, please go to the links for the full articles/ op eds.

Top Constitutional and First Amendment scholars (144 of them) wrote a letter to Congress undercutting much of the expected legal defense of existential threat Donald "Mango Mussolini" Trump's impeachment lawyers, including:

The First Amendment is no bar to the Senate convicting former President Trump and disqualifying him from holding future office. Although we differ from one another in our politics and disagree on many questions of constitutional law (including First Amendment law), we agree that any First Amendment defense raised by President Trump’s attorneys would be legally frivolous. The First Amendment does not apply in impeachment proceedings. And even if it did, President Trump’s alleged actions—if proven by the Impeachment Managers at trial—would fall well outside the protections of the First Amendment. 

Trump's lawyers and the spineless weasels in the Senate know this, but their defense will follow the aphorism that “If you have the law, hammer the law. If you have the facts, hammer the facts. If you have neither the law nor the facts, hammer the table”.

Meanwhile, one of those spineless weasels is out floating an insane diversionary conspiracy that could only spring from the fevered swamp that is Sen. Ron "Tiny" Johnson's (R-Trump) "brain":

Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) argued that 45 Republican senators already believe the Senate trial is “unconstitutional,” when speaking with Fox News’ Maria Bartiromo on Sunday. He was referring to the vote total on the Senate motion brought by Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) in January to dismiss the impeachment trial on the basis that it’s unconstitutional to hold an impeachment trial for a private citizen. Five Republicans joined the Democrats in rejecting the motion, but every other Republican voted in favor of it. (Many legal scholars believe that such a trial is perfectly constitutional — more on that later.)

But Johnson’s subsequent comments on Fox took a more shocking turn — he floated the baseless idea that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi was to blame in some sense for the violent assault on the Capitol.

“Is this another diversionary operation? Is this meant to deflect away from potentially what the speaker knew and when she knew it? I don’t know, but I’m suspicious,” Johnson said.

That Wisconsin voters chose this lump of stupid over Russ Feingold twice(!) is a disgrace and a permanent stain on the state that birthed the progressive movement and Sens. Gaylord Nelson, Herb Kohl, Tammy Baldwin, and Feingold.

But he wasn't the only Republican weasel making frivolous or outrageous claims in support of Trump's acquittal, as James Downie reports:

On the mainstream Sunday shows, Republican senators complained instead about the process, the precedents and their political rivals. On “Fox News Sunday,” Paul tried to change the subject, complaining that Sen. Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) had never been held accountable when he warned antiabortion Supreme Court justices last March that decisions that limiting a woman’s right to choose would release “the whirlwind.” Whatever one thinks of Schumer’s comments, though, invoking “the whirlwind” is a far cry from telling people “we’re going to walk down” to the Capitol on the day of electoral college certification.

On NBC’s “Meet the Press,” Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.) complained that “under the Watergate, under the Clinton impeachments, there were truckloads of information. Here, there was a video. There was no process.” Yes, previous impeachments came with detailed reports of special committees and counsels. In this case, the video of Trump on the Ellipse was the only report the world needed to see.

As for the constitutionality of the trial, Sen. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.) argued on ABC’s “This Week” that “overwhelming weight of history and also precedent indicates that this is not proper.” But he almost immediately admitted that “constitutional lawyers can make an argument on either side.” Paul tried a similar argument on Fox News, only to backpedal when host Chris Wallace pointed out that in 1876 the Senate conducted an impeachment trial of an ex-official.

Keeping anti- democracy jackholes like Johnson out of government should be a prime objective for all of us.  Stacy Abrams writes about how to revive our democracy after its near- death experience:

One of the first steps must be an overhaul of the Senate filibuster, which has long been wielded as a cudgel against the needs of millions who struggle. Today, the parliamentary trick creates a more sinister threat to our nation: the ability of a minority of senators, who represent 41.5 million fewer people than the Senate majority, to block progress favored by most Americans.

Democrats in Congress must fully embrace their mandate to fast-track democracy reforms that give voters a fair fight, rather than allowing undemocratic systems to be used as tools and excuses to perpetuate that same system. This is a moment of both historic imperative and, with unified Democratic control of the White House and Congress, historic opportunity.

The agenda to restore democracy also includes passing the For the People Act to protect and expand voting rights, fight gerrymandering and reduce the influence of money in politics; the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act to restore the full protections of the 1965 Voting Rights Act; and the Protecting Our Democracy Act to constrain the corruption of future presidents who deem themselves above the law. These landmark bills have broad-based support, and would have passed long ago were it not for obstructionist leaders who fear losing their own influence if the American people have more power of their own.

Further, fixing our democracy requires we finally allow our fellow Americans in D.C. and Puerto Rico, the vast majority of whom are people of color, to have full access to our democracy. That means D.C. statehood and binding self-determination for Puerto Rico.

(ICYMI, check out Infidel 753's essay on "Ten Criteria for Success" for the Biden Administration, which includes several of the points made by Abrams, and more.  Take a look if you haven't already.)

Dana Milbank writes about the Republican Party's embrace of anti-Semitism and violence:

... One hundred ninety-nine Republican members of Congress rallied to the defense of a vile, unapologetic anti-Semite in their ranks who calls for assassination of her opponents.

This is more than a Republican problem; it’s an American problem. You don’t have to be a scholar of 20th-century Europe to know what happens when the elected leaders of a democracy condone violence as a political tool and blame the country’s ills on the Jews.  [snip]

House Republicans refused to sanction her for her outrages, and on Thursday, all but 11 House Republicans voted against a successful Democratic measure to remove her from House committees.

“Marjorie Taylor Greene will be remembered for breaking new ground for her wild anti-Semitism,” Jonathan Greenblatt, head of the Anti-Defamation League, told me after the vote. Greenblatt, whose group has tracked all-time-high levels of anti-Jewish incidents during the Trump years, wrote three letters to House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) about Greene since her nomination, and he urged McCarthy to remove her from committees. Greenblatt received no reply.

Greene’s ugly pronouncements about Muslims and Black people, and her harassment of school-shooting survivors and families of victims, are no less reprehensible. But the rallying around this unrepentant anti-Semite by Republicans is an ominous new frontier. The Republican Jewish Coalition said it is “offended and appalled by [Greene’s] comments and her actions.”

He's right that it's an American problem, and it's one more reason why the party that supports this evil needs to be crushed at every election from now on.

Once again, we close by recommending a trip over to Infidel 753's link round- up.  It's one of the first places we go every Sunday morning for an array of reading options on many topics.

Portrait Of A Villain -- Sen. Ron Johnson

Multi- millionaire Wisconsin Republican dimbulb Sen. Ron "Tiny" Johnson has already proven himself to be the dumbest U.S. Senator.  You can now add to that distinction his being the most proudly sociopathic:

U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson would rather see no new coronavirus stimulus bill than one that includes new spending, the Oshkosh Republican said Friday.

Johnson said in a Friday interview with Breitbart News Tonight that he hopes negotiations stay broken down between the Trump administration and House Democratic leaders on a new pandemic relief package given the trillions Democratic leaders proposed in new spending.

"From my standpoint, the breakdown in the talks is very good news. It's very good news for future generations," Johnson said. "I hope the talks remain broken down."

Being a U.S. Senator and a multi- millionaire to boot means Tiny doesn't have to worry about paying the mortgage or from where his next piece of Wisconsin brick cheese is coming.  So he has time to philosophize on the underpinning of Republican orthodoxy:  How can we "afflict the afflicted and comfort the comfortable" today?

Tiny, of course, is the same asshole playing the role of Trump's Devin Nunes in the Senate, working on two fronts:  to undercut the FBI's rationale for investigating the Russia/ Trump campaign connection in 2016, and to smear Joe and Hunter Biden with Russian intelligence- manufactured dirt.  Not surprisingly, Russian intelligence has been working on Tiny for at least two years, and this is their payoff.  This is from July 2018:

One of the Republican senators back from a trip to Moscow is suggesting that Congress went too far in punishing Russia for meddling in the 2016 U.S. presidential election.

“I’ve been pretty upfront that the election interference — as serious as that was, and unacceptable — is not the greatest threat to our democracy,” Sen. Ron Johnson said in an interview with the Washington Examiner published over the weekend. “We’ve blown it way out of proportion.”

“We need to really honestly assess what actually happened, what effect did it have, and what effect are our sanctions actually having, positively and negatively,” the Republican from Wisconsin said.

Johnson won re-election in 2016, with President Donald Trump on the top of the ticket. He has said that the Senate may have gone too far with mandatory sanctions against a host of Russian entities, leaving Trump with too little negotiating room on other matters. He also said the sanctions did not appear to be working as intended.

Useful idiot or Russian asset?  You be the judge.

Tiny's latest Russian intelligence- supported ventures, of course, are the aforementioned "investigations" designed to whitewash Russian interference in the 2016 election and dirty up the Bidens right before the election.

In light of this, we have a question for voters in Wisconsin:  How in the hell did you elect this treasonous moron when Russ Feingold was on the ballot (though Tiny squeaked by with 50% of the vote in 2016)?  How in the hell did Wisconsin end up with this Trump whisperer when it could boast a political history that includes the LaFollettes and Gaylord Nelson?  The mind boggles.

This Putin puppet needs to go in 2022 (if only it were sooner).

Wisconsin's Cheesehead Senator Fails At Obstruction (Again)

Wisconsin Republican Sen. Ron "Small" Johnson has a well- deserved reputation as one of the least bright members of the Senate (and that's not a high bar). He has a long history of dirt dumb lies -- high on partisanship and low on IQ. It's to Wisconsin's everlasting shame that this lump has been elected to two terms (over the lamented Russ Feingold -- WTF?!).

Lately, Johnson has been doing his best Devin "Sherlock" Nunes impression as head of the Senate's Homeland Trump Security Committee. Back in January, he was trying to abet the Trump regime's efforts to undercut the FBI by claiming there was a "secret society" out to git Cadet Bone Spurs. That tinfoil hat fever dream -- based on a cherry- picked text of emails between two FBI agents engaged in an affair -- blew up in Johnson's face in less than 48 hours when the term was revealed to be a joke. One would think such an ignominious fail would chasten this numbnut (and one would be wrong):

Nevertheless, he persisted. And on Wednesday, Johnson published a 25-page report, analyzing the harrowing implications of a larger body of text messages between the aforementioned FBI employees — (now former) investigative agent Peter Strzok and bureau lawyer Lisa Page. [snip] 

One of the report’s biggest “bombshells” was an exchange in which Page and Strzok discussed talking points for then–FBI director James Comey to share with Barack Obama. “Potus wants to know everything we’re doing,” Page wrote. 

Johnson concluded that this message raised troubling questions about “the type and extent of President Obama’s personal involvement” in the investigation of Hillary Clinton’s email server...

It was left to that liberal bastion "The Wall Street Journal" (!) to blow that flim flam out of the water in less time than it takes to say, "Ron Johnson has the brains and ethics of a slab of Wisconsin cheese."

[A]ssociates of Mr. Strzok and Ms. Page said that exchange referred to the president’s wanting information on Russia election meddling, which the FBI was heavily involved in over that period. That exchange occurred just days before Mr. Obama met Russian President Vladimir Putin at a summit in China. Mr. Obama said in December 2016 that he had addressed the issue of tampering with the election process with Mr. Putin at that September meeting. 

In August and September 2016, the FBI was no longer actively investigating the Clinton matter, after Mr. Comey had said that July that he was recommending no criminal charges be filed.  (our emphasis)

So as we wait for the next effort from Johnson to undermine confidence in the FBI and Special Counsel Mueller's investigation in service to Cadet Bone Spurs, remember that Johnson and Nunes are just the front men for Republican rot.  Their many colleagues who willfully shield and enable their treasonous and morally bankrupt Leader rather than uphold their oaths to "support and defend the Constitution" are just as emblematic of a party that is only concerned with holding onto power and not with our country's values and democratic institutions.

BONUS:  Jeet Heer at The New Republic on the Republican rot.

(Photo: Nothing going on in there.)

Republicans Ramp Up Mueller Investigation Obstruction With Insane Conspiracies (UPDATED)

As Special Counsel Robert Mueller's investigation gets closer to un- indicted co- conspirator Donald "Rump" Trump, Republicans and their water- carriers in the right- wing media are getting ever more frantic to assist Rump in obstructing justice. This has taken the tack in recent months of more and more insane efforts to discredit Mueller, the FBI and the Justice Department.

You have the evil but incompetent Rep. Devin "Sherlock" Nunes (R-CA), whose staff wrote a laughable "memo" supposedly detailing improper conduct by the FBI (this is the #releasethememo nothingburger that is more valuable being hidden than being subjected to the light of day):

Republican members have trumpeted the secret document as full of shocking information about FBI misconduct. But Nunes seems to be in no hurry for the document to see the light of day. His failure to make it public—or even share his findings with the Justice Department or FBI for their feedback—evokes his effort last spring to divert focus from suspicious contacts between the Trump campaign and Russia by ginning up a counter-controversy over the “unmasking” of surveillance targets. He never provided any evidence to back up his allegations of wrongdoing, and after reviewing classified material that Nunes touted, both Democrats and Republicans said his claims did not hold water.  (our emphasis)

Again, not that holding water has much to do with the intended effect, which is to sow doubt and distrust. Nunes likely has some skin in the obstruction game, since he was part of Rump's transition team and, therefore, potentially aware of some of the collusion taking place with Russian agents. Moreover, Russian bots have been hyping the phony story via social media, making the dot connection rather easy.

Lately, you also have the related "FBI secret society" nuttery being flogged by -- wait for it -- Fox "News."  The contagion has already spread to one of our dumbest Senators, Ron Johnson of Wisconsin:

Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) said Tuesday that the missing text messages between two FBI officials is just further evidence of “corruption” within the FBI and claimed without evidence that top-level agency officials held “secret society” meetings off-site after the election. 

“What this is all about is further evidence of corruption,” he told Fox News Tuesday. 

“It’s more than bias, but corruption at the highest levels of the FBI and that secret society, we have an informant that is talking about a group that were holding secret meetings off-site. There is so much smoke here, there is so much suspicion.”  (our emphasis)

So much smoke, so much suspicion! -- all of which being generated by Nunes, Johnson, Fox "News" and their legions of fellow travelers. You can bet any "secret meetings off- site after the election" were to figure out how to deal with the fact that a Russian asset was just "elected" president.

Meanwhile, it's clear that the closer Mueller is getting to the Oval Office, the more these party- before- country Republicans will be baying their ever more mad scenarios to their fevered base. Sadly, our media will likely be "reporting the controversy" without making clear how this despicable behavior undermines our democratic institutions and the rule of law.

UPDATE:  The "secret society" has now been revealed to be the joke it always was. Sad!

Morning Reading - Rights, As Defined By Republicans

Michael Tomasky:

This past weekend, several hours before Stephen Paddock exercised his constitutional right to slaughter his fellow Americans (and no, it’s not “too soon” to talk about it), video emerged of Republican Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin talking to a high school assembly. Do you, a girl asked him, consider health care to a right or a privilege? [snip] 

So he answered the young woman: “I think it’s probably more of a privilege. Do you consider food a right? Do you consider clothing a right? Do you consider shelter a right? What we have as rights are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. We have the right to freedom. Past that point, everything else is a limited resource that we have to use our opportunities given to us so that we can afford those things.” 

There’s your Republican philosophy in a nutshell: Americans have no right to health care, but they do have the right to own as many assault rifles as they can get their hands on and go shoot up a concert venue. (our emphasis)

Tomasky goes on to deconstruct this sociopathic Republican viewpoint.  Please take a moment to read it.

Wisconsin's Other Toxic Demagogue: Sen. Ron Johnson

Since we're on the topic of toxic, dangerous Wisconsin Republicans this morning, there may be one who gives Scott "Koch Head" Walker a run for his money:  multi-millionaire Sen. Ron "Small" Johnson.  Here is a sampling of the wisdom of the paleo-right Johnson:

-- He said "The Lego Movie" was "insidious" anti-business "propaganda;"

-- He lost a suit in which he tried to block Obamacare subsidies for Members of Congress and their staff;

-- He accused the League of Conservation Voters of engaging in "environmental jihad" because of their efforts to warn of global climate change;

-- He used his time during the recent Senate hearings on the Iran nuclear agreement to quiz Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz on the possibility of an electromagnetic pulse attack on the U.S. shoreline;

-- A PAC supporting him used a photshopped image of President Obama "shaking hands" with the president of Iran to discredit the nuclear agreement;

-- In a recent radio interview, he referred to "idiot inner city kids," a Freudian slip he later tried to walk back.

On The Google Machine, there's much more of this idiocy from Johnson, who married into a family plastics fortune and never had to worry much about health insurance or where his children were educated.  He's in a closely-watched race with former Sen. Russ Feingold that will help determine if the Democrats can retake the Senate in 2016.  If you get a chance to contribute to Russ, it may help retire one of the worst Senators we've seen in a long time, who's a blight to the fast-fading, honorable political tradition for which Wisconsin used to be known.

(h/t friend of the blog P.E.C.)