That’s the party Mitch has been a Senator of since 1985, Majority Senate Leader of since 2015, is now Minority Leader of, and, as Poundsand notes, was just re-elected for six years.
This is just more phony populist posturing- Republicans will never turn on McConnell as long as he keeps the money-taps open.
It’s like ‘Hillbilly’ Vance posing as a Man of the People- “don’t look at that $10 million I just reeled in from Vulture Capitalist Peter Thiel.”
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That’s fraud involved.
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He said he never asked him ‘directly’! Darn, you already wrote it. Anyway, twice can’t harm.
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Absurdity of GOP canceling corporations that don’t support voter suppression called out by conservative
Corporations are people, my friend,” Sen. Mitt Romney (R-UT) famously said in the 2012 campaign. But now Republicans want to restrict the freedoms corporations have to speak out against things that Republicans want.
Conservative Washington Post columnist Jennifer Rubin joined the chorus of those calling out the hypocrisy from Senate Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY). McConnell said Monday that corporations like Coca-Cola, Delta, Microsoft and Major League Baseball shouldn’t express their opinion about political issues like the Georgia voter suppression law.
As the screen capture below from a 2012 Post report shows, it’s a dramatic change from McConnell’s previous support for the “free markets.”
“It is critically important for all conservatives — and indeed all Americans — to stand up and unite in defense of the freedom to organize around the causes we believe in, and against any effort that would constrain our ability to do so,” McConnell said an AEI speech.
He said restrictions on political contributions would require “government-compelled disclosure of contributions to all grass-roots groups, which is far more dangerous than its proponents are willing to admit.”
“This is nothing less than an effort by the government itself to expose its critics to harassment and intimidation, either by government authorities or through third-party allies,” McConnell said.
“McConnell has even filed multiple amicus curiae briefs in campaign cases insisting the rights of free speech and association implicit in corporate campaign donations are ‘fundamental’ and ‘of central importance,’” wrote Rubin.
But that all changed on Monday when McConnell decided corporate power should only be given when the corporations agree with him.
Gaetz update. His buddy agreed to a plea deal, and buddy’s lawyer implied Gaetz is not in a good spot, aka his buddy is rolling on him.
Meanwhile, Pizza himself released this statement of women from his office supporting him, with no names on it! 
Some really weird mentions in there for people supposedly vouching for someone’s character based on their interactions…‘liberal elites’, ‘reject these allegations as false’…‘no hint of impropriety.’ 
Junior tee ball, appealing to people I assume he considers junior teeballers?
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Another update, apparently Gaetz did 3rd party payments, I guess he figured he could circumvent law this way? Too bad his buddy flipped.
In two late-night Venmo transactions in May 2018, Rep. Matt Gaetz sent his friend, the accused sex trafficker Joel Greenberg, $900. The next morning, over the course of eight minutes, Greenberg used the same app to send three young women varying sums of money. In total, the transactions amounted to $900.
The memo field for the first of Gaetz’s transactions to Greenberg was titled “Test.” In the second, the Florida GOP congressman wrote “hit up ___.” But instead of a blank, Gaetz wrote a nickname for one of the recipients. (The Daily Beast is not sharing that nickname because the teenager had only turned 18 less than six months before.) When Greenberg then made his Venmo payments to these three young women, he described the money as being for “Tuition,” “School,” and “School.”
Another thing Baby is being investigated for, is payment for political favors.
In addition to exploring Gaetz’s contact with the 17-year-old, investigators have been exploring whether the congressman paid for sex with women in a way that might have violated federal sex-trafficking laws. Of particular interest, people familiar with the matter said, is a flight Gaetz took to the Bahamas in recent years with women and an Orlando hand surgeon, Jason Pirozzolo. Authorities’ interest in the flight was first reported by CBS News.
Gaetz has described Pirozzolo and his partner, Savara Hastings, as “two of my best friends.” In the congressman’s 2020 book, he described a trip to Key West on New Year’s Eve at the end of 2019, where he stayed at a home owned by Pirozzolo and Hastings and spent time with a woman he described as his date.
Pirozzolo, a licensed pilot, served as a fundraiser during the gubernatorial campaign for Ron DeSantis and is listed as a $50,000 donor to DeSantis on an invite to a Sept. 19, 2018, event for the Florida governor. After DeSantis (R) was elected, Gaetz pushed unsuccessfully for Pirozzolo to be appointed as the state’s surgeon general.
Spoiler alert: He wasn’t qualified.
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Video emerges of Trump and Ron DeSantis meeting man being investigated for human trafficking with Matt Gaetz
On Wednesday, CBS News revealed that Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) went to the Bahamas in late 2018 or early 2019 with a marijuana entrepreneur and hand surgeon that ultimately triggered a sex trafficking investigation.’
The man, named Jason Pirozzolo, “allegedly paid for the travel expenses, accommodations, and female escorts,” the report revealed.
Whether the escorts were hired for sex across state or international lines is part of the investigation by the Justice Department, and it includes both Gaetz and Pirozzolo as part of that probe.
A new development occurred Thursday when an old video was unearthed of then-President Donald Trump and first lady Melania Trump meeting Pirozzolo as they landed in Orlando in June 2019, months after the now-infamous Bahamas trip. Trump was there to launch his 2020 presidential campaign with a large rally.
He, Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) and Casey DeSantis were the only three guests waiting on the tarmac in Orlando that day. It’s unknown who helped Pirozzolo score the unique opportunity to greet the president.
(Note @TT - Someone’s favorite scholar is in the news! 
)
This both explains why Trump is defending Baby Gaetz, and why FOX is bending over to ignore the story. Seems like these peas are in the same pod.
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Meanwhile in FLA: Anti-Ron DeSantis group launches video of Matt Gaetz bromance with Ron DeSantis
Democrats’ Ron Be Gone seeks to portray DeSantis, Gaetz as pals.
There are enough images of Gov. Ron DeSantis palling with Rep. Matt Gaetz to show a close friendship, so a group of Democrats opposing the Governor’s reelection pooled them to ask, what happened to their friendship now that Gaetz appears to be in trouble?
“If Ron DeSantis will turn a blind eye to Matt Gaetz, makes you wonder what else he’s covering up,” snarks Ron Be Gone, in a new anti-DeSantis campaign video promoted on social media Thursday.
The video rolls out more than a minute of those images of Gaetz and DeSantis together in professional, social, and media-appearance settings, building the impression of a bromance between the two — at least until recently.
Gaetz is the Republican Panhandle Congressman struggling to deal with growing reports that he’s a central figure in a sex trafficking investigation that already has another old friend of his, former Seminole County Tax Collector Joel Greenberg , reportedly arranging a plea deal with federal prosecutors.
DeSantis was close enough to Gaetz while they served together in Congress that DeSantis had Gaetz serve as one of the co-chairs of the newly elected Governor’s’ transition team in 2018 and 2019.
Certainly not people that should be making decisions regarding public health or education policy. #understatement
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Grievances, whining and name calling. The GOP will have to decide if this is a winning strategy. It’s not a governing strategy but they don’t seem to care about governing anyway.
The former president spent several minutes tearing into McConnell, saying that he didn’t do enough to defend him during the February impeachment trial. At one point, three people familiar with the remarks said, Trump called the Senate GOP leader a “dumb son of a bitch.”
Trump also went after McConnell’s wife, former Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao, for resigning her cabinet post after the Jan. 6 insurrection.
Much of Trump’s Saturday night speech was aimed at relitigating the election results, on which the former president has remained fixated. At one point he said he remained disappointed with Pence for not doing more to stop the certification of the election, which he called “rigged.”
He poked fun of Fauci for botching a first pitch at last year’s opening day game for the Washington Nationals.
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Gym Jordan threw a classic faux-outrage hissyfit, directed at Fauci. It went something like, “but when are Americans getting their liberties back?”
Fauci basically said it’s a public safety thing, not a liberty thing.
Gym continued to lose his mind, saying he knows 500k+ Americans are dead but when does the liberty suppression end?
Stuff like this man, implying that gov’t is going overboard a second after acknowledging how many are dead even with restrictions in place.
Then put in his rightful place as he continued to disrespect order and throw poop around.
During a meeting of the House Coronavirus Crisis Subcommittee on Thursday, Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA) had to intervene in a shouting match between Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) and Dr. Anthony Fauci by telling Jordan to “shut your mouth.” Jordan ranted at Fauci for several minutes, demanding the doc provide definite answers on when the pandemic will end, when public health mandates will be lifted, and when Americans will have their “liberties” back. “You’re indicating liberty and freedom. I look at it as a public health measure to prevent people from dying and going to hospital,” Fauci said, adding that life will return to normal when people get vaccinated.
When Jordan complained that no one was allowed to criticize Fauci, he shot back: “You’re making this a personal thing.” Jordan claimed he wasn’t but Fauci said, “You are, that’s exactly what you’re doing.” Jordan kept ranting after his time expired, prompting Waters to yell, “You need to respect the chair and shut your mouth!” Jordan’s home state of Ohio is experiencing a nearly 25 percent surge in new cases,
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Looks like Kinzinger figured it out:
Republican Illinois Representative Adam Kinzinger has called on congressional GOP leaders to expel members of the “America First Caucus,” a newly formed group co-created by Republican Georgia Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene.
Kinzinger referred to the group as the “White Supremacy Caucus.” The group’s seven-page policy platform, released by Punchbowl News, calls for a “common respect for uniquely Anglo-Saxon political traditions” and a return to an architectural style that “befits the progeny or European architecture.” Anglo-Saxon is a term for white people related to Germanic inhabitants of 5th century England.
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Turd in the puncbowl news.
If she wants Euro architecture she can always hang out in love hotels in Asia.
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Lieu isn’t having it:
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The Grievance Old Party needs to get their shit together and get over it
Otherwise their candidates will be of this sort
Amanda Chase boasts enthusiastic grassroots support in pockets of the state. But she has also drawn bipartisan rebuke for incendiary statements calling for martial law to overturn the 2020 presidential election and seemingly expressing support for the mob that stormed the U.S. Capitol.
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I don’t think you understand the dynamic, the Republican politicians would have loved to throw Trump under the bus, they even tried to, before they realized their base is so fed up with them, they hate them almost as much as the Democrat politicians.
So, the grassroots movement is to remove them. Most of them anyway, the ones they can get.
Even McCarthy heard the dog whistles on this one
Too bad he didn’t come out against Paul Gosar speaking at a conference organized by a white nationalist. That wasn’t even a dog whistle, everyone could hear it.
And some Republicans have privately said they wish McCarthy would more forcefully rein in the fringe members, noting he didn’t condemn Gosar for speaking at a conference organized by a white nationalist earlier this year.
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That second article lays out the narrative building strong, to be clear, many on the right now see the MSM as narrative pushers to the point of comparing them to Baghdad Bob, comically lying to push a narrative.
QAnon, Proud boys, White Supremacist’s the establishment Republicans Kevin McCarthy, Liz Cheney as the sane one with Marjorie Taylor Greene as the far right extremist wing.
So what’s going on? This sums it up in one picture.
The number of people who detest the current Republican leadership and voted Trump I would guess is 50+ million, the Republican do have a fringe bigoted group of supporters, but i think it is small compared to the majority, as well as minority support under trump was increasing. (Trump got about 12% of the black vote, double that of Romney)
The Republican leadership is facing a hostile takeover by the deplorables. 
The vast majority aren’t racists or white supremacists or anything like that, but that’s what the narrative is going to be, the Baghdad Bob narative pushing media need to rush in to protect the establishment Republicans so frame them as the sane moderates and anyone trying to oust them as extremists (maybe get the FBI involved), that second article even had the well debunked “both sides” claim, they don’t care about facts or honesty, it’s about pushing a narrative, that’s whats going on.
Well, no, that doesn’t sum it up on one picture - that’s reportedly how much the pac has on hand (reporting hasn’t actually happened to show that), not how much they raised in q1. I can’t find the NCs cash on hand with a quick googling, but RNC had $83.9M at the end of Feb. So, fake, biased news.
Edit: RNC had 80M at beginning of year, raised 44M in Q1. Didn’t report cash on hand that I found.
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