GOP hands Dems a new line of attack: They're for 'Trump over the cops'
epublicans often blast Democrats for wanting to defund the police. But Democrats have a new rebuttal: The GOP won’t defend the police.
In the aftermath of the deadly Jan. 6 Capitol attack, the GOP’s love for law enforcement — a longtime hallmark of the party — is being called into question as some members on the right continue to whitewash the insurrection and even foist blame on the police officers who protected lawmakers that day.Democrats are ramping up attacks on Republicans who refused to investigate the riots or formally honor the cops who responded, some of whom were tasered, maced and beaten with flag poles by supporters of former President Donald Trump. Members of President Joe Biden's party are not only painting their colleagues across the aisle as disrespectful of law enforcement, but also arguing that the GOP’s unflinching loyalty to Trump has compromised its core values.
That dynamic was on full display in the Capitol Wednesday as D.C. police officer Michael Fanone, who suffered a concussion and heart attack while fending off the Jan. 6 mob, visited the Hill seeking meetings with the 21 House Republicans who voted against a bill to award a Congressional Gold Medal to police officers for their service during the attack. Fanone says freshman Rep. Andrew Clyde — the Georgia Republican who recently downplayed the insurrection by comparing it to a ”normal tourist visit” — refused to shake his hand after the officer introduced himself in an elevator.
Original join date: 11/23/2004
Eclectic Connoisseur of all things written, drawn, or imaginatively created.
Last edited by godisawesome; 06-17-2021 at 12:27 PM.
Like action, adventure, rogues, and outlaws? Like anti-heroes, femme fatales, mysteries and thrillers?
I wrote a book with them. Outlaw’s Shadow: A Sherwood Noir. Robin Hood’s evil counterpart, Guy of Gisbourne, is the main character. Feel free to give it a look: https://read.amazon.com/kp/embed?asi...E2PKBNJFH76GQP
The sad part of it all was that the guy was probably just talking out his ass and could no more call up Russian hitmen than I can get a date with Beyonce.
I like this strategy. Hammer Qpublicans at every opportunity, get the message out there that the GQP have openly stiffed law enforcement.
I couldn't agree more. Problem is, what's to stop Qpublicans from moving back the goalposts since they WANT those restrictions?
Avatar: Here's to the late, great Steve Dillon. Best. Punisher. Artist. EVER!
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In both 2015, 2016, as well as 2017, "Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day" published profiles of Pat McDonough, a member of the Maryland House of Delegates who is also a conservative talk radio host (yes, this is going the way you think it will) whose entire political lifeblood seems to be to subsist on a constant stream of race-baiting to motivate conservatives. Since 2010, there have been multiple instances of McDonough complaining about Mexican immigrants not speaking English (in Maryland) and people celebrating pro-immigration victories by "popping their tequila corks", whining about "black youth mobs" running amok, and campaigning for all immigrants to have driver's licenses rejected by falsely claiming 9/11 hijackers got their licenses in Maryland. He responded to the Baltimore riots in 2015 after the death of Freddie Gray by suggesting protesters' parents should "have their food stamps taken away" for those people using their First Amendment rights to protest, and wanted the death penalty to be reestablished in Maryland and instituted in any case where a police officer is attacked. McDonough's legislative playbook is much the same, as he tends to submit the most extreme anti-immigrant legislation his warped mind can come up with. In 2016, though, he began a new focus on transphobia, as he supported legislation on transgender bathroom access. As we predicted in our original profile of McDonough, he took a shot at higher office in 2016, trying to get elected to the U.S. House of Representatives Maryland's 2nd Congressional District, but was crushed by incumbent Democrat Rep. Dutch Ruppersberger, only getting 33% of the vote in the general election. McDonough will hopefully begin fading from relevance, as he’s currently trying to weasel his way back into some political office by running for Baltimore County Executive, while using his radio talk show for propaganda purposes, such as lying about how the FBI raided the office of a Maryland GOP consulting firm. McDonough’s elected career seems to be over.
On this date in both 2018, as well as 2019, as well as 2020, “Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day” profiled the sitting member of the U.S. House of Representatives from California’s 22nd District, Devin Nunes, who has rocketed up into our “must profile” list after actions he took his role in the Trump transition team, as well as in the Republican House Intelligence Committee’s joke of an investigation into possible collusion between the Trump campaign and Trump transition team with Russia. Because it’s not so much that Rep. Nunes has made Trump look like a traitor, or that he’s made his campaign look like traitors, or that he’s made himself look like he was covering up his own potentially treasonous actions… no, Devin Nunes has drawn our scrutiny because he’s so goddamned transparent and incompetent of how to cover up a scandal, he may as well have been trying to put out a fire by pouring gasoline on it.
Devin Nunes spent his high school days back in the 1990s rocking a mullet and passing the time like you would think a guy with a mullet would, then first fan for Congress at the age of 29 back in 2002, winning and spending six years quietly going about his business as most Bush-era Republicans, using patriotism after 9-11 as a shield against any criticism. Nothing too interesting about him, through that stretch.
Of course, Rep. Nunes’ tone changed around 2009, in the face of Democrats having control over the White House, Senate, and House, when during the debate over the soon-to-be-passed Affordable Care Act, he spitefully claimed it was bringing back “ghosts of communism”, which we’re sure in no way was any kind of hyperbole about democratic socialism. Fast forward a few years to February of 2014, and the Congressman was also going “all-in” on climate change denial, during one of the worst droughts in the history of California, no less, when he declared “global warming is nonsense”.
Other than that, Nunes spent the second half of the Obama administration wasting taxpayer dollars so that conspiracy theory nuts could bay at the moon over theories about the attack on an American-controlled compound in Benghazi, but after years of promising some clear links to wrongdoing by President Obama or Hillary Clinton, Rep. Nunes and his GOP-controlled House Intelligence Committee investigation ended up having to debunk most of their own theories.
Still, all of that partisanship brought Devin Nunes to the attention of the Trump campaign, and he was quickly brought on as a member of the Trump transition team. Only days after the inauguration, Nunes was entrenched enough with the secrets of Team Trump and on their side that he was backing his Muslim ban, in spite of the fact that, y’know, it was unconstitutional as f*** and most national security experts thought it actually would make foreign relations far, far worse.
Less than a month into the Trump administration, though, the whispers of links between the Trump campaign and the Trump transition team trying to set up secret meetings with Russians were growing to a claxon alarm… and Devin Nunes, the man who only a few years earlier was whining about healthcare reform bringing back “the ghosts of Communism” was suddenly referring to the reports from the FBI, CIA, and others in the intelligence community as a “Witchhunt” or a new “McCarthyism”. It’s only apparently Nunes who’s allowed to fear-monger about the commies, you see, and when his own party literally has their candidate linked to the leftovers of the KGB to swing the American elections that it’s dirty pool to talk about it.
And let’s be honest, it’s around March of 2017 where Nunes done f***ed up when it came to being a covert operative trying to help out the Trump administration and himself. As the great John Oliver summed it up, Devin Nunes managed to become a key player in “Stupid Watergate”, where if Watergate were happening again, but everyone involved was very, very stupid. Nunes was caught leaking classified information found during the intelligence community’s investigation into the Trump campaign and Trump transition team directly back to the White House and then blurting it out to the public outside the White House to frame public opinion in Trump’s favor. Similarly to how Attorney General Jeff Sessions was forced to recuse himself from the Department of Justice’s inquiries into Trump/Russia because of his own involvement, Nunes was forced to step aside after leaking classified information to the White House, then the public.
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Except, Devin Nunes is completely full of s*** that he’s no longer tainting the House Intelligence committee’s investigation, especially when he’s caught by the media sending his own investigators on taxpayer’s dime to the United Kingdom to try and find Christopher Steele, author of the Steele Dossier. (Note: They failed, using House Intelligence Committee position to taint investigation and attack the FBI investigators.) As time goes by, though, Nunes has become less and less subtle about putting his thumb on the scale, moving on to actually outright talk of “corruption” he’s imagining is happening at the Bureau, trying to throw up smokescreens to distract from the Trump/Russia investigation like say, demanding an investigation Hillary Clinton over the conspiracy theory Uranium One in December of 2017, because no Republican would enjoy giving a Christmas gift to their party like continuing to waste taxpayer dollars harassing Hillary Clinton for daring to be both a Democrat and a woman seeking the presidency. And of course, choosing the FBI’s surveillance of Carter Page, the most suspicious Russian operative in the entire Trump/Russia operation to be the hill to die on, by write a memo about it, saying it was full of “shocking revelations” but once it was released, would do little but make him look like even more of an incompetent boob.
By February of 2018, Congressman Nunes was caught funding his own alternative news site to try and manipulate what “news” was being spread about the Trump/Russia investigation, and that in no way mirrored how the intelligence community reported on how the 2016 election was tainted by Russian bots spreading those kinds of stories, right? It's dragged on now to where Nunes has started threatening senior members of the FBI and Department of Justice with impeachment for not revealing all of the information they’ve gathered during their investigation of the links between Trump and Russia (when by now, Nunes is supposed to have recused himself anyway, and has already shown he’d leak classified information for partisan reasons) and he’s been left with no other option but to go on Fox & Friends to claim that the Trump campaign was “set up” by the FBI.
It's almost as if Devin Nunes has some personal stake invested in the matter, you know? Like, more than the average Republican who will just look the other way, Nunes seems to want to outright taint the investigation and declare it over… like how he might in some way be implicated in illegal activity because of things he did as a member of the Trump transition…
California’s 22nd District has a +8 Republican lean in the Cook Partisan Voting Index, and in 2020, he only managed 54% at the polls. Nunes has underperformed the partisan advantage of his district for the past two terms he’s held, but he has not ceased has flagrant attempts to prevent Trump or his party from facing any consequences for their actions or bother helping citizens in any way:
- August 28th, 2018: Nunes travels to the United Kingdom, looking to convince British intelligence to help him prove the Steele dossier is inaccurate and only succeeding in embarrassing himself. British intelligence tell him to kindly f*** right off.
- October 1st, 2018: An investigation by journalist Ryan Lizza reveals that Devin Nunes not only doesn’t have a dairy farm in his district, but it’s in Iowa… and he employs undocumented immigrant workers on that farm.
- January 23rd, 2019: Rep. Nunes voted against HR 648, because he was gleefully enjoying the longest government shutdown in history.
- February 28th, 2019: Devin Nunes votes against HR 1112, a bill which would have required universal background checks on all firearm purchases, and close the gun show loophole.
- March 14th, 2019: Rep. Nunes votes against HJR 46, which sane members of Congress voted for to reject Donald Trump’s “national emergency” regarding the U.S. border and his attempts to reallocate funds for a border wall without Congressional approval.
- March 19th, 2019: Nunes files a pathtetically frivolous lawsuit against Twitter, outraged that two parody accounts named “Devin Nunes’ Mom” and “Devin Nunes’ Cow” mocked him, and he goes on conservative media to insist he also has been “shadow-banned from Twitter”, when he hasn’t.
- March 27th, 2019: Rep. Nunes abruptly calls for the resignation of Democratic Congressman Adam Schiff, because he apparently can’t stand to be in the minority in Congress and see anyone actually holding the Trump administration accountable for its rampant corruption.
- April 3rd, 2019: Nunes panics as the Mueller Report is released to Attorney General William Barr, and goes on Fox News to try and confuse viewers by referring to it as a “dossier”.
- April 8th, 2019: Rep. Nunes continues filing frivolous lawsuits, this time against McClatchy News, because he doesn’t like that they have the nerve to report facts about him.
- June 4th, 2019: Nunes votes against the Dreamers Act, because he’s too xenophobic and partisan to care about immigration reform.
- July 16th, 2019: Devin Nunes votes against a resolution to condemn Donald Trump for his racist statements that four people of color in Congress should “go back where they came from”.
- October 31st, 2019: Devin Nunes gets in the spirit of Halloween by speaking before the House and claiming that Democrats holding classified impeachment hearings inside the SCIFE was “like a cult” and that the media were “cult followers” for reporting on the president’s wrongdoing.
- November 24th, 2019: Nunes is linked for the first time in media reports to Lev Parnas, already arrested in the Ukraine scandal, and he responds quite predictably for him… threatening to sue the media for linking him to the scandal (which would later be proven to be true in Congressional testimony).
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Don't disagree with any of that, my point was on "letting a 3rd world country have so many nuclear weapons" as Tami put it. We should be pressuring Russia not to be a bad actor. Because they're much weaker than they were in the Soviet era they're reduced to the strongman leader "talking tough" like we see in North Korea or the Middle East, all they have is poking the bigger guys (especially us) in the eye. Maybe only to keep up that self image of being our rival. Sadly, because it's always easier to tear things down than build them up, they've had a lot of success pushing isolationist thinking among Europeans (Brexit) and here in the US (see right-wing propaganda that's anti-UN/NATO/EU/traditional allies). If they can tear apart those alliances it's easier for them to do the bad things they'd like to do because the pressure's weaker.
It's why some push for things like stronger state's rights and local control vs the Federal government here in the US. On the surface it makes sense, let the people who know conditions on the ground decide because they know best. In reality corrupting local government officials without national oversight (not to mention gobbling up any media or watchdog groups on the local level) is a heck of a lot easier than doing it with that national spotlight. If we were 50 separate countries in a loose alliance, as some would have, you'd likely find some states with far worse pollution/labor laws/human rights abuses/etc. than they can with a baseline set of standards at the Federal level. We already see to some extent which states those would be (usually the more rural and conservative ones, the same group that would like this system the most in theory).
- December 9th, 2019: On Twitter, a rather paranoid Devin Nunes claims he has a “stalker”, and posts a picture of the person following him. It turns out to be reporter Lee Fang of The Intercept, who was, of course, trying to do his job and ask Nunes questions.
- December 18th, 2019: Rep. Nunes ignores his Congressional duty to hold a president who has been proven to commit high crimes and misdemeanors accountable and votes against the impeachment of Donald Trump.
- January 18th, 2020: Devin Nunes is mentioned in a Congressional hearing to be linked to criminal Trump stooge Lev Parnas, currently under arrest for campaign finance violations, and that he may have been aware, or even in on the Trump 2020 campaign’s attempts to get Ukraine to launch an investigation into Hunter Biden in exchange for their military aid being released.
- February 20th, 2020: Nunes goes on Fox News, and expresses outrage over the fact that there are “nude pictures of Donald Trump in the possession of the Russians”, because Democrats, according to him, are hunting for them… no one seems to be able to make sense of it, but Nunes’ claims about nude Trump photos is getting a bit… frequent.
- March 15th, 2020: As the Covid-19 pandemic begins, and several states take more direct action to enforce social distancing guidelines in the interest of public safety, Devin Nunes goes on Fox News and downplays the threat, telling people to “go to their local pub”.
- April 5th, 2020: Nunes refers to homeless people as the “zombie apocalypse” in a Fox News interview.
- May 8th, 2020: Nunes celebrates the news that Attorney General William Barr recommended the miscarriage of justice that Michael Flynn’s charges (that he plead guilty to already) be dismissed, but isn’t just content to be happy for Flynn… he makes the claim that Flynn was “set up” by the FBI.
- May 15th, 2020: Nunes votes against the HEROES Act, to further support the healthcare industry and citizens affected by the Covid-19 pandemic.
- December 18th, 2020: Nunes files another lawsuit against Twitter for allowing a user to run a parody account against him he doesn’t like.
- December 24th, 2020: Rep. Nunes has a judge toss out his lawsuit against the Washington Post.
- January 6th, 2021: Devin Nunes votes for the objection to the electoral college’s votes in the 2020 election, a failure to send any sort of message that he wasn’t intimidated or sympathetic to those who attacked the Capitol to attempt a violent coup.
- January 13th, 2021: Rep. Nunes votes against the second impeachment of Donald Trump, because the Republican Party no longer feels like they should be accountable for anything, including failed coups that result in the deaths of both their participants and police officers.
- February 4th, 2021: Devin Nunes votes to keep Marjorie Taylor Greene’s committee assignments, because he wouldn’t want her to be accountable for all the bigoted remarks and conspiracy theories she’s spread online (probably because she’s a kindred spirit).
- February 19th, 2021: A judge rules against Devin Nunes in his defamation lawsuit where he sued CNN for reporting stories about him he doesn’t like.
- February 25th, 2021: Nunes votes against HR 5, the latest version of the Equality Act, that would provide workplace protections for LGBTQ Americans.
- March 3rd, 2021: Rep. Nunes votes against HR 1, a bill created to prevent the corruption of money in politics, and protect voter access to the ballot box.
- March 3rd, 2021: Devin Nunes votes against the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act of 2021.
- March 10th, 2021: Nunes votes against the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021, because he feels people deserve to die in poverty during a pandemic.
- March 17th, 2021: Rep. Nunes votes against the re-authorization of the Violence Against Women Act, likely because they feel the 2nd Amendment remaining absolute is more important than preventing people with a history of domestic abuse from owning a firearm (which statistics show, makes them more likely to use those firearms against women in their lives).
- May 19th, 2021: Devin Nunes votes against HR 3233, the creation of a commission to investigate the Capitol Attack.
- May 20th, 2021: It is revealed that the Trump Department of Justice under the leadership of Attorney General Bill Barr was actually using government resources to try to identify whomever was running a parody Twitter account mocking Devin Nunes, spending taxpayer dollars on trying to root out someone saying mean things about the Congressman.
Devin Nunes is not your “average” Republican, he’s the sea-worthy douche-canoe who chose to use whatever power he has to prop up in incompetent racist s***heel in the White House. He currently is moving towards election season hoping and praying he can survive all the controversy and criminal activity he seems to be linked to over the past few years, while also getting his ass handed to him in court rulings about all the frivolous lawsuits he’s been filing.
While whatever fascist attacks he has tried carried out against the media or critics have begun to backfire, it’s still a question of when the voters of his district realize that they have yet to rid themselves of this twit and choose to elect a legislator who actually does something within their interests.
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