Tortured_Genius wrote:Well crap - Beau isn't exactly mincing his words here...

Top DOJ official drafted resignation email amid Trump election pressure

In early January 2021, one top Justice Department official was so concerned that then-President Donald Trump might fire his acting attorney general that he drafted an email announcing he and a second top official would resign in response.

The official, Patrick Hovakimian, prepared the email announcing his own resignation and that of the department's second-in-command, Richard Donoghue, as Trump considered axing acting attorney general Jeff Rosen. At the time, Hovakimian was an associate deputy attorney general and a senior adviser to Rosen.

But Trump didn’t fire Rosen, and Hovakimian's draft email — a copy of which was obtained by POLITICO — remained unsent. The fact that Trump-era DOJ officials went that far highlights the serious pressures they faced in the waning days of the administration as the former president tried to overturn his loss in the 2020 election.

“This evening, after Acting Attorney General Jeff Rosen over the course of the last week repeatedly refused the President’s direct instructions to utilize the Department of Justice’s law enforcement powers for improper ends, the President removed Jeff from the Department,” Hovakimian wrote in his never-sent email. “PADAG Rich Donoghue and I resign from the Department, effective immediately.”

Republicans have begun a legal process that could allow them to disenfranchise much of Atlanta.

Tucker Carlson: What the Fox News host is doing in Hungary

He liked what he saw. After praising the fence for being so "clean and orderly", in contrast to the "chaos" on the US-Mexican border, he told his viewers: "It doesn't require a GDP the size of the US, it doesn't require high-tech walls, guns, or surveillance equipment. All it requires is the will to do it."

And he praised Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban for not allowing "this nation of 10 million people to be changed forever by people we didn't invite in and who are coming here illegally".

To make sure his US viewers understood his message, he contrasted Mr Orban's policies with those of US President Joe Biden.

"Because the lessons are so obvious, and such a clear refutation to the policies we currently have, and the people who instituted those policies, Hungary and its government have been ruthlessly attacked and unfairly attacked: 'It's authoritarian, they're fascists…' There are many lies being told right now, that may be the greatest of all."

Carlson is attending a three-day festival organised by the Matthias Corvinus Collegium (MCC) in Esztergom, the former Hungarian capital and home of the Roman Catholic Church.

MCC is an extremely well-funded school for top students, whom Mr Orban's Fidesz government are carefully grooming to become the country's new right-wing elite. Both Carlson and Mr Orban are due to address the crowds from the main stage.

GOP Rep. Suing Nancy Pelosi Over House Mask Mandate Gets COVID

After a mask mandate was instituted in July in the not-so-vaccinated House amid the rise of the Delta variant, Republican representatives Marjorie Taylor Greene, Thomas Massie, and Ralph Norman sued Speaker Nancy Pelosi over the face covering requirement. The latter member of this group, South Carolina Rep. Norman, described Pelosi’s order and others like it as “a harmful combination of virtue signaling and unjustified fear.”

But on Thursday, there was some evidence to suggest the mandate was justified: After experiencing symptoms, Norman announced that he tested positive for COVID-19 and will quarantine for 10 days. The 68-year-old, who states that he was vaccinated in February, thankfully added that his “symptoms remain mild.”

Seabass wrote:Tucker's hanging out in Hungary for a week singing Orban's praises to the Fox audience.

Fox News is fascist propaganda. It's not "fascism curious". It's not "fascism adjacent". It's not "a bit on the fascistic side". It's fascist. No qualifications necessary, it's just fascist.

Tucker Carlson: What the Fox News host is doing in Hungary

He liked what he saw. After praising the fence for being so "clean and orderly", in contrast to the "chaos" on the US-Mexican border, he told his viewers: "It doesn't require a GDP the size of the US, it doesn't require high-tech walls, guns, or surveillance equipment. All it requires is the will to do it."

And he praised Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban for not allowing "this nation of 10 million people to be changed forever by people we didn't invite in and who are coming here illegally".

To make sure his US viewers understood his message, he contrasted Mr Orban's policies with those of US President Joe Biden.

"Because the lessons are so obvious, and such a clear refutation to the policies we currently have, and the people who instituted those policies, Hungary and its government have been ruthlessly attacked and unfairly attacked: 'It's authoritarian, they're fascists…' There are many lies being told right now, that may be the greatest of all."

Carlson is attending a three-day festival organised by the Matthias Corvinus Collegium (MCC) in Esztergom, the former Hungarian capital and home of the Roman Catholic Church.

MCC is an extremely well-funded school for top students, whom Mr Orban's Fidesz government are carefully grooming to become the country's new right-wing elite. Both Carlson and Mr Orban are due to address the crowds from the main stage.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-58104200

10 new state laws shift power over elections to partisan entities


Among the dozens of election reform laws changing rules regarding how voters cast ballots, several have also diminished secretaries of states' authority over elections or shifted aspects of election administration to highly partisan bodies, such as state legislators themselves or unevenly bipartisan election boards.

"Inserting partisan actors into election administration ... is really a worrying trend when you understand it in the context of what happened in 2020," said Jessica Marsden, counsel for Protect Democracy, a nonprofit founded by former executive branch officials in the White House Counsel's Office and Department of Justice.

Partnering with States United Democracy Center and Law Forward, Protect Democracy distributed a memo raising the alarm over the "particularly dangerous trend" of state legislatures attempting to "politicize, criminalize, and interfere in election administration."

Analyzing the Voting Rights Lab's state-level bill tracker and bill descriptions, ABC News identified at least eight states, including battlegrounds Arizona and Georgia, that have enacted 10 laws so far this year that change election laws by bolstering partisan entities' power over the process or shifting election-related responsibilities from secretaries of state.

Each law was enacted by a Republican governor or by Republican-controlled legislatures voting to override Democratic governors' vetoes.

These new laws include one that requires local election boards in Arkansas to refer election law violation complaints to the State Board of Election Commissioners -- made up of five Republicans and just one Democrat -- instead of their respective county clerks and local prosecutors; another that generally bars the executive and judicial branches in Kansas from modifying election law; and one in Texas requiring the governor, lieutenant governor and state house speaker to "unanimously agree" to the secretary of state granting local election commissions' or boards' requests to accept donations over $1,000.

Some of these changes appear to be in direct retaliation to actions officials took last year around the election.

Arizona Democratic secretary of state, Katie Hobbs, can no longer represent the state in lawsuits defending its election code. That power now lies exclusively with the Republican attorney general -- but only through Jan. 2, 2023, when Hobbs' term ends.

In Kentucky, where the Republican secretary of state and Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear were heralded for their bipartisan collaboration to give electors absentee and early voting options they'd never had before, state law now explicitly opposes such coordination during a state of emergency. Beshear vetoed this bill, which curtails his office's emergency powers, but the Republican-majority legislature voted to override him.

And in Montana, then-Gov. Steve Bullock, a Democrat, used his emergency powers to authorize counties to conduct all-mail elections for the June primary and November election. Every county opted to do this in June, and about 80% of the state's counties, including the eight most populous, did in November. But in April, Republican Gov. Greg Gianforte signed into law a bill barring the governor from changing election procedures unless the legislature signs off on it.

"This is unprecedented in ways that I couldn't have even dreamed up myself," Audrey Kline, the national policy director for the National Vote At Home Institute, told ABC News. "It does feel like there's a backlash, and there's really a misunderstanding about how elections really work."

Texas Republican blames 'African Americans who have not been vaccinated' for state's COVID crisis

Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick attacked Black Texans to deflect from criticism of GOP attacks on public health measures.

"Well, Laura," Patrick said to Fox News personality Laura Ingraham, "The COVID is spreading, particularly — most of the numbers are with the unvaccinated."

"And the Democrats like to blame Republicans on that, well, the biggest group in most states are African Americans who have not been vaccinated. Last time I checked, more than 90% of them vote for Democrats in their major cities and major counties," he said, hinting at why Texas Republicans are pursuing voter suppression bills.

He argued it was "up to the Democrats" despite the state of Texas being controlled by Republicans.

https://www.rawstory.com/texas-dan-patrick-black-people/

Seabass wrote:MAGA Terrorist parked a truck with explosive materials outside the Library of Congress today:
Suspect in Washington, D.C., bomb threat surrenders after hourslong standoff

video that he uploaded from inside his car:
https://twitter.com/ImSpeaking13/status/1428396550686973952

Republican representative Mo Brooks' statement on the matter:
https://twitter.com/RepMoBrooks/status/1428422048368533515



So here's a an actual sitting US Republican congressmen literally sympathizing with an actual terrorist. Remember when these same assholes used to accuse Obama of pallin' around with terrorists?