An Amoral Party Of Violent Racists And Bigots

Above image: h/t The Daily Beast.

“Traitor” Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), led 139 House Republicans to vote against certifying the Electoral College vote even after the violent MAGA/QAnon seditious insurrection failed in its attempted coup d’etat, and even after this traitor called Donald Trump during the attack and asked him to call off his domesitc terrorist mob (private militia). New details about Trump-McCarthy shouting match show Trump refused to call off the rioters:

In an expletive-laced phone call with House Republican leader Kevin McCarthy while the US Capitol was under attack, then-President Donald Trump said the rioters cared more about the election results than McCarthy did.

“Well, Kevin, I guess these people are more upset about the election than you are,” Trump said, according to lawmakers who were briefed on the call afterward by McCarthy.

McCarthy insisted that the rioters were Trump’s supporters and begged Trump to call them off.
Trump’s comment set off what Republican lawmakers familiar with the call described as a shouting match between the two men. A furious McCarthy told the then-President the rioters were breaking into his office through the windows, and asked Trump, “Who the f–k do you think you are talking to?” according to a Republican lawmaker familiar with the call.

It was only a few weeks later that “Traitor” Kevin McCarthy met with the deposed dictator in exile in Mar-a-Lago, and kissed and made up. He swore his undying fealty to Cheeto Benito.

McCarthy did everything he could to prevent the formation of the bipartisan House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the U.S. Capitol to investigate Donald Trump’s failed coup d’etat, Since then he has particiapted in the right-wing propaganda campaign to disappear the seditious insurrection on January 6 along with his role, and the 147 Republican lawmakers who still objected to the election results even after the Capitol attack, attempting to carry out the coup plot outlined by Trump lawyers John Eastman and Jenna Ellis.

These Republican members of Congress are either co-conspirators, aiders and abettors, accessories or accessories-after-the-fact to the seditious insurrection on January 6. All of them should be prosecuted for their roles in this high crime against the Constituion of the United States.

Since then, hard-core Trump sycophants like Marjorie “Q” Greene (R-GA), Lauren Boebert (R-CO), Madison Cawthorn (R-NC, Paul Gosar (R-AZ), and accused child sex trafficker Matt Gaetz have emerged as the face of the GQP, not “Traitor” Kevin McCarthy. The GOP Has Its Own Squad—of Stupid Sycophants and Sickos.

McCarthy is not the leader of his caucus, he follows whatever these stupid sycophants and sickos do. He is an amoral sociopath driven by political ambition for power.

The Associated Press reports today, Turning outrage into power: How far right is changing GOP:

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy appears to have settled on a strategy to deal with a handful of Republican lawmakers who have stirred outrage with violent, racist and sometimes Islamophobic comments.

If you can’t police them, promote them.

The path to power for Republicans in Congress is now rooted in the capacity to generate outrage. The alarming language, and the fundraising haul it increasingly produces, is another example of how Donald Trump, the former president, has left his mark on politics, changing the way Republicans rise to influence and authority.

Success in Congress, once measured by bills passed and constituents reached, is now gauged in many ways by [performance politics] the ability to attract attention, even if it is negative as the GOP looks to reclaim a House majority next year by firing up Trump’s most ardent supporters cult followers.

That has helped elevate a group of far-right lawmakers — including Reps. Lauren Boebert of Colorado, Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia and Paul Gosar of Arizona — whose inflammatory comments once would have made them pariahs.

Rather than face punishment for personal attacks that violate longstanding norms of Congress, they’ve been celebrated by conservatives, who have showered Boebert and Greene with campaign cash.

“We are not the fringe. We are the base of the party,” Greene, who has previously endorsed calls to assassinate prominent Democrats, said last week on a podcast hosted by former Trump adviser Steve Bannon.

The hands-off approach by Republican leadership gives them license to spread hate speech, conspiracy theories and misinformation that can have real world consequences, while testing the resolve of Democrats, who already removed Gosar and Greene from their committees.

It’s also a different tack from the one McCarthy took in 2019 when he stripped then-Rep. Steve King of Iowa of his committee assignments for lamenting that white supremacy and white nationalism had become offensive terms.

Boebert offers the latest example.

In two videos that surfaced recently she likened Rep. Ilhan Omar, a Minnesota Democrat who is one of three Muslims in Congress, to a terrorist concealing a bomb in a backpack. Boebert has also repeatedly referred to Omar as belonging to a “jihad squad,” as well as “black-hearted” and “evil.”

Her comments drew widespread condemnation and led to calls for Boebert to become the third GOP lawmaker this year to be removed from congressional committees. But instead of publicly apologizing to Omar, a defiant Boebert insisted that Omar should be the one to issue a public apology “to the American people” for her “anti-American” rhetoric, as well as past “anti-Semitic” comments, which Democrats condemned at the time.

In the uproar that followed, Omar received death threats, including a voicemail left by a man who called her a “traitor” and suggested she would be soon be taken “off the face of the (expletive) earth.”

“We cannot pretend this hate speech from leading politicians doesn’t have real consequences,” Omar said Tuesday while calling on the Republican Party to “actually do something to confront anti-Muslim hatred in its ranks.”

Boebert, meanwhile, burnished her image through an appearance on Fox News where she blamed Democrats who “want to cancel me” for the controversy. She has raked in $2.7 million so far this year, making her one of the top Republican fundraisers, according to campaign finance disclosures.

McCarthy, who is [somehow] in line to become speaker if Republicans retake the majority in the 2022 midterm elections, downplayed the controversy Friday. He credited Boebert for attempting to privately apologize in a phone call with Omar, while breezing past Boebert’s refusal to do so publicly.

“In America, that’s what we do,” he said. “And then we move on.”

Once again, this white Christian Nationalist did not attempt to apologize, but instead doubled down on her performance politics and Islamophobia. Lauren Boebert isn’t sorry:

On Monday, Colorado Rep. Lauren Boebert (R) called Minnesota Rep. Ilhan Omar (D) to, ostensibly, apologize for suggesting that simply because Omar is a Muslim, she is a potential terrorist.

The call, um, did not go well. After Omar demanded that Boebert apologize publicly and Boebert refused, the Democrat hung up on the Republican.

At which point, Boebert took to social media (of course!) to make clear she wasn’t actually sorry.

“I will fearlessly continue to put America first, never sympathizing with terrorists,” Boebert said in the post. “Unfortunately Ilhan can’t say the same thing and our country is worse off for it.”

Then came new reporting Tuesday from CNN’s KFile on a speech Boebert gave in September in which she suggested that Omar was a terrorist in addition to being “black-hearted” and “evil.”

Add it up and you get this: Not only is Boebert not sorry for what she said about Omar but she actually believes it. This wasn’t some slip of the tongue for Boebert; it was a real belief.

All of which raises a simple question: What are House Republicans going to do about it?

If past is prologue, the answer is nothing. House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy has resisted punishing the likes of Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene and Paul Gosar for past impolitic comments, leaving it to the Democratic-controlled House to sanction them.

By the way, does she really want to talk about terrorism? Rep. Boebert should be the one under investigation for her role in the domestic terrorism on January 6. GOP Rep. Lauren Boebert gave Capitol tour to ‘large’ group before the riots, Democratic lawmaker says:

Amid a push to investigate whether any GOP lawmakers aided rioters at the Capitol, several Democrats last week accused an unnamed House Republican of leading groups on “reconnaissance” tours of the building before the Jan. 6 attack.

Now, two Democratic lawmakers say they personally saw one Republican — Rep. Lauren Boebert of Colorado — with a “large” group in a tunnel connected to the Capitol days before the attempted insurrection that left four rioters and one police officer dead. [The Capitol was closed to visitors at the time as part of Coronavirus precautions.]

Boebert also tweeted about the location of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) during the attack.

The AP continues:

McCarthy has indicated that there will be little consequence for personal attacks. Just last month he said those punished by Democrats could be in line for a promotion if he becomes speaker, floating the possibility that Gosar and Greene “may have better committee assignments” than before.

That also poses a vexing issue for Democrats. During a Wednesday caucus meeting House Speaker Nancy Pelosi condemned Boebert’s behavior, but cautioned that restraint was needed.

“This is hard because these people are doing it for the publicity,” Pelosi said, according to a person in the room, who insisted on anonymity to discuss private deliberations. “There’s a judgment that has to be made about how we contribute to their fundraising and their publicity on how obnoxious and disgusting they can be.”

In many cases, the incentive to outrage can outweigh the consequences.

* * *

“If you say something batshit crazy, if you say something extreme, you are going to raise money,” said Rep. Nancy Mace, R-S.C., who is one of the few Republicans to publicly criticize the rhetoric of her colleagues. Mace, who publicly feuded with Greene last week, said the Georgia lawmaker was a “grifter of the first order” who takes advantage of “vulnerable conservatives.”

Gosar, who was censured last month after posting an animated video of himself killing Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, is nowhere near as prolific of a fundraiser. But he has become a celebrated figure for white nationalists and has made appearances at fringe right-wing events, including a gathering in Florida last February hosted by Nick Fuentes, an internet personality who has promoted white supremacist beliefs.

Still, some Republicans say just because the three have achieved a measure of fame doesn’t mean they have accumulated real influence or staying power.

Since the amoral sociopath and craven coward McCarthy will not act to discipline his own caucus, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi once more will do it for him. Rep. Ilhan Omar says Pelosi will take ‘decisive action’ on Boebert’s anti-Muslim rhetoric this week:

Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) said she is confident House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) will take “decisive action” this week against Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.) for her anti-Muslim remarks about Omar last month.

“I’ve had a conversation with the speaker, and I’m very confident that she will take decisive action next week,” Omar said Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Union.” It is unclear what Pelosi’s “decisive action” would include. Omar said that Boebert should be stripped of her committee assignments and that House leaders should rebuke her to send a “clear and decisive” message.

“I think it’s important for us to say this kind of language, this kind of hate cannot be condoned by the House of Representatives,” Omar said. “If the Republicans are not going to be adults and condemn this … we are going to do that.”

Representatives for Omar’s and Pelosi’s offices did not immediately respond to emailed questions and requests for further comment Sunday.

Omar has been calling for Boebert to be disciplined after video surfaced of the Colorado Republican suggesting at an event in her district over the Thanksgiving break that Omar was a suicide bomber.

* * *

Boebert [made a non-apology apology] “to anyone in the Muslim community I offended” but has declined to publicly apologize to Omar. Instead, the Republican has doubled down on her Islamophobic attacks on Omar, accusing her of “anti-American and antisemitic” rhetoric.

* * *

Omar said then that she had accepted Boebert’s phone call “in the hope of receiving a direct apology for falsely claiming she met me in an elevator, suggesting I was a terrorist, and for a history of anti-Muslim hate.”

“Instead of apologizing for her Islamophobic comments and fabricated lies, Rep. Boebert refused to publicly acknowledge her hurtful and dangerous comments,” the Democratic lawmaker said in a statement at the time. “She instead doubled down on her rhetoric. I decided to end the unproductive call.”

On Sunday, Omar told CNN’s Jake Tapper that it was “shocking and unacceptable” to hear Boebert’s rhetoric, citing her long history of anti-Muslim remarks.

“It’s very unbecoming of a congresswoman to use that kind of derogatory, dangerous, inciting language against a colleague,” Omar said. “To see this happen right now in the halls of Congress really is damaging, not just to the Muslim community, to myself, but to the kind of country we want to be.”

Omar also called House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) “a liar and a coward” for not condemning Boebert’s language or punishing her. [True dat!] On Friday, McCarthy said Boebert had already apologized publicly and personally, failing to mention her subsequent public statements renewing her attacks on Omar.

McCarthy “doesn’t have the ability to condemn the kind of Islamophobia and anti-Muslim rhetoric that are being trafficked by a member,” Omar said. “Because this is who [Republicans] are. And we have to be able to stand up to them, and we have to be able to push them to reckon with the fact that their party right now is normalizing anti-Muslim bigotry.”

Jake Tapper on Sunday played a clip of a threatening voice mail Omar had received. The congresswoman said her office had received “too many to count,” along with reports of people whose children have had their hijabs pulled off.

“Words matter, and words can cause violence,” Omar said. “And [Boebert] knows that the language that she’s using, the audience that she’s using it for, is going to incite violence against myself and my community.”

Omar also recounted another time Pelosi had intervened on her behalf, when she was elected to Congress and concerned that she wasn’t going to be allowed to be sworn in because of a ban on the hijab in the House. In January 2019, the House passed a rule that allowed for religious head coverings.

“She promised me that she’d take care of it. She fulfilled that promise,” Omar said. “She made another promise to me that she will take care of this, and I believe her.”