Month: January 2022

McCarthy rejects Jan. 6 committee request for testimony about talks with Trump

Posted on (Updated by By Kyle Cheney and Nicholas Wu

The Jan. 6 select committee has requested House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy’s testimony about his interactions with Donald Trump as a mob swarmed the Capitol, describing it as crucial to understanding the former president’s state of mind.

In a letter to the GOP leader on Wednesday, Chair Bennie Thompson said the panel wants to know about the details of Trump’s phone call with McCarthy on Jan. 6, one the California Republican himself once described as “heated,” in which Trump initially downplayed the notion that his supporters were responsible for breaching the Capitol, according to some accounts.

When McCarthy asserted on the call to the outgoing president that it was Trump’s supporters who raided the Capitol, Trump replied: “Well, Kevin, I guess these people are more upset about the election than you are.” This account of the call was shared by Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler (R-Wash.), who publicly revealed her conversation with McCarthy ahead of the impeachment proceedings last year. McCarthy has not disputed the account.

In a statement issued later Wednesday, McCarthy said he would not cooperate with the request.

“As a representative and the leader of the minority party, it is with neither regret nor satisfaction that I have concluded to not participate with this select committee’s abuse of power that stains this institution today and will harm it going forward," he said.

Asked whether the panel would subpoena him to ensure his compliance, Thompson told reporters, “We will consider it.” McCarthy is the third GOP lawmaker the panel has requested to testify. The others, Reps. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) and Scott Perry (R-Pa.), have rejected the committee’s entreaties. Both men were key allies of Trump as he sought to subvert the 2020 election results.

Thompson said the select panel is particularly interested in McCarthy’s changing tone around his characterization of Trump’s actions during the riot, adding that members intend to ask him whether Trump or his allies suggested “what you should say publicly during the impeachment trial (if called as a witness), or in any later investigation about your conversations with him on January 6th.”

In addition, Thompson said he was not aware whether the committee had obtained any of McCarthy’s text messages or banking records. McCarthy’s phone records were on an initial preservation request the committee sent to telecommunications companies at the outset of its probe.

Notably, the select panel has obtained a raft of text messages sent and received by Trump's former chief of staff Mark Meadows, who briefly cooperated with its inquiry. The committee is also fighting the former president in court to obtain Trump White House call logs from the National Archives, a matter that's pending before the Supreme Court.

McCarthy, who helped scuttle an attempt to establish a bipartisan commission to investigate the insurrection, has spent months thrashing the Jan. 6 committee. Speaker Nancy Pelosi rejected two of McCarthy’s initial picks to sit on the panel — Jordan and Rep. Jim Banks (R-Ind.) — deeming them too intertwined with Trump to be credible investigators. In turn, McCarthy withdrew his remaining three appointees and boycotted the committee altogether.

McCarthy also issued a thinly veiled threat to telecommunications companies that cooperated with the Jan. 6 committee’s request for lawmakers’ phone records, saying a GOP majority next year “will not forget” their decisions.

The panel proposed a Feb. 3 or Feb. 4 meeting, or a time the week after.

McCarthy has softened his tone toward Trump since the immediate aftermath of the Capitol riot. He initially said on the House floor that Trump “bears responsibility” for the violence, but within a six-month span had begun sidestepping such questions.

Some House Republicans who wanted Trump to be purged from the party blame McCarthy for bringing Trump back into a position of influence — particularly after the House GOP leader met with Trump at Mar-a-Lago just weeks after the attack. Trump loyalists in the House, however, welcomed the move.

McCarthy’s early post-insurrection criticism enraged Trump, who has at times lashed out at the lawmaker. But McCarthy has worked diligently to foster relationships with Trump and the former president's allies in the House as he zeroes in on his goal to claim the speaker’s gavel in 2023, should Republicans retake the chamber.

The GOP leader has also offered varying responses when asked if he would testify. In May, he replied to a reporter’s question with a “sure.” At other times, he's offered less clear responses.

In an interview with local California news channel Eyewitness News in late December, McCarthy was asked if he would testify before the Jan. 6 panel. He replied: "I don't have anything really to add. I have been very public, but I wouldn't hide from anything either."

In its letter to McCarthy, the panel also disclosed a new text message from Fox News host Laura Ingraham to Meadows urging Trump on Jan. 12, 2021, to discourage supporters from bringing weapons to state Capitols.

“Remarks on camera discouraging protest at state capit[o]ls esp with weapons will be well advised given how hot the situation is. [E]veryone needs to calm down and pray for our country and for those who lost their lives last week,” Ingraham told the then-chief of staff.

The message came amid heightened fears that state Capitols were vulnerable to violent attacks in the aftermath of the Jan. 6 insurrection.

A Fox News representative did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Posted in Uncategorized

Morning Digest: We’re looking back on Harry Reid’s long and storied career on the campaign trail

Posted on by Daily Kos Elections

The Daily Kos Elections Morning Digest is compiled by David Nir, Jeff Singer, Stephen Wolf, Daniel Donner, and Carolyn Fiddler, with additional contributions from David Jarman, Steve Singiser, James Lambert, David Beard, and Arjun Jaikumar.

Leading Off

● Deaths: Former Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, who died Dec. 28 at the age of 82, is lying in state at the Capitol today. As his former colleagues honor his singular career, we've put together an obituary taking a look back at his long electoral history—a path that dealt Reid several setbacks on his way to the pinnacle of American politics.

Reid won elected office for the first time in 1968 when he took a seat in the Nevada state Assembly at the age of 28, and he made the jump to statewide office two years later when he was elected lieutenant governor. Reid’s career stalled, though, after he lost an extremely close 1974 Senate race to former Republican Gov. Paul Laxalt, and he hit his nadir the next year after he failed to win the mayor’s office in Las Vegas.

Of course, that was far from the end for Reid, who had several more competitive Senate races ahead of him beginning with his 1986 triumph in the open seat contest to succeed Laxalt. Reid went on to pull off an extremely tight 1998 win against his future GOP colleague, then-Rep. John Ensign, in a race that took over a month to resolve.

Campaign Action

The majority leader later looked like an all-but-inevitable loser ahead of his 2010 bid for a fifth term, but Reid, in the words of longtime Nevada political chronicler Jon Ralston, displayed a “Terminator-like single-mindedness, relentlessness and discipline turned preparation” that helped him upset former Assemblywoman Sharron Angle. We detail all those campaigns and more in our obituary.

Redistricting

● CT Redistricting: Stanford Law School professor Nathan Persily, the special master appointed by the Connecticut Supreme Court to assist it in drawing a new congressional map, has asked the state's deadlocked redistricting commission to try to reach a compromise once more. The panel failed to settle on a final map last month, despite receiving a three-week extension from the court, prompting the justices to take over the process and tap Persily to help them. Commissioners have until Wednesday at 12 PM ET to submit a new map "or at least report progress," per the CT Mirror, while Persily himself must furnish a map to the court by Jan. 18.

● NY Redistricting: As expected, New York lawmakers have rejected dueling sets of maps put forth by the state's bipartisan redistricting commission after the panel failed to agree on a single group of plans for Congress and the legislature. Because of that failure, legislators were under no obligation to consider the maps that the commission forwarded to them, one batch of which was produced by Republicans and the other by Democrats.

Commissioners have until Feb. 28 to take one more shot at reaching a deal, but such a deal looks unlikely. Even if they were to strike a compromise, though, legislative Democrats would still be able to override the commission thanks to their two-thirds supermajorities.

4Q Fundraising

  • NC-Sen: Cheri Beasley (D): $2.1 million raised, $2.8 million cash-on-hand
  • UT-Sen: Evan McMullin (I): $1 million raised
  • WA-Sen: Patty Murray (D-inc): $1.5 million raised, $7 million cash-on-hand
  • GA-Gov: Brian Kemp (R-inc): $7 million raised (between July 1 and Jan. 9), $12 million cash-on-hand
  • KS-Gov: Laura Kelly (D-inc): $2 million raised (in 2021), $1.9 million cash-on-hand; Derek Schmidt (R): $1.6 million raised (in 2021), $1.3 million cash-on-hand
  • MN-Gov: Tim Walz (D-inc): $3.6 million raised (in 2021), $3.6 million cash-on-hand; Paul Gazelka (R): $545,000 raised (since August)
  • NV-Gov: Joe Lombardo (R): $3.1 million raised (since late June)
  • SC-Gov: Henry McMaster (R-inc): $909,000 raised, $3 million cash-on-hand; Joe Cunningham (D): $343,000 raised, $422,000 cash-on-hand
  • IA-02: Ashley Hinson (R-inc): $809,000 raised, $1.6 million cash-on-hand
  • KY-06: Andy Barr (R-inc): $538,000, $1.9 million cash-on-hand
  • NE-01: Patty Pansing Brooks (D): $210,000 raised (in six weeks)
  • NY-24: Francis Conole (D): $202,000 raised, $280,000 cash-on-hand

Senate

● AZ-Sen: Ugh. Rich guy Jim Lamon is dropping a reported $1 million on a TV buy to air the first—but undoubtedly not the last—ad we've seen featuring a candidate bleat, "Let's go, Brandon!" If for some reason you have no idea what this is all about, consider yourself blessed. Meanwhile, the super PAC run by zillionaire Peter Thiel that's supporting another rich guy, Blake Masters, is spending another $1.1 million, per Politico, to run a new spot tying Masters to Donald Trump.

● NH-Sen: Londonderry Town Manager Kevin Smith resigned his post this week, saying that "it is my intent to formally announce my candidacy for the United States Senate in the not too distant future." Smith sought the GOP nod for governor in 2012 but lost badly in the primary.

● PA-Sen: George Bochetto, a longtime Republican attorney in Philadelphia who also served as state boxing commissioner from 1995 to 2002, has joined the packed May primary and says he'll self-fund $1 million.

Bochetto recently attracted attention when he aided Donald Trump's defense team in his second impeachment trial. In August, he persuaded a judge to stop Philadelphia's city government from removing a prominent Christopher Columbus statue. Bochetto is also the leader in a lawsuit alleging that Mayor Jim Kenney's executive order replacing Columbus Day with Indigenous Peoples' Day discriminates against Italian Americans.

Bochetto in the past has talked about running for mayor of his heavily Democratic city plenty of times and even waged a brief campaign in 1999, but he ended up dropping out before the primary; the eventual nominee, Sam Katz, ended up losing the general election 51-49 to Democrat John Street, which is likely to remain Team Red's high-water mark for decades to come.

Governors

● MA-Gov: Salem Mayor Kim Driscoll, who'd been mentioned as a possible Democratic candidate for governor, instead announced a bid for lieutenant governor on Tuesday. Candidates for governor and lieutenant governor run in separate primaries but run together on a single ticket in the general election.

● MI-Gov: The Glengariff Group's first survey of this year's contest, conducted on behalf of WDIV and the Detroit News, finds Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer well ahead of four potential Republican foes:

49-39 vs. former Detroit Police Chief James Craig

50-33 vs. chiropractor Garrett Soldano

50-33 vs. businessman Kevin Rinke

50-31 vs. conservative radio host Tudor Dixon

Polling from reliable firms has been rare here so far. A Strategic National survey for Craig from all the way back in September found him trailing Whitmer 47-46 (Craig and Strategic National have since parted ways). An independent poll from EPIC-MRA for the Detroit Free Press released the previous month had Whitmer ahead of Craig by the same 44-45 spread, while no other matchups were tested.

● NY-Gov: Rep. Jerry Nadler, who as House Judiciary Committee chair is one of the most senior House Democrats from New York, has endorsed Gov. Kathy Hochul's bid for a full term. Two upstate representatives, Brian Higgins and Joe Morelle, previously backed Hochul.

● RI-Gov: Cranston Mayor Kenneth Hopkins said Tuesday that he's "forming an exploratory committee [to] possibly run for governor." Hopkins, who was first elected to his post in 2020, would be the most prominent Republican to enter the race to date should he decide to get in.

● WI-Gov: Former Gov. Tommy Thompson, who is resigning as interim president of the University of Wisconsin System in March, declined to rule out running for a fifth term as governor at the age of 80 in a new interview on Tuesday. "I'm not saying it's in the cards. But I'm physically and mentally capable of doing anything," insisted Thompson, who served as governor from 1987 to 2001 before stepping down to serve as George W. Bush's HHS secretary.

At a GOP debate in 2007 during his short-lived presidential campaign, Thompson had to apologize repeatedly after saying he thought employers should be allowed to fire gay workers, alternately blaming his response on needing to go to the bathroom and on a malfunctioning hearing aid. In 2012, Thompson ran for Senate but lost to Democratic Rep. Tammy Baldwin 51-46 after narrowly winning a bruising GOP primary with just 34% of the vote.

House

● CO-07: State Sen. Britney Pettersen became the first Democrat to kick off a bid for Colorado's open 7th Congressional District on Tuesday, a day after Rep. Ed Perlmutter announced his retirement. Pettersen sought this seat once before in 2017 when Perlmutter ran for governor, but after the congressman abandoned his bid and later decided to seek re-election, she dropped out of the primary (as did every other notable Democrat).

Pettersen is unlikely to be the last contender to emerge, though. The Denver Post mentions two other Democrats as possible candidates, state Rep. Chris Kennedy and Jefferson County Commissioner Andy Kerr, who also ran in 2017. Kerr did not respond to a request for comment from Colorado Politics.

● MN-03: Businessman Mark Blaxill, a former treasurer for the state GOP, announced a bid for Minnesota's 3rd Congressional District against Democratic Rep. Dean Phillips on Tuesday morning. He joins Navy veteran Tom Weiler in the Republican primary. Redistricting has yet to take place but will likely be handled by the courts due to a deadlock between the Republican-run state Senate and the Democratic-held state House.

● NJ-11: Lobbyist Rosemary Becchi, who was the GOP's nominee against Democratic Rep. Mikie Sherrill in 2020, has closed her campaign committee with the FEC, a likely signal that she does not intend to seek a rematch. While Becchi could of course form a new committee, the New Jersey Globe notes she still owes $6,000 to a fundraising consultant, who previously filed a claim over the unpaid debt. Democrats also made the 11th District considerably bluer in redistricting.

Abbreviated pundit roundup: Fighting for voting rights

Posted on by Georgia Logothetis

We begin today’s roundup with analysis of the Biden administration’s strategy on both protecting voting rights and addressing the undemcoratic and archance filibuster:

President Joe Biden is traveling to Atlanta on Tuesday to deliver a major speech on voting rights, looking to turn up the heat on reluctant senators as Democrats face pressure to pass two pieces of pending legislation opposed by nearly all Republicans on Capitol Hill.  [...] 

"The next few days, when these bills come to a vote, will mark a turning point in this nation. Will we choose democracy over autocracy, light over shadow, justice over injustice? I know where I stand," Biden will say, according to an excerpt of his remarks released by the White House. "I will not yield. I will not flinch. I will defend your right to vote and our democracy against all enemies foreign and domestic. And so the question is where will the institution of United States Senate stand?"

Reuters on filibuster reform:

Democrats plan to vote sometime over the next week to scale back the filibuster so it would not apply to voting-related legislation. But it's not clear whether they have the votes for this either; Manchin said last week that he would prefer to get some Republican buy-in for that change.

On Sunday he said he might support making the tactic more "painful" by requiring senators to keep talking on the Senate floor.

Biden, who spent 36 years in the Senate, long supported the filibuster but has grown more open to changing it as Republicans have blocked several of his major initiatives over the past year.

Herman Wolf makes the argument that the filibuster doesn’t even apply to voting rights legislation, which he says is governed by the Elections Clause of Article 1 Section 4 of the Constitution:

A mere procedural rule should not be able to add a supermajority precondition to consideration or passage of proposed electoral legislation. That would amount to allowing that rule to become a de facto amendment of the Constitution. Throughout the Constitution and our history—indeed in every democracy—legislative outcomes are based on majority rule. When a supermajority is deemed necessary, it is specifically provided for, as with treaties, amendments, and impeachment convictions in our country. A supermajority prerequisite to consideration of all legislation is especially anomalous and, in fact, astonishing, given the framers’ intense hostility to supermajorities and to the minority rule they produce.

Speaking of elections, in case you were wondering what Mike Lindell was up to:

In an interview with The Daily Beast, Lindell says he’s bleeding cash at a rate of a million dollars a month to support a host of groups and right-wing activists.

To add to the bill, the staunch Trump ally says he is shelling out $250,000 a month for a new election-conspiracy group, Cause of America. What makes this Lindell creation unique is that the group is fronted by two women who were in attendance at the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol.

Lindell’s hefty monthly burn rate and the addition of a new group to his portfolio of prolific “Big Lie” activism shows that, months after Arizona’s $6 million audit circus failed to provide much more than embarrassing headlines, there’s still plenty of money available for conservative activists bent on re-litigating the 2020 election with bizarre voter-fraud and election-rigging allegations.

Posted in APR

McCarthy says he plans to kick three Democrats off their committee assignments if Republicans win majority next year

Posted on by Congress

McCarthy says he plans to kick three Democrats off their committee assignments if Republicans win majority next year

1 00:00:00,090 --> 00:00:05,280 >> The Democrats have created a new thing where they're picking and choosing who could be on committee. Never in the history have 2 00:00:05,280 --> 00:00:10,680 you had the majority tell the minority who could be on committee. But this new standard which these 3 00:00:10,680 --> 00:00:16,140 Democrats have voted for. If Eric Swalwell cannot get a security clearance in 4 00:00:16,140 --> 00:00:21,900 the private sector there's no reason why he should be given one to be on Intel or homeland security. 5 00:00:21,900 --> 00:00:27,510 >> So that will not he will not be serving there. So you're going to hear the speaker to remove him 6 00:00:27,510 --> 00:00:32,910 from those Camille had Omar should not be serving on foreign affairs. What about any Committees fail on Omar you 7 00:00:32,910 --> 00:00:38,220 know this is this is a new level of what the Democrats have gone through. You look 8 00:00:38,220 --> 00:00:44,070 at Adam Schiff. He should not be serving on intel when he has openly knowingly now 9 00:00:44,070 --> 00:00:48,830 used a fake dossier lied to the American public in the process. 10 00:00:48,870 --> 00:00:54,360 >> And doesn't doesn't have any ill will says he wants to continue do it. So we're going to reshape I 11 00:00:54,360 --> 00:01:00,030 mean think about what happened Afghanistan. Why did Afghanistan collapse so fast. Was the Intel Committee under 12 00:01:00,030 --> 00:01:05,490 Adam Shift focused on impeachment and not on the safety of America why are people coming across 13 00:01:05,490 --> 00:01:10,980 the border that aren't a terrorist watch list what are they doing about it and their own members on that committee says 14 00:01:10,980 --> 00:01:12,770 it's not happening when it's true. 15 00:01:12,840 --> 00:01:18,660 >> We need to have an Intel committee that looks at what's happening around the world and keeps America 16 00:01:18,660 --> 00:01:24,180 safe. It should do exactly what it was created overseeing of our agencies and 17 00:01:24,180 --> 00:01:29,430 others and so we're going to hold people to a higher standard in the process if they want to be on the 18 00:01:29,430 --> 00:01:33,390 Intel Committee and then and then the training of what to be a part of that.

Posted in Uncategorized

Glenn Beck announces he has COVID-19 while doing commercials for diet bars

Posted on by Walter Einenkel

Remember Glenn Beck? He’s still around and he’s still doing what he’s always done: grifting away. His modern look includes spectacles and a sort of Kentucky Fried Chicken Colonel Sanders look. Surprising no one, Beck’s evidence-free conspiracy theory stylings, now common on the right, are focused on all of the same tropes of misinformation, disinformation, and anti-vaxxer clickbait that allows for making money on his BlazeTV network.

Wednesday night, on the eve of the one-year anniversary of the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol by MAGA supporters hoping to install a dictator into the office of president, Glenn Beck released a video of his previously recorded interview with Donald Trump. Beck boasted of traveling down to Mar-a-Lago to talk with Trump about all the ways President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris are trying to steal your freedoms. Also, Speaker Nancy Pelosi wants to steal your penis or something. 

But guess who opened his special interview with the announcement that he has “been diagnosed” with COVID? Glenn Beck did, silly billy. No worries—the grift must go on and Glenn used his COVID diagnosis as a jumping off point to … hawk things during commercial breaks.

Beck, looking very red and like he was about to burst, told his audience that he was at home quarantining, but that you needed to watch his interview with Trump, as liberals want you to worry about the Jan. 6 attempted coup because they don’t want you to know about the gospel of Trump. Then came the first segment: 

  • Trump says something about how wind power and solar power are terrible because you have to update your windmills and solar panels every three decades or something
  • Says we are standing on “liquid gold,” and the push away from fossil fuels is all a part of China’s plan to win.
  • Glenn Beck tells Trump that Putin respects him but doesn’t respect Biden.
  • Oh, liberals are worried about Jan. 6 because they are “scare-mongerers”

Then a quick commercial break to try and scare you into buying a home security system because “your home may not be a secure as you think.” One person you shouldn’t let into your home now? Glenn Beck, who is selling you this as he sits in his home with a positive COVID-19 diagnosis.

Back to the show:

  • Business is being killed by “the mandates.” You should get vaccinated, or not, if you don’t want to, it’s up to you. Business!
  • Dr. Fauci is the new president of the United States. Donald Trump didn’t do most of what Fauci suggested. [Side note: Dr. Fauci was suggesting things to Trump back in January 2020. Looks at watch? Two years later. Excellent job.]

Quick commercial to tell you that “I think it is critically important that you get your finances in order.” You’re telling me. Back to the show!

Joe Biden is trying to pit our children against each other and throw parents in trouble.

We need to abolish public schools and let states decide what students should learn about our country’s history.

Something something “cancel culture.”

Time for a commercial! Beck has COVID-19, in fact he doesn’t have much of an appetite and he had just started a diet. You know what’s saving his life? Diet bars. You know what else? You can buy them by way of Glenn Beck’s diet bar commercial. Back to the show!

  • Trump got 100% of the vote (on something).
  • The impeachment was a “hoax.”
  • Blah blah blah, witch trials.
  • Our army is run by “television generals”
  • Glenn Beck doesn’t “know” if he can tell his son to go into the military these days.

A quick reminder: Glenn Beck was promoting violence in the name of American fascism against other Americans, long before Donald Trump hit the scene. You don’t have to watch the interview, but if you want to see Glenn Beck hawk products ...

YouTube Video

School board forgets to vet newly sworn in school board member—uncover he was at the Jan. 6 rally

Posted on by Rebekah Sager

Jefferson Parish, the largest school district in Louisiana, must be desperate for board members.

Why in God’s name would they swear in a contractor from Metairie who has openly bragged about being at the “Stop the Steal” rally in D.C. on Jan. 6, called those who opposed the insurrection that followed—and pointed to former President Donald Trump as the inciter-in-chief—as “traitors,” and blamed teachers for “the fall of our young people in this country”?

Rafael Rafidi, who was sworn in during a special meeting on Wednesday, was obviously not very well-vetted for his new role.

According to Nola.com, seven of the nine board members voted for Rafidi, while board member Ricky Johnson voted against him and Simeon Dickerson abstained; the next day, Dickerson voted for Rafidi’s removal and wants Rafidi to resign. 

“I actually watched this guy take an oath to the Constitution, the very Constitution that he tried to overthrow just a year ago—the irony of it,” Dickerson told The Daily Beast. “He attended the insurrection and he marched on the Capitol.”

All it would have taken was a quick look into Rafidi’s social media to see what a complete and utter dumpster fire he was. 

In Feb. 2021, New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu tweeted his praise for Sen. Bill Cassidy for voting to impeach Trump. Rafidi replied, calling  Sen. John Kennedy "an embarrassment" for voting against impeachment.

“Go f--k yourselves," Rafidi tweeted. And in another tweet, he called Cassidy a "piece of s—t" and Landrieu a "f-----g traitor.”

Although it isn’t clear from any of his social media whether Rafidi entered the Capitol on Jan. 6, on Jan. 13, he did tweet-brag about his time at the rally. 

"I was there, heard the entire speech, and walked peacefully with thousands singing God bless America and praying on the way to the capital. What's true now for sure is the FIX IS IN! And it's all of you in the media and government. What a shame!"

And long before the pandemic forced teachers into a virtual and unwieldy position of teaching from home, in 2018, Rafidi was attacking them on social media. 

"Teachers are the fall of our young people in this country. No values, no work ethic, and just suck as much as you can from those that work hard. Good job,” he tweeted. 

“I know some hard-working teachers in Jefferson Parish that bust their tills every day,” Dickerson told The Daily Beast. “It’s a direct slap in the face and he’s unfit to serve as a school board member. This is not what Jefferson Parish represents and this is not what a school board member represents.”

If all that isn’t enough, Rafidi has a serious racist streak. He recently tweeted his criticism about the NFL playing “Lift Every Voice and Sing,” also known as the Black National Anthem. 

Take note: the school district he’s been sworn into, according to its website, serves roughly 50,000 students—about 38% of its student population is Black. 

“This guy can do more damage in six months than all of us can do in eight years,” Dickerson told The Daily Beast. “He’s bad for the progression of race relations in Jefferson Parish.”

Report: Democrats Seeking To Use 14th Amendment To Bar Trump From Office

Posted on by Rusty Weiss

A new report indicates congressional Democrats are seeking to invoke an obscure section of the 14th Amendment to bar Donald Trump from ever holding office again.

An analysis by The Hill demonstrates that roughly a dozen Democrat lawmakers have openly or privately speculated about invoking the section to ban Trump from running for elected office.

In other words, they want to stop Trump 2024 before it even happens.

The Hill report specifically names three House Democrats – Representatives Jamie Raskin (D-MD), Jerry Nadler (D-NY), and Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL) – as having discussed the possibility with leftist Harvard lawyer Laurence Tribe. 

“I hear it being raised with considerable frequency these days both by media commentators and by members of Congress and their staffs, some of whom have sought my advice on how to implement Section 3,” Tribe told the outlet.

RELATED: Biden Calls Trump And Supporters ‘Twisted’ And ‘Un-American,’ Then Says He’ll Unite America

Barring Trump From Office

The Political Insider reported back in February that Congressional Democrats were considering utilizing the 14th Amendment to bar Trump from office.

The idea first surfaced as a result of Democrats fearing their second impeachment of the former President would not lead to conviction.

Section 3 of the 14th Amendment is a rarely cited Civil War-era provision that bars people from holding office if they “have engaged in insurrection or rebellion” or “given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof.”

From there, it’s easy to tie what Democrats are attempting to do with the January 6 Committee and their insistence that the Capitol riot was an “insurrection” plotted by Trump.

  1. Have the media continually refer to the Capitol riot as an “insurrection” even as nobody has been charged with such a crime.
  2. Conduct an investigation through the select committee to link Trump in some small manner to said “insurrection.”
  3. Invoke a little-known provision involving Civil War terminology for an “insurrection.”

RELATED: Democrats Have A Back-Up Plan That Might Still Bar Trump From Running Again If Impeachment Fails

Democrats Abusing Power

Jamie Raskin pursuing an effort to ban Donald Trump using the 14th Amendment through a legally weak argument of inciting an insurrection is rich.

Raskin objected to the certification of Florida’s electoral votes in 2017. In fact, House Democrats tried objecting to the certification of electoral votes for Donald Trump that year 11 times.

It’s only an “attack on Democracy” if the other guy does it.

Such arguments against the legitimacy of the 2016 election led to marches, sometimes violent, in Washington, D.C. that year.

You can watch the resulting violence below …

Raskin discussed using the 14th Amendment shortly after Trump was acquitted by the Senate.

“The point is that the constitutional purpose is clear, to keep people exactly like Donald Trump and other traitors to the union from holding public office,” he said.

Some legal scholars have claimed Democrats could get the ball rolling on this plan by voting on a censure resolution to declare Trump engaged in “insurrection.”

Bitter and obsessed Democrats could conceivably coalesce behind such a censure resolution and they wouldn’t need any help from the Republicans.

A resolution to censure Trump would require a simple majority vote to pass in the House and Senate.

The Hill though, reports that some legal experts such as Tribe believe they have to go further by “by establishing a neutral fact-finding body to determine whether Trump engaged in insurrection under Section 3, or assigning that fact-finding role to a federal court.”

Again, part of the carefully calculated political game.

Democrats rejected pro-Trump Republicans from being included on the select committee investigating the Capitol riot. Instead, they placed committed ‘Never Trump’ Republicans Liz Cheney (R-WY) and Adam Kinzinger (R-IL) on the panel.

They then promoted Cheney to co-chair in an attempt to portray the group as a ‘neutral fact-finding body.’

Trump has repeatedly hinted about another run in 2024, but has yet to officially declare.

The post Report: Democrats Seeking To Use 14th Amendment To Bar Trump From Office appeared first on The Political Insider.