Right-wing: ‘We didn’t get all the way there on Jan. 6’
At a Wednesday Conservative Political Action Conference event, Jack Posobiec welcomed the audience as a panel session began with former White House strategist Steve Bannon.
Posobiec, a right-wing host and activist, told a group of conservatives that their goal should be overthrowing democracy because they didn't get the job done on Jan. 6, 2021.
"All right, welcome, welcome, I just wanted to say welcome to the end of democracy," he announced. "We're here to overthrow it completely, we didn't get all the way there on January 6th, but we will endeavor to get rid of it and replace it with this right here, we'll replace it with this right here."
Posobiec held up what appeared to be a necklace with a Christian cross pendant.
"All right, amen!" Bannon exclaimed.
"That's right, because all glory, all glory is not to government, all glory to God," Posobiec added.
Allies of Donald Trump have said they are prepared to infuse "Christian nationalism" into the former president's 2024 campaign.
Former Trump official Russell Vought is said to be spearheading the effort.
"Christian nationalists in America believe that the country was founded as a Christian nation and that Christian values should be prioritized throughout government and public life," Politico reported on Tuesday. "As the country has become less religious and more diverse, Vought has embraced the idea that Christians are under assault and has spoken of policies he might pursue in response."
Posobiec is known for conservative activism and conspiracy theories.
A Southern Poverty Law Center investigation found that the activist "collaborated with white supremacists, neo-fascists and antisemites for years, while producing propaganda that Trump and his inner circle have publicly celebrated."
“Jack Posobiec’s extensive ties to white supremacists should serve as a wake-up call for anyone who hasn’t made the connection between Trump’s MAGA movement and hate,” SPLC reporter Michael Edison Hayden said.
Republican senator feeling used and abused by MAGA
Ever feel the full weight of the far-right messaging machine — misinformation and all — come down on you?
Welcome to the new world of one of the Republican Party’s own — Sen. James Lankford of Oklahoma.
For the past four months, Lankford has been Senate Republicans lead negotiator on a bipartisan Southern border security bill — a policy Republicans demanded be included in a broader foreign aid package for Ukraine and Israel — that conservatives drove to a screeching halt this week.
In doing so, Republicans ditched the hardfought border compromise, along with Lankford, it’s GOP author.
“How’s it feel to be run over by a bus?” Raw Story asked Lankford Tuesday.
“And backed up [over]?” Lankford finished.
It’s not just that House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) declared the $118 billion package “dead on arrival.’’ Or that Senate Republicans bailed on their party’s point person — only four, including Lankford, voted to advance the measure, which failed to advance in the Senate on Wednesday.
Lankford may be calm, but at least one of his fellow negotiators is enraged.
“Look what they did to James Lankford. It's disgusting what they did to James,” Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT) told reporters at the Capitol on Tuesday. “They put him out there and asked him on their behalf to negotiate a compromise, and then they didn't even give him the chance to argue the merits. Like, these are not serious people.”
Some of Lankford’s Republican colleagues say the deal is good and that their party just needs time to study the measure.
“He got thrown to the wolves,” Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) told Raw Story. “He had no leverage. He was given no running room. People who are familiar with the negotiations have described it to me, James was basically told, ‘You have to agree to this. You have to agree to that’.”
“I feel bad for him,” Hawley said. “It’s not his fault.”
Whose fault is it?
Democrats say the answer to that is undeniable.
Dysfunction Junction:
Lawmakers are sick of serving in the 118th Congress halfway through their term, and many Republicans are heading for the exits.
Five GOP committee chairs – Cathy McMorris Rodgers, Mike Gallagher, Mark Green, Patrick McHenry and Kay Granger – are retiring, and 10 other Republicans are leaving Congress.
What's more, ousted House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, who retired early at the end of last year, blames Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) for the exodus, reported NBC News.
“It’s unfortunate because you think of brain trust you’re losing," McCarthy said. "Now I blame a lot of that on the Crazy Eight led by Matt Gaetz. They want to make this place dysfunctional to try to wear people out.”
The dysfunction fostered by Gaetz and other far-right MAGA Republicans does seem to be grinding down members, and even those who aren't leaving are weary.
“I’ve been here 15 years," said Rep. Mike Quigley (D-IL). "The most common line I hear from people now, my colleagues, is: ‘We can’t get anything done and I hate being here.’ That’s the most common refrain, so it’s a recipe for people leaving."
Republicans hold a slim three-seat majority after New York voters elected Democrat Tom Suozzi to replace fabulist Republican George Santos, who was expelled in December after he was indicted for fraud, and some of the exiting members are worried about getting consigned to the minority.
“If we are not successful in doing our work here and we wind up in the minority, who wants to finish out your career here in the minority?” said House Science, Space and Technology Committee chair Frank Lucas (R-OK), who is close to many of the retiring members but will run for re-election himself.
'We were warned': GOP lawmaker says Republicans knew of issues with arrested informant
A GOP congressman admitted that he and other lawmakers probing President Joe Biden and his son's actions to build up an impeachment inquiry were aware the key witness testimony in the case was shaky.
With the star witness in the impeachment inquiry against President Joe Biden facing felonies for cooking up a bogus story shaped by high-level Russian intelligence contacts pinning the president and his son Hunter for taking $5 million apiece in bribes — Rep. Ken Buck (R-CO) came forward to acknowledge that they knew it wasn't solid well in advance.
"Obviously, this witness, and we were warned at the time that we received the document outlining this witness's testimony, we were warned that the credibility of this statement was not known, and yet people, my colleagues went out and talked to the public about how this was credible and how it was damning and how it proved President Biden's — at the time Vice President Biden's — complicity in receiving bribes."
Without saying their names, he was clearly referencing the public faces attempting to put both Biden and his son Hunter on the hot seat, House Judiciary Committee Chair Jim Jordan (R-OH) and House Oversight Committee Chair James Comer (R-KY), and criticizing them for making public declarations about the solid evidence Smirnov supplied to buttress the case.
They have begun to try to scrub mention of the ex-informant's testimony from the imploding investigation.
Buck said that the impeachment effort as it stands is crumbling.
"It appears to absolutely to be false and to really undercuts the nature of the charges," he said. "We've always been looking for a link between what Hunter Biden received in terms of money and Joe Biden's activities or Joe Biden receiving money.