News bits: Republican Party support of sleaze for power, etc.

Republican Party moral rot on display

We all remember the outrageous lies that Republican congressman-elect George Santos relied on to deceive New Jersey voters into voting him into congress. The NYT writes about GOP leadership complicity in making Santos’ lies a smashing success with no repercussions from the morally rotted, fascist Republican Party:

G.O.P. Leadership Remains Silent Over 

George Santos’s Falsehoods

The muted response from party leaders suggested that so far they were prepared to mete out little, if any, punishment to the congressman-elect

The muted response from party leaders suggested that so far they were prepared to mete out little, if any, punishment to an incoming lawmaker who, while deceiving voters, flipped an open seat formerly held by a Democrat and helped Republicans secure their razor-thin House majority.

House Republicans, led by Representative Kevin McCarthy of California, have consistently closed ranks around members of their party facing scrutiny for a litany of misdeeds, including candidates who rallied at the Capitol on Jan. 6 and sitting lawmakers who appeared at a white nationalist conference. In Mr. Santos’s case, they likely have even less political incentive to take action. .... If Republican leaders demanded Mr. Santos resign — and he did so — it would prompt a special election in a swing seat, a potential blow to Republicans’ already precarious majority.

Questions: Is it unreasonable to believe that the next term of the House will be illegitimate because of the profound mendacity that Republican politicians and the GOP routinely engage in and/or defend? Should criminality, lies and deceit be completely irrelevant to elections and power, which is how the Republican Party mostly treats them?

Supreme Court takes over immigration policy:

Democrats may benefit a little 

The Supreme Court has stepped in and taken power over immigration policy from the legislative and executive branches. The WaPo writes about the court imposing Title 42 border policy without congressional or presidential input:

Supreme Court leaves in place Title 42 border policy for now

The Trump-era policy allows quick expulsion of migrants from U.S. borders without the chance to seek asylum

The Supreme Court on Tuesday blocked the Biden administration’s plans to end a pandemic-era policy allowing the quick expulsion of migrants from U.S. borders without the opportunity to seek asylum, as officials warned of a crisis along the southern border.

A federal judge had ruled that the Trump-era policy, known as Title 42, should expire last week, but the court’s action extends a pause Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. imposed to give the high court more time to weigh the issue.

In Tuesday’s order, five conservative justices sided with Republican officials in 19 states, including Texas and Arizona, who sought to maintain Title 42, which has been used to expel migrants more than 2 million times since it was implemented in March 2020.

In effect, the Supreme Court’s action keeps the status quo in place by blocking the district judge’s order until the court can consider the dispute in late February. But the court said it will consider only whether the objecting states have the legal standing to intervene.

While the majority did not provide reasoning, which is common in emergency requests, dissenting Justice Neil M. Gorsuch said the order would “effectively require the federal government to continue enforcing the Title 42 orders indefinitely.”

This action is in accord with an argument that a few legal scholars are raising that the Christofascist Republican Supreme Court is draining power away from both the legislative branch and the executive branch. In essence, the court is making itself into a unitary power without oversight or accountability. 

In this situation, Republicans keeping Title 42 in place could temporarily help the Democrats in public opinion in view of how divisive immigration policy is. Democratic Party policy on immigration arguably is incoherent and in chaos. That makes immigration policy a powerful weapon for highly effective Republican demagoguery. It is an issue that drains a lot of political capital and power from Democrats. That is why when Democrats try to work immigration compromises with the GOP, the GOP keeps refusing. Dealing with immigration policy in good faith would take a major propaganda weapon away from the GOP. It cannot afford to lose that issue for its vast demagoguery machine.

The rule of law is mostly toothless and democracy 

is grave at risk because of it: An example

The Guardian writes:

Arizona judge declines to sanction Kari Lake 

for lawsuit challenging election

“There is no doubt that each side believes firmly in its position with great conviction,” he wrote. “The fact that Plaintiff failed to meet the burden of clear and convincing evidence required for each element of [Arizona statute] does not equate to a finding that her claims were, or were not, groundless and presented in bad faith.”

While he declined to order sanctions, Thompson did order Lake to pay Hobbs about $33,000 to cover some legal costs in the case. Maricopa county and Hobbs had requested about $695,000 in costs from her.

Lake, who lost the race by about 17,000 votes, was one of the most prominent spreaders of election misinformation in the 2022 campaign.

Once again, the issue of intent is front and center. Once again intent shields a miscreant. The issue of the near-impossibility of providing enough evidence to establish legal liability is crystal clear. The issue of non-provability of culpable intent constitutes what I believe is one of the greatest weaknesses in American democracy. Bad intent by elites, rich people and big corporations just cannot be proven in most contested situations. That is probably the case ~99.99% of the time, i.e., 9,999 times out of 10,000. All smart traitors and white collar criminals know this. They exploit it professionally and ruthlessly. 

The most important thing is to maintain

plausible deniability

In her lawsuit, Lake did not have evidence of any election or vote fraud. Literally no evidence. That is why the judge had to throw out her case challenging her 2022 election result. 

But, based on how this judge saw it, about the only thing that might (or might not) have led the judge to impose sanctions is if Lake admitted under oath that she knew she had no grounds for a lawsuit but filed one anyway. For a seasoned traitor like Lake, there is less than a snowball’s chance in hell of that happening. Fascist traitors like Lake know how to stay out of hot water with dumb judges who willingly go along with the American farce called the rule of law.