Republican anti-climate change legal strategy verges edges toward victory

Point 11 of Rick Scott's 11 point pro-pollution plan to

"save America" by giving it to ruthless capitalists to freely exploit

The weather is always changing. We take climate change seriously, but not hysterically. We will not adopt nutty policies that harm our economy or our jobs. -- Republican Senator Rick Scott making his only statement about climate change in his 11 point plan; Scott means this literally in defense of pollution and polluters; taking climate change seriously means stopping the federal government from trying to deal with pollution and climate change; to pro-pollution Republicans it is nutty and hysterical for government to even try to deal with climate change and pollution 

The Republican Party has been staunchly pro-pollution, climate denier and anti-environment for years. It isn't just blind opposition. Included in the Republican pro-pollution political-commercial movement is an intelligent, focused legal strategy that could mostly neuter the capacity of American law to nudge us toward a pro-environment legal and regulatory climate. The New York Times writes:

Republican Drive to Tilt Courts Against Climate Action Reaches a Crucial Moment

A Supreme Court environmental case being decided this month is the product of a coordinated, multiyear strategy by Republican attorneys general and conservative allies.

WASHINGTON — Within days, the conservative majority on the Supreme Court is expected to hand down a decision that could severely limit the federal government’s authority to reduce carbon dioxide from power plants — pollution that is dangerously heating the planet.

But it’s only a start.

The case, West Virginia v. Environmental Protection Agency, is the product of a coordinated, multiyear strategy by Republican attorneys general, conservative legal activists and their funders, several with ties to the oil and coal industries, to use the judicial system to rewrite environmental law, weakening the executive branch’s ability to tackle global warming.

Coming up through the federal courts are more climate cases, some featuring novel legal arguments, each carefully selected for its potential to block the government’s ability to regulate industries and businesses that produce greenhouse gases.

“The West Virginia vs. E.P.A. case is unusual, but it’s emblematic of the bigger picture. A.G.s are willing to use these unusual strategies more,” said Paul Nolette, a professor of political science at Marquette University who has studied state attorneys general. “And the strategies are becoming more and more sophisticated.”

The plaintiffs want to hem in what they call the administrative state, the E.P.A. and other federal agencies that set rules and regulations that affect the American economy. That should be the role of Congress, which is more accountable to voters, said Jeff Landry, the Louisiana attorney general and one of the leaders of the Republican group bringing the lawsuits.  

But Congress has barely addressed the issue of climate change. Instead, for decades it has delegated authority to the agencies because it lacks the expertise possessed by the specialists who write complicated rules and regulations and who can respond quickly to changing science, particularly when Capitol Hill is gridlocked.

West Virginia v. E.P.A., No. 20–1530 on the court docket, is also notable for the tangle of connections between the plaintiffs and the Supreme Court justices who will decide their case. The Republican plaintiffs share many of the same donors behind efforts to nominate and confirm five of the Republicans on the bench — John G. Roberts, Samuel A. Alito Jr., Neil M. Gorsuch, Brett M. Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett.

“It’s a pincer move,” said Lisa Graves, executive director of the progressive watchdog group True North Research and a former senior Justice Department official. “They are teeing up the attorneys to bring the litigation before the same judges that they handpicked.” The pattern is repeated in other climate cases filed by the Republican attorneys general and now advancing through the lower courts: The plaintiffs are supported by the same network of conservative donors who helped former President Donald J. Trump place more than 200 federal judges, many now in position to rule on the climate cases in the coming year. 

At least two of the cases feature an unusual approach that demonstrates the aggressive nature of the legal campaign. In those suits, the plaintiffs are challenging regulations or policies that don’t yet exist. They want to pre-empt efforts by President Biden to deliver on his promise to pivot the country away from fossil fuels, while at the same time aiming to prevent a future president from trying anything similar.

That is truly an aggressive pro-pollution, anti-climate legal strategy the Republican laissez-faire capitalists have dreamed up. The propaganda is, as usual, based on fomenting fear based on both lies of commission and lies of omission.

It's not just abortion that neo-fascist Republican elites are going after. Their goals are huge. They want to change society, government, religion and commerce. Neo-fascist Republicans intend to force major social engineering changes on all of those targets. 

What about pro-pollution Democrats?

As we all know, Joe Manchin is a staunchly pro-pollution Senator who defends coal and oil industry interests, which heavily fund him. His shameless conflicts of interest are off the charts. Democratic leadership made Manchin the Chairman of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee. That gives him enormous power to defend polluters and pollution. Manchin's government propaganda page says this about him:

Senator Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) is proud to represent West Virginia on four critical Senate committees that will tackle the important work of addressing our nation’s energy needs, standing up for members of the military, honoring our veterans and finding commonsense solutions to boost economic prosperity. 

Senator Manchin is proud to serve as Chairman of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, where he will fight for a commonsense, balanced energy approach that recognizes West Virginia’s critical role in our nation’s energy future and helps us achieve energy independence within a generation. Senator Manchin believes it is imperative that this country develops an energy policy that focuses on security by reducing our dependence on foreign oil. Every state must do its part to use its resources – whether it’s clean coal and natural gas or wind and solar – to make energy independence a reality. Senator Manchin will always stand up for energy policies that are good for West Virginia jobs, America’s security and our way of life.  

Well, there you have it. How could anyone stand in the way of dirty energy? Our precious security and very way of life are threatened by even trying to deal with climate change. 

With pro-pollution Democrats like Manchin in charge of the federal non-response to climate change and pollution, who needs pro-pollution Republicans like Rick Scott? They use the same kind of language to downplay climate change, deflect from its seriousness and protect big polluters, while taking campaign contributions from big polluters in return for politician loyalty.

The environment is to be exploited, damaged as much needed and convenient, and the wealth flowing from capitalist environmental rape trickled up to the elites at the top and right into their big, fat bank accounts.

What about us common folks? People can either just go pound sand if they don't like it, or continue to vote for corrupt Republicans and Democrats if they do. 

Q: Does anyone see a pattern in the propaganda here?

Hint: The tactics are the same for polluters, corrupt politicians (Democrats and Republicans), authoritarian demagogues, Christian zealots, ruthless capitalists with no social conscience, QAnon conspiracy crackpots, haters, liars, traitors, etc.

A: Yes, there is a pattern. Because it works so well, it is repeated over and over and over. 

How Big Is the Red Wave Going To Be?

 Primary vote-share matters for the general election.

Observers look at primary elections as a separate species from general elections. Primaries are viewed both as a signal of which direction a party is headed as well as a determining factor in the outcome of the general election. But we should also pay attention to the partisan composition of primaries, because data shows that the partisan makeup of primaries has been strongly predictive of the final popular vote for the last 15 years.

This implies two tentative conclusions. First, that votes in a primary are not just about how contested the primary is. That is, parties don’t get more votes solely because their primary has a competitive race. Instead, there is a deeper mechanism going on which speaks to voter enthusiasm. When the general election is still months away, primary voters may be expressing their underlying inclinations by voting in the relevant partisan primary, particularly in open primary states where they have freedom to choose which primary they vote in.

Second, this data is interesting because of when primaries happen. Most occur between May and July. The conventional wisdom says that independent voters only tune in and make choices around Labor Day. But the link between primary turnout and general election vote-share suggests that in fact, many voters have made up their minds by mid-summer.

In trying to analyze the correlation between the primary and the general election, we have considered the cycles from 2006 onwards. This is because prior to the turn of the century, Democrats dominated the southern primary vote to such a degree that it skewed the entire country’s numbers and Republicans had no equivalent counterbalance. However, as voters began to shed historical party attachments, the correlation became stronger and stronger. By 2006, it began to have real predictive value.

Below, we plot the Democratic vote share in primaries against the vote share that they earned in the general election, for elections from 2006 to 2018. We see a clear pattern—the better a party’s relative primary turnout, the better their general election performance.

A plot comparing Democratic primary vote share to Democratic general election vote share, from 2006-2018 (2012 was omitted due to several states canceling their Democratic primaries and giving the delegates to President Obama).

In 2006, 2008, and 2018, Democrats dominated primary turnout. They won all three of these general elections by 7 points or more in November. In 2010 and 2014, Democrats saw abysmal primary turnout. Both of those years were Republican waves. With the caveat that the sample size here is small, the correlation does suggest that primary turnout foreshadows voter attitudes for November.

With this tentative link in mind, let’s look at what this thesis would suggest for the 2022 midterms. The current primary season is not over, but the initial data is suggestive. So far, we can track primary turnout in 15 states and make reasonable comparisons to their 2018 primary turnout. In 2018 Republicans outvoted Democrats in those states by 12 points. So far in 2022, Republicans are outvoting Democrats in those same states by 26 points. That 14 point increase for Republicans suggests a good, though perhaps not dominant, environment for them.

However, those numbers don’t tell the whole story. Instead of looking at the overall margin in these states, we can also look at the average margin, which avoids giving extra weight to states that cast more votes. In these fifteen states, in 2018, Republicans outvoted Democrats in the primary by an average of 11 points. In 2022, that average has grown to 31, an increase of 20 points. This would suggest a November 2022 environment more in line with the Republican waves of 2010 or 2014.

Both sets of numbers have merit. The first number gives a more accurate view of what is going on in the aggregate—Republicans are increasing their primary vote share, if not as dramatically as one might expect. But the second number is useful as well. Republicans lag on the first metric because Democrats have seen their primary numbers hold up very well in both Pennsylvania and Texas, and both states cast large numbers of votes. But it is not necessarily clear that Democrats will continue to do well in large states that cast a lot of votes. With about 30 primaries left, it is possible that the variation buoying Democrats here will start to fade.

So what does that tell us about 2022? If Republicans finish the primary season only doing 14 points better than they did in 2018, it would mean they outvote Democrats by 3 points overall in primary vote share. This is enough of a swing to give Republicans an edge, but not a major one in line with a wave election. Using historical data, we would project that Republicans would win the popular vote by around 3 points, depending on the model. However, if Republicans instead end up doing roughly 20 points better in primary vote share, we would project a popular vote win of up to 7 points, which is closer to their 2010 landslide.

In either case, however, the environment does appear to be significantly more Republican in 2022 than in any election cycle since 2014. This means that Democratic candidates seeking to hang on in marginal or GOP-leaning districts would probably need to win by flipping many voters who would otherwise be predisposed to vote Republican. Thus, a Democratic candidate’s crossover strength will be at a premium, because the environment will likely create an electorate that is much more Republican than either 2018 or 2020.

And in an era where crossover voting is plummeting rapidly, such candidates are becoming rarer and rarer.

https://www.thebulwark.com/how-big-is-the-red-wave-going-to-be/

Trump supporters dig in: Odds of violence increase, while thin rule of law is winning

The AP writes in an article entitled, Jan. 6 witnesses push Trump stalwarts back to rabbit hole:

One by one, several of Donald Trump’s former top advisers have told a special House committee investigating his role in the Jan. 6 insurrection that they didn’t believe his lies about the 2020 election, and that the former president knew he lost to Joe Biden.

But instead of convincing Trump’s most stalwart supporters, testimony from former attorney general Bill Barr and Trump’s daughter Ivanka about the election and the attack on the U.S. Capitol is prompting many of them to simply reassert their views that the former president was correct in his false claim of victory.

Barr’s testimony that Trump was repeatedly told there was no election fraud? He was paid off by a voting machine company, according to one false claim that went viral this week. Ivanka Trump saying she didn’t believe Trump either? It’s all part of Trump’s grand plan to confuse his enemies and save America.

The claims again demonstrate how deeply rooted Trump’s false narrative about the election has become.

Continuing dark free speech from the radical right leads to false beliefs and hate that will lead to more violence. The Washington Post writes:

One of two Republican members of the House committee investigating the attack on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, starkly warned Sunday that his own party’s lies could feed additional violence.

“There is violence in the future, I’m going to tell you,” said Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.), on ABC’s “This Week.” “And until we get a grip on telling people the truth, we can’t expect any differently.”

Kinzinger, who defied party leadership by serving on the Democratic-led committee, described an alarming message he received at home in the mail several days ago threatening to execute him, his wife and their 5-month-old baby.

Public officials have been inundated with threats in recent months, many spurred by former president Donald Trump’s continued obsession with the baseless claim that his 2020 loss was the result of a vast conspiracy of fraud. The Washington Post last year tracked how election administrators in at least 17 states received threats of violence in the months after the Jan. 6 attack, often sparked directly by comments from Trump.

Sooner or later, the ex-president's vitriol and lies will lead to more violence than he has already incited. The Republican Party is not backing down one iota. It is digging in and planning for continuing and intensifying its all-out war against democracy, civil liberties, secularism, pluralism, truth and the separation of church and state.

Worse, some professional news sources are starting to report that it will be hard or impossible to convict the ex-president of any his crimes associated with his 1/6 coup attempt. The rule of law is in full blown failure in the face of professional white collar criminals and traitors. Plausible deniability and subverted judges protect them.

If nothing from 1/6 is prosecutable, that leaves the felony obstruction of justice crimes the ex-president committed during the Mueller investigation. There is no hint that Merrick Garland and his DoJ has any interest in prosecuting those crimes. That leaves probably all of the ex-president's crimes as big, fat nothingburgers in the blind eyes of American law.

The Republican Party believes in thin RoL,

but it opposes thick RoL and works to weaken it

Q: Who controls most contract power (> ~90%) 

and most property (> ~80%)?

A: Wealthy and powerful elites,

not average citizens

National Conservatism: A Statement Of Principles

Over at The American Conservative website, prominent American conservatives have written a statement of principles. It lays out conservative grievances in view of their perceptions of American reality today and their vision of how things ought to be (grounded in their version of the past), whether we like it or not (and we don't). The statement reads in part:

A world of independent nations is the only alternative to universalist ideologies seeking to impose a homogenizing, locality-destroying imperium over the entire globe.

We are citizens of Western nations who have watched with alarm as the traditional beliefs, institutions, and liberties underpinning life in the countries we love have been progressively undermined and overthrown.

We see the tradition of independent, self-governed nations as the foundation for restoring a proper public orientation toward patriotism and courage, honor and loyalty, religion and wisdom, congregation and family, man and woman, the sabbath and the sacred, and reason and justice. We are conservatives because we see such virtues as essential to sustaining our civilization. We see such a restoration as the prerequisite for recovering and maintaining our freedom, security, and prosperity.

We emphasize the idea of the nation because we see a world of independent nations—each pursuing its own national interests and upholding national traditions that are its own—as the only genuine alternative to universalist ideologies now seeking to impose a homogenizing, locality-destroying imperium over the entire globe.

Drawing on this heritage, we therefore affirm the following principles:

2. Rejection of Imperialism and Globalism. We support a system of free cooperation and competition among nation-states, working together through trade treaties, defensive alliances, and other common projects that respect the independence of their members. But we oppose transferring the authority of elected governments to transnational or supranational bodies—a trend that pretends to high moral legitimacy even as it weakens representative government, sows public alienation and distrust, and strengthens the influence of autocratic regimes. Accordingly, we reject imperialism in its various contemporary forms: We condemn the imperialism of China, Russia, and other authoritarian powers. But we also oppose the liberal imperialism of the last generation, which sought to gain power, influence, and wealth by dominating other nations and trying to remake them in its own image.

4. God and Public Religion. No nation can long endure without humility and gratitude before God and fear of his judgment that are found in authentic religious tradition. For millennia, the Bible has been our surest guide, nourishing a fitting orientation toward God, to the political traditions of the nation, to public morals, to the defense of the weak, and to the recognition of things rightly regarded as sacred. The Bible should be read as the first among the sources of a shared Western civilization in schools and universities, and as the rightful inheritance of believers and non-believers alike. Where a Christian majority exists, public life should be rooted in Christianity and its moral vision, which should be honored by the state and other institutions both public and private. At the same time, Jews and other religious minorities are to be protected in the observance of their own traditions, in the free governance of their communal institutions, and in all matters pertaining to the rearing and education of their children. Adult individuals should be protected from religious or ideological coercion in their private lives and in their homes.

5. The Rule of Law. We believe in the rule of law. By this we mean that citizens and foreigners alike, and both the government and the people, must accept and abide by the laws of the nation. In America, this means accepting and living in accordance with the Constitution of 1787, the amendments to it, duly enacted statutory law, and the great common law inheritance. All agree that the repair and improvement of national legal traditions and institutions is at times necessary. But necessary change must take place through the law. This is how we preserve our national traditions and our nation itself. Rioting, looting, and other unacceptable public disorder should be swiftly put to an end.

7. Public Research. At a time when China is rapidly overtaking America and the Western nations in fields crucial for security and defense, a Cold War-type program modeled on DARPA, the “moon-shot,” and SDI is needed to focus large-scale public resources on scientific and technological research with military applications, on restoring and upgrading national manufacturing capacity, and on education in the physical sciences and engineering. On the other hand, we recognize that most universities are at this point partisan and globalist in orientation and vehemently opposed to nationalist and conservative ideas. Such institutions do not deserve taxpayer support unless they rededicate themselves to the national interest. Education policy should serve manifest national needs.

8. Family and Children. We believe the traditional family is the source of society’s virtues and deserves greater support from public policy. The traditional family, built around a lifelong bond between a man and a woman, and on a lifelong bond between parents and children, is the foundation of all other achievements of our civilization. The disintegration of the family, including a marked decline in marriage and childbirth, gravely threatens the wellbeing and sustainability of democratic nations. Among the causes are an unconstrained individualism that regards children as a burden, while encouraging ever more radical forms of sexual license and experimentation as an alternative to the responsibilities of family and congregational life. Economic and cultural conditions that foster stable family and congregational life and child-raising are priorities of the highest order.

That scares the jeebus right out of me, assuming I had any in me to start with. This statement is first rate propaganda. It tries hard to sugar coat and deflect from the intolerance and authoritarianism it stands for. In terms of foreign policy, it is America first Trumpism. This is Christian nationalism openly declaring war on democracy, secularism and pluralism. Christian intolerance and hate are clear in it. 

Instead of calling for withdrawing pubic support for secular universities they hate and would love to cancel out of existence, how about calling for withdrawing pubic support for religion, including religious schools and universities? That seems fair and balanced.

Update on China's dictatorship

CONTEXT

“.... society not only controls our movements, but shapes our identity, our thought, and our emotions.” [Social institutions] are structures of our own consciousness. .... Sociologists speak of ‘ideology’ in discussing views that serve to rationalize the vested interests of some group. Very frequently, such views systematically distort social reality in much the same way that an individual may neurotically deny, deform or reinterpret aspects of his life that are inconvenient to him. .... the ideas by which men explain their actions are unmasked as self-deception, sales talk, the kind of ‘sincerity’ that David Riesman has aptly described as the state of mind of a man who habitually believes his own propaganda. .... The same process [of intentional identity change via propaganda] occurs whenever a whole group of individuals is to be ‘broken’ and made to accept a new definition of themselves. .... This view tells us that man plays dramatic parts in the grand play of society, and that, speaking sociologically, he is the masks he must wear to do so. .... Unlike puppets, we have the possibility of stopping in our movements, looking up and perceiving the machinery by which we have been moved. In this act lies the first step toward freedom.” --- Sociologist Peter Berger, Invitation to Sociology, 1963

In my opinion, China is the most important country to watch for a possible dark future of a perpetually enslaved mankind. It's pervasive, aggressive technology-based dictatorship is unsurpassed anywhere else on Earth. It is efficient and ruthless in its intelligent reliance on human cognitive biology and social behavior to control perceptions of reality and to literally control thoughts. In his book, Invitation to Sociology, Peter Berger discusses how society and social institutions can shape and control human perceptions of reality and thinking. That was known in 1963. It is still true today. Humans are social creatures. Demagogues and tyrants exploit that normal human trait to their own advantage, usually to the detriment of society and at least those civil liberties that present potential threats to tyrants.

Berger's short little book, a masterpiece in my opinion, is basically optimistic. That's probably due in no small part to the fact that he wrote in 1963. There were no cell phones, social media, AI face recognition software, or mass consumer electronic commerce that presented tools for demagogues to exploit. And, there was no demagogic neo-fascist Republican Party acting in open opposition to democracy, in large part by firmly rejecting inconvenient fact, truth and reasoning. In Berger's day, the flow of information in mainstream America was far less poisoned compared to the rot we get now, especially from the radical right. Facts and truths still commanded reasonable respect by most political leaders. There were good reasons to be optimistic.

China's tyrants are exploiting all of the new technology tools to build an impenetrable dictatorship. The tyrants' intent is crystal clear: They want a dictatorship that cannot be overthrown by the people. Maybe external forces could someday topple what the Chinese tyrants are doing, but it is increasingly hard to see how the Chinese people could ever do it on their own. One of the most brilliant tactics the tyrants use is subtle social pressure. That is used to get average Chinese citizens to voluntarily opt in to China's pervasive digital dictatorship. Once they are opted into the system via their cell phones, they are closely monitored for everything they do. If they do not opt in, their lives are derailed and they live in poverty and oppression. If they do opt in, they are socially graded for everything they do. They are punished for bad behavior, e.g., having friends with low social acceptability scores. Bad behavior derails lives and careers. The opted in bad people live in poverty and oppression, just like the bad people who do not opt in.

Chinese policewoman using facial-recognition sunglasses linked to artificial intelligence data analysis algorithms while patrolling a train station in Zhengzhou, the capital of central China's Henan province

The update

One way to keep people from, as Berger put it, looking up and perceiving the machinery by which we have been moved, is to remove inconvenient facts, truths and reasoning from public access. That is a classic demagogue tyrant tactic. The Chinese machinery of tyranny simply obliterates all inconvenience. The New York Times writes on a current instance of China simply rewriting history to protect its people from truth:

In These New Textbooks, Hong Kong Was Never a British Colony

The books are part of China’s effort to instill a particular historical narrative and to stress patriotic education in a city where a pro-democracy movement was crushed.

HONG KONG — Many schoolchildren around the world have long been taught that Hong Kong was once a colony of the British Empire. But students in Hong Kong will soon learn a different lesson: It wasn’t.

Beijing has steadfastly maintained that historical view of the city’s status, long before Britain returned the territory to China in 1997, and years before a sweeping crackdown crushed a thriving pro-democracy movement in the once-semiautonomous territory.

Now, as Hong Kong prepares to commemorate 25 years since its handover to China on July 1, 1997, that narrative — which rejects how the British saw their relationship to the city — will be explicitly taught to Hong Kong high school students through at least four new textbooks that will be rolled out in the fall.

The textbook material is still under review by principals, teachers, scholars and employees of Hong Kong’s Education Bureau, but it seems destined for classrooms. Local news websites published draft excerpts this week, and The New York Times viewed teachers’ proof copies. The material is part of a wider campaign by China’s top leader, Xi Jinping, to overhaul Hong Kong’s schools, “protect young minds” and raise loyal, patriotic citizens. 

Jeffrey Ngo, a Hong Kong pro-democracy activist and a doctoral candidate in history at Georgetown University, said that the government’s position “is a shorthand for saying, ‘Hong Kong was always a part of China, thus Hong Kongers never could claim a right of self-determination.’”  

“It’s about trying to make sure the next generation of young kids are going to be supportive or at least sympathetic to what the government is saying,” Mr. Ngo added. “This is part of the remake of Hong Kong in the national security era.”

The Chinese dictators really do understand human cognitive biology and social behavior. They are using that knowledge to build a deep surveillance state dictatorship that average Chinese people simply cannot escape from. Social monitoring and grading is everywhere. That is why China has pushed so hard to get people to buy everything using their cell phones. The more that daily life is conducted digitally, the more the government sees those people and becomes aware of possible threats long before they mature into a significant threat.

China appears to be in the end stages of building and perfecting its national dictatorship infrastructure. It should be built out and mostly perfected in the next ~6 years or thereabouts. Its international behavior is now openly supportive of dictators and demagoguery, while being increasingly hostile to democracies and inconvenient truth. In my opinion, China is transitioning from a national tyranny to a global totalitarian political movement, with China at the top. War with China is increasingly plausible, maybe unless the Republicans take control, kill democracy and make nice with the tyrants in China. 

China exports its dictatorship technology to authoritarians 

everywhere for "law enforcement" purposes

 

Intelligence agencies and state police 

wind up using it to find threats to dictators and 

to suppress civilian political activities

 

This is Ecuador’s system built by two

Chinese companies controlled by the Chinese government

The Republican Party parade of rot proudly advances on all fronts

The Hill writes:

Rep. Bill Pascrell (D-N.J.) called on Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas to resign on Thursday after news that his wife, Virginia “Ginni” Thomas, emailed with conservative lawyer John Eastman, who was central in former President Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election.

In a statement on Thursday, Pascrell said Thomas “cannot possibly be seen as a neutral actor,” labeling him “a corrupt jurist.”

“Over the last few years, we have become numb to bad acts by powerful actors, but Clarence and Ginni Thomas have participated in one of the worst breaches of trust ever seen in our court system,” Pascrell said.

“Clarence Thomas cannot possibly be seen as a neutral actor but instead as a corrupt jurist who has poisoned the High Court. Clarence Thomas should have dignity and final respect for our democracy and resign,” he added.

CNN writes in an article entitled, New Mexico county commissioner who refuses to certify recent election results sentenced for role in January 6 attack:

Couy Griffin, a New Mexico county commissioner, ardent election-fraud conspiracy theorist and founder of Cowboys for Trump, avoided more jail time on Friday for his role in the January 6, 2021, US Capitol attack.

He was sentenced to 14 days with time served, fined $3,000 and given one year supervised release with the requirement that he complete 60 hours of community service.  

Griffin, an Otero county commissioner, is still relentlessly pushing claims of election fraud, going as far as refusing to certify the recent primary results in his county, which the Justice Department cited to bolster its argument that Griffin should spend several months in jail. 

Cuoy, the happy boy, Griffin celebrates his non-sentence for 

treason outside a federal court house in New Mexico

Mental rot alert: See the hat on the right side there

Prosecute Fauci!!!

LOCK HIM UP!!

Prosecute Fauci!!!

LOCK HIM UP!!

There we have it rot fans. There's veritable a cornucopia of Republican Party moral, intellectual, judicial and law enforcement rot on display for your fun and entertainment. Clarence Thomas thinks he and his wife are valiant patriots instead of ethically-challenged traitors. That's moral rot. Griffin believes the 2020 and 2022 elections were stolen. That's intellectual-mental rot. The judge sentences Griffin to a paltry 14 days in the slammer, a $3K fine and some community service for treason. That's judicial rot. The DoJ asked for "several months" in the slammer for Griffin's treason. That's law enforcement rot.

This is more than a wonderful trifecta. It's a magnificent quadfecta, not to be confused with a quadrella, of Republican Party rot. Yes, that includes the DoJ under the thoroughly rotted rotter Attorney General Garland -- so far, he looks a lot more like a Republican than anything else.