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GOP senator slams his party for 'winking at QAnon' — and sounds the alarm about its influence
January 18, 2021
When a violent mob of insurrectionists stormed the U.S. Capitol building on Jan. 6, some of them could be seen showing off the letter "Q" — representing the QAnon conspiracy cult. The attack itself was seen by many adherents as a culmination of the QAnon worldview.
Sen. Ben Sasse, a conservative Nebraska Republican who openly opposed efforts to overturn President-elect Joe Biden's Electoral College victory, examines QAnon's influence on his party in an article published by The Atlantic this week. And the senator stresses that other Republicans need to publicly condemn QAnon and other extremists for the good of their party.
<p>"Until last week, many party leaders and consultants thought they could preach the Constitution while winking at QAnon," Sasse explains. "They can't. The GOP must reject conspiracy theories or be consumed by them. Now is the time to decide what this party is about."</p><p>QAnon adherents ascribe to a false and delusional worldview in which the federal government of the United States, especially Democrats, has been infiltrated by an international cabal of child sex traffickers, pedophiles, Satanists and cannibals and that President Donald Trump was put in the White House to lead the struggle against the cabal. The conspiracy fiction has deep roots in anti-Semitic myths. Some QAnon supporters in the GOP have been elected to Congress, including Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia.</p><iframe src="https://platform.twitter.com/embed/index.html?dnt=false&embedId=twitter-widget-0&frame=false&hideCard=false&hideThread=false&id=1350677397465571328&lang=en&origin=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.alternet.org%2F2021%2F01%2Fben-sasse-2650015250%2F&partner=rebelmouse&theme=light&widgetsVersion=ed20a2b%3A1601588405575&width=550px" style="vertical-align: middle; max-width: 100%; position: static; visibility: visible; width: 550px; height: 630px; flex-grow: 1;" title="Twitter Tweet"></iframe><p>According to Sasse, no good can comr from having extremists like Greene in the Republican Party.<br/></p><p>"The newly elected Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene is cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs," Sasse writes. "She once ranted that 'there's a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to take this global cabal of <a href="https://www.npr.org/2020/08/12/901628541/qanon-supporter-who-made-bigoted-videos-wins-ga-primary-likely-heading-to-congre" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Satan-worshiping pedophiles</a> out, and I think we have the president to do it.' During her campaign, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy had a choice: disavow her campaign and potentially lose a Republican seat, or welcome her into his caucus and try to keep a lid on her ludicrous ideas. McCarthy failed the leadership test and sat on the sidelines."</p><p>Sasse continues, "If the GOP is to have a future outside the fever dreams of internet trolls, we have to call out falsehoods and conspiracy theories unequivocally. We have to repudiate people who peddle those lies."</p><p>The Nebraska Republican warns that having Greene in Congress makes the GOP look unhinged.</p><p>"She's already announced plans to try to <a href="https://www.alternet.org/2021/01/marjorie-green/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">impeach Joe Biden</a> on his first full day as president," Sasse notes. "She'll keep making fools out of herself, her constituents and the Republican Party."</p><p>Sasse points Jan. 6 insurrection as a tragic example of what can happen when Republicans promote or encourage unhinged conspiracy theorists. And he warns that fellow Republicans cannot be neutral where extremists like QAnon are concerned — they must take a stand.</p><p>"Whatever the RepublicanParty does, it faces an ugly fight," Sasse explains. "The fracture that so many politicians on the right have been trying desperately to avoid may soon happen. But if the party has any hope of playing a constructive, rather than destructive, part in America's future, it must do two things. First, Republicans must repudiate the nonsense that has set our party on fire…..Second, the party has to rebuild itself."</p>
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When it comes to President Trump potentially pardoning himself, he should be careful what he wishes for, according to USA Today contributors Philip Allen Lacovara, Jeffrey Abramson, and Dennis Aftergut.
A 1974 ruling from the DOJ's Office of Legal Counsel said that a President cannot pardon himself, but the contributors write that courts haven't had an opportunity to test that conclusion -- yet.
<p>"There is a menu of recent federal Trump crimes to choose from — his <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/factcheck/2021/01/05/fact-check-trump-pressured-georgia-recalculate-vote-tally/4135556001/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">pressuring the Georgia Secretary of State</a> to 'find' enough votes to overturn the state's election result would seem to violate federal law making it a <a href="https://uscode.house.gov/view.xhtml?req=(title:52%20section:20511%20edition:prelim)" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">crime</a> to attempt to <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/242" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">deprive</a> citizens of their right to a fair and impartially conducted election," they write. "Trump's call to an angry mob to march on the Capitol has every appearance of violating<a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/2384" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"> federal law defining a "seditious conspiracy"</a> as one that uses 'force to seize, take, or possess any property of the United States' or to 'hinder, or delay the execution of any law of the United States.'"</p><p>According to USA Today, Acting Attorney General, Jeffrey Rosen can't be relied upon to uphold the 1974 ruling. But Joe Biden's pick for Attorney General, Merrick Garland, "is a man of the law." </p><p>While there are arguments in favor of self-pardoning, one must consider the absurdity of the concept -- "a president could pardon himself for bribery or treason or fomenting insurrection, the very crimes for which he was impeached the week before. And then re-commit the same acts and pardon himself again," write USA Today's contributors. </p><p>"Even ardent textualists, intent on reading the Constitution strictly according to its words, should recognize what the DOJ concluded in 1974 and others have recently agreed: The framers of a Constitution designed to enshrine the rule of law cannot have contemplated allowing anyone to be judge in his or her own case.'"</p><p>Read the full op-ed over at <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2021/01/18/trump-self-pardon-impossible-column/6630712002/" target="_blank">USA Today</a>. </p>
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Trump is furious with GOP leader Kevin McCarthy -- even though he didn't support impeachment
January 18, 2021
House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) is on President Donald Trump's bad side this week, despite the fact that he spoke out against impeachment.
New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman tweeted Monday that Trump has spent the past several days continuing to tell his White House aides that he "won" the election.
<p>But it's Trump's anger with McCarthy that is serving as the source of the outgoing president's distraction of the moment. </p><p>Trump previously attacked Mike Pence for refusing to protest the election during the Senate certification process, asking him "you don't want to be a p*ssy do you?" Trump has been using the same word to describe McCarthy, Haberman reported. </p><p>McCarthy voted to void the voters in multiple states, even after Trump's supporters staged an insurrection at the U.S. Capitol. </p><div class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="fa224c40be6bd25b150b3f5d00f3c168" id="32c34"><blockquote class="twitter-tweet twitter-custom-tweet" data-partner="rebelmouse" data-twitter-tweet-id="1351251992543453186"><div style="margin:1em 0">McCarthy did NOT support impeachment, but that’s hasn’t mattered to the president, according to people who spoke with him.</div> — Maggie Haberman (@Maggie Haberman)<a href="https://twitter.com/maggieNYT/statuses/1351251992543453186">1610998554.0</a></blockquote></div>
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