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Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York late Wednesday offered a damning assessment of the state of the Republican Party in the wake of Donald Trump's departure from the White House, warning that the GOP's ongoing refusal to condemn—and ready embrace of—the violent right-wing forces that the former president animated is "extremely dangerous" for the country.
"There are no consequences in the Republican caucus for violence," Ocasio-Cortez, a frequent target of deranged right-wing threats, said in an appearance on MSNBC Wednesday night. "No consequences for racism. No consequences for misogyny. No consequences for insurrection. And no consequences means that they condone it. It means that that silence is acceptance."
<p>Far from distancing themselves from the most extreme elements of Trump's base now that he's out of power, Republicans are still attempting to wield those violent and racist forces for political gain, said Ocasio-Cortez. On Tuesday, all but five Republican senators <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/news/2021/01/26/after-delaying-trump-impeachment-trial-all-5-gop-senators-vote-favor-saying-now-its" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">voted to dismiss</a> the upcoming impeachment trial against Trump, which will decide whether the former president is convicted for inciting the deadly attack on the U.S. Capitol earlier this month.</p><p>The New York Democrat on Wednesday explicitly called out House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) for refusing to hold his members accountable for their behavior, including their <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/news/2021/01/07/co-conspirators-sedition-here-are-names-every-republican-who-voted-overturn-election" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">complicity in the January 6 mob assault</a>. "Kevin McCarthy answers to these QAnon members of Congress, not the other way around," Ocasio-Cortez argued, referring to the far-right conspiracy theory that <a href="https://www.rollcall.com/2020/11/05/qanon-goes-to-washington-two-supporters-win-seats-in-congress/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">some Republican lawmakers </a>have espoused and backed.</p><p>"We are now away from acting out of fealty to their president that they had in the Oval Office, and now we are talking about fealty to white supremacist organizations as a political tool," the congresswoman continued. "We really, really need to ask ourselves what they are evolving into, because this is no longer a party of limited government. This is about something much more nefarious."</p><p>Watch:</p> <iframe src="https://platform.twitter.com/embed/index.html?creatorScreenName=commondreams&creatorUserId=14296273&dnt=false&embedId=twitter-widget-0&frame=false&hideCard=false&hideThread=false&id=1354603247034634240&lang=en&origin=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.commondreams.org%2Fnews%2F2021%2F01%2F28%2Fkevin-mccarthy-answers-these-qanon-members-aoc-rips-republicans-embracing-violence&siteScreenName=commondreams&siteUserId=14296273&theme=light&widgetsVersion=ed20a2b%3A1601588405575&width=550px" style="position: static; visibility: visible; width: 550px; height: 573px; flex-grow: 1;" title="Twitter Tweet"></iframe> <p>Ocasio-Cortez's comments came days after <em>CNN</em> <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2021/01/26/politics/marjorie-taylor-greene-democrats-violence/index.html" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">reported</a> that freshman Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) "repeatedly indicated support for executing prominent Democratic politicians"—including House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.)—prior to her election to Congress last November.</p><p>"Greene, who represents Georgia's 14th Congressional District, frequently posted far-right extremist and debunked conspiracy theories on her page, including the baseless QAnon conspiracy which casts former President Donald Trump in an imagined battle against a sinister cabal of Democrats and celebrities who abuse children," according to <em>CNN</em>.</p><p>In response to the new reporting, Rep. Jimmy Gomez (D-Calif.) warned that Greene's "very presence in office represents a direct threat against the elected officials and staff who serve our government" and said he plans to introduce a resolution to expel the Georgia Republican from the House.</p><p>"Such advocacy for extremism and sedition not only demands her immediate expulsion from Congress, but it also merits strong and clear condemnation from all of her Republican colleagues, including House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell," Gomez said in a <a href="https://gomez.house.gov/news/documentsingle.aspx?DocumentID=2222" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">statement</a> Wednesday. "I call on my House colleagues to support my resolution to immediately remove Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene from this legislative body."</p>
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Brazil's handling of the coronavirus pandemic has been ranked the world's worst, while New Zealand topped the class, according to research published by a leading Australian think tank on Thursday.
Sydney's Lowy Institute assessed almost 100 countries on six criteria, including confirmed cases, deaths and testing metrics.
<p>"Collectively, these indicators point to how well or poorly countries have managed the pandemic," according to the report by the independent body.</p><p>Aside from New Zealand -- which has largely kept the virus at bay with border closures and "go early, go hard" lockdowns and testing regimes -- Vietnam, Taiwan, Thailand, Cyprus, Rwanda, Iceland, Australia, Latvia and Sri Lanka made the top 10 for their responses.</p><p>In bottom place at number 98 was Brazil, closely followed by Mexico, Colombia, Iran and the United States. </p><p>Brazil has recorded more than 218,000 coronavirus deaths -- a toll second only to that of the United States. </p><p>For much of the last year, the two most populous nations in the Americas have been led by nationalist leaders who have actively downplayed the threat of Covid-19, ridiculed mask-wearing, opposed lockdowns and contracted the virus themselves.</p><p>China -- where the virus first emerged -- was not included in the rankings because of what the think tank described as a lack of publicly available data on testing.</p><p>Beijing has aggressively tried to manage public perceptions about its handling of the disease as it tries to show its authoritarian system is preferable to democracies, many of which have faltered badly in the crisis.</p><p>The Lowy Institute said that there was no clear winner when it came to which political system best handled the pandemic.</p><p>Instead, almost across the board, the response has been lacklustre.</p><p>"Some countries have managed the pandemic better than others -- but most countries outcompeted each other only by degrees of underperformance," the report said.</p><p>Smaller nations -- with populations of fewer than 10 million people -- did appear to have some advantages.</p><p>"In general, countries with smaller populations, cohesive societies, and capable institutions have a comparative advantage in dealing with a global crisis such as a pandemic," the report said. </p><p>Overall, cases have now topped 100 million worldwide and some 2.2 million people have died from the virus since the outbreak began in December 2019.</p>
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Why Senate Republicans are still playing defense for Donald Trump
January 28, 2021
I believe all the reports that say Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., loathes former president Donald Trump with every fiber of his being. Apparently, he hasn't spoken to him since the election and has made it clear to everyone who knows him that he would love to see Trump just retire to Mar-a-Lago never to be heard from again. He's anything but a Trump true believer.
But Mitch McConnell believes in power. As he cast about trying to get a sense of where Republicans are in the wake of Trump's disastrous performance since the election and the incitement of a violent insurrection on January 6th, he floated trial balloons about supporting impeachment and made some critical speeches. But he never had any intention of allowing Donald Trump to be convicted in a Senate trial, even if it were possible. How do we know this? As The Atlantic's James Fallows tweeted:
<blockquote> -On January 13, when House voted for impeachment, McConnell said Senate could not consider it *until* Trump had left office. -From Jan 20 onward, McConnell has said Senate should not consider it *because* Trump has left office.<br/> </blockquote> <p>On Tuesday, when Senator Rand Paul, R-Ky, called for a vote on the question of whether impeaching a president after he was out of office was constitutional, Mitch McConnell and with 44 other Republicans signaled that they believe it is not. That's why he delayed the trial. A year ago, Republicans argued against Trump's first impeachment because the country was too close to an election.</p> <p>Similarly, McConnell's lugubrious paean to Senatorial comity as <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/26/us/filibuster-senate.html" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">he held the Senate hostage</a> demanding that Democrats agree not to eliminate the filibuster is a monument to shameless hypocrisy, as Fallows also demonstrates:</p><p>McConnell himself eliminated the filibuster for judicial confirmations and had no problem with it for regular legislation because they didn't really legislate during Trump's term. Republicans rammed through their massive corporate tax giveaway and a failed Obamacare repeal through the Senate's budget reconciliation process because budget bills can't be filibustered. So all McConnell did was kill legislation that passed the House and confirm federal judges on an assembly line. Republicans don't really have a legislative agenda anymore. They are a purely obstructionist congressional party that depends entirely on judicial power to roll back existing programs and executive power to enact policy.</p><p>In any case, it's clear that we don't have to hold our breath wondering if the newly enlightened Mitch McConnell will join hands with the sane people to save the country from Trump's radical mob. The idea was always laughable. What's happening instead is a concerted effort on the part of the entire GOP establishment to cleanse Donald Trump of any responsibility for what he did so that he might emerge once again as the hero they've all been waiting for. They simply cannot quit him.</p><p>Take for instance <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2021/01/26/politics/rand-paul-test-vote-impeachment-trial-constitutionality/index.html" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Rand Paul's speech</a> on Tuesday, a tour de force of brazen bad faith.</p><p>"Impeachment is for removal from office, and the accused here has already left office — a trial would drag our great country down into the gutter of rancor and vitriol, the likes of which has never been seen in our nation's history," the Kentucky Republican thundered.</p><p>I'm pretty sure we saw the likes of that on January 6th when the greatest sore loser in history provoked an angry mob into storming the Capitol, chanting "hang Mike Pence" and "Nancy Pelosi, we're coming for you!" Frankly, this country was dragged into the gutter of rancor and vitriol the day Donald Trump was elected president in 2016.</p><p>Florida Senator Marco Rubio, who has apparently taken a bet from someone that he can be even more sycophantic toward Trump than South Carolina Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham, characterized holding Trump accountable for siccing an angry mob on Congress to stop the certification of the electoral college as simply a "show" trial:</p><p>Again, if you're talking about shows and vengeance, it's pretty rich to try to misdirect people into believing it's the impeachment rather than the events of January 6th in which Donald Trump staged a huge rally in D.C. on the day Congress was scheduled to certify Joe Biden's win and told them he was going to lead them to the Capitol to stop the count.</p><p>Ted Cruz, one of the insurrectionist senators who backed Trump's baseless claims of election irregularities in swing states Trump lost, unctuously declared that we now need to move on:</p><p>This from the man who flogged the Benghazi pseudo-scandal for <em>years.</em></p><p>And then we have former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley making<a href="https://twitter.com/Acyn/status/1353910207970037760?s=20" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"> an earnest appeal</a> to leave poor Trump alone:</p> <blockquote> "The actions of the president post-Election Day were not great. What happened on January 6 was not great. Does he deserve to be impeached, absolutely not ... I don't even think there's a basis for impeachment. Now they're going to turn around and bring about impeachment yet they say they're for unity. I mean at some point give the man a break. I mean move on...<br/> </blockquote> <p>This is deja vu all over again. Every time Trump did something outrageously beyond the pale, there would be a flurry of hand wringing and pearl-clutching by Republicans followed almost immediately by excuses and deflecting blame once they got some blowback from the right-wing media and Trump's supporters. The pattern was set back in the 2016 campaign when news of the Access Hollywood tape was published and<a href="https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/headline-republicans-react-trump-comments-objectifying-women" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"> half the GOP declared </a>it was the last straw, claiming they could never look their children in the eye again if they supported such a crude, indecent man. <a href="https://twitter.com/SenJohnThune/status/784798261781598208?s=20" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Some said</a> he should step aside for Mike Pence or even declared their intention to vote for Hillary Clinton. <a href="https://twitter.com/mikedebonis/status/784576299700453376" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Mitch McConnell said</a> that he strongly believed "Trump needs to apologize directly to women and girls everywhere, and take full responsibility for the utter lack of respect for women shown in his comments on that tape."</p><p>He did not. And before long,<a href="https://twitter.com/DanPatrick/status/784546487858499584" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"> the GOP response</a> was more along the lines of Dr. Ben Carson's, <a href="https://twitter.com/EliStokols/status/784818714675974144" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">who claimed</a> the Democrats had probably had the tapes for some time and had dropped them to distract attention from Wikileaks emails that supposedly said Hillary Clinton wanted "open borders." (Those Wikileaks emails <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2019/01/29/roger-stone-wanted-wikileaks-email-dump-distract-access-hollywood-tape-associate-claims/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">were actually released immediately <em>after</em></a> the Access Hollywood tape came out.)</p><p>As we know, all but a small handful of Republicans fell in lockstep with him shortly thereafter until the next time he did something abhorrent. A few apostates rebelled and ended up being <a href="https://apnews.com/article/c7291ffd58a84249bc1527d7def953a3" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">chased out of politics </a>for it but before long, most of them stopped even pretending to have any integrity or morals and the few that still felt compelled to say something when he went off the rails usually just made a half-hearted gesture and then went along.</p><p>And as usual, it appears this time that for most of the senators, even those who proclaimed their dismay at the violent mob that defiled the Capitol, their vote to fulfill their oath and certify the election took all the energy they could muster to protect our democracy. On Tuesday, only five Republicans managed to reject Rand Paul's fatuous claim that the impeachment is unconstitutional, the vast majority signaling once again that Donald Trump can do no wrong. </p>
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