Ron Johnson Ran a Grievance-Laced Puppet Show Starring the President*'s Disgruntled Devotees
The hearing was ornamented by the presence of Ken Starr, whose journey to completely embarrassing Republican hack is obviously complete.
_By Charles P. Pierce
Dec 16, 2020
https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politic...nl22388004
republican senator from wisconsin and senate homeland security and governmental affairs committee chairman ron johnson speaks during a hearing to discuss election security and the 2020 election process on december 16, 2020 on capitol hill in washington,dc
On Wednesday, in the United States Senate, Senator Ron (Shreds of Freedom) Johnson held the latest in the ongoing series of grievance-laced puppet shows starring disgruntled devotees of the current president*. The abiding theme of this one was giving lawyers whose asses have been kicked all over every judicial system a chance to plead their threadbare cases one more time. In this, the hearing succeeded.
The two star witnesses in this regard were Jesse Binnall, who got his ass kicked in Nevada, and James Troupis, who got his ass kicked in Wisconsin. (Troupis is a very special case. He and his wife voted by in-person absentee ballot in Wisconsin and, therefore, he was arguing before that state's Supreme Court that his own vote should be invalidated.)
The hearing also was ornamented by the presence of Ken Starr, whose journey to completely embarrassing Republican hack is obviously complete. It was Starr who provided the squid ink designed to obscure the fact that all those asses got kicked in all those courtrooms. You see, as Starr explained it, the suits all lost on "procedural" grounds, and not because the suits were based on the spiders in the president*'s head. Senator Rand Paul was quite taken by this argument.
So the courts have not decided the facts, they don't like elections. They stayed out and they found an excuse to stay out of it. The fraud happened, the election in many ways was stolen, and the only way it will be fixed is by reinforcing the laws in the future.
If you think this is an open invitation for further voter-suppression activity in Republican-dominated state legislatures, backed up by similar finagling from national Republican politicians and activists, well, that means you've been paying attention.
Ultimately, once the White House changes hands, and after the fumigation protocols have been completed, the Republicans will hold hearing after hearing into the "disputes" over the 2020 elections, which they themselves fomented, with an eye toward giving their counterparts in the states tools to suppress votes further. This has been an abiding crusade for conservatives since the Voting Rights Act was passed in 1965, and they're not likely to abandon it just because it didn't work this time around.
washington, dc december 16 chris krebs, former director of the cybersecurity and infrastructure security agency l, elbow bumps senate homeland security and governmental affairs committee chairman ron johnson r wi after a senate homeland security and governmental affairs committee hearing to discuss election security and the 2020 election process on december 16, 2020 in washington, dc us president donald trump continues to push baseless claims of voter fraud during the presidential election, which krebs called the most secure in american history photo by greg nash poolgetty images
Greg Nash / Getty Images
(And the debates over this are liable to be bloody. On Wednesday, it looked for a moment as though Johnson and ranking Democrat Gary Peters of Michigan were going to throw hands. Peters charged that Johnson had been trafficking in "Russian disinformation," while Johnson called Peters a liar. "Mr. Chairman," Peters rejoined at one point, "this is not about airing your grievances. I don't know what rabbit hole you're running down."
Thank the great Whoever for Christopher Krebs, who sat between Troupis and Binnall as the nutritious filling in an idiot sandwich. Krebs was the election security chief in the Department of Homeland Security whom the president* fired because Krebs wouldn't participate in the fundraising activity into which the president* has turned the post-election and transition period. Krebs told the committee, as Johnson sat there like a man who'd just eaten a live eel:
I'm not aware of much condemning of violence having been a recipient of some of them. I think it's, again, an affront to democracy that the citizens in the United States of America that are responsible for executing the sacred democratic institution of elections are being threatened on a daily basis.
You name it, whether it's e-mails, whether it's phone calls, whether it's people showing up at your house, this is not an America I recognize, and it's got to stop. We need everyone across the leadership ranks to stand up. I think—you know, I would appreciate more support from my own party, the Republican Party, to call this stuff out and end it.
We have to move on. We have a president-elect in President-Elect Biden. We have to move on. These officials that are Republicans, look at Georgia, Brad Raffensperger, Gabriel Sterling, Jeff Duncan. These are Republicans that are putting country over party. They're being subjected to horrific threats as a result. This is not America.
We'll have to see if he's right or not.
The hearing was ornamented by the presence of Ken Starr, whose journey to completely embarrassing Republican hack is obviously complete.
_By Charles P. Pierce
Dec 16, 2020
https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politic...nl22388004
republican senator from wisconsin and senate homeland security and governmental affairs committee chairman ron johnson speaks during a hearing to discuss election security and the 2020 election process on december 16, 2020 on capitol hill in washington,dc
On Wednesday, in the United States Senate, Senator Ron (Shreds of Freedom) Johnson held the latest in the ongoing series of grievance-laced puppet shows starring disgruntled devotees of the current president*. The abiding theme of this one was giving lawyers whose asses have been kicked all over every judicial system a chance to plead their threadbare cases one more time. In this, the hearing succeeded.
The two star witnesses in this regard were Jesse Binnall, who got his ass kicked in Nevada, and James Troupis, who got his ass kicked in Wisconsin. (Troupis is a very special case. He and his wife voted by in-person absentee ballot in Wisconsin and, therefore, he was arguing before that state's Supreme Court that his own vote should be invalidated.)
The hearing also was ornamented by the presence of Ken Starr, whose journey to completely embarrassing Republican hack is obviously complete. It was Starr who provided the squid ink designed to obscure the fact that all those asses got kicked in all those courtrooms. You see, as Starr explained it, the suits all lost on "procedural" grounds, and not because the suits were based on the spiders in the president*'s head. Senator Rand Paul was quite taken by this argument.
So the courts have not decided the facts, they don't like elections. They stayed out and they found an excuse to stay out of it. The fraud happened, the election in many ways was stolen, and the only way it will be fixed is by reinforcing the laws in the future.
If you think this is an open invitation for further voter-suppression activity in Republican-dominated state legislatures, backed up by similar finagling from national Republican politicians and activists, well, that means you've been paying attention.
Ultimately, once the White House changes hands, and after the fumigation protocols have been completed, the Republicans will hold hearing after hearing into the "disputes" over the 2020 elections, which they themselves fomented, with an eye toward giving their counterparts in the states tools to suppress votes further. This has been an abiding crusade for conservatives since the Voting Rights Act was passed in 1965, and they're not likely to abandon it just because it didn't work this time around.
washington, dc december 16 chris krebs, former director of the cybersecurity and infrastructure security agency l, elbow bumps senate homeland security and governmental affairs committee chairman ron johnson r wi after a senate homeland security and governmental affairs committee hearing to discuss election security and the 2020 election process on december 16, 2020 in washington, dc us president donald trump continues to push baseless claims of voter fraud during the presidential election, which krebs called the most secure in american history photo by greg nash poolgetty images
Greg Nash / Getty Images
(And the debates over this are liable to be bloody. On Wednesday, it looked for a moment as though Johnson and ranking Democrat Gary Peters of Michigan were going to throw hands. Peters charged that Johnson had been trafficking in "Russian disinformation," while Johnson called Peters a liar. "Mr. Chairman," Peters rejoined at one point, "this is not about airing your grievances. I don't know what rabbit hole you're running down."
Thank the great Whoever for Christopher Krebs, who sat between Troupis and Binnall as the nutritious filling in an idiot sandwich. Krebs was the election security chief in the Department of Homeland Security whom the president* fired because Krebs wouldn't participate in the fundraising activity into which the president* has turned the post-election and transition period. Krebs told the committee, as Johnson sat there like a man who'd just eaten a live eel:
I'm not aware of much condemning of violence having been a recipient of some of them. I think it's, again, an affront to democracy that the citizens in the United States of America that are responsible for executing the sacred democratic institution of elections are being threatened on a daily basis.
You name it, whether it's e-mails, whether it's phone calls, whether it's people showing up at your house, this is not an America I recognize, and it's got to stop. We need everyone across the leadership ranks to stand up. I think—you know, I would appreciate more support from my own party, the Republican Party, to call this stuff out and end it.
We have to move on. We have a president-elect in President-Elect Biden. We have to move on. These officials that are Republicans, look at Georgia, Brad Raffensperger, Gabriel Sterling, Jeff Duncan. These are Republicans that are putting country over party. They're being subjected to horrific threats as a result. This is not America.
We'll have to see if he's right or not.
