Title: GOP Party There are many in the media who are eager to blame Republicans for the events that transpired. And there are many in our party who are eager to blame President Trump both for the violence in Washington and for the results of the senate elections in Georgia. It should not be about what has been done. It must be about what we can do to effect change and influence people tp earn their support and their votes. Change starts at the bottom – at the local level in the school boards, the city and county government offices. Let’s get with it …

What’s next for the Republican Party? By Garrett Brnger, Reporter and Robert Samarron, Photojournalist SAN ANTONIO – The chaos that unfolded at the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday as a mob stormed the building and laid siege to Congressional chambers was a far cry from the “law and order” mantra President Donald Trump has previously invoked. So now that a group of his supporters have “defiled the seat of American democracy,” as said by President Trump himself, what happens to the political party he has led? Reactions among Texas Republicans to the scene have varied. Some, like Rep. Chip Roy and Rep. Dan Crenshaw, rebuked the violence, with Roy tweeting at President Trump during the chaos to “get to a microphone immediately and establish calm and order...It’s the last thing you’ll do that matters as President,” and Crenshaw tweeting “Stop this bulls*** right now.” Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, on the other hand, having urged the crowd earlier in the day to “keep fighting,” later tweeted out a baseless claim that the violence was actually the work of the radical left-wing group “Antifa.” In an interview with KSAT on Thursday, Bexar County Republican Party Chairman John Austin also said, “it appears a lot of the rabble rousers were not regular Trump supporters,” echoing the false claim that some of them had been “identified as Antifa.” Austin said he did not recall what media website on which he had seen that claim, but the person he singled out as “definitely Antifa” was “the one viking guy,” who has been identified as a Qanon conspiracy supporter from Arizona. When challenged on his statement, Austin said, “Whoever did it, you know, should be held accountable for sure. If it was Trump supporters that did it, they should, you know, be prosecuted just like anybody else that would have done it.” Austin said, “If it was a militant branch of the Republicans, I’ve never heard of them, and I wouldn’t condone what they did by any means.” Still, the chairman said he believes the mob was “other agitators, not Trump supporters.” “It just doesn’t make sense to me, or probably anybody that voted for Trump, that a typical Republican or a Trump supporter would do that,” he said. In any case, Austin said he does not believe the scene at the Capitol will cost the local party any members. “I think people can see really the full, you know -- the past four years of President Trump has been really good for the country in general,” he said. More than 308,000 Bexar County voters cast ballots for the president in November. As for any Republicans in Bexar County who didn’t vote for Trump, Austin said there are still local issues that are important to people. “And that’s kind of where we’re going to focus our, you know, our strength on, is the local issues,” Austin said. “You know, we think that the mayor overstepped his power to do the lockdown so hard and then pulling the fast one on that curfew over Thanksgiving.” Republican consultant Tom Marks also believes “there will be a lot more focus on, sort of a hyper-local, specifically because of the fact that you have you have so many people that wanted to get involved.” The voter turnout in the November election was “unprecedented,” Marks said, and “all politics became local during the pandemic. And I think the the rise of protest movement on both sides is really -- it’s democracy in action. And I think that’s -- whoever can harness that momentum is, you know, probably going to be -- they’re going to be that leader for that movement.” And while Marks thinks a change in the party began Wednesday, he points to people like Roy and Crenshaw, not the rioters. “For some of those folks to break ranks right away and say, you know, ‘We are not going to stand,’ you know, ‘We’re not going to stand for this.’ I think that was the very beginning of how it’s going to change,” Marks said. “I think that was the beginning of the rebuild.” With Joe Biden confirmed as the next president and President Trump delivering a concession speech Thursday night, there’s no doubt things will change -- one way or another. https://www.ksat.com/news/local/2021/01/08/whats- next- for-the-republican-party/

What is the future of the Republican Party? By: Matt Sczesny WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. — Following Wednesday's riot on Capitol Hill that resulted in multiple arrests and four people dead, President Trump's supporters and opponents are reacting to the events. There were calls by both House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer for President Trump to be removed from office via the 25th Amendment. Far from the chaos in Washington, Peter Feaman of Boynton Beach met Thursday with Republicans from across the country on Amelia Island in north Florida. "We want to come out as quickly as we could to condemn this violence and condemn all violence," Feaman said. GOP Florida delegate Peter Feaman says he doesn't expect the riot at the U.S. Capitol will divide Republicans. Feaman, a GOP Florida delegate and Electoral College elector, said the storming and vandalizing of the capitol is not something that he expects will divide Republicans. "I don't see any rift at all. What I see is a natural progression of us now looking ahead, and naturally, with Mr. Trump no longer the president, there won't be a distancing, it's just that Mr. Trump will no longer be the center of attention," Feaman said. Nova Southeastern University political professor Charles Zelden says he believes the Republican Party will become fragmented because of President Trump. However, many seem to think Trump will try to remain the center of attention, especially in Florida, living at Mar-a-Lago and being active in the re-election races for Gov. Ron DeSantis and U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio. Nova Southeastern University political professor Charles Zelden expects Republicans will find it hard to ignore Trump. "You're either going to see a fragmentation of the party, in which people leave the party, and there's an effort to form an alternate Republican party, or you're going to see a purging of anyone who didn't back Donald Trump," Zelden said. "I suspect in the next few years the fallout will be within the Republican Party. Tere will be purge lists. There will be primaries, and it'll be a fight for the heart and soul of the GOP." Palm Beach County State Attorney Dave Aronberg, a Democrat, said local law enforcement is ready if any political demonstrations get out of hand. Aronberg said what happened at the Capitol is likely to divide Republicans. "The MAGA movement is showing its fissures with the Republican Party. The Republican Party is looking like its having some sort of internal Civil War between those defending Democracy and those who don't believe in Democracy," Aronberg said. https://www.wptv.com/news/political/what-is-the- future- of-the-republican-party

Aronberg

Sounds like a satanist.

the-republican-party-has-failed- america

And America is reminding them of their failure...

Aronberg Sounds like a satanist. Aronberg is a Democrat All Democrats sound that way.

the- republican-party-has-failed- America And America is reminding them of their failure... Lindsey Graham Confronted at Airport. Sounds like those pro-Trumpers screaming at Lindsey Graham in the airport were using a tactic out of Rep. Maxine Waters playbook when she called on her supporters to publicly confront and harass members of the Trump administration. Do you feel that pro-Trumpers acting like crazed Democrats while screaming at a Republican Senator in an airport changed or improved anything? Just askin’ … I say that Republicans need to find a way out of this mess – And I don’t see screaming at Lindsay Graham in an airport is one of those ways. Maybe you do …

I say that Republicans need to find a way out of this mess – And I don’t see screaming at Lindsay Graham in an airport is one of those ways.

You're right, Gatlin.

Screaming is inappropriate.

Traitors need to be hanged (after a brief hearing by a court or tribunal).

If humans don't serve justice...God will.

Until then get used to the screamin'

You're right, Gatlin. As always … Screaming is inappropriate. Most definitely … If humans don't serve justice...God will. Has God given you any kind of time frame as to when he will start? Traitors need to be hanged (after a brief hearing by a court or tribunal). Execution by hanging is widely regarded as inhumane. You want ot hang traitors and Stone wants to burn witches. What’s up with you two? Where does the apparent deriving pleasure from inflicting pain, suffering, or humiliation on others originate from? Huh …

Let's Get Real About Executions in America: Three Easy Steps By James Carroll I TURNED on CNN the other night and found the "CNN World News Quiz" on the screen. "Which states," I read, "still use hanging as a method of execution?" After a commercial or two -- Which lawn feeder is best for you? Come to Jamaica!- the answer appeared. The states of Washington and Montana still execute prisoners by hanging. The newscast resumed, and the reporter announced that in three hours, a convicted killer would be hanged in Washington, one of the few to die in that fashion in many years. Two hours later, he said, another man was slated to be executed in Texas, where the method of execution is lethal injection. Only a short while ago, the execution of criminals in America was rare enough to be big news. We knew their names and counted down to their deaths. Now we hardly notice. Promoted by liberals as well as conservatives and featured in the new federal crime bill, the death penalty is back -- with a vengeance. Discuss this article in the Community & Society forum of Post & Riposte. Return to Flashback: Who Deserves to Die? The reason only two states still execute by hanging is that the gallows is widely regarded as inhumane. In Enlightenment France, a humanitarian physician and member of the Assembly made such an impassioned plea against the cruelty of hanging that his name -- Joseph Ignace Guillotin -- was given to the beheading machine that the French then adopted as more humane. From the point of view of the prisoner, mechanized beheading -- efficient, instantaneous, fail-safe -- may indeed be less cruel than hanging, but its aftermath is so gruesomely offensive to a genteel public that it has not found favor in America. Electrocution or lethal gas have been the preferred methods of execution in this country, but the renewed enthusiasm for capital punishment has been accompanied by a preference for a new form of killing -- lethal injection. Texas was one of the first states to adopt lethal injection -- in 1977. By 1991, 20 states had moved to it, all purportedly because of "humanistic considerations." But which humans are being considered? Those to be executed? Or the squeamish American public, which, while hardboiled enough to want the death penalty, is soft-hearted enough to want it carried out "humanely?" What does it mean that of the more than 100 countries retaining the death penalty, only in the United States is it carried out by lethal injection? The electric chair, the gas chamber, the firing squad, the hangman's noose all have sinister associations. Lethal injection on the other hand, involves the benign symbol of the intravenous tube -- a medical device whose associations with sustenance, medication and anesthesia make it easy to believe that something good is happening, something humane. Advocates call it "the least offensive form of execution." In fact, it is least offensive not to those executed, but to the public and to the officials whose duty is to inflict the punishment. Lethal injection is the B-52 bomber of capital punishment -- a way to remove a killer from the blood and gore he causes, protecting his own sense of innocence and that of his sponsors. Think of Rickey Ray Rector, the retarded murderer whose Arkansas execution Bill Clinton presided over on the eve of the New Hampshire primary in 1992. Rector's execution by lethal injection was a brutal example of how inhumane -- for the victim -- that form of killing can be. Rector weighed 300 pounds, and it took the executioners 45 minutes to find a vein in which to insert the IV tube. The Arkansas Correction Department medical administrator gave this account of Rector's execution: "We had eight people in there when this all started. The tie- down people were helping, and by the end we had three more medical people....He had the spindly veins that collapsed easily. We searched. We were lucky to find a vein at all....I'm not going to take anything away from Rickey Ray Rector and the help he gave us with our task....He helped." If we are going to kill these people, we should not mask what's really happening behind a pretense of concern for the victim and a pseudo- medical procedure in which he is required to "help." Instead, I propose a three-part alternative method. First, those to be executed should be allowed to be passive and should be put to death in the most straightforward way possible -- a close- range bullet to the brain, say, or the heart. Second, instead of by an anonymous "execution team" or a hooded executioner, the punishment should be carried out by the elected officials who order it. The governors themselves should be the executioners, the close-range gun shooters. In the new Clinton-promoted capital cases at the federal level, the president should be the one putting people to death. Third, Phil Donahue should be permitted to televise these executions, and the citizens in whose names they are carried out should be required to watch. https://www.theatlantic.com/past/docs/unbound/flashbks/death/carr o ll.htm

Stone wants to burn witches.

You';re lying. Cut it out.

Has God given you any kind of time frame as to when he will start?

Yes, He has. The Bible.

Keep an eye on Damascus.

The burden of Damascus. Behold, Damascus is taken away from being a city, and it shall be a ruinous heap. Is.17

If and when Damascus lies in a ruinous heap, you'll know the party is getting started.

Whoever, owing allegiance to the United States, levies war against them or adheres to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort within the United States or elsewhere, is guilty of treason and shall suffer death...uscode.house.gov Oh, I fully agree with that. Never said, or indicated in any way, that that I didn’t. So, I don’t know why you are posting that to me. Has God given you any kind of time frame as to when he will start? Yes, He has. The Bible. Okay, let’s hear it. Keep an eye on Damascus. The burden of Damascus. Behold, Damascus is taken away from being a city, and it shall be a ruinous heap. Is.17 If and when Damascus lies in a ruinous heap, you'll know the party is getting started. Thank you for that. I however hold no interest in a “party that got started” in Damascus centuries ago. I am intently interested that … … If humans don't serve justice [to the “heathen” Democrats ]...God will [and I am asking you when and how]. That was the plan I was asking for. I apologize for not being more specific in my request. Until then get used to the screamin' There is nothing I can do to return the fanatics who engage in it to civility. All I can do is continue to watch them make complete asses of themselves. Thanks for your kind post …

Arkansas police chief resigns after threatening to abuse Democrats MARSHALL, Ark. — The police chief of a small Arkansas city has resigned after posting online threats of violence that targeted Democrats. Marshall Mayor Kevin Elliott said in a statement Saturday that Police Chief Lang Holland had resigned effective immediately. Elliott said the city “strongly condemns” Holland's posts. He said the community doesn't “in any way support or condone bullying or threats of violence to anyone of any political persuasion.” Holland made the comments on Parler, a right-wing site similar to Twitter, and they were no longer viewable as of Saturday evening, the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette reported. In his posts, Holland echoed President Donald Trump’s baseless allegations that the election wasn’t fair and that “illegal” votes were counted, the newspaper reported. In one post, Holland said that when seeing a “Marxist Democrat” in public, one should “get in their face and do not give them peace.” He continued: “Throw water on them at restaurants. Push them off sidewalks. Never let them forget they are traitors and have no right to live in this Republic after what they have done.” Another stated: “Death to all Marxist Democrats. Take no prisoners leave no survivors!!” Holland also shared an illustration that included Democratic leaders, including former President Barack Obama and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, wearing orange prison-style jumpsuits, the paper reported. “I pray all those in that picture hang on the gallows and are drawn and quartered!!!!” he wrote. “Anything less is not acceptable.” Holland had been police chief in Marshall, a city of about 1,300 in the Ozarks, for the past two years, Elliott said. A home phone number for Holland couldn't be found. Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson, a Republican, told the newspaper on Saturday that Holland's comments were “dangerous” and that Holland’s departure would be merited. Holland was among a number of police chiefs and sheriffs in Arkansas who said they wouldn't support Hutchinson's statewide face mask requirement aimed to curb the spread of the coronavirus. After Hutchinson signed the order in July, Holland called it an unconstitutional overreach and said he wouldn't make his officers wear masks. At the time, Holland, who said he supported Trump, said: “All I'm saying is if you want to wear a mask, you have the freedom to choose that. It should not be dictated by the nanny state." https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2020/11/0 9 /arkansas-police-chief-resigns-after-threatening-democrats- parler/6218557002/

A Republican Party Divided Against Itself Cannot Stand By Andrew Cohen Seems to me that good-faith conservatives and “Never Trumpers” have two primary choices in the wake of one of the most dismaying fortnights in modern American political history. They can stand taller in opposition to Donald Trump and try to force from the Republican Party the anti- democratic, anti-science, conspiracy theorists who have spent the past five weeks trying to overturn the results of a free and fair election. Or they can abandon what’s left of the GOP to the delusionists and the ignorant and the ill-meaning and create a legitimate third party that gives earnest, honest Republicans another viable option at the ballot box in 2022 and beyond. What anti-Trump Republicans can no longer do in the wake of the party’s chilling embrace of Trump’s attempted coup is to pretend that their party can exist, “half free and half slave”, with its future held captive by a vengeful, unhinged ex-president and his many enablers and propagandists. If the events of the past five weeks have shown the reality-based world anything, it is that the Republican Party itself has been corrupted by Trumpism to the point where it endangers American democracy itself. The postelection period also has made clear that the Trumpists will never peacefully coexist with who’s left of reality-based Republicans. You can have intra-party disputes over immigration reform and the minimum wage, health care and criminal justice, foreign policy and the Second Amendment. The Democrats have those fights all the time (indeed, they are having one now over Biden nominees). But you cannot have an intra-party dispute over democracy itself, over whether the certified loser of a presidential election should foment civil unrest by promoting debunked conspiracy theories about nonexistent voter fraud. Whatever remains of the democratic wing of the Republican Party is in an existential fight with the ascendant authoritarian wing of the Republican Party. In his smart piece earlier this month about the key role Never Trumpers and other Republicans played in helping to defeat Trump’s reelection bid, the Washington Post’s E.J. Dionne also pondered the point about the future of the party but undersold the danger of its anti-democratic elements. “Some of the anti-Trump conservatives never lost their old faith and were simply repelled by Trump’s odiousness,” Dionne wrote. “For them, there is no temptation to join the other side. They are unlikely to give much support to Biden and will go off in search of a more conventional Republican to champion in 2024.” Dionne wrote his piece before 126 Republican members of the House signed onto a bogus lawsuit brought last week by the state of Texas seeking to overturn the election results of four other states Trump lost to Biden. He wrote it before we learned that only a few dozen congressional Republicans were willing to acknowledge the fact that Biden won the election even though he’s now been certified the winner. He wrote it before Trump turned on the Supreme Court because no justices, not even his hand-picked trio, would soil their reputations by defending his indefensible legal arguments. The selection of a “more conventional Republican to champion in 2024” also seems like a bad bet today given the silent, spineless way in which Republican officials acknowledged Trump’s Supreme Court defeat over the weekend and are said to be readying new, futile election challenges in Congress in the coming weeks. It also seems like a bad bet after a weekend in which pro-Trump protesters in the nation’s capital chanted “destroy the GOP” as they rallied against the two Republican senatorial candidates preparing for the Georgia runoff. They already have destroyed the GOP, these amateur authoritarians, but they are back for more. Some Republican members of Congress whined this past weekend that their embrace of Trump’s lost cause is simply a reflection of the furious desires of their constituents to do something about the voter fraud they are convinced has occurred. They have a choice, these elected Republicans. They can act honorably and defend the Constitution from bad faith attempts to usurp it or they can remain hostage to the illiberal, illogical mob that believes the fantasy that Trump won the 2020 election. One path leads to the restoration of American democratic ideals. The other leads to the authoritarian end of the American experiment. Freedom’s just another word for nothing left to lose. The rightward call to arms to fight Trumpism must sound not just for the good folks at the Lincoln Project, or decent public servants like former independent candidate Evan McMullin, but also for elected officials like Sens. Mitt Romney (UT) and Lisa Murkowski (AK), former officials like George and Jeb Bush, and sitting governors like Charlie Baker and Mike DeWine. It must sound to every conservative who recognizes the danger Trumpism portends to genuine conservative principles. Surely we can all agree that whatever else federalism is, for example, it’s not about Texas telling Pennsylvania how to run its elections. Many disaffected Republicans voted this election cycle for Biden and those votes likely made the difference in close races across the country. But such a result this time around is no substitute for a long- term answer to the long-term problem posed by Trumpism. The next Republican presidential candidate, it it is not Trump, likely will be a slicker, more competent authoritarian. And the next Democratic presidential candidate, if it is not Biden, is likely to be a less moderate, and certainly less well known, figure. Those Republican votes for Biden aren’t likely to stay long term in the Democratic column. At least no one should count on it. Going forward, elected Republican officials have to choose in the short term between democracy itself and Trumpism. That means they should occasionally collaborate with Democrats to shore up the guardrails of democracy and turn the foundational norms that Trump has trashed into law and policy that the next authoritarian will not be able to manipulate so easily. For starters, this means that good-faith Republicans must support the For the People Act (H.R. 1), the House- passed legislation that would help protect the integrity and security of our elections and make it easier for more Americans to cast legal ballots. Doesn’t get more basic than that. Good-faith Republican officials also ought to support the creation and work of some sort of blue ribbon commission to investigate the sweeping crimes, corruption, and corrosion of the Trump era. They ought to support legislation that creates new and better protection for civil servants so they can no longer be abused by a future president the way they were abused by Trump. There is, as we survey the wreckage of the past four years, a significant subset of laws and policies fundamental to a working democracy that elected Republican officials could endorse before pivoting to partisanship over more mundane policy choices It’s not hard to understand why Never Trumpers look at the size of Trump’s 2020 vote total — massive by any standard other than Biden’s tally — and wonder what good would come from a third-party bid. They understand the breadth of voter loyalty to Trump and worry that a third party might guarantee future Trumpist victories by siphoning more votes from crossover voters who would otherwise choose a Democrat than from voters willing to turn their cultish backs on Trump. I don’t think that’s true. I think a conservative third party would take more from Republican candidates than from Democratic ones. But I also thought that Trump would get fewer votes in 2020 than he did in 2016. The questions today are: What does it mean to be an honorable conservative in the age of Trump? How many votes would a legitimate third-party candidate receive running on a platform that emphasizes fiscal restraint, strong national defense, governmental competency, and a respect for the honorable enforcement of law? And if Never Trumpers are to strike back and wrestle for control of the Republican party, how can they succeed when so many Republican voters remain enthralled by propagandist media organs controlled by Trump sycophants? It’s nothing short of a national tragedy that so many Republican politicians have encouraged and enabled Trump to this point and now can’t or won’t stand up to him as he tries to take the party and the country over the cliff. It’s disheartening to realize how cynical so many of these Republicans have been as they’ve benefitted from Trumpist policies while pretending that what Trump stands for isn’t as bad as it seems. But the past doesn’t have to be a prologue. The nation’s political future depends on how the civil war within the Republican party plays out. We’ve seen since Election Day how high those stakes actually are. https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/analysis- opinion/republican-party-divided-against-itself-cannot-stand