We’ve all had a variety of reactions to the 126 Republican members of the U.S. House who signed onto that treasonous, seditious amicus brief of Texas AG Ken Paxton seeking to invalidate the results of the Georgia, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania elections from a month ago (noted here, and, as has already been pointed out, Paxton’s brief was just a stunt anyway to wangle a pardon for himself for offenses related to bribery, as noted here).
As for the 126, though, I’ve read about people being bewildered, mystified, disappointed, and feeling pretty depressed overall that 60 percent of the U.S. House Republican caucus went along with Paxton’s idiocy.
I kind of went through that for a few minutes myself. More than anything else, though, I got pretty goddamn mad! And I honestly wish Nancy Pelosi had gone along with Dem U.S. Rep Bill Pascrell’s idea not to sit these bastards with the commencement of the upcoming congressional session (here). I know, however, that that won’t happen.
So instead, I embarked on a bit of a project. I decided to do some digging into these people’s backgrounds and see what I could come up with. And, for the most part, I found some stuff that may have been actual news for a cycle or two before it disappeared into background noise considering everything else we’re paying attention to.
Of these 126 shills and gutter snipes, I have to admit that there was one person I didn’t have any luck with when it came to finding what I was looking for. That was Indiana 4th Congressional District Congressman James Baird (there’s a link to a piece by columnist John Krull which is pretty much a blanket indictment of that state’s entire congressional delegation that signed the brief). In a way, I was glad about that. Though Baird was absolutely wrong to do what he did, I couldn’t help but admire him. Here’s a guy who acquired a B.S. and a M.S. degree from Purdue in animal science, went to fight in Vietnam and lost his left arm (Bronze Star and two Purple Hearts), and after he returned from the war, he obtained a Ph.D. from the University of Kentucky in monogastric nutrition (not totally sure what that’s all about I’ll admit).
Don’t get me wrong – I agree with this man politically on absolutely nothing, and the fact that he signed onto that brief should haunt him for the rest of his life. But why on earth someone with Baird’s courage, determination and intelligence should feel any inclination whatsoever to support a lying, narcissistic fraud like the Gropenfuhrer is something I will never, ever understand.
As I did some digging into the backgrounds of these characters, one thing became pretty obvious. While I admit that I didn’t have time to research Dems such as, say, Pelosi, Jim Clyburn, Jerry Nadler, Adam Schiff, etc., I found out pretty quick that these 126 people have videos of themselves on YouTube all over the place saying or doing every somewhat important and/or utterly mundane thing you can imagine. If nothing else, it definitely supported the argument from Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez that the Repugs are cleaning the Dems’ metaphorical clocks when it comes to social media engagement. There’s no excuse for that whatsoever.
And as for what I found out, I give you some of the following highlights (or lowlights):
Am I nuts to embark on something like this? Maybe, particularly since, when I started, I had no idea whatsoever what I would find. But I decided to take my best shot, and I tracked down some of my old links along with a few videos (in particular, the one with Poppy Harlow/Lance Gooden is a hoot, and kudos to Harlow), as well as at least one Facebook post, a couple of newspaper columns about these traitors (Ralph Abraham wanted to expel Nancy Pelosi from the U.S. House for allegedly conducting a “vicious crusade” against Our Dear Exalted High Leader Donald The First (here). Kevin Brady called for a probe as a result of the New York Times’ story this year on Trump’s tax returns...but not a probe aimed at Trump. Instead, Brady wanted to go after the paper for getting Trump’s returns in the first place (here). Ted Budd questioned Richard Cordray, who once ran the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, saying there was a “revolving door” between the “K” street lobbying firms and the CFPB...when, in reality, Budd had already hired lobbyists for staffers (as usual, a Repug looks into a mirror and sees everyone’s reflection but his or her own – here). Drew Ferguson’s congressional office once displayed a book by Confederate General Robert E. Lee espousing Lee’s pro-slavery beliefs (and of course, Ferguson threw his staff under the metaphorical bus for the book’s existence – here). Mike Johnson of Louisiana took advantage of an exception in that state’s law that allowed him to make “tens of thousands of dollars” as part of the legal team representing the state in a federal court trial over abortion clinic restrictions (doesn’t appear to be illegal, but also doesn’t pass the smell test as far as yours truly is concerned – here). Kenny Marchant of Texas was cited for “20 impermissible reimbursements made over the years from his campaign account to some of his House staffers for expenditures they made” ("It's not a huge amount of money, but he should know better," according to the Democratic activist who wrote the complaint asking for an investigation from the Office of Congressional Ethics – here). Dan Meuser once said the “liberal left” replaced ISIS as the “greatest threat” (and yeah, I don’t give a damn what kind of mealy-mouthed attempt at cleaning up that mess Meuser or his spokesperson came up with – that’s clearly what he meant...here). Gregory Murphy didn’t go that far, but he did claim support from his congressional predecessor in North Carolina, the late Walter Jones, that Jones’ widow said Murphy didn’t merit (of all Congressional Republicans, the one I actually respected was Jones, who had no problem going against the grain, as it were; would that more followed his example – here). Pete Stauber, as a former St. Louis County, MN commissioner, once used a private account “to seek damaging information about U.S. Rep. Rick Nolan's voting history and forwarded negative information about another potential opponent to a Republican operative in Washington,” which became public after a judge ruled that the communications (which Stauber said were private) had to be disclosed since they took place on “the taxpayer dime” (BUT HIS EMAILS!!!! – here). Brad Wenstrup had what I guess you could call a peculiar theory about former President Obama working with former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev on the issue of missile defense...with Obama doing so by allegedly backing a pro-US coup in Ukraine on Russia’s border (yeah, it’s hard to untangle the idiocy on this I’ll admit...here).
(Also, as long as I’m mentioning Daily Kos, I should note that, in one of their posts, they called out one of the 126 for “defunding the police” for real by not voting for the HEROES Act, which funded public sector employees including cops. And I thought that was a freaking brilliant response that Dems should have used when Repugs attacked them with the “defund the police” thing. I don’t know how much that was used by the alleged Dem “brain trust,” but I have a feeling that it was hardly used at all, and it should have been used EVERYWHERE! - Update 2/26/21: It was linked to in the Greg Steube Daily Kos post, which I've since updated).
So, without any further ado, here are links to varying degrees of bad behavior from the “hateful 126”:
*-reps of states who, based on signing onto the brief, apparently want to get their own election results overturned - genius!
(I think I got all the state abbreviations right, but I may have messed up a couple...sorry.)
As I said, I took this thing personally (a nod to Prof. Marcus from many years ago). These cowards were trying to mess with MY VOTE, as a resident of the beloved commonwealth of PA. It never should have happened in the first place, and it should NEVER, EVER HAPPEN AGAIN!
Update: I probably should have anticipated this, but some of the linked content (such as the story on Chuck Fleischmann) is behind paywalls. You may be able to get around that on a desktop or an iPad or similar device, but it's a problem for smart phones. I'll try to update these spots with new links, but I can't guarantee anything.
Update 12/27/20: Apparently Walter Einekel of Daily Kos was doing something very similar - kudos (here).
Update 12/30/20: And somehow, I have a feeling that there's a lot of overlap between this list and this one.
Update 2/8/21: I'm sorry this man died of COVID - I'm sorry ANYONE has died of COVID - but I don't think Wright's role here should be automatically forgotten either.
Update 9/13/22: Jackie Walorski died in an auto accident (here) - my sympathies.
