Red State grift

The Tennessee Three have been in the news this past week. The TN house speaker expelled two black legislators for speaking about gun violence on the floor of the chamber. Admittedly, using a bullhorn, but not during a session. Besides Sexton hadn’t allowed them to speak while in session.

Anyway, Cameron Sexton is getting more attention than he’d like. Appears he may not actually reside in the district he was voted to represent.

https://popular.info/p/where-does-the-tennessee-house-speaker

(https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-65206459)
"Tennessee statehouse expels Democrats for gun control protest"
--------------------------------------------

..."The so-called 'Tennessee Three' took to the House floor chanting 'no action, no peace' during a protest on 30 March, which also saw hundreds of pro-gun control demonstrators converge on the statehouse.

"Mr Jones, 27, and Mr Pearson, 28, used a megaphone and banged on the House lectern as they made rousing speeches and addressed the protesters who crowded around the chamber's public viewing platform.

" 'We don't want to be up here, but we have no choice but to find a way... to disrupt business as normal, because business as normal is our children dying,' Mr Pearson said.

"The chamber's proceedings were brought to a standstill for nearly an hour.

"All three also chanted 'enough is enough' and 'power to the people'. Political analysists said Ms Johnson may have been spared expulsion because she did not use a megaphone." ...

(emphasis added)

LOL!! "Power to the people!"? These are state legislators!, for crying out loud. This was a stupid stunt which had "morons" written all over it.

RE: "Admittedly, using a bullhorn, but not during a session."

Now, read the excerpt above and explain how their acts, which resulted in "The chamber's proceedings (being) brought to a standstill for nearly an hour", were not disruptive, not in violation of the chamber's rules of decorum, were not such as to render them subject to some disciplinary action from their assembly's authorities-- whether or not the hair-splitting claim that "the chamber was not in session" was true or not. Their expulsion has struck some observers--even some who are not reflexively favorable to these stupid people-- as excessive. But it seems that these three intened to leave no alternative to their being physically removed by the chamber's sergeant-at-arms. They were clearly looking forward to that and to using it as a means to stir up anger among their supporters. This was a planned move to play to the news media--which was predictably there to do what they wanted: create a controversy where no cause for one had existed. This is a sign of our truly stupid times.

ABC News report on the incident (includes scenes taking place on the chamber floor) | "3 Tennessee state lawmakers at risk of expulsion over gun protest" | 31K views 5 days ago | ABC News

>2 proximity1: Come back when you're going to talk about kicking Maggie Greene out of the House for her disruptive behavior. Until then, I'm calling this bullshit.

I never "talked about" (advocated) the expulsion of the three idiots expelled from their assembly seats. That expulsion came by a vote of the chamber and I'd never heard of any of these three fools until their stunt and expulsion made them news.

Now, to turn to your challenge that I denounce Marjorie Taylor Greene, that, again, was the business of the House of Representatives to handle. A vote to censure was moved and the vote taken. It failed to pass. You're welcome to try calling for a vote on a motion to expel her. (On the slim chance that you give a damn about legal procedure and fair play.) And the House members are welcome to try passing such a motion.

"Voting to expel requires the concurrence of two-thirds of the members. This is set out in Article 1, Section 5, Clause 2 of the United States Constitution." (Wikipedia | "Expulsion from the United States Congress")


People like you have done much to make this country's present-day mess.

Prox retains his Trump era tunnel vision. He neither recognizes nor cares about the big picture that is unfolding in 2020's America.

I'm not sure he's even understanding what he's replying to, actually.

The Blue-State Grift that keeps on Giving
-----------------------------------

The Entire Left-hand panel at the home-page of RealClearPolitics
is a portrait of Idiot-Biden's America:

Wednesday, 12 April, 2023
Just another day in the America of Biden's Dysfunctional Demented Delusion:

Election 2024

Sen. Tim Scott Announces Presidential Exploratory Committee
HA!-HA! Scott shan't be the nominee; doesn't matter; more non-news fluff from the stupid MSM

Trump: I Don't Think Biden Can Run--"There's Something Wrong"
HA!-HA!
Trump is right again. The fact is, Democrats must now try to figure out how to nominate an actual, genuine duck--a real duck which limps.
Because that pathetic spectacle has a better chance to win than does Biden.

Democrats Choose Chicago as the Site of the 2024 Convention
HA!-HA!
The "Basket of Deplorables"-wielding party decides to hold its nominating convention in one of its famous basket-case cities. They had many from which to choose. Democratic Party | "Democrats Choose to Advertise Failures of Single-Party Democratic Rule by Holding the 2024 DNC in Chicago" | After a century of Democratic mismanagement, Chicago is hemorrhaging population, catastrophically underfunding massive pension promises, and taxing the bejeebus out of its crime-scarred residents. | Matt Welch | 4.11.2023 6:15 PM

HA!-HA!
Conway Worries GOP Won't Be Able To Stop Dem "Turnout FRAUD Machine"

Biden Administration
HA!-HA!
Ex-WH Stenographer Says FBI Ignored Info Implicating Biden
HA!-HA!
Biden Administration Doesn't Know Extent of Pentagon Document Leak

U.S. BIDEN-Wrecked Economy
HA!-HA!
Consumer Prices Rise Moderately in March; Underlying Inflation Still Hot
HA!-HA!
First-Quarter Earnings Expected To Fall as Inflation Squeezes Margins
HA!-HA!
Downtown San Francisco Whole Foods Closing a Year After Opening Due to Crime

Analysis & Commentary

HA!-HA! "Better-late-than -never(?)"
Younes: Censorship Regime on Trial

HA!-HA!
Goldstone: It's High Time for Term Limits on the Supreme Court --another Constitutional tenet is under threat. Stupidity knows no bounds.
HA!-HA!
Holland: Anyone Can See Where the Real "Hatred" Is Coming From -- Yep. from the Idiot Left. (tm.)
HA!-HA!
Schaffer: Sorry, Jon Stewart--America Needs Crossfire Again (Jon Stewart finally becomes "funny"-- but not for reasons he'd like to admit.
HA!-HA!
Haldane: Stuck in a "Doom Loop" of Insuring Risky Behavior. More of America's "method madness".

P.S.

HA!-HA!
At visit to Ireland's County Louth, President Dumb-Ass, Joe Biden, raising hand and waving, hails and salutes toward ancient stone-fortification's wall.

HA!-HA! :

... "Two million people fled America’s largest cities from 2020 to 2022, new research shows, signaling that a retreat from urban centers to suburbs, exurbs and smaller cities in the early months of the pandemic has hardened into an enduring and potentially worrisome trend.

"More than 1.2 million people left the nation’s large urban counties between July 2020 and July 2021, according to a report published this month by the Economic Innovation Group, a bipartisan public policy organization. Another 860,000 people departed between July 2021 and July 2022.

"Only a fresh influx of immigrants saved big cities from dramatic population declines. Even with the immigrants, 17 of the nation’s 25 largest counties suffered population losses between April 2020 and July 2022, according to census data tabulated by The Hill.

“ 'The metros, as a group, lost population for the first time since at least 1990, and probably for decades before that,' said William Frey, a demographer at the Brookings Institution.

"The historic exodus, combined with chronic office vacancies and surging crime, pose profound and potentially existential challenges to America’s great cities." ...

This topic isn't about the misuse of taxpayer funds and public property for the personal benefit of Republicans in control of their state governments? Oh, well.

Hypothesis confirmed.

>7 proximity1: What a babble of pointless noise. To pull one thing out:

Goldstone: It's High Time for Term Limits on the Supreme Court --another Constitutional tenet is under threat. Stupidity knows no bounds.

Yeah, how about the stupidity that believes that the Constitution is immutable (thought it was designed not to be) and is the best way because it was the only way. Weren't we talking about this on the definition of conservativism? This is the essence of the definition that conservativism is blindly resisting change.

>8 aspirit: >9 kiparsky: >10 prosfilaes:

Fucking laughable shit.

First you're for packing the court with your ideas of the "right-minded"
Justices; but you can't: you don't have the votes for that. So, then, your solution is to impose term-limits on the Justices--those yet to be appointed. But you can't do that either for the same reason: you don't have the necessary votes.

Yeah-- you lot are going to amend the Constitution's provisions for SCotUS Justices' terms of service for life or until their voluntary retirement.

yeah. Do that, big shots.
I'll wait.

Can't live under the Constitution, can't amend it. Too damn bad for you.

I guess the Lefties have decided to amuse us. So they've made themselves ridiculous to achieve that end. HA!-HA!
"Job done!"

So anyway, returning to the subject, this seems like another case of the nutbag right's trusty footgun at work. If they'd left it alone, they'd have been fine. Instead, they decided to blow it up, which not only showed off not only that they're a bunch of authoritarian goons, but also their core racism flopped out on the table for everyone to see. This is obviously not gonna help them much in building a coalition that can actually win votes, so I guess we can look forward to more boo-hoo bullshit whining about "stolen elections" from the party which is rapidly becoming a bastion of people old enough to remember when Republicans could win electoral majorities.

TN Speaker Cameron Sexton’s residency issue and travel expenses has been firmed up with more investigation:

The speaker of the Tennessee House of Representatives, which recently expelled two young Black lawmakers who have since been returned to office, is also in trouble. Judd Legum of Popular Information first chased down that speaker Cameron Sexton is living in Nashville rather than the district he represents.

With more digging, Legum has turned up that Sexton apparently bought a $600,000 home in Nashville and hid that purchase, keeping his name off the documents and keeping his wife’s signature obscure. He has argued that he could legally continue to represent Crossville, his alleged place of residence, because so long as he has a “definite intention of returning,” Tennessee law okays lawmakers living elsewhere. But the purchase of a $600,000 home in Nashville seems like a pretty permanent abandonment of Crossville.

Legum also notes that Sexton has been drawing $313 a day to commute back to his district while he is not, in fact, commuting back to his district. Since 2021, he has claimed $92,071 in expenses, likely enough to cover his mortgage.

Summarized on Heather Cox Richardson’s blog.

Florida GOP chair and his wife, co-founder of Moms for Liberty have been accused of participating in an ongoing ménage a trois. Hmmmm.

Florida GOP Chair Christian Ziegler, husband of Moms For Liberty cofounder, accused of sexual battery by alleged menage a trois lover

https://www.wmnf.org/florida-gop-chair-christian-ziegler-husband-of-moms-for-lib...

>14 2wonderY: It's for sure hypocrisy but so often these conservatives are railing against things that they fantasize about. Like their secret trial and tribulation battles need to be spoken about even if obliquely to an audience.....even better a large audience. Back in the 60's and 70's you would call this shit hang ups. How many anti-gay conservative preachers or politicians over the years have been caught up in such a scandal? A lot. The more loud and belligerent is almost like the signal sometimes.......and then their followers are like somewhere between WTF! and we have to forgive them but never really questioning how dumb their ideas are in the first place.

I suppose a menage a trois which includes rape and sexual battery could become the new face of conservative "family values".

The vice chair of the Georgia Republican Party voted illegally nine times while on probation for check forgery, a judge ruled this week.

Brian Pritchard, the first vice chair of the Georgia Republican Party, was ordered Wednesday to pay $5,000 in civil penalties and be “publicly reprimanded” by the State Election Board for his conduct, Administrative Law Judge Lisa Boggs said in a ruling shared with The Hill.

https://thehill.com/homenews/state-watch/4562308-georgia-republican-party-vice-c...

FBI agents execute search warrant on Tennessee Congressman Andy Ogles

https://www.newschannel5.com/news/newschannel-5-investigates/revealed/fbi-agents...

FBI agents executed a search warrant late last week on Tennessee Congressman Andy Ogles as the first-term Republican faces continuing scrutiny over fraudulent campaign financial reports that he filed, NewsChannel 5 has confirmed.

https://www.newschannel5.com/news/newschannel-5-investigates/revealed/he-doesnt-...

(Ben) Sasse’s spending spree: Former UF president channeled millions to GOP allies, secretive contracts

https://www.alligator.org/article/2024/08/sasse-s-spending-spree-former-uf-presi...
——-
Whew!

Far-right MAGA lawmaker finally acknowledges 'previously undisclosed six-figure loan'

https://www.alternet.org/andy-ogles-campaign-finance/

"On his 2023 U.S. House financial disclosure form, filed on September13," Friedman explains, "Ogles listed for the first time a loan worth between $500,001 to $1 million from FirstBank in September of 2022. The one-term congressman failed to disclose this on previous forms, a fact noted by Nashville NewsChannel 5 in November 2023, when it first reported on the loan."
...
"Ogles told the public in a news release during the start of the campaign that he raised $450,000, but in reality, Ogles raised around $250,000 and claimed to loan his campaign $320,000," Friedman notes. "His claim of an early cash haul and his promise to use personal funds helped him secure support from conservatives on his way to winning a crowded 2022 Republican primary."

Friedman adds, "In May 2024, he amended campaign finance reports for the prior two years, stating that he had only loaned $20,000 to his campaign."

This was a book promotion interview!

CNN says Melania Trump publisher asked for $250K fee in response to interview request
(They also were expected to sign an NDA)

https://thehill.com/homenews/media/4913965-cnn-melania-trump-interview-request-f...

They declined.

Nevada Republican convicted of taking money meant for officer memorial

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/nevada-republican-convicted-of-taking-money-me...

A Nevada politician was found guilty of taking money meant for a memorial honoring a police officer killed in the line of duty and spending it on plastic surgery, rent and her daughter’s wedding.

A federal jury on Thursday convicted Michele Fiore, a Republican justice of the peace and former Las Vegas City Council member, of six counts of wire fraud and one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud. Fiore, 54, is scheduled to be sentenced on Jan. 6 and faces up to 140 years in prison — 20 for each count.

Arizona’s Corporation Commission, responsible for setting utility rates, are courting Wall Street investors rather than protecting the citizenry.

https://www.motherjones.com/environment/2024/10/arizona-corporations-commission-...

'Missing' GOP Congresswoman Kay Granger found living in Texas assisted living facility for dementia patients

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-14218017/missing-GOP-congresswoman-Kay-...

Carlos Turcios, a reporter for a local outlet, started to do some research by contacting her offices which never once responded to calls, going directly to voicemail.

Granger's constituency office was also a complete ghost town upon a visit, with no signs of anyone working there.

Eventually, one of Granger's constituents suggested to the Dallas Express that the Congresswoman was living in an assisted living facility.
…
'A sad and humiliating way to end her political career. Sad that nobody cared enough to “take away the keys” before she reached this moment and a sad commentary on the congressional gerontocracy.'

The Congresswoman and her staff presumably continue to take in their taxpayer-funded salaries.

Original report:
https://dallasexpress.com/tarrant/exclusive-where-is-congresswoman-kay-granger/

Kay Granger’s Dementia (Famiy Wealth Dispute)

https://www.caclubindia.com/money/news/kay-granger/

Since being diagnosed with dementia, her children have been embroiled in a legal battle over her extensive property portfolio, including multiple estates in Texas. The case is currently pending in Tarrant County Probate Court, with allegations of mismanagement and undue influence complicating the proceedings.