Earlier Thursday, I sent this photo around to some of my friends (I do still have a few out there) with the caption: All You Need to Know About the GOP.
Turns out I would be proven so very wrong before the sun went down.
And wouldn’t you know it took a couple of Louisiana natives like Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council (FRC), and House Minority Whip Rep. Steve Scalise to do it – with a little help from the FBI’s raid on Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago.
Before I get too far into this subject, let me offer a disclaimer. I’m certainly no fan of the FBI after what it pulled on LSU professor Steven Hatfield in its BOTCHED INVESTIGATION of those anthrax letters 20 years ago or how it destroyed the career – and life – of Richard Jewell in wrongly naming him a suspect in the Atlanta CENTENNIAL OLYMPIC PARK bombing in 1996.
It’s kind of hard to overlook screwups of such tragic magnitude.
But the raid on Mar-a-Lago was not carried out on the FBI’s initiative. It was not the work of a “rouge” agency, as the US Representative from Louisiana’s 1st Congressional District would have us believe.
Nor was the raid necessarily a reflection of the FBI’s political politization as claimed by Baton Rouge native and head of what has recently been officially designated as a church Tony “Tattoo” Perkins. (A former Marine, he dislikes having attention called to the tattoo he got during his military days – which is why I bring it up because…well, I’m just that way.)
So, while I’m on the subject of FRC President Tattoo Perkins, let’s just go ahead and get his observations on the raid out of the way because his tirade was briefer than that of Scalise.
Perkins, you will remember is the one who said natural disasters like Katrina were God’s punishment for our debauchery and was His way of trying to get our attention. (That was, of course, before Perkins’s own home was submerged in the flood of 2016.)
About the Raid on Trump’s Mar-a-Lago, Perkins tweeted his opposition. “Who trusts the FBI to pursue justice?” he asked. “The agency has become so politicized that even if their actions were justified half the nation still would not trust them.”
Okay, that’s a fair question, given my own suspicions after the Hatfield and Jewell debacles.
But wait. Remember the IRS has officially recognized the FRC as a church, which was already a tax-exempt entity. The church recognition throws up additional shields against having to reveal who its financial supporters are. BUT, with that recognition goes a prohibition against getting involved in partisan politics at the risk of losing that tax-exempt status.
It somehow seems to me that Perkins is treading dangerously close to the edge of that prohibition with inflammatory remarks like that.
I’m all about freedom of expression but when you hide behind the tax-exempt status by calling yourself a church, you necessarily forfeit some of those rights just as do certain other non-profits.
Rev. FRANKLIN GRAHAM said pretty much the same thing, lamenting, “Thirty years ago the FBI lost a lot of credibility over the unfortunate events that surrounded Ruby Ridge. Last night as we watched the events that unfolded at Mar-a-Lago, I couldn’t help but think that the FBI and DOJ are losing credibility and the trust of the American people again.”
Also a fair observation. But then Graham went a bit further. “I have no idea what was in former President Trump’s safe, but if the government thought there was something there that belonged to them, they certainly could have asked for it.”
Um…fact is, Rev., they did. The issued subpoenas months ago and Trump simply ignored them.
And of course, that OTHER GRAHAM, Sen. Lindsey, demanded that Attorney General Merrick Garland ‘splain himself and justify the raid.
Um…fact is, Lap Dog Lindsey, Garland did in fact say in no uncertain terms on Thursday that he personally signed off on the raid and asked that the court UNSEAL THE SEARCH WARRANT and property receipt and make them public. He gave Trump until 3 p.m. Friday to FILE AN OBJECTION to unsealing the warrant.
Now let’s turn our attention to Thursday’s rant by House Minority Whip STEVE SCALISE on Fox & Friends. You’d never know the man was up for reelection after hearing his half-crazed put-down of the FBI. Then again, given the lily-white uber-conservative district he represents in Jefferson Parish, maybe you would.
No matter. His histrionics Thursday just did not seem to coalesce with the law-and-order message of the former Repugnantcan Party. Rather, he seemed to serve as an echo chamber for the mob that attacked and beat Capitol police on that fateful day in early January 2021 and for those who are now screaming for defunding and dismantling the FBI and issuing death threats against its agents.
“…[I]t concerns everybody if you see some agents go rogue and if you see an agency that doesn’t have the right checks and balances at the top. This is coming from the top.”
“Who went rogue?” asked Fox & Friends co-host Steve Doocy. “They were following a search warrant.”
“We want to find that out,” Scalise replied.
The Washington Post pounced on the obvious contradiction so evident in the mindset of Repugnantcans like Scalise – evident to everyone but Repugnantcans like Scalise, that is.
“When members of the Supreme Court faced threats after the decision to overturn Roe v. Wade,” the paper pointed out, “Scalise was among Republicans who criticized that response. In fact, he did so on ‘Fox & Friends’, calling for House Democrats to bring to a vote legislation protecting justices. (They did so; it became law.)
“’Any kind of federal judges are not, by law, allowed to be threatened that way,’ Scalise said then, ‘and yet the Justice Department won’t take action. They need to. This is a real concern.’
“The difference is obvious: Who’s making the threats. Threats against Supreme Court justices and protests at their houses (violating a legal statute and spurring Scalise’s excoriation of the Justice Department) came from advocates of abortion access, largely on the left, The Post said.
“Threats against the FBI and those involved in the Mar-a-Lago search are coming from the right. From Scalise’s base. And just as Republicans spent weeks playing along with Trump’s false claims about the election after November 2020, Republicans are now playing along with his insistence that the search is necessarily partisan and illegitimate.”
In poker vernacular, by asking the court to unseal the warrant, Garland has called the bet. Is Trump bluffing? It’s put-up or shut-up time for the former guy. Who will blink first?
Louisiana Voice 
trump and his useful idiots know their crowd. They always try to quickly mischaracterize these things publicly to incite their zealots. No one in that crowd will pay attention to the “legal” outcome of the investigation, even if he tells them to. But… I have noticed evidence that what’s left of the rational part of his supporters ARE paying attention, and I suspect it may be more than enough to undo him. Don’t hold your breath for many of them to make their turn from trump public because the penalties for that have been made painfully clear.
The outcome of the investigations will almost certainly overcome the political hubris he generates. Then we can see how the useful idiots see their future after their kingpin is gone.
Who blinks first? Trump! Poor little manchild…
As bad as Trump is – and he’s arguably the worst thing that has ever happened to America – by himself he’s just a severely emotionally damaged individual stroking his pathetic ego. It’s the millions of utterly bankrupt hypocrites making endless excuses for him who are the real problem. Right now they’re backing someone who seeks adoration because mommy and daddy are never going to come back and tell him what a good boy he is. But someone like Ron DeSantis has a truly horrifying agenda. If the fascist mob moves on to DeSantis they’ll make the last six years seem like Sesame Street. And if the rest of us wait for that to happen it’ll be too late to save America. No one wants to hear it. No one wants to think about it. But this won’t get resolved through elections because they no longer respect the outcome of elections. The only way any of this is ever going to get resolved is through violence. Don’t believe me? Try to imagine any current Repugnicant – politician or voter – backing away from their extremism, eating some humble pie, compromising with Democrats for the common good. Try to imagine any of them adopting the middle ground after losing elections. Can’t? That’s exactly my point. There’s only one ending to this story. It’s just a question of when.
You’ve jumped the shark. When you start defending this anarchy then it’s time to retire.
…no surprise that you defend your boy from the same “anarchy” he routinely committed.
Whoa! Can’t agree with Mr. Spillman, although his logic is accurate until the results (violence). Watch “Don’t look up” on net flix. These propaganda wars are entertaining but cannot match my former Commander,who is 94, a WWII vet, playing the Army Song on his pocket trumpet at our luncheon. Go top gun, ron thompson
The inevitable violence to come won’t look like 1860 with armies on the battlefield. It will be domestic terrorism and insurrection on a scale that makes the late 60s look like an afternoon tea. It’s already begun. It’s just not yet a daily horror.
Here’s what is truly disgusting: The fact that 2 of our most powerful members of Congress, Scalise and Kennedy, are totally slavish in their devotion to the Republican Party and are willing to rationalize any and everything negative about the penultimate POTUS. IF the corner is ever turned and most people wake up to who DJT is and what the Republican Party has become, it will be too late for those who lick his boots on a daily basis and place their own power above the unity this country needs to survive. None of these turncoats will ever get my vote, ever.
I sincerely hope Paul Spillman is wrong, but there is certainly enough evidence to support his theory. The second most disgusting thing is the number of people who are too blind to see that evidence and fear its potential consequences.
P. S. There is no point in belaboring who and what DJT is – it just gives him relevance and makes him happy since he knows his base will support him until the ship of state goes down – and, probably even after – and that as long as we all talk about him he retains power.
You are right to blame Scalise and Kennedy and that ilk. When politicians sell out it provides cover for the extremists to act. As the country descends into domestic terrorism and insurrection opportunists like Scalise and Kennedy will excuse violence as necessary or as a legitimate response to “socialism” or whatever straw man argument works. They’re already making excuses. They’re not going to stop. It’s the road they’ve chosen and that road is single lane, one way. It will only get worse. It is truly disgusting. But I believe it’s too big an “if” to think enough Americans will ever hold them accountable. I think we missed that turn on January 6, 2021 and there’s no going back now. I take no pleasure in writing it. I just don’t see any other future that looks more likely than that one.
AMERICA IS GOING TO HELL UNDER THIS DEMOCRATIC REGIME.
Sent from Mailhttps://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=550986 for Windows
Well… the last one got us to the doorstep.
Crawpaw, You might at least send us a link we could open.
crawpaw, wipe your chin and learn when to be quiet