Kyrsten Sinema, Arizona psychopath pretending to be a Democrat for now and Madison Cawthorn, likely the only politician in Congress who-- minute by minute-- out-lies Trump every day, are both in the news again. I flipped a coin (literally) and Cawthorn was tails and tails won. So he goes first. He's suing the North Carolina State Board of Elections, each member individually, because 11 voters are suing to have him disqualified from the reelection ballot this year in his new district. Having announced Trump is like a father to him, he's demanding that the inquiry into his role in planning and encouraging Trump's attempted coup and insurrection, be halted immediately. (He claims he talks to Trump, "every single day.")
Gary Robertson, writing for the Associated Press, reported that Cawthorn's federal lawsuit "says the state’s candidate challenge process violates his constitutional rights and should be overturned. His lawyers also cite as nonapplicable a post-Civil War amendment to the Constitution that prohibits members of Congress who have engaged in an insurrection to continue serving... The 14th Amendment says, in part, that no one can serve in Congress 'who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress... to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same.' The amendment was aimed in part at preventing congressmen who had fought on the Confederate side during the Civil War from returning to Congress."
He said the amendment provision and North Carolina candidate challenge law are “being used as a weapon by liberal Democrats to attempt to defeat our democracy by having state bureaucrats, rather than the people, choose who will represent North Carolina in Congress.”
“I’m defending not only my rights, but the right of the people to democratically elect their representatives,” he said.
Nearly a dozen voters urged the State Board of Elections to disqualify Cawthorn as a candidate, saying he fails to comply with the portion of the 14th Amendment pertaining to insurrections. Cawthorn’s speech at the rally supporting then-President Donald Trump, his other comments and information in published reports provide a “reasonable suspicion or belief” that he helped facilitate the insurrection, the challenge reads.
Under state law, the five-member state board must create a special panel of county board members from the new 13th Congressional District that Cawthorn plans to run in. The panel is required to conduct a hearing that ideally will be completed within four weeks. State judges have put formation of the panel on hold, however, while redistricting litigation is pending.
The lawsuit, filed against the board in Raleigh federal court Monday, says the candidate investigation law violates Cawthorn’s right to run for political office because it is triggered by a “reasonable suspicion” of wrongdoing and shifts the burden of proof away from his accusers.
“Here, Rep. Cawthorn is required to produce countervailing evidence to prove a negative,” says the lawsuit, signed in part by James Bopp, a longtime Indiana-based elections lawyer connected to conservative causes.
The U.S. House “is the exclusive judge of the qualifications of its members,” the lawsuit says. An 1872 federal law removed office-holding disqualifications for most Confederates but kept the prohibition in part for those who served in only a couple of specific sessions of Congress. The 14th Amendment provision cited by the voters who are protesting Cawthorn’s candidacy states that Congress can vote to remove such disqualifications. Therefore, the provision doesn’t apply to Cawthorn, according to the lawsuit.
Cawthorn also seeks a preliminary injunction preventing enforcement of the law...
Ron Fein, legal director of Free Speech for People and a lawyer representing the North Carolina voters who filed the challenge, said he will oppose Cawthorn’s lawsuit in court. Cawthorn’s “attempt to bypass the state’s well-developed procedures for resolving candidacy challenges is based on misunderstandings of federal and state law,” Fein said in an emailed statement.
Cawthorn, a close ally of Trump, said last month in an interview that he stands by his Jan. 6 actions, particularly his objection to the certifications of the presidential election.
OK, so that was the deranged fascist. The corrupt conservative-- also utterly deranged-- is Kyrsten Sinema, one of two senators, the other being Joe Manchin, who killed Build Back Better and voted to keep the Jim Crow filibuster in place. What a monstrosity. When Chuck Schumer picked her for the Senate, she was head of the House Blue Dogs and was sporting the single worst voting record of any Democrat in the House. And the tragedy is that that is why Schumer picked her. That's why he picks all his crappy candidates, the vast majority of whom lose.
The most recent polling (2 weeks ago) shows that Sinema has virtually no chance of winning a Democratic primary in Arizona. Democratic voters hate her guts. 76% of primary voters have an unfavorable view of her. There is no demographic group that has a positive view of her, not even self-described moderates. Everyone hates her. And they would all prefer any over her.
So... it should come as no surprise that even while corporate PAC contributions have gone through the roof since she betrayed the Democratic Party, grassroots donations have almost entirely evaporated. Just 2% of her massive fundraising haul came from small dollar donors ($200 or less). She's "seen her small-dollar donations grind to a near halt." She is now widely considered-- because of the legalistic bribes she's taking from special interests-- to be one of the most corrupt members of Congress (even when you include Republicans). Speaking of Republicans... they are giving her thousands of dollars in gratitude to her for tanking Biden's entire legislative agenda. So, overall... who do you think is worse, Sinema or Cawthorn?
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