Category: Anger

Rand Paul says Republicans will investigate Fauci if they retake the Senate, escalating a long-running personal feud

https://www.businessinsider.com/rand-paul-gop-investigate-fauci-wins-senate-2022-2

Fauci accuses Sen. Paul of sparking death threats.

  • Sen. Rand Paul said Republicans would subpoena Fauci if they win the Senate in the mid-terms. 
  • Paul and Fauci have engaged in bitter exchanges at Senate hearings.
  • Paul has pushed unsubstantiated claims that funds approved by Fauci may have helped create COVID. 

Sen. Rand Paul said that Republicans will subpoena chief White House medical advisor Dr Anthony Fauci if they take control of the Senate in the mid-term elections. 

The Kentucky Republican is a member of the Senate Health, Education, Labor & Pensions Committee. He stands to be nominated as chairman of the panel if Republicans win the Senate in November, securing him the power to launch investigations and issue subpoenas. 

“If we win in November, if I’m chairman of a committee, if I have subpoena power, we’ll go after every one of [Fauci’s] records,” Paul said during an interview with anti-vax podcaster Lisa Boothe.

“We’ll have an investigator go through this piece by piece because we don’t need this to happen again.”

Paul, a physician, and Fauci have clashed in a series of heated exchanges in Senate hearings.

Paul, often trafficking in conspiracy theories and disinformation, has criticised Fauci on measures he has advocated to contain the virus.

His attacks have focussed on Fauci’s tenure as head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), and often rely on speculation that funding Fauci approved to a lab in Wuhan, China, may have been used to create the coronavirus.

Fauci has denied that the funding was for so-called “gain of function” research, or research into making diseases more contagious. 

The origin of the virus has not been established, with China blocking attempts to investigate the source of the pandemic. Many experts believe that the theory it originated in a lab is spurious and it most likely originated in nature, though others say it is plausible. 

In a particularly embittered exchange in January, Fauci said that Paul’s baseless attacks “kindle the crazies” who threaten and harass him and his family. He said Paul was seeking to exploit the pandemic for political gain. 

At hearing last July, Fauci said “you do not know what you’re talking about” to Paul, and accused him of “lying”, after the senator tried to draw connections between research in China partly funded by NIAID and the coronavirus. 

Paul had at a hearing earlier in the year accused Fauci of indulging in “theater” by wearing a mask after having gotten vaccinated, and Fauci responded that vaccines don’t offer protection against all variants. 

Fauci has become a hate figure for some on the right, with many Republicans rallying around opposition to federal government measures to control the virus.

Some Republican supporters have embraced fringe anti-vaccine views and conspiracy theories about the virus.

So Republican 101 normal behavior, when in power attack and try to destroy anyone who you dislike.  The right hates Dr. Fauci because they cannot discredit him, he points out their misinformation and lies.  I hate that this is the Republican idea of governing.  How does this help the country?  Why vote them into office if this is their goal?  Remember that Rand Paul is making big money on Covid treatment drugs, and he fud raises off his attacks on Dr. Fauci.  So he is putting his personal profit ahead of saving lives.  

Twitter Wits Have Suggestions For Donald Trump’s New DJ Gig At Mar-a-Lago

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/donald-trump-mar-a-lago-dj-twitter_n_61fdac6be4b0f8a1b844730d

“I fought the Law (and the law won). Please, please play that one,” joked one.

Former President Donald Trump may have found his true calling: DJing at Mar-a-Lago, cranking up “amazing” music, and busting loose until the very “late evening.”

That’s what he promised he’ll be doing Friday and Saturday in a statement sent to Mar-a-Lago members and shared by New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman.

Critics groaned, imagining an endless loop of Trump’s rally favorites, like (ironically) “YMCA.”

 
https://twitter.com/richardtafoya/status/1489727256368857089?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1489727256368857089%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es1_c10&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.huffpost.com%2Fentry%2Fdonald-trump-mar-a-lago-dj-twitter_n_61fdac6be4b0f8a1b844730d
 

Quipsters had some other playlist suggestions:

Others had more general commentary about the former president’s weekend gig:

https://twitter.com/sonjabegonia76/status/1489731801941745669?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1489731801941745669%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es1_c10&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.huffpost.com%2Fentry%2Fdonald-trump-mar-a-lago-dj-twitter_n_61fdac6be4b0f8a1b844730d

https://twitter.com/AdamDBurstein/status/1489735103232319491?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1489735103232319491%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es1_c10&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.huffpost.com%2Fentry%2Fdonald-trump-mar-a-lago-dj-twitter_n_61fdac6be4b0f8a1b844730d

DeSantis’ Supreme Court connection

https://www.politico.com/newsletters/florida-playbook/2022/02/04/desantis-supreme-court-connection-00005583

Good Friday morning.

A legal matter — Gov. Ron DeSantis, who went to Yale and Harvard Law School, has of course, lots of strong opinions about the law and what’s constitutional, and what’s not.

Everyone’s a critic — The Republican governor even recently ripped into the U.S. Supreme Court over its decision to let a Biden administration vaccine mandate for health care workers remain intact while an underlying lawsuit proceeds. While appearing on the conservative Ruthless podcast last month, DeSantis said that both Chief Justice John Roberts and Brett Kavanaugh did not have a “backbone” when they decided to allow the mandate to stand.

Call me — Well, it turns out that DeSantis may have his own direct connection to the Supreme Court.

CC time — Emails handed over to American Oversight, a group that bills itself as a government watchdog, suggest that DeSantis is in regular contact with Justice Clarence Thomas. In June 2021, Thomas’ wife, Ginni, who runs her own consulting firm, worked with the DeSantis administration to have the governor talk to a coalition of groups, including people affiliated with Judicial Watch, the conservative organization that uses information requests and lawsuits to investigate public officials.

The pitch — In one of the emails about having DeSantis talk to “conservative patriots,” Ginni Thomas says that DeSantis should be acquainted with her for a few reasons: she interviewed him for the Daily Caller when he was in Congress, saw him at a state dinner when Donald Trump was president, and “my husband has been in contact with him too on various things of late.”

Response — POLITICO’s Matt Dixon reached out to the governor’s office about this email, but did not get a response. Helen Aguirre Ferré, the executive director of the Republican Party of Florida, responded by saying “I can’t speak about any private conversations Governor DeSantis may or may not have had with anyone but both he and Justice Thomas believe in the separation of powers and defend individual liberty, the law and the Constitution as written.”

Admirer — There’s no question DeSantis holds Thomas in high regard. Back in 2018, the governor called the justice the “gold standard for a Supreme Court appointment.” The two also appeared together at a 2020 Federalist Society conference held in Disney World where DeSantis introduced Thomas as the “greatest living justice.”

— WHERE’S RON? — Gov. DeSantis is scheduled to appear with former White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany at the Federalist Society conference being held at Disney World in Lake Buena Vista.

 

New allegations plague Florida’s controversial surgeon general

https://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/new-allegations-plague-florida-s-controversial-surgeon-general-n1288615

Dr. Joseph Ladapo’s former UCLA supervisor does not think he should be Florida’s state surgeon general.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ handpicked state surgeon general, Dr. Joseph Ladapo, is currently doing the job, but he still needs to be formally confirmed by the Republican-led state Senate. To that end, the Florida Department of Law Enforcement did a routine background investigation as part of the confirmation process.

It apparently didn’t go especially well. The Tallahassee Democrat newspaper reported yesterday that Ladapo’s former supervisor at UCLA discouraged Florida officials from hiring the controversial doctor.

“In my opinion, the people of Florida would be better served by a Surgeon General who grounds his policy decisions and recommendations on the best scientific evidence rather than opinions,” the unnamed supervisor at the University of California, Los Angeles, said in the Jan. 18 report prepared by a senior crime intelligence analyst for the Senate.

According to the local report, the UCLA supervisor added that Ladapo’s weird theories “created a stressful environment for his research and clinical colleagues and subordinates,” some of whom believed the doctor “violated the duty in the Hippocratic Oath to behave honestly and ethically.”

 

In the Florida Department of Law Enforcement report, Ladapo’s views were described as having led to “stress and acrimony among his coworkers and supervisors.”

The newspaper did not get a comment from Ladapo, but the press secretary for the Florida Department of Health “characterized Ladapo as a misunderstood visionary.”

This is not the first time Ladapo’s work at UCLA has generated scrutiny.

During his tenure, the physician claimed in a USA Today op-ed that his perspective on Covid treatments had been shaped by his experience “taking care of patients with COVID-19 at UCLA’s flagship hospital.” Two weeks later, Ladapo added in a Wall Street Journal op-ed that he had his experience “caring for patients with suspected or diagnosed Covid-19 infections at UCLA.”

Thanks to reporting from The Rachel Maddow Show, those claims have since been called into question. As my colleague Kay Guerrero explained in a report in November, “Several former colleagues of Dr. Joseph Ladapo … say he misled the public about his experience treating Covid-19 patients.”

One UCLA source also said, in reference to Ladapo, “A lot of people here at UCLA are glad that he is gone because we were embarrassed by his opinions and behavior. At the same time, we don’t wish this on the people of Florida. They don’t deserve to have someone like him making their health decisions.”

This latest reporting comes a month after Ladapo held a press conference in which he was critical of Covid testing.

A few months prior, Ladapo questioned the efficacy of Covid-19 vaccines, denounced vaccine requirements, referenced unsubstantiated conspiracy theories to argue against the vaccines, and encouraged Floridians to “stick with their intuition,” as opposed to following the guidance of public health officials who actually know what they’re talking about.

As regular readers may recall, it was around the same time when Ladapo started pushing “innovative” Covid-19 treatments with little track record of success, to the frustration of state physicians and medical experts.

Before taking office, the doctor also spent much of the pandemic questioning the value of vaccines and the efficacy of masks, while simultaneously touting ineffective treatments such as hydroxychloroquine.

It led the editorial board of the Orlando Sentinel to describe Ladapo as a “COVID crank” who’s been “associated with a right-wing group of physicians whose members include a physician who believes infertility and miscarriages are the result of having sex with demons and witches during dreams.”

Whether this might give the GOP-led state Senate in Florida pause remains to be seen. Ladapo’s nomination is scheduled to receive a vote in Tallahassee next week.

Jen Psaki humiliates Ted Cruz with perfect swipe

QAnon Flags Fly Onscreen After Fox News Describes Anti-Vax Truckers as ‘Mainstream’

https://www.thedailybeast.com/qanon-flags-fly-onscreen-after-fox-news-describes-anti-vax-truckers-as-mainstream

https://www.thedailybeast.com/qanon-flags-fly-onscreen-after-fox-news-describes-anti-vax-truckers-as-mainstream?jwsource=cl

Fox News anchor Harris Faulkner on Thursday teed up a segment on the Canadian “Freedom Convoy” by seemingly criticizing the notion that such anti-vaccine activists are “fringe,” instead claiming their beliefs have gone “mainstream.”

Moments later, the program rolled footage of such demonstrators waving flags and signs boosting the crazed far-right QAnon conspiracy theory, which centers on the belief that Donald Trump is fighting a secret cabal of Satan-worshipping pedophiliac cannibals.

During Thursday’s broadcast of The Faulkner Focus, Faulkner declared that “Canadians say this is old, we are getting bold” while discussing the most recent developments in the ongoing protest—largely spearheaded by truck drivers who refuse to get vaccinated—against the nation’s coronavirus guidelines and restrictions.

In recent days, Ottawa was essentially shut down when thousands of protesters descended upon the Canadian capital, all while loudly honking 18-wheelers created gridlock by blocking downtown streets. The mass demonstration, which began when some truckers objected to vaccine requirements for crossing the U.S.-Canada border, has since morphed into a rejection of all of the nation’s COVID-19 policies.

After noting that the “Canadian Freedom Convoy” recently blocked a border crossing into Montana, the Fox anchor then brought up the fact that Canadian leaders have denounced the violence and some of the hateful ideology associated with the protests.

“Prime Minister Justin Trudeau tried to paint them all as a fringe group, but the mainstream is embracing them now! People from other nations with loud support,” the midday news host proclaimed.

She then followed this up with a montage of protesters saying they “are here for freedom” and that they want Trudeau to “give people their freedom back.” Faulkner then turned to Fox News correspondent Molly Line, who pointed out that the Ottawa chief of police has acknowledged they may call on the nation’s military to clear out the remaining protesters in the city.

While Line delivered her dispatch, and after she said the protests had driven “some city residents a bit crazy,” the network aired b-roll footage of a demonstration that prominently featured large QAnon flags and signs.

One sign featured the notorious QAnon slogan WWG1WGA, which is an abbreviation of their rallying cry “where we go one, we go all.” Additionally, protesters also waved a massive United States flag emblazoned with the letter Q.

Line wrapped up her reporting by observing that “there are international elements” to the protests now as it has “galvanized citizens on both sides of the border” and resulted in a GoFundMe page that has raised millions of dollars.

The Canadian police, meanwhile, have set up a hate crime hotline related to the pandemic protests after demonstrators racially abused a homeless shelter guard, harassed a couple with a Pride flag, desecrated memorials and statues with anti-vax messages, and were seen waving swastikas and Confederate flags.

This isn’t the first time Fox News, knowingly or unknowingly, has boosted QAnon on its airwaves. Fox News star Tucker Carlson, for instance, has repeatedly defended supporters of the violent conspiracy theory as “gentle people” who merely love their country. Fellow host Jesse Watters ended up walking back his apparent endorsement of QAnon after he said its supporters have “uncovered a lot of great stuff when it comes to Epstein and it comes to the deep state.”

Let’s talk about Trump getting convicted….

Exclusive: Newly obtained records show Trump and Jim Jordan spoke at length on morning of January 6

https://www.cnn.com/2022/02/04/politics/jim-jordan-trump-january-6/

The House select committee investigating the Capitol insurrection is now in possession of White House records that provide new details about a phone call Donald Trump made to Republican Rep. Jim Jordan on January 6, 2021 — as the investigation drills down on the former President’s communications that day and questions have long swirled around calls between him and lawmakers.

Two sources who have reviewed the call records tell CNN that Trump spoke on the phone at the White House residence with Jordan for 10 minutes on the morning of January 6. That afternoon, Jordan took to the House floor to object to the certification of President Joe Biden’s Electoral College win, and pro-Trump supporters attacked the US Capitol.
 
A key focus of the committee’s investigation has been on the runup to the insurrection and the myriad ways Trump and his allies, including those in Congress, tried to overturn the election results. The new details about the morning phone call come as the committee is debating whether to move forward with a subpoena for Jordan after he refused to voluntarily appear for an interview.
 
Since Jordan acknowledged last summer that he spoke to Trump on the phone that day, the Ohio Republican and Trump loyalist has waived off questions about it or been inconsistent in his answers.
 
When asked on Friday about the White House records, Jordan told CNN that he had multiple calls with Trump on January 6 but could only confirm that he spoke with Trump after he left the House floor and did not remember whether they spoke that morning.
“I talked to the President a number of times that day, but I don’t remember the times,” Jordan said.
 
A spokeswoman for Trump did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
One entry in the White House records shows a request from Trump to get Jordan on the phone from the White House residence on the morning of January 6. A second entry shows that the length of the call was 10 minutes.
 
These call logs are among the documents the National Archives turned over to the House select committee investigating the riot after Trump last month lost his bid at the Supreme Court to keep them secret. The records have been crucial for congressional investigators as they try to build a complete narrative of what happened that day, and the call logs help to deepen that understanding.
 
Records show Trump did not leave the White House until 11:40 a.m. ET on January 6, 2021, to give a speech to thousands of his supporters gathered at the Ellipse. According to footage of House proceedings that day, Jordan spoke on the floor for five minutes starting at 1:32 p.m. ET during the debate over whether to reject Biden’s electors from Arizona.
Jordan later spoke to request a roll call vote on the Arizona challenge at 10:27 p.m. when lawmakers returned to the chamber after being evacuated as rioters interrupted the congressional proceedings.
 
On Friday, Jordan said, “I don’t recall,” when asked specifically if he spoke with Trump in the morning before the violence started. “I know I talked to him after we left off the floor,” adding that he did not remember how long his calls with the former President lasted that day.
 
Jordan’s previous recollections of his conversations with Trump on January 6 have been inconsistent.
 
At a House Rules Committee hearing in October, Chairman Jim McGovern, a Democrat from Massachusetts, specifically asked Jordan when he spoke with Trump that day.
“I talked to the President after the attack,” Jordan said at the time.
 
When McGovern pressed Jordan again and asked him to confirm that the call did not occur before or during the attack, Jordan replied: “Right. And I’ve been clear about that.”
Months earlier, in July, he told a local reporter he could not recall when he spoke to Trump or how many times they talked.
 
 
“Uh, I’d have to go — I spoke with him that day after. I think after?” he told the Spectrum News TV channel in Ohio. “I don’t know if I spoke with him in the morning or not. I just don’t know. I’d have to go back. I mean I don’t know when those conversations happened. But what I know is that I spoke with him all the time.”
 
In the committee’s letter to Jordan seeking a voluntary interview, Democratic Rep. Bennie Thompson, who chairs the panel, said investigators specifically wanted to ask Jordan about his communications with the former President.
 
“We understand that you had at least one and possibly multiple communications with President Trump on January 6th,” Thompson wrote in December. “We would like to discuss each such communication with you in detail.”
 
The committee also wants to speak with Jordan about meetings he had with White House officials and Trump in the months between the 2020 presidential election in November and the January 6 attack about “strategies for overturning the results of the 2020 election.”
Prior to the panel asking for Jordan’s voluntary cooperation, he was identified as one of the lawmakers who sent a text message to then-White House chief of staff Mark Meadows that the committee has in its possession.
 
The message, which Jordan forwarded to Meadows on January 5, outlined a legal theory that then-Vice President Mike Pence had the authority to stand in the way of the certification of the 2020 election. The text message is just one example of how Jordan provided a megaphone to the narrative that the election had been stolen from Trump.
The panel’s letter to Jordan also sought to learn more about any communications he had with Trump’s allies, legal team and staffers about potential organizing, planning or strategizing around January 6.
 
When Jordan indicated earlier this month that he doesn’t plan to cooperate and dismissed the committee’s investigation as illegitimate, a spokesperson for the panel said that Jordan is a “material witness” because he has admitted to speaking directly with Trump on January 6.
 
The spokesperson also suggested, without evidence, that Trump and his team are the reason Jordan is not cooperating.
 
“Mr. Jordan has previously said that he would cooperate with the committee’s investigation, but it now appears that the Trump team has persuaded him to try to hide the facts and circumstances of January 6th,” the spokesperson said.
 
Jordan was originally selected by House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy to be one of five GOP members serving on the committee back in July. But House Speaker Nancy Pelosi rejected McCarthy’s selection of Jordan, along with GOP Rep. Jim Banks of Indiana, because she said their appointments could impact the “integrity of the investigation.”
The committee has long viewed Jordan as a top target for its investigation. In August, Jordan was among a group of Republican lawmakers whose phone records the committee asked various companies to preserve. At the time, Jordan warned about the precedent the panel would be setting if it went after sitting members of Congress.
 
The committee is still weighing whether it will take the next step and issue Jordan a subpoena, a move it is also considering with McCarthy and GOP Rep. Scott Perry of Pennsylvania.
 
The panel met on Thursday to discuss their options but did not settle on next steps when it comes to efforts to get their fellow lawmakers to cooperate. Chairman Thompson acknowledged on Thursday that it’s a complicated issue.
 
“You know, you have to respect this institution,” he told CNN. “You know, we have to see whether or not it’s ever been done before. If it had, on what authorities. So, we just want to be right. And if we are not in good standing with it, then I mean, we probably won’t do it.”

OAN Host: The Future Of This Country Depends On Liberals Being Killed By The Deadly COVID Vaccines

OAN Host: The Future Of This Country Depends On Liberals Being Killed By The Deadly COVID Vaccines

Media Matters has the transcript:

PEARSON SHARP: More and more Americans are standing up and fighting back against the tyranny of the COVID conspiracy theory. Convoys of outraged truck drivers are sending a message loud and clear to cowardly leaders all over the world, from Canada to Australia and even here in the U.S., and that message is simple: Back off, or else. We, the people, will not tolerate this oppression any longer.

Young athletes are a prime group to be targeted by this deadly vaccine with 500% more soccer players in the E.U. dropping dead from heart attacks than one year ago — 500%. Who is actually braindead enough to think that this is just a coincidence, when Pfizer and Moderna’s vaccine are known by the FDA to cause heart attacks. This is a pandemic of the ignorant, and it’s killing our country.

So, for all of you progressives and Democrats and radical leftists out there. Do us all a favor, please, and go get vaccinated. In fact, don’t stop there. Get double vaccinated, and be sure to get all your boosters. All three or four of them. Why stop there? If more is better— get five, six, get 10 boosters. All the rest of us sane, freedom-loving Americans are counting on you to get your injections. The survival of our country depends on it.

Sharp first appeared on JMG in December 2020 when he boasted about denying that Biden was the then president-elect.

He next appeared here when he called for executing “traitors” who deny that Trump really won the election.

Sharp’s videos were regularly posted to Trump’s official YouTube channel, back when he had one.

 

Arizona House speaker quashes bill to allow lawmakers to reject election results

https://tucson.com/news/local/govt-and-politics/arizona-house-speaker-quashes-bill-to-allow-lawmakers-to-reject-election-results/article_043eb976-8475-11ec-819c-47a5a455510d.html

Reps. Rusty Bowers and John Fillmore

House Speaker Rusty Bowers, left, and Rep. John Fillmore talked Wednesday on the House floor about the speaker’s decision to quash Fillmore’s legislation that would have allowed lawmakers to reject election results.

Howard Fischer, Capitol Media Services

The top House Republican is unilaterally quashing legislation that would have given lawmakers the power to reject election results.

Strictly speaking, Speaker Rusty Bowers is not killing House Bill 2596, he told Capitol Media Services on Wednesday. That’s something he could do by simply refusing to assign it to any committee to be considered.

Instead, Bowers has taken the unprecedented step of assigning the proposal to each and every one of the 12 House committees, saying he knows full well there is no way it can secure approval of each. Most bills go to no more than two committees.

 

The maneuver drew an angry reaction from the bill’s sponsor, Rep. John Fillmore, R-Apache Junction. He complained to Capitol Media Services that “his highness’’ was abusing his powers in deep-sixing a measure that 14 other Republicans, out of 47 in the Legislature, support fully enough to sign on as co-sponsors.

 

“He does things like he’s God,’’ Fillmore said of the speaker. But Fillmore acknowledged he doesn’t have the votes — at least among those in his caucus willing to stand up — to oust Bowers as speaker and install someone who would allow the plan a chance of getting to the House floor for a vote.

 

“Sometimes there are a great many of the legislators (who) don’t have the intestinal fortitude to do what is right,’’ Fillmore said.

His proposed legislation is a grab bag of changes to election laws. It would:

Repeal laws allowing anyone to get an early ballot, saying only those with an excuse, like being hospitalized, would get that right.

Bar all other forms of early voting, requiring that ballots be cast only on Election Day.

 

Prohibit the use of Election Day voting centers available to anyone within a county, restricting people to casting ballots only in their home precinct.

 

“We need to get back to 1958-style voting,’’ Fillmore said.

But the provision that alarmed Bowers and some others would have required the Legislature to call itself into special session after every election to review the ballot tabulating process for both the primary and general elections.

More to the point, it would permit lawmakers to “accept or reject the election returns,’’ with the latter option paving the way for anyone to file suit to seek a new election.

That is unacceptable, Bowers told Capitol Media Services.

“We gave the authority to the people,’’ the Mesa Republican said.

 

“For somebody to say we have plenary authority to overthrow a vote of the people for something we think may have happened, where is it (the evidence)?’’ Bowers said of the unproven and unverified claims made by those seeking a new 2020 vote.

He said the audit of Maricopa County’s 2020 election returns ordered by Senate President Karen Fann has not produced any evidence that, as some have contended, the election was stolen from Donald Trump.

 

“The point is, when we gave a fundamental right to the people, I don’t care if I win or lose, that right was theirs,’’ Bowers said. “And I’m not going to go back and kick them in the teeth.’’

The speaker also said he could not go along with another provision that would have scrapped the current system of having ballots tabulated by machine, replacing that with a hand count of the all the votes cast, a figure that exceeded 3.4 million in 2020.

Proponents have argued that machine counts cannot be trusted, with allegations — all never proven — that the tabulators were either hacked or programmed to produce winning numbers for Joe Biden. Bowers said the solution of hand counts is worse than any potential problem.

“There’s individual elements (of the bill) that harm accuracy, speed and dependability of a vote,’’ Bowers said. “And if I can stop it, I’m not going to let that happen.’’

Bowers acknowledged there are those within his own party who continue to insist the last presidential election was rigged. And he said he is willing to consider changes in law designed to protect the right to vote and protect against cheating.

For example, he has allowed bills to go forward that would alter the early voting process or increase identification requirements.

But Bowers said he’s not willing to go along with “capricious’’ alterations to the law sought by “people of that ilk, the screaming, demanding, arrogant, self-righteous bunch.’’ And the speaker said it is his job to stand up and say “no,” even when others cannot — or will not.

“I would say that most Republicans don’t like it that way,’’ he said of the election-results deniers. “They’re just intimidated by these people.’’

Killing Fillmore’s bill “is just a message,” Bowers said.

Fillmore said Bowers has it wrong in saying the Legislature should have no role in reviewing — and potentially voiding — election returns.

“The Supreme Court has said that voting is our responsibility,’’ he said Wednesday after being informed of the speaker’s decision. “Who else, if not the state Legislature, would deal with this?’’

Fillmore, in introducing the legislation, said he isn’t buying arguments by election officials who say that machine counts are more accurate.

Nor was he swayed by the fact that current law already requires there be a hand count of ballots from selected precincts to compare that tally with what the machines registered. If those results are within a specified percentage, then the results statewide are presumed accurate. That is what happened after the 2020 election.

A judge separately ordered inspection of more than 1,600 ballots cast in the general election after allegations the machines had not properly tabulated the presidential race. In that case, the hand count found just nine with errors in the presidential race, not enough to declare Trump the winner here, even if that error rate ran through all similar ballots.

Bowers said that, in assigning HB 2596 to all 12 committees, he actually is giving Fillmore what he wants: the chance for one or more hearings. That could not have occurred if he refused to refer it to any committee at all, he said.

But Bowers made it clear that there is no way this bill would ever become law.

He gets that power not just by virtue of being the speaker and deciding what bills are put up for votes of the full House.

There’s also the fact that there are only 31 Republicans in the 60-member chamber. And with no Democrats in support, that means a single GOP vote against it — including his — would kill it if if even got that far.

Notice the guy who authored the bill wanted to get back to 1950 style voting.