Like Sinema, I believe the cause of the Civil War was abolitionists not working hard enough to get slavers on board with anti-slavery reforms. If only they had talked about slavery more, and tried to find a compromise (perhaps involving Missouri) everything would've been solved.
The founding fathers would say, “What the hell is a filibuster?”
Projection. Every GOP accusation is an admission of guilt.
Today (1/13/21) the Michigan AG criminally referred, to the US Attorney for Michigan, the fake “electors” who forged electoral certificates as part of an apparent 5-state conspiracy to defraud the United States with respect to the 2020 election. The AG is bound to weigh in now.
Republicans are the party of theft. They all know voter suppression and gerrymandering are about stealing elections. They know the audits were about stealing elections. They know slowing the Post Office was about stealing elections.
The complicity and gaslighting, vis a vis, ‘stop the steal’, represent manifest diseased GOP morals/ethics.
Marsha, Marsha, Marsha. Your bigotry is showing. Again.
Trumpism = shameless, racist misogynists
Women in Texas: I’d like to have some privacy
Supreme Court: nope
The misogyny is so obvious.
I want everybody to remember that the Supreme Court has said the government doesn't have the authority to make people wear a mask when it later says it *does* have the authority to force women to give birth against their will.
Be kind. You don’t know what others are going through.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Misleading right wing media cartoons / memes
Fox News the media arm of the GQP, got caught using an image that is actually from a 2011 NPR story (photo #15) about residents fleeing the disaster area near the Fukushima nuclear power plant. Yet their viewers claim to be the smartest most informed. Scottie
At the hearing to again appoint him chairman of the FED, Jerome Powell admitted to Senator Warren that the high prices could be profit taking by companies. They were raising prices and charging more because they could. Inflation and profit taking / price gouging is world wide yet the right wing media hopes to pin it all on Biden. I don’t buy it. Scottie
If it is a federal election , it should be ” federalized “. What happened to the right-wing talking point that we should just let the free market work things out? Don’t pay attention to the fact that Republicans are making it harder for people to vote and giving themselves the power to easily overturn election results they don’t like. A perfect recipe for a dictatorship. Scottie
Get your shots, wear a mask, keep some distance. It’s really not all that difficult. Scottie
So the five Republican senators vs 1 Democratic one retiring means? Fact is members of both parties are either retiring, running for different offices, or have been redistricted out of their seat. This is nothing new nor unexpected. As of January 2022, 44 members of Congress—six members of the U.S. Senate and 38 members of the U.S. House—have announced they will not seek re-election. Twenty-nine members—six senators and 23 representatives—have announced their retirement. Five retiring Senate members are Republicans and one is a Democrat, and of the retiring House members, 18 are Democrats and five are Republicans. Fifteen U.S. House members are running for other offices. Four Republicans and four Democrats are seeking seats in the U.S. Senate, one Republican and two Democrats are running for governor, one Republican is running for secretary of state, one Democrat is running for mayor, and one Democrat and one Republican are running for attorney general. No U.S. Senate members are running for other offices. Scottie
Complete bullshit. Try restricting voting places so people can not reach them and if they do they have wait in line times of 8 to 12 hours. Try removing the places to get ID in areas of POC and making it as hard as possible to get one. Try having one drop box in highly populated Democratic areas. The fact is voter restrictions are happening and that is not a democracy. In a democracy the people vote for the people they want in elective office, in the Republican way of governing the elected office holder allows only their supporters to vote. Scottie
Is Steve Kelley so ignorant of history (or honest enough to be accurate as to historical context) that he does not understand how the parties reversed roles on social justice issues?
I will acknowledge the evils of my party’s past.
But today’s Democratic Party is…
Not the party of the KKKonfederacy
Not the party of George Wallace
Not the party of Bull Conner
.
and today’s TrumpubliQan cult is…
Not the party of Lincoln.
Not the party of Teddy Roosevelt.
Not the party of Eisenhower.
Not even the party of McCain or R-money.
The Democrats’ ugly racist PAST is the Republicans’ ugly racist PRESENT.
Once upon a time, the Democratic party was the conservative party that was pro-slavery, pro-racism and pro-anything that was bad for the American people, and the Republican party was the LIBERAL party of Lincoln.
Then some time went by, some things happened, and eventually, the parties switched ideological sides.
Only the trolls are dumb enough, or willingly ignorant enough to take your BS at face value. Scottie
The SCOTUS is pro corporate and profit while anti-government services for the public, and so they side with the GQP. What the supreme court turned down was not mask mandates but mandating business vaccinations through OSHA. Had congress or other means been used they would have been forced to agree with it. Scottie
The National Archives received documentation from Nevada’s Republican Party certifying their elector votes of the 2020 Presidential Election to former President Donald Trump, documents obtained by the 8 News Now I-Team indicate.
Despite the state’s real electors submitting the verified documentation for President Joe Biden, Nevada’s GOP went ahead with attempts to validate their elector votes. In December 2020, the I-Team reported Nevada Republican Party’s six electors signed paperwork signaling their support for Trump in a symbolic ceremony devoid of any legal merit and the event in Carson City coincided with the actual state-sanctioned tally on Dec. 14, 2020.
The certificate received by the National Archives looks much different than the official state-sealed one reads, “We, the undersigned, being the duly elected and qualified electors for president and vice president of the United States of America from the State of Nevada, do hereby certify six electoral votes for Trump.”
The state’s real election certification versus the one sent in by the Nevada Republican Party. (KLAS)
The outside of the envelope accompanying the documents is stamped and verified by the U.S. Postal Service, addressed and sent via certified mail to the National Archives from the rural town of Minden, Nevada. The USPS time stamps indicate the packet arrived in Washington, D.C., on Dec. 22.
The Supreme Court of Nevada and Gov. Steve Sisolak certified the election for Biden in November 2020. In certifying the results, the governor directed the electors from the winning presidential candidate’s party to cast their votes.
Nevada’s Electoral College met via Zoom during an official ceremony with the Secretary of State’s Office on Dec. 14. The electors cast their ballots and held them up so they could be seen.
Nevada’s six electors cast their votes for President-elect Joe Biden. (KLAS)
The constitutional process took place across all 50 states and the District of Columbia.
A few hours after the official state process had ended, a video accompanied a tweet from the Nevada GOP, saying, “History made today in Carson City,” as footage showed Republican electors signing papers on a table. The event was live-streamed on a YouTube channel called “Right Side Broadcasting Network.”
“Our brave electors standing up for what is right and casting their electoral votes for @realDonaldTrump,” the state party’s Twitter account later tweeted. “We believe in fair elections and will continue the fight against voter fraud in the Silver State!”
Documents obtained by the I-Team on Wednesday indicate at least one set of the Republican-written electoral votes for Trump and Vice President Mike Pence were sent to the National Archives.
The Republican ceremony on Dec. 14 was not a state-sanctioned electoral vote meeting and has no legality in the actual process. No state can submit more than one set of electoral votes.
The Nevada Republican Party sent the federal government documentation certifying the election for former President Donald Trump, even though the state’s real electors had already done the same, documents obtained by the 8 News Now I-Team indicate. (KLAS)
When the I-Team asked the National Archives in Dec. 2020 about receiving the documents, a spokesperson pointed back to the official state-signed certificate, which says Democratic electors in Nevada won and cast their six electoral votes for Biden.
A spokesperson for the National Archives said they could not comment on any “communication with private individuals.”
In a statement after the event, Nevada GOP chair Michael McDonald said the party’s electors convened in Carson City due to ongoing legal battles seeking to overturn the election results.
“The people of Nevada did not have a fair election due to the irregularities and fraud seen throughout the state,” McDonald said. “With ongoing challenges and evidence left to be investigated, we must submit our electoral votes for the rightful victors and allow Congress to make a determination.”
“With disturbing evidence of voter fraud in the state, including double voting, illegal voting, deceased voters casting ballots, and more, there is a legitimate concern over the rightful victor in the Silver State,” the statement continued. “A court of law has failed to meaningfully evaluate the evidence and our law enforcement agencies and government officials have failed to investigate. This left our electors no choice but to send their votes for President Trump to Congress to make a determination as to who is the rightful victor of Nevada between the dueling votes.”
Secretary of State Barbara Cegavske, a Republican, did not have a comment on the Republican event at the time.
The event had no legal standing. Biden won Nevada by more than 33,000 votes.
Nevada’s six Republican Party electors cast symbolic votes for President Donald Trump. The votes have no legal merit as the state’s actual electors cast their votes for President-elect Joe Biden. (Twitter/KLAS)
A review of the reports found 10 possibly deceased voters had ballots cast in their names, the report said, citing data from the Office of Vital Statistics.
In one case, Donald “Kirk” Hartle, who told the I-Team last year that someone had stolen his deceased wife’s ballot and voted, in fact voted himself, officials said.
An envelope accompanying the documents indicates the packet was sent via certified mail to the National Archives from rural Minden, Nevada, later that day. It arrived in Washington, D.C., on Dec. 22. (KLAS)
Rosemarie Hartle, of Las Vegas, died in 2017 at age 52 from breast cancer, Kirk Hartle, told the I-Team after the November election. A ballot for Rosemarie was issued in October 2020 and later received by the county, but Kirk said the ballot never came to his house. The I-Team found even though Rosemarie died in 2017, her name appeared on the active voter list.
The I-Team was first to report that prosecutors were charging Kirk Hartle in October 2021. In a plea agreement, Kirk Hartle pleaded guilty to one charge of voting more than once in the same election, which is a category D felony. Category D felonies carry a maximum prison sentence of four years.
As part of the plea deal, Hartle avoided prison time and was placed on probation. If he stays out of trouble for a year, he will be able to withdraw his plea and instead plead guilty to a charge of conspiracy to commit voting more than once in the same election.
Rosemarie Hartle’s ballot was one of two cited by Nevada Republicans and national party leaders as evidence of voter fraud in Nevada.
“Dead people voted in Clark County,” Matt Schlapp, chair of the American Conservative Union, said in a news conference after the election last year. “We have two examples that we have talked about and want to talk about today. One is the death of Rosemarie Hartle in 2017.”
The other allegation Schlapp referenced appears to have not been intentional, the I-Team confirmed last year.
Neither the Nevada GOP nor Schlapp have responded to repeated requests for comment on the Hartle case. A spokesperson at the Secretary of State’s Office said staff worked a combined 240 hours on the Hartle case.
It can take years for voter fraud elections to end in charges. There are cases from the 2016 election that are still making their way through court.
Voter fraud is a felony and carries a fine and jail time.
Cegavske’s party censured her for defending the election, which she oversaw.
The I-Team reached out to the Nevada GOP again on Wednesday for comment.
The Nevada Attorney General’s Office declined to comment.
Ron just went and picked up his one month prescription of JARDIANCE . It cost him $522.00 because our insurance has a 420 dollar co-pay before they kick in. In two weeks I have to do the same. another $522.00 for a 30 day supply of medications. We can not afford a $1044.00 hit in one month just for one medication each on our fixed incomes. The drug companies are making record profits, the insurance companies are making record profits, all the costs are going up while the incomes are stagnate or going down as inflation rises. The people need help. The country is run by the wealthy and large corporations and they are sucking the very life out of the public. This is worse than any vampire movie. They are draining the country of its vitality, and the people of any resources to live. Scottie
Assuming this 14% holds across the whole Kroger workforce, that's around 65,000 people working at the fourth-largest private employer in the US — ranked 17th on the Fortune 500 — who've been homeless while keeping the country's grocery stores running, in a pandemic. https://t.co/9RWLYvduap
The painful truth. Concentrated wealth and power are tremendously unhealthy.
Kill the filibuster. Kill the legacy of white supremacy.
Kill the filibuster.
Projection. Every GOP accusation is an admission of guilt.
“As Trump’s team pushed its discredited voter fraud narrative, the National Archives received forged certificates of ascertainment declaring him and then-Vice President Mike Pence the winners of both Michigan and Arizona and their electors after the 2020 election. Public records requests show the secretaries of state for those states sent those certificates to the Jan. 6 panel, along with correspondence between the National Archives and state officials about the documents.”
Get them all under oath. Then send them to prison for treason.
If you are a Republican who cares about the Constitution, you should be outraged. #Arizona
These are forged documents used by Trump cronies, yet they will lie and say Biden stole the election. This is just disgraceful.
Ted Cruz is trying to blame the FBI for J6 when Trump was President on Jan 6.
[Ray Epps is Arizona Oath Keeper chapter president and massive Trump supporter.]
the fakes make up news
FOX has ratings based on predetermined narratives. Their hosts do one thing and say another, just to create resentment and fear.
Republicans attack the messenger. They have no policy insights or actual ideas.
My favorite Tony Fauci is the one who’s had it with Rand Paul’s bullshit.
Although studies claim Omicron to be mild, there is no plausible reason to think that the highly-transmissible variant will not cause long Covid conditions among survivors. Though much remains unknown about omicron, experts say the variant could lead to long Covid, even with a mild case. Patients with long-term symptoms can experience crushing fatigue, irregular heart rhythms and other issues months after their initial Covid infection. The highly infectious Omicron coronavirus variant causes less severe disease than the Delta strain but it remains a “dangerous virus”, particularly for those who are unvaccinated, the head of the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Wednesday. Scottie
Anti-transgender attitudes have long made bathrooms a dangerous place for trans men and women — a problem only made worse by the latest round of bathroom hysteria. But other women are also getting swept up by anti-trans discrimination, as bathrooms turn into places of harassment for anyone who doesn’t conform to rigid views of gender.
In a recent case that went viral, a cisgender (non-trans) woman was insulted while in a Walmart bathroom after another woman confused her for a trans woman, apparently because of her short hair. The incident, the woman said, led her to confront the kind of harassment and discrimination that trans people have faced in bathrooms for a long time.
That the current hysteria over bathrooms is leading to women, trans or not, getting harassed in bathrooms is, on top of plain awful, ironic. After all, harassment is one of the things those who oppose letting trans people use the bathroom for their gender identity supposedly want to prevent. They claim trans-friendly policies will allow men to disguise themselves as women, go into women’s bathrooms, and harass or assault women.
The claim is a myth: Multiple investigations have found states and schools that have had legal protections for trans people for years have never linked an instance of sexual assault or harassment in a bathroom to trans-friendly policies. (The only bathroom harassment historically related to trans people, in fact, seems to be harassment and discrimination against trans people.)
But it does seem like the bathroom hysteria is leading to some women getting harassed — not in the way opponents of trans rights worry about, but more along the lines of the discrimination and harassment trans people have faced for a long time while trying to use the bathroom. Here are a few examples.
Aimee Toms was washing her hands in the women’s bathroom at Walmart in Danbury Friday when a stranger approached her and said, “You’re disgusting!” and “You don’t belong here!”
After momentary confusion, she realized that the woman next to her thought — because of her pixie-style haircut and baseball cap — that she was transgender.
Toms, a 22-year-old from Naugatuck who works at a retail store in the Bethel-Danbury retail area around Walmart, posted a video “rant” about her experience on Facebook Friday that had been viewed more than 12,000 times by Sunday evening.
“After experiencing the discrimination they face firsthand, I cannot fathom the discrimination transgender people must face in a lifetime,” she said. “Can you imagine going out every day and having people tell you you should not be who you are or that people will not accept you as who you are?”
Case in point: the man who, um, heroically barged into a women’s restroom at Baylor Medical Center in Frisco on Thursday to make sure that Jessica Rush, who manages a local health-food takeout place, was peeing in the proper place.
She was, for the record, and her situation isn’t particularly complicated. Rush was born and identifies as female and has no plans to change that. “I look very much like a girl,” she says. “I’m not trying to transition, nothing like that.”
But Rush wears her hair in a bleached blond fauxhawk and dresses androgynously. On Thursday, she was wearing a T-shirt from her alma mater, Texas Tech, with basketball shorts. As the man at Baylor explained after walking into the restroom behind her, it’s all very confusing. …
“When I saw you enter I thought you was…” the man says.
“A boy?” Rush offers.
“Yeah, it was kind of confusing.” Certainly she can see why. “You dress like a man,” he says several times as he walks away.
In the video, the unnamed woman tries to convince the two male officers and one female officer present that she is a woman, her friends shout in her support “she’s a girl”, which the officers ignore.
The police then ask the woman for identification to prove her sex. She rejects their demand, offended. The male officers then manhandle her out of the restroom, whilst calling her “sir”.
The police eventually tell the woman’s friends, who are still vouching for her female identity, “you can all leave if you want”.
Trans women and men have faced harassment and violence in bathrooms for a long time
Back in 2011, Chrissy Lee Polis captured national attention when teenagers attacked her after she used an empty women’s bathroom at a McDonald’s in Maryland. The Baltimore Sun reported:
There was a time when it seemed people from all over the country were talking about the 24-year-old. Many wanted to help her; others condemned her.
Polis became an unwitting symbol of the transgender community and the struggle for transgender rights when she stepped into a Rosedale McDonald’s one April evening. Two teen girls beat her that night. When an employee caught the assault on his cell phone, the video went viral, making headlines nationwide.
In a more recent case, in May, a security guard at a Washington, DC, grocery store allegedly pushed a trans woman out of the business after she tried to use a bathroom. The guard was later charged with simple assault. NBC4 Washington reported:
Ebony Belcher, 32, said she went to the Giant in northeast D.C. with a friend to pick up a delivery from the Western Union.
While at the Giant, she asked a store employee to point her to the restroom and passed a female security officer standing in the hallway.
The officer came into the restroom and told her to get out, according to Belcher.
“She opened the door and came in and started calling me derogatory names,” Belcher said.
She said the officer put her hand on her shoulder and arm, grabbed her and pushed her out of the store.
These are just two examples of the discrimination trans people face in bathrooms on a regular basis.
A 2013 survey published by the Williams Institute, for example, found that 70 percent of trans and gender nonconforming respondents in the Washington, DC, area faced a negative reaction while trying to use a public bathroom, including 9 percent who reported physical assault. The 2011 National Transgender Discrimination Survey found that 26 percent of trans and gender nonconforming respondents across the country reported denial of access to gender-appropriate bathrooms in educational settings, and 22 percent faced such denial in the workplace.
The same surveys also show that trans people face a lot of discrimination, harassment, and violence more broadly — at home, work, and school. So the harassment cisgender women are now dealing with in bathrooms is just a small sample of the discrimination that has plagued the trans community for years and years.
Understand this is entirely about if someone thinks you look as they think a woman should look. Are you feminine enough to satisfy them? They demand others conform to their standards of male and female. It’s part of an entitlement feeling when someone can demand to know person’s genitals, their private body parts. What a weird violation of culture norms now excepted is that a person has the right to demand to know or verify someone else’s covered private reproductive organs. How is that not a sexual offence? Scottie
My spine shots were Monday. Yesterday and today my blood sugars are uncontrolled no matter how I try to control my food intake to minimize sugar intake. I have been trying to not sleep all the time. My blood sugar at 4 PM was 400. The doctor says that steroids keep the medications from removing the excess sugar from my system. If it stays high for a couple more days then I will go on insulin. In the meanwhile I will be struggling to think and to stay awake. The roundup may be late or missed entirely. Scottie
I repeat: The filibuster isn't in the Constitution. Arguably, it's unconstitutional. The Framers did not allow a minority of Senators to obstruct the majority. https://t.co/d1UW5rdL1c
Biden points out that 16 *current* Republican Senators voted to approve the last voting rights act and questions why so many of them seem to have lost their voices now.
Let’s get one thing straight: The changes in voting laws by Republican state legislatures aren't a response to voter fraud (which is non-existent) but to voter turnout (which they want to suppress).
My 12-year-old had appendicitis. The ER was overwhelmed with unvaccinated Covid patients and we had to wait 6+ hours. While waiting, his appendix ruptured and had to spend 5 days in hospital; just got hmo bill of $5000. So yeah, your decision to not vaccinate does affect others.
this is such an important point. the people who dismiss police killings of unarmed Black people as statistically insignificant ignore the fact that police abuse is a continuum of behavior. few people get shot, yes. but many do get hassled, harassed, pushed around, even beaten. https://t.co/DMoC2qvzfU
Quick anecdote about the trans bathroom moral panic: I used to look like the pictures below (very cool).70% of the time I’d pass as a guy depending on what clothes I was wearing. One time I was in Queens at a dive bar waiting to take a piss in the women’s bathroom and a woman 1/3 pic.twitter.com/dkhXK7fuUQ
accosted me. Screamed at me and grabbed me by the shoulder because I was allegedly a trans predator in the woman’s restroom. This scared me and I was also pissed the fuck off. Needless to say we had words and I was so shook up by the whole thing I left the bar. 2/3
You transphobic feminists think you’re all out here saving women but you’re hurting women, trans and cis. You’re actively making the world more unsafe for us and I fucking resent you for it! 3/3
I am once again reminded of the 1995 Alison Bechdel comic. People really have been gatekeeping bathrooms and not being feminine enough for what feels like forever pic.twitter.com/9SBs1CzLWu
— ?Jowmuni¿ | BLM – Defund the Police (@noj4888) January 12, 2022
I’ve literally saw this same scenario in a restaurant in Alabama. A butch woman was accosted for being trans in the women’s room. She wasn’t trans. This nonsense is another arm of patriarchy and it even affects little girls playing sports. This is harming all women.
Every medical expert in the field of Virology and immunology agreed this was not a gain of function that the US had anything to do with. The US / NIH did not fund a gain of function on a coronavirus called SARS-CoV-2. Rand Paul not only doesn’t have the medical qualifications to understand / address this issue, he has misrepresented it for political gain and profit. Every time he attacks Dr. Fauci he turns out a fund raising pitch and it works for him. All he is doing is trying to enrage his voting base. Just because I can do basic cooking doesn’t make me a chief nor a chemist. Scottie
Oh my great dogs, the stupidity of this cartoon plus the complete antisemitism to it is stunning. The right blames everything they don’t like as being paid for by George Soros. He is their big boogieman. Even as a billionaire there is no way he could pay for all the things the right claims he is paying for. What is the issue with the DA’s? Well both right wing and left wing DA’s have decided to implement reforms that have been in the works for years. They changes / improvements are needed because courts are over loaded, the DA’s are over worked, the prison system is crashing with over population all because many non-violent crimes were being prosecuted with long harsh prison sentences. Things that are not really crimes are being treated as civil tickets instead of major crimes. Others are not being prosecuted at all such as possession of minor amounts of cannabis. These are common sense changes the right wing media rails against because it curbs racism abuses and lowers the for profit prison slave system. The right insists they need to make a profit of the bodies of the poor and helpless. Other things these reforms do is fund the placing of the mentally ill in other treatment than simply jailing them. Scottie
He has no use for the Law Enforcement people who died later. One from a stroke due to injuries and others who killed themselves over it!! But hey Henry is only pro life if you are a few cells old. Five people died as a result of Jan. 6, not counting the four officers who subsequently died by suicide. I think we all know we were lucky the number wasn’t higher.
Our democratic republic almost died that day and was prevented from happening with a single bullet. If the traitor Ashley Babbitt made it through the broken window and dozens of her fellow traitors followed, what would have happened to the congress members down the hall.
The vaccines and boosters allow the ones who catch any of the Covid virus and its variants from getting so ill they need hospitalization and nursing care. Hospitals all over the country are overwhelmed and red state governors are begging Biden for medical personal from the military because of the overwhelming numbers unvaxxed . The healthcare system in the US is failing, crashing. People with other than Covid needs are dying because of lack of beds for them because hospital beds are full of ill anti-vaxxers. This is not about some mythical freedom or control of people lives talking points. It is about very real consequences of people’s behavior in not getting vaccinated that harms others in many ways including causing death to other people and causing economic problems country wide. Scottie
The Justice Department is forming a new domestic terrorism unit to help combat a threat that has intensified dramatically in recent years, a top national security official said Tuesday.
Matthew G. Olsen, the head of the Justice Department’s National Security Division, announced the unit in his opening remarks before the Senate Judiciary Committee, noting that the number of FBI investigations of suspected domestic violent extremists — those accused of planning or committing crimes in the name of domestic political goals — had more than doubled since the spring of 2020.
Olsen said the Justice Department already had counterterrorism attorneys who worked both domestic and international cases, and that the new unit would “augment our existing approach” to prosecuting those cases.
Rep. Katherine Clark (D-Mass.) addresses reporters during a press conference on Wednesday, October 20, 2021 following the closed-door House Democratic Caucus meeting.
The fourth-ranking House Democrat, Assistant Speaker Katherine Clark (Mass.), urged the sergeant-at-arms on Tuesday to force lawmakers who defy the chamber’s mask mandate to cast votes from enclosures in the gallery above to limit potential spread of COVID-19.
Clark said it’s clear that existing fines are not enough to deter certain lawmakers from repeatedly flouting rules requiring everyone to wear masks in the House chamber.
Two far-right Republicans, Georgia Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene and Andrew Clyde, have each been fined tens of thousands of dollars for repeatedly ignoring the requirement that everyone in the House chamber wear a mask during the pandemic.
And with the highly contagious omicron variant driving caseloads in the nation’s capital to record levels, Clark argued that pandemic safety rules need to be enforced.
She suggested using plexiglass enclosures in the gallery overlooking the House chamber, which were installed last year so that lawmakers subject to quarantine could still cast votes when proxy voting was temporarily unavailable.
“This callous disregard for House rules endangers the health of members of Congress and the professional staff whose physical presence is required to ensure continuity of government,” Clark wrote in the letter to House Sergeant-at-Arms William Walker.
“That is why, in addition to imposing fines, I am requesting that your office begin requiring members who fail to comply with this rule to attend the House floor from the isolation boxes in the House gallery,” Clark wrote.
“This commonsense step will not only protect our dedicated House staff from members who refuse to follow House rules, but it will also allow those members to continue to fulfill their constitutional duty to vote on matters before the House.”
The House mask mandate was first established in July 2020 because numerous GOP lawmakers refused to wear masks, including one who tested positive for COVID-19 after spending time in the chamber and at committee hearings.
The mask requirement applies to the House chamber, surrounding hallways in the Capitol and connected office buildings. The Senate side of the Capitol complex, meanwhile, does not have a mask mandate.
Walker testified before members of the House Appropriations Committee on Tuesday that he’s had difficulty enforcing the mask mandate.
“I see people – members, staff – without masks. And I’ll walk up to them and I’ll ask them to put the mask on. And some just walk away from me. Some put it on,” Walker said.
House Democrats imposed fines to enforce the mask requirement shortly after the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol in response to several Republicans who declined to wear masks while lawmakers were crowded in a secure space together during the riot. The fines start at $500 for the first offense and $2,500 for subsequent offenses.
Most Republicans have complied with the mask requirement in the House chamber to avoid the fines. But other GOP lawmakers and their staff have pointedly ignored the mask mandate everywhere else in the Capitol complex where they aren’t subject to fines.
And the fines haven’t deterred a handful of GOP lawmakers from refusing to wear masks altogether.
Greene told Newsmax last week that she has been fined close to $90,000 for repeatedly refusing to wear a mask on the House floor. Clyde, meanwhile, has accrued at least $58,000 in mask fines.
Nine other Republicans have also been fined at least once: Reps. Lauren Boebert (Colo.), Mariannette Miller-Meeks (Iowa), Bob Good (Va.), Mary Miller (Ill.), Chip Roy (Texas), Ralph Norman (S.C.), Brian Mast (Fla.), Beth Van Duyne (Texas) and Thomas Massie (Ky.).
House leaders, in consultation with the Capitol physician, are urging everyone to use higher-quality masks like N95s or KN95s and spend as little time as possible on the floor during roll call votes.
At least nine House members have tested positive for COVID-19 since the weekend.
The Capitol physician’s office disclosed last week – before the House and Senate returned to session in recent days – that the rate of positive cases at its COVID-19 testing site has shot up from less than 1 percent to 13 percent.
The House sergeant-at-arms says some maskless lawmakers & staff ignore him even if he tells them personally to abide by the mask rules.
A member of House Dem leadership has an idea: Force maskless lawmakers to vote from "isolation boxes" instead.https://t.co/d0glELTeC4
Scottie's Playtime 
Is Steve Kelley so ignorant of history (or honest enough to be accurate as to historical context) that he does not understand how the parties reversed roles on social justice issues?
I will acknowledge the evils of my party’s past.
But today’s Democratic Party is…
Not the party of the KKKonfederacy
Not the party of George Wallace
Not the party of Bull Conner
.
and today’s TrumpubliQan cult is…
Not the party of Lincoln.
Not the party of Teddy Roosevelt.
Not the party of Eisenhower.
Not even the party of McCain or R-money.
The Democrats’ ugly racist PAST is the Republicans’ ugly racist PRESENT.
Once upon a time, the Democratic party was the conservative party that was pro-slavery, pro-racism and pro-anything that was bad for the American people, and the Republican party was the LIBERAL party of Lincoln.
Then some time went by, some things happened, and eventually, the parties switched ideological sides.
Only the trolls are dumb enough, or willingly ignorant enough to take your BS at face value. Scottie