Nothing is making much sense these days. We have a president sliding into dementia. We have a vice president who ordered a river to be raised for his family outing. We have Republican leaders of Congress blatantly supporting our failing leader. We knew the FBI was having loyalty “issues”, and then firings resulting from those. It’s probably the same across other intelligence services. But this? Good gods. From AlterNet:
The Federal Bureau of Investigation has agreed to a request from U.S. Senator John Cornyn to locate the Texas Democratic state lawmakers who exited the state in an effort to deny Republicans a quorum—part of a broader attempt to block Governor Greg Abbott and President Donald Trump’s push to redraw congressional maps and boost GOP-held House seats, the Texas Republican announced Thursday. “We cannot allow these rogue legislators to avoid their constitutional responsibilities,” Senator Cornyn said in a statement that referred to the Texas Democrats as “supposed lawmakers.”(EDIT: takes one to know one.)
“Rogue”? “Supposed”? Take the beam out of your own eye before you remove the speck from your co-worker’s. The FBI can locate someone, sure, but there’s no need for that if you watch or read the news. They’re in Illinois. Governor Pritzker has spoken out about supporting them. Donations are pouring in to help with the cost of food and lodging, as well as the daily fines. They add up quickly, and the Democratic lawmakers in Texas don’t make *that* much money. They’re probably going to be out of state for a while.
What’s “rogue” and the “supposed lawmakers” are the Republicans trying to redraw the districts in Texas to give them 5 additional seats to help with the margins in Congress for the midterms. It’s blatant. Trump’s request to do that is just as blatant, although that’s not very surprising anymore. And now Trump has decided to call a census halfway through the time period. These things are *expensive* and require a *huge* amount of preparation. And now? *That* is blatant, too!
Legal and political experts are blasting the move. “There’s literally no federal law applicable to this situation. None,” Governor Pritzker told podcaster Jessica Yellin on Wednesday, according to Axios. “The key question here is on what grounds would the FBI be doing this,” wrote MSNBC Justice and Intelligence correspondent Ken Dilanian. “What is the crime they are investigating? The FBI can’t just use its vast surveillance powers to locate random citizens. In fact, that’s what conservatives have long been so concerned about re: FISA authorities.”
Exactly. This is seriously stretching the use of the FBI for something that’s trivial in the scheme of things. We all know where they are, but the FBI has to go look, too? They’ve been open about why they left and where they are. The Texas Republican lawmakers are trying to change the redistricting for Congress in their state. They have the majority in the Texas legislature. Without the Democratic members, they don’t have a quorum. And if they don’t have a quorum, they can’t pass it. WHAM, there it is. There’s nothing hidden about it, and nothing wrong with it, unless you’re a Republican. Let’s have another reaction, and then we’ll close.
“This is a patently unlawful, unconstitutional abuse of federal power,” constitutional law professor and political scientist Anthony Michael Kreis said on Thursday. “We are in a deeply dangerous, illiberal place in America when the federal government will deploy law enforcement to force state legislators to act on legislation that’s contrary to their conscience and an attempt to undermine free elections,” Kreis added.
Why are FBI resources being wasted on a known fact? And how much is this going to cost the American public? I fail to see this as anything but showboating. Apparently, Cornyn doesn’t pay any attention to anything but what he says and how he’s insulted because he got called out on the redistricting. It doesn’t matter *that* much to the citizens of the United States. So really, what’s the point?
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This is the same John Cornyn who told the Texas authorities to take money during the Biden Administration to upgrade their emergency warning systems, then use it for other purposes. Someone in Texas had convinced them to refuse money for the same purpose when it was offered during the Obama Administration. And, the Special Session was originally called to address the problem of poor or no early disaster/flood warnings. How many people died because of his arrogance/stupidity/ ignorance?