United States Governors 2

[GreyhoundFan]

When the idiot election deniers start, I have the same reaction as Katie:

 

[GreyhoundFan]

Today’s GQP, starving children to own the libs. 

 

[GreyhoundFan]

South Dakota, just a few miles from the U.S. / Mexico border. /s

 

[CTRLZero]

On 5/1/2023 at 4:56 PM, Audrey2 said:

I just don't want Loren Culp.

Speaking of Loren Culp, his attorney just had his license suspended for election-denying shenanigans.  Seattle Times article snippet follows (bolding mine, sorry Alaska):

Spoiler

The state Supreme Court has suspended the law license of an attorney for 2020 Republican gubernatorial candidate Loren Culp for abusing the legal system by making frivolous claims of widespread voter fraud in that election.

Stephen W. Pidgeon, the attorney who sued the stateon Culp’s behalf, claiming the 2020 election was illegitimate, only to withdraw the caseunder threat of legal sanctions, will be prohibited from practicing law in the state for one year, according to the Supreme Court order. The suspension is effective Aug. 21.

In suspending Pidgeon, the state Supreme Court upheld charges by the state bar association’s Office of Disciplinary Counsel, which brought a formal complaint against him in December 2022.

A hearing officer in April of this year concluded that Pidgeon had violated rules of professional conduct for lawyers by knowingly “bringing a frivolous proceeding and asserting frivolous claims.”

Pidgeon’s actions caused injury “to the legal system and legal profession,” wrote the hearing officer, Randolph Petgrave III, adding that “aggravating factors” in the case included Pidgeon’s refusal to admit his “wrongful” conduct and his failure to respond to the bar association’s formal charges.

In a phone interview Monday, Pidgeon shrugged off the penalty, saying he has not been working as an attorney since the Culp lawsuit, and now lives in Alaska, where he gives religious talks. He voluntarily resigned from the state bar last year, records show. …

 

 

[47of74]

An unhinged man tried to get in to see Wisconsin Gov Tony Evers yesterday;

Quote

A man who was arrested Wednesday after bringing a handgun to the Wisconsin Capitol and saying he wanted to see Gov. Tony Evers returned with an assault rifle later that night after posting bail, according to the Wisconsin Department of Administration.

The man was shirtless and had a holstered handgun and a leashed dog when he approached the security desk outside the governor’s office in Madison around 2 p.m. Wednesday, Department of Administration spokesperson Tatyana Warrick said in a statement to CNN.

The man was taken into custody without incident by a Capitol police officer and taken to the Dane County Jail for openly carrying a firearm in the Capitol, which is illegal, the statement said. The gun was seized as evidence, and the dog was turned over to the City of Madison Animal Control.

The man later bailed himself out of jail, the statement said, and he returned to the outside of the Capitol around 9 p.m. – this time with a loaded AK-47 style rifle. Again, he asked to see the governor.

I'm gonna go out on a limb and guess he was a Branch Trumpvidian.

[GreyhoundFan]

Gavin speaks the truth here:

 

[GreyhoundFan]

This is scary shit:

 

[GreyhoundFan]

Kristi needs a refresher on U.S. history.

 

[GreyhoundFan]

I was glad to read this: "Tribe bars South Dakota governor from its land over her border remarks"

Quote

The largest tribe in South Dakota has barred the state’s governor from its lands for the second time in at least five years after her speech about curbing immigration at the U.S.-Mexico border “offended” the tribal president.

Frank Star Comes Out, the president of the Oglala Sioux Tribe, made the Pine Ridge Reservation in southwestern South Dakota off limits to Gov. Kristi L. Noem (R) on Friday after she told the state legislature that she was sending razor wire and security personnel to Texas, and that unauthorized immigration was harming reservations.

“Due to the safety of the Oyate, effective immediately, you are hereby Banished from the homelands of the Oglala Sioux Tribe!” Star Comes Out said in the statement posted to social media.

“Oyate” is a word for people or nation.

Star Comes Out noted that the Oglala Sioux is a “sovereign nation,” under the protection of the United States, not South Dakota.

He said in a statement that Noem was using the border issue to influence Donald Trump’s presidential campaign and boost her chances of becoming his running mate.

Star Comes Out and other tribal leaders did not immediately respond to The Washington Post’s request for comment Sunday afternoon.

Noem responded to the tribe’s statement on Saturday, saying it was unfortunate that Star Comes Out “chose to bring politics into a discussion regarding the effects of our federal government’s failure to enforce federal laws at the southern border and on tribal lands.”

She did not respond to a request for comment Sunday morning.

The back-and-forth comes amid a historic flow of migrants at the U.S.-Mexico border.

For months, a bipartisan group of Senate negotiators have been trying to find a compromise on border security.

In a major shift from traditional Democratic rhetoric on migration last month, President Biden said he would use emergency authorization to “shut down the border when it becomes overwhelmed” if Congress passes the bipartisan immigration plan. He urged the House GOP majority to accept the Senate deal.

In December, about 10,000 people per day crossed the border, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection data. Democrats and Republicans agree that this level of migration is unsustainable, The Post reported last month.

Crossings declined in January because Mexico increased enforcement.

In the tribal statement, Star Comes Out said Noem should support the bipartisan border deal in Congress.

While speaking to the legislature on Wednesday, and again in a statement issued Saturday, Noem described the influx of immigrants at the border as an “invasion” that is bringing a violent presence to tribal reservations and spreading drugs and human trafficking through the state.

Star Comes Out said that Noem’s use of the term “invasion” is misplaced, and that drugs and human trafficking affect all of South Dakota and surrounding states.

In November, the Oglala Sioux Tribe declared a state of emergency on the Pine Ridge Reservation — a 3,500-mile tract about 60 miles southwest of Pierre — due to increasing crime, according to the Associated Press.

Many of those arriving at the border are Indigenous people coming “in search of jobs and a better life” from countries that include El Salvador, Guatemala and Mexico, Star Comes Out said in his Friday statement.

“[They] don’t deserve to be dehumanized and mistreated by people like [Texas] Governor [Greg Abbott] and his cohorts,” he said. “They don’t need to be put in cages, separated from their children like during the Trump Administration, or be cut up by razor wire.”

Noem was previously barred from Pine Ridge Reservation in 2019 during a years-long feud over the Keystone XL oil pipeline, as previously reported by The Post. “If you do not honor this directive,” wrote the tribe’s then-president, Julian Bear Runner, “we will have no choice but to banish you.”

The tribal council removed the ban in December 2019, after Noem said the state would not enforce some parts of anti-riot laws, according to the Rapid City Journal. Tribes said the laws were developed to target their protests.

The pipeline project was scrapped in June 2021.

In her response to Friday’s directive, Noem said she wants to work on relationships between the state and the Oglala Sioux.

“As I told bipartisan Native American legislators earlier this week, ‘I am not the one with a stiff arm, here. You can’t build relationships if you don’t spend time together,’” she said.

Noem did not address Star Comes Out’s claim about her jockeying for the vice presidency.

On Sunday, Fox Business’s Maria Bartiromo asked Trump whether he’d consider Noem as a running mate. Trump, the front-runner for the Republican presidential nomination, said Noem “has been incredible fighting for me.”

“She said: ‘I’d never run against him because I can’t beat him,’” Trump said. “That was a very nice thing to say.”

 

[GreyhoundFan]

She is pitiful.

 

[Audrey2]

4 hours ago, GreyhoundFan said:

She is pitiful.

 

Better yet... Move here and we'll put your face on Mount Rushmore. 

[GreyhoundFan]

Shapiro is working to improve the lives of the citizens of PA:

[GreyhoundFan]

More of this, please. 
 

 

[GreyhoundFan]

I love Beshear:

 

[Audrey2]

9 hours ago, GreyhoundFan said:

I love Beshear:

 

Hmmm... A potential candidate for 2028? He seems to be doing good things in Kentucky.

[CTRLZero]

Loren Culp, a mega MAGA Trumpster, previously ran for governor and caused all sorts of annoying election-results-denying problems.  Now it looks like he’s getting some payback.  From the Seattle Times (probably need a trigger warning since Culp is a horrible man who says horrible things):

Spoiler

By 

Danny Westneat 

Seattle Times columnist

At first blush, it seems a trivial thing: a cop possibly getting booted out of a police association.

As even the cop on the hot seat suggested, who will care? 

“Most people don’t even know what WASPC is,” he said.

But the move last week by the Washington Association of Sheriffs and Police Chiefs — WASPC — to start expulsion proceedings against former GOP congressional and governor candidate Loren Culp feels like a long overdue cultural moment.

Finally someone in the conservative political orbit is being held to account for unhinged MAGA rhetoric — and by their own.

Culp, who was the Republican nominee for governor in 2020, and then the Donald Trump-endorsed MAGA candidate for Congress in 2022, has been posting obnoxious and sometimes violent rhetoric on social media for years.

In 2022, I highlighted how he had called for the lynching of a Black criminal suspect, posting “Get a Rope!” on the platform X (then called Twitter). He also suggested shooting “worthless judges and prosecutors.”

“Firing squad, and I’ll volunteer for it,” he said.

What was most disturbing about this story wasn’t that a Trump-endorsed candidate and law enforcement official was urging the most racist and grotesque vigilantism. It was that his comments were greeted by crickets. Everybody just shrugged, in weary silence.

“We’ve passed some tipping point,” I wrote, where it had become acceptable for parts of the political right to say horrific things, often calling for extreme violence. Another candidate in Eastern Washington, Jerrod Sessler, had called for hanging Dr. Anthony Fauci — no biggie, as Sessler is winning some GOP endorsements in a race for Congress again this year.

Fast forward to now, and the proudly classless Culp is still at it. This time he went for crude misogyny, after state Rep. Jacquelin Maycumber, a Republican who had endorsed Nikki Haley instead of Trump for president, announced last month she was running for Congress in Eastern Washington.

“WE are the only ones who are going to get the word out about this backstabbing (insert female dog),” he wrote.

When Republican state Rep. Travis Couture objected to the blatant sexism, Culp called him a “uniparty bitch.”

There aren’t just female bitches, Travis Couture is also a bitch, feel better?” Culp said.

This is like sixth grade, only worse because Culp is allegedly an adult. But that’s MAGA for you. Out of the blue, the police association finally couldn’t take it anymore.

“These comments made in public are unbecoming of a WASPC member and warrant expulsion,” the group said in an April 3 letter to Culp.

I don’t know what caused the group to snap. Culp says it’s political, because he opposes former sheriff Dave Reichert’s run for governor. Maybe so. Regardless, it’s about time someone in or adjacent to GOP politics got back to insisting on some basic standards.

I’ve grappled before with the “nothing matters” theory of politics, as it is equal parts baffling and distressing. The theory says we live in a time where actions no longer have consequences, where truth is no different than lies, where facts are like fog. There’s no shame and no norms, and never any movement in the polls. Nothing sticks.

“Sometime, someday, something will surely matter with Donald Trump,” I wrote last year. “But today is not yet that day.”

After a jury found Trump civilly liable for sexual assault and defamation, ordering him to pay $83.3 million in damages, Sen. Mitt Romney expressed exasperation with how there are no moorings.

“I must admit that I find sexual assault to be a line I will not cross in the people I select to be my president,” Romney said. Yet he was practically alone among GOP members of Congress in drawing this obvious line.

Using fake elector schemes and a mob to try to mug democracy’s peaceful transfer of power is another line, one would think. And yet, for most Republicans, and maybe a majority of Americans, it isn’t.

Culp is like a mini-Trump, both in his crass put-downs and his refusal to accept accountability for anything (such as losing an election). After he lost his job as a police chief, Culp got hired to run the jail in Klickitat County along the Columbia River.

How’s that going? Following the death of one inmate and another found covered with bugs and suffering from rotting flesh, the county commissioners voted to close the jail last week due to the deplorable conditions. Some commentary in The Goldendale Sentinel dubbed it “The County Gulag.”

Yet Culp seems to have failed upward, getting promoted to chief criminal deputy by “constitutional sheriff” Bob Songer.
That’s going to make some of the Songer haters and Culp haters pretty upset probably,” Songer cracked to Oregon Public Broadcasting.

Hilarious. The whole mess ought to upset the good citizens of Klickitat County. Maybe nothing matters there, either.

The only way this race to the bottom is going to stop, either locally or nationally, is if associates, colleagues and fellow travelers finally say enough. It doesn’t make a ripple anymore for someone like me to denounce Culp for his lynching comments, or for calling a woman in public office a female dog. Just as with Trump, it’s got to come from his own. There’s got to be some cost, some price paid, some accountability. And it has to come from within.

“I’m proud of the Washington Association of Sheriffs and Police Chiefs for taking a stand against ‘men,’ I use the term lightly, like you and the way you treat women,” former Spokane County Sheriff Ozzie Knezovich responded to Culp.

Exactly. That’s the way to do it. Now keep going. All the way to the top.

Danny Westneat:  dwestneat@seattletimes.com;  Danny Westneat takes an opinionated look at the Puget Sound region's news, people and politics.