DL Open Thread Monday Jan 16 2023

The PAGOP is spending $100,000 for an election post mortem to figure out why they suck and nobody likes them. I would have taken the job for half that and turned it around in an afternoon.

A GOP postmortem: What went so wrong in Pennsylvania?

PHILADELPHIA — The Pennsylvania GOP is trying to figure out what went so horribly wrong in 2022.

After the party’s disastrous midterm races, Republicans in the critical battleground state are conducting a postmortem, holding focus groups throughout the state and interviewing thousands of voters about everything from abortion to former President Donald Trump in hopes of getting to the bottom of their losses. As a sign of the seriousness of the effort, the state party has enlisted Public Opinion Strategies, a D.C. area-based firm, to conduct the review of the 2022 election. Republicans said it is expected to cost $100,000.

The GOP majority in Ohio sure has some fucked up priorities.

GOP Action on Mail Ballot Timelines Angers Military Families

COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — Ohio’s restrictive new election law significantly shortens the window for mailed ballots to be received — despite no evidence that the extended timeline has led to fraud or any other problems — and that change is angering active-duty members of the military and their families because of its potential to disenfranchise them.

The pace of ballot counting after Election Day has become a target of conservatives egged on by former President Donald Trump. He has promoted a false narrative since losing the 2020 election that fluctuating results as late-arriving mail-in ballots are tallied is a sign of fraud.

Kevin McCarthy promises to do to America what Musk did to Twitter

Kevin McCarthy vows to release all Jan. 6 info ‘exactly’ in style of Elon Musk’s ‘Twitter files’

During an appearance on Fox News on Sunday, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) accused Democrats of “railroading” Republicans with the Jan. 6 Committee and told host Maria Bartiromo that he plans to release all the information collected about the attacks that day “exactly” in the style of Elon Musk’s “Twitter files.”
“The best way to handle this is exactly the way Elon Musk [handled it],” McCarthy said. “Just put all the information out there and let people see what is truth and what is not.”

“So, the best way to do that is to release the tapes,” he added. “People can know for themselves instead of picking and choosing what views they want people to see.”

Smoking cigars is totally about freedom and not at all about being raging assholes

Republican Says Smoking of Cigars Inside the Capitol Is ‘About Freedom’

Republican Representative Troy Nehls has said that smoking cigars in the U.S. Capitol is “about freedom” following a number of reports of an apparent uptick in smoking among GOP members of the House of Representatives.

Nehls, who represents Texas’ 22nd congressional district, spoke to Fox News’ Tucker Carlson on Friday with three cigars visible in his left breast pocket and criticized the focus some journalists have placed on Republican’s smoking.

A number of members of the press corps recently highlighted the fact that smoking seems to have become more commonplace now that the GOP is in the House majority.

Members of the House are permitted to smoke in their offices, which are exempt from D.C’s requirement that public buildings should be smoke-free.