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'COWARDS'

‘Spineless, Craven Little Men’: Critics Respond to NY Times Revelation McConnell and McCarthy Almost Turned on Trump

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Even before he was elected, the top Republicans in the House and Senate vowed allegiance to Donald Trump. But on January 6, 2021, a President refusing to admit defeat incited a violent and deadly insurrection on the U.S. Capitol – and democracy itself – and Leaders Kevin McCarthy and Mitch McConnell came close to totally turning against the soon-to-be ex-President.

“In the days after the attack, Representative Kevin McCarthy planned to tell Mr. Trump to resign. Senator Mitch McConnell told allies impeachment was warranted. But their fury faded fast,” The New York Times reveals Thursday with never-before reported comments from both GOP leaders.

“I’ve had it with this guy,” McCarthy told a group of Republican leaders. In the days following the insurrection he called Trump’s conduct on January 6 “atrocious and totally wrong,” said Trump was “inciting people” to attack, and declared the President’s remarks during the “Stop the Steal” rally before the attack “not right by any shape or any form.”

He told his leadership team what Trump “did is unacceptable. Nobody can defend that and nobody should defend it.”

And he told them he believed the Democrats would successfully impeach Trump a second time, and vowed to tell the President, “I think this will pass, and it would be my recommendation you should resign.”

McCarthy went as far as bringing up the 25th Amendment, The Times reports.

But within days both McCarthy and McConnell went back to business as usual: total subservience to Trump.

“I didn’t get to be leader by voting with five people in the conference,” McConnell told a friend, according to The Times.

At a Capitol Hill office lunch over Chick-fil-A, McConnell told two advisors, “The Democrats are going to take care of the son of a bitch for us,” referring to Trump and his upcoming impeachment.

“If this isn’t impeachable, I don’t know what is,” McConnell had also said.

Now, McConnell almost never talks about Trump.

Almost.

“In a Fox News interview in late February 2021,” The Times adds, “Mr. McConnell was asked whether he would support Mr. Trump in 2024 if the former president again became the G.O.P. nominee for the presidency. Mr. McConnell answered: ‘Absolutely.'”

Critics are blasting McConnell and McCarthy.

“I know all about bullying. I was bullied all through school,” writes Pulitzer Prize-winning commentator Leonard Pitts, Jr. “But I simply cannot understand two adult men so scared of one blustering blowhard that they would put their country at risk rather than stand up to him. What spineless, craven little men.”

Others are calling the two top GOP leaders “spineless,” and cowards as well.

Adam Smith, Action Fund Director at two political action committees, calls the Times’ report the “least surprising news you’ll read all day: Republican leaders are spineless.”

“Kevin McCarthy and Mitch McConnell are, and always have been, spineless,” adds The Lincoln Project.

McConnell and McCarthy “lost their spines,” opined New York Times congressional correspondent Jonathan Weisman.

“They know what’s right. They’re cowards,” says former journalist Ron Fournier.

Political satirist and Emmy nominated filmmaker Jeremy Newberger served up this title: “Kevin McCarthy and Mitch McConnell: A Picture of Whatever the Opposite of Courage Is.”

“Profiles in cowardice,” writes Tennessee State University assistant political science professor David Ryan Miller. “McConnell and McCarthy knew better. They could have helped convict and disqualify Donald Trump, effectively blacklisting him from American politics and providing an opportunity to turn the page. They chose not to.”

HuffPost White House correspondent S.V. Dáte, who once famously asked Trump, during a televised briefing, if he regretted “all the lying you’ve done to the American people,” also weighed in.

 

 

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'COWARDS'

NRA Chief Wayne LaPierre Is a ‘Poor Marksman’ Who Went on Safari and Painfully Shot and Killed an Elephant

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Firing from point-blank range, LaPierre shot the immobilized animal three times in the wrong place.

For 40 years Wayne LaPierre has been the executive vice president and CEO of the National Rifle Association, and yet can’t seem to shoot straight.

A just-published article at The New Yorker exposes the top gun lobby group’s chief as having “clumsy marksmanship,” as a video of him on safari with his wife (below) reveals.

“After the mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School, in 2012, Wayne LaPierre, the head of the National Rifle Association, told Americans agitating for new gun regulations, ‘The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun.’ Less than a year later, LaPierre and his wife, Susan, travelled to Botswana’s Okavango Delta, where they hoped to show N.R.A. members that they had the grit to take on a different adversary: African bush elephants, the largest land mammals on Earth. The trip was filmed by a crew from ‘Under Wild Skies,’ an N.R.A.-sponsored television series that was meant to boost the organization’s profile among hunters—a key element of its donor base. But the program never aired,” The New Yorker’s  Mike Spies writes.

LaPierre’s wife cut off an elephant’s tail, “and held it in the air. ‘Victory!’ she shouted, laughing. ‘That’s my elephant tail. Way cool.'”

“The Trace and The New Yorker obtained a copy of the footage, which has been hidden from public view for eight years. It shows that when guides tracked down an elephant for LaPierre, the N.R.A. chief proved to be a poor marksman. After LaPierre’s first shot wounded the elephant, guides brought him a short distance from the animal, which was lying on its side, immobilized. Firing from point-blank range, LaPierre shot the animal three times in the wrong place. Finally, a guide had the host of ‘Under Wild Skies’ fire the shot that killed the elephant. Later that day, Susan LaPierre showed herself to be a better shot than her husband. After guides tracked down an elephant for her, Susan killed it, cut off its tail, and held it in the air. ‘Victory!’ she shouted, laughing. ‘That’s my elephant tail. Way cool.'”

Journalist Yashar Ali, has exposed top media and personalities and politicians, including former Fox News host Eric Bolling, Los Angeles mayor Eric Garcetti, Lincoln Project co-founder John Weaver, and TV personality Sharon Osbourne. He is an avid elephant rights activist and posted The New Yorker’s video, along with some commentary.

“Because they are cowards, Wayne and Susan LaPierre had parts from the two elephants they killed shipped to the United States under a taxidermists name instead of theirs,” He writes in one tweet. “The elephants front feet were turned into stools for the LaPierre’s home.”

Caution: graphic and disturbing content:

The details of the killing of the elephant are brutal, clearly the animal must have suffered greatly.

“After a guide spots an elephant standing behind a tree, LaPierre takes aim with a rifle. As LaPierre peers through the weapon’s scope, the guide repeatedly tells him to wait before firing. LaPierre is wearing earplugs, doesn’t hear the instructions, and pulls the trigger. The elephant drops. ‘Did we get him?’ LaPierre asks.”

The guide at first says yes, but then, as he approaches the elephant, it appears that the animal is still breathing. The guide brings LaPierre within a few strides of the elephant, which lays motionless on the ground. He tells LaPierre that another bullet is needed. 

After wounding the animal, he again “shoots the elephant in the wrong place. It’s still alive. The guide tells LaPierre to sit down and reminds him to reload, as he physically moves LaPierre into place. Now on one knee, the N.R.A. leader asks, ‘Same spot?’ and then shoots again. The bullet misses the mark.”

“I don’t think it’s quite done yet,” the guide says to Makris. “Do you want to do it for him?” The guide then says to LaPierre, “I’m not sure where you’re shooting.”

“Where are you telling me to shoot?” LaPierre responds, sounding frustrated. The guide again walks over to the elephant and points toward the ear. “Oh, O.K.,” LaPierre says. “Alright, I can shoot there.” He takes a third shot at point-blank range.

“Uh-uh,” the guide says, indicating that LaPierre has missed his mark again.

“No?” LaPierre asks.

Elephants are considered to be very intelligent, self-aware, and show empathy. Scientific American in 2014 reported they are “some of the most intelligent, social and empathic animals around.”

Read the entire report at The New Yorker.

 

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