Feel sorry for me.
My wife and I have the unfortunate distinction of living in the Oregon House District held by Republican Mike Nearman -- the guy who held a door open at the state Capitol on December 21, allowing 50 militant protesters to stream into the building, setting off a battle with police that led to a dozen officers being pepper-sprayed by the intruders.
Oregon, of course, was a rehearsal of sorts for the January 6 insurrection at the nation's Capitol in Washington D.C..
It's fortunate that Nearman isn't a member of Congress, or he would have been helping the Trump mob break into the Senate and House chambers, perhaps with murderous results far greater than the single police officer killed by the insurrectionists.
Pleasingly, the Statesman Journal reports that a coalition of state leaders is calling on the Oregon Legislature to expel Nearman.
A coalition of local and regional leaders, business owners and organization directors are calling on the Oregon Legislature to expel Republican Rep. Mike Nearman for allowing violent demonstrators into the Capitol building in December.
The growing group includes three Salem city councilors; the executive director of the Eugene/Springfield NAACP; the executive director of the Northwest Accountability Project; union leaders; and environmental activists.
The Salem city councilors are Chris Hoy, Vanessa Nordyke, and Trevor Phillips. Hopefully the three other progressive councilors will join them.
Laurel, my wife, reads the constituent newsletters emailed to us by Nearman. So far I've held off on reading them out of a fear that my head would explode from the craziness they contain. {Laurel tells me about some of the lies in the newsletter, which are astounding to those of us who embrace reality rather than conspiracy theories.)
Speaking of conspiracy theories, the Oregon GOP has covered itself in lying grime after its executive committee issued a resolution calling the January 6 insurrection a "false flag" event. Meaning, supposedly the thousands of demonstrators carrying Trump flags and wearing Trumpian clothing actually were antifa masquerading as Trump supporters.
Of course, there is no evidence of this, but little details like facts don't stop today's Republican Party from spewing out the latest QAnon bullshit.
It's embarrassing that news of Oregon's GOP craziness made its way to Great Britain, where The Guardian ran a story, "Oregon Republican party falsely suggests Capitol attack was a 'false flag.'"
The Oregon Republican party has falsely claimed in a resolution that there is “growing evidence” that the 6 January attack on the US Capitol by a pro-Trump mob was “a ‘false flag’ operation”.
The resolution, which was published on 19 January and was endorsed by the executive committee of the state Republican party, suggested that the storming of the capitol by Trump supporters was an orchestrated conspiracy “designed to discredit President Trump, his supporters and all conservative Republicans” and to create a “sham motivation” to impeach the former president.
To back up these false claims, the resolution cited links to rightwing websites, including the Epoch Times, a pro-Trump outlet that has frequently published rightwing misinformation, as well as the Wikipedia entry for “Reichstag Fire.”
On the plus side, the craziness of the Oregon Republican Party isn't going to win over the voters they need to become competitive in statewide races. So says an Oregonian story about the GOP conspiracy theory resolution.
“It is a really curious strategy for a political party that is so weak in the state right now to try to find a way back,” said John Horvick, a pollster with DHM Research. “Republicans haven’t won the governor’s mansion since Vic Atiyeh. They’ve won two statewide races in the last two decades. They’re in the wilderness in the Legislature and they spent the summer trying to recall Kate Brown.
“Maybe this represents their base to some extent, but it doesn’t make any sense to me as a short-, medium-, or long-term strategy.”
Brian this is the first time I have heard of this coalition. I have asked to add my name to the movement to expel this dangerous person
Posted by: Tom Andersen | January 25, 2021 at 10:03 PM