#greg murphy

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On New Year's Day, 48 hours before now-Congressman Madison Cawthorn was sworn into the U.S. House of Representatives, he got a Twitter shoutout from Donald Trump for a video he shared.

In the video, the 25-year-old stares at the camera straight-on as he details his plans to object to Wednesday's Electoral College result certification.

His tone is serious and his words unwaveringly ultranationalist as he suggests he is doing this for the Republic, that it will fall into tyranny if he doesn't.

"Do not let your vote get canceled by these bastards," Cawthorn says.

Everything he says is inaccurate, despite his taunts to viewers to fact-check him.  The News & Observer actually took him up on it: the "thousands" of "recent" criminal convictions for fraud votes were actually less than 1,000 spanning 69 years, from the Cold War's early years to Trump's first year in office. The other comments were baseless and have been repeatedly debunked.

Five North Carolina Republican congressmen — Cawthorn, Ted Budd, Richard Hudson, David Rouzer, and Greg Murphy — have all released statements that they will be baselessly rejecting the 2020 election results.  They reason that widespread yet totally undiscovered voter fraud gives them no choice but to reject the results from states they don’t represent.

"I have a hard time believing our Founders intended for Congress to be a simple rubber stamp of approval for Electoral College votes put forward by the respective states," Rouzer said in his statement.  "I certainly agree that Congress’ role should be as limited as possible, but if the Founders intended a rubber stamp of approval then why didn’t they give this responsibility to an office in the Executive branch or an office in the Legislative branch?"

While the objection to the election results is a fairly common symbolic gesture, the Washington Post reports that it’s uncommon for U.S. Senators to play along (as 12 have said they will).  Of course, this means nothing when the loser has actually conceded the race.  Although Trump claims Mike Pence has the right to challenge the results, it probably won’t do anything except stoke the fires of right-wing extremists using these claims as reasons to act violently and increase the ever-growing political divide in our nation.

“Not a single one of these spineless, weak Republicans can point to widespread fraud,” North Carolina Democratic Party Chairman Wayne Goodwin said in a statement.  “Instead, they’re meekly going along with their tails between their legs because they’re terrified of crossing a lame-duck president so desperate to cling onto power after losing an election that he’ll attack and bully election officials from his own party, spout unfounded claims of fraud, and seek to steal a free and fair election.”  The INDY reached out to the remaining Republican U.S. Senators and U.S Representatives who represent North Carolina on Monday night and midday Tuesday, hoping to learn how they feel about their colleagues’ plans and whether or not they’d be joining the mass hysteria.  Two representative offices — Virginia Foxx and Patrick McHenry — gave us press secretary emails, who have not responded.  Burr and Tillis haven't responded either.  Dan Bishop’s campaign said they had not yet made a formal statement, and were unable to say whether one would be released before tomorrow morning.

That means that every Republican representing North Carolina in Congress has either announced their plans to try and thwart the will of the voters and subvert our democracy or that they've remained silent about their intentions.

While the others may not have shared their votes tomorrow, Dan Bishop and Virginia Foxx previously signed on to Texas’ attempt to overthrow the election results.  Sort of easy to assume how they’ll proceed tomorrow.  Additionally, the N.C. GOP previously expressed the party's stance on bogus election fraud claims by circulating a petition titled: "Keep Sleepy Joe and Radical Kamala out of the White House."  Pretty sure we know where they stand, too.

If you're wondering whether these extremists can be kicked out of office, the answer is complicated.  The precedents include: supporting the Confederacy (which booted 17 congressmen), taking Mafia money, taking money for political asylum, and plotting against the government... of Spain.  So yes, they could be if they did something illegal and two-thirds of each legislature says yes.  The likelihood of that happening?  Basically zero.

Thankfully, all of the North Carolina reps in the U.S. House who are kissing Trump's ass by objecting to legitimate election results are up for re-election in 2022.  Voters just reelected Senator Thom Tillis for a six-year term, and Senator Richard Burr doesn't plan to run for reelection in 2022.

If you’re interested in contacting your representatives in Congress, here are the phone numbers for their Washington, D.C. offices.  Personalizing your message gives it the best chance of heading to the right people.

Richard Burr (Senator, statewide): (202) 224-3154

Thom Tillis (Senator, statewide): (202) 224-6342

Greg Murphy (District 3): (202) 225-3415

Virginia Foxx (District 5):  (202) 225-2071

David Rouzer (District 7): (202) 225-2731

Richard Hudson (District 8): (202) 225-3715

Dan Bishop (District 9): (202) 225-1976

Patrick McHenry (District 10): (202) 225-2576

Madison Cawthorn (District 11): (202) 225-6401

Ted Budd (District 13):  (202) 225-4531

Find your district here.

Follow Digital Content Manager Sara Pequeño on Twitter or send an email to [email protected].

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Donald Trump just became the third United States president in history to be impeached by the House of Representatives.

The House voted to charge President Trump with abuse of power and obstruction of congress Wednesday night after lots and lots of evidence shows he pressured Ukrainian officials to dig up dirt on his political rivals.  The final vote was 230-197 for abuse of power and 229-198 on obstruction (Maine Representative Jared Golden split his ticket.)

Trump now joins Presidents Bill Clinton and Andrew Johnson as the only presidents ever to fuck up this badly (Nixon resigned before he was impeached).  He also scored the most "yes" votes for impeachment ever: What a legacy.

In a not-so-shocking vote along party lines, North Carolina Democrats David Price, G. K. Butterfield and Alma Adams voted to impeach the President while spineless Republican cronies Dan Bishop, Ted Budd, Virginia Foxx, George Holding, Richard Hudson, Patrick McHenry, Greg Murphy, David Rouzer, and Mark Meadows voted to back their cult leader.

“Sound System”