Three former State Dept. colleagues told me that Klein defended the Argentine dictatorship, which killed ~30K of its own citizens in the Dirty War.
"The views expressed were very sympathetic to a notorious human rights-abusing regime that came to power in a coup," one told me.
Klein's uncle, Guillermo Walter Klein Jr., was a powerful figure in that junta, the right-hand man to the regime's top economic official.
He was prominent enough that leftist guerrillas tried to assassinate him, blowing up his home in 1979. It made international news.
Former Buenos Aires Herald Editor Bob Cox knew Freddie's dad and uncle well, and said they were both pro-junta. He wasn't surprised by Freddie's alleged actions.
“There is a connection of the belief that you use military force, if you can. That ran in the family."
Video shows a man alleged to be Freddie Klein was among the first wave of rioters to attack the Capitol.
He mounted a half-hour assault on Capitol Police, rallying others to attack with a call of "we need fresh people" while using a police shield to repeatedly attack officers.
Freddie's mom Cecilia said she'd never heard him express pro-junta views, but:
"What he was probably explaining to his friends in the office of the Southern Cone was that there was context to the military takeover," she said. "Bodies were piling up, the economy was in the tank."
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We've hit a historic new high in partisan polarization in the House. Just 9 Republicans hold districts Biden won, and just 7 Dems carried districts Trump won. Not a single Dem holds a House seat that Trump won by 5+ points.
(Reposting to fix typo in the Dem #)
That's a HUGE drop even in the last few years. There were 38 crossover districts after the 2016 elections (13 D, 25 R). Now there are just 16.
As recently as 2009, there were 83 crossover districts — 49 Ds in seats Obama lost in '08, 34 Rs in Obama districts.
Credit to @DKElections for the always-valuable and newly released presidential results by congressional district (and for catching my typo in the Dem #s from the previously posted thread): dailykos.com/stories/2012/1…
One more name for the list of potential Alabama Senate candidates: Former Trump state chairman Perry Hooper tells me he's thinking about running. "There may be 20 people running by the time the primary gets here. Hell, I may even look at it. I’m the Trump guy in Alabama."
Hooper said he's "had people calling me since the rumors started" about @SenShelby kicked up a few months ago, doesn't sound super likely to run and plans to decide in the next 3-4 weeks. "I'll look at it. But it’s a lot of things I have to weigh."
Hooper was Trump's '16 state chairman and helped out with the post-election legal efforts to reverse Biden's Nevada win.
He's also a former state lawmaker whose dad was Alabama Supreme Court chief justice. Not high name ID but he's well-connected both in-state and with Trump.
Source tells me that roughly half the House GOP conference gave Marjorie Taylor Greene a standing ovation after she rose to speak a few min ago.
Fwiw other sources saying it was likely less than half the conference but all say it was a substantial chunk of the conference. And came after MTG (sort of) apologized.
Full story on how the GOP decided to embrace BOTH their loudest QAnoner and the most prominent impeachment supporter after a long, tense meeting: vice.com/en/article/bvx…
In about 24 hours, House Republicans will meet for the first time to discuss whether to punish Marjorie Taylor Greene — or Liz Cheney. Whatever they do, it'll say a lot about where the party is headed. vice.com/en/article/4ad…
The most likely outcome: They don't do anything.
McCarthy hasn't indicated he'll move to strip Greene of her committee assignments, and it sounds like Cheney's foes don't have the votes to oust her from her leadership role. But there's a helluva lot of uncertainty.
R's from across the party told me they're not thrilled with how Kevin McCarthy has handled this so far. One GOP Hill aide said that by not acting decisively on either front, "He’s self-created this snowball of shit and now it’s coming to a head."
Okay, why the hell did @politico hand its top newsletter @playbookplus over to @benshapiro for today? That newsroom is filled with such talented folks. We're 1 day after impeachment, a week past insurrection and stuff days to inauguration. 4 years and they've learned nothing.
Seriously. It's not like Ben Shapiro doesn't get enough attention. His pieces basically dominate Facebook. And I think he's worth reading. But wtf.
Ben has a big megaphone and represents what a lot of Republicans are thinking so he's worth reading to understand where they're coming from. He doesn't need to be handed the keys to an influential newsletter for that.
The deepest cuts were driven by COVID and shifts to vote by mail and voting centers. But many states are just cutting while doing little to nothing to expand VBM.
40 of the 45 states that weren't already vote by mail saw cuts, and 35 are not sending mail ballots to everyone.
This was a biiig lift - it took bugging 50 secretaries of state/election boards (and DC!) for their info and comparing it to 2016 and 2012 @No_Little_Plans deserves kudos for doing most of that.