Democracy Has Prevailed.

May 18, 2022

Ok, Now We Go To Work (PA State Senator Doug Mastriano, Now The GOP Candiate for Governor of PA)

From The NY Times

Doug Mastriano, a central figure in former President Donald J. Trump’s efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election in Pennsylvania, won the state’s Republican primary for governor on Tuesday, making the general election a referendum on democracy in the place where American representative government was born.

A "central figure" in Trump's attempted coup.

The Washington Post:

In Pennsylvania, state Sen. Doug Mastriano, a Trump-endorsed candidate who led an effort to overturn the election in his state and attended the Stop the Steal rally on Jan. 6, 2021, the day a pro-Trump mob attacked U.S. Capitol, won the Republican nomination for governor. He will face state Attorney General Josh Shapiro in November — a showdown Democrats were eager to embrace.

 He "led an effort to overturn the election" in Pennsylvania.

The Hill:

Pennsylvania state Sen. Doug Mastriano was projected to win the state’s GOP gubernatorial primary Tuesday despite a flagging effort from some Republicans to block him from the nomination. 

The Associated Press called the race at 9:51 p.m. ET.

Mastriano defeated a crowded field of other gubernatorial candidates, including former Rep. Lou Barletta, his main primary rival, and had a healthy polling lead during the weeks leading into the primary. 

Mastriano is a staunch hard-liner in the GOP and has centered much of his campaign around the unsubstantiated claims of widespread voter fraud in 2020. He’s also supported outlawing abortion without any exceptions and rolling back privacy protections for people who contract COVID-19.

And let's remember that "outlawing abortion without without any exceptions" means he'd put in place a government bureaucracy that'll force a raped 14-yr old girl to give birth to her rapist's child.

Let's all take a moment to ponder, for a moment, PA State Senator and now GOP candidate for Governor of Pennsylvania's baggage.

  • He's been subpoenaed by the January 6 Committee:
    Based on publicly available information and information produced to the Select Committee, we believe that you have documents and information that are relevant to the Select Committee’s investigation. For example, we understand that you have knowledge of and participated in a plan to arrange for an alternate slate of electors to be presented to the President of the Senate on January 6, 2021, and we understand that you spoke with former President Trump about your post-election activities. We understand you participated in these activities based on assertions of voter fraud and other asserted irregularities and based on a stated belief that under the U.S. Constitution the “state legislature has the sole authority to direct the manner of selecting delegates to the Electoral College.” We have an interest in understanding these activities and the theories that motivated them.

    Based on your public statements, we understand that you were present during the attack on the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021, and that you witnessed “agitators...getting in the face of the police” and “agitators...start pushing the police up the [Capitol] steps.”
  • He was personally named in that now-famous phone call to the DOJ from Donald Trump, who was hatching plans to overturn the results of the 2020 election. From the transcript of  US Acting Deputy Attorney General Richard Donoghue :
    Q. On the very first page of your notes, there's a notation toward the top about Scott Perry, and then in parenthesis, I think it says "PA." And then it says, "Senator from PA - Doug Mastriano." What was the President's point in raising these two individuals, if you recall?

    A. I don't remember exactly, but I generally remember that the President said something to the effect of "there are officials all over the country who are raising issues about the elections."

    This one obviously was Pennsylvania.

    And he said, for instance, you know, you've got Scott Perry in Pennsylvania and the State Senator Mastriano. I think the State had had some hearings, or something to that effect, both Pennsylvania and I think Georgia did something similar.
  • And that hearing Donoghue mentioned was, of course, Mastriano's hearing in Gettysburg. The one where Steve Bannon said that the movement to overturn the 2020 election started at those hearings:

    Before the event, Bannon spoke with Adams County GOP Chair Charlotte Shaffer for his "War Room" news show.

    The pair spoke about the 3 November movement, a Trump-centered Republican movement seeking to prove election fraud.

    “One of the reasons I accepted the gracious invitation of Charlotte Shaffer, the chairman, was that this was the railhead of where 3 November started, the counter reaction, the great conference,” Bannon said on War Room.

    Bannon was referring to an event in Gettysburg at which former Trump adviser Rudy Giuliani publicly protested the election results. Mastriano organized that event as a member of the Pennsylvania Senate Majority Policy Committee.

  • Then there's his attendance at that QAnon conference:
    Last week in Gettysburg, a far-right Christian conference called “Patriots Arise for God and Country” drew State Sen. Doug Mastriano, a GOP front-runner for Pennsylvania governor; Teddy Daniels, a candidate for lieutenant governor; Maryland gubernatorial candidate Dan Cox; Liz Harrington, a spokesperson for former President Donald Trump; and former Trump campaign attorney Jenna Ellis.

    About 25 minutes into the two-day conference, organizers played a video claiming the world is experiencing a “great awakening” that will expose “ritual child sacrifice” and a “global satanic blood cult.”

    Followers of QAnon believe a global cabal of Democrats and elites are trafficking children for sex and engaged in other demonic activity — but that all of this will soon be exposed. Images associated with the conspiracy theory were on display during the Jan. 6, 2021 Capitol attack.

    The video showed Friday featured a kind of greatest hits of conspiracy theories that have circulated for decades. It showed images of the Twin Towers collapsing on 9/11 — with the label “false flags.” It claimed John F. Kennedy was assassinated because he “knew too much” and posed a “high risk of cabal exposure,” that vaccines amount to “genocide therapy,” and that Hitler faked his death. It offered other conspiracy theories about the atomic bomb, the Spanish flu, 5G, the 2008 financial crisis — and, of course, the 2020 election.

So now we go to work. 

This man can not be elected Governor of Pennsylvania. This man is part of the plot to overturn the 2020 election. He should be investigated, tried and if found guilty, be thrown in jail.