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Racism is not just a way of describing a person's actions. It is a core part of their behavior, reasoning and values, and how they understand themselves in relationship to other human beings and the world. This is true of both racist individuals and racist societies.

Racists and those others invested in white supremacy and white privilege in its various forms will almost always reveal themselves. This is true regardless of their race or ethnicity.

Last week's Supreme Court confirmation hearings for Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson offered many such moments. Presuming Jackson is confirmed, as appears likely, she will be the first Black woman (and third Black person) to be a Supreme Court justice in American history. There is no doubt Jackson is eminentlyqualified. She has had to excel, as both a Black person and a woman, in ways more than equal to her white and male colleagues in order to forge a successful legal career.

Racists, white supremacists and other racial authoritarians possess great appreciation for the power of spectacle and timing. Senate Republicans and their supporters in the larger white right would not let Jackson's historic moment go by without attempting to twist it to their own purposes.

Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee (and their boosters in right-wing media) pounced on Jackson with a series of insidious lies and allegations drawn from the QAnon conspiracy theory. According to this narrative, she is a pedophile-protecting, criminal-coddling "anti-white" Black supremacist who embraces "critical race theory" and seeks to destroy the "traditional family."

RELATED:Ted Cruz turns Jackson's Supreme Court hearing into Brett Kavanaugh rehab

As Abby Zimet wrote for Common Dreams, Jackson's hearings"turned into a noxious maelstrom of frat boy 'whiteness at work' thanks to the relentless, hectoring assaults by a 'marauding band of racist, sexist visigoths' of the GOP, who managed to turn a more-than-eminently qualified Black female judge into a child-porn-loving, critical-race-spewing danger to the Republic." She continues:

Sadly, the most striking feature of almost four days of hearings was not the historical moment a nation poised to add the first Black woman to its highest court but the bullying, badgering, appalling histrionics of a motley collection of ignorant old white guys (and one young one) subjecting a Black woman to the kind of contemptuous "jackassery" that no white counterpart, even a sniveling, lying, bellicose, sexual assaulting bro, would ever suffer, like, say, being asked the definition of a woman or if babies are racist WTF all while still smiling.

At the Nation,Elie Mystal offered further context:

Toni Morrison says "the very serious function of racism is distraction," but Jackson knew it wasn't worth being distracted by [Ted] Cruz, or any of the small-minded and condescending white people arrayed against her on the Senate Judiciary Committee. She's worked too hard and bested too many of the white man's little traps to get tripped up near the finish line by senators who debase themselves and their offices for 30 seconds of attention on Tucker Carlson's show. Jackson passed her test.

But it was hard to watch her be put through the crucible of white approval. The attacks used by Republicans against her weren't about her qualifications: Everybody knows she's more than qualified to be on the Supreme Court, and even most of the Republicans said so. The attacks weren't about her personal behavior or ethics: Again, even Republicans remarked that she had lived a good life and there's been no whiff of scandal, and no suggestion of sexual assault (which is not something you can say for all Supreme Court nominees).

Instead, Republicans simply pronounced her guilty by association with people and stereotypes of people they don't think belong in America.

As Joy-Ann Reid of MSNBC shared on Twitter, "Critical Race Theory is the new N-word. Republicans are wielding it like a burning cross in order to persecute Black people."

At Insider, Marguerite Ward observed that Jackson "wasconstantly interruptedandinterrogated," and that unlike Brett Kavanaugh,"who pounded his fists and yelled during his hearing, Jackson remained poised":

Can you imagine being interrupted and repeatedly asked about a theory that you have not studied but that people assume you support because you are Black? Can you imagine being painted as a radical, though the theory, which repeatedly you say you don't support, centers on the notion that racism is very real?

Ward also notes that while Justice Amy Coney Barrett was sharply questioned by Democrats during her own confirmation hearings,"she was not treated with the disrespect Jackson was."

Washington Post columnist Jennifer Rubin called out Judiciary Committee Democrats, with one notable exception, for enabling these attacks through their cowardice. Chairman Dick Durbin, D-Ill., failed to enforce the committee's rules, "allowing members to constantly badger Jackson." Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., lodged a strong objection to Republican members' conduct, but did so off camera and outside the hearing room. "Not until Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., the only African American on the committee, spoke did Republicans get their deserved pushback."

RELATED:Republicans turn Jackson's confirmation hearings into a QAnon circus

Perhaps even more important, Rubin highlighted how the mainstream media was also culpable in enabling the racist attacks on Jackson, by failing "to convey the visual image of angry White men screaming and interrupting a Black woman, who dares not show anger for fear of being labeled unprofessional or lacking the correct temperament":

Combined with the insinuations about her "softness" on child pornography and thehysterics on critical race theory, the aggression barely masked the Republican outpouring of White grievance.

It behooves Republicans who do not approve of this travesty to speak up. Meanwhile, Democrats should use their majority position to put an end to such conduct (cut off Republicans' microphones or conclude the hearing until they act appropriately), and the media should not provide camouflage for it. The refusal to afford a historic nominee with respect she deserves and to denounce baseless accusations speaks volumes about our collective failure, still, to reckon with the original sin of racism.

For all of the undeserved attacks on her character, intelligence, personhood and qualifications, Jackson remained an indomitable example of Black excellence, Black dignity and Black humanity. Ironically, her poise and skill in the face of such outrageous disrespect demonstrated, in part, why so many white people of a certain political orientation and others invested in white privilege and the status quo remain terrified of Black Americans' success in the face of enormous obstacles.

Jackson's professional and personal success is a trigger for the deep anxieties and fears that many white people, especially white men, feel about their own shortcomings and inadequacies being revealed in a society that has elevated them in large part through unearned advantages. White privilege is paradoxical in that way: It is taken for granted as just being "normal," but its beneficiaries are fearful of losing something they simultaneously refuse to admit is real.

Entirely too many political observers and pundits (the majority of which are white) insisted that Jackson's hearing would have "no drama" and that Republicans would likely "behave themselves," since they cannot realistically block Jackson's confirmation and she will not change the ideological balance of the Supreme Court. Thosevoices were wrong, as they have been so many other things in the Age of Trump and beyond. White privilege and white racial innocence act as blinders to reality, a truth that goes well beyond those with overtly racist attitudes and runs deep in the media and political classes.

Ultimately, too many (white) members of the news media and the political elite are unable or unwilling to accept a self-evident fact: Today's Republican Party and conservative movement are fundamentally white supremacist, and their leaders cannot abandon those beliefs and that ideology because racial hatred, bigotry and white identity politics pay great political dividends, along with other material and psychological rewards.

RELATED:GOP's violent rhetoric keeps getting worse and nobody is paying attention

Even by the low standard established by the other Republicans on the Judiciary Committee who attacked Jackson, Sen. Ted Cruz's behavior stood out as especially execrable. Two moments were especially noteworthy. At one point during last Wednesday's proceedings, Cruz posed this "question" to Jackson:

But let me ask, under the modern leftist sensibilities, if I decide right now that I'm a woman, and apparently I'm a woman. Does that mean that I would have Article III standing to challenge a gender-based restriction?... OK, if I can change my gender, if I can be a woman and an hour later if I decide that I'm not a woman anymore, I guess I would lose Article III standing. Tell me, does that same principle apply to other protected characteristics? For example, I'm an Hispanic man. Could I decide I was an Asian man? Would I have the ability to be an Asian man and challenge Harvard's discrimination because I made that decision? I'm asking you how you would assess standing if I came in and said if I have decided I identify as an Asian man.

Cruz is of course engaging in fear-mongering and outright distortion about gender identity, LGBTQ rights and race. His attack on Jackson also illustrates the complexities of white supremacy and the color line in post-civil rights America, where many nonwhite people are also invested in white supremacy and anti-Black attitudes and behavior.

Cruz's attacks on Jackson are a way for him to earn his "whiteness," and in doing so bolster his popularity among Republican voters. Race has always been a social construct that changes over time; whiteness and what groups are deemed to be "white" are malleable categories. Cruz identified himself as "anHispanic man" in his "questioning" of Jackson, but Hispanics and Latinos are a highly diverse ethnic and cultural group, not a "race" per se. Some members of that group are Black and brown, while others identify as "white". Some Hispanics and Latinos are not (yet) defined as "white" in America's system of racial categorization but yearn for whiteness and its privileges.

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In addition, "colorism" and anti-Black racism are relatively common within or between Hispanic and Latino communities and play a prominent role in such calculations and behaviors. It's important to recognize thatwhite supremacy is an ideology and belief system. Skin color is not a requirement for doing the work of white supremacy. Justice Clarence Thomas, to cite the most obvious example, is unquestionably a Black man who for many years has supportedwhite supremacy through his rulings, legal philosophy and other behavior. In fact, he is one of America's most dangerous white supremacist leaders.

Last month, well before Jackson's confirmation hearings, Ted Cruz made his white supremacist views clear duringan appearance on Fox News, claiming that "Democrats today believe in racial discrimination, they're committed to it as a political proposition." He was objecting to President Biden's commitment to nominate the first Black woman to serve on the Supreme Court:

What the president said is that only African-American women are eligible for this slot ... that 94% of Americans are ineligible. I think our country has such a troubled history on race, we ought to move past discriminating based on race. The way Biden ought to do it is to say I'm going to look for the best justice, interview a lot of people. And if he happened to nominate a justice who was an African-American woman, great. But you know what? If Fox News put a posting, we're looking for a new host for "Fox News Sunday" and we will only hire an African-American woman or a Hispanic man or a Native American woman, that would be illegal. Nobody else can do what Joe Biden did.

There is obvious partisan and racial hypocrisy at work here: Presidents have wide latitude to determine which individuals they will consider for the Supreme Court or other prominent appointments. Most notably, Ronald Reagan promised to nominate the first female Supreme Court justice, and even Donald Trump vowed to appoint a woman after Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg's death. There was no outcry from Republicans about those decisions being "discriminatory."

For most of the country's history, full and equal citizenship in American society was not possible for Black people. Indeed, it was literally illegal: Black people were considered first and foremost human property, and even the possibility of their freedom and equality were viewed as antithetical to white freedom and white democracy.

RELATED:How white supremacy fuels the Republican love affair with Vladimir Putin

The long arc of improving American democracy has in large part also been the story of Black Americans and their struggle to be acknowledged as full human beings and equal citizens under the law. That has made the Black Freedom Struggle in America a template for other marginalized and oppressed peoples around the world.

Ted Cruz is a highly intelligent man, a graduate of Harvard Law School. He certainly understood the context and history of his attack on Jackson in suggesting that her place in history and her seat on the Supreme Court were "illegal."

Ketanji Brown Jackson did not allow Cruz and the other Republican attackers to make her into some type of white racist and sexist caricature. She is poised to become the first Black woman on the Supreme Court. But make no mistake: The empire always strikes back, and the Republican fascists and their followers will continue to do everything possible to destroy her, even once she is seated on the court.

Jackson will succeed and triumph nonetheless. Not because Jackson she is a "strong Black woman" with all of the painful and often dehumanizing burdens and obligations that stereotype entails but simply because she is a talented legal scholar, a genuine public servant and a communicator of great poise, grace and wit, who unlike several of her future colleagues has been preparing for this moment for decades and has earned the honor and responsibility of being a Supreme Court justice.

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Ted Cruz earns his "whiteness": The Republican attack on Ketanji Brown Jackson - Salon

Kahan and his collaborators went on: Increasing hierarchical and individualistic worldviews induce greater risk-skepticism in white males than in either white women or male or female nonwhites.

In other words, those who rank high in communitarian and egalitarian values, including liberal white men, are high in risk aversion. Among those at the opposite end of the scale low in communitarianism and egalitarianism but high in individualism and in support for hierarchy conservative white men are markedly more willing to tolerate risk than other constituencies.

In the case of guns and gun control, the authors write:

Persons of hierarchical and individualistic orientations should be expected to worry more about being rendered defenseless because of the association of guns with hierarchical social roles (hunter, protector, father) and with hierarchical and individualistic virtues (courage, honor, chivalry, self-reliance, prowess). Relatively egalitarian and communitarian respondents should worry more about gun violence because of the association of guns with patriarchy and racism and with distrust of and indifference to the well-being of strangers.

A paper published in 2000, Gender, race, and perceived risk: the white male effect, by Melissa Finucane, a senior scientist at the RAND Corporation, Slovic, Mertz, James Flynn of Decision Research and Theresa A. Satterfield of the University of British Columbia, tested responses to 25 hazards and found that white males risk perception ratings were consistently much lower than those of white women, minority-group women and minority-group men.

The white male effect, they continued seemed to be caused by about 30 percent of the white male sample who were better educated, had higher household incomes, and were politically more conservative. They also held very different attitudes, characterized by trust in institutions and authorities and by anti-egalitarianism in other words, they tended to be Republicans.

While opinions on egalitarianism and communitarianism help explain why a minority of white men are Democrats, the motivation of white women who support Republicans is less clear. Cassese and Tiffany D. Barnes, a political scientist at the University of Kentucky, address this question in their 2018 paper Reconciling Sexism and Womens Support for Republican Candidates: A Look at Gender, Class, and Whiteness in the 2012 and 2016 Presidential Races.

Cassese and Barnes found that in the 2016 election, social class and education played a stronger role in the voting decisions of women than of men:

Among Trump voters, women were much more likely to be in the lower income category compared to men, a difference of 13 points in the full sample and 14 points for white respondents only. By contrast, the proportion of male, upper-income Trump supporters is greater than the proportion of female, upper-income Trump supporters by about 9 percentage points in the full sample and among white voters only. These findings challenge a dominant narrative surrounding the election rather than attracting downwardly-mobile white men, Trumps campaign disproportionately attracted and mobilized economically marginal white women.

Cassese and Barnes pose the question Why were a majority of white women willing to tolerate Trumps sexism? To answer, the authors examined polling responses to three questions: Do women demanding equality seek special favors? Do women complaining about discrimination cause more problems than they solve? and How much discrimination do women face in the United States? Cassese and Barnes describe the first two questions as measures of hostile sexism, which they define as negative views toward individuals who violate traditional gender roles.

They found that hostile sexism and denial of discrimination against women are strong predictors of white womens vote choice in 2016, but these factors were not predictive of voting for Romney in 2012. Put another way, white women who display hostile sexist attitudes and who perceive low levels of gender discrimination in society are more likely to support Trump.

See more here:
Opinion | What We Know About the Women Who Vote for Republicans and the Men Who Do Not - The New York Times

Fellow Republicans are not rushing to embrace Mr. Scotts plan.

I think its good that elected officials put out what theyre for, and so I support his effort to do it, said Senator Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, among the most endangered Republicans up for re-election in November. Thats what hes for.

But for Republican candidates, the issue is getting awkward. In Arizona, Jim Lamon, a Republican seeking to challenge the Democratic incumbent, Senator Mark Kelly, first called the plan pretty good stuff only to have his campaign retreat from that embrace.

Senator Marco Rubio, Republican of Florida, said of the plan, Its good that people offer ideas. His Democratic challenger, Representative Val B. Demings, nevertheless ran an ad on social media accusing him of embracing it.

At a Republican Senate debate in Ohio on Monday, the current front-runner, Mike Gibbons, called the plan a great first draft in trying to set some things we all believe in, adding, The people that dont believe them probably shouldnt be Republicans.

J.D. Vance, a candidate aligned with Mr. Trumps working-class appeal, fired back: Why would we increase taxes on the middle class, especially when Apple, Google, Amazon and Facebook pay a lower tax rate than any middle-class American in this room or in this country? Its ridiculous.

Even as he denied his plan would do that, Mr. Scott on Thursday was bold in the criticism of his fellow Republicans, who are relying on him to help them win elections this fall. Timidity is the kind of old thinking that got us exactly where we are today, where we dont control the House, the White House or the Senate, he said, adding: Its time to have a plan. Its time to execute on a plan.

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Income Taxes for All? Rick Scott Has a Plan, and Thats a Problem. - The New York Times

Photo-Illustration: Intelligencer; Photo: Ricky Carioti/The Washington Post via Getty Images

QAnons infiltration of the Republican Party has proceeded with frightening steadiness over the last couple years, its growing foothold marked by the arrival of conspiratorial politicians like Marjorie Taylor Greene. According to Business Insider, Ron Watkins, widely believed to be one of the authors of the Q posts that started the movement, is one of nearly 60 Q sympathizers running for Congress in the 2022 midterm elections. QAnons adherents tend to espouse some selection of bizarre beliefs from the conspiracists buffet that includes accusations of pedophile politicians eating children, secret political tribunals in Guantanamo Bay, a great bloodletting, and Donald Trump swooping in to free us from evil. One day. Or maybe the day after. The prophecy is flexible, which is why it has evolved and endured.

This week brought us evidence that QAnon thought has spread further than we knew: into the Senate, the Supreme Court, and the very highest levels of the Republican Party. It is increasingly difficult to separate the movements demented beliefs from the ideology of the already democracy-averse GOP, its traces evident in legislation, media appearances, and leaked private communications.

The latest exemplar of the GOPs descent into anything-goes nuttery is Ginni Thomas, wife of Supreme Court justice Clarence Thomas and a well-connected conservative activist who recently admitted to attending the January 6 Stop the Steal rally in Washington, D.C. Ginnis right-wing beliefs have long been known, but leaked texts between her and thenWhite House chief of staff Mark Meadows revealed Thomass commitment to overturning the election, based on an apparently sincere belief that Joe Biden had stolen the presidency. She encouraged Meadows to help put a stop to Democratic perfidy. The majority knows Biden and the Left is attempting the greatest Heist of our History, went one message to Meadows, encouraging him to stand strong.

The texts also revealed that she has traveled far down the QAnon rabbit hole. She made reference to watermarked ballots that signaled a secret Trump-led military sting operation. She described a plot hatched by the Biden crime family & ballot fraud co-conspirators who were already being arrested and shipped to floating barges off the coast of Guantanamo Bay. She wrote messages supporting Sidney Powell, a lawyer whose deranged media appearances made her such a liability that she was forced out of Trumps circle. But Thomas strongly supported Powell, a QAnon favorite. Dont let her and your assets be marginalized instead help her be the lead and the face, she wrote to Meadows on November 13.

Thomass willingness to embrace even the most wild-eyed, Big Liefueled theories only affirms what we already know about some of her political peers, including those who served in the Trump White House. Some went along out of self-preservation or an instinct for power, but other Trumpists, including perhaps Trump himself, actually accepted the proliferating lies about hacked voting machines, a communist influence project, corrupt state officials, and whatever else could be added to the witchs brew of baseless speculation. Whether they believed these lies or not, the effect was functionally the same. In the months before and after Joe Bidens election as president, the government was run byerratic coup plotters, some of whom thought that corrupt Democratic officials were being tried for treason secretly in Gitmo. The sheer absurdity of all this would be hilarious if it didnt involve people in positions of real influence.

These include lawmakers and aspiring presidential candidates in the Senate. Earlier this month, Missouri senator Josh Hawley presented a long Twitter thread charging that Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson has a pattern of letting child porn offenders off the hook a blaring Klaxon for QAnon adherents obsessed with child endangerment. He later repeated his criticisms on the first day of Jacksons confirmation hearing to the Supreme Court, prompting a White House spokesman to assert that Hawley was engaging in a QAnon-signaling smear. Hawleys remarks were later echoed by South Carolina senator Lindsey Graham, who, in addition to chiding Jackson for representing detainees at the Guantanamo Bay prison camp, told Jackson, Every judge who does what you are doing is making it easier for the children to be exploited. To cap it off, one of the Republican witnesses for the hearing was Alessandra Serano, an executive at Operation Underground Railroad, a well-funded anti-sex-trafficking organization whose vigilantism and weak relationship with reality resemble that of QAnon adherents.

The signs of the Republican slide toward full epistemic crack-up are all around us. One can see it everywhere lately, not only in the why do you want to hurt children?type questions hurled by Republican senators at Jackson, but also in the revanchist anti-LGBTQ laws being introduced in Texas and Florida and in fearful talk of teachers grooming children on Fox News. The ginned-up moral panic, centered around the child-exploitation themes that helped give life to QAnon, is now a regular part of Republican political rhetoric.

This phenomenons origins go back decades, with important mile markers appearing under the George W. Bush administration, which gave us truthiness and the reality-based community. How else to explain General Mike Flynn, a former director of the Defense Intelligence Agency and, briefly, national security adviser to the president, who now supports QAnon? Flynns full tilt toward Strangelovian madness may be partly because its popular on the speaking circuit, but he has also draped himself in some of the most unhinged and bloodthirsty language of the QAnon prophecy and seemingly delighted in doing so. (He thought Myanmars military coup was a good model for the U.S., for example.) It may be just another right-wingers embrace of the trolls ethos riling the enemy being the great credo of the modern Republican Party but again, the effect is the same: The free-associative, crazed accusations of conspiratorial thinking stand at the core of modern Republican politics.

If you had any lingering pretensions that our political elites know better than the average QAnon-pilled zombie, its past time to let them go. The people in charge of the Republican Party are mostly old and poorly informed operators who believe some of the most asinine theories to emerge from social-media bilge. Granting them some measure of savviness saying that this is red meat for the Republican base, or that it keeps the checks from right-wing billionaires coming in is to offer too much credit. More than that, it risks absolving them through some nod toward political practicalities when, mostly, this is all pretty evil and disturbing.

The added trouble with Ginni Thomas, of course, is not just that shes a well-connected right-wing activist who communicates abject lies to sympathetic presidential officials. Its that her husband, whose own beliefs are more closely held but likely fairly bonkers, has the power to help implement her agenda and protect her from repercussions. Clarence Thomass defenders on the right have been keen to point out that he and his wife are not the same person, and that much is true but can anyone say with any certainty whether this sitting member of the Supreme Court believes Joe Biden fairly won the 2020 election?

At the very least, critics have rightly objected to the fact that Thomas has refused to recuse himself from cases related to the January 6 committee. Hes in a position to not only provide legal cover for his wife but also her potential co-conspirators. If Thomas hadnt been quietly tucked away in a hospital with an undisclosed illness, perhaps this glaring conflict of interest could have been dealt with publicly, but for now, Republican officials continue to make excuses to protect one of their own. And the depressing reality is that the rot is deep. Even if Ginni and Clarence Thomas are excised from American political life, their shameless confederates remain.

This post has been updated.

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QAnon's Takeover of the Republican Party Is Virtually Complete - New York Magazine

As recently as five days ago, Rep. Jeff Fortenberry was a member of Congress in good standing. Now, as NBC News reported, the Nebraska Republican is resigning.

Rep. Jeff Fortenberry, R-Neb., on Saturday announced that he would resign from Congress, saying in a statement to constituents, Due to the difficulties of my current circumstances, I can no longer serve you effectively. ... In a letter to his colleagues in the House of Representatives, Fortenberry said he will resign from Congress effective March 31.

It was last Thursday when a Los Angeles jury convicted Fortenberry of lying to the FBI about receiving an illegal campaign contribution from a Lebanese-Nigerian billionaire. The nine-term lawmaker was convicted of three counts and faces a maximum penalty of five years in prison for each count.

As last week came to an end, it was an open question as to what Fortenberry would do next. The Nebraskan vowed to appeal his conviction, and it seemed at least possible that he would move forward with his re-election plans.

GOP leaders had other ideas. The morning after Fortenberrys convictions, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy called on the congressman to quit. When someone is convicted, its time to resign, McCarthy said. He had his day in court. I think if he wants to appeal, he can do that as a private citizen.

Short on allies, Fortenberry announced his resignation plans a day later. A special election will be held in Nebraskas 1st district, which is a Republican stronghold.

For those keeping score, this will be the sixth resignation from the current Congress, which is a relatively large number. Three House Democrats gave up their seats to serve in the Biden administration Louisianas Cedric Richmond, Ohios Marcia Fudge, and New Mexicos Deb Haaland and two Republicans quit for very different reasons.

Ohios Steve Stivers stepped down in April 2021 to oversee his home states chamber of commerce, and in December 2021, Californias Devin Nunes left Congress to run Donald Trumps controversial media company.

Speaking of the former president, its a safe bet that Fortenberry wishes Trump were still around. After all, Trump had a limitless tolerance for corruption, especially crimes committed by members of Congress: It was just a couple of election cycles ago when two incumbent House Republicans New Yorks Chris Collins and Californias Duncan Hunter faced multi-count felony indictments, ran for re-election anyway, and won.

They were later convicted, sentenced to prison, and pardoned by Trump, who was eager to reward his partisan loyalists.

Were he still in office, the Republican would also likely lend Fortenberry a hand. Indeed, after the Nebraskans indictment, Trump issued a statement of support, saying, Isnt it terrible that a Republican Congressman from Nebraska just got indicted for possibly telling some lies to investigators about campaign contributions, when half of the United States Congress lied about made up scams.

Oddly enough, this was not a defense Fortenberrys lawyers pushed during last weeks trial.

Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MSNBC political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "The Impostors: How Republicans Quit Governing and Seized American Politics."

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Following felony convictions, Republican congressman to resign - MSNBC