Far right wing Republican, Mike Nearman, a state representative in Oregon was expelled last night in a 59-1 vote for recklessly endangering the lives of representatives in special session by opening a locked side door allowing armed insurrectionists in the building last December protesting COVID-19 restrictions.  Nearman is a nut tied to all kinds of goofy conspiracy theories including signing on to our own nut, Ken Paxton’s, idiotic lawsuit to overturn the Oregon presidential vote.  Republicans had been slow walking the “investigation” of Nearman’s misconduct when a video emerged of him plotting with the insurectionists the week before the attack to let them into a locked door, and that is precisely what he did.  The evidence was so plain that even Republicans couldn’t ignore it and then unanimously voted him off the island.

There’s no question that Nearman is a bad guy.  He’s also facing criminal charges for his actions and one can only hope the judge in that case throws the book at him.  THIS is how you treat elected officials who support insurrection and lawlessness.  The same standard needs to be applied to those in DC who aided, abetted, and encouraged the attack on the US Capitol on January 6.  The morons who attacked the Capitol that day were too goddammed stupid to have done that on their own.  Insiders, and by that I mean elected officials and their staffs, helped them with the goal of delaying  or even stopping the certification of the Electoral College vote.  Elected officials, including the Vice President, could have easily been killed by said morons.  Those officials also must have the book thrown at them including jail time.  That’s how you put a stop to this nonsense.