Stephan: Charges of witchcraft and casting spells by one MAGAt about another -- in this case Republican Representative-elect Anna Paulina -- is an actual headline in media today. Are we in the 14th century or the 21st? If you have been watching the sad chaotic clown show of incompetence of the House today, perhaps like me your main takeaway is that the Republican Party serving the interests of its corporate masters has put forward candidates who are like cartoon figures and are now facing the consequences of that strategy. These cartoons will vote as their corporate masters wish, but they really aren't interested in governance that fosters wellbeing, or governance at all. What Gaetz, Greene, Boebert, etc., etc., etc. really want is public celebrity, being a guest on Tucker Carlson's show, and the deference accorded members of Congress. And once we finally get a Speaker of the House, and the new Congress is sworn in, buckle your seat because the MAGAts are going to spend their time avoiding actual governance and, instead, engaging in endless vengeance attacks on Biden and his administration. It is going to be a very weird two years, I think. The good news is I believe it will be so off-putting that voters, particularly young voters who are an increasing percentage of the voting population, will be fed up with the Republicans and vote Democrats into control of both Houses of Congress, as well as the presidency.
You may not have heard of Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, a recently elected Republican congresswoman from Florida, but within MAGA circles, she’s known for her alleged interest in the practice of witchcraft and even an accusation of having a tryst with Rep. Matt Gaetz.
The allegations were leveled at Luna by Matt Tito, a friend of Roger Stone’s and failed candidate who ran for the 68th District in Florida in 2020 but lost to Democratic incumbent Ben Diamond.
In October, Luna’s attorney, David J. Lisko, wrote a letter to Tito demanding a video apology retracting the “defamatory statements” he made on the show, adding that his comments were knowingly untrue or “said in gross negligence, knowing the statements were highly implausible and unlikely to be true.”
“You said that Ms. Luna (a devout Christian) practices witchcraft. … You are hereby demanded to publicly and immediately retract each and every defamatory statement you made about Ms. Luna on the show,” Lisko added. “Because you do not have the ability to distribute your retraction widely […]