January 8, 2021

[Above: Jedidiah Bila on Friday's Fox and Friends points out that Josh Hawley's First Amendment "rights" are not constrained when his publisher cancels a book deal with him, duh. -- eds.]

Simon & Schuster announced that it has canceled Senator Josh Hawley’s book deal because his efforts to overturn the election helped spawn yesterday’s violent insurrection at the Capitol. From The New York Times:

"We did not come to this decision lightly,” Simon & Schuster said in a statement. “As a publisher it will always be our mission to amplify a variety of voices and viewpoints: At the same time we take seriously our larger public responsibility as citizens, and cannot support Senator Hawley after his role in what became a dangerous threat.”

The Times said it’s not clear if Hawley will have to return his book advance, or whether the publisher will forfeit it.

Hawley, predictably, has wasted no time whining about his victimhood - and trying to monetize it:

But it’s not just Simon & Schuster who has had enough of Hawley. Former Sen. John Danforth, a fellow Republican Missourian, called it the “worst mistake I ever made in my life” working to get Hawley elected, during an interview with the St. Louis Post-Dispatch:

Supporting Josh and trying so hard to get him elected to the Senate was the worst mistake I ever made in my life,” Danforth said in a phone interview Thursday afternoon. “Yesterday was the physical culmination of the long attempt (by Hawley and others) to foment a lack of public confidence in our democratic system. It is very dangerous to America to continue pushing this idea that government doesn’t work and that voting was fraudulent.”

Danforth once viewed Hawley as a “special talent” who would bring keen intellect to the chamber. Now he’s disgraced the institution, Danforth says, and he regrets that he ever supported him.

“This guy,” he says of Hawley, “is doing real harm. What he’s doing to his party is one thing. What he’s doing to the country is much worse.”

UPDATE: Hawley has also lost a major donor, the Missouri Independent reports. Missouri businessman David Humphreys and his family donated millions to Hawley's attorney general and U.S. senate campaigns. Humphreys called for Hawley to be censured and issued this statement:

“In October 2016 I publicly voiced my opposition to Donald Trump in the NY Times saying ‘At some point, you have to look in the mirror and recognize that you cannot possibly justify support for Trump to your children…’

“I need to say the same about Missouri’s U.S. Sen. Josh Hawley, who has shown his true colors as an anti-democracy populist by supporting Trump’s false claim of a ‘stolen election.’ Hawley’s irresponsible, inflammatory, and dangerous tactics have incited violence and further discord across America. And he has now revealed himself as a political opportunist willing to subvert the Constitution and the ideals of the nation he swore to uphold.

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