Mom for Liberty who got Anne Frank book banned did cozy interview with vicious antisemite

Posted on by Laura Clawson

When she was fighting to get “Anne Frank’s Diary: The Graphic Adaptation” banned from a local high school library last spring, Jennifer Pippin, a Florida Moms for Liberty chapter head, claimed that her objection was because the award-winning graphic novel was "sexually explicit" and "not a true adaptation of the Holocaust." It’s not that she didn’t want Anne Frank taught, she claimed. It was just that version wasn’t the right version, never mind that it was authorized by the Anne Frank Fonds, a foundation started by Otto Frank that controls the diary’s copyright. Surely, your local Moms for Liberty chapter leader is more qualified to decide what gets taught about the Holocaust than the Anne Frank Fonds.

There might be something else going on, though. Media Matters reports that in September, Pippin appeared on TruNews, a grossly antisemitic platform. Pippin isn’t the first Mom for Liberty to embrace this type of thing. Last summer, a Moms for Liberty chapter had to apologize for approvingly quoting Adolf Hitler in its newsletter. At some point, the “it’s just one chapter/chapter head” excuse cannot be allowed to stand, but Moms for Liberty remains a favorite of top Republicans.

On TruNews, Pippin was gushingly interviewed by Rick Wiles, the outlet’s head, who pledged, “I will do everything I can to help you. I will help raise money. I will help organize. I will help you get a lawsuit against the school board” during a discussion of removing “inappropriate” materials from schools.

The same Rick Wiles who interviewed Pippin is the one who has said things like, “That’s the way the Jews work. They are deceivers, they plot, they lie, they do whatever they have to do to accomplish their political agenda,” and “the American people are being oppressed by Jewish tyrants.”

Those aren’t isolated statements, and it’s not just Wiles. Media Matters found TruNews headlines (which are vile hate I will not link directly) including, “Jew Coup: Seditious Jews Orchestrating Trump Impeachment Lynching,” and “TruNews looks at Jewish contribution to legalized abortion … We Delve Deeper Into The Origins Of Abortion And How It Has Become America’s Jewish Holocaust.”

This is the company Pippin keeps as part of her effort to ban books, including “Anne Frank’s Diary: The Graphic Adaptation,” from schools lest children be exposed to anything inappropriate. You know, inappropriate like where—gasp!—Anne Frank suggests to a female friend that they show each other their breasts. The only parts of Frank’s story kids should be exposed to, I guess, are the parts directly about Nazis. Understanding that she was a kid with a life and interests and fully developed humanity should be verboten.

Then again, Pippin is apparently comfortable talking to people who believe all Jewish life is to be feared and loathed, so why would we expect that the essential humanity of a Jewish girl in the 1930s and 40s would be important to her? She doesn’t understand the lessons of the Holocaust, yet she is trying to police what information about it is available in high schools. And she’s happy to enlist the platforms and support of hardcore antisemites to promote her crusade.

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Biden-district House Republicans get behind new extremist speaker

Posted on by Laura Clawson

 Whether out of desperation or sheer exhaustion, House Republicans unanimously voted in a new speaker more than three weeks after Kevin McCarthy was booted. And what a doozy of a speaker he is: Rep. Mike Johnson is an anti-abortion, anti-LGBTQ+ bigot who is all in on an impeachment inquiry against President Joe Biden based on lies. He considers himself and Rep. Jim Jordan to be “like Batman and Robin,” and if he were Robin before, maybe now he gets to be Batman. And all 18 Republicans representing districts President Joe Biden won in 2020 got behind this extremist.

Nine Biden-district Republicans voted for Jordan as speaker all three times. Another three voted for him twice before flipping their votes the third time. But Johnson? The “most important architect of the Electoral College objections” in the House on Jan. 6, 2021, according to The New York Times? He got all 18 of them. And all 18 of them are going to have to answer for it in their 2024 reelection campaigns—Democrats will make sure of that.

Democrats are heckling the vulnerable New York Republicans from across the chamber, crooning "bye bye" as they fall in line behind Johnson

— Kate Riga (@Kate_Riga24) October 25, 2023

Rep. Nancy Mace’s attention-seeking escalates with ‘Scarlet Letter’ stunt

Posted on by Laura Clawson

Rep. Nancy Mace has always courted media attention. But now she’s taking it to the next level, seeking to remake herself fully in the mold of Reps. Lauren Boebert, Matt Gaetz, and Marjorie Taylor Greene. In fact, on Tuesday evening she pulled a stunt that made those three look almost subtle.

Mace had been one of the eight Republican votes to remove Kevin McCarthy as speaker of the House, a prominent role she clearly relished. McCarthy’s ouster necessitated a candidate forum as Republicans try to decide on his replacement. Mace wasn’t going to be overshadowed by some piddling little candidate forum: She showed up in a top with a giant red “A” on it.

Mace: I’m wearing the scarlet letter after the week I had being a woman and being demonized for my vote and voice. pic.twitter.com/guVpxGHUq7

— Acyn (@Acyn) October 10, 2023

“I’m wearing the scarlet letter after the week that I just had last week, being a woman up here and being demonized for my vote and for my voice,” Mace said, giddy self-regard coming off of her in waves. “I’m here to let the rest of the world know, the country know, I’m on the side of the people, I’m not on the side of the establishment, and I’m going to do the right thing every single time no matter the consequences, ‘cause I don’t answer to anybody in D.C., I don't answer to anyone in Washington, I only answer to the people.”

In Nathaniel Hawthorne’s “The Scarlet Letter,” Hester Prynne is forced to wear a scarlet “A” for “adultery.” In Mace’s case, of course, the “A” is for “attention.” You have to suspect that over the weekend she rewatched the Emma Stone movie "Easy A"—and missed the point of that as thoroughly as she did of “The Scarlet Letter.”

Until now, Mace’s bids for attention have largely been for moments where she criticized her party as too extreme, such as calling on Republicans to find a “middle ground” on abortion or saying she held Donald Trump accountable for the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol (although she did not actually hold him accountable when it came time to vote on impeachment). Back in January, as McCarthy sought the speakership, she described Gaetz as a “political D-lister” and a “fraud” trying to fundraise off of his opposition to McCarthy. That has changed.

Mace’s “whee, look at me” attire on Tuesday followed an appearance with Gaetz on former Trump adviser Steve Bannon’s podcast last week, and a Fox News appearance in which she violated House ethics rules by fundraising on live TV while at the Capitol. She then made a Sunday appearance on “Face the Nation” in which she touted her support for Rep. Jim Jordan as the next speaker, waving off his efforts to overturn the 2020 election and allegations that he ignored sexual abuse of Ohio State University wrestlers when he was a coach there. One of Mace’s earlier efforts to appear as the moderate corrective to her party’s extremism on abortion included talking about her experience as a rape survivor, but when it comes to Jordan having enabled sexual abuse of college athletes he was coaching, Mace’s response was, “I don't know anything, and I don't know anything about it.”

Mace has always been a standout even among House Republicans in her attention-seeking. Now, as the Supreme Court considers whether Mace’s district was made more safely Republican in an illegal racial gerrymander, she’s gone into overdrive. She’s trying way too hard to create a new political persona for herself in the space of a week. Mace survived a 2022 primary challenge, but she could be in for another in 2024, and potentially in a more challenging district. If she’s pulling out the scarlet letter in October 2023, what will she have escalated to by the time the 2024 election rolls around?

Sign if you agree: No more MAGA circus. Hakeem Jeffries for speaker.

Anything to attack Biden: Republicans pretend not to know presidents sometimes work off camera

Posted on by Laura Clawson

Republicans are always on the lookout for their next attack on President Joe Biden, and on Monday, Fox News personality John Roberts pulled one out of thin air.

“With war raging in Israel, the @WhiteHouse called a lid for @JoeBiden at 11:46am,” Roberts tweeted. A “lid,” as Taegan Goddard’s Political Dictionary explains, “is what White House press secretaries use to indicate that there will be no news coming out of the White House that day.” Relevant to this manufactured controversy, the Political Dictionary goes on to say:

However, it’s important to note that calling a lid does not necessarily mean that the President’s workday is over or that no more newsworthy events will happen that day.

The President may still have private meetings, phone calls, or other activities that are not open to the press.

In fact, a lid may mean that the behind-the-scenes work of the presidency is particularly intense in ways that keep the president away from the news cameras.

For instance, on Monday afternoon, Axios reports, “Biden convened a call with the leaders of the U.K., France, Italy and Germany, who together issued a joint statement unequivocally condemning Hamas.” A five-nation joint statement doesn’t just happen. It takes work and back-and-forth and negotiation over the very exact wording. Much of that work was done after the White House called a lid.

Here’s another example of what might be going on: On May 1, 2011, the Obama White House called a lid in the early afternoon. Unusually, the lid was lifted in the late evening. In a 10:30 PM statement, then-President Barack Obama announced the operation that had killed Osama bin Laden.

As a former White House correspondent—including during the Obama years—Roberts knew that calling a lid did not mean work at the White House had ceased for the day. But he tweeted the implication that it did, and a number of Republicans took it and ran with it.

“Alabamians don’t work those kind of hours,” Sen. Tommy Tuberville commented in a quote-tweet of Roberts on Monday afternoon. The Senate is not in session this entire week, so Tuberville is at his leisure to be not working at home in Alabama or Florida or wherever he lives.

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene quote-tweeted a different Fox News personality’s tweet about the lid. “We have Americans held hostage by Hamas and Joe Biden is taking the day off,” Greene wrote. “President Trump would never do this. He would not stop working until he got our people back.”

Former White House press secretary Ari Fleischer piggybacked on the general line of attack with a “Where is President Biden?” tweet, though he had the self-awareness not to pretend he didn’t know what a lid is. Other right-wing media personalities joined in on the claim that Biden wasn’t doing anything on Monday.

This attempt to paint Biden as missing in action came just hours before the joint statement with the U.K., France, Italy, and Germany went out. That wasn’t the only attack, of course. Republicans have also been busy trying to draw a line between the recent release of impounded Iranian funds and the attack. Although, as Daily Kos’ Mark Sumner noted, use of the money has to be approved by a third-party arbiter, it must be used for humanitarian purposes, and none of it has been spent yet anyway.

It’s true that the party of Donald Trump and his endless “executive time” may have forgotten that most presidents do work when the cameras are off. But mostly Republicans are just dishonest and desperate to turn every significant news event into an attack on Biden. This is why Republican National Committee Chair Ronna McDaniel saw the initial Hamas attacks on Israel as “a great opportunity for our candidates”: To Republicans, what’s happening in the world—even if it involves hundreds of people being killed—is always less important than the partisan advantage they might be able to leverage out of it. It’s a disgusting mindset, but they’re not backing off from it.

Sign the petition: No to MAGA impeachment. Focus on what matters.

Gaetz does not think highly of Republican effort to impeach Biden

Posted on by Laura Clawson

It’s emerging that Rep. Matt Gaetz really does not think highly of House Republicans’ drive to impeach President Joe Biden. This seems like the kind of thing Gaetz would be very excited about, but—like many observers—he can see that his fellow Republicans are not doing a very good job of it. That came out during the floor fight to oust Kevin McCarthy as speaker. Gaetz rebuffed House Judiciary Committee Chair Jim Jordan’s defense of McCarthy’s leadership by saying, “It's hard to make the argument that oversight is the reason to continue when it sort of looks like failure theater.” As it turns out, Gaetz had aired similar complaints days earlier at an online fundraiser with Rep. Matt Rosendale and former Trump adviser Steve Bannon.

“I don’t believe that we are endeavoring upon a legitimate impeachment of Joe Biden,” Gaetz said in the Bannon-moderated discussion. “They’re trying to engage in a, like, ‘forever war’ of impeachment,” he added. “And like many of our forever wars, it will drag on forever and end in a bloody draw.”

That’s not all. Gaetz also said, “I just don’t get the sense that it’s for the sake of impeachment. I think it’s for the sake of having another bad thing to say about Joe Biden.”

At the fundraiser, Gaetz claimed he wasn’t criticizing Jordan or House Oversight Chair James Comer, and when NBC News asked him about his comments at the fundraiser, he responded, “Kevin wasn’t serious. Jim Jordan is.” Apparently, the whole “failure theater” thing was not an accusation against the people conducting the failure theater; it was somehow McCarthy’s fault. That’s very convenient for Gaetz as he tries to move forward while many of his fellow Republicans are furious at him. He says Jordan is serious, but he obviously doesn’t think much of the overall effort—so how is he going to reframe his view of it going forward?

Now, this is Matt Gaetz. It’s not that he doesn’t want to attack the Bidens. His favored way that Jordan and Comer could show they were serious and not just engaged in “failure theater” would be to subpoena Hunter Biden, something he brought up both at the fundraiser and on the House floor. How would bringing Hunter Biden in to deny that his father had been involved in his business dealings move things along when several witnesses have testified that the president was not involved in his son’s business? It’s unclear. It kind of sounds like Gaetz just wants to torment the younger Biden in person.

If Gaetz thought Republicans had anything, he’d doubtless be sprinting in front of the cameras to loudly call for an impeachment vote. But right now, he’s not seeing it. He can talk all he wants about how McCarthy wasn’t serious and Jordan is, but Jordan and Comer have been leading the investigations that look like an illegitimate impeachment, failure theater, a forever war of impeachment. And he’s absolutely right in every one of those descriptions.

Sign the petition: No to MAGA impeachment. Focus on what matters.

Republicans turn on Gaetz: ED medication and energy drinks?

Posted on by Laura Clawson

Rep. Matt Gaetz engineered the historic ouster of Kevin McCarthy as House speaker this week, and while his fellow House Republicans are training most of their ire on Democrats for not bailing McCarthy out, there is some anger left over for Gaetz.

On Tuesday and Wednesday, some Republicans suggested Gaetz should be expelled from the party conference. Rep. Garret Graves said action against Gaetz would be “pursued in the conference,” while Rep. Mike Lawler told reporters he backed the move, and also that he’d like to have hit Gaetz “square between the eyes” with the speaker’s gavel. Rep. Don Bacon also backed expulsion, saying Gaetz is “not a Republican.”

Graves claimed, without evidence, that Gaetz “just got schooled by AOC and others; he was totally manipulated into doing this.” As if Republicans can’t manufacture their own disarray.

None of this was quite as startling as what Oklahoma Sen. Markwayne Mullin had to say about Gaetz, though.

Mullin, who overlapped with Gaetz in the House for several years, cited the investigation into Gaetz related to sex trafficking of a teenager and echoed the 2021 reports that Gaetz bragged about his sexual escapades on the House floor:

Mullin: Gaetz bragged about how he would crush E.D. Medicine and chase it with energy drinks so he could go all night pic.twitter.com/MbbG1nvryc

— Acyn (@Acyn) October 5, 2023

This is a guy that didn’t have, the media didn’t give the time of day to after he was accused of sleeping with an underage girl, and there’s a reason why no one in the conference came and defended him—because we had all seen the videos he was showing on the House floor, that all of us had walked away, of the girls that he had slept with. He would brag about how he would crush [erectile dysfunction] medicine and chase it with an energy drink so he could go all night—this is obviously before he got married—and so, when that accusation came out, no one defended him and no one on the media would give him the time of the day.

All of a sudden, he found fame because he opposed the speaker of the House back in November, and he’s always stayed there. And he was never going to leave until he got this last moment of fame by going after a motion to vacate.

Those are some very specific allegations about the ED medicine and energy drinks. Gaetz, for what it’s worth, called it “a lie from someone who doesn’t know me and who is coping with the death of the political career of his friend Kevin.”

Mullin wasn't done. In a Newsmax interview, he again referred to “the stuff [Gaetz] would show on the floor and the stuff he would brag about on the floor,” and described Gaetz referring to now-South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem as a “fine ---- … and you can put the B-word in place there.” Mullin also wasn’t the only Republican pointing to Gaetz’s sexual habits. Former Mike Pence chief of staff Marc Short, who is also a former chief of staff for the House Republican Caucus, told CNN’s Jake Tapper, “Matt Gaetz, to say he came here as a fiscal crusader—it’s more likely he came here for the teenage interns on Capitol Hill, to be honest.”

The fact that these allegations and characterizations of Gaetz are bubbling up suggests that even if no one has the nerve to try to get him expelled from the Republican conference—Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene warned against it earlier in the week—or if such an effort fails, he will face continuing rumors and digs. As many people commented on social media following the Mullin comments, Gaetz may be about to get the Madison Cawthorn treatment, with one rumor, allegation, or video after another emerging to damage a Republican who’s become inconvenient to his party. Gaetz should probably be trying to remember what he has told which Republicans about his sexual habits—and if his bragging might come back to bite him.

Sign the petition: No to shutdowns, no to Biden impeachment, no to Republicans

Hannity shows that when a Republican makes an accusation, it’s a confession

Posted on by Laura Clawson

Fox News host Sean Hannity wants his viewers to feel sorrow and outrage at the victimization of Donald Trump and his children. This time, he took the truism that “every Republican accusation is a confession” just a little too far.

“Now how would you feel if a prosecutor started combing through every aspect of your life in search of a crime,” Hannity said, “and then dragging your children into it, simply because they don’t like you, they don’t like your politics?”

Hannity: How would you feel if they started combing through every aspect of your life in search of a crime and then dragged your children into it simply because they don’t like you or your politics pic.twitter.com/tRLuCHk15O

— Acyn (@Acyn) October 3, 2023

I think Hunter and Ashley Biden would probably like a word.

Trump’s alleged crimes are many and varied, but where his adult children enter into it is the civil suit by New York Attorney General Letitia James, accusing Trump, Don Jr., Eric, and the Trump Organization of making false claims about the value of their assets in ways that financially benefited them. Ivanka Trump was originally a defendant in the case, but her part in it was dismissed by an appeals court over the summer. James’ investigation originated after Trump’s longtime personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, testified to Congress, saying, “It was my experience that Mr. Trump inflated his total assets when it served his purposes, such as trying to be listed amongst the wealthiest people in Forbes, and deflated his assets to reduce his real estate taxes.”

Judge Arthur Engoron, who is overseeing the civil trial, has already ruled that Trump did commit fraud by overvaluing assets.

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The Trumps—Donald and the adult children who are executives in the family company—run a substantial company, albeit not as substantial as they claim. Don Jr. and Eric are involved in this lawsuit because they are executives. They've been very well paid in those roles, and in those roles, they are potentially liable for fraud. That’s how it works. None of Trump’s adult children have been charged in any of his four criminal indictments.

Here are some things that have not happened to the Trump children as their father’s critics “started combing through every aspect of [his] life in search of a crime and then dragging [his] children into it, simply because they don’t like [him], they don’t like [his] politics.” No one has stolen a diary from Ivanka Trump to use it against her father in a political campaign, passing it around at a fundraiser for her father’s opponent. That was done to Ashley Biden.

No one has held up nude photos of Don Jr. or Eric on the House floor and used them in fundraising appeals. That was done to Hunter Biden.

Don Jr., Eric, and Ivanka have not had House committees sifting through bank records related to them—despite the $2 billion in investments Ivanka’s husband, Jared Kushner, got from Saudi Arabia shortly after he left his role as a senior White House adviser. Once again, that’s Hunter.

“Now how would you feel if a prosecutor started combing through every aspect of your life in search of a crime, and then dragging your children into it, simply because they don’t like you, they don’t like your politics?” Substitute “House committee” for “prosecutor,” and President Joe Biden can give you chapter and verse—but he doesn’t, because he’s busy trying not to interfere in the politicized prosecution of his son that he is letting happen in the name of an independent Justice Department.

House Republicans vow shutdown won’t stop impeachment inquiry

Posted on by Laura Clawson

House Republicans are on the brink of shutting down the government. The Senate is moving forward with a bipartisan continuing resolution to keep the government open into November, but House Republicans are busy with a "pissing match" between Speaker Kevin McCarthy and obstructionist Rep. Matt Gaetz. That doesn’t mean the House isn’t doing anything, though. No, Republicans are getting their bogus impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden moving, saying they see no reason it couldn’t continue through a government shutdown.

“We’re going to keep going,” House Oversight Committee Chair James Comer told CNN on Tuesday, saying that a shutdown wouldn’t affect the members or staff involved in the impeachment inquiry. That would be a great look for Republicans—showing voters that they weren’t focused on keeping the government open, and offering a constant reminder that members of Congress were still being paid while government workers weren’t.

Comer has a hearing scheduled for Thursday, which his office told Fox News “will examine the value of an impeachment inquiry.” Apparently, even Comer isn’t confident that he and his fellow Republicans have made that case to the public. The hearing will rehash the findings of Comer’s months of investigations—investigations that notably haven’t turned up any real evidence that Biden has engaged in corruption or profited from his son’s business dealings.

Like Comer, House Judiciary Committee Chair Jim Jordan told CNN a government shutdown wouldn’t stop him. “Every week there’s a whole roster of folks” scheduled for committee interviews, he said.

The committee staff conducting the interviews wouldn’t be paid in the event of a shutdown, but could be deemed “essential” by Congress members and forced to work. A source told CNN, though, that there was still question about whether a court reporter, necessary for transcribing interviews, would be considered essential, and Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene noted that a shutdown could affect the ability of government agencies to respond to subpoenas. (Take note: Greene seems to be more clearheaded about the outcomes of a shutdown than Comer or Jordan.)

Going ahead with a baseless impeachment inquiry while shutting down the government out of sheer spite would be an impressive one-two punch, even by Republican standards. What could they possibly do that would more clearly display how far their priorities are from what voters want Congress to deliver?

Sign and send the petition: NO to MAGA impeachment. Focus on what matters.

Joe Manchin seems to think he’s going to be forced to wear shorts on the Senate floor

Posted on by Laura Clawson

The Senate has relaxed its dress code, prompting Republican complaints against Sen. John Fetterman’s notably informal attire. But it’s not just Republicans springing to the defense of mandatory suit-wearing. Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin is also upset … and maybe a little confused.

“I said ‘John, I think it’s wrong & there's no way I can comply with that,’” Manchin told Politico's Ursula Perano. “Wanted to tell him directly that I totally oppose it & I will do everything I can to try to hold the decorum of the Senate.”

There’s no way he can comply? Does Manchin think there’s a strict new dress code that will force him to wear gym shorts and a hoodie, and that wearing a suit will be an act of defiance?

Manchin’s limited view of what constitutes decorum for the Senate was recently highlighted when the U.S. Census Bureau announced that child poverty has more than doubled since the expanded child tax credit expired. Manchin’s opposition to extending the credit, as well as the opposition of all Republicans, killed the expanded credit. And children across the country have suffered ever since—but at least until this week, senators had to wear suits to work.

Causing child poverty is decorum. Blocking Senate rule changes to preserve minority control is decorum. Informal attire is a breach of decorum to resist fiercely.

Sign and send the petition: NO to MAGA impeachment. Focus on what matters.

What do you do if you're associated with one of the biggest election fraud scandals in recent memory? If you're Republican Mark Harris, you try running for office again! On this week's episode of "The Downballot," we revisit the absolutely wild story of Harris' 2018 campaign for Congress, when one of his consultants orchestrated a conspiracy to illegally collect blank absentee ballots from voters and then had his team fill them out before "casting" them. Officials wound up tossing the results of this almost-stolen election, but now Harris is back with a new bid for the House—and he won't shut up about his last race, even blaming Democrats for the debacle.

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Conservatives unleash conspiracy theories about Lauren Boebert’s lewd date

Posted on by Laura Clawson

Rep. Lauren Boebert is getting the kind of attention that even she presumably doesn’t like. Last week she was kicked out of a Colorado theater for vaping, recording the show, and other disruptive behavior. After Boebert denied vaping, the theater released security footage showing her doing just that—and more. She and her date were fondling each other in ways that had to be uncomfortable for their neighbors.

To her credit, Boebert has apologized for her behavior. However, not content with the explanation that Boebert is who she has always appeared to be, some on the right have turned the incident into a conspiracy theory: Boebert was set up.

The New York Post emphasized that her date was a Democrat who owns a bar that’s hosted at least one drag show, and many took this as evidence of Boebert’s hypocrisy, while others used it to bolster the notion that she was set up. The latter claim is showing up all over social media, led by so-called journalist and Pizzagate conspiracy theorist Liz Crokin. “It turns out Lauren Boebert's mystery man is a Democrat bar owner,” Crokin tweeted. “If I was a wagering enthusiast, I would bet this guy was paid to set her up.”

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Crokin laid out an elaborate scenario: “She’s coming off a divorce, and she’s vulnerable. This guy comes into her life, charms her, seduces her and then probably gets her liquored up and takes her out in public. Stage set.” Honestly, Boebert probably is vulnerable as she divorces her longtime husband, and she gets to be privately messy over that if she wants to. But this was public misbehavior that impacted other people and ended, according to reports, with her repeatedly busting out the classic, “Do you know who I am?” That’s a statement of entitlement: I get to disrupt other people’s theater experience because I’m important.

Next, Crokin moves to the conspiracy that the stage was supposedly set for: “He then instigates her by fondling her in a theater that just happens to have night vision cameras right on them.  Then the whole incident is released to the public in what looks like high-definition video in an attempt to harm her reputation.” Of course, Boebert did not need to be persuaded into bad behavior. Even if you didn’t know who she was, she would stand out in the theater’s security video as the person vaping, waving her arms above her head, and taking flash photos. No one else visible in the video, which shows many rows in the theater, appeared to be behaving that way. (While the video is impressive for night vision, high-definition it is not.) Additionally, Boebert being kicked out of the theater and asking, “Do you know who I am?” had gotten plenty of attention before the video emerged. The vaping and taking pictures and disruptive behavior had already been publicly reported based on what the people around her in the theater were saying.

Crokin concluded: “This is all way too convenient. Whether her date was a part of it or not, this seems like a well-coordinated setup. These types of tactics and traps are used all the time, and I would know.” A well-coordinated setup? It kind of seems like there just happened to be a camera on Boebert being Boebert. If she had sat through the show without vaping and taking photographs and groping, they could have released video showing her in actual high definition through the entire show and it wouldn’t have made a splash. And you’d think a conspiracy theorist like Crokin would be aware of how often we are under surveillance in this day and age.

Boebert herself doesn’t seem to be embracing the conspiracy theory. Though she joked ruefully to TMZ that “I learned to check party affiliation before you go on a date,” she had nothing but positive words about the man in question, calling him “a wonderful man” and a “great man, great friend” although they’ve “peacefully parted.” But Crokin’s “Boebert was set up” theory went viral, with a stream of responses showing how eager some people are to believe the elaborate conspiracy over the idea that a woman with a history of minor arrests who spent the 2022 State of the Union yelling and heckling the president might not be the best-behaved person in a theater, either.

Boebert’s unruliness, her disrespect in political settings, is what her fans like about her. No one should be surprised that it’s not all a political calculation and that she really is that way.

What do you do if you're associated with one of the biggest election fraud scandals in recent memory? If you're Republican Mark Harris, you try running for office again! On this week's episode of "The Downballot," we revisit the absolutely wild story of Harris' 2018 campaign for Congress, when one of his consultants orchestrated a conspiracy to illegally collect blank absentee ballots from voters and then had his team fill them out before "casting" them. Officials wound up tossing the results of this almost-stolen election, but now Harris is back with a new bid for the House—and he won't shut up about his last race, even blaming Democrats for the debacle.

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