George Santos interview with CNN went way off the rails

Posted on September 13, 2023 by Walter Einenkel

Suspected pathological fraudster Rep. George Santos went on CNN to be interviewed by host Erin Burnett Tuesday evening. Santos started by saying he supported House Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s announcement of an impeachment inquiry, which is based on no evidence, of President Joe Biden. Burnett then asked Santos questions about recent reports that he had entered into talks with prosecutors in his own fraud case. The fundamental issue with interviewing George Santos is that he is a well-documented liar. Santos quickly said none of the reports were true and that he wouldn’t and couldn’t talk about it—but it wasn’t true, so there.

Burnett asked Santos to speak to his plea deal in Brazil, which was reported on in May by multiple news outlets (including CNN). Facing fraud charges in Brazil, prosecutors allowed the embattled congressman to admit guilt and pay a pittance of restitution. Santos responded to Burnett’s question by opening up the gaslight machine and sending the interview off the rails: “I don't know where you're getting your information from, but I would challenge you to bring up receipts on that because that's not how it happened in Brazil.” Santos similarly denied knowing anything about accusations of fraud surrounding his work with rescue animals and of potentially defrauding a veteran, as well as about the complaints of misuse of campaign funds.

After more combative lying from Santos, Burnett brought down the hammer in the form of an edited montage of Santos’ lying in his own words about his grandparents being Holocaust survivors, about his mother surviving 9/11, about various schools he did not attend and degrees he did not earn or receive. Santos’ response was to say CNN should have Biden on to be “grilled” like this. Burnett didn’t let this pass, responding that his answer was “completely irrelevant to the conversation,” adding, “and to be very clear, you and I spoke this afternoon and I said we would begin with impeachment and talk about many other things about you. You are well aware of that. So it would be unfair to claim anything otherwise.”

It was breathtaking.

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Sign the petition: Expel George Santos

George Santos was accused of writing more than $15,000 in bad checks for puppies back in 2017

New report says there's another lie on top of George Santos' lie about his mother on 9/11

Hot takes pour in after McCarthy announces impeachment inquiry

Posted on September 12, 2023 by Walter Einenkel

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s announcement of an impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden isn’t surprising so much as it is depressingly predictable. The Republican Party’s inability to generate the tiniest shreds of evidence of wrongdoing on the part of the then-vice president regarding his son Hunter Biden’s business dealings has been a pathetic spectacle of political theater for just under a year. McCarthy’s impeachment inquiry was him bowing to the pressures from the “Freedom Caucus” wing of his party, but just a short while after his announcement, he was still roundly excoriated on the House floor by Rep. Matt Gaetz, who called McCarthy’s move a “baby step.”

Ian Sams, a White House spokesman, released a statement saying McCarthy’s new political move amounted to an “evidence-free goose chase.” That was the diplomatic reaction to what is clearly the naked abuse of government by conservative lawmakers. “The House Republicans’ investigations for the past 9 months have proved that — as their own witnesses testify the President hasn’t done anything wrong, and their own documents show no ties to the President.”

There are a lot of reactions, but first, let’s hear from legal scholar Elie Mystal:

Why would I write about House GOP's impeachment inquiry? I write about law and law adjacent issues. Not the inevitable result of Unfrozen Caveman Congresswoman having her hand so far up Kevin McCarthy's ass that she controls his vocal chords.
— Elie Mystal (@ElieNYC) September 12, 2023

Let us start with some criteria.

Any news organization that reports the news about McCarthy endorsing an impeachment inquiry without CLEARLY and AT THE TOP stating that there is no meaningful reason for such an inquiry is doing journalism wrong. Too many orgs already jumping into the gamesmanship.
— Garrett M. Graff (@vermontgmg) September 12, 2023

Pennsylvania Sen. John Fetterman gave this Halloween-style response to the news.

.@SenFettermanPA reacts to Speaker McCarthy moving forward with a House impeachment inquiry into POTUS… (Just watch) pic.twitter.com/jg3aeyDW7F
— Liz Brown-Kaiser (@lizbrownkaiser) September 12, 2023

Rep. Ayanna Pressley called out the chaos of the Republican Party.

From sham impeachment inquiries to threats of government shutdown. Republicans continue to govern with chaos, cruelty, and callousness—and they are wasting our damn time. https://t.co/3rfxMLic0l
— Ayanna Pressley (@AyannaPressley) September 12, 2023

As some people pointed out, McCarthy, like every single Republican in office, is an enormous hypocrite when it comes to just about anything he says or does.

Kevin McCarthy literally authored a resolution condemning Pelosi for launching impeachment without a vote. “this decision represents an abuse of power and brings discredit to the House” pic.twitter.com/aXkZ31t5jz
— Sawyer Hackett (@SawyerHackett) September 12, 2023

Rep. Ted Lieu decided to give people some context.

Here are the three pieces of evidence that Speaker McCarthy has to open an impeachment inquiry on President Biden: 1. “ “ 2. “ “ 3. “ “ https://t.co/w5xc1y7kpv
— Ted Lieu (@tedlieu) September 12, 2023

What about the leader of the Senate Republicans, Mitch McConnell? Can you say, duck and run?

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell reacts to possible Biden impeachment inquiry: “I don’t have any advice to give to the House. They’ve got a totally different set of challenges … So I think the best advice for the Senate is to do our job and we’ll see how this plays out.” pic.twitter.com/lBzmvy6Yum
— The Recount (@therecount) September 12, 2023

Sen. Majority Leader Chuck Schumer gave some advice to McCarthy on leadership.

“I have sympathy with Speaker McCarthy. He’s in a difficult position. But sometimes you’ve got to tell these people who are way off the deep end… that they can’t go forward with it.” — Senate Majority Leader Schumer reacts to “absurd” impeachment inquiry against President Biden pic.twitter.com/EIjoGGGikx
— The Recount (@therecount) September 12, 2023

Rep. Adam Schiff had some important constitutional information to impart.

McCarthy’s reading of the Impeachment Clause: The President shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or … when the Speaker, lacking moral authority or control over his members, can’t remain speaker or fund the government without it.
— Adam Schiff (@RepAdamSchiff) September 12, 2023

At least McCarthy can hang his hat on the idea that now that he’s given the so-called Freedom Caucus what they claim to have wanted, they will totally not try and shut down the government for no discernible reason.

McCarthy’s impeachment inquiry hasn’t swayed the Freedom Caucus towards funding the government pic.twitter.com/sLink7n70S
— Acyn (@Acyn) September 12, 2023

Yikes.

Why you never negotiate with terrorists, Exhibit 37,548
— Raymond J. Mollica (@RaymondMollica) September 12, 2023

Sign the petition: Denounce MAGA GOP's baseless impeachment inquiry against Biden

Gaetz attacks McCarthy in wild House speech

Posted on September 12, 2023 by Walter Einenkel

On Monday, Rep. Matt Gaetz announced plans to give a fiery speech on the House floor Tuesday to denounce the lack of political will to impeach President Joe Biden on zero evidence. The Florida man’s promised speech came after a week of public attacks on Republican Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy. But just hours before Gaetz’s speech, McCarthy announced that he was calling for an impeachment inquiry into the president.

Some might assume Gaetz was sufficiently undercut by McCarthy’s brief press conference. Some might be wrong. The political theater-loving looney toon took to the floor of the House and began by chastising the speaker for being “out of compliance with the agreement that allowed you to assume this role,” and threatening his party leader with expulsion from his leadership position.

I’m no Sherlock Holmes or anything, but it sounds a lot like the rumored “three-page deal”—the one between McCarthy and wackadoos like Gaetz in the Freedom Caucus that the Republican Party denied existed—might actually exist? But that was all preamble, as Gaetz proceeded to give a speech about the terrible job McCarthy is doing. It included him calling McCarthy’s press conference announcing the impeachment inquiry a “rushed” and “somewhat rattled performance.” Grab some popcorn!

A couple of quick notes on Gaetz’s speech:

He said that his agenda is “the last, best hope for tens of millions of Republicans.” There were more than 158 million votes cast in the 2022 election. Just sayin’
Gaetz also said, “Mr. Speaker, dust off our written January agreement. You have a copy.” Paging Sherlock Holmes!
He accused the speaker of trying to build a “Biden/McCarthy/Jeffries” government. Teehee!
When Gaetz was done filling the House chamber with hot air, the chair made an announcement reminding representatives to “direct your remarks to the chair and not to a perceived viewing audience.”

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Transcript has been lightly edited for clarity:

REP. MATT GAETZ: On this very floor in January, the whole world witnessed a historic contest for House Speaker. I rise today to serve notice, Mr. Speaker, you are out of compliance with the agreement that allowed you to assume this role. The path forward for the House of Representatives is to either bring you into immediate, total compliance or remove you pursuant to a motion to vacate the chair.
We have had no vote on term limits or on balanced budgets as the agreement demanded and required. There has been no full release of the January 6 tapes, as you promised. There has been insufficient accountability for the Biden crime family, and instead of cutting spending to raise the debt limit, you relied on budgetary gimmicks and rescissions, so that you ultimately ended up serving as the valet to underwrite Biden's debt and advance his spending agenda.

Mr. Speaker, you boasted in January that we would use “the power of the subpoena and the power of the purse,” but here we are eight months later, and we haven't even sent the first subpoena to Hunter Biden. That's how you know that the rushed and, you know, somewhat rattled performance you just saw from the speaker isn't real at this point.

During Democratic control over the House of Representatives, they had already brought in Don Junior three times, and we haven't even sent the first subpoena to Hunter Biden. Power of the subpoena and power of the purse. Only thing the 118th Congress is known for at this point is electing Kevin McCarthy speaker and underwriting Biden's debt, and unfortunately there's only one of those things we can remediate at this time.

Power of the purse. Our leadership right now is asking us to vote for a continuing resolution. A vote for a continuing resolution is a vote to continue the Green New Deal. A vote to continue inflationary spending. And in the most troubling of fashions, a vote for a continuing resolution is a vote to continue the election interference of Jack Smith.

Mr. Speaker, we told you how to use the power of the purse. Individual single-subject spending bills that would allow us to have specific review, programmatic analysis, and it would allow us to zero out the salaries of the bureaucrats who have broken bad, targeted President Trump, or cut sweetheart deals for Hunter Biden. September 30th is rapidly approaching, and you have not put us in a position to succeed.

There is no way to pass all the individual appropriations bills now. And it's not like we didn't know when September 30th was going to show up on the calendar. I must be better. You must be better and this House must be better, for it is the last, best hope for tens of millions of Republicans. We demand real oversight against this weaponized government.

Just look at the bribery. If tens of millions of dollars flowing from foreign corrupt people into the bank accounts of the Biden family wasn't enough for actual impeachment, why were we even looking? Joe Biden deserves impeachment for converting the vice presidency into an ATM machine for virtually his entire family. We all see it. We all know it. Now, moments ago, Speaker McCarthy endorsed an impeachment inquiry.

This is a baby step following weeks of pressure from House conservatives to do more. We must move faster. Now, I will concede that the votes I have called for will likely fail. Term limits, balanced budgets, maybe even impeachment. I am prepared for that eventuality because at least if we take votes, the American people get to see who's fighting for them and who's willing to tolerate more corruption and business as usual.

Mr. Speaker, dust off our written January agreement. You have a copy. Reflect on the spirit of that agreement and build on the start that we had moments ago began to comply. No continuing resolutions, individual spending bills or bust, votes on balanced budgets and term limits. Subpoenas for Hunter Biden and the members of the Biden family who've been grifting off of this country, and the impeachment for Joe Biden that he so richly deserves.

Do these things or face a motion to vacate the chair. And let me alert the country: A motion to vacate might not pass at first, but it might before the 15th vote. And if Democrats bail out McCarthy, as they may do, then I will lead the resistance to this uni-party and the Biden/McCarthy/Jeffries government that they are attempting to build.

I know that Washington isn't a town where people are known for keeping their word. Well, Speaker McCarthy, I'm here to hold you to yours. I yield back.

Those on the other side of the aisle are understandably baffled.

So let me get this straight: Republicans are threatening to remove their own Speaker, impeach the President, and shut down the government on September 30th - disrupting everyday people’s paychecks and general public operations. For what? I don’t think even they know. Chaos vibes https://t.co/qJyR3e4JWk
— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) September 12, 2023

Why does it seem like Republicans have such a hard time recruiting Senate candidates who actually live in the states they want to run in? We're discussing this strange but persistent phenomenon on this week's edition of "The Downballot." The latest example is former Michigan Rep. Mike Rogers, who's been spending his time in Florida since leaving the House in 2015, but he's not the only one. Republican Senate hopefuls in Pennsylvania, Nevada, Montana, and Wisconsin all have questionable ties to their home states—a problem that Democrats have gleefully exploited in recent years. (Remember Dr. Oz? Of course you do.)

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Oklahoma schools chief shared misleading TikTok. It led to bomb threats

Posted on August 31, 2023 by Walter Einenkel

Oklahoma Democrats are demanding that Republican Superintendent of Public Instruction Ryan Walters be subjected to an impeachment probe due to fallout from his hate- and disinformation-filled social media posts. In a statement, they called on the Republican speaker of the House to investigate possible charges against Walters, and said, ”The safety of Oklahoma’s students and families depends on changes to the current situation.”

Walters recently retweeted a selectively cropped TikTok video posted by the hatemonger and conwoman behind a social media account called Libs of TikTok. The video showed a Union Public School District librarian Kirby Mackenzie with an overlay reading, “POV: teachers in your state are dropping like flies but you are still just not quite finished pushing your woke agenda at the public school.” Walters retweeted the post, adding: “The liberal media denies the issue. Even some Republicans hide from it. Woke ideology is real and I am here to stop it.”

That led to bomb threats on six consecutive days.

Of course, Libs of TikTok had cropped the original video to exclude the caption, which provided crucial context. The excluded text read, “My radical agenda is teaching kids to love books and be kind hbu?? I think I’m going to make one of these every year until i die or end my teaching era.” Mackenzie also included an emoji showing two hands making the shape of a heart.

Libs of TikTok’s account is operated by Chaya Raichik. There were good reasons Raichik’s account was suspended multiple times by what was then called Twitter, but it has found a new life being amplified on the X platform by billionaire Elon Musk. While Raichik’s bread and butter is spreading hate and endangering the lives of the LGBTQ+ community by harassing and doxxing educators she doesn’t agree with, she isn’t just homophobic: She’s bigoted across the board. Her recent work characterizing a get-together for families of color at an Oakland elementary school as some kind of attack on white people led to bomb threats at that school, as well.

The chances that the Republican supermajority in Oklahoma opens up an impeachment probe into Walter for helping provoke bomb threats against 16,000 Oklahoma children are nil. Republican House Speaker Charles McCall told NBC News, “Impeachment is not something that should be taken lightly, and the call by a group of House Democrats seems to be more of a ready, fire, aim approach.”

Before Walters sicced the world’s most grotesque social media account on Oklahoma’s children, he was openly posting about his intentions to defy Supreme Court decisions separating church and state in order to fund private religious schools. He recently embarrassed himself by trying to talk about Oklahoma history while pretending that race had nothing to do with the Tulsa Race Massacre.

He has spent his political career as a theocratic culture warrior. Unsurprisingly, he has been saving his biggest attacks for the predominantly Black Tulsa Public Schools system by threatening to take away its accreditation. Tulsa Public Schools is the largest school district in the state.

Here’s a video posted by davidhth showing Tulsa Public Schools Board President Stacey Woolley’s public statement about the matter.

Ryan Walters accusing teachers of a woke agenda is stirring hatred. Today, there was a third bomb threat after Walters retweeted a TikTok video made by a Tulsa librarian as a joke. Here TPS board president Stacey Woolley pleads with him to stop. A lawmaker wants him impeached. pic.twitter.com/JQNafK2SIj
— David Heath (@davidhth) August 24, 2023

And the posts that gave domestic terrorists a target for their anger.

OK’s state superintendent shared a doctored video of an OK librarian. who joked about pushing a woke agenda. The doctored video cut out the caption-“my radical liberal agenda is teaching kids to love books & be kind.” The district received bomb threats for 6 consecutive days. https://t.co/OtkRVYPyOp pic.twitter.com/dkh1RzI1GN
— Laura Burkhardt 🧡 (@LauraAnnSTL) August 30, 2023

Sign the petition: Stop book bans.

The far-right justices on Wisconsin's Supreme Court just can't handle the fact that liberals now have the majority for the first time in 15 years, so they're in the throes of an ongoing meltdown—and their tears are delicious. On this week's episode of "The Downballot," co-hosts David Nir and David Beard drink up all the schadenfreude they can handle as they puncture conservative claims that their progressive colleagues are "partisan hacks" (try looking in the mirror) or are breaking the law (try reading the state constitution). Elections do indeed have consequences!

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Joe Biden reminds Fox News’ Peter Doocy that he’s a lousy reporter

Posted on August 10, 2023 by Walter Einenkel

On Thursday morning, “Fox & Friends,” a show featuring a handful of people you would be shamefaced to call your “friends,” ran with a video of an exchange between President Joe Biden and Fox News’ nepo-baby reporter Peter Doocy. In the video, Doocy asks the president, “There’s this testimony now, where one of your former business associates is claiming that you were on speaker phone a lot with them, talking business? Is that … wha–” at which point Biden cuts him off, saying, “I never talked business with anybody, and I knew you’d have a lousy question.”

Doocy feigns surprise at being called full of shit, but frankly, Biden was being nice. It was a lot worse than a “lousy” question. Doocy asks why it is a “lousy” question, and Biden rightfully answers, “Because it’s not true.”

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Doocy is manipulating the well publicized and fully available testimony of Hunter Biden’s former business partner, Devon Archer. He’s posing a question that asserts a falsehood. Archer very specifically testified that Biden never under any circumstances—even tangentially—discussed business with his son Hunter, or with Hunter’s associates.

But if you are stuck in the moral spitoon that is the right-wing media world, you’d think that Doocy’s question and its pathological false premise are somehow fact-based. Doocy and his conservative uniform are used as some kind of proof that this lie has been researched. It is the reason Republicans wanted Archer’s testimony done away from the cameras: It’s easier to lie about what someone said when your audience is unwilling to read.

There’s one response that I think sums Doocy up. Mr. President, would you do the honors?

Forever and always: pic.twitter.com/DPcXg3cQAb
— Lucille Bluth’s Martini (@justdrew404) August 10, 2023

Sign if you agree: Fox News is a waste of your brain cells.

Jen Psaki, sick and tired of transphobic BS, stumps Doocy with a question of her own

Peter Doocy tries to bring the War on Christmas into White House press briefing—it doesn’t go well

Jen Psaki feeds Peter Doocy crow for Thanksgiving after he asks about Biden's holiday plans

Watch this amazing breakdown of Republican antics on the House floor

Posted on June 23, 2023 by Walter Einenkel

The last few days have been what Republicans consider busy. Have they solved any issues related to American workers, public safety, or national security? No. They’ve introduced an impeachment resolution against President Joe Biden and voted to censure Rep. Adam Schiff for pursuing the mountain of evidence against the Donald Trump campaign’s many connections to foreign interests and intelligence.

On Friday during the floor debate over Rep. Lauren Boebert’s Biden impeachment resolution, Democratic Rep. Jim McGovern gave it to the Republican Party for about six and a half minutes, calling the current Republican political vengeance efforts unserious. “[Republicans] dishonored this House and dishonored themselves by bringing to the floor a ridiculous censure resolution against Adam Schiff because Donald Trump told them to,” McGovern said. “And today they're dishonoring this House and dishonoring themselves by bringing to the floor a ridiculous impeachment referral resolution against Joe Biden because Donald Trump told them to.”

And then McGovern gave a true distillation of how useless this Republican Party is.

“This body has become a place where extreme, outlandish and nutty issues get debated passionately and important ones, not at all” McGovern said, summarizing what the Republican-lead House means these days. To highlight this disconnection between reality and MAGA fiction, McGovern contrasted real work versus MAGA work:

They talk about law and order when their frontrunner, frontrunner for president, has been indicted on federal charges. They talk about respecting law enforcement. Then they come in here and downplay the rioters who came in here on January 6th and beat up cops with fire extinguishers. I don't even know how they look the Capitol police officers in the eye when they walk in this place.
They talk about how important it is that we follow a good process, yet the Rules Committee was called in late last night, literally at a moment's notice where they deployed emergency procedures so we could refer this measure to a committee. What a spectacular emergency. Truly something that needed to be done immediately. We all know the truth. The real emergency here was that the Georgia wing and the Colorado wing of the MAGA caucus got into a fight right over right over there on the House floor about who gets to impeach the president first.

McGovern added, “They can try to impeach Joe Biden all they want, but all they are doing is impeaching themselves and making a mockery of this place while they're at it.” He went on to call Trump a “cult leader” who would go down as the worst president in U.S. history.

McGovern spent a good amount of time talking about all of the things that should be happening on the House floor and what the Republican Party is choosing to do instead, concluding:

“It is grotesque. It is embarrassing and it is shameful. We aren't we aren't debating matters that help or uplift people. Rather, we're debating garbage to make Trump happy. It's cowardly and it's sickening. What we have here is a joke. Just like the Republican majority, which is clearly going to be a temporary majority. And with that, Mr. Speaker, I reserve my time.”

Amen to that.

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Joining us on "The Downballot" this week is North Carolina Rep. Wiley Nickel, the first member of Congress to appear on the show! Nickel gives us the blow-by-blow of his unlikely victory that saw him flip an extremely competitive seat from red to blue last year, including how he adjusted when a new map gave him a very different district and why highlighting the extremism of his MAGA-flavored opponent was key to his success. A true election nerd, Nickel tells us which precincts he was tracking on election night that let him know he was going to win—and which fellow House freshman is the one you want to rock out with at a concert.

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Tense—or typical?—moment in House as MTG calls Boebert a ‘bitch’

Posted on June 22, 2023 by Walter Einenkel

It seems like only yesterday that Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene and Lauren Boebert were sharing the single incoherent view that they should be the only two lawmakers to vote against the Bone Marrow Bill. Since then, like the rest of the circular firing squad that is the Republican Party, Boebert and Greene’s relationship has deteriorated.

It’s being reported that the two right-wing extremists got into a fight on the House floor Wednesday, with sources telling The Daily Beast Greene was angry at Boebert for stealing her impeach Biden thunder. One source said they got into it, with Greene calling the Colorado gun-toting Republican a “bitch.” Another source said the phrase used by Greene was “a little bitch.” Potato, potahto …

The fight between the two is triangulated under Speaker Kevin McCarthy, who is reportedly none too happy with Boebert’s use of a privileged resolution for this bogus impeachment vote. Unlike Greene’s flotilla of impeachment articles against everybody, Boebert’s use of this procedural maneuver bypasses McCarthy’s authority. Instead it forces a vote within two days. Now the clock is ticking and the Yakety Sax music is playing.

Earlier this year, reports came out that the two congresswomen got into some kind of bathroom brawl connected to Boebert’s unwillingness to support McCarthy as speaker of the House. This kerfuffle came less than a month after Boebert told Turning Point founder Charlie Kirk she wasn’t aligned with everything Greene thought, such as “Russian space lasers, Jewish space lasers, and all of this.” Here was some of the discussion, captured by C SPAN cameras, on Wednesday.

Saw this conversation… not sure if it was a friendly one pic.twitter.com/tpz3z2Phtv
— Acyn (@Acyn) June 21, 2023

When asked to comment on the story, Greene told reporters, “I will not confirm or deny.” Boebert took a few seconds to try and be diplomatic before relenting and saying, “Yeah, I’m not in middle school.” In Boebert’s defense, her entire political party seems to act like it is.

The two congresswomen, who have made a career of sticking their feet in their mouths while attempting to attack others, fighting amongst themselves makes some kind of cosmic sense. It is just one small and tragically hilarious example of what the Republican Party now represents.

Obnoxious congresswoman from Georgia in public catfight with gun-toting rep from Colorado

Lauren Boebert tries to own the libs and ends up embarrassing herself

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene's committee debut was exactly as disgraceful as expected

Jim Jordan unable to stop Democratic lawmakers from dissecting his farce hearing

Posted on May 19, 2023 (Updated May 19, 2023) by Walter Einenkel

America got another chance to watch Rep. Jim Jordan’s circus act he calls a House hearing on Thursday, as he wasted the universe’s time on “weaponization” of the FBI.

To make their case, Republicans invited three former agents and “self-described FBI whistleblowers” to testify, as well as a lawyer who worked in the Office of the Special Counsel under former president Donald Trump. The three agents have had their security clearances suspended by the FBI because of Jan. 6 conspiracy mongering, and only one of them, former agent Stephen Friend’s previous testimony was available to Democratic lawmakers.Jordan refused to allow Democratic members of the committee to see any of these tales of whistleblowing.

Ranking Democratic committee member Rep. Stacey Plaskett, along with Reps. Dan Goldman, Gerry Connolly, Linda Sanchez, and Debbie Wasserman Schultz, proved that brains and not brawn can win the day, successfully exposing what all Jordan-chaired hearings are: Attacks on our democracy and attempts to justify MAGA-world’s crimes and grievances.

The hearing began with Democratic lawmakers pointing out the rules of House committees and how Jordan has not been able to follow a one of them. Plaskett explained in her opening statement, that Democratic members only found out what “witnesses” were going to be at the hearing by way of “British tabloids.”

She very pointedly wondered aloud “Are Republicans scared of giving us the information so that we can do our own due diligence on these conspiracy theories, these ideas they want to put forward.”

Her opening statement: "My colleagues on the far right are on a mission to attack, discredit, and ultimately dismantle the FBI. This is defund the police on steroids." SO FREAKING GOOD @StaceyPlaskett pic.twitter.com/sooCD94AT1
— Victor Shi (@Victorshi2020) May 18, 2023

Plaskett and Goldman pressed Jordan on whether they would have any access to the information the committee is supposedly “investigating?” Jordan’s dismissiveness came across as particularly cowardly and unreasonable—which it was.

Plaskett asks Jim Jordan why he isn't sharing transcripts of witness testimony with Democrats. Jordan says flatly "right now you're not getting the testimony." pic.twitter.com/IRGh18Nw2C
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) May 18, 2023

Sanchez used her time to remind the public that,“this committee is a vehicle to legitimize the events of January 6 and the people who perpetrated it.”

"I find it incredible that evidence that one side has garnered is not going to be shared with the other side. That's not how committees work." -- Rep. Linda Sanchez pic.twitter.com/Xa1khsjUfi
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) May 18, 2023

Then came Wasserman Schultz and Goldman, both hitting Jordan again for refusing to follow any committee rules and for its brazen stonewalling.

Jim Jordan is making clear that there are no rules other than his whims for this committee pic.twitter.com/brHmbuiHgy
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) May 18, 2023

Connolly, whose district staff was recently attacked by a man wielding a baseball bat, focused on Republican hypocrisy, wondering where this “concern for protecting whistleblowers was in the Ukraine episode, in that ‘perfect’ phone call Donald Trump had with President Zelenskyy—when Col. [Alexander] Vindman, was in fact subsequently punished for reporting on that phone call which led to the impeachment of the president of the United States.”

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Connolly dismissed the so-called whistleblowers’ testimony as nothing more than “employee grievances.”. He concluded, “I'm not quite sure why we had this hearing.” Maybe it was because Kash Patel, the former Trump administration official and insurrection adviser, was financing two of them, as Goldman got them to admit.

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Finally, Plaskett summed up exactly what we are seeing from Jordan’s circus sideshow—a misinformation campaign against the truth and, therefore, our democracy:

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Tough guy Jim Jordan turns outrage on teachers, unions

Posted on April 28, 2023 (Updated April 28, 2023) by Walter Einenkel

On Wednesday, American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten testified before the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic, where the odious Rep. Jim Jordan tried to grill her on school closures during COVID and “culture wars.” To no one’s surprise, his effort was a flop.

According to the subcommittee’s Republican chairman, Rep. Brad Wenstrup of Ohio, the committee’s job is to investigate “the decision-making process behind school closures [during the COVID-19 pandemic] and the effects it had so that we can do better in the future.”

Weingarten was brought in by Republicans because the conservative movement in our country wants the trials and tribulations we all dealt with during the pandemic—in this case, school closures—to be blamed on workers in all sectors of society, especially teachers and school staff.

Like most Republican-led committee meetings, this one was part circus, part conspiracy theory, and all useless. Committee hearings under Republican leaders are a cauldron of hypocrisies—too many to enumerate here. This committee could have made an effort to actually find out how school closures impacted students and educators. But instead, the general tenor of the Republicans’ questions for Weingarten was “unions and labor rights are bad.” After enduring some new lows from moral sewer-dweller Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, who used her time to attack adoptive parents (including Weingarten herself), Weingarten had to answer a series of Jordan’s “gotcha” questions.

While Greene’s attacks on Weingarten were clearly personal, Jordan’s low-level interrogation was an attempt to paint Weingarten as a left-wing radical culture warrior for the implied crime of closing schools during a lethal pandemic. There are very few people who are less smart than Jordan, and Weingarten ain’t one of them, so Jordan’s plans blew up in his face.

Jordan, no stranger to wasting breath, began his interrogation by asking Weingarten, “Who cares more about a child's education, the teacher's union, or the child's parents?”

Weingarten replied that both parents and teachers care about children, and that obviously no one cares for individual children more than their parents. It’s hard to know what response Jordan thought he was going to get, but he evidently didn’t get the one he wanted—so he asked the question again. Weingarten easily circumvented Jordan’s sophomoric line of questioning, saying, “Look, I'm not here to be in a competition. Parents are so important in children's lives. Teachers are so important in children's lives, too.”

Jordan, whose cross-examination style might be a result of watching too many “L.A. Law” episodes, asked Weingarten, “Who are the ‘extremist politicians’?” The attempt to put Weingarten on her heels by employing a non sequitur failed miserably. Jordan read Weingarten’s writing aloud on the matter of school safety during the pandemic, where she asserted that “attacks by extremist politicians have undermined teachers in schools.” That led to this amazing exchange:

REP. JIM JORDAN: Well, who are the extremist politicians?

RANDI WEINGARTEN: I think you just heard one, sir.

JORDAN: So Ms. Greene’s one of them.

Indeed. Weingarten pivoted to explaining how the conservative preoccupation with “culture wars” is anti-educational, then implied that book banning is a tell-tale sign of having lost an argument. Another swing and a miss for Jordan!

It is important to note here that Jordan—a coward of a man who clearly likes to talk fast but allegedly kept conspicuously silent when young men under his charge were being sexually molested at Ohio State University—pretends to do a lot of busywork when he’s supposed to be listening. It is his attempt to seem like he’s got everything under control, but he so clearly has nothing under control. His next question: “Who started the culture wars?”

Weingarten responded by explaining, once again, that the moment you start banning books about people like Anne Frank and Roberto Clemente, you’ve stepped into a place that can only be called “wrong.” Jordan, desperate to resuscitate his pointless existence on this committee, tried a transphobic attack, which Weingarten redirected back to the question he said he was asking.

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The Republican Party’s extremism comes with an enormous price: narcissistic incompetence. Even when they are in control of congressional committees, they cannot turn their circus “investigations” into anything worthwhile. Instead, like all Republican-led committees at this point, the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic is mostly a performance art space for right-wing political theater performed by dunderheaded goblins like Marjorie Taylor Greene and Jim Jordan.

MTG offers up ludicrous series of questions with fake 'facts' during committee hearing

Twitter has a field day with Jim Jordan's craven behavior at impeachment hearing

One Florida school district with optional masks has had 17 staff die of COVID-19 since August

Watch AOC let loose on Clarence Thomas on ‘The Daily Show’

Posted on April 18, 2023 (Updated April 19, 2023) by Walter Einenkel

This week, longtime “The Daily Show” correspondent Jordan Klepper is taking his turn in the guest host seat. He kicked the week off with a bang, scoring an interview with Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on her home turf of New York City.

And while the interview began as a conversation about violence and social services in America, it ended up touching on Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas’ ethics failures, the fight for reproductive rights, and Donald Trump being the only person who is crying for Donald Trump.

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After Klepper joked about a theoretical Beyonce Knowles collecting Third Reich memorabilia, Ocasio-Cortez brought the interview back on track and succinctly drilled down to the bottom line:

“Supreme Court justices are required, if they are receiving money from people—they shouldn't even be receiving money from people. This is why we pay salaries to public servants. And if they want to live that kind of lifestyle, then they can resign from the court. They can retire.

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Before Klepper ended the interview, he brought up the orange elephant in the room. Did Ocasio-Cortez think people “were crying,” as Trump claimed, during his recent arraignment on charges of falsifying business records?

“Maybe George Santos and Marjorie Taylor Greene were, but not me,” Ocasio-Cortez said. She went on to say that Trump’s indictment is a symbol of the deep inequalities in our justice system, as she watches “people get treated far worse for doing far less” than Trump. “If you hurt one person, you get ten years in prison. But if you hurt millions of people, you get your name on a building.”

You can watch the whole interview below, as well as read a transcript of the interview.

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The Clarence Thomas scandal keeps growing

Clarence Thomas’ lavish vacation getaways are so corrupt, even Republicans think they're bogus

Justice Clarence Thomas has reported up to $750,000 in income from a company that doesn't exist

Transcript:

Jordan Klepper: I considered going into the medical profession. I thought I could play a handsome doctor on TV. Didn't pan out. While we were on the subject of national embarrassment, I had to ask the congresswoman about Clarence Thomas and his BFF Nazi, swag collector, Harlan Crow. I want to talk a little bit about Clarence Thomas. You've said you would even draft articles of impeachment for the things that he's done. Has there been any quid pro quo? And I said quid pro quo, partially because it took all that effort to learn what quid pro quo meant back in the Ukraine days, and it feels apropos of now. And I don't think I used apropos correctly.

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez: I think that quid pro quo is this bar that doesn't even need to be met. The justice is required by law to disclose something like that. And he hasn't been.

Jordan Klepper: Can you empathize, though? If Beyoncé came through here, wanted to take you on a sweet vacation, wouldn't you say, “Yes.” And let her show you her Nazi memorabilia.

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez: Tell someone about it. But hey, don't! Don't put Bey's name on that.

Jordan Klepper: I'm not saying she has. I'm saying if she invested in Nazi memorabilia to show that she hates Nazi memorabilia, she'd want to show it off.

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez: And that whole thing is just, I mean, bizarre. You also don't keep the linens around …

Jordan Klepper:--All the Nazi linens?

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez: Yeah. Who does that?

Jordan Klepper: Don't you think if you had $1,000,000,000 and you bought everything, you'd probably eventually get to Nazi linens?

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez: This is the distraction of that whole issue.

Jordan Klepper: You're right. We're just focused on that as opposed to all the money that's going over to Clarence Thomas. Although if you're a billionaire, can't billionaires have friends?

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez: They can. Supreme Court justices are required, if they are receiving money from people—they shouldn't even be receiving money from people. This is why we pay salaries to public servants. And if they want to live that kind of lifestyle, then they can resign from the court. They can retire.

Jordan Klepper: Now I want to talk about the court. It's looking as if the Supreme Court is going to rule on some of the conflicting rulings around mifepristone. Who do you think is going to write the final decision that takes away these vital rights from women? Is it going to be the guy who cried over beer or was it going to be the buddy with the Nazi memorabilia guy?

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez: You know, my hope is that they—we do not get to that point. But we also have to face the reality that the Supreme Court has chosen to give up huge swaths of their own legitimacy. Chief Justice Roberts, Clarence Thomas, Brett Kavanaugh, the Republican Party: In them giving up trying to take seriously the legitimacy, the standards, the integrity of the court, they have given up a very large degree of their authority.

Jordan Klepper: The new news in Florida this week is the six-week abortion ban. How do women approach that or fight back against something like that that's happening in Florida?

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez: Of course, there's the standard, like, vote and mobilize. But I'm going to put that aside for a second. We do not have to accept tyranny, and this is a form of tyranny. It is a form of violence. Women will die. People will die because of this decision. And it will be, by and large, the men who signed these laws that are killing the women that will die by them.

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez: And we have a responsibility to help one another, whether that is supporting organizations that mail mifepristone, which has significantly reduced risk, certainly safer than medications like Viagra. But ultimately, we cannot continue to accept people in power who will abuse others for their own gain.

Jordan Klepper: Indictment week was last week. It might also be a month from now, too. We could have a lot of indictment weeks. How do you think New Yorkers treated former President Donald Trump?

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez: I think they treated him like a Florida man. He don't belong to us no mo’, okay? You're not from Queens anymore. He's a citizen of Mar-a-Lago at this point.

Jordan Klepper: And you said New Yorkers treated him as such?

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez: Yeah. Why wouldn't we?

Jordan Klepper: Do you think people were weeping when he was booked, as he claims?

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez: Maybe George Santos and Marjorie Taylor Greene were, but not me. Take it back to LaGuardia.

Jordan Klepper: Take it back to LaGuardia, which is in your district?

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez: Yes, it's in my district. And so is Rikers. And so we have, I have to go in every single day watching people get treated far worse for doing far less and then, you know, it's like this red carpet that gets rolled out. I mean, if you hurt one person, you get ten years in prison. But if you hurt millions of people, you get your name on a building.

Jordan Klepper: Congresswoman, thanks for talking with us.

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez: Thanks for having me.

On today’s episode, Markos and Kerry are joined by a friend of the podcast, Democratic political strategist Simon Rosenberg. Rosenberg was one of the few outsiders who, like Daily Kos, kept telling the world that nothing supported the idea of a red wave. Simon and the crew break down his strategy for Democratic candidates to achieve a 55% popular vote in all elections—a number that a few years ago would have seemed unattainable, but now feels within reach.

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