Category: comer

Watch yet another House GOP hearing go totally off the rails

Posted on by Walter Einenkel

A House Oversight Committee hearing into China’s “political warfare” against the United States went off the rails Wednesday when Republican Rep. James Comer interrupted Democratic Rep. Jamie Raskin to push attacks on President Joe Biden and his family.

Raskin was using his allotted time to point out that the “smoking gun” whistleblower who Comer and Rep. Jim Jordan were hanging their entire impeachment case on was in fact a Russian mole.  

“That's just simply not true,” Comer interrupted. “But go ahead.”

It is true and the two did go ahead, in an argument that escalated and went on for more than five minutes. 

Of course, Raskin had the benefit of facts and reality on his side. When Comer, who chairs the Oversight Committee, tried to repeat a thoroughly discredited claim that Biden received money from Chinese interests, Raskin reminded him that it was then-President Donald Trump who actually received millions of dollars from China.

Raskin then called Comer’s bluff and asked him to put up or shut up on impeaching Biden, something fellow Democratic Rep. Jared Moskowitz has previously attempted. That led to this exchange:

Raskin: Where is your impeachment investigation? If Joe Biden took a $9 million bribe from China, why aren't you impeaching him for that?

Comer: Well, who says we're not?

Raskin: I can invite Mr. Moskowitz to come back in. Do you want to move for impeachment today? Because I thought that that was your main agenda item. You said it was the paramount priority of the committee?

Comer: No, this is a hearing on China. And you all have an obsession with Russia and Trump. It's disturbing.

Raskin: We can talk about China and Trump, or Russia and Trump --

Comer: --You need therapy, Mr. Raskin.

Raskin: No, no, you need therapy. You're the one who's involved with the deranged politician, not me. Okay? I've divorced myself from Donald Trump a long time ago. You're the one who needs to disentangle from that situation. 

And I will tell you this: If you believe that it would have been illegal for Joe Biden to take $5 million from Ukraine, it certainly would have been. What do you think about Donald Trump taking more than $5 million from the Chinese government while he was president?

At one point, when Comer claimed that the ongoing GOP investigations into the Biden family didn’t cost many millions of taxpayer dollars, Raskin snarked, "Oh, it's been for free? Okay. All right. Well, you know what, then? We get what we paid for it because you got nothing. You got nothing on Joe Biden."

When Comer tried to continue on with a new speaker and dismiss “Mr. Raskins,” Raskin vociferously demanded his time back—but not before putting Comer’s disrespect on notice:

Let me start with this. My last name is Raskin. Okay? We've sat next to each other for more than a year. You don't have to add the S. Number two, I would like my time restored. Number three, you have not identified a single crime. What is the crime that you want to impeach Joe Biden for and keep this nonsense going? Why? Well, what is the crime? Tell America right now.

You can watch the full exchange in the video below.

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Zachary Mueller is the senior research director for America’s Voice and America’s Voice Education Fund. He brings his expertise on immigration politics to talk about how much money the GOP is using to promote its racist immigration campaigns.

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Watch GOP congressman get absolutely stumped trying to defend his Biden lies

Posted on by Walter Einenkel

Republican Rep. Tim Burchett spoke with CNN’s Boris Sanchez on Wednesday in an attempt to defend the House GOP’s bogus “investigations” into President Joe Biden and his family. Unfortunately for Burchett, Sanchez decided to be a big stickler about facts.

After Burchett lazily repeated the baseless accusations that Biden took millions of dollars for favors done on behalf of his son Hunter, Sanchez reminded the Tennessee congressman about the difference between legal and illegal.

There's a huge distinction between whether it's appropriate for the family of a president to make money off of his name and whether that's ethical. But the question is specifically about what Joe Biden did when he was in office in vice president. Whether he abused his power or whether he enriched his family members. And right now, there is zero evidence coming from the oversight committee that when he was vice president, he did either of those things.

Burchett responded by floating the mythical $20 million number that Republican House committee chairs like James Comer and Jim Jordan speak into microphones a lot, even though there is zero evidence that the Biden family received any such amount. Hunter Biden’s former business associate Devon Archer even testified that Joe Biden not only did not help his son’s new employers out, but he may have added more uncertainty to their business venture at the time.

Sanchez interrupted Burchett to say he had seen the banking records and there was no such evidence. Burchett bristled, saying, “Are you going to let me speak?” Sanchez responded, “I'm not going to let you say things that are untrue, sir.” Burchett then tried to reiterate … the exact same talking point again, so Sanchez took apart the $20 million claim. That led to this sweet exchange:

Burchett: So, listen, if you want to, you just do the interview. But you're asking me a question and I'm trying to give you an answer.

Sanchez: You're not giving me an honest answer, sir. You're repeating a talking point that has been debunked repeatedly.

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What makes the GOP attacks on Biden and his family so remarkable is the utter lack of even the most tangentially circumstantial evidence. Every “star” witness has been a bust and every “bombshell” piece of evidence has not only been debunked, but frequently debunked in record time.

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Watch Jim Jordan try to explain his ‘facts’ that aren’t facts

Posted on by Walter Einenkel

Rep. Jim Jordan spoke briefly to the press on Wednesday and tried his mightiest to pretend it’s no big deal that an FBI informant has been charged with lying about Joe and Hunter Biden’s Ukrainian business ties. 

Alexander Smirnov was the source behind what many Republicans hoped would be smoking gun evidence that proved massive corruption on the part of Joe Biden and his family. But it turns out that one of the GOP’s star witnesses in the bogus push to impeach Biden is at best an indicted liar and at worst a Russian mole. 

After repeatedly insisting that the facts, as he sees them, are still the same (even if his biggest corroborating witness lied about everything), the chair of the House Judiciary Committee had this delightful exchange with one of the reporters.

Rep. Jim Jordan: So it doesn't change the fundamental facts.

Reporter: How does it not change the facts? Those are no longer facts. They aren’t true.

Jordan: The four things I just said are absolutely true. Did Hunter Biden get put on the board of Burisma? Yes. Was he paid $1,000,000 a year? Yes. Did Joe Biden condition the release of tax money for the firing of the prosecutor who was applying the pressure? Yes.

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The first two things on Jordan’s list, which are true, are not against the law. You may not like them, but they’re not illegal—and Republican legislators are not racing to create laws that might curtail these potential conflicts of interest. On the other hand, we might want to do a teensy, tiny bit of investigation into Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner and the billions in Saudi money he’s received since leaving the White House. 

Jordan’s last “fact” rests on the assumption that by conveying the Obama administration’s conditions that Ukraine fire corrupt prosecutor Viktor Shokin before the United States would give the country aid, then-Vice President Biden was helping out his son’s new employer, Burisma. 

That’s a lie.

In fact, Hunter Biden’s former business partner and previous star witness for the GOP, Devon Archer, took all the air out of Jordan’s bag of bullshit when he testified that President Biden did not help his son’s standing on the Burisma board. In fact, Archer said Shokin’s ouster “was bad for Burisma” because the energy company “felt like they had Shokin under control” and he was unlikely to slap heavy sanctions or oversight on the company.

Unfortunately for Republicans trying their best to target Joe Biden and his family, there is no there there— and there never has been. At every stage of this political theater production, Reps. James Comer and Jim Jordan have had to admit they have no actionable evidence. 

Watch as Jordan denies facts for a full five minutes in the clip below.

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Democratic voters know Joe Biden is old and MAGA voters like to pretend that Trump isn't just as long in the tooth. Both men were old the last time we did this and the only thing that’s changed is Biden is now a successful incumbent, while Trump is busy juggling trials and indictments.

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After embarrassing interview, James Comer runs to Newsmax to call CNN a ‘low-IQ audience’

Posted on by Walter Einenkel

 House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer went on CNN last Friday and gave a sad defense of his tax-dollar-wasting impeachment investigation into President Joe Biden. Host Jake Tapper’s willingness to ask about the glaring holes in Comer’s conspiracy theories once again exposed the absurdity of the pointless Republican witch hunt. It was embarrassing.

On Monday, Comer was forced to answer another hard question, this time from Newsmax host Rob Finnerty: How does the Kentucky Republican deal with the fact that half the country sees his investigation as a joke?

Rob Finnerty: [Tapper is] making your investigations sound like a joke, and he's trying to make you look like a joke. And then half of America sees that and they think your investigation is a joke. How do you work around that? How do you work through that?

James Comer: Well, that's the first time I went on CNN in three months. We thought we would give it a try. You know, Jake Tapper is an intelligent guy, but he's playing to a low-IQ audience.

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A pretty famous study from the past decade shows that conservative ideologies and prejudice are both linked to low intelligence. These people then seek out their information from conservative propaganda outlets like Fox News and Newsmax, which, in turn, loops their poorly developed ideologies back to them, reinforcing the cycle. One of the best ways to manage people with poorly thought-out ideologies is to tell them everybody else is stupid—with their facts and all. 

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Markos and Kerry give their thoughts on what the country is facing in 2024. The Republican Party is running on losing issues like abortion and repealing the ACA—with no explanation of what they plan on replacing it with. Trump has a lot of criming to atone for, and the Republican platform remains set on destroying democracy.

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Comer isn’t even trying as Jake Tapper makes fun of his Biden conspiracy theory on live TV

Posted on by Walter Einenkel

On Friday, Rep. James Comer brought his catastrophic mess of an impeachment inquiry to CNN. Speaking with host Jake Tapper, the chair of the House Oversight Committee couldn’t even be bothered to pretend he had any evidence against President Joe Biden and his family and instead tried to promote such a twisted joke of a conspiracy theory that Tapper just made fun of him by repeating it back.

The theory, of course, is that Hunter Biden has been indicted in order to protect him … from indictment.

James Comer: My concern is that [special counsel David] Weiss may have indicted Hunter Biden to protect him from having to be deposed.

Jake Tapper: Ahh yes, yes! He indicted him to protect him. Yes, the classic rubric. He indicted him to protect him. I got it.

Comer: This whole thing, Jake, has been about a coverup, you know, you’ve got two …

Tapper: That's why he decided to do it? To protect him, to cover it up?

Comer:  Well, look, you indict him on the least little things, the gun charge and not paying tax …

Tapper: He's facing 17 additional years in prison! These are felonies.

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Another Republican admits there is zero evidence of corruption on the part of President Joe Biden

Posted on by Walter Einenkel

Fox News’ Maria Bartiromo continues to tilt at Biden corruption windmills. On Tuesday, she had Republican Lisa McClain of Michigan on her show to dish the dirt on the Biden crime family! McClain is all-in on trying to prove President Joe Biden is corrupt—or at least create the appearance that he is corrupt. The big problem the right-wing-o-sphere continues to have is that not only do they lack a smoking-gun piece of evidence, they lack smoke entirely.

Bartiromo did what she does best: Create some misinformation before being informed there was no evidence to back those claims up, and then asking a direct question about evidence. In this case, that question was: “Have you been able to identify any actual policy changes that Joe Biden made as a result of getting money from China?”

McClain’s response? “The short answer is no.”

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Spoiler alert: The long answer is also no. Bartiromo, a proven misinformation machine, has so little to go on these days it seems that the entirety of the project is to have some conservative “investigator” on, spout conspiracy theories, and then be told there is no evidence to support any of those theories.

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Watch Jamie Raskin shred the ‘flying monkeys’ running the impeachment inquiry

Posted on by Walter Einenkel

On Thursday, Rep. Jamie Raskin gave the Democratic Party’s opening statement during the first hearing of the political sideshow that is the Republican impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden. Raskin absolutely leveled the place.

“No foreign enemy has ever been able to shut down the government of the United States, but now MAGA Republicans are about to do just that,” he said. He noted the “long-debunked and discredited lie” at the foundation of the impeachment inquiry before pointing out that as “harsh” as his words may seem, Republican lawmakers have said even harsher things about their party’s ongoing civil war.

With aides holding up four placards showing quotes from Republican Reps. Don Bacon, Tony Gonzales, Mike Lawler, and others about the dysfunction in the House GOP, Raskin reminded everyone that being against the extremists in government should not be a partisan position. He then presented substantial evidence that House Republicans’ reason for the impending government shutdown was to aid Donald Trump in his battle against our justice system. Raskin continued:

To delay justice, Donald Trump would cut off paychecks to a couple million service members and federal workers, and furlough more than a million workers and pay them later for having not worked. They would halt food assistance to millions of moms and kids, and keep NIH, in my district, from enrolling any more patients in life and death clinical research trials.

Trump's convinced that if we shut the government down, his four criminal prosecutions on 91 different charges will be defunded and delayed long enough to keep him from having to go before a jury of his peers before the 2024 election. And like flying monkeys on a mission for the Wicked Witch of the West, Trump's followers in the House now carry messages out to the world: Shut down the government. Shut down the prosecutions.

RELATED STORY: Live coverage: Republican impeachment inquiry

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We are less than three days away from Republicans shutting down the government. Instead of figuring out how to accomplish one of the most basic functions of their job—keeping the government running—the Republican Party pushes forward with their evidence-free impeachment inquiry. After a clownish press conference on Wednesday kicked off the festivities, how much more ludicrous this will all get is hard to fathom.

Enough with the weak leadership and MAGA circus. Sign the petition: Hakeem Jeffries for Speaker!