Watch yet another House GOP hearing go totally off the rails

Posted on April 18, 2024 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 Jamie Raskin shred the ‘flying monkeys’ running the impeachment inquiry

Posted on September 28, 2023 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.

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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!

Cartoon: Exhibit I(nsurrection)

Posted on February 12, 2021 by Mark Fiore

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Now that Donald Trump’s crack legal team is doing such a bang-up job, I thought I’d help them out with their very own video presentation. The Democratic impeachment managers have put video to good use in Trump’s second impeachment trial, why can’t the defense team do the same?

Um, maybe because they have no case and Trump is guilty as sin? Never mind that, though, the Inciter-in-Chief is nearly certain to avoid conviction thanks to the morally bankrupt Trumpist Republicans in the Senate.

When around half of the Republicans who will help decide Trump’s guilt or innocence pushed the very conspiracies and lies that sparked January’s attack on the Capitol, it doesn’t look like conviction is in the cards. And, yes, I think those Republicans should be impeached as well. (See: Fourteenth Amendment.)

Enjoy the cartoon, and remember to join me over on Patreon, where you can help support my work and get prints and other behind-the-scenes goodies!