Congress

McCarthy Threatens FBI Director with Contempt for Not Aiding His Petty Persecution of Biden

Posted by on May 31, 2023 at 11:57 am. 2 Comments :

The Republican controlled House of Representatives has rapidly proven that it has no real interest in governing and is utterly unfit to do so. Since assuming the barest of majorities, its concerted efforts to smear Democrats have fallen flat as they held hearings that produced little more than rancid allegations with no basis in reality.

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Kevin McCarthy, House Speaker (Squeaker)

Nevertheless, the Republican crusaders continue to pursue their political theatrics with casts of dubious characters as witnesses and fantastical stories as testimony. James Comer, the chairman of the House Oversight Committee, leads the GOP’s Bogus Scandal Caucus with ludicrous hearings aimed solely at maligning President Biden and other Democrats.

SEE THIS: HOW CONVENIENT: GOP Oversight Committee Chair Says He Can’t Find His Star Witness Against Biden

On Tuesday House Squeaker Kevin McCarthy visited with his propaganda cohorts on Fox News to complain that FBI Director, Chris Wray, has declined to turn over a document that Comer seeks as part of his Biden persecution. McCarthy falsely insisted that he has jurisdiction over the FBI and demanded that they obey his dictate…

“I personally called Director Wray and told him he needs to send that document. Today is the deadline. So let me not tell just you, let me tell Director Christopher Wray right here, right now. If he misses the deadline today, I am prepared to move contempt charges against him.”

McCarthy threatened Wray and the FBI with contempt of Congress if they don’t comply with his petulant demand, saying that “they are not above the law.” Which is particularly ironic considering that McCarthy himself failed to comply with a congressional subpoena last year that was issued by the Select Committee investigating the January 6th insurrection that Donald Trump incited.

SEE ALSO: HUH? Squeaker McCarthy Admits that He Ignored Subpoenas in His Denial that He Ignored Subpoenas

To no one’s surprise, the FBI told Comer and McCarthy that they would not be providing the document in question. Consequently, Comer announced that his Committee “will now be taking steps to hold FBI Director Wray in contempt of Congress.” And you can bet that Wray is shaking in his boots. His boss, Attorney General Merrick Garland, is not likely to proceed with any legal action against Wray. And that’s not because of politics, but because there is no legal justification for it. For the record, the FBI rejected Comer’s original request weeks ago saying that…

“It is critical to the integrity of the entire criminal justice process and to the fulfillment of our law enforcement duties that FBI avoid revealing information — including unverified or incomplete information — that could harm investigations, prejudice prosecutions or judicial proceedings, unfairly violate privacy or reputational interests, or create misimpressions in the public.”

Wray also previously advised the Committee of “the importance of us protecting sources and methods and ongoing investigations.” And an FBI spokesperson told the Committee that “there are strict Justice Department guidelines about when that information can be provided outside of the FBI.” He further educated the GOP inquisitors that the document they seek (an FD-1023 form) is “used by FBI agents to record unverified reporting from a confidential human source.” He elaborated saying that…

“An FD-1023 form documents information as told to a line FBI agent. Recording the information does not validate the information, establish its credibility, or weigh it against other information known or developed by the FBI. The mere existence of such a document would establish little beyond the fact that a confidential human source provided information and the FBI recorded it. Indeed, the FBI regularly receives information from sources with significant potential biases, motivations, and knowledge, including drug traffickers, members of organized crime, or even terrorists.”

In other words, the GOP’s desired document might just be the dishonest ravings of a partisan player with a political axe to grind. It would be irresponsible to disseminate that information as it could defame others and irreparably damage reputations. Which is precisely why Republicans want it. It is their mission to defame and damage their political foes.

Wray knows that McCarthy and Comer cannot be trusted with unverified reports. They would just exploit them for political purposes. And their whining about not getting the information is brazenly hypocritical. During the course of their congressional hearings they have refused to provide information that would validate their accusations. They won’t even give that information to Democrats on the Committee, in violation of committee rules. Their sole objective is to attack Democrats in order to advance their own electoral prospects in the future. They have even said so explicitly…

SEE THIS: New GOP Subcommittee Chair Openly Admits His Only Purpose is to ‘Make Life Hell’ for Democrats

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Matt Gaetz Guest Hosts Show on Newsmax, Affirming that Both are Unethical Propagandists

Posted by on May 27, 2023 at 12:41 pm. 8 Comments :

The devotion to disseminating blatant disinformation on the part of right-wing politicians and pundits is nothing new. Countless hours, and billions of dollars, have been spent on purposefully lying to advance a repugnant Republicans agenda. Fox News was created specifically to further the goal of making Americans stupider and angrier and deeper indoctrinated in conservative crackpottery.

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Matt Gaetz

In recent weeks Fox News has lost a huge chunk of their audience as a result of their editorial dishonesty. First, they were forced to settle a defamation lawsuit brought by Dominion Voting Systems for nearly a billion dollars. Then they fired their top rated host, Tucker Carlson, for reasons not fully disclosed, but probably due to his disparaging remarks about fellow Fox personnel.

SEE THIS: Leaked Video of Tucker Carlson Bashing Fox Nation as a Site that ‘Sucks’ and ‘Nobody Watches’

In the wake of Fox’s fumbles, an otherwise puny competitor, Newsmax, has been taking advantage of the turmoil in the wingnut press. They have enjoyed a bit of a ratings spike, although temporary and still badly trailing Fox. And in an effort to benefit from Fox’s misfortunes, Newsmax pulled a stunt intended to draw even more of Fox’s viewers away. They hired Florida congressman Matt Gaetz (R-Perv) to guest host a program in primetime. He began his debut by assuring viewers that…

“You’re on the right channel. If you’re confused, your eyes are not failing you, and Greg Kelly did not suddenly get better hair. I’m Matt Gaetz.”

It was astute of Gaetz to recognize the potential for confusion among Newsmax watchers. The network, much like Trump, relies on the “poorly educated” for support.

More to the point, Newsmax recruited Gaetz because of his demonstrated ability to lie with a straight face to the camera. Just like the network’s regular hosts. But what’s profoundly disturbing about this is that it appears to be the first time that a sitting member of Congress has appeared as a host of political TV program.

The hosting by Gaetz is wholly unethical for a member of congress who is paid to represent his constituents, not to advance his media career. He has plenty of opportunities to be interviewed on programs like this, but hosting is another matter entirely. Gaetz sits on committees that are debating important issues such as the looming debt default. His hosting gig puts him in a position to direct the editorial content of the program and dispense unfiltered propaganda.

RELATED: Matt Gaetz Drools Over Defunding Law Enforcement ‘If They Do Not Come to Heel’ to the Trump GOP

As for Newsmax, they are boosting the profile of a partisan politician who has a decidedly biased perspective and expecting the viewers to simply accept his as a presenter. Not that Newsmax viewers expect anything resembling neutrality, but it is still a flagrant breach journalistic ethics.

This isn’t the first time that Gaetz has pulled this kind of stunt. He previously guest co-hosted Fox News’ “Outnumbered” as the lone male panelist. That, however, could have been dismissed as an hour long guest appearance, which is precisely what Fox News did. However, Fox hasn’t been hesitant to snatch up former members of Congress and give them their own programs (i.e. Jason Chaffetz and Trey Gowdy).

What’s next for Newsmax? Perhaps they could get Marjorie Taylor Greene to moderate a debate prior to the New Hampshire primary? Or maybe they will let Donald Trump guest host for the week before the 2024 election.

Another way to process the absurdity of Newsmax tapping Gaetz as a guest host can be demonstrated by imagining the horror with which the right would respond if CNN allowed Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to sit in for Anderson Cooper.

On the other hand, putting Gaetz on the air just certifies the political bias of Newsmax. Which could be helpful in determining the outcome of the defamation cases pending against them. In addition to Dominion Voting Systems, Newsmax is also being sued by Smartmatic, another voting software company that is alleging defamation. So Newsmax may be digging its own grave. And for that endeavor, we wish them luck.

SEE ALSO: Newsmax and OAN Added to Smartmatic’s Billion Dollar Lawsuit for Pushing Trump’s ‘Big Lie’

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Jim Jordan Refuses to Provide Democrats with ‘Whistleblower’ Testimony Given Only to Republicans

Posted by on May 18, 2023 at 1:11 pm. 8 Comments :

Jim Jordan’s absurdly named House Subcommittee on the “Weaponization of the Federal Government” held a hearing Thursday that featured three former FBI agents who claim to be “whistleblowers.” However, that claim appears to be rooted in nonsense and crackpot conspiracy theories.

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Jim Jordan, Biden's Emails

The witnesses that Jordan invited to testify have already lost their security clearances due to misconduct related to their participation in, or support for, the January 6th insurrection that was incited by Donald Trump. What’s more, they are being financially supported by Kash Patel, a close Trump aide. Consequently, their credibility is suspect, to say the least.

RELATED: New GOP Subcommittee Chair Openly Admits His Only Purpose is to ‘Make Life Hell’ for Democrats

During the hearing, Democratic Rep. Dan Goldman confronted Jordan with regard to his refusal to share the transcripts of witness testimony that was previously given in private and exclusively to Republicans on the Committee. Goldman pointed out that the Committee rules require such testimony to be provided to all members. Which is something that Jordan, as chairman, should know. But after apprising Jordan of these facts, the following exchange took place…

Goldman: [Reading from the rules] “Such records shall be the property of the House and each member delegate, and the resident commissioner, shall have access thereto.” Why does that not apply? Where is the whistleblower exception in the rules of Congress that says that does not apply?
Jordan: It is the prerogative of the Committee to decide.
Goldman: No it’s not.
Jordan: We have the whistleblower’s testimony. The whistleblower does not wish that to be made available to the Democrats at this time.
Goldman: The whistleblower doesn’t make Committee rules, sir.

Whereupon Jordan simply ignored Goldman and recognized the next member for questioning. He seems to believe that he can just make up rules as he goes along. And if those made up rules violate the most basic precepts of fairness and democracy, that’s just too bad.

Goldman, however, is right. Witnesses do not get to tell Congress who can have access to their pre-testimonial depositions. How can Democrats determine what inquiries to make if they don’t even know what the witness is asserting? How can the witnesses’ accounts be examined or challenged if members don’t know what those accounts allege?

Jordan is purposefully preventing Democrats from being able to engage in a substantive debate. He doesn’t want them to learn anything potentially controversial, or that might lead to embarrassing facts being disclosed. Jordan doesn’t offer any timeline for which Democrats could have access to the testimony transcripts. Perhaps he is simply saving all of that for a future interview on Fox News.

It’s also possible that these so-called whistleblowers don’t really have anything significant to say. Or maybe their allegations can be easily refuted. It’s reminiscent of the “missing whistleblower” that Oversight Committee Chair James Comer claims to have lost.

SEE THIS: HOW CONVENIENT: GOP Oversight Committee Chair Says He Can’t Find His Star Witness Against Biden

Since assuming the barest of majorities of the House of Representative, Republican efforts to smear Democrats have been pitiful failures. They have held hearings wherein their members have humiliated themselves with idiotic questions, and their witnesses have provided nothing but debunkable bullpucky.

And yet they persist with these mockeries of legislative activity, littered with imaginary witnesses and fluff-filled fantasies dressed up as evidence of utterly fictional scandals. So topping it off with tyrannical breaches of established rules shouldn’t surprise anyone. But it should still nauseate them.

RELATED STORY: Fascista Marjorie Taylor Greene: If I was Speaker of the House I Would Reign with an Iron Fist

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Jim Jordan’s Judiciary Committee to Hold Phony Hearing in New York to Smear Manhattan DA Bragg

Posted by on April 10, 2023 at 12:42 pm. 8 Comments :

The Republican Party has always been a fount of ironic hypocrisy. Their wild claims and accusations against Democrats are, more often than not, condemnations of offenses that they are far more guilty of engaging in.

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Jim Jordan

An outstanding example of this was provided by GOP House Judiciary Committee chair, Jim Jordan, who has targeted Democrats with subpoenas despite having refused to comply with those that were issued for him. He also formed a subcommittee on the “Weaponization of the Federal Government” whose sole purpose was to weaponize his congressional power to attack Democrats and run cover for Donald Trump. The GOP also created the absurd “Anti-Woke Caucus” to pursue whatever the heck they think that means.

SEE THIS: GOP Creates an ‘Anti-Woke’ Caucus to Take on the ‘Greatest Domestic Threat to America Today’

Continuing in that tradition of legislative tantrum throwing, Jordan has just announced that his Judiciary Committee will soon take its show on the road to hold a hearing in New York that he says will…

“…examine how Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s pro-crime, anti-victim policies have led to an increase in violent crime and a dangerous community for New York City residents.”

Jordan isn’t fooling anyone with his references to crime. There is no question that Jordan is staging this hearing as a purely political retaliation following the 34 felony count indictment of Trump by a Manhattan Grand Jury. Jordan (and Trump and the rest of the GOP political and media confederacy) blame District Attorney Alvin Bragg for Trump’s tribulations, rather than the fact that Trump is a recidivist criminal who is acting out his mob boss fantasies.

It’s no coincidence that Jordan’s alleged “crime” hearing was announced less than a week after Trump’s indictment. Jordan has been maligning Bragg ever since for what he calls an “unprecedented abuse of prosecutorial authority,” and has demanded that Bragg testify before Congress. Jordan is apparently unaware that he has no authority over a local district attorney. In fact, he is potentially violating New York state law by making such harassing and intimidating efforts to interfere with the investigation.

What’s more, Jordan’s feeble allegations that “Bragg’s pro-crime, anti-victim policies have led to an increase in violent crime,” are flagrantly false. The truth is that crime has decreased during Bragg’s tenure as D.A. According to recent data from law enforcement…

“Statistics from the NYPD show a decrease in almost all major crimes in February compared with 2022, including a 15% drop in shootings. New numbers from the department show an overall crime decrease of 5.6% year over year.”

Those numbers include a 27.8% decrease in murders, 22.1% decrease in rapes, and 15% decrease in burglaries. Although there were some increases in criminal activity outside of Bragg’s jurisdiction, It was reported that in the Republican stronghold of Staten Island crime is up 11.2%. So why isn’t Jordan going there?

To make matters worse, Jordan has also been demonstrating Republican hypocrisy with recent promises to defund the police, a policy that the GOP likes to pretend is on the Democratic agenda. But Jordan said, “We’re going to have to look at the appropriations process and limit funds going to [the DOJ and the FBI].” This is unambiguously political and intended to punish these agencies for any role they might have had in bringing Trump to justice.

However, such budget cuts would also hamper law enforcement efforts to combat serious crimes such as terrorism, drug trafficking, financial corruption, civil rights abuse, election fraud, and many other federal crimes. So the question is: Why do Republicans hate the police? It could be said that they are the ones who are truly “pro-crime and anti-victim.”

SEE THIS: Jim Jordan Tells Fox News that He’ll Explore Defunding the Police Due to the Trump Indictment

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New GOP Subcommittee Chair Openly Admits His Only Purpose is to ‘Make Life Hell’ for Democrats

Posted by on February 12, 2023 at 12:26 pm. 7 Comments :

The Republican Party’s new majority in the House of Representatives has only been in place for about a month, but already it has distinguished itself as embarrassingly inept and priggishly partisan. It took them fifteen votes to even select Kevin McCarthy as Squeaker of the House, for which Donald Trump took all the credit.

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Joe Biden, Donald Trump, Congress, NBC Poll

In the few weeks of GOP rule, the Party of Trump Flunkies has utterly abandoned the divisive wedge issues that they campaigned on (i. e. inflation, abortion, immigration), and instead focused on Hunter Biden’s stolen laptop, mandatory reciting of of the Pledge of Allegiance, and arresting Twitter executives for bias against Republicans that doesn’t even exist.

SEE THIS: Herr Trump Embraces Fascist GOP Threats to Regulate Twitter and Arrest Their Executives

On Sunday morning GOP Rep. Ben Cline visited with traitorous felon Steve Bannon, who Donald Trump pardoned after he was found guilty of defrauding donors to his phony border wall fund. During this segment Cline revealed a heretofore unknown subcommittee created by Jim Jordan, the new chair of the House Judiciary Committee. Cline described the new subcommittee to Bannon as one that would serve to harass President Biden and members of his administration who didn’t kowtow to Jordan and his fascist comrades. Cline told Bannon that…

“[Jordan] needs a bulldog at the subcommittee level to make their lives hell, quite frankly. And so he’s tasked me with that responsibility, for when the Department of Justice, or when our intelligence agencies, don’t respond, that’s when they bring me in.

“I’m the chair of this little rump subcommittee called “Responsiveness and Accountability Oversight.” And so they want me to haul these people up to the Hill, read them the riot act and try and convince them that cooperating with the Judiciary Committee is better than the alternative, which is being held in contempt.”

Really? The irony here is as thick as the bull manure that it is buried in. Bannon, who gushed that Cline’s Committee was “brilliant,” has himself been convicted of two counts of contempt of Congress after failing to comply with subpoenas. And the House Select Committee investigating the January 6th insurrection issued a criminal referral to the Justice Department for Jordan for refusing to testify. And even Squeaker McCarthy openly ignored congressional subpoenas.

Consequently, it is profoundly audacious for Jordan to impanel a committee whose purpose is to bully people into doing what he refused to do. What’s more, his committee will be pitifully impotent as a mechanism to coerce compliance, because the Biden Justice Department is unlikely to indict the victims of Jordan’s persecution.

What Jordan’s committee will succeed in doing is to waste a lot of time and taxpayer money on blatantly partisan and meritless inquisitions, while simultaneously discrediting the Republicans in Congress and sending their public approval ratings into the gutter. And for that, perhaps we should thank them.

RELATED: Americans are Unsatisfied with Politics in General, But Specifically Despise Trump and the GOP

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Herr Trump Embraces Fascist GOP Threats to Regulate Twitter and Arrest Their Executives

Posted by on February 9, 2023 at 1:08 pm. 6 Comments :

During his brief but abominable occupation of the White House, Donald Trump distinguished himself from his predecessors by relentlessly expressing his aversion to the free press and the Constitution. He repeatedly referred to the media as “the enemy of the people,” and more recently literally called for termination of the Constitution.

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Donald Trump, QAnon, Dictator

On Wednesday the newly GOP-led House Oversight Committee held a hearing to finally get to the bottom of the Scandal of the Century, Hunter Biden’s stolen laptop. Specifically the Committee sought to prove that the pre-Elon Musk Twitter regime had deliberately skewed their policies to adversely affect conservatives and Republicans and, especially Donald Trump.

The Republicans staged a shamelessly shallow exercise in feigned outrage over imaginary offenses that was triggered by the embarrassingly ineffective attempt by Musk’s “Twitter Files” “exposé” to unveil political bias on the part of Twitter’s previous staff.

RELATED: OH-MY: Trump Unleashes Vile Threats in Tantrum Over Elon Musk’s ‘Twitter Files’ Farce

Notable during the avalanche of asininity on the part of Republican members of the Committee, were the remarks by Clay Higgins of Louisiana. When it was his turn to question the Twitter executives who were summoned before the Committee to testify, Higgins launched into an unhinged flurry of baseless accusations and culminating in outright threats:

“You, ladies and gentlemen interfered with the United States of America 2020 presidential election, knowingly and willingly. That’s the bad news. It’s gonna get worse because this is the investigation part. Later comes the arrests part. Your attorneys are familiar with that.”
Marjorie Taylor Greene said the same thing.

What we have here is a member of Congress threatening to have witnesses arrested for unspecified crimes for which he has no evidence ever occurred. What Higgins is asserting as criminal is the exercise of the constitutional rights of a private social media company to moderate the content on its website. It is wholly inappropriate intimidation by a government official seeking to coerce the behavior of individuals to comply with his political beliefs.

That sort of authoritarian bullying is generally reserved for tyrants and dictators, and those who seek to emulate them. And speaking of Donald Trump… He was thrilled to see how Higgins browbeat the Twitter execs. He posted a video of Higgins along with with his approval on his pitifully failing Twitter ripoff, Truth Social, saying that…

“Finally we have people with courage stepping forward! The Election was Rigged and Stolen, in so many ways – A mockery of our fully weaponized ‘Justice’ system.”

[For the record, the tweet that Trump was so appalled by that he wanted Twitter staff arrested was by supermodel Chrissy Teigen, who called Trump a “PAB” (look it up) for being to cowardly to tag her in his tweet that insulted her]

Of course, there was nothing in Higgins remarks – or in the entirety of the hearing – that even hinted at any evidence that the “Election was Rigged and Stolen.” To the contrary, Democrats on the Committee conclusively proved that the only bias by Twitter was in favor of Trump and the GOP. Even worse, in questioning by Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-VA) it was affirmed that only the Trump White House ever attempted to direct Twitter to censor content. And it did so with an overt threat that, “We’ll shut you down. We’ll regulate you. We Will never allow this to happen.”

That is an example of unambiguous government suppression of a free press and a violation of the First Amendment. Nevertheless, Rep. Jim Jordan tried to turn the tables by accusing the Biden campaign of censorship simply because they made a request for Twitter to review certain offensive tweets. Jordan’s argument, however, was ridiculous. He claimed that asking Twitter to review whether tweets were in compliance with their own terms of service was censorship.

Obviously, it’s not against the First Amendment to ask a company to review content based on the company’s own standards. What’s more, the Biden campaign not only didn’t accompany their requests with threats, they weren’t even in power at the time, so they had no clout with which to threaten. And yet this is the scenario in which Trump posted a comment urging his cult to “Watch the Twitter hearings going on right now in Washington. They admit that the Presidential Election of 2020 was RIGGED & STOLEN!”

Naturally Trump is lying. No such admission occurred in the hearing. But Trump’s flagrant dishonesty is precisely the sort of provocation that resulted in the riots in Washington on January 6th. And his continued presence on social media (both Twitter and Facebook recently reinstated his accounts) will predictably result in more violence.

RELATED: Why Elon Musk Restoring Trump’s Twitter Account is Ignorant, Dangerous, and Hypocritical

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MUST SEE Dem Response to GOP Forcing Pledge of Allegiance at All Judiciary Committee Hearings

Posted by on February 1, 2023 at 1:08 pm. 6 Comments :

The Republican Party has made the exhibition of patriotism a mandatory code of behavior for anyone serving in political office. To be clear, they aren’t interested in actual patriotism, just the brandishing of shallow clichés for public consumption.

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Donald Trump, Republican, GOP

To that end, GOP Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Perv) offered an amendment to the rules of the Judiciary Committee – now chaired by pro-insurrectionist Republican Jim Jordan – to mandate the recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance before every Committee hearing. This is a puerile proposal that treats adult members of Congress like 2nd graders. It is hardly a demonstration of patriotism, particularly when Republicans and Donald Trump have so severely distorted the meaning of the word.

RELATED: MAGA ‘Patriot’ Trump Says that America is ‘Crooked and Evil’ and its ‘Next Stop, Communism’

Furthermore, it’s superficial and redundant considering that all members of Congress have already pledged an oath to “support and defend the Constitution” upon being sworn into office. And whenever a Democrat demonstrates patriotism, Republicans twist it into an outrage, as they did this week when President Biden expressed his optimism for America’s future. That was the day after Trump repeated his enduring trust in Vladimir Putin over American intelligence agencies.

So the GOP patriotism is just a facade, and even that is a moving target. Which was evident in Gaetz’s proposal to force members to recite the Pledge of Allegiance. What Gaetz may not have anticipated is that Democrats would see though his charade and take the opportunity to expose it as the mockery of patriotism that it is. Rep. David Cicilline sought to both clarify Gaetz’s proposal and ridicule Gaetz…

Cicilline: I’d like to offer an amendment to the amendment adding … “Provided, however, the Pledge shall not be led by an individual who has supported an insurrection against the government of the United States in any way.” Because I think if we adopt this amendment then we will be truthful in representing that stating this pledge is an affirmation of your defense of democracy and the Constitution. […]

You want to give someone the right to stand in front of the House Judiciary Committee and lead the Pledge of Allegiance, at a bare minimum, let’s guarantee that person has not participated, supported, or in anyway, helped an overthrow of the government of the United States.

Needless to say, Gaetz did not welcome this amendment. And the resulting debate wasted nearly an hour on this blatantly performative nonsense. Republicans then flagrantly lied, saying the Democrats refuse to pledge allegiance to the country. They said that Democrats hate the pledge and, therefore, America. That is, of course, utter, unadulterated bullpucky. Patriotism isn’t proved by parroting elementary school verses.

What’s more, It ignores the oath they took upon swearing in. It also ignores the point made by Rep. Jerry Nadler, who said that members already “pledge allegiance everyday on the floor, and I don’t know why we should pledge allegiance twice in the same day to show how patriotic we are.” Rep. Hank Johnson added that he found it ironic “coming from people who wouldn’t comply with Congressional subpoenas, disrespected the rule of law, and continue to prop up the Big Lie?”

This is indicative of the seriousness with which Republicans are handling their new majority role in the House of Representatives. And it’s why they are so reviled by the public at large. They have abandoned any pretense to governing in the interests of the American people.

They plan to conduct more of this political burlesque for the next two years, obsessing over meritless probes of Biden and other Democrats. And just as everyone who was paying attention already knew, Republicans have no intention of seriously addressing inflation, immigration, healthcare, the economy, national defense, or any of the other issues they campaigned on. It’s all “woke” politics from now on.

RELATED: GOP Creates an ‘Anti-Woke’ Caucus to Take on the ‘Greatest Domestic Threat to America Today’

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Americans are Unsatisfied with Politics in General, But Specifically Despise Trump and the GOP

Posted by on January 31, 2023 at 4:18 pm. 13 Comments :

One thing that Donald Trump and the Republican Party can boast about having accomplished is poisoning the political atmosphere through divisive rhetoric, disinformation, and hate speech.

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Donald Trump, Joe Biden

Throughout the Era of Trump, he has never tried to unite the nation or to expand his reach out to voter groups that weren’t already devoutly embracing his cult movement. And the GOP has been too afraid to separate themselves from Trump. Consequently, they have also constricted their support to the farthest edges of the right-wing fringe. And that’s a condition that has been exacerbated by the Republican Ministry of Disinformation, aka Fox News.

RELATED: Fox News is OUTRAGED Because Biden Dares to Say He is ‘Optimistic About America’s Future’

On the other hand, President Biden and the Democrats have at least tried to appeal to a broader constituency. They have succeeded with regard to some of the never-Trump Republicans and Independents. And the results are evident in a new survey by NBC News.

Joe Biden, Donald Trump, Congress, NBC Poll

This poll shows the general dissatisfaction that has shrouded American politics. However, Democrats are not nearly as bad off as Republicans. Biden and the Democratic Party have a net negative approval in single digits. While Trump and the GOP are rated significantly lower and are underwater by more than -20%. And worse for Trump, only 33% of Republicans identify as Trump supporters.

So the next time you hear Trump bragging about how he is leading everybody in every poll by a lot, remember that he is a pathological liar and that the truth is that he was the most unpopular president in modern times, and his popularity has decreased since he was unceremoniously evicted from the White House.

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SRSLY? House Squeaker McCarthy Brags on Fox News About the ‘Diversity’ of the Republican Party

Posted by on January 11, 2023 at 12:51 pm. 3 Comments :

The spanking new – and precariously narrow – Republican majority in the House of Representatives is off to an entirely predictable stumbling start. After taking a historic fifteen votes to crown their so-called leader, Kevin McCarthy, they immediately passed a rules package that neutered him, insuring that he will be a weaker Speaker than any of his modern predecessors.

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Kevin McCarthy, House Speaker (Squeaker)

Naturally, the first priority of a Republican politician intent on pedaling positive propaganda, is to book a visit with Sean Hannity of Fox News. Which is precisely what McCarthy did Tuesday night. He brought along twenty of his closest comrades to turn the Capitol into a Fox News studio annex. And even though McCarthy had previously showered his lord and savior, Donald Trump, with gratitude, Trump was apparently too busy spinning lies about President Biden to join them.

RELATED: Trump and His GOP Toadies Furiously Spin Bogus Nothingburger Story About Biden Documents

Undeterred, McCarthy took full advantage of the platform that Hannity provided to disseminate Republican ignorance and lies. And true to form, McCarthy exhibited his utterly shameless ability to put into, what marginally passes for English, a perspective of the world that bears no resemblance to reality. For instance, he sat proudly in silence as Hannity praised him for expanding the “diversity” of the Republican Party.

“One of the things I’d like to see and am seeing is more diversity in the Republican Party. To me the Democratic Party is the party of coastal elites.”

Elaborating on that, McCarthy’s chair of the House Republican Conference, Elise Stefanik, said to…

“Take a look around at these wonderful members. This is the most diverse class of Republicans ever elected in the history of the United States Congress.”

Go ahead. Take a look around. The members gathered to celebrate “the most diverse class of Republicans ever elected” are all white, and with just three exceptions, men. In fact, the 117th session of Congress had 58 Black members, of whom 56 were Democrats. Republicans just doubled their Black members in the new 118th session to four. And they’re proud of that?

As for Hannity’s boasting about this pitiful representation by people of color, his lament about “coastal elites” is painfully hypocritical. Hannity divides his residency between his homes in New York and Florida. And he’s whining about these nefarious coast dwellers to McCarthy, who represents a district in California.

For good measure, Hannity invited McCarthy to further embarrass himself by bringing up the issue of the debt ceiling, which Republicans have promised to exploit in order to blackmail Democrats into acceding to GOP demands to cut Social Security and Medicare. That led to this exchange…

Hannity: Now let’s get to the issue of finances and money and spending. Why don’t explain how this process now will be different, and we’re coming up against the debt ceiling vote and what that’s gonna mean. That might be the first test of how committed the Republican Party in the House is to really holding the line on spending. Am I wrong on that?
McCarthy: No, you’re not wrong on that. One of the greatest threats we have for this nation is our debt. It makes us weak in every place that we can. We have never been at this high of debt to GDP except during World War II. And what are we funding? Wasteful Washington spending much of the time.

“So we think if you had a child and you gave him a credit card, and they kept hitting the limit, do you just increase the limit, or do you change their behavior? This is our moment to change the behavior to make sure that hard working taxpayer, that we’re not wasting their money. Do you mean to tell me there’s not waste out there? So we’re gonna look at every single dollar spent. We’re gonna audit. We’re change our behavior so we can balance our budget and make us stronger.

The child with a credit card analogy is flat out ridiculous. Raising the debt ceiling does not impact in any way whatsoever how much money congress can appropriate. It only makes it possible for the Treasury to pay debts already incurred. If the U.S. defaults on those debts it would send the nation – and the world – into a severe recession or worse. If McCarthy were truly interested in reducing the debt, he would do what Biden and the Democrats have been doing that resulted in the deficit declining by $1.4 trillion last year.

For the record, Trump increased the debt by nearly $8 trillion dollars. Much of that was due to his tax cut that benefited corporations and the wealthy. And now McCarthy and the GOP are proposing to defund the IRS and deprive the agency of necessary resources to audit high income individuals and businesses. That is estimated to cost more than $114 billion dollars.

What’s more, Republicans don’t seem eager to “change their behavior.” They aren’t proposing any serious spending cuts, other than those for the safety net programs that middle and lower income Americans rely on. Meanwhile, they continue to push for even more tax cuts and for maintaining subsidies for wealthy, multinational corporations – who don’t pay taxes.

Then, after running up the debt, Republicans want to default on those obligations after the fact. It almost seems like they are deliberately trying to crash the economy during Biden’s presidency and prior to the 2024 presidential election. Now why do you suppose they would want to do that? and for whom?

SEE THIS: HOLY CRAP: Trump’s Debt Ceiling Dumbassery Threatens Global Economic Catastrophe to Own the Libs

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Trump Bathes Himself in the Glory (Blame) of Having Made Kevin McCarthy the House Squeaker

Posted by on January 8, 2023 at 11:42 am. 3 Comments :

After a week of infighting – and nearly actual fighting – and a historically humiliating fifteen votes, Kevin McCarthy finally squeaked through to realize his dream of being Speaker of the House of Representatives. Although, to get there he had to bargain away much of the power that post has traditionally had.

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Kevin McCarthy, House Speaker (Squeaker), Donald Trump

In addition to having been coerced into agreements that make him a puppet of the Republican Party’s fringiest right-wingers, McCarthy also exalted Dear Leader Trump for his contribution to the freak show that resulted in McCarthy’s ascension to Chief Cheese of the GOP. Shortly after the fifteenth vote, McCarthy fulfilled his obligation as a dutiful Trump-fluffer by thanking the Beast of Mar-All-Ego, saying that, “I do want to especially thank [former] president Trump. I don’t think anyone should doubt his influence.”

RELATED: House Squeaker Kevin McCarthy Thanks Donald Trump for Being ‘All In’ on Making Him Speaker

The alleged influence to which McCarthy referred consisted of Trump ignoring the Speaker’s race for the first couple of days as McCarthy was floundering, and eventually weighing in with a comment imploring Republicans to vote for McCarthy, not because he’s deserving, but in order to “WATCH CRAZY NANCY PELOSI FLY BACK HOME!” Even so, there’s no evidence that Trump swayed a single vote.

Clearly Trump’s influence as a Republican leader and wannabe kingmaker has devolved into his being an impotent figurehead to whom no one is listening. Well, no one but himself. In Trump’s acutely damaged, narcissistic neurosis, he is convinced that it was his efforts that pushed McCarthy over the top. And he let his cult followers on his pitifully failing Twitter ripoff, Truth Social, know it by asserting that “I did our Country a big favor!”

As “proof” that he deserved full credit and/or blame for McCarthy’s promotion, Trump claimed that “The Fake News Media was, believe it or not, very gracious in their reporting that I greatly helped Kevin McCarthy attain the position of Speaker of the House.” Then he posted links to eight separate, nearly identical puff pieces by wingnut press regaling his imaginary relevance…

  • Kevin McCarthy credits Donald Trump for House speaker victory ~ New York Post
    McCarthy thanks Trump after House speaker vote: ‘He was with me from the beginning’ ~ Fox News
  • ‘Thank you, President Trump’: Newly elected Speaker McCarthy praises former president for being ‘all in’ ~ American News Wire
  • Donald Trump Played Key Role in Getting Kevin McCarthy Across Finish Line ~ Breitbart News
  • Sources: Donald Trump Was Instrumental in McCarthy’s Victory ~ PJ Media
  • Trump Credited With Calling in to Close Deal for McCarthy ~ Newsmax
  • ‘Thank You, President Trump’: McCarthy Credits Ex-Prez for Speakership, Says Trump’s Grip on Republicans Is Firm ~ Mediaite
  • Kevin McCarthy Thanks Trump after Speakership Win: ‘I Don’t Think Anybody Should Doubt His Influence’ ~ National Review

Well, that settles it then. Now we know who to fault when McCarthy flops as Speaker. We know who to hold responsible when his “leadership” results in an economic fiasco due to his defaulting on American debt. We’ll know who gets credit for attempting to cut Social Security and Medicare. We’ll know whose efforts weaken Ukraine’s defense against Putin’s war crimes. We’ll know who cut taxes for corporations and the wealthy, putting the burden on everyone else. And we’ll know who to thank for endless, meritless, revenge hearings aimed at President Biden, his family, and his administration.

It’s all Trump! Because he’s just so influential and essential to everything at all times. Particularly the things that hurt the interests of average Americans, embarrass the nation abroad, and undermine democracy and the Constitution. That’s real influence.

RELATED: LOL: Trump Starts 2023 with a New Year’s Eve Press Conference at Mar-a-Lago but Nobody Came

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