Weakest Speaker Of The House Ever ? Remains to be seen......

[Sixties Fan]

Irony

So, you do not know, or care what CRT is really about. That's ok. They do not need your knowledge about it in order to teach history of the US.

 

[Sixties Fan]

The problem with Sixties Fan is that he falsely accuses people of racism while defending and downplaying antisemites.

I‘ve come across this before with leftist Jews. I took a course on “How to Combat Racism,” and a liberal Jew interjected to say that antisemitism isn’t that much of an issue and that Jews should focus their efforts on fighting “systemic racism.”

Who have I falsely accused of racism, that is if you do know what that word actually means.

Antisemitism IS BEYOND AN ISSUE, made worse by Saint Trump who got all the Nazis and White supremacists to come out and vote for him and believe that they now had the right to do whatever they wanted with Jews, Blacks, Hispanics, First Nations.....well, any and all non Whites.

 

[Sixties Fan]

Here is the guy responsible for the enormous rise in antisemitism in the US, since 2016

Trump doesn't denounce white supremacists and militias during debate

President Trump was given several chances during the debate. to denounce white supremacists and militias that have caused violence. Trump deflected.

abcnews.go.com

 

[Lisa558]

Here is the guy responsible for the enormous rise in antisemitism in the US, since 2016

Trump doesn't denounce white supremacists and militias during debate

President Trump was given several chances during the debate. to denounce white supremacists and militias that have caused violence. Trump deflected.

abcnews.go.com

Nope, although I know that’s the story the Democrats are peddling.

There is a direct correlation between the Democrats‘ siding with Muslims over the Israel situation, and a rise in antisemitism In their ranks. Putting Muslims on School Boards, just as we see with Omar in Congress, has the curriculum taking an anti-Israel slant - and the abuse toward Jewish students is on the rise, here in my liberal county.

Trump signed an EO to ramp down on the antisemitism on campus - which is worse in the ultra-lib schools like Columbia and Berkley - by denying Fed funds to universities that allow it to fester. He wanted to make it permanent legislation, and the Republicans were on Board with it. It was blocked by the Democrats, including the leftist Jews like Schumer, who said it would be offensive to Muslims.

Thus, in liberal colleges where Jews can’t serve in the Student Body unless they renounce their support for Israel, and “no Jew speaking zones” are set up lest a Jew say something positive about Israel, and even where antisemites break into the Jewish frat house and beat a kid, the Demincrats are more worrried about Muslims’ feelings.

 

[Sixties Fan]

Nope, although I know that’s the story the Democrats are peddling.

There is a direct correlation between the Democrats‘ siding with Muslims over the Israel situation, and a rise in antisemitism In their ranks. Putting Muslims on School Boards, just as we see with Omar in Congress, has the curriculum taking an anti-Israel slant - and the abuse toward Jewish students is on the rise, here in my liberal county.

Trump signed an EO to ramp down on the antisemitism on campus - which is worse in the ultra-lib schools like Columbia and Berkley - by denying Fed funds to universities that allow it to fester. He wanted to make it permanent legislation, and the Republicans were on Board with it. It was blocked by the Democrats, including the leftist Jews like Schumer, who said it would be offensive to Muslims.

Thus, in liberal colleges where Jews can’t serve in the Student Body unless they renounce their support for Israel, and “no Jew speaking zones” are set up lest a Jew say something positive about Israel, and even where antisemites break into the Jewish frat house and beat a kid, the Demincrats are more worrried about Muslims’ feelings.

Well, well, well.....that is ONE version of the story.

Pity you tend to reject what is right under one's nose with Trump still being the leader of the Republican Party and the statistics which started to come out after 2016.

Racist Trump:







Violent Trump:




Peaceful, inclusive Trump:




Just a few examples as to when and how hell started really breaking lose against non Whites, and non Republicans.

 

[Sixties Fan]

 

[Sixties Fan]

Chrissy Teigen's Trump diss takes center stage at House hearing meant to discuss Hunter Biden

The House Oversight Committee had been questioning former Twitter executives about the platform’s handling of New York Post articles about Hunter Biden in 2020.

www.nbcnews.com

 

[Sixties Fan]

 

[Sixties Fan]

[ When is Kevin McCarthy going to have the House deal with actual issues? ]


Raskin summed up the point of the hearing: “The majority has called a hearing to revisit a two-year-old story about the private editorial decision by Twitter not to allow links to a single New York Post article, made for a two-day period that had no discernible influence on anything or anyone.”

Raskin worked to refocus the hearing on something that does matter: “Twitter’s deliberate indifference to Trump’s big lies and incitement, its decision to ignore the pleas of its own employees to deal with the impending explosion against our police and against Congress on January 6 are matters that require real investigation and reflection.”

He added, “Rather than conspiring to suppress right-wing MAGA speech, as my colleagues astonishingly claim, Twitter and other media companies knowingly facilitated Trump's spread of disinformation, or what his own sycophantic attorney general William Barr would come to call ‘bullshit,’ and gave voice to his followers’ glorification of violence and calls for civil war.”

Under questioning by Raskin, Navaroli explained how her concerns grew following Donald Trump’s debate call to the Proud Boys to “stand back and stand by,” as talk of violence grew, with references to being “locked and loaded” and anticipating “the day of the rope.” But despite her pleas, higher-ups at Twitter “told us that we were not allowed to take that content down and that we were not allowed to use the coded incitement to violence policy.”

Committee Republicans brushed aside concerns of actual insurrection, though. They were here for what really mattered … to Fox News: the two-day ban on links to that single New York Post story about Hunter Biden’s laptop, and Biden campaign requests to take down specific tweets relating to Hunter Biden. Tweets with dick pics, specifically. Rep. Byron Donalds really wanted to know, asking former Twitter executive Yoel Roth what “handled these” meant as a response to communication about those tweets. “My understanding is that these tweets contained non-consensual nude tweets of Hunter Biden,” Roth responded. Donalds then went on to harangue Roth about how he could possibly know what was in these tweets if he was not personally beholden to the Biden campaign. But they were tweets that, as Roth answered, have been the subject of a lot of public reporting. And they were tweets that, because they contained non-consensual nudes, were against Twitter policy. Is it Byron Donalds’ contention that anyone who goes on Twitter should be confronted with pictures of Hunter Biden’s penis? That it is not in Twitter’s interest to limit the number of nude pictures that appear on the platform?

Republicans really have a conspiracy theory about how unfair it was that Twitter took down nude pictures. This is not a fringe idea, it’s something so central to Republican identity right now that members of Congress are racing to be the one who gets the big Fox News moment yelling about it.

Roth had also explained in his opening statement that one reason Twitter was concerned about the Hunter Biden material was that it looked so similar to Russian disinformation. “Twitter noticed activity related to the laptop that, at first glance, bore a lot of similarities to the 2016 Russian hack-and-leak operation targeting the DNC.” He went on to say that he thought prohibiting links to the New York Post story was a mistake, but that it was an understandable one as Twitter tried to find the right response to “a suspected, but not confirmed, cyber-attack by another government on a presidential election.”

It took Jamie Raskin, of course, to follow up on what Roth said about Russian disinformation:





(full article online)

Raskin interrupts Republican obsessing about Hunter Biden to talk about issues that actually matter

It’s House Oversight Chair James Comer’s big day, and he’s being overshadowed by Rep. Jamie Raskin. Comer had hauled in former Twitter executives to explain why the company limited sharing of tweets about Hunter Biden’s laptop and penis, feeding...

www.dailykos.com

 

[Sixties Fan]

The committee features an interesting matchup. It’s chaired by Ohio Republican Jim Jordan. He’s joined by luminaries like Darrell Issa, Matt Gaetz, Elise Stefanik, and Mike Johnson. The ranking member is Stacey Plaskett, the Congresswoman from the Virgin Islands. Plaskett was an Assistant District Attorney in the Bronx DA’s office and later a senior counsel at DOJ, where she worked for both Deputy Attorney General Larry Thompson and his successor James Comey—during the Bush administration. Plaskett seems ideally suited to shrug off Jordan’s claims that the deep state is mistreating Republicans.

https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch...f32-0f71-4c8a-bc03-454324a52c4b_1400x800.jpeg
That’s precisely what she did in her opening statement. She said, “I’m deeply concerned about the use of this select subcommittee as a place to settle scores, showcase conspiracy theories, and advance an extreme agenda that risks undermining Americans’ faith in our democracy.” You could almost feel sorry for Jordan—he’s no match for Plaskett.

Senator Chuck Grassley (R-IA), one of the kick-off witnesses for the committee, proved Plaskett’s point, using his opening statement to accuse Hillary Clinton of colluding with the Russians, which, of course, makes no sense, unless Grassley is suggesting that Hillary worked with the Russians to defeat herself. So that’s the takeaway. None of this is about making sense or engaging in good government. It’s just another sad exercise in party over country.

Plaskett is joined by eight other Democrats (the Republican side has 11 members plus Jordan, as these things work for the party in control of the House), including another former prosecutor, New York 10’s first-term Congressman Dan Goldman.

Yes, this subcommittee was a product of the “compromise” a desperate Kevin McCarthy struck to get the votes he needed to win the speakership on the 15th ballot. That’s apparent. But we need to understand the purpose the members who negotiated for its existence had in mind for it. We’ve already established it’s not about responsible governance. It’s purely performative.

The goal seems to be producing a series of video clips and social media posts that Republicans can use for gotcha, for campaigning, and to advance fake claims that will only serve to push the country further into two opposing camps. It’s about writing bumper stickers and own-the-libs punchlines. Look no further than the fact that Fox News didn’t carry the hearing live. It’s all about some 60-second clips where Jordan and friends will be free to harpoon Democrats in a fact-free environment.

Some of the “highlights” of the hearing included talk of Hunter Biden, not a part of the government last time I checked, and questions from another witness, Senator Ron Johnson, about whether Dr. Fauci helped create Covid. You’d be forgiven for thinking none of this is worth your elected officials’ time.

But ultimately, it is worth ours to be aware of what’s going on here. There is nothing like using the hearings themselves to help people understand the stakes here. Voters should know that this is about grandstanding, not governance. Americans who have real concerns about issues that impact their daily lives need to know what Republicans are doing with the House majority the voters gave them. They need to have the information that lets them see that a decision point for 2024 is whether they want to go further down this path. None of this is sexy—a conversation involving process issues about how our democratic institutions work is not the stuff of newspaper headlines and many not of easy-to-have neighborhood coffee conversations. But that doesn’t mean figuring out ways to have those conversations is not worthwhile.

(full article online)

Who Weaponized the Federal Government?

On Thursday, Jim Jordan’s Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government kicked off its first hearing. But it’s clear from the name that the entire premise for the subcommittee’s work is a non-starter. If the federal government was weaponized against conservatives, Donald...

joycevance.substack.com

 

[Sixties Fan]

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/2/10/2152252/-Jordan-s-big-weaponization-hearing-flopped-so-badly-even-Fox-News-didn-t-carry-it?detail=emaildkre&pm_source=DKRE&pm_medium=email

 

[Sixties Fan]

 

[Sixties Fan]

 

[Blaster]

Paul Ryan was a weak Speaker of the House. Just saying.

 

[Blaster]

Kinzinger's relatives have disowned him.

 

[Sixties Fan]

“When you release information,” Connolly asked, “have you released any information of for example right-wing elements or the Trump White House attempting to moderate content at Twitter?”

“No, not the Trump White House per se, although I did report in the first Twitter Files that the Trump White House had made a request that had been honored,” Taibbi responded.

“I did not find that,” Shellenberger answered.

“You didn’t find that?” Connolly asked in mock surprise. “So we had a hearing the other day, on Twitter, and we had four witnesses, three for the majority, one for the minority, and all four testified under oath they had never received a request for content moderation or takedown from the Biden White House, but they did from Donald Trump’s White House.”

Connolly went on to sketch out the exchange between Trump and Chrissy Teigen, in which, after Teigen called Trump a “pussy ass bitch” (words Connolly did not quote directly), “the White House called Twitter to try to take down the content.”

Taibbi copped to having heard about this in the news, but said he had not seen any email exchanges from the Trump White House, then rushed to mention that he had seen requests from Democrats. “Yeah, nice try,” Connolly responded. “We’re talking about the Trump White House and people under oath confirming it, and my question is, in the Twitter Files, did Elon Musk or Twitter provide you with that exchange with Chrissy Teigen?”

“No, but that’s probably because the searches that I was making ...”

“Well, it’s probably because it didn’t confirm the bias that this is all about, as the gentleman from Texas would say ‘the left’ attempting to control content when in fact the evidence is that the Trump White House most certainly attempted content at Twitter. Mr. Shellenberger, were you aware of that or is this all news to you?”

Shellenberger admitted that “the Teigen exchange was news to me.”

So, to be clear: These two men supposedly got all kinds of access to Twitter internal documents to look at how Twitter handled content moderation, and they were at the House testifying specifically about Twitter’s interaction with government agencies, and they admitted that in their searches of all these voluminous documents they just kind of missed the part where the White House pressured Twitter to take something down not because it threatened national security or violated the law, but because a model and influencer had called Donald Trump a name.

Taibbi and Shellenberger knew the assignment, and it wasn’t to find evidence of Republicans trying to control what was posted at Twitter.

Taibbi valiantly tried to continue playing the part of the fair dealer, noting that they had found evidence of intelligence agencies targeting people on the left as well as the right. Because he can drop in a sentence or two about that every now and then to preserve his image as not a tool of Musk and Jordan, knowing that all the attention is going to go to build false claims about the government suppressing the right.

“In some ways what you just said undermines the premise of this select committee,” Connolly responded, “which is that the federal government has been organized to weaponize against conservative voices, and of course what you’ve just indicated in your testimony is, well actually that’s not the evidence you’ve found.”

That’s where Taibbi really went for laughs, piously saying his understanding was that this committee was all about free speech. Yes, that’s the big concern of the party of book-banners, the party passing law after law limiting what teachers can say in classrooms. Free f’ing speech. Jim Jordan just created this committee and called this hearing not for any partisan reason but because he is such an advocate of free speech. Indeed, as Connolly’s time ended, Jordan was visibly smirking as he embraced the idea that the hearing was about free speech.

Connolly’s point was made, though. Taibbi and Shellenberger are presenting a seriously slanted view of how government interacted with Twitter, and looking at what they left out, what information we know is available somewhere in Twitter’s email archives that didn’t make it into their “reporting,” shows what the real intention was all along. As if the fact that the Twitter Files were an Elon Musk production and this hearing was a Jim Jordan production didn’t make that crystal clear.


(full article online)

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/3/9/2157130/-Gerry-Connolly-knocks-a-hole-in-the-Jim-Jordan-show-with-one-simple-question-about-the-Twitter-Files?detail=emaildkre&pm_source=DKRE&pm_medium=email

 

[Sixties Fan]

Apart from currying favor with Carlson, it’s hard to see how McCarthy’s conference will benefit from releasing the footage and attracting more attention to January 6. Portraying the rioters as martyred tourists may win praise from a conspiracy-addled chunk of Republican primary voters, but if the GOP’s disappointing 2022 midterms are any indication, that’s a sugar high headed for a ballot-booth crash.

Likely aware of this reality, many Republican lawmakers found themselves squirming on Tuesday when pressed for their thoughts on Carlson’s version of events. Several embraced the reporting—Rep. Mike Collins of Georgia demanded the release of “all J6 prisoners,” and Rep. Thomas Massie gushed to Carlson for his exposure of “so many lies”—while others claimed, like McCarthy, that they hadn’t seen the segment. “I don’t know what everybody’s afraid of,” Rep. Chip Roy of Texas told The Dispatch. “Everybody should watch the tapes and make up their own mind.”

Senate Republicans—with a couple of exceptions—had much less patience. Sen. Thom Tillis of North Carolina labeled Carlson’s antics “bullsh–” and Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina told reporters that, although he thought the January 6 Select Committee was “partisan,” he didn’t want to “whitewash” what happened that day. “[It’s] really sad to see Tucker Carlson go off the rails like that,” Sen. Mitt Romney of Utah said. “You can’t hide the truth by selectively picking a few minutes out of tapes and saying this is what went on. It’s so absurd. It’s nonsense

McCarthy Puts Republicans in a January 6 Bind

Fox News’ Tucker Carlson debuts his latest round of January 6 revisionist history.

thedispatch.com

 

[Sixties Fan]

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy being the most powerless speaker in history has quickly become a perennial curse on Senate Republicans, who need to feign at least need some modicum of moderation to have a chance of winning tough races in swing states.

McCarthy's latest blunder—granting right-wing propagandist Tucker Carlson exclusive access to countless hours of Jan. 6 footage—drew an urgent rebuke from Senate Republicans after Carlson twisted the deadly insurrection into a wholesome Leave-it-to-Beaver affair.

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McConnell, in effect, was hugging law enforcement as tightly as he could in the face of his House GOP counterparts undercutting any claim Republicans once had to being the supposed party of law and order.

Simply put, you can't be the party that trivializes a violent attack on the homeland that injured some 140 officers and then ask voters to trust you as the party that will keep their communities safe.

Senate Republicans just came off a cycle in which MAGA election deniers almost single-handedly doomed their chances to retake the upper chamber. Why? Because even though roughly 60% of Republicans think the 2020 election was stolen, a more decisive 60% of the electorate believes Joe Biden was legitimately elected president.

Equally as important, voters prioritized protecting democracy at the polls. Post-election polling conducted by Impact Research found that 60% of voters in 71 highly competitive districts called protecting democracy an extremely important motivation for them, including 73% of Democrats and 51% of independents.

For McConnell and his allies, watching House GOP lawmakers both facilitate and cheer on Carlson's denialism likely feels like Groundhog Day all over again. Their swift all-hands-on-deck response is also indication that they know this isn't the end of the line for House Republicans' delusional gaslighting on Jan. 6.

In fact, House Oversight Committee Chair James Comer of Kentucky and Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia are currently trying to organize a congressional delegation to visit Jan. 6 arrestees in jail, according to Politico.

GOP Rep. Barry Loudermilk of Georgia also said Wednesday that House Republicans are starting to scrutinize the work of the previous Jan. 6 select committee.

That revelation drew a response from the Jan. 6 panel's vice chair, former Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming.

"If @HouseGOP wants new Jan 6 hearings, bring it on," Cheney tweeted Wednesday. "Let’s replay every witness & all the evidence from last year. But this time, those members who sought pardons and/or hid from subpoenas should sit on the dais so they can be confronted on live TV with the unassailable evidence."

If Senate Republicans thought McCarthy's latest blunder was a one-and-done situation, they might have tried to ignore it and move on instead of giving it life. Instead, they met it head-on—perhaps partially as a signal to House Republicans to maybe tone it down a bit. But even more importantly, it's increasingly clear that Senate Republicans need to seal themselves off from the House maniacs and their pet leader McCarthy.

Whatever resumé House Republicans think they are building for their next interview with voters in 2024, Senate Republicans are trying to disassociate themselves entirely from it.

(full article online)

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/3/8/2156972/-McCarthy-already-has-Senate-Republicans-reeling-on-Jan-6-and-he-s-just-getting-started?detail=emaildkre&pm_source=DKRE&pm_medium=email

 

[Sixties Fan]

 

[Sixties Fan]

n all fairness to McCarthy, there have been legislative victories. Granted, they’ll never see the light of day in the Senate, but an A+ for effort. For example, right out of the gate the Republican-controlled House passed a bill to roll back $72 billion in funding from the IRS—a cut the Congressional Budget Office determined would cost more than $114 billion. They followed that up with the passage of the “Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act”—a bill so extreme that voters in Montana rejected a similar measure last November—as their first step toward the ultimate goal of a national abortion ban. Way to read the room. And coming soon are their plans to burn down the economy, burn down the planet, and if we’re really lucky, a vote to burn us all with a 23% national sales tax. Good times.

When the “red wave” never materialized in the 2022 midterms, McCarthy made a decision to relinquish whatever ethics and morals he had left, preferring to cave to the extremists in his party, all in pursuit of the speaker’s gavel. What he really handed over was a gift to Democrats.


(full article online)

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/3/12/2157033/-Kevin-McCarthy-s-deal-with-the-devil-has-worked-out-great-for-Democrats?detail=emaildkre&pm_source=DKRE&pm_medium=email