Posts Tagged ‘JIM JORDAN’
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Politics, Social commentary on April 2, 2024 at 12:10 am
On June 17, 2015, Dylann Roof, a white high school dropout, gunned down three black men and six black women at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina.
At 21, Roof was unemployed, dividing his time between playing video games and taking drugs.
Dylann Roof
The signs of Roof’s malignant racism were evident long before he turned mass murderer:
- He had posed for a photo sitting on the hood of his parents’ car—whose license plate bore a Confederate flag.
- He had posed for pictures wearing a jacket sporting the white supremacist flags of Rhodesia and apartheid South Africa.
- He told a friend that he hoped “to start a civil war” between the black and white races.
- Roof reportedly told friends and neighbors of his plans to kill people.
- In the midst of his massacre of unarmed worshipers, he told one of his victims: “You’ve raped our women, and you are taking over the country.” Then Roof shot him.
The evidence made clear that Roof’s slaughter was racially motivated. Yet no 2016 Republican Presidential candidate dared acknowledge it:
- Jeb Bush, former governor of Florida: “I don’t know what was on the mind or the heart of the man who committed these atrocious crimes.”
- Rick Santorum, former United States Senator from Pennsylvania: “You talk about the importance of prayer in this time and we’re now seeing assaults on our religious liberty we’ve never seen before. It’s a time for deeper reflection beyond this horrible situation.”
- Bobby Jindal, former governor of Louisiana: “I don’t think we’ll ever know what was going on in his mind.”
But Rolling Stone magazine writer Jeb Lund left no doubt as to what—and who—was ultimately responsible for this crime: Racism and Republicans.
In a June 19, 2015 editorial—published two days after the massacre—Lund noted: “This [crime] is political because American movement conservatism has already made these kinds of killings political.
“The Republican Party has weaponized its supporters, made violence a virtue and, with almost every pronouncement for 50 years, given them an enemy politicized, racialized and indivisible.
“Movement conservatives have fetishized a tendentious and ahistorical reading of the Second Amendment to the point that the Constitution itself somehow paradoxically ‘legitimizes’ an armed insurrection against the government created by it.
“Those leading said insurrection are swaddled by the blanket exculpation of patriotism. At the same time, they have synonymized the Democratic Party with illegitimacy and abuse of the American order.
“This is no longer an argument about whether one party’s beliefs are beneficial or harmful, but an attitude that labels leftism so antithetical to the American idea that empowering it on any level is an act of usurpation.”
On December 15, 2016, Dylann Roof was convicted of 33 Federal hate crime charges. On January 11, 2017, he was sentenced to death. He remains on Death Row to this day.
Yet the leadership of the Republican party whose hate-filled rhetoric inspired Root escaped indictment—and even widespread condemnation.
The evidence that Republicans have weaponized hatred—with deadly results—was on display long before Dylann Roof opened fire on “uppity blacks” praying in their own church.
Consider:
On January 8, 2011, Democratic Rep. Gabrielle Giffords was shot in the head while meeting with constituents outside a grocery store in Tucson, Arizona. After a miraculous recovery, she continues to struggle with language and has lost 50% of her vision in both eyes.
Rep. Gabrielle Giffords
She vowed to return to her former Congressional duties, but was forced to resign for health reasons in 2012.
Giffords was only one victim of a shooting spree that claimed the lives of six people and left 13 others wounded.
Also killed was Arizona’s chief U.S. District judge, John Roll, who had just stopped by to see his friend Giffords after celebrating Mass.
Although the actual shooter, Jared Lee Loughner, was immediately arrested, those who fanned the flames of political violence that consumed 19 people that day have remained unpunished.
Consider the circumstances behind the shootings:
John Roll is Arizona’s chief federal judge. Appointed in 2006, he wins acclaim as a respected jurist and leader who pushes to beef up the court’s strained bench to handle a growing number of border crime-related cases.
In 2009, he becomes a target for threats after allowing a $32 million civil-rights lawsuit by illegal aliens to proceed against a local rancher. The case arouses the fury of local talk radio hosts, who encourage their audiences to threaten Roll’s life.
In one afternoon, Roll logs more than 200 threatening phone calls. Callers threaten the judge and his family. They post personal information about Roll online.
Roll and his wife are placed under fulltime protection by deputy U.S. marshals. Roll finds living under security “unnerving and invasive.”
Authorities identify four men believed responsible for the threats. But Roll declines to press charges on the advice of the Marshals Service.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law Enforcement, Politics, Social commentary on October 16, 2023 at 12:07 am
Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) became Speaker of the House of Representatives on January 7.
But there was a fatal catch: Desperate to become Speaker, he had agreed to let even a single lawmaker force a vote on his removal. This was a concession to about 20 holdouts.
On October 3, eight Right-wingers led by Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) forced that vote.
Kevin McCarthy
A scramble for the Speakership followed.
At first, Steve Scalise (R-LA) seemed to have the required number of votes—217.
But then he dropped out, admitting he couldn’t meet that requirement.
Next to jump into the ring: Jim Jordan (R-OH).
Jordan founded the House Freedom Caucus, which seeks to impose a Fascistic agenda on America.
Which makes him unacceptable to Republicans who want a Speaker who can break the Republican-induced House logjam. On October 13, more than 50 Republicans voted against supporting him.
Republicans’ failure to support a popular candidate has frozen the House while major international and domestic crises loom.
The most immediate: Israel’s war against Hamas, following the terrorist group’s horrific attacks that killed 1,300 Israelis on October 6.
Coming up: The November 17 shutdown of the federal government unless Congress agrees on a budget.
During and after Donald Trump’s Presidency, Jordan has defended his litany of demonstrated lies and documented criminality.
Appearing on CNN’s “Anderson Cooper 360,” on April 16, 2018, Jordan accused Andrew McCabe, the former deputy director of the FBI, of being a liar. He accused the Washington Post of lying. He asked Cooper if he had ever lied.
But, pressed by Cooper on whether he had ever heard Trump lie, Jordan replied: “I have not. I don’t know of it. Nothing comes to mind.”
Rep. Jim Jordan
Jordan pushed to impeach Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, who oversaw Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation of Russia’s subversion of the 2016 Presidential election.
Prior to the 2020 Presidential election, Jordan repeatedly claimed that Democrats would steal it. After Trump lost the election to Joe Biden, Jordan falsely charged that they had stolen it.
After the election, Jordan urged Trump not to concede, spread conspiracy theories, supported lawsuits attempting to disqualify the legitimate results and discussed plans to object to the 2020 election results on January 6, 2021.
In a message to CNN, Ryan Goodman, the editor of Just Security and a law professor at New York University, wrote: “Jordan’s appearances on right-wing and far right-wing news outlets and his social media account were a near constant drumbeat of disinformation up until January 6th.”
“Jim Jordan was deeply involved in Donald Trump’s antidemocratic efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election,” said Thomas Joscelyn, one of the authors of the final report from the House select committee investigating the January 6, 2021, attack at the United States Capitol.
“Jordan also helped organize congressional opposition to counting Biden’s certified electoral votes. None of Jordan’s efforts were rooted in legitimate objections. He simply sought to keep Donald Trump in power, contrary to the will of the American people.”
Even after the failed coup, 147 House and Senate Republicans voted to overturn the election. Jordan was one of them.
And Trump reciprocated. In his speech to his treasonous supporters on January 6, 2021, Trump called Jordan one of the “great ones” for his efforts.
Stormtrumpers trying to overturn the 2020 Presidential election
Meanwhile, Jordan is being haunted by a scandal of his own.
Jordan served as an assistant coach at Ohio State University (OSU) from 1987 to 1995. Several former OSU wrestlers claim Jordan ignored sexual abuse of students by the team’s doctor.
In April, 2018, OSU announced it was investigating charges that Richard Strauss had abused team wrestlers while he served as the team doctor from the mid-1970s to the late 1990s. Strauss died in 2005.
Jordan claims he didn’t know about the abuse.
Yet several former wrestlers assert that they told Jordan about the abuse or remember Jordan being a part of conversations about the abuse.
“I considered Jim Jordan a friend,” Mike DiSabato, a former wrestler, told NBC. It was DiSabato’s allegations against Strauss that led OSU to open the investigation. “But at the end of the day, he is absolutely lying if he says he doesn’t know what was going on.”
In an email to Ohio State’s legal counsel, DiSabato wrote: “Strauss sexually assaulted male athletes in at least fifteen varsity sports during his employment at OSU from 1978 through 1998.”
“There’s no way unless he’s got dementia or something that he’s got no recollection of what was going on at Ohio State,” former Ultimate Fighting Championship world champion Mark Coleman told the Wall Street Journal about Jordan. “I have nothing but respect for this man, I love this man, but he knew as far as I’m concerned.”
Speaking with reporters in Ohio, Jordan offered a Sergeant Schultz “I know nothing” defense:
“We knew of no abuse, never heard of abuse. If we had, we would have reported it. If, in fact, there’s problems, we want justice for the people who were victims, obviously, and as I said, we are happy to talk with the folks who are doing the investigation. But the things they said about me just were flat-out not true.”
Thus, a President accused of multiple crimes finds himself defended by a man accused of ignoring the sexual abuse of young men.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Politics, Social commentary on August 30, 2023 at 12:14 am
House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan is furious.
Not at Donald Trump—who, as President, incited a violent attack on Congress. Its purpose: To stop the counting of Electoral College votes which would determine the winner of the 2020 Presidential election.
And Trump knew who that winner would be: Former Vice President Joe Biden.
No, Jordan (R-Ohio) isn’t furious at Trump for committing treason against the United States.
Jim Jordan
He’s furious that Trump is being prosecuted for trying to coerce Georgia public officials to “find” Electoral College votes which did not exist.
Specifically, Trump is charged with 13 felony counts:
- 1 count of violating the Georgia RICO (Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations) Act (conspiring to overturn the vote count of the 2020 Presidential election);
- 3 counts of solicitation of violation of oath by a public officer;
- 1 count of conspiracy to commit impersonating a public officer;
- 2 counts of conspiracy to commit forgery;
- 2 counts of conspiracy to commit false statements and writings;
- 1 count of conspiracy to commit filing false documents;
- 1 count of filing false documents;
- 2 counts of making false statements and writings.
Donald Trump
This makes Trump the only former President to face criminal trial as—officially—a racketeer.
And it makes Jim Jordan—who defended Trump’s rampant criminality throughout his four years as President—determined to act as his savior.
Thus, on August 24, he sent a letter to Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, who has brought the charges against Trump and 18 other defendants.
It opened:
“On August 14, 2023, you brought a 41-count indictment against 19 defendants—including a former President of the United States and current declared candidate for that office, his attorneys, a former White House Chief of Staff, and a former U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) official—related to the 2020 election for President of the United States.
“Among other things, you have alleged that these 19 individuals, 30 unindicted co-conspirators, and others were part of a ‘criminal enterprise.’ And you have identified a number of acts that you claim were committed in furtherance of this purported criminal enterprise, including:
“(1) the then-White House Chief of Staff asking a Member of Congress for the phone number of the Speaker of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives;
“(2) the then-President tweeting that hearings in the Georgia legislature were being aired on a news channel and commenting on those hearings; and
“(3) numerous acts taking place in other states not involving the conduct of the 2020 election in Georgia or the counting of the votes cast in Georgia.
“Your indictment and prosecution implicate substantial federal interests, and the circumstances surrounding your actions raise serious concerns about whether they are politically motivated.
“Turning first to the question of motivation, it is noteworthy that just four days before this indictment, you launched a new campaign fundraising website that highlighted your investigation into President Trump….
“Last week, the Fulton County Superior Court’s Clerk publicly released a list of criminal charges against President Trump reportedly hours before the vote of the grand jury….
“And unlike officials in other jurisdictions, Fulton County officials ‘have suggested [they] will process [the former President] as [a] typical criminal defendant[], requiring mug shots and possibly even cash bond.'”
In short: Fulton County officials intended to treat Trump the same way that any other indicted criminal would be treated.
Jordan then demanded:
1. All documents and communications referring or relating to the Fulton County District Attorney’s Office’s receipt and use of federal funds;
2. All documents and communications between or among the Fulton County District Attorney’s Office and DOJ and its components, including but not limited to the Office of Special Counsel Jack Smith, referring or relating to your office’s investigation of President Donald Trump or any of the other eighteen individuals against whom charges were brought in the indictment discussed above; and
3. All documents and communications between the Fulton County District Attorney’s Office and any federal Executive Branch officials regarding your office’s investigation of President Donald Trump or any of the other eighteen individuals against whom charges were brought in the indictment discussed above.”
In the past, Republicans—including Jordan—have held sacred the separation of powers between Federal and state governments.
- In 1962, a Democratic President—John F. Kennedy—sent deputy U.S. marshals to ensure the safety of James Meredith, the first black student ever admitted to the all-white University of Mississippi. Republicans howled in outrage at this “violation” of “states’ rights.”
- In 1964, another Democratic President—Lyndon B. Johnson—signed the Civil Rights Act into law. Republicans were outraged at its demands that blacks be treated as equal citizens.
- And when Johnson ordered FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover to “go after the Ku Klux Klan the way you do after the Communists,” Republicans again attacked him for “interfering” with “sovereign” states.
But now a local Georgia prosecutor has dared hold accountable a former Republican President for trying to disenfranchise the voting rights of 2,473,633 Georgia citizens.
So, for Jordan, the voting rights of those citizens must naturally take a back seat to the “right” of a losing Republican President to illegally remain in office as “President-for-Life.”
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In Bureaucracy, Business, History, Politics, Social commentary on June 6, 2023 at 12:10 am
Right-wingers love to attack those they hate as “snowflakes,” and boast about how easy it is to “trigger” them into anger.
Yet it is Right-wingers whose sensitive feelings can be “triggered” by something as innocuous as a word: DEI (Diversity, Equity, Inclusion).
Target, Bud Light and Disney have all faced backlash for their support of the queer community, which is officially known as LGBTQ (Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender Queer).
Other companies that have found themselves targets for Right-wing ire have been:
- Keurig (for dropping advertising on Sean Hannity’s show on the Right-wing Fox Network)
- The NFL (for its players sitting or kneeling during the National Anthem
- Amazon (for supporting Washington State in a federal lawsuit challenging President Donald Trump’s executive order barring people from seven majority-Muslim countries from entering the United States)
- Starbucks (for its CEO opposing the same executive order)
- Nordstrom (for cutting ties with Ivanka Trump’s brand of clothing)
- Kellogg (for dropping advertising on the Right-wing Breitbart website)
Now comes Chick-fil-A as the latest business to enrage the self-appointed holy warriors of the Right. Its crime: Hiring a vice president of DEI.
And even worse for the Right: He’s black.
Erick McReynolds has been a longtime employee of Chick-fil-A. According to the company’s official statement:
“Erick McReynolds joined Chick-fil-A in February 2007 as a Business Consultant. Since then, he has been promoted to various positions like Team Captain, Director – Service Team, Executive Director (Midwest Region), and Executive Director (DEI).”
In 1988 he had earned an MBA from Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University He then worked as a Sales Representative at International Paper till June 2001. He served as a Senior Business Analyst at Sprint for five years till January 2007.
Erick McReynolds
Chick-fil-A has long championed Right-wing causes. By 2012, it had donated over $5 million to anti-LGTBQ groups. When the company faced backlash for this, Republicans like Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee led counter-protesting efforts such as “Chick-fil-A Appreciation Day.”
Its owner, Dan Cathy, publicly denounced same-sex marriage, citing the “biblical definition of the family unit.” This enraged liberals but ignited support among Republicans.
The company promised in 2019 to stop donating to anti-LGBTQ groups. It would instead focus its philanthropic efforts on hunger, education and homelessness.
Although McReynolds has served as VP of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion since November, 2021, the Right was unaware of his appointment until May 30, 2023. That was when Right-wing strategist Joey Mannarino tweeted:
“We have a problem. Chick-Fil-A just hired a VP of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion. This is bad. I don’t want to have to boycott. Are we going to have to boycott?
“It’s only a matter of time until they start putting tranny semen in the frosted lemonade at this point.”
Joey Mannarino
Adding to Mannarino’s resentment was McReynolds’ public statement:
“Chick-fil-A restaurants have long been recognized as a place where people know they will be treated well. Modeling care for others starts in the restaurant, and we are committed to ensuring mutual respect, understanding and dignity everywhere we do business. These tenets are good business practice and crucial to fulfilling our Corporate Purpose.”
Other Right-wing eruptions on Twitter included:
Director of Citizens for Renewing America Wade Miller: “Everything good must come to an end. Here @ChickfilA is stating it’s commitment to systemic racism, sexism, and discrimination. I cannot support such a thing.”
@BrandonStraka: “As a liberal I boycotted Chick-fil-A. As a conservative I’ll be boycotting them again. I will not support any company that pushes the disingenuously named diversity, equity, inclusion agenda.”
@amuse: “Sadly, Chick-fil-A is embracing DEI and ESG [Environmental Social and Corporate Governance] after being co-opted by race & trans activists who have made it impossible for the organization to reflect the Christian values of its founder. Marxists won’t allow belief in Jesus Christ.”
The Right generally and Republicans in particular have long been fixated on issues involving sexuality. This is especially true for those where children are supposedly victimized.
Thus, fetuses become “babies” even when they’re no bigger than a microdot. This allows Rightists to claim they’re “pro-life”—while they champion the “right” of criminals, terrorists and the insane to own military-style firepower
And even though 90% of child molesters are heterosexual family or friends, the Right continues to charge all homosexuals with pedophilia.
Anyone who dares to challenge its agenda is charged with being a “groomer”—someone who builds an emotional connection with children or young people to sexually exploit them.
Totally ignored by Republicans are supposed Right-wing moral paragons who turn out to be “groomers” like Josh Duggar (of the “19 Kids and Counting” series) who was sentenced in 2022 to 12 years’ imprisonment for possession of child pornography;
A useful rule of thumb: Be wary of those who loudly preach their own virtue—such as Charles Sutherland, an elementary school librarian who spray painted “groomer” around the D.C. area during the 2022 Pride week. When police arrested him for possessing child pornography, they found a child-sized doll in his bed.
Meanwhile, Right-wing politicians—most notably Florida Governor and Presidential candidate Ron DeSantis—continue to exploit the fears and hatred of their equally Fascistic constituents.
With the 2024 Presidential campaign now underway, expect more of the same to come.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Medical, Politics, Social commentary on June 5, 2023 at 12:10 am
“All revolutions,” said Ernst Rohm, leader of Adolf Hitler’s brown-shirted thugs, the S.A., “devour their own children.”
Fittingly, he said this as he sat inside a prison cell awaiting his own execution.
Ernst Rohm
On June 30, 1934, Hitler had ordered a massive purge of his private army, the S.A., or Stormtroopers. The purge was carried out by Hitler’s elite army-within-an-army, the Schutzstaffel, or Protective Squads, better known as the SS.
The S.A. Brownshirts had been instrumental in securing Hitler’s rise to Chancellor of Germany on January 30, 1933. They had intimidated political opponents and organized mass rallies for the Nazi Party.
But after Hitler reached the pinnacle of power, they became a liability.
Ernst Rohm, their commander, urged Hitler to disband the regular German army, the Reichswehr, and replace it with his own legions as the nation’s defense force.
Frightened by Rohm’s ambitions, the generals of the Reichswehr gave Hitler an ultimatum: Get rid of Rohm—or they would get rid of him.
So Rohm died in a hail of SS bullets—as did several hundred of his longtime S.A. cronies.
SS firing squad
Eighty-six years later, even the most Right-wing Republicans learned there’s a price to pay for disagreeing with The Leader.
Case in point: Representative Liz Cheney (R-Wyoming) the House Republican Conference Chair—and the only female member of the House GOP leadership.
On July 21, 2020, she became the target of members of her own party.
Her GOP Freedom Caucus attackers included
- Representative Jim Jordan (R-Ohio)
- Matt Gaetz (R-Florida)
- Thomas Massie (R-Kentucky)
- Chip Roy (R-Texas)
- Andy Biggs (R-Arizona)
- Scott Perry (R-Pennsylvania) and
- Ralph Norman (R-South Carolina).
Jordan, the top Republican on the Judiciary Committee, praised Cheney for defending President Donald Trump during the impeachment trial in February. But he attacked her for publicly disagreeing with Trump’s intention to remove troops from Germany and Afghanistan.
He also assailed Cheney for her recent rebukes of Trump—for his mishandling of the Coronavirus and his Twitter rants.
Cheney remembered that Jordan’s Right-wing Freedom Caucus had caused problems for the GOP’s leadership when the party held the majority in the House.
“I look forward to hearing your comments about being a team player when we’re back in the majority,” replied Cheney.
Representative Roy (Texas) assailed Cheney for supporting Anthony Fauci, the nation’s leading infectious disease expert, and complained that his Democratic opponent had retweeted some of Cheney’s tweets.
Cheney defended Fauci, who had served under Republican and Democratic Presidents as the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases since 1984.
“At this moment when we’re trying to find every way we can to defeat the virus, when we’re trying to find therapeutics and vaccines, we need all hands on deck, and I can’t imagine anybody better than Dr. Fauci to continue to play that role,” Cheney told reporters after the meeting.
Trump was jealous of Fauci’s popularity for speaking the hard truth about Coronavirus—and the Federal Government’s failure to combat it.
Anthony Fauci
Trump also resented that his own popularity was steadily falling as COVID cases and deaths rose—and he offered only rosy predictions that “one day it will be gone.”
Rep. Andy Biggs of Arizona, the head of the Freedom Caucus, said that if someone had a problem with Trump, they should keep it to themselves. He said Cheney undermined the GOP’s ability to win back the House, which Democrats won in November, 2018.
Matt Gaetz, who once split with Trump over a war powers resolution, later tweeted: “Liz Cheney has worked behind the scenes (and now in public) against @realDonaldTrump and his agenda. House Republicans deserve better as our Conference Chair.”
Gaetz’ tweet was quickly backed by such major Republicans as Senator Rand Paul (Kentucky) and Trump’s son, Donald, Jr.
Republicans, tweeted Trump, Jr., “already have one Mitt Romney, we don’t need another.”
Senator Mitt Romney (R-Utah) was the only Republican to vote to convict Trump for abuse of power and obstruction of Congress during the February, 2020 impeachment effort.
“Donald Trump Jr. Is not a member of the House Republican Conference,” Cheney dismissed the attack later.
During the conference meeting, Gaetz and Massie complained that Cheney was supporting a primary challenge to Massie.
Cheney told Gaetz that she looked forward to seeing an upcoming HBO documentary, “The Swamp,” about him, Massie and a third Republican congressman, Ken Buck of Colorado.
Cheney told Massie that his issue was with Trump, not her. Trump had called Massie “a third rate grandstander” and said he wanted Massie ousted from the Republican party. Despite this, Massie had beaten Todd McMurtry, a primary challenger.
Cheney had donated to McMurtry, but later asked that the money be returned after his past racist social media posts became public.
Anyone in Nazi Germany could be accused of disloyalty to Adolf Hitler. Now anyone in the Republican party could be accused of disloyalty to Donald Trump.
“Fanatics can justify practically any atrocity to themselves,” wrote the author Mercedes Lackey. “The more untenable their position becomes, the harder they hold to it, and the worse the things they are willing to do to support it.”
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In Bureaucracy, History, Politics, Social commentary on May 26, 2023 at 12:10 am
Two suggestions for interviewees with a dark secret to hide:
First: Don’t give interviews to journalists you like. (Or, in the case of Fox News, pseudo-journalists.)
Second: Don’t give interviews at 4 A.M.
Why?
Because you’re less likely to be on guard with a friendly journalist—and thus reveal truths you will later regret spilling.
And because at 4 A.M. you’re likely so tired or keyed up you make the same mistake.
Part One of this series spotlighted such a slip-up by Kevin McCarthy (R-Bakersfield, CA) on September 30, 2015.
In just 51 words, McCarthy revealed that the House Select Committee on Benghazi was not a legitimate investigative body. Its real purpose was to sabotage the expected Presidential candidacy of Hillary Clinton.
In doing so, McCarthy unintentionally sabotaged his own chances of becoming Speaker of the House when the then-Speaker, John Boehner, retired
Part Two of this series showed how Donald Trump made a similar mistake on September 21, 2022.
Appearing on the Right’s favorite television network, Fox News, Trump thoroughly embarrassed himself.
He was facing investigation for illegally removing classified government documents when he left the White House on January 20, 2021, and storing them at his private club, Mar-a-Lago, in Palm Beach, Florida.
Once again, Trump asserted he had done nothing wrong: “If you’re the President of the United States, you can declassify just by saying, ‘It’s declassified.’ Even by thinking about it, because you’re sending it to Mar-a-Lago or to wherever you’re sending it.”
Not only was this blatantly untrue, it was so outlandish that late-night talk show hosts had a comedic field day with it.
And still Republican politicians refuse to learn.
Latest case in point: House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R-KY).
James Comer
Comer made the same mistake as McCarthy and Trump—letting the public in on an embarrassing secret—with an added twist. He did so at 4 A.M. on May 22.
Speaking—you guessed it—on Fox News, Comer unintentionally admitted weaponizing his investigative committee to aid Donald Trump’s Presidential ambitions.
Fox News host Ashley Strohmier threw out a comforting softball question: “We have talked to you about this on the show, about how the media can just not ignore this any longer. In an op-ed in The Washington Post, it says, ‘Millions Flowed to Biden Family Members. Don’t Pretend It Doesn’t Matter.’
Ashley Strohmier
“So do you think that because of your investigation, that is what’s moved this needle with the media?”
Comer, whose committee has been relentlessly investigating Hunter Biden, the son of President Joseph Biden, leaped to answer:
“Absolutely. There’s no question. You look at the polling, and right now Donald Trump is seven points ahead of Joe Biden and trending upward, Joe Biden’s trending downward.
“And I believe that the media is looking around, scratching their head, and they’re realizing that the American people are keeping up with our investigation.”
His claim that Trump has a seven-point edge over Biden stems from an ABC News/Washington Post survey in early May. But other surveys show Biden leading, and polling generally indicates a tight race between Biden and Trump.
In fact, there is little evidence that House GOP investigations of Biden’s family are having a negative effect on Biden’s political standing. Biden’s approval rating remains low, but surveys show little indication that the Comer-led investigations have had a major effect one way or another.
On May 10, Republicans claimed that President Biden’s family members received millions in suspicious money transfers before Biden became president.
But despite promises of a bombshell revelation, the new evidence Republicans displayed did not directly implicate Biden.
Comer said that bank records obtained through subpoenas showed that the President’s son Hunter Biden, his brother James Biden and his son Beau’s widow, Hallie Biden, received payments totaling more than $10 million from foreign sources, including from individuals aligned with the Chinese Communist Party.
Hunter Biden
Comer didn’t say that the President himself received any payments or that he performed an official act in exchange for his family members receiving the money.
Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD.), the committee’s top Democrat, said Comer had failed to provide evidence substantiating his claims of wrongdoing by Biden.
“He continues to bombard the public with innuendo, misrepresentations, and outright lies, recycling baseless claims from stories that were debunked years ago,” said Raskin.
Even before Republicans won control of the House on November 8, 2022, they openly admitted their upcoming investigations would target political opponents and influence public opinion for the 2024 elections
On August 10, 2022, Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH): “So, all these things need to be investigated just so you have the truth, plus that will help frame up the 2024 race, when I hope and I think President Trump is going to run again and we need to make sure that he wins.”
And on October 26, James Comer said: “There are a lot of factors that are going to prevent Joe Biden from running. His age, the results of the midterm elections in two weeks. But also his son. Look, this Biden family investigation’s only going to ramp up in a Republican majority.”
Not since the notorious reign of Wisconsin Senator Joseph R. McCarthy have Congressional Republicans been so open about their all-consuming drive for all-encompassing power.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Politics, Social commentary on May 25, 2023 at 12:10 am
Donald Trump—before, during and after his Presidency—has always preferred “journalists” who toss him softball questions and repeatedly pay homage to him.
Such a “journalist” is Sean Hannity, host of the Fox Network’s Sean Hannity Show.
On September 21, 2022, Hannity—who had “interviewed” Trump on many other occasions—did so again.
From the outset, he made his intentions clear: To exonerate Trump—who is now facing multiple civil and criminal investigations—from all accusations.
Hannity opened by attacking Trump’s longtime foe, New York Attorney General Letitia James:
“Take a look at New York Attorney General Letitia James. Now, today she filed a lawsuit against Donald Trump and three of his children and other entities, claiming that they inflated the value of the Trump Organization. It is nothing short of a very obvious political stunt. It is not a criminal case. It is a civil case….
Sean Hannity
“Now, the attorney general isn’t even trying to hide her efforts to weaponize justice in New York State. Her conduct is deeply unethical at best.”
Then Hannity moved on to other “Trump haters”:
“But she’s not alone, you know, from the Trump haters on Capitol Hill, high-ranking deep state bureaucrats in the DOJ, the FBI. Now we have witnessed, going on many years, the 45th President has been the subject of what is non-stop, never-ending legal scrutiny focused not on a specific crime but on the man himself.”
Donald Trump
Then he moved on—inevitably—to attacking former Secretary of State and 2016 Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton:
“And, by the way, the President can declassify any of these documents—unlike, for example, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, she cannot.
“Still, she stored 110 classified documents on unsecured private servers. Hillary Clinton was never forced to endure a federal raid. She was never charged with any crime.”
Hannity then ran a clip of former FBI Director James Comey saying of Clinton: “Although there is evidence of potential violations of the statutes regarding the handling of classified information, our judgment is that no reasonable prosecutor would bring such a case.”
But Hannity did not say that Trump, on becoming President, fired Comey for investigating the proven ties between Trump’s Presidential campaign and operatives for Russian president Vladimir Putin.
All of this undoubtedly made Trump feel vindicated and comfortable. Too comfortable, as matters turned out.
When Trump left the White House on January 20, 2021, he illegally took highly-classified government documents to his private club, Mar-a-Lago, in Palm Beach, Florida.
On August 8, 2022, FBI agents searched Mar-a-Lago to recover those documents. Among those retrieved: Eleven sets of classified documents, four of them tagged as “Top Secret” and one as “Top Secret/SCI,” the highest level of classification.
Documents found at Trump’s residence
Continuing to exonerate Trump, no matter what the offense, Hannity said: “OK. You have said on Truth Social a number of times you did declassify—”
TRUMP: “I did declassify.”
HANNITY: “OK. Is there a process—what was your process to declassify?”
TRUMP: “There doesn’t have to be a process, as I understand it. You know, there’s—different people say different things, but as I understand there doesn’t have to be.
“If you’re the President of the United States, you can declassify just by saying, ‘It’s declassified.’ Even by thinking about it, because you’re sending it to Mar-a-Lago or to wherever you’re sending it.”
Not even Trump’s attorneys have dared to make such an argument. Not when they demanded a “Special Master” to comb through the seized documents—allegedly so those that belonged to Trump could be returned to him.
Nor did they make such an assertion when, before Special Master Judge Raymond Dearie, they refused to state the process by which Trump had allegedly declassified the documents.
The media—and Trump’s many enemies—quickly seized upon this mind-blowing claim. Late-night TV hosts in particular milked it for laughs.
The Daily Show host Trevor Noah: How could Trump “declassify documents with his brain” when he couldn’t even “read documents with his brain?”
“If Trump actually had the power to change things just by thinking about them,” joked Jimmy Kimmel, “Don Jr. would have turned into a Big Mac 30 years ago.”
Nor did Kimmel pass up the opportunity to stick a barb into Hannity: “His approach was basically, ‘Show me on the doll where the FBI investigated you.’ I mean you have to hand it to Sean. When life gives him felons, he makes felon-ade!”
On a serious level, Trump’s outlandish assertion is liable to hurt his—or his attorneys’—appearances before various state and federal judges.
More than 500 years ago, Niccolo Machiavelli, the father of modern politics, warned that a prince must guard against being taken lightly—and, worse, expose himself to ridicule.
In his book, The Prince, Machiavelli writes: “…He ought….to pay attention to [guilds and classes], mingle with them from time to time, and give them an example of his humanity and munificence, always upholding, however, the majesty of his dignity, which must never be allowed to fail in anything whatever.”
It’s hard to be taken seriously when you claim supernatural powers denied to other, mere mortals.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Politics, Social commentary on May 24, 2023 at 12:25 am
It’s a truth well-known to cross-examining attorneys: The best way to obtain the truth is often to “kill your opponents with kindness.”
Witnesses always expect the opposing counsel to immediately start SCREAMING at them. But that only causes the witness to stay alert and say as little as possible.
So the smart attorney comes on as courteous, friendly, even sympathetic.
A classic example of this: A laborer claimed to have permanently injured his shoulder in a railway accident, leaving him unable to work. He claimed he could no longer raise his arm above a point parallel with his shoulder.
The railway’s attorney asked him a few sympathetic questions about his injuries. And the witness quickly volunteered that he was in constant pain and a near-invalid.
“And, as a result of the accident, how high can you raise your arm?” asked the attorney.
The witness slowly raised his arm parallel with his shoulder.
“Oh, that’s terrible,” said the attorney.
Then: “How high could you get it up before the accident?”
Unthinkingly, the witness extended his arm to its full height above his head—to the laughter of the judge, jury and spectators.
Case dismissed.
In politics, sometimes your best friends turn out to be your worst enemies.
Kevin McCarthy proved this during his September 30, 2015 appearance on Fox News.
McCarthy, the Republican member of the House of Representatives from Bakersfield, California, was undoubtedly feeling relaxed.
After all, he wasn’t being interviewed by such “enemies” of the Right as The New York Times or MSNBC political commentator Rachel Maddow.
He was being interviewed by Sean Hannity, a Right-wing political commentator whose books included Conservative Victory: Defeating Obama’s Radical Agenda and Deliver Us From Evil: Defeating Terrorism, Despotism, and Liberalism.
The topic under discussion: Who would be the next Republican Speaker of the House, now that John Boehner had announced his decision to leave not only the Speakership but the House itself in November?
Now Hannity wanted to know what would happen when the next Republican Speaker took office. And McCarthy—who was in the running for the position—was eager to tell him.
“What you’re going to see is a conservative Speaker, that takes a conservative Congress, that puts a strategy to fight and win.
“And let me give you one example. Everybody thought Hillary Clinton was unbeatable, right?
Kevin McCarthy
“But we put together a Benghazi special committee. A select committee. What are her [poll] numbers today? Her numbers are dropping. Why? Because she’s untrustable. But no one would have known that any of that had happened had we not fought to make that happen.”
In 51 words, McCarthy revealed that:
- The House Select Committee on Benghazi was not a legitimate investigative body.
- Its purpose was not to investigate the 2012 deaths of four American diplomats during a terrorist attack in Benghazi, Libya.
- Its real purpose was to destroy the Presidential candidacy of Hillary Clinton.
- To accomplish this, its members spent 17 months and wasted more than $4.5 million of American taxpayers’ funds.
On October 8, 2015, Republicans were expected to choose their nominee for Speaker. On that same date, McCarthy announced that he was withdrawing his name from consideration:
“Over the last week it has become clear to me that our Conference is deeply divided and needs to unite behind one leader. I have always put this Conference ahead of myself. Therefore I am withdrawing my candidacy for Speaker of the House.”
When reporters asked McCarthy if his revelation was the reason he withdrew, he replied, “Well, that wasn’t helpful.”
But then he quickly replayed the official Republican version: “But this Benghazi committee was only created for one purpose: to find the truth on behalf of the families for the four dead Americans.”
On October 29, 2015, Republicans—holding the majority of House members–elected Paul Ryan, (Wisconsin) the 54th speaker of the United States House of Representatives.
Democrats and Republicans were united in their anger that the real reason for the Benghazi “investigation” had been revealed.
Democrats were furious that McCarthy, in an unguarded moment, had revealed that their major Presidential candidate had been the victim of a Republican smear campaign disguised as a legitimate inquiry.
And Republicans were furious that McCarthy, in an unguarded moment, had revealed that the “legitimate inquiry” had been nothing more than a Republican smear campaign.
For McCarthy, the Benghazi Committee had legitimately served the nation—not by uncovering relevant details about a terrorist act but by causing Hillary Clinton’s poll numbers to drop.
In 1981, President Ronald Reagan had attacked the leaders of the Soviet Union thusly: “They reserve unto themselves the right to commit any crime, to lie, to cheat.”
McCarthy’s comments demonstrated that the Republican Party had adopted the same mindset and tactics as the dictators of the former Soviet Union.
Almost seven years after Kevin McCarthy revealed himself and his party as ruthless hypocrites, Republicans suffered a similar outbreak of truth.
But this time, the stakes were higher—involving Donald J. Trump, the former President of the United States.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law Enforcement, Politics, Social commentary on February 21, 2023 at 12:21 am
Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) chairs the powerful House Judiciary Committee, which oversees the Justice Department and the FBI.
He comes to office with a unique mission: To attack the investigative agencies which proved that Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign received support from Russian Intelligence agents.
Jordan believes there should not have been any investigation into this unholy alliance.
Rep. Jim Jordan
Now, armed with the power of subpoena, Jordan is moving on several investigative fronts at once.
One of his major targets: The FBI.
Jordan is outraged that the Bureau raided Trump’s home in Mar-a-Lago on August 8, 2022, to retrieve classified documents the ex-President illegally took after leaving office.
“They raided Trump’s home. They haven’t raided Biden’s home,” Jordan said on the January 29 edition of “Meet the Press.”
“Because Biden didn’t defy a subpoena, Congressman,” its moderator, Chuck Todd, replied, adding that Trump had 60 days to comply before the FBI executed a search warrant.
Papers from Biden’s time as Vice Presidential under Barack Obama had turned up at Biden’s Delaware home and a Washington office.
Another of Jordan’s targets is Big Tech, which he accuses (without evidence) of suppressing free speech. By this, he means there is anti-Right-wing bias at some of the top social media companies in the country.
In fact, Right-wing hate speech and misinformation are commonly found on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. Facebook and Twitter have reinstated Donald Trump’s accounts—which were suspended after he incited the treasonous January 6, 2021 riot against Congress.
But the fact that Right-wing propaganda has not been suppressed on the Internet means nothing to Jordan. The claim has become a rallying cry for the Right—just like “The Big Lie” that Trump was cheated of a second term by massive voter fraud in 2020.
And when confronted head-on by the brutal truth of its falsity, Right-wingers simply ignore it and shout even louder that they’re being oppressed.
“The Germans,” said Winston Churchill, “are either at your throat or at your feet.” This has proven equally true for Republicans—especially the most infamous one of all: Donald Trump.
When he held the whip hand, he was arrogance personified—as when he ordered the tear-gassing of peaceful protesters in Lafayette Park on June 1, 2020. The reason: So he could take a photo-op at St. John’s Episcopal Church following the police murder of George Floyd.
Yet when faced with investigation by Special Counsel Robert S. Mueller, Trump called himself “the most persecuted President in history.” Even Abraham Lincoln, he claimed, never suffered such harsh attacks.
Robert S. Mueller
Meanwhile, Jim Jordan is being haunted by a scandal of his own.
Jordan served as an assistant coach at Ohio State University (OSU) from 1987 to 1995. Several former OSU wrestlers claim Jordan ignored sexual abuse of students by the team’s doctor.
In April, 2018, OSU announced it was investigating charges that Richard Strauss had abused team wrestlers while he served as the team doctor from the mid-1970s to the late 1990s. Strauss died in 2005.
Jordan claims he didn’t know about the abuse.
Yet several former wrestlers assert that they told Jordan about the abuse or remember Jordan being a part of conversations about the abuse.
“I considered Jim Jordan a friend,” Mike DiSabato, a former wrestler, told NBC. It was DiSabato’s allegations against Strauss that led OSU to open the investigation. “But at the end of the day, he is absolutely lying if he says he doesn’t know what was going on.”
In an email to Ohio State’s legal counsel, DiSabato wrote: “Strauss sexually assaulted male athletes in at least fifteen varsity sports during his employment at OSU from 1978 through 1998.”
“There’s no way unless [Jordan’s] got dementia or something that he’s got no recollection of what was going on at Ohio State,” former Ultimate Fighting Championship world champion Mark Coleman told the Wall Street Journal. “I have nothing but respect for this man, I love this man, but he knew as far as I’m concerned.”
Which immediately raises the question: How can you respect and love a man who knew that students were being sexually abused—and did nothing to stop it?
Speaking with reporters in Ohio, Jordan offered a Sergeant Schultz “I know nothing” defense:
“We knew of no abuse, never heard of abuse. If we had, we would have reported it. If, in fact, there’s problems, we want justice for the people who were victims, obviously, and as I said, we are happy to talk with the folks who are doing the investigation. But the things they said about me just were flat-out not true.”
As President, Trump said he believed his ally Jordan “100 percent”: “I don’t believe them at all,” Trump told reporters, referring to the wrestlers who have come forward.
Thus, a President accused of moral depravity found himself defended by a man accused of ignoring the sexual abuse of young men.
And today, elevated by a Republican House win in 2022, a man who defended wholesale corruption by Trump now holds investigative authority over those law enforcement agencies who fought to expose that corruption.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Medical, Politics, Social commentary on April 1, 2022 at 12:22 am
Republicans have made “cancel culture” an accusation hurled at Democrats.
Democrats, for example, who want to strip the names of Confederate traitor-generals from many of America’s most famous military bases. Among those bases:
- Fort Benning (Georgia) – Named after Confederate General Henry L. Benning, who fought against the Union armies at the Second Battle of Bull Run, Antietam and Gettysburg.
- Fort Lee (Virginia) – Named after Robert E. Lee, commander of the Army of Northern Virginia.
- Fort Bragg (North Carolina) – Named for Confederate General Braxton Bragg.
Republicans have also used “cancel culture” to denounce the ban imposed on former President Donald Trump by Facebook and Twitter.
Donald Trump
Throughout his Presidency, Trump had used Facebook—and especially Twitter—to attack and slander literally hundreds of people.
Trump’s reign of Twitter insults ended abruptly after he instigated an attack on the United States Capitol Building on January 6, 2021.
Desperate to stay in office by any means, he roused his legions of Stormtrumper followers to halt the counting of Electoral College votes certain to give former Vice President Joe Biden victory in the 2020 Presidential election.
Stormtrumpers attacking the Capitol Building
This treasonous behavior finally led Twitter to impose a permanent ban on Trump’s future tweets. Facebook quickly followed with a temporary ban of unspecified length.
Republicans were outraged. For decades they had aggressively demanded that corporations be free of government regulation. Now they demanded that Internet-related companies be stripped of their independence.
Their outrage reflected their support for what would have been the greatest “cancel crime” in American history: Trump’s unprecedented attempt to cancel the votes of 80 million Americans for Joe Biden and remain in office for at least another four years.
And on May 20, 2021, Republicans proved their willingness to cancel legislation to protect Asian-Americans from a recent rise in attacks on them.
These attacks can be attributed directly to Donald Trump. Desperate to divert attention from his own indifference to the rising death toll from Coronavirus, throughout 2020 he repeatedly blamed China for “The China virus” and “The China plague.”
In October, Trump tested positive for COVID-19.
Republicans quickly blamed China.
The blame lay with Trump, who had refused to mask up or socially distance from others, as his own Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) had recommended.
But this didn’t stop Georgia Republican Senator Kelly Loeffler from tweeting: “China gave this virus to our President,” adding “WE MUST HOLD THEM ACCOUNTABLE.”
And Blair Brandt, a Trump campaign fundraiser, claimed that the “Chinese Communist Party has biologically attacked our President.”
Trump’s slanderous rhetoric—and the tensions it produced between the United States and China—has resulted in numerous attacks on Asian-Americans. In 2020, crimes targeting Asian Americans rose by 149% over those reported in 2019.
Introduced by Rep. Grace Meng (D-N.Y.) and Sen. Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii) the COVID-19 Hate Crimes Act would:
- Expedite the review of hate crimes related to the pandemic;
- Expand the reporting of hate crimes to local and state agencies;
- Require the Justice Department to work with state and local agencies to address them.
In the United States Senate, Josh Hawley (R-MO) cast the only vote against the Act.
“It’s too broad,” he said. “As a former prosecutor, my view is it’s dangerous to simply give the federal government open-ended authority to define a whole new class of federal hate crime incidents.”
In the House of Representatives 62 Republicans tried to cancel the legislation.
Among these:
- Ohio’s Jim Jordan, who said falsely: “This violence, by and large, is happening in Democrat-controlled cities, many of which, interestingly enough, have defunded their police departments.”
- Rep. Chip Roy (R-TX) said: “We can’t legislate away hate”––which was the same excuse Southern Republicans made to oppose the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
On May 20, President Biden signed the Act into law.
The following Republican House members joined Roy and Jordan in voting no:
- Matt Gaetz (Florida)
- Lauren Boebert (Colorado)
- Mo Brooks (Alabama)
- Marjorie Taylor Greene (Georgia).
- Robert Aderholt (Alabama)
- Rick Allen (Georgia)
- Jodey Arrington (Texas)
- Brian Babin (Texas)
- Jim Banks (Indiana)
- Andy Biggs (Arizona)
- Dan Bishop (North Carolina
- Ted Budd (North Carolina)
- Tim Burchett (Tennessee)
- Kat Cammack (Florida)
- Jerry Carl (Alabama)
- Madison Cawthorn (North Carolina)
- Michael Cloud (Texas)
- Andrew Clyde (Georgia
- Tom Cole (Oklahoma)
- Warren Davidson (Ohio)
- Byron Donalds (Florida)
- Jeff Duncan (South Carolina)
- Virginia Foxx (North Carolina)
- Louie Gohmert (Texas)
- Bob Good (Virginia)
- Lance Gooden (Texas)
- Paul Gosar (Arizona)
- Mark Green (Tennessee)
- Michael Guest (Mississippi)
- Andy Harris (Maryland)
- Diana Harshbarger (Tennessee)
- Kevin Hern (Oklahoma)
- Yvette Herrell (New Mexico)
- Jody Hice (Georgia)
- Clay Higgins (Louisiana)
- Ronny Jackson (Texas)
- Mike Johnson (Louisiana)
- Trent Kelly (Mississippi)
- Doug LaMalfa (California)
- Barry Loudermilk (Georgia)
- Nancy Mace (South Carolina)
- Tracey Mann (Kansas)
- Thomas Massie (Kentucky)
- Tom McClintock (California)
- Mary Miller (Illinois)
- Alexander Mooney (West Virginia)
- Barry Moore (Alabama)
- Ralph Norman (South Carolina)
- Steven Palazzo (Mississippi)
- Gary Palmer (Alabama)
- Scott Perry (Pennsylvania)
- August Pfluger (Texas)
- Tom Rice (South Carolina)
- John Rose (Tennessee)
- Matthew Rosendale (Montana)
- David Rouzer (North Carolina)
- John Rutherford (Florida)
- W. Gregory Steube (Florida)
- Thomas Tiffany (Wisconsin)
- Randy Weber (Texas)
Nearly one-third of the House Republican caucus voted against the measure, which was supported by Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, Minority Whip Steve Scalise and newly appointed GOP leader Elise Stefanik.
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REPUBLICANS: WEAPONIZING HATRED: PART ONE (OF FOUR)
In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Politics, Social commentary on April 2, 2024 at 12:10 amOn June 17, 2015, Dylann Roof, a white high school dropout, gunned down three black men and six black women at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina.
At 21, Roof was unemployed, dividing his time between playing video games and taking drugs.
Dylann Roof
The signs of Roof’s malignant racism were evident long before he turned mass murderer:
The evidence made clear that Roof’s slaughter was racially motivated. Yet no 2016 Republican Presidential candidate dared acknowledge it:
But Rolling Stone magazine writer Jeb Lund left no doubt as to what—and who—was ultimately responsible for this crime: Racism and Republicans.
In a June 19, 2015 editorial—published two days after the massacre—Lund noted: “This [crime] is political because American movement conservatism has already made these kinds of killings political.
“The Republican Party has weaponized its supporters, made violence a virtue and, with almost every pronouncement for 50 years, given them an enemy politicized, racialized and indivisible.
“Movement conservatives have fetishized a tendentious and ahistorical reading of the Second Amendment to the point that the Constitution itself somehow paradoxically ‘legitimizes’ an armed insurrection against the government created by it.
“Those leading said insurrection are swaddled by the blanket exculpation of patriotism. At the same time, they have synonymized the Democratic Party with illegitimacy and abuse of the American order.
“This is no longer an argument about whether one party’s beliefs are beneficial or harmful, but an attitude that labels leftism so antithetical to the American idea that empowering it on any level is an act of usurpation.”
On December 15, 2016, Dylann Roof was convicted of 33 Federal hate crime charges. On January 11, 2017, he was sentenced to death. He remains on Death Row to this day.
Yet the leadership of the Republican party whose hate-filled rhetoric inspired Root escaped indictment—and even widespread condemnation.
The evidence that Republicans have weaponized hatred—with deadly results—was on display long before Dylann Roof opened fire on “uppity blacks” praying in their own church.
Consider:
On January 8, 2011, Democratic Rep. Gabrielle Giffords was shot in the head while meeting with constituents outside a grocery store in Tucson, Arizona. After a miraculous recovery, she continues to struggle with language and has lost 50% of her vision in both eyes.
Rep. Gabrielle Giffords
She vowed to return to her former Congressional duties, but was forced to resign for health reasons in 2012.
Giffords was only one victim of a shooting spree that claimed the lives of six people and left 13 others wounded.
Also killed was Arizona’s chief U.S. District judge, John Roll, who had just stopped by to see his friend Giffords after celebrating Mass.
Although the actual shooter, Jared Lee Loughner, was immediately arrested, those who fanned the flames of political violence that consumed 19 people that day have remained unpunished.
Consider the circumstances behind the shootings:
John Roll is Arizona’s chief federal judge. Appointed in 2006, he wins acclaim as a respected jurist and leader who pushes to beef up the court’s strained bench to handle a growing number of border crime-related cases.
In 2009, he becomes a target for threats after allowing a $32 million civil-rights lawsuit by illegal aliens to proceed against a local rancher. The case arouses the fury of local talk radio hosts, who encourage their audiences to threaten Roll’s life.
In one afternoon, Roll logs more than 200 threatening phone calls. Callers threaten the judge and his family. They post personal information about Roll online.
Roll and his wife are placed under fulltime protection by deputy U.S. marshals. Roll finds living under security “unnerving and invasive.”
Authorities identify four men believed responsible for the threats. But Roll declines to press charges on the advice of the Marshals Service.
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