Tag Archives: Jim Jordan

A Sneak Peak

Posted on by under Bits 'n Pieces, Election 2020, Election 2024, History, Political commentary

Liz Cheney has a book releasing Tuesday, the title of which is “Oath and Honor: A Memoir and a Warning”.  I pre-ordered the book a few weeks ago and it will be delivered to my Kindle at midnight on Monday, and I will probably stay awake into the wee hours reading it, especially after reading Peter Baker’s column in the New York Times from a few days ago.  Mr. Baker, who is the chief White House correspondent for The Times and has covered the last five presidents, received an advance copy of Ms. Cheney’s book and I want to share with you his column highlighting some portions of the book.  I think you’ll agree there are some real jaw-droppers in here!

McCarthy Claimed Trump Was ‘Not Eating’ After Leaving Office, Cheney Says

In a new memoir, Liz Cheney wrote that Kevin McCarthy justified his trip to Mar-a-Lago by saying the former president was depressed after losing re-election.

By Peter Baker

29 November 2023

Former President Donald J. Trump was “really depressed” in the days after losing re-election and leaving office in January 2021, so much so that he was “not eating.”

At least that is what Kevin McCarthy told Liz Cheney in trying to explain why he had traveled to Mr. Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida, an act of solidarity that many have identified as a pivotal moment in reviving the former president’s political viability.

Mr. McCarthy, the California congressman who was then the House Republican leader, had condemned Mr. Trump for fueling the Jan. 6 mob attack on the Capitol and even suggested that he resign, only to turn around and effectively absolve the former president by embracing him again. In her new book, Ms. Cheney, perhaps the country’s most vocal anti-Trump Republican, reports that Mr. McCarthy justified the Jan. 28 visit as an act of compassion for a beaten ally.

Ms. Cheney wrote that she was so shocked when she first saw the photograph of Mr. McCarthy and Mr. Trump standing side by side with grins on their faces that she thought it was a fake. “Not even Kevin McCarthy could be this craven, I thought,” she wrote. “I was wrong.” She went to see Mr. McCarthy to confront him about rehabilitating the twice-impeached former president who had just tried to overturn an election he lost.

“Mar-a-Lago?” she asked Mr. McCarthy, according to the book. “What the hell?”

He tried to downplay the meeting, saying he had already been in Florida when Mr. Trump’s staff called. “They’re really worried,” Mr. McCarthy said by her account. “Trump’s not eating, so they asked me to come see him.”

“What?” she recalled replying. “You went to Mar-a-Lago because Trump’s not eating?”

“Yeah, he’s really depressed,” Mr. McCarthy said.

Ms. Cheney’s book, “Oath and Honor,” a copy of which was obtained by The New York Times ahead of its publication on Tuesday, offers a scathing assessment of not only Mr. McCarthy but an array of Republicans who in her view subordinated their integrity to curry favor with Mr. Trump. Her account of his subjugation of the party presents a tapestry of hypocrisy, with inside-the-room scenes of Republicans privately scorning “the Orange Jesus,” as one wryly called him, while publicly doing his bidding.

The much-anticipated memoir arrives on bookshelves even as Mr. Trump is in a commanding position to win next year’s Republican presidential nomination. Ms. Cheney, who represented Wyoming in Congress and led the House Republican Conference, making her the third-ranking member of her party, has assailed him as a budding autocrat in more visceral terms than most of his challengers for the nomination.

The daughter of former Vice President Dick Cheney and a conservative star in her own right who was once on track to become House speaker, Ms. Cheney ultimately paid a price for her opposition to Mr. Trump and her service as vice chair of the House committee that investigated his role in instigating the Jan. 6 attack. She lost her leadership position and eventually her seat in a Republican primary last year. But she has vowed to do whatever she can to keep Mr. Trump from returning to the Oval Office.

Indeed, she subtitled her book “A Memoir and a Warning” to make the point that Mr. Trump represents a clear and present danger to America if he is on the ballot next November. “We will be voting on whether to preserve our republic,” she wrote. “As a nation, we can endure damaging policies for a four-year term. But we cannot survive a president willing to terminate our Constitution.”

A re-elected Mr. Trump, she said, would face few checks on his power. “Step by step, Donald Trump would tear down the other structures that restrain an American president,” she wrote. “The assumption that our institutions will protect themselves,” she added, “is purely wishful thinking by people who prefer to look the other way.”

Asked for comment on Wednesday, Mr. Trump, who has openly called for “termination” of the Constitution to immediately remove President Biden from office and reinstall himself without waiting for another election, did not directly address any of Ms. Cheney’s specific assertions but simply dismissed her as a disgruntled critic.

“Liz Cheney is a loser who is now lying in order to sell a book that either belongs in the discount bargain bin in the fiction section of the bookstore or should be repurposed as toilet paper,” Steven Cheung, a spokesman for Mr. Trump, said by email. “These are nothing more than completely fabricated stories because President Trump is the clear front-runner to be the Republican nominee and the strongest candidate to beat Crooked Joe Biden.”

Likewise, Mr. McCarthy did not deny anything in the book, copies of which have also been obtained by CNN and The Guardian. His office released a statement saying, “For Cheney, first it was Trump Derangement Syndrome, and now apparently it’s also McCarthy Derangement Syndrome.”

In Ms. Cheney’s telling, Mr. Trump knew that he lost the 2020 election even as he told the public that he had not — and she cited no less than Mr. McCarthy as a witness. Just two days after the November election, she said, Mr. McCarthy told her he had spoken to Mr. Trump. “He knows it’s over,” she quoted him saying. “He needs to go through all the stages of grief.”

That could in theory make Mr. McCarthy an important witness in the federal or state criminal cases against Mr. Trump, refuting any defense by the former president’s lawyers that he was acting on good-faith belief that fraud had stolen the election from him.

Also depicted as a Trump acolyte is Representative Mike Johnson, a Louisiana Republican who in recent weeks vaulted from the backbench to the speakership after Mr. McCarthy’s support for Mr. Trump failed to save him from a right-wing rebellion.

Mr. Johnson took the lead in trying to corral support for Mr. Trump’s effort to overturn the 2020 election. He sent an email to all House Republicans telling them that he had spoken with the president, who expected them to sign onto a friend-of-the-court brief to the Supreme Court. “He said he will be anxiously awaiting the final list to review,” Mr. Johnson wrote.

Ms. Cheney took that as a veiled threat and said she was surprised about Mr. Johnson, whom she had thought of as a friend. “He appeared especially susceptible to flattery from Trump and aspired to being anywhere in Trump’s orbit,” she wrote. “When I confronted him with the flaws in his legal argument, Johnson would often concede, or say something to the effect of, ‘We just need to do this one last thing for Trump.’”

At first, Mr. McCarthy agreed with her that the pro-Trump brief went too far and told her he would not sign it because it would interfere with the power of states to run their own elections. “It federalizes too much,” he told her. But a day later, his name was added to the brief after all.

Mr. Johnson did not back down even after the Supreme Court unanimously rejected the case, sending Ms. Cheney a Fox News poll showing that 77 percent of Trump voters and 68 percent of Republicans believed the election had been stolen. “These numbers are big,” Mr. Johnson said, “and something we have to contend with as we thread the needle on messaging.”

Ms. Cheney noted that Mr. Trump’s supporters believed the election was stolen because Republicans like Mr. McCarthy and Mr. Johnson were echoing his lies.

Other Republicans were willing to toss aside traditions, norms and constitutional processes in the name of satisfying Mr. Trump’s desire to stay in power. When one Republican said during a meeting that they should not claim the election was rigged when there was no evidence, Representative Jim Jordan of Ohio, one of Mr. Trump’s staunchest allies, said, “The only thing that matters is winning.”  [emphasis added]

Likewise, she assailed Senator Ted Cruz, Republican of Texas, for seeking to set aside the counting of Electoral College votes on Jan. 6 while a commission investigated election results that had already been recounted and certified. “It was one of the worst cases of abandonment of duty for personal ambition I’ve ever seen in Washington,” Ms. Cheney wrote.

In some cases, she found that Republicans stayed loyal to Mr. Trump out of outright fear. One colleague told her he was worried about the safety of his wife and baby if he voted to impeach Mr. Trump for his role in the Jan. 6 attack.

Behind the scenes, though, other Republicans cheered her on. After she announced she would be one of what would ultimately be only 10 House Republicans to vote to impeach, former President George W. Bush sent her a note. “Liz, Courage is in short supply these days,” he wrote. “Thank you for yours. You showed strong leadership and I’m not surprised. Lead on. 43.”

Her vocal criticism of Mr. Trump grated on other Republicans, highlighting what she called their “plague of cowardice” in the face of the former president. When she contradicted Mr. McCarthy on Mr. Trump’s future role in the party during a joint news conference, Mr. McCarthy complained to her privately afterward.

“You’re killing me, Liz,” he said.

“Kevin, this is about the Constitution,” she replied. “Think of what Trump did. Think how appalled any of our previous Republican leaders would be about this. How would Reagan have reacted to this? How would Bush have reacted? Think of my dad.”

Mr. McCarthy dismissed that line of thinking. “This isn’t their party anymore,” he said.

On that, she wrote, she had to agree.

I’ve Got Still More ‘Toons!!!

Posted on by under Bits 'n Pieces, cartoons, Economic issues, Environmental Issues, Global Issues, Law and justice, Political commentary, Social commentary

I don’t think the political cartoonists ever sleep these days!!!  I only save the ones that I think are the best of the lot, and yet my stash is constantly overflowing.  So, let’s start the day out with some cartoons that very aptly and accurately define the state of this nation and the world today with few or no words needed …

Nothing But A Piece Of Paper

Posted on by under Election 2024, History, Law and justice, Political commentary, Social commentary

There was a time when I could not have imagined what the U.S. has become today.  Our society accepts so many things that were once deemed ‘unacceptable’.  Where does this path we’re on lead us?  Can we find the key to a better path, to change course before we reach the edge of the cliff?  I don’t know the answer … nobody does.  But Robert Reich’s newsletter today gives us some food for thought and I would ask you to pay particular attention to his final sentence … maybe put a sweater on first, though, for it is chilling.

Do you have to be a thug to be speaker or president?

Jim Jordan is following in the footsteps of his mentor, Donald Trump

By Robert Reich

17 October 2023

How is Jim Jordan rounding up votes among House Republicans to make himself speaker? The same way Trump maintains Republican support for his dangerous lies: by threatening to unleash the rage of the party’s MAGA base and far-right media ecosystem against any lawmaker standing in the way.

Some of Jordan’s Republican House colleagues have refused to back him because he opposes more aid for Ukraine. A few worry about this past eagerness to shutter the government (current funding ends November 17).

But Jordan is a political thug — former Republican Speaker John Boehner described him as a “legislative terrorist” — and his thuggery may pay off today.

Jordan has scheduled a public roll-call vote on the House floor, daring his opponents to openly vote against him and incur the wrath of the extremist MAGA right.

His supporters have been phoning holdouts and threatening primary challengers if they don’t go along. Jordan has enlisted the rightwing media in the fight. Fox News host Sean Hannity has been contacting swing district Republicans.

Extremist Republicans get what they want by unleashing the MAGA base.

That’s the way Jordan’s mentor, Donald Trump, has long operated. In recent months Trump has even been threatening judges and prosecutors trying to hold him accountable for alleged crimes.

Yesterday, Judge Tanya S. Churkan, who is presiding over Trump’s trial for attempting to overturn the results of the 2020 election, imposed a “limited gag order” that bars Trump from publicly attacking special counsel Jack Smith, other prosecutors, court staff, or potential witnesses.

She ruled that “First Amendment protections yield to the administration of justice and to the protection of witnesses,” adding that Trump’s “presidential candidacy does not give him carte blanche to vilify … public servants who are simply doing their job .… No other defendant would be allowed to do so, and I’m not going to allow it in this case.”

(Her order allows Trump to continue disparaging the Justice Department and President Biden and to assert that his prosecution is politically motivated. She also apparently left Trump free to attack her.)

Judge Churkan did not address how she will enforce her order. She merely said she would assess any consequences for Trump if and when he violates it. As a practical matter, though, what is she to do if his attacks continue? Throw Trump in jail and put his MAGA base into a frenzy?

Thuggery is inconsistent with democracy. It gives a few fanatics the power to dictate policy. It is a step on the road to fascism.

We have come to expect thuggery from Trump, but now it’s spread through the highest reaches of the Republican Party — pulling the GOP to the extreme right.

I worry most about Trump’s (and Jordan’s) cultish MAGA followers. Threats to unleash their wrath are credible because they have already demonstrated blind obedience and proclivities toward violence, as on January 6, 2021.

Ninety years ago, these sorts of people wore black shirts or brown shirts or red armbands with swastikas, and their hateful lies and threats silenced the publics of several nations.

Americans didn’t succumb, but the world sacrificed millions of people to contain the scourge. America remained resolute against the fanatics because we had leaders motivated by the common good rather than personal ambition, and a civic culture that respected the rule of law and the Constitution.

But the Constitution is impotent if powerful people — a former president, a potential speaker of the House — get their way by threatening to unleash the rage of their supporters, and if the public normalizes this behavior.

This is not normal. All of us must condemn it — and on Election Day send Trump and his House Republicans packing.

As Charles Evans Hughes, the chief justice of the Supreme Court during the 1930s when fascist thugs threatened democracy, noted, “You may think that the Constitution is your security — it is nothing but a piece of paper … it is nothing at all, unless you have sound and uncorrupted public opinion.” [emphasis added]

Here We Go Again …

Posted on by under Economic issues, Law and justice, Political commentary, Social commentary

Congress is currently on vacation.  The Senate will return to work on September 5th, and the House returns on September 12th, less than three weeks from the end of the month when the current spending bill expires.  Now, we all know that Congress isn’t going to agree on and pass a major appropriations bill in under three weeks, as do Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, both of whom have indicated support for a temporary, stop-gap bill to keep the government up and running while negotiations continue for the appropriations bill.

Okay, great, no problemo, right?  WRONG.  The problemo comes from the radical right House Freedom Caucus, led by the ignominious Jim Jordan, whose members really want the government to shut down!  To that end, even though they’re on vacation, they have signaled that they have some demands and will hold Congress, and thus the people of this nation, hostage unless their demands are met.  According to the House Freedom Caucus, they will refuse to even consider any stop-gap bill that does not cave to their terms.  And just exactly what are their terms?  They’re a bit vague …

“We will oppose any attempt by Washington to revert to its old playbook of using a series of short-term funding extensions designed to push Congress up against a December deadline to force the passage of yet another monstrous, budget-busting, pork-filled, lobbyist handout omnibus spending bill at year’s end and we will use every procedural tool necessary to prevent that outcome. Lastly, we will oppose any blank check for Ukraine in any supplemental appropriations bill.”

In addition, they said that the continuing resolution must also include provisions that “address the unprecedented weaponization of the Justice Department and FBI” and it must “end the Left’s cancerous woke policies in the Pentagon.”

Read that as you will … presumably the “weaponization of the DoJ and FBI” refers to the charges that have been brought against the former guy and others surrounding the attempt to overturn the 2020 election and to steal classified documents, and the “woke policies in the Pentagon” refers to U.S. military policies on abortion and gender-affirming care as well as diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility.

A government shutdown is not a toy or a tool to be used by certain members of Congress to have their own way.  A government shutdown is a dangerous weapon to wield that could and likely would have lasting effects on the economy, national security, and the well-being of this nation and its people.  Most members of Congress surely must understand this, but it seems that the Republicans will cower to whatever their far-right wing demands.  What hold do these people have that makes other Republicans willing to do their bidding, even though they know it is harming the very people they were elected to represent, the very people who pay their damned salaries???  They are pandering more to the former guy and his associates than they are listening to the voices of their constituents!

Time to get back into letter-writing/phone-calling mode, folks!  Let these jackals know that you’re watching, that you do NOT support their attempts to shut down the government and undo the good that has been done in the last two years by a president who has fought to help us, to create jobs and help people recover financially from the Covid era.  The Republicans think this is all a game, but it is one where human lives are actually at stake … our lives.

Obstructionist, Not Conservative!

Posted on by under Economic issues, Election 2024, History, Law and justice, Political commentary, Racism & Bigotry, Rants

On the first day the members of the 118th Congress walked into the Capitol to vote on a Speaker of the House, there was no doubt that it would end up being Kevin McCarthy.  Oh sure … they made him beg and sweat for it, forced concessions knowing that his fragile ego would not allow him to accept defeat at any cost, but there was no viable competition within the Republican House members for the job.  It’s a sad statement that Kevin McCarthy is actually the best they had to offer, for on a scale of 1-to-10, I’d give him a 2.

Now, I want to talk a bit about the House Freedom Caucus, for they are the worst of what the Republican Party has to offer.

The House Freedom Caucus (HFC) got its start in mid-January, 2015, when the most radical right-wing members of the Party joined forces with the sole goal of pushing the Party further to the right.  I will always believe that two things prompted this:  the election not once, but twice, of a Black man to the presidency, and the passage of the Affordable Care Act that, at least in theory, would enable all people in this country to have healthcare when they need it.

The HFC was founded by nine right-wing men calling themselves ultra-conservatives, including Jim (Gym) Jordan, Mick Mulvaney, Mark Meadows, and Ron DeSantis … yes, THAT Ron DeSantis!  They call themselves ‘conservatives’ but by definition they are obstructionists.  Their interest has absolutely nothing to do with the best interests of the nation or of its people and they will use any means at their disposal to obstruct good governance and throw the nation into turmoil.  Why?  Because they crave power, because they do not adhere to democratic principles but would much prefer an autocracy, and at the moment, their goal is to set the stage for President Biden’s defeat in 2024.  There is no Republican – not Trump or DeSantis, not Haley or Pence, and certainly not Hutchinson or Ramaswamy, who can win the general election as things stand now.  But, if the HFC can destroy the economy, destroy the trust of our allies abroad, then blame it all on Joe Biden, they might just stand a chance … at least that’s what they’re banking on.

The HFC has only 46 seats in the House of Representatives, but if you think about it, that’s more than 10% of the full House, so while they don’t hold a majority, they do make a difference … and certainly not one that is positive for the nation.  Historically they have been against anything and everything that promotes equality or helps people, such as the aforementioned Affordable Care Act, the Respect for Marriage Act that codified the right of same-sex couples to marry, and they almost unanimously voted to overturn President Biden’s electoral win in January 2021.  I sense they would relish a civil war of sorts in this nation.

Why are they on my radar today?  Because they are making empty threats right and left, saying they will refuse to vote for the deal worked out between the President and McCarthy to avoid a default on our debt that would send shockwaves around the globe, not to mention crash the economy here in the U.S.  They are threatening McCarthy with an ouster from his seat as Speaker of the House.  Now, with only 46 members, their threats can be passed off as idle … except they are screeching at the top of their lungs from their highest perches.  Except that we PAY these bastards and in exchange we expect them to put our interests ahead of their egos, yet they are unwilling to do so.  You could lose your job tomorrow, become homeless next month, and die of starvation by August and not a single member of the HFC would give a royal damn!  Only one thing matters to them:  next year’s election.

Here is a list of the members of the HFC.  Is your representative listed?  If so, call him/her, write him/her, and tell them that they are NOT doing the job you pay them to do and to either work for the people, else get the hell out of Congress!

118th Congress House Freedom Caucus members and allies

State District Representative
AZ 5 Andy Biggs
NC 8 Dan Bishop
CO 3 Lauren Boebert
OK 2 Josh Brecheen
CO 4 Ken Buck
MO 7 Eric Burlison
VA 6 Ben Cline
TX 27 Michael Cloud
GA 9 Andrew Clyde
GA 10 Mike Collins
AZ 2 Eli Crane
OH 8 Warren Davidson
TN 4 Scott DesJarlais
FL 19 Byron Donalds
SC 3 Jeff Duncan
ID 1 Russ Fulcher
FL 1 Matt Gaetz
VA 5 Bob Good
AZ 9 Paul Gosar
TN 7 Mark Green
GA 14 Marjorie Taylor Greene
VA 9 Morgan Griffith
WY At large Harriet Hageman
MD 1 Andy Harris
TN 1 Diana Harshbarger
LA 3 Clay Higgins
TX 13 Ronny Jackson
LA 4 Mike Johnson
OH 4 Jim Jordan
AZ 8 Debbie Lesko
FL 13 Anna Paulina Luna
IL 15 Mary Miller
OH 7 Max Miller
WV 2 Alex Mooney
AL 2 Barry Moore
NC 3 Greg Murphy
TX 22 Troy Nehls
SC 5 Ralph Norman
TN 5 Andy Ogles
AL 6 Gary Palmer
PA 10 Scott Perry
FL 8 Bill Posey
MT 2 Matt Rosendale
TX 21 Chip Roy
AZ 1 David Schweikert
TX 3 Keith Self
FL 17 Greg Steube
WI 7 Tom Tiffany
TX 14 Randy Weber

Ban Assault Weapons NOW!!! NO COMPROMISE!!!

Posted on by under guns, History, Law and justice, Political commentary, Social commentary

Yesterday, Jim Jordan canceled a hearing to de-regulate “pistol straps,” devices that enhance the killing efficiency of pistols.  His reason for cancelling wasn’t respect or compassion for the six people, three of them children, who died in the Nashville school shooting earlier in the day, but rather fear that the shooting would trigger negativity by people with a conscience (Democrats).  Jordan did not want Democrats to use the hearing to highlight that Republicans care more about blood money from lobbyists than they care about the lives of schoolchildren.

Most mass shootings, including the one yesterday at a school in Nashville, Tennessee, are committed using assault weapons such as the AR-15.  And so once again it is time to have serious discussion about reinstating the assault weapons ban that was allowed by Congress to expire in 2004, but next time it needs to be made permanent – assault weapons were made for the military, not for civilians and they need to be made completely inaccessible to the public!!!  No compromise!!!

Let’s hear what Robert Reich has to say on this topic …

The lives of our children or the greed of gun manufacturers?

By Robert Reich

28 March 2023

Friends,

Yesterday morning, a woman armed with assault rifles entered a Christian school in Nashville and fatally shot three nine-year-old children and three staff members before she was shot and killed by the police.

It makes me weep. It’s happening again and again and again. Our children.

President Biden renewed his call for Congress to reinstate the Assault Weapons Ban, but with Republicans in control of the House there’s little to no chance.

So far this year, there have been 129 mass shootings in the United States.

Ten of the 17 deadliest U.S. mass shootings since 2012 have involved AR-15s. In a review of the history of the AR-15, the Washington Post reports that it was originally designed in the 1950s as a soldiers’ rifle. “An outstanding weapon with phenomenal lethality,” according to an internal Pentagon report. It soon became standard issue for U.S. troops in Vietnam (where the weapon was called the M16).

Few gunmakers envisioned that ordinary people would buy the semiautomatic version, which didn’t seem suited for hunting and appeared overkill for home defense. The National Rifle Association and other industry allies focused on promoting traditional rifles and handguns.

Today, the AR-15 is the best-selling rifle in the United States, owned by about 1 in 20 U.S. adults, or roughly 16 million people. It dominates the walls and websites of gun dealers. (Republican Rep. Barry Moore of Alabama has even introduced a bill to declare the AR-15 the “National Gun of America.”)

What accounts for this dramatic change? Follow the money. The early 2000s were a tough time for the firearms industry. Gun sales had been flat for several years. But after the Assault Weapons Ban ended in 2004, gun manufacturers saw a chance to ride a post-9/11 surge in military glorification. As America soldiers were seen in Afghanistan and Iraq wearing tactical gear and holding M16 and M4 carbine rifles, gunmakers used the conflict-zone images to market AR-15s.

“We made it look cool,” said Randy Luth, the founder of gunmaker DPMS, one of the earliest companies to promote AR-15s. “The same reason you buy a Corvette.”

One Smith & Wesson AR-15 ended up in the hands of Kyle Rittenhouse, the teenager who fatally shot two people and wounded a third during 2020’s racial justice protests in Kenosha, Wisconsin. As Rittenhouse explained during his trial, he chose an AR-15 because “I thought it looked cool.”

Another AR-15 was alluring to the gunman who killed 10 Black people at a supermarket in Buffalo in May 2022. “The AR-15 and its variants are very deadly when used properly,” he wrote in a manifesto filled with racial vitriol. “Which is the reason I picked one.” Ten days later, 19 schoolchildren and two adults were shot to death in Uvalde, Tex., with another AR-15.

The string of attacks prompted President Biden, who as a senator had strongly supported the 1994 assault weapons ban, to promise a renewed effort to stop the sale of military-style weapons. Last year, the Democratic-led House passed a new assault weapons ban on a tight party-line vote of 217-213 — the first time the measure had been voted on in nearly three decades. But the Senate, also run by Democrats, never took action.

***

When Bill Clinton signed the original Assault Weapons Ban in 1994, he was widely condemned by Republicans and gun owners. The Democrats’ subsequent losses of the House and Senate in the 1996 midterm elections were partly blamed on the ban. But it saved lives.

The 10-year length of the ban has allowed researchers to compare mass shooting deaths before, during, and after the ban.

Before: From 1981 (the earliest year analyzed) until the ban went into effect in 1994, the proportion of deaths in mass shootings in which an assault rifle was used was lower than it is today, and the average number of yearly deaths attributed to mass shootings was 7.2.

During: In the years after the assault weapons ban went into effect, the average number of yearly deaths from mass shootings fell to 5.3. Even including 1999’s Columbine High School massacre (the deadliest mass shooting during the period of the ban), the 1994 to 2004 period saw lower average annual rates of both mass shootings and deaths resulting from such incidents than before the ban’s inception.

After: In the years after the assault weapons ban expired in 2004, the data shows an almost immediate – and steep – rise in mass shooting deaths to an average of 25.

Researchers have calculated that the risk of a person in the U.S. dying in a mass shooting was 70 percent lower when assault weapons ban was in place than it is today.

Facts, data, logic, analysis — do they play any role in what our government decides? The Republican Party in particular no longer listens, or thinks. It is owned — lock, stock, and barrel — by the gun industry.

You might think that preventing young children from being murdered in random mass killings by assailants with assault weapons would be a goal shared by all lawmakers. But you’d be wrong.

The Assault Weapons Ban must be reinstated — the greed of gun manufacturers be damned.

Committee Flops Like A Dead Fish

Posted on by under Bits 'n Pieces, History, Law and justice, Political commentary, Social commentary

Robert Hubbell’s newsletter this morning covered a few important and encouraging topics, for those of us who are feeling a bit overwhelmed by the right-wing drama of late, both in the House of Representatives and in the State of Florida!  Here is just one of the topics he covered …

Democrats Fight Back!

Robert B. Hubbell

7 March 2023

Democrats have been frustrated by the asymmetry between GOP disinformation and bad-faith political tactics on the one hand and Democratic messaging and political responses on the other. The feelings of unfairness are aggravated by the complicity of the news media, which defaults to a worldview in which all political disagreements are mere “squabbles,” a view that does not apply when one of the parties to the “squabble” seeks nothing less than the end of democracy. But with a few moments of reflection and a dollop of perspective, we can see that Democrats are doing a credible job of fighting back. The J6 hearings were a triumph, as was Joe Biden’s State of the Union address.

In this edition, I want to highlight two instances in which Democrats are pushing back hard—and not getting the publicity they deserve. You can help with that. But first, let’s look at two instances where Democrats are doing exactly what you want and expect.

Democrats offer devastating “prebuttal” to Jim Jordan’s “Weaponization” Committee.

Representative Jim Jordan promised to “blow the roof off the deep state” with hearings before his “Weaponization of Government” Subcommittee. For months, Jordan broadly hinted about devastating testimony from “dozens and dozens of whistleblowers.” But after the first depositions of those alleged whistleblowers, Jordan produced only three witnesses—all of whom have ties to Trump and are known for pushing deep-state conspiracy theories.

Jordan’s failure to deliver the goods is bad. See Axios, Jim Jordan scrambles amid assertions that “weaponization” probe is a dud. He overpromised and undelivered because he was unprepared. Not so for the Democratic staffers on the Weaponization Committee who delivered a jaw-dropping, gob-smacking “prebuttal” report on the testimony of Jordan’s faux whistleblowers. The report is devastating for Jordan and will make it difficult for him to recover his momentum in the hearings. Republican critics are already pleading with Jordan to “deliver the goods.” Jesse Waters said on Fox News, “Make me feel better, guys. Tell me this is going somewhere.”

The 315-page report by the Democratic staffers is here: GOP Witnesses: What Their Disclosures Indicate About the  State of the Republican Investigations. While it is unreasonable to expect that you will read the 315 pages, the two-page “Executive Summary” lays out the substance of the report as follows (in part):

First, the three individuals we have met are not, in fact, “whistleblowers.” These individuals, who put forward a wide range of conspiracy theories, did not present actual evidence of any wrongdoing at the Department of Justice or the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).

Second, the transcribed interviews we have held thus far refute House Republican narrative about “bias” at the Department of Justice. We urge Chairman Jordan to schedule the public testimony of these individuals without delay. The American public should be able to judge for themselves whether these witnesses or their allegations are remotely credible.

Third, these interviews also reveal the active engagement and orchestration of disturbing outside influence on the witnesses and, potentially, the Republican members of the Select Subcommittee. A network of organizations, led by former Trump administration officials like Kash Patel and Russell Vought, appears to have identified these witnesses, provided them with financial compensation, and found them employment after they left the FBI. . . .

Fourth, . . . the witnesses. . . are tied together by the attacks of January 6, 2021. The [FBI “whistleblower”] witnesses whom we have met objected to the arrest of individuals suspected to have laid siege to the United States Capitol. Others of the “dozens and dozens,” we suspect, participated directly in the riot.

What follows in the next 313 pages is a systematic dismantling of the first three witnesses who were identified, compensated, and promised employment by Kash Patel—a bottom-feeder in Trumpworld. Here is an example of the Democratic staffers’ analysis of the credibility of one former FBI witness:

George Hill claimed, among other things, that the attack on the Capitol on January 6, 2021, was “a set up,” that it was “a larger #Democrat plan using their enforcement arm, the #FBI,” and that rioter Ashli Babbit was “murdered” by a Capitol Police officer. He also described the FBI as “the Brown Shirt enforcers of the @DNC,” an apparent reference to Nazi Storm Troopers. He has publicly stated that “there needs to take place a reeducation” and that Americans should embrace the risk of dying by terrorism rather than accept the domestic intelligence programs that keep them safe.

Humiliated, Jordan’s response is to claim that he needs a $15 million “reserve fund” to run his investigation with a $2 million annual retainer for staff. In other words, “he’s got nothing” and is scrambling to cover his asinine statement in which he promised “dozens and dozens of whistleblowers” who evidently do not exist.

We should not underestimate the ability of Republicans to cause mischief with bad-faith hearings. However, in the first round, the Democratic staffers dominated the narrative by producing a prodigious and compelling report. In the process, they made Jordan look like the fool he is. Tell a friend!

Homeland Terror

Posted on by under Bits 'n Pieces, cartoons, Election 2022, Political commentary, Racism & Bigotry, Re-blogs

I keep hoping to wake up from the nightmare that is defined by the current U.S. House of Representatives, but so far no luck. The House “leader” has placed the most UNqualified candidates in positions on committees that he could find, and they are indulging their fantasies with “investigations” that they know are bogus, that will have no effect other than to turn the House into a three-ring circus! And we pay these arseholes for this! Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrr. Clay Jones of Claytoonz fame has written an excellent piece about a couple of these unqualified clowns sitting on committees. For the record, I fully agree with all he says. Thank you, Clay!

CLAYTOONZ

Let’s make one thing clear. What happened on January 6, 2021, was a terrorist attack against our country.

It was an insurrection by white nationalists to overturn a free democratic election and install an unelected dictator. It was a coup attempt.

It was an attack designed to stop the certification of the election, a duty mandated on Congress by the United States Constitution.

The people who did this are terrorists. Ashli Babbitt, who was killed during the attack, was a terrorist.

This was an attack on the United States of America. It was not a protest. It wasn’t just a bunch of tourists. It was a terrorist attack that was instigated by conspiracy theories and the lie that Donald Trump won the 2020 election and it was stolen from him by Joe Biden, Democrats, and a Deep State. One of the biggest advocates for this lie and assault on our…

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So Many Questions

Posted on by under Bits 'n Pieces, education, Election 2020, Election 2022, History, Law and justice, Political commentary, Re-blogs, Social commentary

Our dear friend and my writing partner, Jeff, has questions. They are the same questions we all ask, even though we already know the answers. But, we cannot stop asking … we MUST NOT stop asking! We just need to keep asking, and asking the people who are to blame, not just the ones who are asking the same questions we are. Good post, Jeff, and I’m hoping for more soon? We’ve missed you!!!

On The Fence Voters

It’s been a while—more on that in the future. But today, I’ve got questions. So many questions.

The answers elude me, but these are the things that boggle my mind regularly.

Why is it that one state in our union elected a man, Greg Abbott, who thinks it’s cute to send busloads of asylum seekers to the doorstep of the Vice-President of the United States of America? On one of the coldest nights of the year and Christmas Eve to boot? Surely the people of Texas aren’t this cruel, bigoted, and inhumane. Are they?

Why is the wealthiest man in the world allowed to purchase a social media company, then use it as a gaslight factory that enables bigots, conspiracy theorists, and other crackpots to spew whatever kind of hate and disinformation they desire?

What’s happened to the once great state of Ohio that went for Barack Obama twice and…

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Members Of Congress Walk Free

Posted on by under Election 2020, History, Law and justice, Political commentary

While I was pleased to see the January 6th committee issue recommendations on four counts of criminality for Donald Trump (see Keith’s post for an excellent summation), I must admit to being a bit disappointed on one front.  The committee did make recommendations that four members of Congress should be investigated by the House Ethics Committee, not for their roles in the January 6th attempted coup, but for refusing to testify before the committee.  Numerous members of Congress did, in fact, participate in the attempts to overturn the election and silence the voices of the majority, and personally I consider it a slap in the face to We the People that they are to be allowed to keep their seats in Congress with no accountability for their actions.  Philip Bump, writing for The Washington Post, summed it up well …

Trump’s Jan. 6 enablers in Congress can now exhale

Philip Bump

20 December 2022

The House select committee investigating the riot at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, concluded its work on Monday, releasing part of its report on its findings and a clutch of referrals to the Justice Department for possible criminal investigation. It also released a less explosive set of recommendations: that four members of Congress should be investigated by the House Ethics Committee for failing to comply with the committee’s inquiry.

With that, the door apparently closed on one of the most titillating aspects of the riot, that members of Congress might have been somehow directly involved in the day’s violence. But the door also seems to have closed on another aspect of the post-election period: accountability for members of Congress who eagerly worked to assist Donald Trump’s effort to retain power despite his election loss.

That group had already sidestepped one mechanism for accountability. As The Washington Post reported last week, nearly every member of the House who voted in opposition to recognizing electors from Arizona or Pennsylvania in the hours after the riot — trying to effect through their votes what the mob had been trying to achieve through force — were reelected in last month’s midterm elections. In fact, there’s no obvious evidence that they suffered any political effect for their participation in the effort to block those electors.

But not all of those members of Congress were equivalently invested in preserving Trump’s power. A smaller group, generally closer to the caucus’s rightmost fringe, worked directly with outside groups on promoting the idea that the 2020 election had been stolen and worked with the White House on boosting Trump’s bid to derail his election loss.

Reporting from Talking Points Memo indicates that more than 30 Republican members of Congress communicated with White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows to offer moral or structural support for Trump’s effort. They passed along unfounded claims of fraud, sent messages of encouragement to the president or, at times, called for a more forceful response to block Joe Biden’s inauguration. In many cases, those legislators were also amplifying false claims about the election to their supporters.

On Nov. 4, 2020, the day after the election, the Twitter account of Rep.-elect Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) was flagged 19 times for sharing false or baseless claims about the election results. She continued to make similar claims in the months that followed; she continues to do so to this day. Greene also participated in a briefing at the White House about the election results (despite not yet serving in Congress) on Dec. 21, 2020, along with a number of other House Republicans including Reps. Mo Brooks (Ala.), Brian Babin (Tex.), Andy Biggs (Ariz.), Matt Gaetz (Fla.), Paul A. Gosar (Ariz.), Andy Harris (Md.), Jody Hice (Ga.), Scott Perry (Pa.) and Jim Jordan (Ohio).

Organizers had planned a series of events centered on Jan. 6 in the weeks before the Capitol riot. One, scheduled for Capitol Hill just as the counting of electoral votes began on that day, was put together by fringe activists working under the “Stop the Steal” banner. The lead organizer, Ali Alexander, identified Greene as a friend who was engaged in trying to prevent Biden’s inauguration.

He also claimed that Biggs, Brooks and Gosar had been involved in planning his event. Alexander is not a trustworthy source of information, and the Capitol Hill rally never materialized as planned. (Greene denied involvement in planning an event, as did Biggs and Brooks. Gosar has not addressed the claim.) A potential lineup of speakers submitted with the group’s permit application, though, lists Greene, Gosar, Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.) and others as speakers. Another organizer of the combined event program for the day (including Trump’s speech) offered a similar list of elected officials as having participated in the discussions: Biggs, Boebert, Brooks, Gosar and Rep.-elect Madison Cawthorn (R-N.C.).

(In the immediate aftermath of the Capitol riot, there was an enormous amount of attention paid to tours of the Capitol complex given by Republican legislators in the days before the riot. There’s no evidence that this was nefarious; it appears to have been primarily a function of unlucky timing.)

These details, though, distract from the broader effort to bolster Trump’s rhetoric. The post-election period offered Republican leaders a choice: build political capital with right-wing voters by siding with Trump’s obviously false and baseless claims of fraud or challenge the sitting president’s rhetoric — including by refusing to amplify it. The elected officials listed above had no qualms about sharing misinformation about the election. In fact, their messages to Meadows often indicate that they may actually have believed the quickly debunked claims they were spreading. Even on Jan. 6 itself, Greene and at least one other elected Republican tried to blame the riot on the political left.

While we talk about the House select committee as being focused on the Capitol riot, the committee’s work covered much of the post-election effort by Trump to retain power. The preliminary report released on Monday explores not only the immediate triggers for the riot but also other parallel efforts by Trump and his allies to keep him in office.

Which makes the committee’s limited condemnations of other elected officials more notable. Despite those legislators having been actively involved in the broader effort and serving in positions that require an oath of fealty to the Constitution, the committee offered only formal objections over the failure of four legislators — House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), Biggs, Jordan and Perry — to comply with the committee’s requests for information. Instead of doing so, several of them were explicit in casting the committee as illegitimate or partisan, intentionally weakening the potency of the committee’s work.

It’s unlikely that the Ethics Committee will offer much of a slap on the wrist, if any, particularly since that bipartisan committee will soon be chaired by a Republican. Those members of the House who amplified Trump’s false claims, worked to assist with his efforts to retain power, voted to block electors from Arizona and Pennsylvania and then blocked or minimized the investigation undertaken by their colleagues will simply continue to serve in Congress.

On Jan. 3, they will once again take a sworn oath to defend the Constitution, as they did on the same day two years prior.