banks, jim Rep 2% ind

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note MTG

pow troll pending, showing up in alternet 1 23 118th?

don jr new rt BS // JDV

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Indiana, District 3 Phone: 202-225-4436

2020 Score Lifetime Score

5% 2%

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rww

9 26

Layla A. Jones @ Talking Points Memo: How a Baseless, Right-Wing Social Media Panic Led to Dramatic Changes at the Census Bureau

When longtime Indiana politician Sen. Jim Banks (R-IN) lobbed a powerful allegation against the Census Bureau last October, what had been a low-profile, fringe GOP conspiracy theory burst to the fore. Banks said he believed the Census Bureau had injected errors in the decennial population count and survey which were so severe, they netted Democrats more representation in Congress at the expense of Republican seats.

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an 3 26

Indystar reports Indiana’s Gov. Mike Braun has signed a new bill forcing state colleges and universities to include a “classics-based” examination embraced by religious colleges in Republican states.

For decades, the ACT and the SAT have been the gatekeepers and the standard-bearer of college admissions to measure a student's aptitude in core subjects like math, science and reading. But proponents said the test “would better assess students who received a classical education, typically offered to homeschooled students or at private or charter classical schools,” according to the IndyStar.

The newly required Classical Learning Test aims to promote the "Western intellectual tradition" that right-wing supporters claim has been abandoned by existing standardized tests.

The change stems from a legislative bill that also “requires schools to teach a 2000s-era anti-poverty theory involving waiting until marriage to have kids as part of schools' good citizenship instruction,” reports IndyStar. “It passed mostly along party lines amid criticism that the CLT could disadvantage students who are less accustomed to Western ideas.”

"It has baked-in prejudices that would make students who come from less diverse backgrounds appear to have done better than students from more diverse backgrounds," said Joel Hand, a lobbyist for the American Federation of Teachers for Indiana, during Senate committee testimony in January.

Classic Learning Test creator Jeremy Tate applauded the bill's passage in Indiana in an X post Feb. 24.

“While Tate has said the test is not partisan, his company's expansive Board of Academic Advisors include administrators from religious colleges and right-wing figures like Kevin Roberts of the Heritage Foundation and PragerU CEO Marissa Streit,” reports IndyStar. “It's also been promoted by Sen. Jim Banks, who called it the "standard for academic excellence."

PragerU is not a university, but a conservative nonprofit known for producing wildly inaccurate educational videos. One PragerU videofrom its history series depicts abolitionist and former slave Frederick Douglass arguing that the founders’ decision not to abolish U.S. slavery was worth it because it helped convince the Southern colonies to join the Union.

“Our system is wonderful, and the Constitution is a glorious liberty document. We just need to convince enough Americans to be true to it,” the video depicts Douglass saying.

Teachers' unions and academics also doubt the value of the Classic Learning Test considering its concepts and biased arguments.

===

an 10 24

Donald Trump Jr. recently told The Wall Street Journal that his father, former President Donald Trump, "always jokes—or maybe doesn’t joke, I’m not 100% sure sometimes with him—'You know, you’re much better at politics than you were at real estate.'"

The former co-host of "The Apprentice," and current host of "one of the most popular" podcasts on the Rumble platform, Trump Jr. has big plans for the GOP in the case his dad reclaims the White House next month, the WSJ reported Sunday.

“I don’t want just MAGA with only Trump, and then it goes back to the old ways,” Trump Jr. told the newspaper. “We need to have a bench. And for a long time I don’t think we had any of that. And this election cycle, you’ve seen the emergence of people that can actually carry that mantle. I think that’s really important.”

READ MORE:[The 'contradiction at the heart of the Republican Party' that gives Dems an advantage: columnist

The MAGA heir is proud that he successfully managed to get Senator JD Vance (R-OH) on the 2024 GOP ticket.

“I expended about 1,000% of my political capital" in persuading his dad to pick the Ohio senator as running mate, Trump Jr. told the WSJ, "as Vance smiled bashfully beside him."

“Making the argument, getting others who believe the same thing to do that—you know, just a constant barrage. I can be pretty persistent when I need to be.”

WSJ reports:

Vance isn’t the only lawmaker he’s handpicked and promoted. Rep. Jim Banks, a wonky young Indiana congressman who grew up in a trailer park, caught Trump Jr.’s eye with a 2021 memo calling on the party to ignore the “embittered and loud minority in the GOP that finds our new coalition distasteful” and seize the opportunity to 'permanently become the Party of the Working Class.'

Trump Jr. was one of Banks’s first supporters in his current run for Senate, endorsing him even before his father did, hosting multiple fundraisers and campaign events and helping clear the field of GOP competition. 'More than anybody, Don is focused on the future of the movement, building the new Republican Party, getting younger people like myself and JD elected in key places,' Banks said. “He recognizes those of us who are fighting back, changing the old-school Republican Party to the America First, pro-Trump party.'*

The WSJ also highlights Trump Jr.'s appeal with GOP donors as one of his superpowers.

“From a donor standpoint, he’s by far the No. 1 requested person,” a top Republican fundraising consultant told the newspaper. "He goes places and they sell out immediately. He’s the No. 1 surrogate and it’s not even close. It’s pretty rare that you have someone who has that kind of hybrid appeal with both donors and grassroots.”

If his father defeats Vice President Kamala Harris, "Trump Jr. will be well positioned to call in favors from the Congress he has stocked with friends and allies," such as Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL).

"I think the Republican Party has just drastically changed and there’s no going back," Vance told the WSJ. "And my job is to make sure that that change is successful and effective and can actually implement successful public policies."

READ MORE:['The party needs to burn to the ground': Former adviser rips into GOP u

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an 1 23

rep. Jim Banks (R-Ind.) is expressing interest in supporting a piece of legislation that would prohibit women from leaving the state to receive abortion treatment.

During a recent appearance on "The Pat Miller Show," Banks floated desire for stricter federal regulations to further restrict access to abortion care.

At one point during the discussion, Miller offered an example of a scenario where women could circumvent laws in one state by traveling to another state to have the procedure done.

"Our work as a pro-life movement is far from over," Miller said. "If a young lady can hop in a car in Fort Wayne and in an hour and a half she can be in a place in Michigan or in just under 3 hours, she could cross the line into Illinois and achieve what she was able to do with abortion clinics here in Indiana. The fight is far from over."

Then, Banks weighed in with his opinion as he expressed support for more laws. According to Banks, the move would be one to "save lives" and "protect babies."

"That's exactly right," Banks said, adding, "And I'm for federal legislation, for stronger laws at the state levels. Whatever we can do to save lives, to protect babies. That's what this fight is all about."

Watch the video below or at this link.

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mma 1 23

Rep. Jim Banks (R-IN) launched his campaign for the U.S. Senate on Tuesday by doing nearly a dozen interviews with right-wing TV and radio hosts and podcasters. His deep dive into the fever swamp demonstrates the influence the party’s radical commentators have on the modern Republican Party.

Banks, a hard-right culture warrior and 2020 election denier who was barred from a position on the House’s January 6 select committee, used the right-wing media to boost his profile as a member of Congress. He regularly appears on Fox News and promotes the conspiracy theories and obsessions of its stars; his communications director is Fox host Tucker Carlson’s son.

Banks officially announced his campaign during an early morning Fox & Friends hit and ended his day on the network’s prime-time show The Ingraham Angle (his 50th appearance on that program since 2018). In between, he courted Fox heavyweights Sean Hannity and Mark Levin on their radio shows; Newsmax host Sean Spicer; influential podcasters Steve Bannon, Charlie Kirk, and Vince Coglianese; Salem Radio Network host Hugh Hewitt; and local radio hosts Tony Katz and Rocky Boiman. Articles based on his pre-announcement interviews with National Review and FoxNews.com also published that day.

All day long, Banks’ campaign Twitter feed spewed out promotional clips from his various appearances.

Banks used the series of largely supportive interviews to tout his adherence to fringe-right narratives and conspiracy theories. He highlighted how he is “fighting to keep girls’ sports for girls” with Brian Kilmeade; condemned the “globalist agenda” to Laura Ingraham; bemoaned “wokeism infecting corporate America” with Hannity; recounted how he founded the House’s “first-ever anti-woke caucus” because “wokeism is a cancer” in his interview with Coglianese; and complained about the purported teaching of “critical race theory” in schools with Boiman.

Appearances like these give Banks the opportunity to win over powerful GOP figures and the audiences that trust them. And it shows whose support he prioritizes – hardcore insurrectionists like Bannon and Levin who played key roles in Donald Trump’s scheme to subvert the 2020 election, and anti-vax COVID-19 conspiracy theorists like Kirk and Ingraham.

Banks’ campaign is reveling in the success of this strategy of cozying up to the party’s most volatile figures.

Levin endorsed Banks for Senate during their interview, saying that he “demonstrated that you’re very solid and one of the great leaders in the House” and “would be a great senator.” Banks, in turn, praised Levin – the mastermind of the plot to pressure then-Vice President Mike Pence to illegally reject electors from key states won by Joe Biden – as “such an important conservative voice in America today."

Banks’ campaign also promoted praise from far-right commentator Jesse Kelly.

GOP Senate candidates steeped in right-wing culture war narratives had a rough time in the 2022 midterms. It remains to be seen whether Indiana’s voters want to be represented by someone laser-focused on loudly talking about girls’ sports while quietly plotting to shred the social safety net.

https://www.mediamatters.org/fox-news/rep-jim-banks-tries-grow-senates-fox-news-caucus

no lnx vid

rep. Jim Banks (R-IN) announced on Tuesday that he is running for U.S. Senate in 2024, seeking the seat being vacated by retiring Sen. Mike Braun (R-IN). His election would add to the Senate’s Fox News Caucus of members favored by the right-wing network.

Fox News’ prime-time hosts are influential albeit flawed GOP kingmakers. Their endorsements and on-air support carried four first-time Senate candidates to their party’s nomination during the 2022 election cycle. But while those nominees’ affinities for Fox’s strange fixations were crucial to winning their Republican primaries, they hurt them in the general election: Former NFL player Herschel Walker, TV quack doctor Mehmet Oz, and venture capital executive Blake Masters lost winnable races in the swing states of Georgia, Pennsylvania, and Arizona, respectively, while Ohio’s J.D. Vance won but significantly underperformed in a redder state.

Banks, if elected, would join Vance as a senator who owes his ascension to Fox and its biggest stars. Initially a Trump-skeptical member described as “serious but not particularly flamboyant,” the fourth-term congressman became one of several House Republicans who use Fox to bolster their political standing.

Banks has made at least 114 weekday appearances on Fox since January 2018, and he is a fixture on Laura Ingraham’s prime-time show, where his 49 appearances make him her fourth most-frequent House guest over that period. For his willingness to parrot the network’s slashing culture war rhetoric, Banks became a Fox favorite — Tucker Carlson, whose adult son is Banks’ communications director, has praised the congressman as “a sincere and principled conservative.”

Banks has worked to turn the culture war obsessions common to the shows of Ingraham and Carlson into the GOP’s agenda.Banks authored and circulated a memo following the 2020 election that urged Republicans to rebrand as the “Party of the Working Class” by adopting Fox-friendly focuses on issue areas such as “anti-wokeness” and the Democratic Party’s purported “coziness with China.” The memo, which notably did not mention core economic issues like taxes, spending, deficits, or debt, drew praise from Carlson for demonstrating that Republicans are “the party of the American middle class.”

Banks’ announcement video suggests a similar focus for his Senate campaign, featuring the sort of culture war rhetoric and topics familiar to any consumer of right-wing media. After highlighting the candidate’s “working-class home” and service in the U.S. military, it seamlessly transitions from images of the GOP congressman “defending America then” in Afghanistan to “defending America now” on Ingraham’s Fox show.

Banks declares that “radical socialist Democrats are trying to change America, but I won’t let them,” before highlighting his work “on the front lines” on issues like “protecting girls sports” and trying “to stop critical race theory and anti-Americanism from being taught in our schools and pushed on our troops.”

Banks clearly wants the GOP primary to revolve around such issues. He drew an implicit contrast with potential opponent Mitch Daniels,a former budget director in President George W. Bush’s administration who served two terms as Indiana’s governor and called for “a truce on the so-called social issues” during a brief run for president in 2012.

“I’ll never be calling for a truce on social issues or cultural issues,” Banks told Politico for an article about his campaign’s launch.

But in a sign of just how thin Banks’ Fox-style populism really is, he eschewed mention of economic concerns like taxes and the social safety net in his announcement video. He did, however, tell Politico that he will be “leading the charge” to use a catastrophic breach of the nation’s debt limit as leverage to secure unnamed spending cuts — a right-wing media priority.

For a sense of what kind of policies Banks might support, journalists should look to his record — he supported the Trump tax cuts and the legislation to kick tens of millions of Americans off health insurance by repealing Obamacare — as well as his allies. The Club for Growth has threatened to spend up to $10 million against Daniels; the right-wing economic organization supports cutting taxes for the rich while increasing them for the poor and middle class by implementing a flat or national sales tax system; “dramatically reduc[ing] discretionary spending”; and repealing Obamacare, cutting Medicaid and Medicare, and privatizing Social Security. The group has already fired off an attack ad that hits the former governor for raising taxes and helping Bush pass the Medicare Part D prescription drug benefit.

That’s the modern Fox-fueled GOP platform that Banks promotes: culture war attacks hiding the party’s plutocratic interests.

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mma 11 22

The COP27 climate summit hosted by the Egyptian government concluded on November 20 with a hard-fought agreement to compensate countries that are most vulnerable to climate disasters. Before the ink was even dry on this landmark “loss and damage” deal (considered a step forward in both acknowledging and addressing global climate injustices), Fox News personalities and guests began attacking it.

As the conference concluded on Sunday, Fox News turned its attention to attacking climate reparations.Fox & Friends Sunday co-host Pete Hegseth described the fund as a “sin tax,” saying, “Ultimately, it's self-loathing. It’s the belief that the West's success was premised on pollution, so now it's our turn to pay developing countries … because we built the world based on their backs.” On The Big Sunday Show, Fox contributor Sean Duffy bizarrely criticized the fund because it doesn’t allow recipients to use the allocations to invest in fossil fuels.

Since Sunday, at least 9 programs on the network have discussed climate reparations. Much of the coverage is largely in line with the lines of attack we predicted from right-wing media ahead of the conference. It consisted of misleading attacks suggesting that these payments would hurt the U.S. economy and further empower China; represent a form of wealth redistribution; or are unfair to the recipients because they can’t use the funds to develop fossil fuels.

What is loss and damage financing and why it matters

After 30 years of pressure from developing nations, world leaders agreed to create a new fund through which rich countries will help pay for vulnerable countries to recover from climate-fueled disasters. The concept, known as loss and damage or climate reparations, was a point of contention at COP27 specifically among richer countries like the United States.However, the U.S., among other nations, has agreed to contribute to the fund while not accepting any liability for loss and damage caused by climate change.

G20 countries, which represent about 80% of global economic output, are also responsible for about 75% of toxic greenhouse gas pollution. Yet small and poorer countries, particularly island nations, bear the brunt of those impacts in the form of drought, sea-level rise, and other disasters resulting in enormous economic losses. The African Development Bank estimates that the continent has already lost between 5-15% of its GDP growth due to climate impacts.Climate-fueled flooding in Pakistan that killed more than 1,000 people and displaced or otherwise affected more than 30 million this summer gave urgency to loss and damage negotiations this year. In a September segment on CNN’s New Day, correspondent Clarissa Ward reported on the flooding and the comments from United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres on the need for climate reparations for these types of climate disasters, while noting that Pakistan emits less than 1% of global emissions but suffers disproportionate harm from climate impacts such as flooding.

However, almost none of the details of the fund, such as which countries will contribute, who exactly will get the money, and how much will be offered up, have been discussed. The U.S. and the European Union are pushing to ensure that China would not benefit from the funding and that it would eventually have to contribute, though it is defined by the U.N. as a developing nation. China’s position as the world's biggest greenhouse gas emitter may throw that label into question with regard to this particular fund in the coming months. The country has voiced its opposition to being treated like a developed nation.

Despite the importance of this historic agreement, Fox has wasted no time in demonizing the fund and using the deal to discredit global action on climate change:

On Gutfeld, Fox News contributor Michele Tafoya said: “These reparations are stupid…it’s all like this massive virtue signal.” She added, “I hate the U.N.” Host Greg Gutfeld said that there’s “no science behind it.” Fox News, Gutfeld!, [11/22/22]
On The Falkner Focus, Fox & Friends Weekends host Will Cain said that climate reparations are “virtue signaling,”which he claims is the biggest, “fraud perpetrated not just on society but to individuals,” in addition to comparing the loss and damage agreement to “FTX and Sam Bankman-Fried.” He also falsely claimed that China will, “get money from this global reparations tax while emitting more carbon than anybody on Earth.” Fox News, The Falkner Focus, [11/22/22]
On The Ingraham Angle, Rep. Jim Banks (R-IN) said: “To pay for the weather, bad weather, in foreign countries out of the pocketbooks of hard-working Americans might be the most insane thing I've ever seen.”:{ Fox News, The Ingraham Angle, :(style="background-color:#ffffffff"):}:[11/21/22:{]}:

The Ingraham Angle host Laura Ingraham grouped climate reparations in with “vaccine passports, climate reparations, tracking people’s movements, and taking away their basic freedoms, basically signing everything off to China and the WHO." Fox News, The Ingraham Angle, [11/21/22]

Fox News host Tucker Carlson incorrectly said: “The country that seems almost determined to destroy the planet, that would be China, is exempted from the reparations.” Echoing past segments that fearmonger about the implementation of green energy policies, he started the segment saying, “Fossil fuels are the reason we have civilization. Take them away and countries collapse.” Fox News, Tucker Carlson Tonight, [11/21/22]
Fox News contributor Victor Davis Hanson told Carlson that problems developing nations are facing are “not climate change.” He claimed that climate reparations are, “a very cheap way of having a transnational body to pick victims and victimizers.” Taking advantage of unmoored right-wing panic about socialism, he contended that these bodies would be, “staffed eventually by people like Venezuela, Nicaragua, Cuba. … You know what that’s going to lead to.” Fox News, Tucker Carlson Tonight, [11/21/22]
Fox News host Jesse Watters said the U.S. should not have to pay climate reparations because “we industrialized first.” He complained that the European Union should not have put pressure on the U.S. to agree to a deal, saying, “How many world wars have we bailed the Europeans out of? And then they go shiv us in the kidneys?” Finally, he said that the U.S. should not help Pakistan recover from catastrophic flooding because “they kept Bin Laden there for a decade.” Fox News, The Five, [11/21/22]
Fox News contributor and Wall Street Journal editor-at-large Gerry Baker said that the proven impacts of climate change on extreme weather events are “highly debatable,” so the damage that poor countries face is not the responsibility of developed nations. He said that developing countries are “benefitting from the industrialization we did” and because of that, “we don't owe them anything.” Fox News, Your World with Neil Cavuto, [11/21/22]
Duffy suggests that the funds will lock poorer countries into poverty: “Energy equals prosperity and they’re going to have strings attached to this money going to poorer countries. And when you do that, they’re going to make sure that they don't have, you know, coal and natural gas and oil which means they can't develop. They can't grow their economy so they’re going to continue to remain poor. This does not help them, it hurts them.” Fox News, Outnumbered, [11/21/22]
Fossil fuel shill and Fox News regular Marc Thiessen said on America’s Newsroom: “If anyone owes poor countries anything it's the climate extremists,” He went on to claim that climate activists, “will do far more damage to their economies, to their GDP, to their prosperity than anything that climate change could possibly do.” Fox News, America’s Newsroom, [11/21/22]
Fossil fuel ally and frequent Fox guest :{Bjorn Lomborg said that “what this fund is really about is to try to pay these countries to not develop.”He added that this would be “the worst possible outcome because that basically leaves them in poverty.” Lomborg even went so far as to blame catastrophic flooding in Pakistan on the fact that “they’re poor,” while at the same time asserting that we should not give the country “handouts.” Fox News, Fox & Friends, [11/21/22]}:

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Indiana Rep. Banks facing 'insurrection' ballot challenge

By TOM DAVIES, Associated Press -2 22

Provided by Associated Press

INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — An Indiana congressman who was rejected by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi as the top Republican for the committee investigating last year’s U.S. Capitol insurrection is fending off an effort to remove his name from this year's election ballot.

The challenge to Rep. Jim Banks’ candidacy is at least the second across the country against a Republican House member citing a portion of a post-Civil War amendment to the U.S. Constitution pertaining to insurrections against the United States.

Banks, an outspoken supporter of former President Donald Trump and leader of the influential Republican Study Committee, has denounced the ballot challenge as frivolous.

It was filed by a long-shot Democratic candidate for Banks’ congressional seat and likely has little chance of success when it goes before the state election commission on Friday, a former longtime commission member said.

A similar challenge is pending against North Carolina Rep. Madison Cawthorn, who spoke at the rally supporting Trump before the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot that interrupted the certification of President Joe Biden’s victory.

The Indiana challenge petition filed byDemocrat Aaron Calkins claims Banks is ineligible to be a candidate because of a “violation of the 14th Amendment supporting an insurrection.” The filing with the state election commission didn’t include additional information supporting the claim against Banks and Calkins didn’t return a telephone message from The Associated Press seeking comment.

The 14th Amendment says no one can serve in Congress “who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress ... to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same.”

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an 8 22

House Republicans, including Rep. Jim Banks (R-IN), the chair of far-right Republican Study Committee, traveled to Donald Trump‘s Bedminster, New Jersey golf resort one day after the FBI raided his Mar-a-Lago home to urge him to announce his 2024 run for president.

Congressman Banks is a far-right Republican who spread Trump’s “Big Lie,” the false claims about the 2020 election, objected to the certification of the election results, and falsely claimed Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi was to blame for the January 6 insurrection.

Tuesday night Rep. Banks posted a photo of himself and other members of the House Republican Study Committee at Bedminster, tweeting, “House conservatives are united in standing with President Trump. We will Make America Great Again!”

[twt pix rsc]

CBS News chief election and campaign correspondent Robert Costa writes, “Conservative House Republicans have publicly and privately rallied behind Trump in the past 24 hours, including the visit below to Bedminster, where several GOP lawmakers encouraged him to jump into the 2024 race.”

Trump “told the group he ‘has made up his mind’ about his long-teased run, and ‘enjoyed encouragement’ from them to ‘get the decision out sooner rather than later,'” the New York Post adds Wednesday morning. Banks also told Fox News that Trump “said we are going to like his decision and it is only a matter of time before he will make that decision known.”

Rep. Banks has falsely claimed he is the ranking member of the U.S. House Select Committee on the January 6 Attack in a letter to the U.S. Dept. of the Interior in an effort to obtain information about the investigation.

Far right Republicans and Trump supporters have been passionately defending Trump after the FBI executed its search warrant and confiscated reportedly ten cartons believed to include classified documents from Mar-a-Lago that were required to be sent to the National Archives.

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mma 10 21

Joe Biden’s Build Back Better agenda, which is largely represented in the Democrat’s $3.5 trillion reconciliation bill, would materially benefit millions of Americans through unprecedented investments in our social safety net and efforts to combat climate change. Polling suggests that the spending bill is popular among the American people. Expectedly, Fox News has characterized the package as a “socialist wish list” and picked off a litany of minor ticket items to rally outrage and opposition on the right.

Former Trump aide Stephen Miller’s description of the bill on the October 16 edition of the Fox News show *Watters’ World* is representative of how the network is using its tried-and-true dog whistles to poison and stoke fear about the bill:

STEPHEN MILLER (GUEST): It's basically the Green New Deal, combined with critical race theory, combined with massive amnesty and open borders, combined with the complete destruction of the American economy.

Among the provisions Fox has characterized as the Green New Deal and mocked or grossly misrepresented are: the Civilian Climate Corps; an initiative referred to as Tree Equity; and a program intended to redress historic inequities and environmental injustices associated with zoning decisions and highway placement, which Fox has referred to as fixing “racists roads.”

Fox’s coverage of these programs has not attempted to describe what they entail or what they would accomplish for hundreds of communities. Rather, they have been used as punchlines or set up for cheap shots that reflect Fox’s racist ethos and climate denial — all under the guise of informing Fox’s audience about the policies contained in the reconciliation package.

Fox has grossly misrepresented the Civilian Climate Corps -- “climate cops” is not a thing KOCH FORK 4]

The reconciliation bill includes $8 billion earmarked for the Civilian Climate Corps -- modeled after the depression-era Civilian Conservation Corps -- which would establish a government jobs program that would put Americans to “work conserving our public lands and waters, bolstering community resilience, and advancing environmental justice.” The current funding for this program represents .4% of the $3.5 trillion spending in the bill.

On October 12, the Republican Study Committee chaired byRep. Jim Banks (R-IN) released a memo on policies contained in the reconciliation package, claiming that while the bill is polling favorably, support would tank if the American people understood what was in it. It lists among the “policies to wreck America” the Climate Civilian Corps, which the memo characterizes as “a cabal of federally funded climate police … who will conduct progressive activism on taxpayers’ dime.”

There isn’t even a grain of truth in how the committee characterized the program: “Climate police” is to the reconciliation bill what “cow farts” was to the Green New Deal. But that won’t stop conservative media from running with it.

The Republican Study Committee wasn’t the first to characterize the program this way -- during the early stages of drafting the bill, climate denier Marc Morano suggested on Fox & Friends Firstthat participants could resemble “climate cops” -- but the memo certainly reinvigorated the idea on Fox.

On the October 12 edition of *The Ingraham Angle, Banks said the bill would “create a climate police department. This was a wacky idea that AOC came out with a couple of years ago. We all laughed at it because we thought it would never happen and now it’s on the brink of happening.” The following day, at least four programs described the program this way. On October 14, Banks appeared on both *Kudlow* on the Fox Business Network and Fox News' *Faulkner Focus, claiming that the bill contains billions to create a “climate police department or a militia to go out and enforce Green New Deal policies."

[vid

October 14, 2021, episode of Fox News' Faulkner Focus]

Fox mocked and belittled provisions to address environmental injustices

Notably, during the Faulkner Focus segment Banks also referred to a program to fix “racist roads.” In fact, what he’s referring to is a $4 billion fund intended to address historic inequities and environmental injustices associated with zoning decisions and highway placement, which in some cases have divided once-thriving communities of color. The fund represents about .1% of the spending in the reconciliation bill.

Biden’s original infrastructure plan called for a $20 billion fund to “reconnect” neighborhoods cut off by old transportation projects. This would benefit communities like one in New Orleans whose residents have lived under the Claiborne Expressway for decades and remember how vibrant their community was before “The Monster” was built. After construction began on the highway in the 1960s, the once-thriving Tremé community, a center of Black cultural and commercial life, was divided and diminished. When the program was first introduced as part of the infrastructure plan, Fox’s Tucker Carlson suggested, in a blatantly racist rant, that the program was a form of reparations. This plan was cut in the bipartisan infrastructure bill negotiations, and a drastically reduced version is funded by the proposed $3.5 trillion reconciliation bill. Also among the litany of “controversial” items in the bill, often cited by Fox News hosts and anchors, is an initiative to plant trees, particularly in urban areas with less canopy cover to reduce the effects of extreme heat.

For example, during the October 13 edition of *The Ingraham Angle*, host Laura Ingraham fearmongered that the bill will “bankrupt the next generation, steal the next generation” before listing the “priorities” embedded in the legislation:

Eight billion bucks for a Civilian Climate Corps. It’s going to act basically as ataxpayer-funded leftist police force.$4 billion for equity — I love that word — in electric vehicle charging and tree planting.$643 million would go toward procuring culturally appropriate foods — I kid you not — for school lunches. Forget chicken tenders and Friday pizza, I guess.Free community college for illegals, of course. They’ll be eligible for child tax credits as well.My personal favorite, though — this is a drop in the bucket for the federal government. $15 million for national resource centers focused on providing services for older individuals who are underserved due to their sexual orientation or gender identity.

The tree equity initiative Ingraham refers to is a commonsense solution to addressing the heat island effect, which disproportionately impacts Black and brown communities across the US. Communities without sufficient canopy cover can reach temperatures up to 10 degrees higher than those that do, and one proven solution is to plant more trees in those neighborhoods.

On September 27, the day the reconciliation package was revealed, America’s Newsroomincluded the tree equity plan as one of the “doozies” that was buried in the bill while the Faulkner Focus also referred to it as one of the bill’s “hidden goodies” and mocked that there was “$3 billion for tree planting and so-called tree equity. Important that the trees feel equal to one another.”

In fact, there has been no shortage of “equity” jokes -- Greg Gutfeld on the September 29 edition of his late-night show Gutfeld! suggested that the program was meant to address “foilage privilege” (he meant “foliage”). And on the October 2 edition of *Fox & Friends Saturday*, in response to the program, Pete Hegseth quipped, “The oak trees feel like they have been too dominant for too long.” But for all the punchlines, there has been little attempt to understand what the program is or explain the issue it is proven to address.

Predictably, Fox has not scratched the surface of what the reconciliation bill means for climate mitigation

While the climate and environmental justice provisions that Fox has featured in its reconciliation bill coverage represent just a fraction of its spending, they are not an insignificant part of the Biden administration’s larger climate agenda, of which addressing environmental injustices and creating green union jobs are core pillars. They should be reported on. But Fox has framed the reconciliation bill as a radical-socialist wish list of trivial programs -- in fact, it represents, from a climate perspective, possibly the last chance to enact meaningful U.S. policies for the foreseeable future, which could make or break the global response to the climate crisis. But as long as Fox keeps its viewers revved up over “cow farts” and “climate cops” its base will never see the burning forest for the equitable trees.

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jim banks pow

mma 10 21

STEPHEN MILLER (GUEST): It's basically the Green New Deal, combined with critical race theory, combined with massive amnesty and open borders, combined with the complete destruction of the American economy.

Fox has grossly misrepresented the Civilian Climate Corps -- “climate cops” is not a thing KOCH FORK 4]

On October 12, theRepublican Study Committee chaired by Rep. Jim Banks (R-IN) released a memo on policies contained in the reconciliation package, claiming that while the bill is polling favorably, support would tank if the American people understood what was in it. It lists among the “policies to wreck America” the Climate Civilian Corps, which the memo characterizes as “a cabal of federally funded climate police … who will conduct progressive activism on taxpayers’ dime.”

[vid

October 14, 2021, episode of Fox News' Faulkner Focus]

Fox mocked and belittled provisions to address environmental injustices

Eight billion bucks for a Civilian Climate Corps. It’s going to act basically as ataxpayer-funded leftist police force.$4 billion for equity — I love that word — in electric vehicle charging and tree planting.$643 million would go toward procuring culturally appropriate foods — I kid you not — for school lunches. Forget chicken tenders and Friday pizza, I guess.Free community college for illegals, of course. They’ll be eligible for child tax credits as well.My personal favorite, though — this is a drop in the bucket for the federal government. $15 million for national resource centers focused on providing services for older individuals who are underserved due to their sexual orientation or gender identity.

Predictably, Fox has not scratched the surface of what the reconciliation bill means for climate mitigation

---

ref banks rsc doc:

https://banks.house.gov/uploadedfiles/final_reconciliation_.pdf

no lnx

TO: Republican Study Committee members

FROM: Chairman Jim Banks

DATE: October 12, 2021

RE: Reconciliation Roundup

RECONCILIATION ROUNDUP: Policies to Wreck America

TOPLINE: We as congressional Republicans have an urgent duty to tell the truth about what’s REALLY in

the Democrats’ $3.5Tbig government socialist takeover and warn the American people what’s coming.

This bill is a disaster and should be polling at 20%. We all know it.

So, how can we explain the 52-55% approval its garnered in the polls? The chief reason that it keeps

polling favorably is because we haven’t done a good enough job letting the American people know what’s

in it.

Here’s what happens to public opinion when the public learns what’s in theseDemocrat bills. In March,

before Democrats’ $1.9 trillion package passed, 70% of Americans said they favored it. Polled again in

August—five months after the bill was enacted, only 35% of Americans said the bill was helping improve

the economy or will do so in the future.

To be fair, this is the Democrats’ strategy. They’ve played ‘hide the ball’ with the bill text so as not to tip

off the public as to what they’re putting in their bills. Then, they bring it to the floor and tout some poll

numbers and scare their members into voting for it.

Luckily, due to Democrats’ stalled legislative agenda, we have bill text and a window into their plan. If we

effectively communicate about this bill, we’ll see those poll numbers drop.

I’ve directed staff at the Republican Study Committee to pore over the bill’s pages and produce for you a

summary of the worst parts of the bill. Please read and share these points on social media, newsletters,

opinion-editorials, and whatever other format you use to get your message out.

1. Perpetuates labor shortage:Continues welfare benefits without work requirements for able-bodied

adults without dependents at a time where there are 10.1 million job openings—more openings than

there are people looking for work.

2. Commissions a climate police: Democrats stuffed $8 billion into the bill to commission a cabal of

federally funded climate police called the Civilian Climate Corps (CCC) who will conduct progressive

activism on taxpayers’ dime (pages 8, 21, and 926).

3.Pushes Green New Deal in our public schools: Requires funding for school construction be used

largely on enrollment diversity and Green New Deal agenda items (page 55).

4. Pushes Green New Deal in our universities:Democrats include a $10 billion “environmental

justice” higher education slush fund to indoctrinate college students and advance Green New Deal

policies (page 1,935).

5. Forces faith-based child care providers out: The bill blocks the ability of many faith-based

providers from participating in the childcare system and will lead to many of their closures (page

280).

Hurts small and in-home daycares: Requires pre-K staff to have a college degree. (page 303)

Includes new incentives for illegal immigration: Illegal immigrants will be eligible to take

advantage of Democrats’ new ‘free’ college entitlement (page 92) as well be eligible for additional

student aid (page 147) and the enhanced child tax credit (page 1,946).

8. Includes legislative hull for Biden’s vaccine mandate: Increases OSHA penalties on businesses

that fail to implement the mandate up to $700,000 per violation and includes $2.6 billion in funding

for the Department of Labor to increase enforcement of these penalties (page 168).

9. Gives unions near-total control: The bill includes insane prohibitions that would bind employers’

hands in union disputes and dangerously tilt the balance of power, subjecting employers to penalties

that exempt union bosses and officials… among other things this bill would prevent employers from

permanently replacing striking workers (page 175). It coerces businesses to meet union boss

demands by increasing Fair Labor Standards Act penalties by an astronomical 900% (page 168).

10.Makes unions bigger and more powerful: The bill would subsidize union dues that would only

serve to strengthen the influence of union bosses and not American workers (page 2323).

11.Pushes Democrats’ wasteful and confusing school lunch agenda:$643 million for, among other

things, “procuring…culturally appropriate foods” (page 333).

12.Furthersradical abortion agenda:Does not include the Hyde amendment and would mandate

taxpayers pay for abortions (page 198) & (page 336).

13.Drives up costs on Americans’ utility bills: Issues a punitive methane tax (page 367) and includes a

tax on natural gas up to $1,500 per ton that could cost the American economy up to $9.1 billion and

cost 90,000 Americans their jobs (page 368).

14.Includes dangerous & deadly green energy mandate: Effectively forces Americans to get 40% of

their energy from wind, solar and other unreliable forms of energy within 8 years (page 392).

Reliance on these energy sources has proven deadly.

15.Includes kickbacks for the Left’s green energy special interest network:$5 billion for

“environmental and climate justice block grants” (page 377) and another $100 billion in green energy

special interest subsidies, loans and other carve outs.

16.Gives wealthy Americans tax credits: $222 billion in “green energy” tax credits will be given to

those who can afford expensive electric vehicles and other “green” innovative products (page 1832).

17.Furthers Democrats’ social justice agenda: Includes “equity” initiatives throughout the bill and, in

one instance,Democrats inserted “equity” language into a title which should have been focusing on

the maintenance of the United States’ cyber security efforts (page 897).

18.Grants amnesty for millions of illegal immigrants: House Democrats have included in their

reconciliation bill a plan to grant amnesty to around 8 million illegal immigrants at a cost of around

$100 billion over ten years that would largely be spent on welfare and other entitlements (page 901).

Trillions more would be spent long term on their Social Security and Medicare.

19.Opens border even wider: The bill would waive many grounds for immigration inadmissibility,

including infection or lack of vaccination status during a Pandemic, failure to attend removal

proceedings in previous immigration cases, and the previous renouncement of American citizenship.

DHS may also waive previous convictions for human trafficking, narcotics violations, and illegal

voting (page 903).

20.Increases visa limit: At least 226,000 family-preference visaswould be administered each year

(page 905).

21.Grants fast-tracked green cards for those seeking middle-class careers in America: Language

included in the bill exempts certain aliens from the annual green card statutory limits and has been

described as a “hidden pipeline for U.S. employers to flood more cheap foreign graduates into

millions of middle-class careers needed by American graduates”(page 910).

22.Includes pork for Nancy Pelosi: $200 million is earmarked for the Presidio Trust in Speaker Pelosi’s

congressional district (page 933).

23.Increases energy dependence on OPEC, Russia and China:The bill prohibits several mineral and

energy withdrawals (page 979). It overturns provisions included in the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act that

authorized energy production in the Arctic that will result in 130,000 Americans losing their jobs and

$440 billion in lost federal revenue (page 983) and the mineral withdrawals it prohibits would,

ironically, include minerals necessary for renewable energy sources (pages 934, 940, 943).

24.Exacerbates the chip shortage: The bill would mandate the conversion of the entire federal vehicle

fleet from internal combustion engines to electric engines at a time when there is a global microchip

shortage and crippled supply chains (page 1,043).

25.Democrats’ feckless China bill is included: Concepts from the insanely weak Endless Frontier Act

included, including $11 billion in research funding that will likely result in American intellectual

property going to China (page 1079 - 1081).

26.Chases green energy pipe dreams: $264 million to the EPA to conduct research with left-wing

environmental justice groups on how to transition away from fossil fuels (page 1063).

27.Fixes “racist” roads and bridges: Adds a nearly $4 billion slush fund that would help left-wing

grassroots organizations that, among other things, want to tear down and rebuild or otherwise alter

infrastructure deemed “racist” (page 1183).

28.Punishes red states for failing to adopt Green New Deal provisions: Mandates “consequences” for

conservative states that don’t meet the radical Left’s “green” climate standardswhile at the same time

adding nearly $4 billion for “Community Climate Incentive Grants” for cooperating states (page 1179).

29.Includes new massive, bankrupting entitlement: The new paid leave entitlement would mandate

workers get 12 weeks of paid leave and would cost $500 billion over ten years according to the CBO

(page 1245). It would apply to those making up to half a million dollars a year (page 1254).

30.Advances a totalitarian and paternalistic view of the federal government: Includes grants for

organizations to treat individuals suffering from “loneliness” and “social isolation.”

31.Further detaches individuals from employment and more reliant on government handouts:

The bill spends $835 billion on welfare through manipulating the tax code [not including the

expansions of Obamacare subsidies] (page 1943).

32.Tax benefits for the top 1%: The bill will possibly lift the SALT deduction cap meaning many of the

top 1% wealthiest Americans would pay less in taxes.

33.Tax credit for wealthy donors who give to woke universities: The bill creates a new tax credit

program that gives tax credits worth 40% of cash contribution that are made to university research

programs (page 2094).

34.Expands worst parts of Obamacare: Obamacare’s job-killing employer mandate will become more

severe by adjusting the definition of “affordable coverage” to mean coverage that costs no more than

8.5 percent of income rather than current law’s 9.5 percent of income (page 2041).

35.Increases taxes on Americans at every income level: $2 trillion in tax hikes will fall on those

making under $400,000 per year, contrary to what the White House says. Individuals at all income

levels will be affected (Ways and Means GOP).

36.Lowers wages for working families: The corporate tax rate will increase by 5.5%, meaning

American companies will face one of the highest tax burdens in the world. According to analysis,

two-thirds of this tax hike will fall on lower- and middle-income taxpayers (page 2110).

37.Penalizes marriage: The bill would permanently double the EITC’s marriage penalty on childless

worker benefits (page 2036).

38.Imposes crushing taxes on small business: Guts the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act small business

deductions that reduced pass-through entity taxes to keep them comparable to taxes imposed on

corporations (page 2235) as well as hammer small businesses that file as individual tax earners with

the 39.6% rate (page 2221) and Obamacare’s 3.8% tax on net investment income.

39.Crushes family businesses and farms: The bill would impose a 25% capital gains rate (page 2226)

and makes alterations to the Death Tax including cutting the Death Tax exemption in half (page

2240).

40.Violates Americans’ financial privacy: $80 billion slush fund to hire an 87,000-IRS-agent army to

carry out the Biden administration’s plan to review every account above a $600 balance or with more

than $600 of transactions in a year. (page 2283).

41.Increases out of pocket costs for those who rely on prescription drugs: The bill repeals the

Trump-era Rebate Rule which passes through rebates directly to consumers at the point of sale (page

2465).

42.Imports policies from countries withsocialized medicine: The bill includes healthcare policies

imported from systems in Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Japan and the United Kingdom—all

countries that have government-run healthcare systems (page 2349).

Conclusion:Each of these 42 bullets is enough to vote against the bill. Taken together—it’s mindblowingly corrupt. We need to loudly oppose it.

Democrats are scattered. The Biden agenda is in question. It’s the perfect opportunity to build public

sentiment against this bill. The American people need us to be the vanguard against the Left’s radical

plans.

It’s not an understatement to say this bill, if passed, will fundamentally change our country forever—

Americans will wake up in a few years and wonder what happened to their freedom. We can’t let that

happen.

---

off bs

https://rsc-banks.house.gov/

logo looks corp

many pages

Early life and career

Jim Banks was born in Columbia City, Indiana.

Early career

He worked in the real estate and construction industry in Fort Wayne, Indiana prior to his role in elected office.^[1] Banks serves in theUnited States Navy Reserve as a Supply Corps officer.From 2014 to 2015, he took a leave of absence from the Indiana State Senate to serve in Afghanistan.^[1]

From 2008 to 2010, Banks served on the Whitley County Council from the at-large district.^[2] He won the primary after defeating incumbent County Councilman, Scott Darley.^[3] He was succeeded by Paula Reimers on the County Council.^[4] Banks also served as Chair of the Whitley County Republican Party from 2007-2011.^[5] He was succeeded by Matt Boyd as Party Chair.^[6] With assistance from the American Legislative Exchange Council, he has supported right-to-work legislation in Indiana.^[7] Banks addressed the 2014 Conservative Political Action Conference in 2014 after he was selected as one of their Top 10 Conservatives Under 40.^[8]

Banks was first elected to serve in the state senate for the 17th district in 2010, and upon military deployment to Afghanistan, he took a leave of absence from the state senate in September 2014.^[9] Invoking an Indiana state law which allows state and local officeholders to take leaves of absence during active duty military service, Banks was temporarily replaced by his wife, Amanda Banks, who held the office for the senate's 2015 legislative session.^[10][11] He returned to Indiana from overseas duty on April 14, 2015^[12] and resumed his duties as state senator on May 8, 2015.^[13]

U.S. House of Representatives

Elections

2016

On May 12, 2015, Banks announced his intention to run. The incumbent, Congressman Marlin Stutzman announced he would not run for reelection and would instead campaign for the Republican nomination to succeed retiring Indiana Senator Dan Coats.^[14] Banks' congressional campaign was endorsed by the Club for Growth.^[15]

Banks won the primary election, separating himself from five other like-minded conservative opponents for the open seat, with 34 percent of the vote. Spending in the campaign exceeded $2 million as Banks raised $850,000 prior to the primary election and the candidate who finished in second place, businessman Kip Tom, raised $950,000 including $150,000 he loaded from his personal funds. ^[16]

2018

Banks ran for reelection; he was unopposed in the Republican primary and faced off against businesswoman and Democratic nominee Courtney Tritch in the 2018 general election.^[17] Banks won reelection with64.7% of the vote.

2020

Banks ran for a third term and defeated physician Chris Magiera^[18] in the Republican primary.^[19] He then faced off against teacher and Democratic nominee Chip Coldiron in the 2020 general election.^[20] Banks won reelection with 67.8% of the vote.^[21]

Tenure

In December 2017, Banks joined three other Republican representatives, Ron DeSantis, Scott Perry, and Robert Pittenger, in co-signing a letter to Secretary of State Rex Tillerson requesting Tillerson to release a classified counterterrorism agreement with Qatar.^[22]Banks was sworn in on January 3, 2017. He is a member of the Republican Study Committee.

In January 2020, Banks faced backlash after saying that remarks by Representative Ilhan Omar about her own experiences with post-traumatic stress disorder were "offensive to our nation’s veterans." As a child, Omar fled civil war in Somalia and spent four years in a Kenyan refugee camp.^[23]

After Joe Biden won the 2020 election and Donald Trump refused to concede while making false claims of fraud, Banks was one of 126 Republican members of the House of Representatives who signed an amicus brief in support of a lawsuit filed at the United States Supreme Court contesting the results of the 2020 presidential election. The Supreme Court declined to hear the case.^[24][25][26] Banks later objected to the certification of the election results.^[27]

After the January 6th 2021 United States Capitol attack, Banks expressed support for a bipartisan commission to investigate the riot. He later changed his mind.^[28] On July 21, 2021, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi vetoed Kevin McCarthy's assigning of Banks and Jim Jordan to the January 6 Select Committee, citing how both of them amplified Trump's false claims of fraud in the 2020 election.^[29] Banks subsequently claimed that Pelosi was at fault for the January 6th insurrection and that she was using the commission to cover up her role.^[30]

In late February 2021, Banks and a dozen other Republican House members skipped votes and enlisted others to vote for them, citing the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. However, he and the other members were actually attending the Conservative Political Action Conference, which was held at the same time as their slated absences.^[31] In response, the Campaign for Accountability, an ethics watchdog group, filed a complaint with the House Committee on Ethics and requested an investigation into Banks and the other lawmakers.^[32]

In October 2021, fellow Republican Liz Cheney, vice chair of the January 6 Select Committee, revealed that Banks had been sending letters to federal agencies, claiming to be the ranking member of that committee, even though he had been rejected from the committee.^[33] In one September 2021 letter, Banks requested for the Department of the Interior to provide him with information that they had sent the committee. He also wrote that "Pelosi refused to allow me to fulfill my duties as Ranking Member", then later signed off the letter as "Ranking Member". He is no ranking member.^[34][35]

Committee assignments

Caucus memberships

Congressional Western Caucus^[36]
Congressional Pakistan Caucus^[37]
Republican Study Committee^[38]

Political positions

Banks with his wife and children being sworn in by Speaker Nancy Pelosi for the 116th Congress

Health care

Banks supports repealing the Affordable Care Act ("Obamacare").^[39] Banks voted in favor of the American Health Care Act of 2017 on May 4, 2017.^[40] He opposes single-payer healthcare, which he claims if implemented would cost taxpayers $32 trillion.^[41]

Economy

In December 2017, Banks voted in favor of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017.^[42] Upon the passing of the bill, Banks said it was "a good day for the future of the American dream."^[43]

In 2020, Banks voted against COVID-19 economic relief, the Families First Coronavirus Response Act.^[44] In 2021, he voted against COVID-19 economic stimulus a second time.^[45][46]

Environment

Banks rejects the Scientific consensus on climate change, describing it as "really more complicated than I can understand"^[47][48][failed ^verification]

Technology

Banks supports allowing internet companies to release customer information to the federal government.^[39]

Abortion

Banks opposes federal funding of abortions, as well as Planned Parenthood.^[39]

LGBT rights

Banks opposes same-sex marriage.^[49][50]

Banks describes banning transgender people from serving in the military as an "emotional issue."[clarification ^needed] He opposes the military paying for sex reassignment surgery, saying that "I don't think taxpayers should be on the hook for that."^[41]

Reference

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fORT WAYNE, Ind. (AP) — Twitter suspended an Indiana congressman’s official account after removing a post about a transgender Biden administration official over a violation of the social media company’s rules.

Twitter’s action Saturday came after Republican Rep. Jim Banks posted tweets last week regarding Dr. Rachel Levine becoming the first openly transgender four-star officer in the U.S. uniformed services. Levine is also the nation’s assistant secretary of health.

Banks had responded to the U.S. surgeon general congratulating Levine on her promotion in the U.S. Public Health Service Commissioned Corps by writing: “The title of first female four-star officer gets taken by a man.”

The post was removed with a reference to Twitter rules that include a ban on “targeted misgendering” of transgender people. Banks’ official Twitter account remained online Sunday but he wasn’t allowed to add new posts. His personal account with fewer followers remained active. Banks, whose district covers Fort Wayne and surrounding northeastern Indiana, has frequently drawn attention with right-wing social media comments. He stood by his post about Levine.

“My tweet was a statement of fact,” Banks said in a statement. “Big Tech doesn’t have to agree with me, but they shouldn’t be able to cancel me. If they silence me, they will silence you. We can’t allow Big Tech to prevent us from telling the truth.”

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an 10 21

One of the two Republican lawmakers that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) removed from the Jan. 6 committee back in July has moved on to chart a new path with a shadow investigation of his own.

According to The Daily Beast, two sources familiar with the situation have said the that Rep. Jim Banks' (R-Ind.) investigative path has been similar to the one the select committee took. Per the publication, "Banks sent letters to many of the same federal agencies that the select committee's chairman, Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-MS), has contacted for information regarding the U.S. Capitol attack."

Those agencies reportedly include the U.S. Department of Justice, the U.S. Department of Defense, the Department of Homeland Security, news outlets, social media platforms, and more.

Inside sources also shared details about Banks' letter, which were first reported by CNN. In "at least one of those letters,"Banks is said to have identified himself as a "ranking member" of a committee he did not actually serve on.

"You are receiving this letter because the House of Representatives Select Committee to Investigate the events of January 6th may have sent you a request for information," Banks wrote in the letter. "The House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy appointed me to serve as the Ranking Member of the Select Committee. Yet, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi refused to allow me to fulfill my duties as Ranking Member."

Although he was blocked from serving on the Jan. 6 panel after supporting former President Donald Trump's election lies, the Republican lawmaker claims he has a right to gain access to the information he is seeking.

"For those reasons, I ask that you provide me any information that is submitted to the Select Committee. Additionally, please include me on any update or briefing that you provide," Banks said.

Banks is now facing backlash for his efforts and being criticized for attempting attempting take matters in to his own hands. In fact Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) has evencalled out the lawmaker for falsely classifying himself as a ranking member of Congress**.

Despite Banks claims, Reps. Chene and Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.) are the only two Republican lawmakers who received official appointments from Pelosi.

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1/6 comm

https://www.alternet.org/2021/07/social-media-explodes-with-reactions-to-kevins-mccarthys-jan-6-committee-picks/

before House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy made his selections for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's select committee on the January 6 insurrection, Democrats on Capitol Hill were hoping to God that he wouldn't have the bad taste to pick the buffoonish Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio. But sure enough, Jordan is one of the five House Republicans McCarthy has picked — along with Rep. Jim Banks of Indiana, Rep. Kelly Armstrong of North Dakota, Rep. Rodney Davis of Illinois and Rep. Troy Nehls of Texas. Jordan has been an unapologetic promoter of the Big Lie, the false and debunked conspiracy theory that the 2020 presidential election was stolen from former President Donald Trump because of widespread voter fraud.

And Jordan, Nehls and Banks all voted against certifying now-President Joe Biden's Electoral College victory on January 6, although Davis and Armstrong were among the House Republicans who did vote to certify Biden's win.

Twitter has been exploding with reactions to McCarthy's picks. Journalist Seth Abramson devoted an entire thread to the subject:...

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It's a big lie': Chris Wallace challenges GOPer for refusing to say election wasn't 'stolen'

David Edwards Raw Story

Fox News host Chris Wallace challenged Rep. Jim Banks (R-IN) over his effort to oust Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY) from her leadership position in the Republican Party.

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https://www.alternet.org/2020/11/more-and-more-republicans-are-piling-onto-conspiracy-theories-about-vote-counting/

kos

To read Donald Trump's Twitter feed, you'd think that counting votes is an inherently suspicious activity. As his campaign files lawsuits to try to stop votes from being counted in Michigan and Pennsylvania, Trump is frenetically trying to whip up his base against any vote-counting activity that might not help him—and a series of House Republicans are acting as his winged monkeys, throwing their weight into legitimizing Trump's efforts to delegitimize the basis of democracy.

Trump has promoted a Breitbart piece attacking Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro, and announced, as if it was evidence of wrongdoing,"We are winning Pennsylvania big, but the PA Secretary of State just announced that there are 'Millions of ballots left to be counted.'" Four of Trump's tweets in the past 24 hours have gotten Twitter warning messages that "Some or all of the content shared in this Tweet is disputed and might be misleading about an election or other civic process."

He has help.

Rep. Paul Gosar bragged about having joined Trump supporters outside the site where ballots were being counted in Maricopa County. The aggressive group was apparently motivated by a conspiracy theory about votes being changed rather than counted, and it included far-right anti-immigration activists and threatened reporters.

Rep. Kevin Brady repeated Trump's lies about vote counting being conducted in secrecy, cloaking a lie as a call for transparency.That transparency already exists, however—though law enforcement in more than one city has had to defend vote-counting sites against mobs of Trump supporters trying to get inside to disrupt counting. Rep. Jim Banks tied together a Peter Strzok conspiracy theory with a reference to "the shady ballot counting happening in WI, MI and PA." You know, the ballot counting. Which Republicans insist must be shady, because it's not going their way.

The majority of the Pennsylvania state House tweeted that "The failure of Pennsylvania to have firm election results on Election Day is an openly partisan failure by Democrats from the Wolf administration to the PA Supreme Court." Except the failure of Pennsylvania to have firm election results on Election Day is a direct result of Republican legislators blocking election officials from counting or even processing mail ballots before Election Day!

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich enthusiastically jumped on board with claims that "Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania are all being stolen by Democrats." Again, because votes are being counted.

That's the substance of Republican angst: Votes are being counted, and those votes may not go the way Republicans want them to go. That must be the result of conspiracy and cheating and outright theft by Democrats, they claim, with a big dose of rage that the votes of Black people are being counted at all.

Meanwhile, Joe Biden's message is simple: "Every vote must be counted."

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https://theintercept.com/2019/07/23/extinction-rebellion-climate-change-capitol-hill/

On TUESDAY EVENING, members of the Washington, D.C., chapter of Extinction Rebellion superglued themselves to each other and to the passages connecting the Capitol to the Rayburn and Cannon office buildings, where House members have their offices. The protesters, who are part of an international group that uses nonviolent civil disobedience tactics to advocate for action on climate change, aimed to confront House members on their way to floor votes.

Many of the protesters, who did not expect the protest to last longer than 15 minutes, remained glued for more than two hours, alongside dozens of demonstrators who rallied as a distraction. They wore signs over their shirts that said “Declare Climate Emergency” and chanted: “What do we want? Green New Deal! When do we want it? Now!” Capitol police asked bystanders and reporters to move back and, after three warnings, kicked everyone out — except, of course, those who were glued. They arrested 13 activists, according to Extinction Rebellion, around 8:30 p.m.

Members of Congress, for the most part, ignored the protesters. Rep. Jim Banks, R-Ind., former vice chair of the House Subcommittee on Environment, mocked the group on Twitter, posting a video of himself appearing to duck under a protester’s arm to get through with the note, “…Supergluing yourself to a door is a very dumb way to protest.

...

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