ken bardella

grew a conscience?<div>
</div><div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">playbook revived for impeach trump:</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2019/12/gops-propaganda-circus-lies-yelling-and-conspiracy-theory/" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">https://www.alternet.org/2019/12/gops-propaganda-circus-lies-yelling-and-conspiracy-theory/</font></a></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">no lnx</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>
</b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>GOP’s propaganda circus: Lies, yelling and conspiracy theory</b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Written by Heather Digby Parton / Salon December 13, 2019</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Speaker Nancy Pelosi first announced that the House would formally take up an impeachment investigation on Sept. 24. Sometime on Friday, the House Judiciary Committee will almost certainly vote to send two Articles of Impeachment to the full House. If a whistleblower hadn’t stepped up and set this ball in motion, we would still be seeing President Trump at his rallies screaming about the Ukrainian government’s interference in the election and the corruption of Joe Biden — and the mainstream media would be chasing the story like it was a private email server. Team Trump was only days away from getting away with it.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">From the moment he stepped on to that  escalator in June of 2015, Donald Trump’s unethical, illegal and immoral behavior has been leading toward this day. Assuming that the full House votes to impeach and sends the case to the Senate, his name will always have the scarlet asterisk next to it as the third president in U.S. history to be impeached, a fact which reportedly upsets him greatly. In a just world, he would be the first president to be impeached, convicted and removed from office. That’s not the world in which we live, unfortunately.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The hearings this week were long and tedious, but they served an important purpose nonetheless. The two sides had different goals. The Democrats laid out the case with which most of us following this event are familiar and managed to be serious and respectful while doing it. <b>Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler, D-N.Y., kept the proceedings from careening out of control and there was even some persuasive rhetoric and memorable oratory.</b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>
</b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Republicans had a different goal.</b> They presented a number of defenses, much of them consisting of emotive hand-wringing, faux exasperation and yelling. As former Breitbart editor and Republican House aide Kurt Bardella wrote for NBC, this is a long-standing strategy:</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Revisit the 11-hour grilling that former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was subjected to by Republicans during the <b>Benghaz</b>i hearing and you’ll see the now familiar sight of Republicans yelling and badgering their witness. As Rep. Adam Smith, R-Wash., observed that day, the Republicans’ strategy was to try and “wear you down.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">This was obviously their goal during Thursday’s marathon hearing, and it worked. It was long and tiring, mostly because Republicans kept offering amendments, many of them barely making sense, after which the whole committee had to debate them and then vote on whether to adopt them. All were voted down along party lines, votes, the final vote coming after 14 hours of debate. Clearly the Republicans had planned all along to<b> prolong the  process so they could say that the Democrats had voted to impeach in the dead of night when nobody would see it</b>. Nadler called their bluff announcing that the committee’s final vote would be postponed until Friday morning. The Republicans melted down into full-blown hysteria, but by that time no one was listening.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Bardella writes that Republicans’ “script is built on misdirection and moving the goalposts as their paltry strategy shifts to incorporate various conspiracy theories and outlandish claims,” observing that they consciously treat every member’s time as if he were appearing on a Fox News segment.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>I think that’s literally what they are doing. They are using the formal setting and the national attention to introduce people to the alternative reality that only people who watch Fox News usually see.</b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>
</b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Take, for instance, the big signs Republican committee members have printed up and set on easels behind them</b>. They feature things like pictures of Rep. Adam Schiff, chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, on a milk carton with the words “Where’s Adam?” obviously pushing their absurd demand that Schiff be compelled to testify as a witness. (Nobody showed up in an official Trump campaign “Where’s Hunter” T-shirt, thank goodness.) <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Another was titled “Coastal Impeachment Squad” featuring a picture of the Democratic leadership spelling out that they are from New York, California and Massachusetts, clearly implying they are not Real Americans.</span> At one point, they displayed the message “0 DAYS SINCE ADAM SCHIFF FOLLOWED HOUSE RULES” but removed it when thousands of people pointed out on Twitter that zero days since something occurred, in fact, means that thing occurred today....</font></div></div></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">===</font></div></div>