weaponization jordan
see benghazi BS
bad code bold
matt taibbi sad
an 2 23 fail?
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RWW
Why Insurrectionist and ‘Legislative Terrorist’ Jim Jordan Should Never Be Speaker of the House—and What His Rise Says about the MAGA Republican Party
[
Peter Montgomery | October 18, 2023 9:50 am
Rep. Jim Jordan, founding chair of the far-right Freedom Caucus and a pardon-seeking supporter of former President Donald Trump’s efforts to stay in power after losing the 2020 presidential election, is, as of Wednesday morning, just a few Republican votes from being elected Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives. With MAGA leaders, religious-right activists, and right-wing media outlets pressuring the Republican representatives who did not back Jordan in Tuesday’s vote, he may well be second in line for the presidency by the end of the day. If Jordan does become Speaker, it will be yet another new low point for American democracy and for the Republican Party.
Eight Reasons Jim Jordan Should Not Be Speaker of the House
- He is an insurrectionist.Jordan was an aggressive supporter of Donald Trump’s efforts to stay in power after losing the 2020 presidential election. Jordan traveled to Pennsylvania to promote the lies of the so-called “Stop the Steal” campaign. As Jill Lawrence wrote recently at The Bulwark, “The next speaker should not be someone we already know is willing to manufacture disputes and support groundless claims to overturn an election to install the president he wants.”
- He is Trump’s lapdog. Jordan was the designated GOP attack dog at the 2019 impeachment hearings, where he sought to discredit witnesses against Trump. In 2018, Jordan told a disbelieving Anderson Cooper that he had never heard Trump lie. Five days after the assault on Congress, Trump awarded Jordan the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
- He undermines the rule of law.The House Committee that investigated the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol sought testimony from Jordan about his support for Trump’s schemes to stay in power. Jordan defied a congressional subpoena. Jordan has abused his power as Chair of the House Judiciary Committee to interfere in legal investigations and indictments of Trump.
- He is an anti-freedom extremist.Jordan sponsored an extreme national abortion ban. The Human Rights Campaign has called him “a member of the anti-equality fringe” for his support for anti-LGBTQ legislation.
- He is about ideological warfare, not governing. Former House Speaker John Boehner described Jordan as a “legislative terrorist,” explaining later about Jordan, “I just never saw a guy who spent more time tearing things apart—never building anything, never putting anything together.” Confirming Boehner’s description, Lawrence noted in her Bulwark article that in 2018, “Jordan and other MAGA Republicans convinced Trump to hold out for border wall funding in a budget dispute with Democrats,” leading to “a painful 35-day federal government shutdown.” Jordan leads a bogus House committee investigating the so-called “weaponization” of the federal government, which has been mostly a platform for the promotion of right-wing conspiracy theories.
- He is the far right’s candidate. When a group affiliated with the Koch brothers launched a petition campaign to encourage Jordan to run for House Speaker in 2018, the signers were a Who’s Who of leaders from the Religious Right, legal and corporate right, and Tea Party. Jordan’s current bid for speaker has been endorsed by Christian nationalist Sean Feucht, who claimed that God has “anointed” his friend Jordan to hold the office. Campaigns to pressure GOP representatives who voted against Jordan are being waged by right-wing media figures like Sean Hannity and Todd Starnes and right-wing activists like Gary Bauer and Gordan Klingenschmitt, who urged supporters to call House members, writing, “take a moment to save America.” The Trump-aligned religious-right activists at Intercessors for America also urged supporters to call or email House members on Jordan’s behalf.
- He promotes damaging right-wing conspiracy theories. Trump’s lies about the 2020 election are not the only conspiracy theories Jordan has helped promote. In 2013, Jordan endorsed a conspiracy theory that the U.S. government was buying bullets in an effort to limit their availability to gun owners.
- He is untrustworthy. Multiple former Ohio State wrestlers have publicly charged that when he was an assistant coach, Jordan knew that a team doctor was sexually harassing and abusing student athletes, but refused to take action. One former wrestler said Jordan snickered when the student told him about a groping incident. Another athlete who has accused Jordan of lying about the situation has said Jordan doesn’t deserve to be speaker, adding, “He still has to answer for what happened to us.”
The Republican Party in the MAGA Era
With few notable exceptions, Republican officials have either enthusiastically embraced or been bullied into supporting Jordan’s candidacy and the rest of the MAGA agenda. Rep. Mike Rogers, who publicly opposed Jordan’s vote a few days ago, shifted after being slammed by, among others, Steve Bannon’s WarRoom newsletter and right-wing Sen. Mike Lee.
Last Friday, as Jordan was scrambling to line up enough Republican votes to be elected as Speaker, the Republican National Committee was using Jordan to raise money “to help the GOP build a winning 2024 campaign strategy.” In a text message sent Friday evening, Jordan told supporters that “it’s not too late to save our country from total destruction” by completing the RNC’s “2024 Presidential Canvass” and making a donation. The 22-question survey touched on deceptive right-wing narratives about “the radical left,” critical race theory, media bias, and other potential campaign themes. According to the fine print, donations would be allocated 99 percent to the RNC and 1 percent to Jim Jordan for Congress.
On Monday, Jordan released a “Dear Colleague” letter declaring, “The role of a Speaker is to bring all Republicans together” and asserting, “The principles that unite us as Republicans are far greater than the disagreements that divide us.” Jordan pledged, “I will tirelessly work to defend and expand our majority and help every Republican member back home.”
If Jordan and the rest of the far-right movement manage to pressure the remaining Republican holdouts into making Jordan the most extreme, unaccomplished, and unqualified Speaker in modern history, that may indeed tell us what unites Republicans these days—but it won’t be anything to brag about, and it won’t be good for the country.
---
an 3 23
house Republicans' hearings on the purported "weaponization" of the federal government against conservatives have gotten off to a rocky start, with even some Fox News personalities complaining that they've so far failed to dig up anything significant.
The hearings continue to misfire on Thursday, and USA Today reporter Bart Jansenlikened them to a "Monty Python sketch" in his latest dispatch from the Capitol.
At issue was the fact that two witnesses called by House Republicans made incendiary claims about the federal government "censoring" them under President Joe Biden's direction, but then left the hearing before they could be asked any questions by Democratic members of the committee.
Rep. Stephen Lynch (D-MA) called out Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) for not allowing anyone to question the witnesses he brought before the committee.
"They have scurried away with your complicity,” he scolded Jordan. “That’s pretty disgraceful.”
A defensive Jordan replied that the two witnesses didn't "scurry" despite the fact that they had left before any of their claims could be scrutinized.
One witness who didn't "scurry," noted Jansen, was Stanford constitutional scholar Matthew Seligman, who emphasized to the committee that private companies such as Twitter and Facebook are not obligated to let everyone use them and that their decision to remove certain content did not amount to government-sponsored censorship.
"Once again it bears repeating: the First Amendment applies to governmental restrictions of speech, not private conduct," he said.
https://www.alternet.org/jen-psaki-shatters-jim-jordan/ dream of run interference for trump
https://www.alternet.org/trump-jim-jordan-insurrection-committee/
badash no tet vid?
This is about one client. Donald Trump': Jim Jordan hammered over 'Insurrection LLC' committee
David Badashand The New Civil Rights Movement March 29, 2023
:{U.S. Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-CA) unleashed massive criticism of Jim Jordan Wednesday afternoon, accusing the House Judiciary Committee Chairman of working solely for Donald Trump.
In his opening remarks of a Judiciary subcommittee hearing Swalwell, the Ranking Member, slammed Jordan for refusing to comply with a legal subpoena issued by the U.S. House Select Committee on the January 6 Attack, and criticized the subcommittee for holding a hearing – not on gun violence and mass shootings – but on what the California Democrat said was issues to help the ex-president.
}:
Congressman Swalwell blasted Jordan and his “Committee to Obstruct Justice” on a wide range of issues, including obstructing justice, ordering a district attorney to commit a felony, and lying that Attorney General Merrick Garland labeled parents “domestic terrorists.”
:{“Well, here we are. Another partners’ meeting of Insurrection, LLC,”Swalwell said as he began his remarks. “That’s what this is. This is the newly formed largest law firm in Washington, D.C. Only has one client, maybe a second client that we’re going to learn about today, but that client is former president Donald Trump.”
“Their job,” he said, referring to Jordan’s Judiciary Committee, subcommittees, and his controversial Subcommittee of the Weaponization of the Federal Government, “is to litigate every one of [Trump’s] petty, petty, petty grievances.”}:
READ MORE: Watch: House Dem Mocks Republicans by Thanking Them for Taking Time Away From ‘Trump’s Memorial Service to David Koresh’
“It’s now 321 days since this subpoena was sent to Jim Jordan, that he did not comply with,” Swalwell said, pointing to a large blown-up copy of the subpoena, with the word “subpoena” enlarged exponentially.
“So it’s comical that we are here today, under Jim Jordan’s leadership, asking people why they don’t want to comply with subpoenas. The guy won’t comply with the one that was sent to him 321 days ago, witness to a crime, the crime that has led to more arrests than any investigation in America,” Swalwell observed, referring to the January 6 prosecutions.
“He’s a witness being asked to do his patriotic duty and respond to a subpoena 321 days later, refuses. Also, since the last hearing of this Committee to Obstruct Justice, Chairman Jordan is now in interfering in an independent criminal prosecution. There’s an investigation in Manhattan, also in Atlanta, also at the Department of Justice, into the former president and Jim Jordan has sent a letter to the independently elected District Attorney Alvin Bragg of Manhattan. He is asking Alvin Bragg to commit a felony.”
“Why is he asking Alvin Bragg to commit a felony? To help Donald Trump. Why is it a felony? Because if Alvin Bragg were to turn over what Jim Jordan is asking of him, Bragg would be violating New York law that says you cannot turn over grand jury proceedings, but that’s what they’re asking them to do. Again, the law doesn’t matter if your client is Donald Trump.”
“The other day Jim Jordan was asked, ‘Well, what do you think of the former president who put out on Truth Social the other day, essentially an another call to action? A January 6-like post when the former president said this posting, Jim Jordan was presented with this post by the former president that calls for ‘death and destruction.’ And Mr. Jordan said that he would ‘need his glasses.’ He was looking the other way. Jim Jordan looking the other way.”
READ MORE: Here’s How Five Republicans in Congress Are Responding to the Mass Shooting of 3 Children and 3 Adults in Nashville (Video)
“Well, we have blown up on the screen and we’ve put it right here and I’ll leave it for Jim Jordan. This is what Donald Trump said, Mr. Jordan,” Swalwell said, reading the e-president’s social media post:
“‘What kind of person can charge another person? In this case it former president of the United States who got more votes than any sitting president in history and leading candidate by far for the Republican Party nomination with the crime when it is known by all that? No crime has been committed and also known that potential death and destruction and such a false charge can be catastrophic for our country. Why and who would do such a thing? Only a degenerate psychopath that truly hates the USA?'”
“Again, I’m gonna leave this up here in probably 200 font. So Mr. Jordan doesn’t need his glasses to read it,” Swalwell added, referring to news that Jordan recently refused to comment on a Trump social media post claiming he first hadn’t read it, then when a reporter showed it to him, Jordan said he couldn’t read it because he didn’t have his glasses.
:{
“The same individual who posted this also posted this photo. There you go, Donald. Trump. Real tough guy holding a baseball bat, next to a picture of that independent prosecutor that Jim Jordan wants to commit a felony, Alvin Bragg.”}:
“But you won’t hear from this Committee to Obstruct Justice, any condemnation of what Donald Trump posted. They can’t condemn him. They can’t. So in their silence, they condone it. And in these posts from Donald Trump, he incites more and more Americans to commit violence like a woman who was arrested yesterday, near Times Square with a knife seeking to carry out an act of violence in Donald Trump’s name.”
Swalwell blasted Chairman Jordan for repeatedly falsely claiming that Attorney General Merrick Garland had labeled parents speaking at school board meetings “domestic terrorists,” a lie made by many Republicans and conservatives.
READ MORE: New WSJ Poll Is Devastating for DeSantis and His ‘Anti-Woke’ Policies
“No parent has a right to threaten a school board volunteer. If a threat is brought to the FBI, it’s their duty to investigate those threats. We’ve also learned from all the document production from DOJ and the FBI in the Department of Education, that there is not one instance where the Department of Justice called any parent or a group of parents, ‘domestic terrorists,’ as has been claimed by Jim Jordan.”
:{And he criticized House Republicans, who, under Jim Jordan, had posted a tweet in support of Donald Trump, Elon Musk, and Kanye West.
“It’s also about a tweet that Jim Jordan posted back in the fall. ‘Kanye. Elon. Trump.’ Now after that tweet was posted, Kanye said he’s going to declare ‘DEF CON three on the Jews.’ The tweet stayed up for months. Everyone was like, ‘Hey guys, turns out your hero Kanye West hates the Jews. We all stand with Israel. Please take down the tweet.’ They didn’t take down the tweet. They kept the tweet up. Day after day. Jewish community they’re hurting, they say, ‘Please don’t take, please don’t put this tweet up.’ It stays up.”}:
He also blasted the GOP for holding hearings with witnesses they invited who are anti-police, despite their motto of “backing the blue.”
“Last week, we had a hearing where you could call anyone in America when you have the majority, the power of a subpoena. We had a hearing about the ATF. These guys brought a witness who had just recently tweeted, ‘fuck cops.’ Cops. That’s what this guy tweeted. Anyone on Earth could have come to that hearing and they brought someone that said, ‘fuck cops.’ Then one of their colleagues, this is what she’s selling on her social media: ‘defund the FBI.’ So we went from backing the blue to backing the coup.”
Swalwell concluded his remarks by slamming the committee for doing nothing to reduce gun violence in the wake of Monday’s school mass shooting.
“So we’ll waste our time today on this exercise on behalf of Donald Trump and perhaps Elon Musk, but everyone on their side is going to have to go home this weekend to their constituents and their constituents are going to ask them one question: Three little babies died this week in a school in Nashville. No other committee in Congress has jurisdiction to do something about that except this committee. So you’re on the Judiciary Committee. Three kids are dead. They’re gonna be buried this week. What did you do about it? Did you show up to the Judiciary Committee and fight for those kids? Or did you show up and fight for Donald Trump? They showed up to the first hearing after Nashville and they’re fighting for Donald Trump.”
Watch the videos above or at this link.
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https://www.alternet.org/menacing-wickedness-marjorie-taylor-greene/
no lnx twt
:{on June 22nd, 2021, then-freshman United States Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Georgia) filed House Resolution 3960 to abolish the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, alleging that the agency was in cahoots with President Joe Biden to strip American citizens of their right to bear arms.
"The ATF's ongoing, unconstutional [sic] attacks on the Second Amendment must end," Greene's office stated of the Brian A. Terry Memorial Eliminate the ATF Act, which went nowhere because Democrats controlled both chambers of Congress. The typo still appears on Greene's website.
Like most right-wing lawmakers, Greene is steadfastly opposed to any form of sensible gun control, even as thousands of Americans are killed by bullets every year. But Monday's mass shooting at the private Christian Covenant School in Nashville, Tennessee that claimed the lives of at least six people marked an escalation in Greene's rhetoric and actions aimed at thwarting efforts to save lives.}:
READ MORE: Marjorie Taylor Greene garners few sympathizers after claiming she was 'attacked' in a restaurant
:{At around the same time that Greene baselessly blamed Biden for the slaughter, Greene and other members of their state's Capitol Hill delegation were obstructing a routine ATF inspection of a weapons retailer in Smyrna, Georgia.
Footage of the confrontation was posted to Twitter along with a screenshot of Greene boastfully writing that the ATF abandoned its assignment "after we questioned their motives."
In the video, Greene flexed her power.
"We're members of Congress," she said, adding that "I serve on the Oversight Committee."}:
READ MORE: Watch: Jamie Raskin shreds Marjorie Taylor Greene at hearing for sympathizing with insurrectionists
:{Greene also complained to the ATF officer that the "government has been weaponized," that "people feel like their gun rights are threatened," and that "gun dealers feel like their businesses are threatened."
Given the day's events, social media users tore into Greene with exasperated disgust.}:
Jayme Ruimveld: "Is this today? Is she running her mouth about guns while children have been murdered by guns at their preschool? Not a shred of decency. Not an ounce of respect or concern for the grieving families. Absolutely soulless."
Kat: "And they're worried about gun vendors, feeling threatened!"
Judy Miron: "There are 7 more people dead, 3 of them children today in Nashville.. and she complains about ATF inspections!! Time to get rid of her. Vote her out!!"
Michelle: "Marge is nothing but a heartless hateful little troll."
Leon: "Meanwhile children died today at a Christian School, but hey as long as your precious 2nd Amendment that was written for Flintlock rifles is protected right."
Cathy Coleman: "There is something very wrong with MTG and the Republican members of Congress who hover around her & follow her lead. Something beyond dirty politics or unbridled ambition - there is a menacing wickedness and cruelty about them all."
ZoëbethC-MeidasMighty: "Just as another shooter shows up in Tennessee to kill elementary school kids. They got their priorities straight. I bet after lunch it's more bills to ban Drag Shows on a federal level."
Marcus Flowers: "As America grieves over yet another school shooting, this time in Nashville, Marjorie Taylor Greene is trying to prevent the ATF from doing their job. Common Sense Gun Legislation is necessary. We must do something to protect our children."
Seth Abramson: "Marjorie Taylor Greene is all about 'good guys with guns' until a violent insurrectionist smashes the window of the Speaker's Lobby inside a closed-to-the-public United States Capitol so a military veteran can leap into the breach and kidnap or kill a sitting member of Congress."
Watch the encounter below or at this link.
READ MORE: 'Performative disgrace': Marjorie Taylor Greene ridiculed for defending Ashli Babbitt while misspelling her name
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an 3 23
no lnx
republican House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan's unprecedented attack on Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg this week will "backfire" on the GOP, according to a Washington Post columnist who spoke with House Democrats.
Chairman Jordan, who has no constitutional oversight authority over an elected county district attorney, demanded Bragg hand over documents and communications and testify before Congress about his criminal investigation into Donald Trump's hush money payoffs and business practices. Some believe an indictment could come as early as Wednesday afternoon.
"If Jim Jordan and MAGA Republicans attack the Manhattan DA's potential indictment of Trump, Democrats will use the proceedings to draw attention to coordination between House Republicans and Trump's legal team, Dems tell me," The Washington Post’s Greg Sargent said Wednesday via Twitter. "This will backfire on the GOP."
Sargent adds House Oversight Committee Ranking Member Jamie Raskin told him: "This is an extreme move to use the resources of Congress to interfere with a criminal investigation at the state and local level." Raskin likened "GOP 'political culture' to 'authoritarian dictatorships.'"
READ MORE: 'Chilling': Law Enforcement 'Seriously' Investigating Threats Ahead of Possible Trump Indictment Says Top WaPo Reporter
Sargent says Democrats "can use this against the GOP."
He adds: "Trump's lawyer sen[t] a letter to Jim Jordan urging an investigation into any charges against Trump, the NYT reports. Dems will use any hearings that Jordan holds to shed light on coordination between Trump's legal team and House Republicans, aides tell me."
In his Wednesday Washington Post opinion column Sargent calls onDemocrats to "marshal some serious creativity in response" to Republican attacks.
"The extraordinary move by House Republicans to insert themselves into Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg's investigation of Trump provides Democrats with an opening to do just that," he says.
Sargent says "it's not clear that Jordan, the Judiciary Committee chair, has thought this through. The course of action signaled by the letter — also signed by Oversight Committee Chair James Comer (R-Ky.) — could go sideways for Republicans in unforeseen ways."
READ MORE: US Secretary of State Denounces Uganda's New 'Kill the Gays' Bill
Raskin is an attorney, constitutional law professor, and was the lead impeachment manager for the second impeachment of Donald Trump. He has become a leading voice for American democratic values and in the fight against the MAGA Republicans.
"If and when there is an indictment, we will be able to reconstruct all the facts of this case in a way that makes sense to the American public," Raskin told Sargent, who explains: "The aim, he noted, would be to 'show the justice process is working, and there is no call for extraordinary intervention by the U.S. Congress.'"
Sargent warns, "A Trump indictment will unleash months of information warfare around a numbingly complex matter never before litigated in the public arena. Democrats sometimes undervalue the importance of sheer creativity in politics, and as ugly as the GOP response has been, Republicans are responding to unprecedented circumstances with new innovations. Democrats must meet them on that battlefield."
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https://www.alternet.org/james-comer-2659569934/
an 3 23 no lnx
house Oversight Chair James Comer's zeal to open multiple investigations into President Joe Biden and members of his administration is starting to rankle his GOP colleagues who want the Kentucky Republican to slow down and stay out of their work.
According to a report from Punchbowl, there is a belief among Republicans that Comer is spreading himself too thin by chasing after multiple investigations that normally don't fall under his committee's purview.
As Punchbowl is reporting, "In a little more than two months as chair, Comer has launched a barrage of probes into everything from the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan to Ukraine aid to the toxic train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio," and that has some other House committee chairman unhappy that he is stepping on their toes.
One of those avenues of investigations is into Biden's withdrawal from Afghanistan which resulted in a letter from Comer demanding information and that letter caught House Foreign Affairs Committee Chair Michael McCaul (R-TX) flatfooted.
“I was a little surprised by the letter,” he admitted before brushing it off with, “But we’ve talked since then. We’re working it out.”
According to the report, "Comer’s letter to Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg last month requesting information on the Ohio train derailment raised eyebrows in GOP circles as well. Some Republicans thought the probe is overreaching on an issue better served by either the Energy and Commerce or Transportation and Infrastructure panels."
One aide for a House member was critical of Comer thrusting himself into everything.
“There’s a big difference between oversight where you have expertise and oversight to churn out press releases,” they explained. “Everyone thought he’d learn from prior chairmen and work in a more coordinated way. It’s been quite the opposite.”
The report adds that House Judiciary Committee Chair Jim Jordan (R-OH) tried to tamp down complaints about Comer's intrusiveness, telling Punchbowl: "We’re gonna do stuff in our committee. He’s going to do stuff on his committee, and if there’s overlap, and he’s doing stuff that we’re doing too … the most important thing is that the American people get the facts, we propose legislation and we address things in the appropriations process.”
You can read more here.
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https://www.propublica.org/article/jim-jordan-disinformation-subpoena-universities
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house Republicans have sent letters to at least three universities and a think tank requesting a broad range of documents related to what it says are the institutions' contributions to the Biden administration’s “censorship regime.”
The letters are the latest effort by a House subcommittee set up in January to investigate how the federal government, working with social media companies, has allegedly been “weaponized” to silence conservative and right-wing voices. So far, the committee’s investigations have amplified a variety of dubious, outright false and highly misleading Republican grievances with law enforcement, many of them espoused by former President Donald Trump. Committee members have cited supposed abuses that include the FBI’s search of Mar-a-Lago, its investigations of Jan. 6 rioters and the Biden administration’s purported use of executive powers to shut down conservative viewpoints on social media.
now, universities and their researchers are coming under the spotlight of the committee, which the Republicans have labeled the House Judiciary Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government. The letters, signed by Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, who is chair of both the House Judiciary Committee and the subcommittee, were sent in early March.
They cover an investigation into how “certain third parties, including organizations like yours, may have played a role in this censorship regime by advising on so-called ‘misinformation,’” according to a copy of one of the letters obtained by ProPublica.
The committee requested documents and information dating back to January 2015 between any “employee, contractor, or agent of your organization” and the federal government or social media organizations pertaining to the moderation of social media content. ProPublica confirmed the requests went to Stanford University, the University of Washington, Clemson University and the German Marshall Fund of the United States.
The letters have prompted a wave of alarm among those in the field that the congressional inquiry itself, no matter what it finds, will lead universities to pull back on this research just as the 2024 election gets underway. “Recent efforts definitely have a chilling effect on the community of experts across academia, civil society and government built up to understand broader online harms like harassment, foreign influence and — yes — disinformation,” Graham Brookie, who leads studies in this area at the Atlantic Council, told ProPublica.
“The ‘weaponization’ committee is being weaponized against us,” another researcher told ProPublica. Like half a dozen others interviewed for this story, this person asked not to be identified because of the ongoing congressional probe.
Democrats have called the committee a modern-day House Un-American Activities Committee, akin to the congressional committee that pursued alleged communists during the McCarthy era.
Since Rep. Jordan took over the gavel of the judiciary committee in January, he has issued more than 80 subpoenas and requests for documents. Recipients have included the CEOs of social media companies, intelligence officials who signed on to a statement about Hunter Biden’s laptop during the 2020 campaign and members of the National School Boards Association who asked the Justice Department to investigate threats of violence against school board officials. Jordan himself refused a subpoena to testify before the Democratic-led House Select Committee on the January 6 Attack, prompting that committee to refer the matter to the House Ethics Committee.
Jordan’s missives were sent a day after a committee hearing on the “Twitter files,” leaked internal communications from the company that purported to show how right-wing accounts were sidelined and silenced. In written testimony, a panelist accused a broad swath of organizations and individuals of being members of the “Censorship Industrial Complex,” including, he implied, the FBI, Department of Homeland Security, CIA, Department of Defense and universities. The witness wrote disinformation researchers, working with the government, are “creating blacklists of disfavored people and then pressuring, cajoling, and demanding that social media platforms censor, deamplify, and even ban the people on these blacklists.”
A New York Universitystudyconcluded in 2021 that social media had not silenced those on the right. “The claim of anti-conservative animus” by social media companies, the study said, “is itself a form of disinformation: a falsehood with no reliable evidence to support it."
A spokesperson for Rep. Jordan did not respond to requests for comment.
Since the 2016 elections, Stanford, UW, Clemson and others have engaged in research, sometimes in partnership with social media platforms, government officials and each other, into ways that disinformation can pose tZreats to democracy and how such efforts can be meaningfully countered. The role of lies and disinformation leading to the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol gave increased prominence to their work.
As ProPublica has previously reported, sustained accusations by congressional Republicans and right-wing influencers that the Biden administration is stifling dissent have caused the administration to back away from its efforts countering disinformation, including canceling research contracts and sending messages inside the administration that disinformation work is too hot to handle.
Those moves followed a bungled rollout of a clumsily named “Disinformation Governance Board” to coordinate efforts to counter what the administration had called “dangerous conspiracy theories that can provide a gateway to terrorist violence.” Following criticism, the administration disbanded the board and accepted the resignation of its executive director, Nina Jankowicz.
Jordan has subpoenaed Jankowicz, too. She is scheduled to testify April 10 and said she will happily testify under oath.
“This sort of inquiry isn’t something that belongs in the United States Congress,” said Jankowicz. “But given that this method of bullying has caused other institutions to fold to Republican pressure in the past, I fear we may see the blunt force of congressional committees continue to be used in ways that are in direct opposition to the safety, security and free expression of the American people."
deSantis Privately Called for Google to Be “Broken Up”
Stanford did not answer a question about whether it stood by its research or make its researchers, the Stanford Internet Observatory’s Alex Stamos or Renee DiResta, available for comment. The university referred ProPublica to an online fact sheet addressing “inaccurate and misleading claims” made in the congressional testimony about Stanford’s “projects to analyze rumors and narratives on social media relating to U.S. elections and the coronavirus.” The German Marshall fund said it was working to address the request and Clemson University’s media relations department did not respond to requests for comment.
The University of Washington’s Center for an Informed Public issued a statement that said “We’re incredibly proud of our work,” adding that “some of the projects CIP researchers have contributed to have become the subject of false claims and criticism that mischaracterizes our work, a tactic that peer researchers in this space are also experiencing.” The statement did not specifically address the House requests.
A university spokesperson, Victor Balta, said in an email, “The UW stands behind this important research aiming to resist strategic misinformation and strengthen our discourse. We have received a request for documents and information, and a response is in progress.”
===
:{bad code
}:
68 pp basis for benghazi attack?
https://judiciary.house.gov/sites/evo-subsites/republicans-judiciary.house.gov/files/evo-media-document/shellenberger-testimony.pdf
The Censorship Industrial Complex U.S. Government Support For Domestic Censorship And Disinformation Campaigns, 2016 - 2022 Testimony by Michael Shellenberger to The House Select Committee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government March 9, 2023
Executive Summary 4
The Censorship Industrial Complex Today 8
Definition and Mission 8
National Science Foundation Funding 8
Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) Roots 9
Key Organizations 10
Key Individuals 15
The Complex’s Disinformation Campaigns 18
- The Trump-Russian Collusion Conspiracy Theory, 2016 - 19 18
- Delegitimizing the Covid Lab Leak Theory, 2020 – 2021 22
- The Hunter Biden Laptop Conspiracy Theory, 2020–21 22
Ideology, Strategy, And Origins 25
Ideology 25
Strategy 30
Origins 34
Key Events 36
2017 36
New Knowledge runs disinformation campaign against Republican Senate
Candidate in Alabama 36
Former FBI employee web site that falsely accuses ordinary Twitter users of
being Russian bots 38
2018 39
Senate Intelligence Report On Russian Interference 39
2020 40
“Election Integrity Partnership” 40
Aspen Institute Workshop Trains Top Journalists To Pre-Bunk “Hack and Leak” 42
Covid Censorship 45
Lab Leak Theory 45
Mask Skepticism 46
2021 46
DHS Expands Its Censorship Powers 46
Under Pressure From White House, Facebook and Twitter Censor Accurate Vaccine
Information 47
Climate Change and Energy 50
2022 53
U.S. government funds “Disinformation Index” and “News Guard” to drive
advertisers away from disfavored news media 53
Creation of Department Of Homeland Security’s “Disinformation Governance
Board” 54
2023 54
Diresta and Stamos hype “foreign disinformation” threat 55
Recommendations 56
- Defund the Censorship Industrial Complex 56
- Mandate instant reporting of all communications between government
officials and contractors with social media executives relating to content
moderation 56
- Reduce Scope of Section 230 56
Shellenberger Testimony March 9, 2022 p. 4
Executive Summary
In his 1961 farewell address, President Dwight Eisenhower warned of
“the acquisition of unwarranted influence… by the military-industrial
complex.” Eisenhower feared that the size and power of the “complex,” or
cluster, of government contractors and the Department of Defense would
“endanger our liberties or democratic processes.” How? Through “domination
of the nation's scholars by Federal employment, project allocations, and the
power of money.” He feared public policy would “become the captive of a
scientific-technological elite.”1
Eisenhower’s fears were well-founded. Today, American taxpayers are
unwittingly financing the growth and power of a censorship-industrial complex
run by America’s scientific and technological elite, which endangers our
liberties and democracy. I am grateful for the opportunity to offer this
testimony and sound the alarm over the shocking and disturbing emergence
of state-sponsored censorship in the United States of America.
The Twitter Files, state attorneys general lawsuits, and investigative
reporters have revealed a large and growing network of government agencies,
academic institutions, and nongovernmental organizations that are actively
censoring American citizens, often without their knowledge, on a range of
issues, including on the origins of COVID2
, COVID vaccines3
, emails relating to
Hunter Biden’s business dealings4
, climate change5
, renewable energy6
, fossil
fuels7
, and many other issues.
I offer some cautions. I do not know how much of the censorship is
coordinated beyond what we have been able to document, and I will not
speculate. I recognize that the law allows Facebook, Twitter, and other private
companies to moderate content on their platforms. And I support the right of
governments to communicate with the public, including to dispute inaccurate
and misleading information.
But government officials have been caught repeatedly pushing social
media platforms to censor disfavored users and content. Often, these acts of
censorship threaten the legal protection social media companies need to exist,
Section 230
Shellenberger Testimony March 9, 2022 p. 5]
“If government officials are directing or facilitating such censorship,”
notes George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley, “it raises
serious First Amendment questions. It is axiomatic that the government cannot
do indirectly what it is prohibited from doing directly.”8
Moreover, we know that the U.S. government has funded organizations
that pressure advertisers to boycott news media organizations and social
media platforms that a) refuse to censor and/or b) spread disinformation,
including alleged conspiracy theories.
The Stanford Internet Observatory, the University of Washington, the
Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab, and Graphika all have
inadequately-disclosed ties to the Department of Defense, the C.I.A., and
other intelligence agencies. They work with multiple U.S. government agencies
to institutionalize censorship research and advocacy within dozens of other
universities and think tanks.
It is important to understand how these groups function. They are not
publicly engaging with their opponents in an open exchange of ideas. They
aren’t asking for a national debate over the limits of the First Amendment.
Rather, they are creating blacklists of disfavored people and then pressuring,
cajoling, and demanding that social media platforms censor, deamplify, and
even ban the people on these blacklists.
Who are the censors? They are a familiar type. Overly confident in their
ability to discern truth from falsity, good intention from bad intention, the
instinct of these hall monitor-types is to complain to the teacher — and, if the
teacher doesn’t comply, to go above them, to the principal. Such an approach
might work in middle school and many elite universities, but it is anathema to
freedom and is an abuse of power.
These organizations and others are also running their own influence
operations, often under the guise of “fact-checking.” The intellectual leaders
of the censorship complex have convinced journalists and social media
executives that accurate information is disinformation, that valid hypotheses
are conspiracy theories, and that greater self-censorship results in more
accurate reporting. NOTE LACK OF EVIDENCE
In many instances, censorship, such as labeling social
[Shellenberger Testimony March 9, 2022 p. 6
media posts, is part of the influence operation aimed at discrediting factual
information.
The censorship industrial complex combines established methods of
psychological manipulation, some developed by the U.S. Military during the
Global War on Terror, with highly sophisticated tools from computer science,
including artificial intelligence. The complex’s leaders are driven by the fear
that the Internet and social media platforms empower populist, alternative,
and fringe personalities and views, which they regard as destabilizing. Federal
government officials, agencies, and contractors have gone from fighting ISIS
recruiters and Russian bots to censoring and deplatforming ordinary Americans
and disfavored public figures.
Importantly, the bar for bringing in military-grade government
monitoring and speech-countering techniques has moved from “countering
terrorism” to “countering extremism” to countering simple misinformation.
The government no longer needs a predicate of calling you a terrorist or
extremist to deploy government resources to counter your political activity.
The only predicate it needs is simply the assertion that the opinion you
expressed on social media is wrong.
These efforts extend to influencing and even directing conventional
news media organizations. Since 1971, when the Washington Post and New
York Times elected to publish classified Pentagon papers about the war in
Vietnam, journalists understood that we have a professional obligation to
report on leaked documents whose contents are in the public interest, even
when they had been stolen. And yet, in 2020, the Aspen Institute and
Stanford’s Cyber Policy Center urged journalists to “Break the Pentagon
Papers principle” and not cover leaked information to prevent the spread of
“disinformation.”
Government-funded censors frequently invoke the prevention of realworld
harm to justify their demands for censorship, but the censors define
harm far more expansively than the Supreme Court does. The censors have
defined harm so broadly, in fact, that they have justified Facebook censoring
accurate information about COVID vaccines, for example, to prevent “vaccine
hesitancy.” Their goal, clearly, is not protecting the truth but rather persuading
Shellenberger Testimony March 9, 2022 p. 7]
the public. That is the purpose of open debate and the free exchange of ideas.
Persuasion by covert means is censorship.
And, increasingly, the censors say their goal is to restrict information
that “delegitimizes” governmental, industrial, and news media organizations.9
That mandate is so sweeping that it could easily censor criticism of any part of
the status quo from elected officials to institutions to laws. This extreme,
reactionary attitude is, bluntly, un-American.
Congress should immediately cut off funding to the censors and
investigate their activities. Second, it should mandate instant reporting of all
conversations between social media executives, government employees, and
contractors concerning content moderation. Third, Congress should limit the
broad permission given to social media platforms to censor, deplatform, and
spread [GUBMINT PRESUMABLY] propaganda.
Whatever Congress does, it is incumbent upon the American people to
wake up to the threat of government censorship via behind-the-scenes
pressure on media corporations. “Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry,”
Eisenhower noted, “can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and
military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals so that
security and liberty may prosper together.”
p11
Key Organizations
CISA: The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency,
an agency within the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). On January 6, 2017, outgoing Obama Administration DHS Secretary Jeh Johnson designated “election infrastructure” as “critical infrastructure,” opening up CISA’s mission to censoring alleged “disinformation.”15 Congress created CISA in November 2018 to defend the U.S. from cybersecurity threats from hostile foreign actors (e.g., Russian hackers).16
Digital Forensics Research (DFR) Lab at the Atlantic Council.
The lab is one of the most established and influential full-time censorship institutions in the world.17 Atlantic Council DFR Lab created the foreign-facing DisinfoPortal in June 2018, working directly with the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) and 23 organizations to censor election narratives leading up to the 2019 elections in Europe.18 In 2018, Facebook named Atlantic Council, an official partner in “countering disinformation” worldwide.19 US taxpayer funding to the Atlantic Council comes from the Defense Department, the US Marines, the US Air Force, the US Navy, the State Department, USAID, the National Endowment for Democracy, as well as energy companies and weapons manufacturers.20
Graphika: a private network analysis firm. Graphika published a report for the Senate Intelligence Committee in December 2018, which claimed to have uncovered “in unusually rich detail the scope of Russia's interference not only in the 2016 U.S. presidential election but also in our day-to-day democratic dialogue.”21 Graphika hired as its director of investigations Ben Nimmo away from DFR lab.22
The Defense Department's Minerva Initiative, which focuses on psychological warfare, and DARPA, both gave grants to Graphika.23 In 2021, the Pentagon awarded nearly $5 million in grants and nearly $2 million in contracts to the organization.24 Last fall, Graphika alleged that cartoons on a fringe website were “suspected Russian actors” that were
p12
Shillenberger Testimony March 9, 2022 p. 11]
Shellenberger Testimony March 9, 2022 p. 12]
“engaged in a renewed effort” to interfere in the 2022 midterm elections.25
The New York Times picked up on the story.26
Moonshot CVE is private firm to redirect right-wing people online away
from radicalism 27 but was found to have pushed right-wing people toward an
anarchist leader. “They sent people who were already looking for violence to a
convicted felon with anarchist and anti-Semitic views,” Rep. Morgan Griffith (RVa.)
said to Google’s CEO. “Who is vetting the vetters? We continue to need
more transparency and accountability.”28 Moonshot includes Elizabeth
Neumann, former DHS Asst. Sec. for Counter Terrorism.
FITF: Foreign Influence Task Force, a cyber-regulatory agency
comprised of members of the FBI, DHS, and ODNI
GEC: Global Engagement Center, an analytical division of the U.S. State
Department which systematically launders domestic censorship by working
through “counter-disinformation” NGOs and foreign firms.
Hamilton 68: A dashboard created with U.S. government funding and
the support of New Knowledge claiming to reveal Russian bots on Twitter but
was mocked by Twitter staff because all or almost all belonged to American
citizens
HSIN: Homeland Security Information Network, a portal through which
states and other official bodies can send “flagged” accounts
EIP: Election Integrity Project, a partnership between four government
funded censorship organizations: Stanford Internet Observatory, Graphika,
University of Washington Disinformation Lab, and the Atlantic Council’s Digital
Forensic Research Lab. EIP has served as CISA’s deputized domestic
disinformation flagger
IRA: Internet Research Agency, the infamous Russian “troll farm”
headed by “Putin’s chef,” Yevgheny Prigozhin
MISP: Malware Information Sharing Platform. Used by cyber security
operatives to share malware, tools around bots, coordinated and inauthentic
ops. “When DFR wanted to apply cybersec tools to misinformation,” said a
government disinformation specialist, “they used MISP.”29
NewsGuard and the Global Disinformation Index, both taxpayer-funded,
are urging advertisers to boycott disfavored publications, and direct
their funding to favored ones The organizations have been caught spreading
disinformation, including that the COVID lab leak theory is a debunked
conspiracy theory, and seeking to discredit publications which accurately
reported on Hunter Biden’s laptop, such as the New York Post
Cognitive Security Collaborative and Adversarial Misinformation and
Influence Tactics and Techniques.
These are online platforms for describing
and coordinating disinformation attacks. “It works like other security
operations focused on threat actors,” noted the specialist. “If they have a
threat actor who has launched a coordinated inauthentic information attack,”
said a source, “they would log the threat actor and start mapping the actor
just as they would a cyber attack. They then coordinate social media
takedowns” [removals].30
University of Washington (UW), one of two academic institutions that
DHS worked directly with and had as its partner, to censor information on
social media platforms during the 2020 election.31 It received a $3 million
government grant, shared with Stanford Internet Observatory, from the Biden
Administration in 2021, to continue its “election misinformation” flagging.32
Stanford Internet Observatory (SIO).
One of the four members of the
Election Integrity Project (and later the Virality Project) with UW, Graphika, and
DFR. It was created in June 2019 by director Alex Stamos and research
manager Renee DiResta. SIO monitors social media and promotes Internet
censorship. For the 2020 election, as part of its partnership with CISA, SIO had
50 “misinformation” analysts assigned to monitor social media.33 SIO was
originally funded by Craig Newmark Philanthropies, the Omidyar Network, and
the Charles Koch Foundation.34
Key Individuals
● Graham Brookie, leader of the Atlantic Council’s DFR Lab. Brookie
served in the Obama White House on the National Security Council.35
● Renee DiResta, Stanford Internet Observatory. DiResta was the research
director for the organization caught creating bot accounts and spreading
disinformation about Alabama Republican Senate Candidate Roy
Moore.36 In her 2018 Senate testimony DiResta advocated “legislation
that defines and criminalizes foreign propaganda” and allowing law
enforcement to “prosecute foreign propaganda.”37 According to
recorded remarks by DiResta’s supervisor at Stanford, Alex Stamos, she
had previously “worked for the CIA.”38
● Jen Easterly, CISA Director. A former military intelligence officer and the
National Security Agency (NSA) deputy director for counterterrorism.
“One could argue we’re in the business of critical infrastructure,” said
Easterly in November 2021, ”and the most critical infrastructure is our
cognitive infrastructure, so building that resilience to misinformation and
disinformation, I think, is incredibly important.”39 The month before,
Easterly said during a CISA summit that Chris Krebs's construction of a
“counter-misinformation” complex with the private sector was a high
priority for DHS.40 A U.S. District Court ruled in October of last year that
Easterly could be deposed because of her “first-hand knowledge” of the
CISA “nerve center” around disinformation.41
● Chris Krebs. CISA Director (2018 to 2020). Chair of Aspen Institute
“Commission on Information Disorder,” helped organize DHS’s “whole-of-society”
approach to censorship.42 Krebs administered the federal
side of the 2020 election after DHS effectively nationalized election
security on January 6, 2017, via the declaration of elections as “critical
infrastructure.” Krebs then declared that “misinformation” was an attack
on election security. Krebs said in April 2022 that the Hunter Biden
laptop still looked like Russian disinformation and that what mattered
was that news media did not cover the laptop during the 2020 election
cycle.43 Krebs advocated for censoring critics of government COVID-19
protocols44 and said “misinformation” is the largest threat to election
security.45
● Ben Nimmo, Head of Global Threat Intelligence for Facebook, and thus
one of America’s most important censors. Nimmo was the technical lead
for censorship at the Atlantic Council's Digital Forensics Research Lab,
was employed by Graphika in the fall of 2020 46, and worked in NATO
information operations.47 In 2018, Nimmo publicly reported an
anonymous Twitter account, “Ian56”, as a Russian disinformation bot
account because it expressed left-of-center populist anti-war views when
in reality Ian56 was a real person.48 After Nimmo's report, “Ian56” was
reported to the UK government.49
● Kate Starbird, who runs the University of Washington disinformation lab,
has for years been funded primarily by U.S. government agencies to do
social media narrative analytics of political groups, or insurgency
movements, of interest or concern to U.S. military intelligence or
diplomatic equities. Starbird acknowledged that the censorship focus of
CISA and EIP moved from “foreign, inauthentic” social media users to
“domestic, authentic” social media users between 2016 to 2020.50
Starbird is now the head of CISA’s censorship advisory subcommittee.
Alex Stamos was the senior leader at EIP and VP, which served as the
deputized domestic “disinformation” flagger for DHS via Chris Krebs’
CISA. Stamos in 2020 proposed that DHS centralize government
censorship.51 Stamos was the Chief Security Officer of Facebook and led
Facebook's response to alleged Russian disinformation after the 2016
election. Stamos left Facebook, now Meta, in 2018, after reportedly
conflicting with other Facebook executives over how much to censor.52
Stamos says he favors moving away from a free and open Internet
toward a more controlled “cable news network” model. A huge part of
the problem is “large influencers,” said Stamos.53
● Claire Wardle cofounded and directed, First Draft News. a nonprofit
coalition, in June 2015, to build the censorship complex. “In September
2016, our original coalition expanded to become an international Partner
Network of newsrooms, universities, platforms and civil society
organizations.” In 2017, while at the Shorenstein Center for Media,
Politics and Public Policy at Harvard’s Kennedy School, Wardle helped
develop the “Information Disorder Lab,” a framing that Aspen Institute
would embrace. In June 2022, First Draft closed, but its work lives on at
the Information Futures Lab at Brown University’s School of Public
Health.
The Complex’s Disinformation Campaigns
Many of the leaders and participants in today’s censorship industrial ex
have been involved in spreading disinformation, including conspiracy
theories compl, while discrediting accurate information and alleging that valid
theories were debunked conspiracy theories.
- The Trump-Russian Collusion Conspiracy Theory, 2016–2019
The complex’s first major disinformation campaign was the conspiracy
theory that Donald Trump colluded with Vladimir Putin and the Russian
government to steal the 2016 election.
There is no evidence that Russia’s social media investments, or its
hacking and leaking of emails, had any impact, much less a decisive one, on
the outcome of the 2016 election.54 Most neutral analysts, as well as many
Democratic strategists, believe that they did not.55
Two of the four leading censorship organizations, New Knowledge and
Graphika, provided the Senate Intelligence Committee provided the academic
foundation for the claim that the Russians had elected Trump. They pointed to
evidence that ten million people in the U.S. had seen the ads.56
“The Russian disinformation operations that affected the 2016 United
States presidential election are by no means over,” wrote DiResta in the New
York Times in December 2018. “Russian interference through social media… is
a chronic, widespread and identifiable condition that we must now
aggressively manage.”57
Her findings were widely respected and publicized. Former director of
national intelligence James Clapper called the evidence that Russia had
influenced the election "staggering." University of Pennsylvania
communication professor Kathleen Hall Jamieson pointed to the evidence to
conclude that Trump would not have been president without the Russians.58
But there is no evidence that the Russians had any influence on the
2016 campaign, much less that they won it for Trump. Robert Faris, Hal
Roberts and Yochai Benkler of Harvard's Berkman Klein Center for Internet and
Society analyzed millions of articles from 2015 to 2018 using network analysis
to measure how audiences paid attention to media coverage, text analysis to
see which sites wrote about what and when, and wrote detailed case studies of
the most salient issues in the election. “The Russians are there,” wrote Benkler.
“They are trying. But in all these cases, American right-wing media did the
heavy lifting to originate and propagate disinformation.”....
an ah 3 23
when conservative ex-Rep. John Boehner was serving as House speaker during the Barack Obama years, one of the far-right congressmen who really got on his nerves was a fellow Ohio Republican: Rep. Jim Jordan, a Tea Party and House Freedom Caucus favorite who is now a Donald Trump loyalist and a prominent figure in the MAGA movement. As Boehner saw it, Jordan's very performative antics were harmful to the conservative cause. And Boehner's contempt for Jordan was obvious when he described him as a "legislative terrorist."
But in 2023, Boehner is long gone from Congress. And Jordan's prominence in the U.S. House of Representatives has increased to the point where, under House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-California), he now chairs the House Judiciary Committee as well as the House Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government.
In right-wing media, MAGA pundits have been insisting that Jordan's work with the Weaponization Subcommittee will seriously wound Joe Biden's presidency and the Democratic Party in general. But in an article published by the conservative website The Bulwark on March 10, two legal voices — former Associate U.S. Attorney General Frederick Baron and former federal prosecutor Dennis Aftergut — argue that the Weaponization Subcommittee's bark has so far been a lot worse than its bite.
"Jim Jordan's premise as chairman of the House Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government is apparent: If at first you don't succeed with political stunts dressed up as 'investigations,' change the subject and try again," Baron and Aftergut argue. "After an initial February 9 hearing airing old grievances…. Jordan, (on March 9), tried what had already backfired for his fellow MAGA committee chair James Comer: a disproven claim that the FBI had censored a Twitter story about Hunter Biden. But, once again, Jordan's investigative weapon was loaded with blanks. And he was hunting dead game anyway."
The legal experts continue, "You might remember the backstory: On October 14, 2020, just a couple of weeks before the 2020 election, Twitter prevented its users from linking to a New York Post article about Hunter Biden's laptop, because the article relied on stolen e-mails and contained private information. But by October 16, 2020, Twitter had corrected, once again permitting users to post links to the story. This tired old story was what Jordan chose as the focus of (March 9's) hearing."
Baron and Aftergut stress that so far, the Weaponization Subcommittee has been painfully short on substance.
"If Jordan's next hearing does not produce weightier and more relevant evidence of government misconduct," they write, "Jordan's weapon may look like a popgun firing a small cork on a thin string."
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'Ignorance about the biological function': Virologist dispels testimony from GOP’s lab link 'expert'
Dr. Robert R. Redfield, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, joined by President Donald J. Trump and Vice President Mike Pence, along with members of the White House Coronavirus Task Force, addresses his remarks at a coronavirus update briefing Wednesday, April 8, 2020, in the James S. Brady Press Briefing Room of the White House. (Official White House Photo by D. Myles Cullen)
Lindsay BeyersteinandThe Editorial BoardMarch 10, 2023
Proponents of a lab origin for SARS-Cov-2 are trying to make it seem as if new evidence for their conjecture is rapidly accumulating.
But Wednesday’s House Oversight hearing on the origins of the coronavirus seemed as if wiped from a bat’s butt. It was the same old players ruminating over the same stale conspiracy theories.
You wouldn’t know it from the hearing, but a lot has been done in the last three years to ferret out the origins of SARS-Cov-2.
After an all-out sprint called by President Biden to uncover the origins of the virus, the consensus of the US intelligence community remains that SARS-Cov-2 probably spilled over from wild animals, and that it’s neither genetically engineered nor a bioweapon.
Three years on, there’s still no evidence that the Wuhan Institute of Virology (or any other lab) had SARS-Cov-2 or any plausible progenitor virus before the outbreak. Most importantly, research has shown that the earliest cases of covid were tightly linked to one of the few markets in Wuhan that sold trafficked wildlife.
:{
}:
The GOP’s star witness was Dr. Robert Redfield, the former director of the Centers for Disease Control under Donald Trump.
The Republicans on the committee staked a lot on his credibility because, unlike their other witnesses (a science writer, and a self-described technology futurist), Redfield’s a virologist.
:{
}:
But Redfield botched basic facts in his testimony. And these weren’t trivial misstatements. He put false claims forward as his main reasons for thinking that SARS-Cov-2 was genetically engineered.
:{
}:
Redfield’s critics had plenty of time to roast him on Twitter because the GOP majority didn’t see fit to call any real virus experts to testify.
“Just looked in on the COVID origins to hear Redfield talking complete and utter gibberish,” tweeted Dr. Paul Bieniasz, who studies the evolution of viruses at the Rockefeller University.
Redfield falsely asserted that the SARS1 and MERS coronaviruses cannot spread person-to-person. He said, as a scientist, that he realized immediately that the Covid-19 virus was genetically engineered because it seemed designed to spread person-to-person, unlike SARS1 and MERS, which don’t spread that way.
Actually, the SARS1 and MERS coronaviruses do spread between people. SARS1 was so good at spreading person-to-person that it went to Canada all the way from China to kill hundreds.
So much for that argument.
Redfield insinuated that Chinese researchers must have taken a harmless bat virus and inserted into it a special sequence to make it infectious to people. In saying so, he grossly misstated the function of a viral feature known as the furin cleavage site (FCS). He said he suspected covid was genetically engineered because the virus’s furin cleavage site “totally changes the orientation of the binding domain of Covid [...] so it has high affinity for human [ACE2] receptors.”
:{
}:
None of this is true.
“The furin site is not involved in spike binding to the ACE2 receptor, and insertion of the furin site does not reorient the receptor binding domain to allow recognition of human ACE2,” Stephen Goldstein, a virologist at the University of Utah, explained to me.
“It's a stunning revelation about Redfield's ignorance about the biological function of the FCS as well as even a basic understanding of the Spike-ACE2 binding and viral entry,” said Angela Rasmussen, a virologist at the University of Saskatchewan, and a co-author of one of the most influential papers arguing for a natural origin.
Redfield also spent time whining about how Anthony Fauci excluded him from a working group investigating the origins of SARS-Cov-2.
“It was told to me that they wanted a single narrative and that I obviously had a different point of view,” Redfield claimed.
He offered no evidence to support his claim that he’d been excluded because of his opinion that the virus was genetically engineered. However, Redfield’s claim is unlikely true because scientists who were initially sympathetic to a lab origin were invited to participate.
Maybe they thought Redfield was busy running the CDC during a global pandemic.
Or maybe Redfield was left out because he doesn’t know a furin cleavage site from a fusilli.
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no lnx
Jim Jordan's (R-OH) Weaponization of the Federal Government Subcommittee's latest hearing blatantly ignores the recent testimony from a former Twitter executive, Yoel Roth, The Washington Post senior political correspondent Aaron Blake reports.
When it comes to Jordan's belief the Democrats "suppressed the Hunter Biden laptop story," Blake writes, the GOP-led committee's investigation has proven to "include plenty of supposition and elaborate theorizing — even as that has often run afoul of the known facts."
Blake writes:
Less than a minute into his opening statement, Jordan invoked Twitter’s former head of trust and safety, Yoel Roth.
'So what did the government tell him? A hack-and-leak operation was coming. How often did the government tell him this? Repeatedly for a year. When did the government say it was going to happen? October of 2020. And who did the government say it would involve? Hunter Biden,' Jordan said.
'The FBI knows what's going to happen, when it's going to happen, and who it's going to involve. Now that's amazing,' he continued. 'So maybe they get the time right, but they got the time, they got the method, and they got the person. That's amazing. It’s almost like these guys were clairvoyant.'
READ MORE: Why Jim Jordan's new subcommittee is 'pitiful' — not 'scary': Maddow producer
During the committee's first hearing last month, according to The Post, Roth asserted "it wasn't the government that suggested such a hack-and-leak operation might involve Hunter Biden" as "he believed that that information had actually had come from another company."
Roth said, "I don’t believe that perspective was shared by law enforcement. They didn't endorse it. They didn't provide that information."
Blake writes:
Roth said some people had drawn the wrong conclusion based on a misreading of an affidavit he had signed. In the affidavit, he described meetings with federal law enforcement in which he was warned about potential foreign hack-and-leak operations shortly before the 2020 election. The affidavit stated: 'I also learned in these meetings that there were rumors that a hack-and-leak operation would involve Hunter Biden.'
READ MORE: Red flags about Jim Jordan’s 'weaponization' committee ID’d by past congressional investigators
According to Blake, Roth confirmed last month that "he hadn't said law enforcement was his source."
Roth noted, "In one of those meetings, it was discussed, I believe by another company, that there was a possibility the hack-and-leak could relate to Hunter Biden and Burisma."
Blake noted, however, that "Jordan's summary is also contradicted by a November deposition from the former FBI agent whom Roth cited as warning of the hack-and-leak operations, Elvis Chan. 'I do not remember us specifically saying ‘Hunter Biden’ in any meeting,' Chan said in the deposition.'"
Moreover, Blake wrote, "Jordan's summary ignored key events, and it is contradicted by sworn testimony previously delivered by two key witnesses — including one who was responding to questions from Jordan himself."
READ MORE: 'That’s weaponization': Dem smacks down Jim Jordan for ignoring Trump DOJ corruption
The Washington Post's full report is available at this link (subscription required).
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'Get on with it': Jim Jordan gets earful from Dem fed up with GOP 'playbook' of lies ›
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an 3 23no lnx
Rep. Stacey Plaskett (D-VI) clashed with Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) on Thursday after she accused Republicans of using a "playbook" that includes "false narratives" about the 2020 election and the Capitol attack on Jan. 6, 2021.
At a House Oversight hearing on government "weaponization," Plaskett blasted Jordan for only providing access to documentation minutes before the event. She compared the tactics to House Speaker Kevin McCarthy's (R-CA) decision to give Fox News host Tucker Carlson thousands of hours of video from Jan. 6.
"This is unacceptable," she explained. "I'm ready for it. I don't know if a lot of other people are, but just as it was unacceptable for Kevin McCarthy to provide 41,000 hours of sensitive security footage to a biased talking head in an effort to rewrite what happened on January 6th."
"This is a new Republican playbook, apparently. Risk American safety and security to score political points," Plaskett insisted.
"The gentlelady's word should be struck," one Republican on the panel demanded. "That is out of line and outside the rules of this committee."
Plaskett objected.
"You don't get to determine what's struck down," Jordan snapped, declining to take down her words.
"This is a false narrative," Plaskett said of the hearing. "We're engaging in false narratives here, and we [Democrats] are going to tell the truth."
Following Plaskett's opening statement, Jordan felt the need to push back.
"You guys don't care," he remarked on Jan. 6. "You don't care. You don't want the American people to see what happened. The full video, transparency, you don't want that."
"And you don't want [the testimony of] two journalists who have been named personally by the Biden administration FTC in a letter," Jordan added. "They're here to tell their story. And frankly, I think they're brave individuals for being willing to come after they've been named in a letter from the Biden FTC."
"Is this your question time?" Plaskett asked.
"No, I'm responding to your ridiculous statements you made in your in your opening statement," Jordan shot back.
"OK, well, let's get on with it," Plaskett said.
"Oh, now we want to get on with it. So you can say all the things you want?" Jordan complained.
"I did in my opening statement as well as you had an opening statement," Plaskett pointed out. "You said what you needed to say in your opening statement. And I, as the ranking member, have used my time!"
Watch the video below from the U.S. House.
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an 3 23 raw
no lnx twt vid
Jamie Raskin (D-MD) blasted a House Select Committee on Covid-19 by noting that former President Donald Trump had refused for months to investigate the virus's origins but praised China President Xi Jinping instead.
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At a hearing to determine the origins of Covid on Wednesday, Raskin wondered why Republicans were not more upset with Trump's mishandling of the pandemic.
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"The COVID-19 pandemic came to America in 2020, of course, when Donald Trump was president," Raskin told the committee. "And that president's policy failures, magical thinking, and total recklessness caused, according to his own special advisor on COVID, Deborah Birx, the unnecessary death of hundreds of thousands of Americans."
Raskin said that answers "must come from objective, fact-based investigations informed by doctors, scientists, and public health experts."
"Whatever the origins of COVID-19, whether it is bats or bureaucrats, no finding will ever exonerate or rehabilitate Donald Trump for his lethal recklessness in mismanaging the crisis in America, which cost us more than a million lives," he continued. "Indeed, if COVID was actually the product of a lab leak, or the worst bioweapon of mass destruction ever invented, as some have argued, and obviously we don't have the scientific evidence to say any of this yet, it would not only not remove Donald Trump's culpability, it would only deepen his culpability in the most profound way."
The congressman offered a list of tweets in which Donald Trump praised Xi in the early days of the pandemic.
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"I'm just giving the committee a tiny taste of Donald Trump's fawning, star-struck, sycophantic embrace of everything the Chinese government was telling him in 2020," he explained. "He could have directed the intelligence community to lead a COVID-19 origins investigation back in March of 2020, three years ago. He did not. He wasted precious time minimizing the risk of the virus and lavishing his praise on President Xi."
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Raskin concluded: "He could have pushed back against the CCP for interfering with the WHO's investigation into its origins, and he could have asked our intelligence community to intervene. He did none of those things. And everyone should remember that. Let's take the politics out of it, and let's get to the bottom of what happened."
Watch the video below from the U.S. House.
FROM YOUR SITE ARTICLES
'Just dreamed that up': Jamie Raskin knocks Republicans over their latest attacks on the IRS ›
Jamie Raskin: Donald Trump must be prosecuted 'because of the magnitude of the attack on democracy' ›
Matt Gaetz and Marjorie Taylor Greene: Jamie Raskin is a 'communist' and unfit to serve due to son's suicide ›
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House GOP did not tell Raskin to remove head covering | AP News ›
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all 26 Republicans on the powerful House Oversight Committee have refused to sign a simple, two-sentence statement denouncing white supremacy.
"We, Members of the Committee on Oversight and Accountability, together denounce white nationalism and white supremacy in all its forms, including the 'Great Replacement' conspiracy theory. These hateful and dangerous ideologies have no place in the work of the United States Congress or our Committee," the statement (copy below) from Ranking Member Jamie Raskin (D-MD) reads.
It comes after several Oversight Committee Republicans "invoked dangerous and conspiratorial rhetoric echoing the racist and nativist tropes peddled by white supremacists and right-wing extremists," during a February hearing on the "border crisis," Ranking Member Raskin said in a March 5 letter to Committee Chair James Comer (photo, top.) The Washington Post first reported on Raskin’s letter.
"In particular, some Members repeatedly described the number of migrants arriving at the border as an 'invasion,' and even went so far as to falsely accuse the Biden-Harris Administration of implementing a plan 'to deliberately open our border' for purposes of 'changing our culture'—mirroring language often used by MAGA extremists who believe that pro-immigration policies are designed to replace white populations with non-white immigrants and other racial minorities," Raskin's letter says.
Congressman Raskin is a former constitutional law professor who gained national prominence as the impeachment manager during the second impeachment of Donald Trump.
READ MORE: Sarah Huckabee Sanders Signs Law Gutting Child Labor Protections for Minors Under 16 Years Old
"As I explained to you at the hearing," his letter to Comer continues, "such language borrows from the 'Great Replacement' theory, the central dogma of contemporary white supremacy that has been repeatedly invoked by white nationalists to justify violent acts of domestic terrorism, including the mass murders of dozens of Americans at a Tops Supermarket in Buffalo, New York, the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and a Walmart in El Paso, Texas."
All 21 Democrats on the Oversight Committee signed the statement, and all 26 Republicans refused. A Committee spokesperson called the statement a "distraction," according to The Independent.
the 26 Republican Representatives who refused to denounce white supremacy and white nationalism are (in order of appearance on the statement): James Comer, Jim Jordan, Mike Turner, Paul Gosar, Virginia Foxx, Glenn Grothman, Gary Palmer, Clay Higgins, Pete Sessions, Andy Biggs, Nancy Mace, Jake LaTurner, pat Fallon, Byron Donalds, Kelly Armstrong, Scott Perry, William Timmons, Tim Burchett, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Lisa McClain, Lauren Boebert, Russell Fry, Anna Paulina Luna, Chuck Edwards, Nick Langworthy, and Eric Burlison.
See a copy of the signed/unsigned statement below or at this link.
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- Survey: 60 Percent Of Republicans Say White Supremacy Is A ... ›
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- White Supremacy Should Be Denounced By Oversight Committee ... ›
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https://www.mediamatters.org/steve-bannon/steve-bannon-guest-says-house-weaponization-committee-failure-jim-jordans-part
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| For Jim Jordan, this is probably as good as it gets |
| The subcommittee to investigate the weaponization of the federal government has nothing, has had nothing and will have nothing. |
| The House Democrats released a 316-page report last week showing Jim Jordan has nothing, has had nothing and will have nothing, if things go on like this, to justify the creation of special subcommittee to investigate “the weaponization” of the federal government against Donald Trump, Republican illiberals and other “real Americans.” |
| This is not to say the Ohio congressman and other subpanel goons won’t fabricate buzzy newsbits bent on apologizing for Trump’s one calamitous term. They will do that. So let’s not overestimate the report’s political value. Yeah, it makes the GOP look like clowns but that never stopped the GOP from making clowns look like heroes. |
| We should see the report by the House Democrats who sit on the subcommittee, and who were present for private testimony by its first three witnesses, as less “gotcha!” and more “that’s it wut?” |
| Instead, we should see the report by the House Democrats who sit on the subcommittee, and who were present for private testimony by its first three witnesses, as less “gotcha!” and more “that’s it wut?” |
| Jordan could have lined up serious and credible sources prepared to come forward with serious and credible allegations – whistleblowers – to expose the presence of The Deep State that secretly conspired with the criminal former president’s enemies, foreign and domestic. |
| They were busy, I guess. |
| Instead, Jordan brought in three former FBI officials, two of whom were paid by Trump Toady Kash Patel, to regale the subcommittee with “an alarming series of conspiracy theories related to the Jan. 6 Capitol attack, Covid vaccines and the validity of the 2020 elections,” the Times said. (Panel Democrats leaked their report to the Times.) |
| The report said that, “One has called repeatedly for the dismantling of the FBI. Another suggested that it would be better for Americans to die than to have any kind of domestic intelligence program.” |
| That’s par for men in Kash Patel’s orbit. Before he served in Trump’s National Security Council and Defense Department, he was the author of “the Nunes report,” named after former Congressman Devin Nunes. |
| It alleged "political bias" in the FBI’s decision to investigate Russian interference in the 2016 election. On the strength of that decision was based Robert Mueller’s inquiry, which confirmed the Kremlin’s sabotage of the Hillary Clinton campaign for the benefit of Trump’s. |
| Since then, Patel has reemerged periodically to provide timely lies for Trump, the most recent being that, before leaving the White House, Trump declassified the government secrets found at his private club. |
| From the Times: |
| Based on this evidence, committee Democrats conclude that there is a strong likelihood that Kash Patel is encouraging the witnesses to continue pursuing their meritless claims, and in fact is using them to help propel his vendetta against the FBI, Justice Department and Biden administration on behalf of himself and President Trump. |
| I won’t and neither should you dismiss Jim Jordan’s gambit, which is to find as much filth and slime as he can on the GOP’s enemies. But I think it’s reasonable to say that, for Jordan, this is probably as good as it gets. |
| Bill Barr was booked, I guess. So was Karl Rove. Both are the Old Masters at making weighty things look trivial (Barr) and trivial things look weighty (Rove). Their style of strategic thinking, and their depth of strategic knowledge, are conspicuous for their absence from Jordan’s smear-hoping. He’s single-A baseball compared to their big leagues. |
| And it shows. |
| One more observationThe Deep State is real to the extent that highly trained, highly educated and highly paid government agents can and do succumb to believing conspiracy theories that claim to explain what seems to them to be a conspiracy against what they believe these United States should be. |
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https://www.alternet.org/why-jim-jordan-s-new-subcommittee-on-government-weaponization-is-pitiful-not-scary-columnist/
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cudgel threat enforce retaLIaTION
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In late January, DirecTV dropped far-right Fox News competitor Newsmax from its satellite lineup when the two were unable to reach an agreement on license fees. MAGA Republicans were bitterly disappointed, as Newsmax prides itself on being more right-wing and more pro-Donald Trump than Fox News and Fox Business. However, DirecTV hasn't ruled out the possibility of bringing Newsmax back if they can come to an agreement on license fees.
Some of the MAGA Republicans who hated to see Newsmax removed from the DirecTV lineup are angrily accusing DirecTV of discriminating against the right. And one of them is Rep. James Comer (R-Kentucky), who now chairs the House Oversight Committee.
During a Friday, February 24 appearance on Newsmax, Comer threatened to use House Oversight against DirecTV if it doesn't restore Newsmax to its lineup.
READ MORE: Watch: Newsmax host falsely declares that 'exclusively white Americans' fought to end slavery
Comer told Newsmax host John Bachman, "I'm very concerned. I'm very upset that DirecTV does not have Newsmax on there. I've been in constant communication with the leadership at AT&T and DirecTV. I have strongly encouraged them to meet with your CEO, Mr. (Chris) Ruddy, to get this worked out — or else! If anyone has ever watched the House Oversight Committee — any of our first three hearings — they have to ask themselves: Do they really want to go in front of the House Oversight Committee?"
Fox News continues to have the highest ratings on right-wing cable TV. But in MAGA World, Newsmax appeals largely to people who believe that Fox News and Fox Business aren't far enough to the right.
On Bachman's show, Comer told the host, "We're all huge fans of Newsmax. We don't like to see Newsmax not being offered on DirecTV, especially considering Newsmax is the, I think, the fourth highest-rated news show on TV now."
Comer also said, "And they have dozens of other news shows that have much lower ratings than Newsmax. So, I'm doing everything in my ability to see that this gets worked out. If it doesn't, then I would expect the Republican majority to begin to take steps to take action in this."
DirecTV, however, has maintained that its decision to drop Newsmax was merely a business/budgetary matter — not an effort to silence Republicans.
In late January, a DirecTV spokesperson told Fierce Video, "On multiple occasions, we made it clear to Newsmax that we wanted to continue to offer the network, but ultimately, Newsmax's demands for rate increases would have led to significantly higher costs that we would have to pass on to our broad customer base. Anyone, including our customers, can watch the network for free via NewsmaxTV.com, YouTube.com and on multiple streaming platforms like Amazon Fire TV, Roku, and Google Play. We continually evaluate the most relevant programming to provide our customers and expect to fill this available channel with new content."
Watch The Daily Beast's video here (subscription required).
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Rep. Steve Cohen (D-TN) called out House Judiciary Committee Chair Jim Jordan (R-OH) because he had no plans to investigate abuses at the Justice Department during the Trump administration.
At an Oversight hearing on Tuesday, Democrats argued that a rules package offered by Republicans was "cut and pasted" from the "right-wing echo chamber" and that it was full of "racist tropes."
"I've been concerned about the weaponization of the federal government program," Cohen said. "And I think it was pretty clear during the previous administration, [former Trump attorney] Michael Cohen went to jail for doing what Donald Trump asked him to do. Donald Trump was called Individual 1. He didn't go to jail. He didn't even go to jail when the administration changed, and Merrick Garland came in."
Cohen recalled that Trump's former attorney was forced to return to jail when he tried to write a book about the ordeal.
"It's come out; it was the Justice Department that did that," he continued. "Could we go, Mr. Chair, back into those issues and look at the weaponization that occurred during the Trump [administration], particularly that Michael Cohen incident?
However, Jordan said he only remembered the falsehoods Michael Cohen allegedly said during his testimony before Congress.
"But you do remember he went to jail?" Cohen asked.
"I remember that too," Jordan confirmed.
"And they put him back in when he was going to publish a book because they wanted him to not comment on it, and you do remember that when they put him back in jail, they put him in solitary confinement?" Cohen pressed.
"I don't recall the details," Jordan said.
"Should we not be able to study that because you don't know it?" the Tennessee Democrat wondered. "That's weaponization!"
Jordan, however, changed the subject and accused Democrats of "targeting parents."
"My Chairman, it's my time; I'm going to reclaim it," Cohen said.
"But you asked me a question," Jordan protested.
"That's not the answer," Cohen explained.
"You may not like — that's my answer!" Jordan exclaimed. "You may not like it, but I'm allowed to give the answer I want to give."
"I'm all for parents, but that's not the issue," Cohen snapped. "The issue is the weaponization of the Justice Department that happened under Trump like never before in our country's history."
House Republicans have vowed to investigate the so-called weaponization of the federal government by Democrats, corporations, and the "deep state."
Watch the video below from the House Oversight Committee.
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House Republicans spearheading the House select subcommittee probing the "weaponization of the government" are displeased with its budget, lamenting the amount is not nearly as large as the Jan. 6 committee's allotment, Rolling Stone reports.
Per The New York Times, the new subcommittee, which falls under the House Judiciary Committee, reflects the House GOP's commitment to exercise its congressional control "to scrutinize what they said was a concerted effort by the government to silence and punish conservatives at all levels, from protesters at school board meetings to former President Donald J. Trump."
Since the subcommittee's launch, Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH), who leads the House Judiciary Committee, requested the House Judiciary budget receive "a $2 million annual increase," which he says would "'meet the immediate needs of additional staff and resources' for both the new weaponization subcommittee and House Judiciary Committee."
READ MORE: 'Wild' GOP government weaponization hearings will be loaded with Fox News contributors
Rep. Chip Roy (R-TX) compares the subcommittee's current budget to that of the now-defunct House Jan. 6 panel's for it's investigation into the attack.
"We got what we call a 'Church-style' committee," Roy said. "With the kind of budget and kind of staff — we said at least as much as the Jan. 6 Committee," he continued, claiming the amount would allow "more resources, more specificity, more power, to go after this recalcitrant Biden administration."
However, according to The NYT, Jordan claims the purpose of the subcommittee is "not to target Democrats or law enforcement officers who have scrutinized Mr. Trump’s behavior," but to "'protect the First Amendment' at a time when he said the right was being unfairly targeted."
Rolling Stone reports:
READ MORE: These MAGA 'antagonists' have major plans for the House Rules Committee: report
[Jordan] asks for 'the ability to access up to an additional $15 million from the reserve fund' in order 'to address ongoing and unforeseen needs' — an amount that, when added to the $2 million per year, would total $19 million, roughly equivalent to the Jan. 6 spend.
The $19 million budget would be more aligned with the Jan. 6 committee's of $18 million, which according to Rolling Stone, "employed roughly 50 investigators across five teams to carry out more than 1,200 interviews and depositions."
The committee's first hearing took place earlier this month, which Rolling Stone reports the House Republicans used to "air a market basket of right-wing grievances," rather than to focus on the task at hand.
Following the hearing, The Daily Beast reports, Fox News host Jesse Watters complained, "I’m sick of these hearings. Tell me this is going somewhere. Can I throw someone in prison? Can someone go to jail? Can someone get fined?"
Still, Jordan contends he is hoping for an increase in funds, according to a spokesperson for the chairman.
"Republicans are fully committed to the mission and important work of the Select Subcommittee," the spokesperson said. "And the Speaker has made clear that we will have access to all the resources needed to complete our task.
They continued, "The funding request is structured to achieve our mission in a fiscally responsible manner, recognizing that we work on behalf of the American people and we must be careful stewards of their tax dollars."
Rolling Stone's full report is available at this link. The New York Times' report is here.
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House Republicans spearheading the House select subcommittee probing the "weaponization of the government" are displeased with its budget, lamenting the amount is not nearly as large as the Jan. 6 committee's allotment, Rolling Stone reports.
Per The New York Times, the new subcommittee, which falls under the House Judiciary Committee, reflects the House GOP's commitment to exercise its congressional control "to scrutinize what they said was a concerted effort by the government to silence and punish conservatives at all levels, from protesters at school board meetings to former President Donald J. Trump."
Since the subcommittee's launch, Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH), who leads the House Judiciary Committee, requested the House Judiciary budget receive "a $2 million annual increase," which he says would "'meet the immediate needs of additional staff and resources' for both the new weaponization subcommittee and House Judiciary Committee."
READ MORE: 'Wild' GOP government weaponization hearings will be loaded with Fox News contributors
Rep. Chip Roy (R-TX) compares the subcommittee's current budget to that of the now-defunct House Jan. 6 panel's for it's investigation into the attack.
"We got what we call a 'Church-style' committee," Roy said. "With the kind of budget and kind of staff — we said at least as much as the Jan. 6 Committee," he continued, claiming the amount would allow "more resources, more specificity, more power, to go after this recalcitrant Biden administration."
However, according to The NYT, Jordan claims the purpose of the subcommittee is "not to target Democrats or law enforcement officers who have scrutinized Mr. Trump’s behavior," but to "'protect the First Amendment' at a time when he said the right was being unfairly targeted."
Rolling Stone reports:
READ MORE: These MAGA 'antagonists' have major plans for the House Rules Committee: report
[Jordan] asks for 'the ability to access up to an additional $15 million from the reserve fund' in order 'to address ongoing and unforeseen needs' — an amount that, when added to the $2 million per year, would total $19 million, roughly equivalent to the Jan. 6 spend.
The $19 million budget would be more aligned with the Jan. 6 committee's of $18 million, which according to Rolling Stone, "employed roughly 50 investigators across five teams to carry out more than 1,200 interviews and depositions."
The committee's first hearing took place earlier this month, which Rolling Stone reports the House Republicans used to "air a market basket of right-wing grievances," rather than to focus on the task at hand.
Following the hearing, The Daily Beast reports, Fox News host Jesse Watters complained, "I’m sick of these hearings. Tell me this is going somewhere. Can I throw someone in prison? Can someone go to jail? Can someone get fined?"
Still, Jordan contends he is hoping for an increase in funds, according to a spokesperson for the chairman.
"Republicans are fully committed to the mission and important work of the Select Subcommittee," the spokesperson said. "And the Speaker has made clear that we will have access to all the resources needed to complete our task.
They continued, "The funding request is structured to achieve our mission in a fiscally responsible manner, recognizing that we work on behalf of the American people and we must be careful stewards of their tax dollars."
Rolling Stone's full report is available at this link. The New York Times' report is here.
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https://www.alternet.org/debbie-schultz-wasserman/
Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.) did not hold back when she interrogated a Fox News legal analyst for offering “pure conjecture” during an appearance before the U.S. House of Representatives' newly established committee for the Weaponization of the Federal Government.
On Thursday, February 9, Fox News' Jonathan Turley, appeared before the committee as a witness called by Republican lawmakers. During his appearance, he discussed the so-called "Twitter files," which spawned from Twitter CEO Elon Musk sharing intel with journalists.
However, Wasserman Schultz appeared unsure about Turley actually having “unique knowledge” about the social media platform.
READ MORE: Holocaust meme-tweeting House Republican casts only 'no' vote on resolution condemning antisemitism
“Do you have any formal relationship with the company?” she asked.
“No, I just have an account,” replied Turley, to which, Schultz said, “So essentially your responses to the questions here today were your own opinion and pure conjecture.”
But despite Turley's remarks, Schultz pushed back for more clarity saying, “You said that you don’t have any specific or unique knowledge of Twitter, but you spoke as if you did. ... And so this is only just your opinion, would you say, as a Twitter account user?”
“No, I come to give legal analysis based on facts that are in the public domain,” Turley said.
Refusing to back down, Schultz offered Turley a harsh lesson on the real meaning of "legal analysis specifying that it is “another word for ‘opinion.'”
Watch the video below or at this link.
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Members of Congress have access to vast resources to conduct the people’s business, including on-staff attorneys and the ability to contract experts, yet on Wednesday U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) appeared to shun those assets while appearing before the TV cameras while misrepresenting federal law. She falsely declared that Twitter banning her personal account was “against the law,” and a violation of her First Amendment rights as she made clear she will use her newly-restored committee assignments to spread falsehoods, misinformation, and disinformation.
Greene now sits on the House Oversight and Accountability Committee. During its third hearing of the year, “Protecting Speech from Government Interference and Social Media Bias: Twitter’s Role in Suppressing the Biden Laptop Story,” Greene appeared determined to extract vengeance for her personal Twitter account being permanently “suspended” – banned –before Elon Musk purchased the company and restored accounts of countless extremists.
At the beginning of her remarks Greene mentioned the witnesses, including former Twitter executives, and said: “You can consider your speech canceled during my time because you permanently canceled mine.”
“You see, you permanently banned my personal Twitter account, and it was my campaign account also, so let’s talk about election interference, shall we?”
“Let’s explain 52 United States law 10101: ‘No person shall intimidate, threaten or coerce or attempt to stop any other person for the purpose of interfering with their rights to vote or to vote as you may choose,'” Greene said,reading inaccurately from 52 U.S.C. 10101.
For reasons unknown, Congresswoman Greene decided that federal voting rights law applies to Twitter. It does not.
“You didn’t shadow ban or permanently ban my Democrat opponent,” Greene charged. “No, you did that to me. And that was wrong and it was against the law.”
It is not against the law for Twitter to shadow ban or permanently ban anyone, even a Member of Congress and their personal Twitter account.
“You see, not only that, was it was it me, that you violated my First Amendment rights, you violated countless conservative Americans,” she said, which again is false. The First Amendment reads: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”
Greene pushed forward.
“These were doctors that were trying to tell the truth about COVID,” she said, of people spreading false or misleading information and disinformation. “Doctors that were having success treating people with ivermectin that you all would not allow to be talked about.”
The FDA has made clear ivermectin is not a treatment for COVID-19: “The FDA has not authorized or approved ivermectin for use in preventing or treating COVID-19 in humans or animals. Ivermectin is approved for human use to treat infections caused by some parasitic worms and head lice and skin conditions like rosacea.”
“These were parents complaining about their school boards, teaching gender lies in their schools, biological males entering their daughter’s bathrooms and sports,” she complained. “These were also people questioning the 2020 election. And guess what? That’s Americans’ First Amendment right. These were people talking about voting machines. You know what? Democrats did that in 2019 before the 2020 election,” she claimed.
Watch below or at this link.
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no lnx etc
House Oversight Committee hearing held this week to purportedly prove that former Twitter executives colluded with federal government officials to cover up a 2020 New York Post article about Hunter Biden's laptop did not pan out the way Republican members hoped, The Daily Beast reports.
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Per CNN, hard-right GOPers in the House, including Rep. James Comer (R-TN), Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH), and Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), have allotted a significant amount of time to push their "factually unsupported narrative" that the so-called "collusion" is designed to suppress conservatives.
Ex-Twitter executives Yoel Roth, James Baker, and Vijaya Gadde, and Anika Collier Navaroli testified during the hearing that "it was a 'mistake' to briefly block the article over misinformation concerns," but they ensured the House members that there was no government involvement, Daily Beast reports.
READ MORE: GOP Congressional candidate encourages violence over the information surrounding Hunter Biden laptops
During the hearing, Comer asserted that Twitter intentionally abided by demands from the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) to cover up the Hunter Biden story "because they were 'terrified of Joe Biden not winning the election,'" according to CNN.
However, the GOP member's accusation backfired.
The former Twitter executives not only proved that there wasno government involvement in the Hunter Biden Laptop story, but also testified that former President Donald Trump "received preferential treatment for years" and "directly requested the site remove tweets that he didn’t like," according to The Daily Beast.
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Democratic Virginia Rep. Gerry Connolly showed that it was Trump's administration that attempted to have content removed in 2019 after model Chrissy Teigen tweeted that Trump is a "p***y a** b****."
And on the other hand, President Joe Biden's administration never called on the social media giant to have content taken down.
READ MORE: GOP lawmaker vows to investigate Twitter employees who may have helped to censor news on Hunter Biden's laptop
A former senior Trump aide told Rolling Stone, “It was strange to me when all of these investigations were announced because it was all about the exact same stuff that we had done [when Donald Trump was in office]."
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“It was normal," the aide added.
Additionally, CNN reports Navaroli "testified that the social media company ended its ban on abusive language against immigrants to 'go back to where they came from' so that Trump would not face repercussions for his racist 2019 attack on four minority Democratic congresswomen."
Still, the GOP members remain steadfast in pushing their theory.
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“My, my, my—what happens when you hold a hearing, and you can't prove your point?” Connolly asked.
WATCH: Marjorie Taylor Greene 'wrongly' declares her Twitter ban as illegal
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Elon Musk has invited 'suspended' journalists to return to Twitter, but there’s a 'catch': report ›
'A huge oxymoron': Marjorie Taylor Greene's tweet condemning 'candidate quality' quickly backfires on Twitter ›
Marjorie Taylor Greene criticizes Tulsi Gabbard in Twitter rant for giving George Santos 'zero grace' ›
GOP lawmaker vows to investigate Twitter employees who may have helped to censor news on Hunter Biden's laptop ›
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ohio's gerrymandered into permanence congressperson of ill repute Jim Jordan could not make his point at a House Oversight and Accountability Committee hearing called to discuss Twitter's handling of some Hunter Biden BS. Jordan fumbled the ball well enough to actually disprove the reason for the entire hearing — as Twitter isn't held accountable to the First Amendment, it is meant to regulate the government.
The best part is the very end when Jordan yielded his remaining time to Rep. Connolly who remarked "My, my, my, what happens when you hold a hearing and can't prove your point?"
[vid]
Then Jordan asked if there was a violation of the First Amendment if the FBI sent emails to Twitter saying, "We think these accounts need to be looked at because they violate your terms of service."
That's a different standard. Your terms of service, which don't have to apply with the First Amendment, but the government saying we don't think these accounts comply with your terms of service 'please take them down,' you see a problem there, Mr. Roth?" Jordan asked.
"Do I think if that's a valuable use of the FBI's time, no, but I don't see in a request for review a problem under the First Amendment.' Roth said.
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When conservative Republican John Boehner was House speaker during the Barack Obama years, he had nothing but disdain for Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio). Boehner, in fact, has used the words “legislative terrorist” to describe the far-right congressman.
But Jordan went from being someone Boehner regarded as the U.S. House of Representatives’ lunatic fringe to chairing the House Judiciary Committee in 2023 under Republican Speaker Kevin McCarthy. Liberal Washington Post opinion columnist Greg Sargent examines Jordan’s recent activities in his February 7 column, warning that the Ohio Republican is turning that committee into a bastion of conspiracy theories.
“Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), chairman of the Judiciary Committee, has subpoenaed top Justice Department officials, supposedly to investigate the Department’s suppression of information about the persecution of conservative parents,” Sargent explains. “Republicans have long alleged that federal jackboots have terrorized parents for protesting at school board meetings about COVID-19 restrictions and teachings about race and sex.”
READ MORE: Far-right 'attack dog' Jim Jordan now enjoys greater 'power' than ever before: report
The columnist adds, “Democrats will no doubt respond by noting that this claim has been decisively debunked. But Democrats should use these hearings not just defensively, but also, affirmatively, to show that GOP rhetoric, much of it degenerate nonsense, has helped fuel a toxic atmosphere of threats and violence toward educators that has no business anywhere near your child’s school.”[elect principals?]
Rep. Eric Swalwell, a California Democrat known for his work on the House Judiciary Committee, discussed Jordan’s activities with Sargent.
The congressman said of House Judiciary Republicans, “They don’t want the FBI to investigate people on their side who they’ve spun up over, frankly, b******t claims. You have a right to say just about anything you want, but you don’t have a right to threaten violence.”
Democrats, according to Sargent, need to use House Judiciary hearings to show that Republicans are promoting an environment that is dangerous for educators.
READ MORE: 'Because Biden didn't defy a subpoena!' Chuck Todd fact-checks Jim Jordan on Mar-a-Lago 'raid'
“If Republicans think they can prove FBI harassment of conservatives, let’s air this out,” Sargent argues. “But Democrats can’t function just as fact-checkers, accusing Republicans of ‘conspiracy theories’ and complaining they are ‘stoking the culture wars.’ That could make Democrats seem defensive and responsive, which isn’t sufficient in an environment that’s increasingly shaped by full-blown information warfare.”
Sargent adds, “Instead, Democrats should make these hearings about what Republicans did. This entails using spectacle to show what happened to educators as a result of Republicans systematically smearing them with hateful propaganda. Why not try to bring in educators to testify emotionally about the threats and harassment they’ve faced?”
Read Greg Sargent’s full Washington Post column at this link.
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an 2 23
its first hearing isn’t until Thursday but already Chairman Jim Jordan‘s Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government is being mocked after the list of witnesses was released.
NBC News’ Garrett Haake reports testifying before the committee on Thursday will be ex-Democratic Congresswoman **Tulsi Gabbard**, **U.S. Senator Ron Johnson** (R-WI), **U.S. Senator Chuck Grassley** (R-IA), and former FBI special agent Nicole Parker.
Gabbard left the Democratic Party and is now an independent and a Fox News contributor. In 2019, Hillary Clinton suggested she was a Russian asset being groomed for a third-party presidential run. She sued the former Democratic presidential nominee and former U.S. Secretary of State but later dropped the defamation lawsuit.
Also, Gabbard “shared false information,” Forbes reported last year, “about U.S. involvement in Ukraine biological laboratories … giving credence to an unfounded Russian-backed conspiracy theory the U.S. has warned could serve as justification for Russia to use biological and chemical weapons against Ukraine.”
Sen. Johnson, who narrowly won re-election after being among the top promoters of Donald Trump’s “Big Lie,” is a conspiracy theorist who uses his Senate seat to spread false information about COVID and a host of other crises.
CNN’s Chris Cillizza branded Johnson the “Senate’s leading conspiracy theorist” just one year ago. The Washington Post reported last May that Sen. Johnson “expressed openness” to “a fervent anti-vaccination” commentator’s “idea that maybe the coronavirus vaccines are a conduit for deliberately giving people AIDS.”
Sen. Grassley has come under fire for his racist remarks about COVID-19, dangerously false claims about the IRS, and apparent falsehoods about the January 6 insurrection and its participants.
Last year The American Independent reported Grassley told a constituent “what you said is accurate.” According to The Independent, the constituent said during a town hall: “Knowing that the FBI and Capitol Police were complicit in Jan. 6, what have you done to get the political prisoners being held in gulag conditions out on bail?”
Some were quick to mock Chairman Jordan’s choice of witnesses to testify before his subcommittee’s first hearing.
“Johnson actively pushed the WI legislature & the VP to overturn the election. Tulsi used her perch in Congress to secretly meet with Assad & whitewash his war crimes. so in a sense, they are indeed experts on weaponizing gov’t.,” mocked former Hillary Clinton foreign policy spokesperson Jesse Lehrich.
Jim Manley, a top aide to then-Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, described the panel as “low energy.”
NBC News Justice reporter Ryan J. Reilly pre-deflated Parker’s possible contributions, citing her as saying: “’I was never asked to participate in anything that was political,’ Nicole Parker said in one of her Fox News hits (Hannity, specifically).”
Even CNN did not hide its skepticism, beginning its reporting with this line: “The GOP-led House select subcommittee on so-called weaponization of the federal government will draw upon a prominent ex-Democrat, two of their Republican Senate colleagues, and a former FBI agent in their first public hearing to discuss how they believe the government has been weaponized against conservatives, multiple sources familiar with the plans tell CNN.”
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Mainstream news outlets are already failing in their coverage of a newly created House Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government by allowing false Republican claims to go unchallenged, and omitting crucial context about suppression of left-wing groups at the hands of federal law enforcement.
The new committee is chaired by Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH), and was reportedly established as a concession to hardline opponents of Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) in his recent, rocky bid for the chamber’s top office. Jordan and his team have set their sights on the Department of Justice, the FBI, the IRS, and other offices that Republicans falsely claim are specifically targeting and persecuting conservatives.
In describing the committee’s investigative prospects, several mainstream outlets allowed false or misleading claims to go unchallenged.
- Axios described Rep. Thomas Massie’s (R-KY), who has announced his spot on the subcommittee, as “a libertarian-minded conservative long skeptical of the federal security apparatus,” who “pointed to IRS targeting of Tea Party groups in the 2010s and Trump's sparring with the FBI as inflection points.”
Axios failed to inform its readers that Massie’s claim of a partisan witch hunt by the IRS is false. Although the IRS did audit some Tea Party groups, the agency also targeted “scores” of progressive groups for audits as well.
- The New York Times reported that the committee is planning to investigate “allegations that the federal government encouraged Twitter to discriminate against Republicans and the treatment of conservative or right-wing protesters at school board meetings and abortion clinics.”
Readers of the Times’ coverage wouldn’t know that Twitter, in fact, has shown a bias toward promoting conservative content, not suppressing it. Conservatives have also claimed, falsely, that the DOJ has targeted parents at school boards, including identifying them as domestic terrorists. Although the Times didn’t use that phrase, their coverage failed to challenge the myth that conservative parents are facing federal persecution.
One of the focuses of the subcommittee is likely to be an examination of the FBI and DOJ’s case against a group of men who plotted to kidnap Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer. The FBI used undercover agents and informants in their investigation, which conservatives have argued could amount to entrapment.
- In Politico’s article on the subcommittee, they quoted Rep. Dan Bishop (R-NC), who cited the Whitmer case, and asked, “Exactly what is the line on entrapment and then the law on entrapment?”
Although that is a fair question to ask in the abstract, Politico’s readers could be left thinking that the FBI specifically uses informants against right-wing movements. In fact, the FBI has been using informants extensively against Muslims at least since 9/11. John Miller, a high ranking police officer turned conservative pundit turned CNN analyst exemplifies the right-wing impulse towards increased investigations of Muslim communities.
None of these articles include broader historical context, which is that the FBI has disproportionately targeted left-wing movements since its inception. None of them include more recent examples of the FBI targeting the left, either, especially FBI operations to infiltrate and spy on Black activists, including creating the ridiculous category of “Black Identity Extremist” to justify the Bureau’s actions.
Those real documented examples of FBI overreach are nowhere to be found in this overly credulous mainstream coverage. Nor are readers given an adequate sense of what this committee is likely actually about, as detailed recently by a Trump-aligned think tank called the Center for Renewing America, which released a proposed federal budget sharing almost the exact same title as the new subcommittee.
CRA is run by Christian nationalist Russ Vought, who served as former President Donald Trump’s director of the Office of Management and Budget. His organization’s budget proposal makes clear that the conservative aim here is unleashing the FBI on the right’s political enemies while ensuring immunity for themselves.
All of that context is crucial to understanding this new subcommittee, and the new Republican House majority writ large. Jordan and company haven’t even begun their work, but mainstream outlets are already falling short.
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