The Circus Of The Damned, Con't

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy has made good on his purely political promise to his fellow GOP clowns, removing Democrats Adam Schiff and Eric Swalwell from the House Select Intelligence Committee, in retaliation for Republicans being voted off committees two years ago for fomenting violence.

 

Speaker Kevin McCarthy on Tuesday unilaterally exiled Representatives Adam B. Schiff and Eric Swalwell from the House Intelligence Committee, making good on a longstanding threat to expel the California Democrats in his first major act of partisan retribution since taking the majority.

The move was a much-anticipated tit-for-tat after Democrats, then in the majority, voted in 2021 to eject two Republicans, Representatives Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia and Paul Gosar of Arizona, from congressional committees for internet posts that advocated violence against their political enemies. It was also payback for the decision by Nancy Pelosi, then the House speaker, to bar Republicans who had helped former President Donald J. Trump spread the election lies that fueled the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol from sitting on the special committee investigating the riot.

Now that he is in control, Mr. McCarthy sought to punish Mr. Schiff and Mr. Swalwell, two favorite foils of Republicans who had played key roles in the two impeachments of Mr. Trump, though he denied that his decision was retaliatory. Instead, he argued that both men had displayed behavior unbecoming of the committee tasked with overseeing the nation’s intelligence services.

In a letter outlining his decision to Hakeem Jeffries, the House minority leader, Mr. McCarthy decried what he described as “the misuse” of the intelligence panel during the last four years, arguing that it had “severely undermined its primary national security and oversight missions — ultimately leaving our nation less safe.” He called the dismissals of Mr. Schiff and Mr. Swalwell necessary “to maintain a standard worthy of this committee’s responsibilities.”

Mr. McCarthy has said that Mr. Schiff “openly lied to the American people” when he chaired the intelligence panel during Mr. Trump’s presidency. In September 2019, Mr. Schiff was excoriated by Republicans for dramatically paraphrasing the contents of a telephone call in which Mr. Trump had pressured President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine to investigate Joseph R. Biden Jr. and his son, and for implying, falsely, that his committee had had no contact with a whistle-blower raising concerns about their conversation.

Earlier, in March 2019‌, ‌Republicans on the committee had demanded that Mr. Schiff step aside for having said that he had seen “more than circumstantial evidence” of collusion between Mr. Trump and the Russians in 2017. That claim had been called into question by the findings of Robert S. Mueller III, the special counsel who had looked into the matter, which Attorney General ‌William P. Barr‌ had summarized in a letter to certain members of Congress. Republicans accused Mr. Schiff of having compromised the integrity of the panel by knowingly promoting false information.

Speaking to reporters at the Capitol on Tuesday night, Mr. Schiff countered that Mr. McCarthy was “trying to remove me from the intel committee for holding his boss at Mar-a-Lago accountable.”

“It’s just another body blow to the institution of Congress that he’s behaving this way, but it just shows how weak he is as a speaker,” he added.

Republicans have railed against Mr. Swalwell, who served as a manager in Mr. Trump’s second impeachment trial, citing an Axios report that reported that Mr. Swalwell was targeted by a suspected Chinese spy as part of an influence campaign in 2014, before he served on the intelligence panel. The report said that around 2015, federal investigators alerted Mr. Swalwell to their concerns and he “cut off all ties.”

“This is all about political vengeance,” Mr. Swalwell said of Mr. McCarthy’s action.

Because the intelligence panel is a “select” committee, the speaker has the authority to dictate who can serve, just as Ms. Pelosi was able to block Republicans appointed by Mr. McCarthy from the select committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack. However, Mr. Schiff and Mr. Swalwell are not expected to lose their other committee assignments.

 

It's about revenge, pure and simple. McCarthy, being the weak, vacillating buffoon that he is, may not have the votes to strip Democratic Rep. Ilhan Omar of her committee assignments however. 

Mr. McCarthy has also threatened to remove Representative Ilhan Omar, Democrat of Minnesota, from congressional committees for criticism of Israel that Republicans and some Democrats have condemned as anti-Semitic. Ms. Omar apologized in 2019 for saying that support for Israel in Washington was “all about the Benjamins baby,” a comment that members of both parties denounced as a reference to an anti-Semitic trope. She was criticized again in 2021 when she made statements that appeared to compare human rights abuses by Israel with acts committed by Hamas and the Taliban, and later said she had not meant to equate them.

It was not clear whether Mr. McCarthy, who holds a razor-thin majority, had the votes to oust Ms. Omar. At least two Republicans have publicly expressed qualms about doing so.

And the Minnesota Democrat on Tuesday night told reporters at the Capitol that some Republicans had told her privately they believed such a move would be “uncalled for.”

“They are trying to do whatever it is that they can within their conference to make sure there is no vote to remove me from the Foreign Affairs Committee,” she added.

 

We'll see what Kevin promises to give away to keep what little power he has left.

It's All About Revenge Now, Con't

As I've said on multiple occasions, like most malignant narcissists, Donald Trump views the world through the lens of loyalty.  Specifically, people who please him are good, and people who oppose him are vermin to be crushed.  The Washington Post lists a pile of instances where Trump's penchant for petty vengeance has driven national and international policy.

By pressuring the Israeli government to bar entry by two members of Congress, President Trump once again used the power and platform of his office to punish his political rivals.

It’s a pattern that has intensified during the first two and a half years of Trump’s presidency, as he has increasingly governed to the tune of his grievances.

The president has grounded a military jet set for use by the Democratic House speaker, yanked a security clearance from a former CIA director critical of him, threatened to withhold disaster aid from states led by Democrats, pushed to reopen a criminal investigation targeting Hillary Clinton and publicly called for federal action to punish technology and media companies he views as biased against him.

Taken as a whole, Trump’s use of political power to pursue personal vendettas is unprecedented in modern history, said Matthew Dallek, a political historian who teaches at George Washington University.

“It’s both a sign of deep insecurity on his part and also just a litany of abuse of power,” he said. “I don’t think anyone really has done it as consistently or as viciously as Trump has. No one has used the power of the bully pulpit in such a public way.”

The Post needs to batten down the hatches for another round of FAKE NEWS and ENEMIES OF THE PEOPLE. But at what point does Trump cross the line from Petty vindictiveness to full-blown abuse of executive power?

Special Counsel Robert S. Mueller III documented several instances in which Trump sought to pressure the Department of Justice to pursue a criminal investigation into his 2016 rival, Hillary Clinton, for her use of a private email server. In his report, Mueller found that Trump encouraged then-attorney general Jeff Sessions in 2017 to reverse his recusal from any Clinton-related matters to pursue new charges.

The FBI closed its investigation into Clinton’s email practices in 2016 without charges, a decision Trump pledged as a candidate to reverse. Sessions did not reverse his recusal but did assign the U.S. attorney in Utah, John Huber, to examine the Clinton investigation. Trump fired Sessions in November.

Democrats, some of whom have called for Trump’s impeachment, have said his attempts to have Clinton prosecuted represent a clear example of abuse of power.

Trump has also wielded his authority over the federal budget to intervene in spending decisions related to various natural disasters. He has publicly shown disdain toward disaster-stricken states where Democrats outnumber Republicans, and in some cases threatened to withhold disaster funding from them.

As historic wildfires ravaged California earlier this year, Trump lamented the amount of money the federal government was spending to provide relief.

I fully expect Democrats, when that impeachment rocket takes off, will nails Trump the hardest on his abuses of power.  And Trump has nobody but himself to blame for making them so visible and so easy to document.

The Perpetual Outrage Machine, Con't

For a change of pace, Republicans are attacking Muslim Democrats other than Rep. Ilhan Omar as anti-Semitic, and that of course means taking Rep. Rashida Tlaib out of context entirely.

House Republican leaders took aim at Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) on Sunday for a podcast interview in which she discussed her support for a one-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

In an interview on Yahoo News’s “Skullduggery” podcast published Saturday, Tlaib was asked about her position on the issue. The freshman lawmaker began her response by noting that the United States commemorated Holocaust Remembrance Day two weeks ago. She then discussed her Palestinian ancestors and the founding of the state of Israel, saying she was “humbled by the fact that it was my ancestors that had to suffer” to create a safe haven for the Jewish people.

“There’s, you know, there’s a kind of a calming feeling, I always tell folks, when I think of the Holocaust and the tragedy of the Holocaust, and the fact that it was my ancestors — Palestinians — who lost their land and some lost their lives, their livelihood, their human dignity, their existence, in many ways, had been wiped out. . . . I mean, just all of it was in the name of trying to create a safe haven for Jews, post-the Holocaust, post-the tragedy and the horrific persecution of Jews across the world at that time,” Tlaib said.

Now, any actual student of history knows this is true, that Palestinians were forcibly removed from parts of what is now Israel in order to make a homeland for the Jewish people after the Holocaust.

She added that the events of the past have informed her views on how to approach a solution to the conflict.

“I love the fact that it was my ancestors that provided that [safe haven], in many ways,” Tlaib said. “But they did it in a way that took their human dignity away, right? And it was forced on them. And so, when I think about one-state, I think about the fact that, why couldn’t we do it in a better way?”

Tlaib’s comments were picked up by the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, which published an article with the headline, “Tlaib Says She Is Humbled Her Ancestors Provided ‘Safe Haven’ for Jews After Holocaust.”

But two of the top House Republicans on Sunday criticized her use of the phrase “calming feeling,” falsely accusing her of using the phrase to describe her views about the Holocaust itself.

And that out-of-context garbage is all that matters.

“There is no justification for the twisted and disgusting comments made by Rashida Tlaib just days after the annual Day of Holocaust Remembrance,” House Minority Whip Steve Scalise (R-La.) said in a statement. “More than six million Jews were murdered during the Holocaust; there is nothing ‘calming’ about that fact.”

Rep. Liz Cheney (Wyo.), the No. 3 Republican in the House, issued a statement describing Tlaib’s remarks as “sickening.”

“I call on Speaker Pelosi and Leader Hoyer to finally take action against Representative Tlaib and other members of the Democratic caucus who are spreading vile anti-Semitism,” she said, referring to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer (D-Md.). “All of us, regardless of party, must stand as Americans against the evil of anti-Semitism. If the Democratic leadership continues to stand by in silence, they are enabling the spread of evil.”

And of course, Liz Cheney and Steve Scalise are behind this, two of the most vile, perfidious liars in the GOP.  Expect another week of "Democrats hate Jews" and "How can an American Jew vote for a Democrat" as the needle gets moved off the Trump regime's journey towards autocracy.

Last Call For Our Little Domestic Terrorism Problem, Con't

Another week, another arrest of a monster spurred on by Trump who wanted to kill Democrats, especially black Democrats.

Federal authorities today announced that John Kless, a 49-year-old resident of Tamarac in Broward County, called three Democrats at their Washington, D.C. offices April 16 and left voicemail messages threatening murder. The lawmakers included California Congressman Eric Swalwell, Detroit Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib, and New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker.

In all three messages, Kless referenced his hatred for Minnesota Congresswoman Ilhan Omar — repeatedly calling her a "towel head" and a member of the Taliban. In his message to Tlaib's office, Kless referenced Omar's recent "some people did something"comments about 9/11 — a statement Omar made to argue that all Muslims should not be punished for the actions of the few who committed the attacks. But conservatives have taken Omar's comments entirely out of context to falsely argue that Omar was diminishing the impact or tragedy of 9/11.

"It was your Taliban bitch, the one who opened up her fucking towel-head mouth about how 'some people did it,'" Kless allegedly said in his message to Tlaib. "You know what? She's lucky she's just getting death threats, bitch. So are you. All right? You're lucky they're just threats, motherfucker, 'cause the day when the bell tolls, whore, and this country comes to a war, there will be no more threats. Your life will be on the fucking line."

Kless allegedly continued to say the following: 

No one wants to fucking hear you or that other little whore. I'd like to take that bitch and throw her right off the Empire State Building, that fucking whore. Tell her to shut her fucking mouth. You fucking fuck her all the time probably. So tell her to shut the fuck up, all right? From one towel head to another. You stanking, fucking, smelly, fucking bitch. Fuck off. I wish all of you the worst. You can go fuck off in life. Fuck you, and fuck Mohammed too, you bitch fucking cunt.

Kless also allegedly criticized Swalwell's stance on gun control. Kless reportedly said if Swalwell enacted gun-safety laws, someone would kill the lawmaker. He also called Swalwell a communist.

"The day you come after our guns, motherfucker, is the day you'll be dead," Kless said, according to a federal indictment. He added, "You're gonna die. Don't wanna do that shit, boy. You'll be [on] your deathbed, motherfucker, along with the rest of you Democrats. So if you want death, keep that shit up, motherfucker."

Kless repeatedly used the N-word to refer to Booker and called him a "monkey," according to court records, adding he wanted to kill black men like the senator. "You're a fucking disgrace," Kless allegedly said. "We need to kill all you motherfuckers, man, every fucking one of you, man." He added that the terror attack in Charlottesville, Virginia — in which a white supremacist drove a car into progressive protester Heather Heyer — killed only "one fucking person." He then said Booker should tell his "colleague with the towel on her head to shut up about 9/11."

Wonderful man.

Really is a race at this point to see if Capitol Police and the FBI can keep Democrats safe from Trump fans.

Last Call For Faster Than The Speed Of Lies

The alt-right did everything they could in order to tie Monday's devastating fire at Notre Dame cathedral in Paris to "Muslim terrorism" and they did it at record speed thanks to the power of social media.

As a conflagration spread through the ancient timbers of Notre Dame Cathedral’s attic on Monday, a parallel fire was spreading on social media. This one was willfully set, a series of conspiracy theories neatly slotted into preexisting cultural biases. And soon enough, willing believers were aflame with hate.

The conspiracy theorizing began almost as soon as the blaze did, right when people saw the shocking, transfixing video of the cathedral’s spire toppling. While French authorities began to assert almost immediately that the fire was apparently accidental, the brief gap between the startling images’ generation and their explication was enough for far-right figures to exploit with their own sinister insinuations. Their prevailing view was nearly identical and, apparently, completely false: that the fire was deliberate and most probably set by Muslims.

Conservative gadflies on social media were among the first to leap to dark conclusions about the blaze, even as it raged: Matt Walsh, a conservative blogger who identifies himself as a “theocratic fascist” in his Twitter bio, wrote, “I don’t understand how a fire of this magnitude could happen accidentally,” accumulating nearly 9,000 likes. Infowars, a conspiracy-oriented outlet helmed by Alex Jones, immediately publicized unverified rumors claiming the fire had been “deliberately started” and linking the blaze to “anti-Christian attacks.” Katie Hopkins, a racist British provocateur, was far more explicit, claiming that “Jewish and Christian Parisians” are being “hunted out of the city by Islamists, fleeing in their thousands,” and affixing the hashtag #NotreDame.

Many figures on the right took the opportunity to turn Notre Dame into a metonym for Western civilization as a whole, intimating that far more than a cathedral was in peril. Just as the fire hit social media, conspiracy theorist and brain-supplements salesman Mike Cernovich dramatically tweetedthat “The West has fallen.” Shortly thereafter, fast-talking far-right pundit Ben Shapiro called Notre Dame a “monument to Western civilization” and “Judeo-Christian heritage.” Given the already-raging rumors about potential Muslim involvement, these tweets evoked the specter of a war between Islam and the West that is already part of numerous far-right narratives; it was also a central thread in the manifesto of Brenton Tarrant, the alleged Christchurch, New Zealand, shooter. (On Tuesday, Shapiro called this article “simply gross” and said he called Notre Dame a monument to Western civilization “because it is,” not because of “malicious intent.“) Richard Spencer, professional racist and coiner of the term “alt-right,” openly advocated for such warfare, stating (and misspelling) his hopes that the fire would “spur the White man into action — to sieze power in his countries, in Europe, in the world,” and declaring such an insurgence a “glorious purpose.” And, as Buzzfeed’s Jane Lytvynenko reported, other, more oblique figures managed to go even further, from provocation in the abstract to more concrete incitement. A parody account masquerading as Fox News fabricated a tweet from Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) that said, “They reap what they sow #NotreDame.”
Omar, under relentless attack by the right — including the president — became something of a totemic figure for those on social media already predisposed to see the fire as a Muslim conspiracy. Blogger David Futrelle, an expert on the worst of the Web, gathered dozens of tweets claiming that Omar was either celebrating the fire (variously “smiling inside,” “happy as a muslim terrorist,” “giddy and laughing”) or, somehow, had caused it. Multiple accounts questioned whether Omar was in Paris and whether her relatives had set the fire or asserted falsely that she was affiliated with a Muslim group that had set it.

It's pretty clear that any disaster like this is going to be repurposed in order to cause the violent right to cause bloodshed, either they inspire another Christchurch or Las Vegas shooter and terrorize the rest of us, or they constantly mark Muslims and their allies on the left for violence.  After a while, the numbing despair exacts a psychic as well and health toll.

They're winning this war.  They have a playbook ready to go for disasters of all shapes and sizes and it will be used again and again and again.

Our Little Domestic Terrorism Problem, Con't

That didn't take long, did it?

A 55-year-old New York man was arrested Friday for allegedly threatening to kill freshman congresswoman Ilhan Omar, the Elmira Star-Gazette reports. 

The man, identified as Patrick W. Carlineo, is said to have called the Democratic lawmaker’s office on March 21 and made threatening comments, according to a criminal complaint filed by the Western District of New York.  

“Do you work for the Muslim Brotherhood? Why are you working for her, she’s a fucking terrorist. I’ll put a bullet in her fucking skull,” Carlineo allegedly said.  

Omar’s office reportedly immediately reported the call to the United States Capitol Police, Threat Assessment Section, which in turn got the FBI involved.  

While questioned by FBI agents over the call late last month, Carlineo reportedly described himself as a patriot who loves President Trump and hates radical Muslims in public office.  

Investigators also reportedly found a shotgun and a .22-caliber rifle at his home.  

The arrest comes just a few weeks after Fox News host Jeanine Pirro suggested on-air that Omar’s wearing of a hijab might be “indicative” of loyalty to Sharia law, a claim which quickly sparked backlash and saw her show temporarily bumped from the air.

We've already had Gabrielle Giffords and Steve Scalise shot in assassination attempts on House lawmakers in the last decade.  We should be horrified that it very nearly happened a third time.

And speaking of happening a third time...

Three historically black churches have burned in less than two weeks in one south Louisiana parish, where officials said they had found “suspicious elements” in each case. The officials have not ruled out the possibility of arson, or the possibility that the fires are related.

“There is clearly something happening in this community,” State Fire Marshal H. Browning said in a statement on Thursday. “That is why it is imperative that the citizens of this community be part of our effort to figure out what it is.”

The three fires occurred on March 26, Tuesday and Thursday in St. Landry Parish, north of Lafayette. A fourth fire, a small blaze that officials said was “intentionally set,” was reported on Sunday at a predominantly black church in Caddo Parish, about a three-hour drive north.

“But just as we haven’t connected the three in St. Landry, we haven’t connected the one in Caddo,” said Ashley Rodrigue, a spokeswoman for the Louisiana Office of State Fire Marshal, on Friday.

Local officials said that they were still investigating the fires, and did not say if they knew of any suspects, a motive, or whether racism was an element.

“There certainly is a commonality, and whether that leads to a person or persons or groups, we just don’t know,” Mr. Browning said at a news conference on Thursday.

The F.B.I. and federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives are involved in the investigation, said Jeff Nowakowski, a spokesman for the A.T.F.’s New Orleans field division.

Remember, the Homeland Security task force that looked into white supremacist domestic terrorism like this was disbanded by the Trump regime earlier this year because white supremacist domestic terrorism isn't a priority.

Well, stopping it isn't a priority, anyway.