Monitoring Biden and other Contemporary Events

- it's okay to repeatedly & knowingly sell a lie that could lead to the overthrow of our democracy'[/i]

Such major actions, when proven, should always invoke sanctions (whichever news organisation it is that does such things)

Don’t be a part of this Nazism.

The MSM lies constantly.

The MSM has already participated in the overthrow of anything resembling democracy.

Drugmaker Eli Lilly announced today that it will cap the cost of insulin at $35 a month, bringing costs for people with private insurance and those without insurance who sign up for Lilly’s copay assistance program into line with the $35 cap for Medicare recipients Congress imposed with the Inflation Reduction Act last August.

Republicans all voted against the Inflation Reduction Act and explicitly stripped from it a measure that would have capped the cost of insulin at $35 for those not on Medicare. They continue to oppose the measure. On February 2, 2023, newly elected House Republican Andy Ogles (TN) introduced his first bill: a call to repeal the Inflation Reduction Act, claiming it “took a gigantic step toward socialized medicine.” The bill had 20 far-right cosponsors.

At the time he introduced the bill, Ogles presented himself as an economist with a degree in international relations from Middle Tennessee State University. Since then, an investigation by NewsChannel 5 in Nashville revealed that he took one course in economics and got a “C” in it, and that his resume was similarly exaggerated across the board. Ogles won a seat in Congress after the Republican state legislature redistricted Nashville to make it easier for a Republican to win there.

Lilly’s announcement in the face of Republican support for big pharmaceutical companies is a bellwether for the country’s politics. Biden has pressured companies to bring down the price of insulin—most notably by calling for such legislation last month during his State of the Union address—and is claiming credit for Lilly’s decision. But there is more to it.

The astronomically high price tags on U.S. insulin compared to the rest of the world have become a symbol of a society where profits trump lives, and there is growing opposition to the control pharmaceutical companies have over life-saving drugs. A number of other entities, including a nonprofit company in Utah called Civica Rx, the state of California, and a company run by billionaire Mark Cuban, have all promised to produce generic insulin at a fraction of what pharmaceutical companies are currently charging. Lilly's announcement is likely a reaction to the changing moment that has brought both political pressure and economic competition. The company’s leaders see the writing on the wall.

The administration continues to work to create positive change in other measures important to ordinary Americans. This month ends temporary increases in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, previously referred to as “food stamps.” At the start of the coronavirus pandemic, Congress boosted SNAP payments, keeping as many as 4.2 million people out of poverty. Congress ended those extra benefits late last year through the Consolidated Appropriations Act that funded the government. About 42 million Americans receive SNAP benefits, and the end of that boost will cut those benefits by $90 a month on average.

Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack wrote an op-ed at CNN today, promising that the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which administers SNAP, will do its best to protect families losing the expanded benefits. It will work to adjust benefits to rising prices, expand school lunch programs, and promote access to the Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) program.

“Our country was founded to support the prosperity and potential of Americans in every corner of the nation,” Vilsack wrote. “Under President Joe Biden’s administration, we’re making good on this promise.”

Yesterday the Senate Judiciary Committee held a hearing about the ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment prohibiting discrimination on the basis of sex. Congress passed the amendment in 1972 and sent it off to the states for ratification, but they imposed on that ratification a seven-year deadline. Thirty states ratified it within the next year, but a fierce opposition campaign led by right-wing activist Phyllis Schlafly eroded support among Republicans, and although Congress extended the deadline by three years, only 35 states had signed on by 1977. And, confusing matters, legislatures in five states—Idaho, Kentucky, Nebraska, South Dakota, and Tennessee—voted to take back their earlier ratification.

In 2017, Nevada became the first state to ratify the ERA since 1977. Then Illinois stepped up, and finally, in 2020, Virginia became the 38th state to ratify the amendment, putting it over the required three quarters of states needed for the amendment to become part of the Constitution. But now there are legal challenges to that ratification over both the original deadline and whether the states’ rescinding of previous ratifications has merit.

The Senate hearing was designed to examine whether the deadline could be separated from the amendment to allow the amendment to be added to the Constitution, but it was far more revealing than that.

Faced with the possibility that the ERA might become part of the Constitution, right-wing leaders insisted that the ERA has “just one purpose left,” as the Heritage Foundation put it: “Abortion.” They claim that since, in their view, women are now effectively equal to men across the board in employment and so on, women’s current demand for equality before the law is simply a way for them to capture abortion rights.

Catholic bishops of the United States have written to senators to express “alarm” at the ERA, warning it would have “far-reaching consequences” with “negative impacts to the common good and to religious freedom.” They claim it would require federal funding for abortions and would prohibit “discrimination based on ‘sexual orientation,’ ‘gender identity,’ and other categories.” “We strongly urge you to oppose it,” they wrote, “and any resolution attempting to declare it ratified.”

This fight highlights that the attempt to stop government protection of individuals is really about imposing the will of a minority. A piece by Megan O’Matz in ProPublica today explored how an anti-abortion law firm has been sowing doubts about the 2020 presidential election as part of a long-term strategy to end abortion rights. Led by former Kansas attorney general Phill Kline, whose law license was suspended a decade ago for ethics violations, lawyers at the Thomas More Society worked to restrict access to the vote and to stall President Joe Biden’s inauguration in order to keep Trump in office.

Their efforts thrived on disinformation, of course, and the echoes from the testimony released recently in the defamation case of Dominion Voting Systems against the Fox Corporation continue to reverberate in the fight against public lies. In that testimony, both Fox News Channel hosts and top executives admitted that they knew Trump’s claims of victory in the 2020 presidential election were lies but spread them anyway to keep their viewers from abandoning them for another channel.

Now House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) has given exclusive access to 44,000 hours of video from the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021, to one of those hosts, Tucker Carlson.

Today, Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and House minority leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) did an end run around McCarthy to address the problem of disinformation directly at the source. They sent a letter to Rupert Murdoch, chair of the Fox Corporation, and other top Fox executives, reminding them of their damning testimony and reminding them that “your network hosts continue to promote, spew, and perpetuate election conspiracy theories to this day.”

They wrote: “We demand that you direct Tucker Carlson and other hosts on your network to stop spreading false election narratives and admit on the air that they were wrong to engage in such negligent behavior.”

It is an important marker, and if the Fox Corporation can read the writing on the wall as well as Eli Lilly can, it might shift the focus of the Fox News Channel, which already seems to be trying to pull its support for Trump and give it to Florida governor Ron DeSantis.

But that protest is unlikely to change the behavior of right-wing members of Congress. Yesterday, Representatives Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) and Mark Green (R-TN) blamed the Biden administration for the deaths of Caleb and Kyler Kiessling from fentanyl poisoning after their mother, an attorney and conservative activist, testified before the House Committee on Homeland Security. But the young men, along with 17-year-old Sophia Harris, died in July 2020, when Trump was president.

When senior CNN reporter Daniel Dale asked Greene’s office why she had blamed Biden for the deaths, her congressional spokesperson, Nick Dyer, “responded by saying lots of people have died from drugs under Biden and ‘do you think they give a f*ck about your bullsh*t fact checking?’” Dale also asked him to comment on Greene’s lies about the 2020 presidential election yesterday. Dyer answered: “F*ck off.”

The Israeli Labor Party wasn't any better.

Quote:

The Israeli Labor Party wasn't any better.

No, the left has been in a long decline in Israel. But, to be "fair" to both sides – it's really difficult to govern a divided country by cobbling together weak coalitions where minorities can hold leadership hostage by threats to withdraw.

What a ridiculous statement. Since I know we won't be provided with an explanation I'll just repeat – this is ridiculous.

First of all, I'm no fan of Fox. Second, lying in news reporting isn't a crime.

Third, I dare you to give me one and only one example in your own words (not a link to someone else's words) of a lie they told.

First of all, I'm no fan of Fox. Second, lying in news reporting isn't a crime. Third, I dare you to give me one and only one example in your own words (not a link to someone else's words) of a lie they told.

Today the Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee demonstrated that they will actively fight back against Republicans’ false narratives. House Republicans, led by Judiciary Committee chair Jim Jordan (R-OH), have insisted they had evidence of the “weaponization” of the Department of Justice and the Federal Bureau of Investigation against Republicans. Jordan has claimed to have “dozens and dozens of whistleblowers…talking about what is going on, the political nature at the Justice Department.”

These allegations that Republicans are victims of a “deep state” follow Trump’s insistence that the FBI’s investigation of the ties between his 2016 campaign and Russian operatives was “a witch hunt” led by Democrats. Jordan and other Republican members of Congress developed that same theme in their performances defending Trump during his first impeachment trial. Trump defenders continued to say on television and other media that they were victims of the FBI investigation of the January 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.

But now, in charge of the House Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government, established under the Judiciary Committee, Jordan and the Republicans actually have to produce evidence of their allegations. So far, they have held one hearing. It was a fiasco as the Republicans’ witnesses, including Senator Chuck Grassley (R-IA), made rambling statements that rehashed old grievances without presenting any new evidence, and Democrats repeatedly accused Republicans of trying to use the powers of the government to advance political talking points.

Recently, Republicans have begun to release pieces of the private interviews they conducted with those claiming they could prove the FBI was persecuting Republicans. Rather than permit them to establish a false narrative, the top Democrat on the Judiciary Committee, Jerrold Nadler (D-NY), and the top Democrat on the weaponization subcommittee, Stacey Plaskett (D-Virgin Islands), today released a deeply researched and footnoted 316-page report that shreds the Republicans’ story.

The report reveals the Republicans’ “dozens and dozens of whistleblowers” are, so far at least, three witnesses—whistleblower is actually a specific category and they do not meet that standard—who have left the FBI and have complained that the agency is biased against “conservatives.” Two of them lost their security clearances before they left, and while committee Republicans refused to show Democrats the men’s suspension notices, one revealed in his testimony that the notice arrived after he had improperly accessed documents from the FBI’s classified system. All three embrace a number of conspiracy theories. Under oath, they provided only right-wing accusations of bias without being able to attest to any first-hand knowledge of the things they alleged.

The witnesses did not come forward on their own; they were identified by former administrators in the Trump administration, including fervent Trump loyalists Kash Patel and Russell Vought. Patel provided money and legal services to two of the witnesses and found one of them a job at Vought’s right-wing think tank, the Center for Renewing America, after he left the FBI.

The witnesses were all fervent Trump supporters who were sympathetic to those involved in the January 6th attack. One of them claimed that the January 6th attack was a “set-up” and that it was “a larger #Democrat plan using their enforcement arm, the #FBI.” He described the FBI as “the Brown Shirt enforcers of the @DNC,” a reference to Nazi Storm Troopers. Another has repeatedly called for the FBI to be “defunded,” “dismantled,” “dissolved,” “aborted,” “abolished,” and “completely eliminated and eradicated from the federal government.”

In a section of the report titled “An Analysis of Witness Testimony Shows That Committee Republicans Are Working to Advance a Politically Motivated Messaging Campaign Unsupported by the Evidence,” Nadler and Plaskett show how the witness testimony directly rebutted the Republicans’ talking points. Under examination, the witnesses disproved that the Department of Justice was trying to pad its case numbers regarding domestic violent extremism, that it had diverted resources from child abuse cases to pursue January 6 offenders, and that the FBI had overreacted to threats of violence against school administrators and local political officials, all Republican talking points.

The Democrats provided extensive evidence to suggest that Patel was egging on the witnesses to help push Trump’s fight against the Justice Department, the FBI, and the Biden administration. Now, they said, it appears that he and his allies are trying to use the subcommittee in this same effort. The Democrats expressed “serious concerns” about the possible coordination between Patel and the Republican committee members.

They explained: Patel is currently a senior fellow at the Center for Renewing America (CRA), a MAGA think tank that pushed the House Republicans to establish the subcommittee. The CRA was founded by Christian nationalist Russell Vough—now working with the Republicans on their budget plan—and is funded by the Conservative Partnership institute (CPI), which is run by former Trump chief of staff Mark Meadows and former senator Jim DeMint (R-SC).

Axios author Jonathan Swan described CPI as “a who’s-who of Trump’s former administration and the ‘America First’ movement,” “the hub of the hard right in Washington.” Their headquarters is where the right-wing extremist “Freedom Caucus” meets, and the notoriously stingy Trump authorized a $1 million donation to the CPI in 2021.

In short, the Democrats are suggesting that the House Republicans who established the Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government are themselves trying to weaponize the government to advance the interests of Trump and the MAGA Republicans. Nadler and Plaskett quoted Jordan’s statement at the August 2022 Conservative Political Action Conference, when he promised that his investigation would “frame up the 2024 race when I hope and I think President Trump is going to run again and we need to make sure that he wins.”

The official Republican House Judiciary Twitter account responded vaguely: “Cherry-picked leaks. Partial transcripts. All to disparage brave whistleblowers. Democrats should be ashamed.”

But, just as they did with the Republicans’ reluctance to show the American people their budget plan, the Democrats are calling the Republicans’ bluff. “We urge Chairman Jordan to schedule the public testimony of these individuals without delay,” Nadler and Plaskett wrote. “The American public should be able to judge for themselves whether these witnesses or their allegations are remotely credible.”

Spurred on by the so-called “Twitter Files,” the House Oversight Committee hearing on Twitter’s decision to temporarily block a 2020 New York Post story about Hunter Biden’s laptop was supposed to show overwhelming proof that the social media giant was engaged in anti-conservative “censorship.”

Instead, former Twitter officials revealed on Wednesday that former President Donald Trump not only received preferential treatment for years, but he also directly requested the site remove tweets that he didn’t like. At the same time, they also noted that President Joe Biden hadn’t contacted Twitter to take down any tweets or censor content.

One tweet Trump especially wanted to be deleted: Supermodel and TV star Chrissy Teigen calling him a “pussy ass bitch” in 2019.

Former Twitter executives Yoel Roth, James Baker, and Vijaya Gadde, along with ex-Twitter official turned whistleblower Anika Collier Navaroli, were brought on to testify about the FBI’s possible role in suppressing the laptop story. And though they once again conceded it was a “mistake” to briefly block the article over misinformation concerns, they also denied the feds had any role in that decision.

While GOP committee members used much of their time to air personal grievances and smear the ex-Twitter employees, Democrats largely focused on highlighting how Twitter had bent over backward to accommodate Trump and his conservative allies.

Navaroli, for instance, noted how she recommended Twitter take action against a 2019 Trump tweet that told four liberal congresswomen of color to “go back” to “crime infested places from which they came.” Although that tweet was in clear violation of the company’s policy against abusing immigrants, Navaroli testified Wednesday that her recommendation was overridden and the policy was changed.

Roth told Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) that the FBI sending over review requests of certain content may not have been a valuable use of the bureau’s resources and time, but it still didn’t represent any First Amendment violations. And even though Jordan disagreed, he also acknowledged that Twitter “isn’t bound by the First Amendment” because it’s a private company.

“My, my, my—what happens when you hold a hearing, and you can't prove your point?” Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-VA) snarked in response to Jordan.

The Virginia lawmaker then brought up a 2020 tweet in which Trump threatened to “strongly regulate” or “close” Twitter “down” in retaliation for allegedly “silenc[ing] conservatives.” He then turned to Navaroli to ask about a 2019 Trump tweet heckling Teigen and her husband John Legend, both outspoken critics of the former president.

Navaroli confirmed that after Trump blasting the couple via tweet, he immediately contacted the social-media giant to demand Teigen’s tweet calling him a “pussy ass bitch” be deleted from the site.

“What I was privy to was my supervisors letting us know that we had received something along those lines, or something of a request,” Navoroli replied. “In that instance, I do remember hearing that we had received a request from the White House to make sure that we evaluated this tweet and that they wanted it to come down because it was a derogatory statement towards the president.”

Connolly, dripping with sarcasm, remarked that he “thought that was inappropriate action by a government official,” adding that it “wasn’t Joe Biden about his son’s laptop” but rather “Trump because he didn’t like what Chrissy Teigen has to say about him.”

Intent on using his line of questioning to prove Trump engaged in the exact behavior Republicans accuse the Biden administration of doing, the congressman then questioned the other former executives on the current president’s contacts with Twitter.

Both Roth and Gadde told Connolly they were “not aware” and “did not recall” any evidence of Biden having urged Twitter to remove content. Baker, for his part, insisted he didn’t know the answer to that question.

In a separate exchange with Rep. Maxwell Alejandro Frost (D-FL), Navaroli actually quoted Teigen’s tweet before reiterating that the ex-president had pushed Twitter to remove it from the site. “This fell under the policy for abusive behaviors, and we evaluated it under our ‘insults’ policy,” she stated. “At that time, up to three insults were allowed. It was our job to determine how many insults were included within that phrase.”

As the hearing was still in session, Rolling Stone reported that Trump’s demand to take down Teigen’s tweet was “hardly an isolated incident.” According to former Trump officials and Twitter staffers, prominent Republicans and the ex-president routinely asked the company to remove posts—the same behavior they’re now insisting shows Democrats and Twitter conspired to silence conservatives and restrict their free speech.

For some reason, none of this has been revealed in the many editions of Musk’s “Twitter Files,” which have almost entirely concentrated on communications sent by Democrats and government agencies to Twitter.

Shortly after the publication of Rolling Stone’s article, Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) entered it into the record during Wednesday’s hearing.

Fox News, meanwhile, aired much of Connolly’s Q&A segment live on-air, prompting “straight news” anchor Harris Faulkner to follow up with a dramatic rant slamming Democrats for “reflexively” leaning “all the way in on former President Trump.” As for Republicans, she asserted they were revealing that America no longer has a “free and open press” while highlighting the Biden family’s corruption.

“Do they not see the complicit nature that Republicans are trying to show the public?!” Faulkner exclaimed, adding: “I wanted you to see the Democrats go after Trump at a hearing that is literally all about getting to the bottom of what was going on with a president who may have been exposed through business dealings either through his son, Hunter, or complicit on his own right, Joe Biden.”