Damned Republicans

Abbe Lowell is right

If Hunter Biden has done anything illegal, it's not the job of Congress to deal with it.  He's a civilian.  DOJ could get involved if there are federal crimes, but not Congress.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Weaponization of the government

"1st Rule of Weaponization Hearings? NEVER POINT THE WEAPON AT YOURSELF." -- Keith Olbermann

Aaron Rupar has a nice thread on that particular self-owning hearing.

I'm going to pick out one bit...

So let's then look at Bill Barr a little more closely.

Through its new “weaponization of government” subcommittee, the GOP-controlled House is preparing to pursue the same conspiracy theories that preoccupied Barr and Trump [...] .

This makes it all the more essential that the Senate, and the DOJ itself, conduct a comprehensive inquiry into Barr’s actual weaponization of the justice system for political ends.

[...]

The roots of Barr’s agenda date back to his tenure in the George H.W. Bush administration, during which he first served as attorney general. Barr was an early proponent of what became known as the “unitary executive” doctrine, which questioned efforts to limit presidential power in the wake of Watergate.

[...]

He facilitated Bush’s pardons, immediately before leaving office, of six individuals who had been convicted or charged by the Iran-Contra Independent Counsel, including former Secretary of Defense Casper Weinberger, thereby truncating a potential criminal probe into Bush’s own conduct.

[...]

Barr defended Trump’s firing of FBI Director James Comey after his announcement that the bureau was investigating Russian interference in the 2016 election. Barr also publicly advocated for a DOJ investigation into the Steve Bannon-sponsored conspiracy theory that Hillary Clinton corruptly facilitated a Russian company’s purchase of US uranium assets, contending that there was “nothing inherently wrong” with Trump pressing for the investigation of a political opponent.

[...]

Barr also contended that Trump had an “illimitable” executive authority to “start or stop” law enforcement investigations.

[...]

Barr’s scheme to turn the DOJ into a Trump protection racket began almost as soon as he took office. In March 2019, Barr released a letter purporting to recount the findings of the then still secret Mueller report regarding Russia’s interference in the 2016 election, as well as Trump’s own efforts to interfere with the Mueller and FBI investigations.

[...]

In his letter, Barr purported to exonerate Trump of liability for obstruction of justice.

[...]

But as the public learned only weeks later — when a redacted version of the Mueller report was belatedly released — there was actually ample evidence that Trump had engaged in criminal conduct [...] in an effort to shut down an investigation of his own conduct.

[...]

Barr’s efforts were not limited to protecting Trump; he also repeatedly employed the DOJ to protect Trump’s cronies.

First, in February 2020, Barr set out to protect Roger Stone, Trump’s long-time associate, who had been convicted of witness tampering, lying to Congress, and other charges brought by Mueller’s team.

[...]

The DOJ thereafter, in normal course, filed a memo asking the court to sentence Stone to nine years in prison.

But soon after Trump issued a tweet complaining about the DOJ’s sentencing request, Barr intervened, causing the DOJ to withdraw it. His unprecedented move led four members of the prosecution team to withdraw, and one of them resign from the DOJ entirely.

[...]

Second, in May 2020, Barr’s DOJ sought the dismissal of criminal charges against former Trump National Security Advisor Michael Flynn. Flynn stood charged with making false statements to the FBI, having brazenly lied about taped conversations he held with the Russian ambassador to the US before Trump took office.

[...]

In the face of the overwhelming evidence, Flynn had pled guilty, and agreed to cooperate with the Mueller inquiry (an agreement he ultimately reneged upon). But a prosecutor installed by Barr filed a motion to dismiss the indictment, contending — based on a strikingly dubious legal theory — that Flynn’s baldfaced lies to the FBI did not merit prosecution after all.

[...]

Finally, and perhaps most audaciously, in June 2020, Barr removed one of the DOJ’s most prominent prosecutors, US Attorney for the Southern District of New York Jeffrey Berman, in a transparent effort to frustrate investigations of persons close, or potentially dangerous to, Trump — likely including Trump’s closest crony (and former US Attorney) Rudy Giuliani. Barr tried to handpick Berman’s successor. That effort failed, but it again demonstrated that Barr was willing to do whatever it took to keep Trump’s inner circle above the law.

One of Barr’s most outrageous efforts to protect Trump remains the least explored: The attorney general’s elaborate 2019 scheme to employ the DOJ as a tool to conceal from Congress and the public Trump’s effort to extort Ukrainian President Zelenskyy.

As part of that scheme, the DOJ instructed then-acting Director of National Intelligence Joseph Maguire to violate his duty to turn over to Congress a whistleblower’s complaint recounting Trump’s demand — during his “perfect” phone call with Zelenskyy — that Ukraine announce a bogus “investigation” of Joe Biden in return for urgently needed weapons to defend Ukraine against attacks by Russian proxy forces.

As later came to light, the DOJ’s once respected Office of Legal Counsel had prepared a transparently defective opinion declaring that the DNI had no obligation to share the whistleblower’s complaint with Congress, and asserting that the DOJ’s criminal division had exclusive jurisdiction over the matter. Criminal division prosecutors then conducted a cursory “review” and closed the file.

[...]

Barr enlisted [John] Durham, then the Connecticut US Attorney, to engage in a wide ranging “investigation” into the Justice Department’s probe of Russia’s interference in the 2016 election, in what amounted to an even more audacious chapter in his scheme to discredit Robert Mueller’s findings.

[...]

Barr was motivated by a conspiracy theory positing that “deep state” actors within US Intelligence or law enforcement agencies were behind the FBI’s — and Mueller’s — investigations of Russia’s election interference, as well as its potential links to Trump’s campaign. Barr was personally, and deeply, involved in Durham’s effort to prove this thesis, which ultimately, and spectacularly, failed.

The most disturbing new revelation in the recent Times article is that 2019 reporting that Durham’s investigation had become a “criminal” probe was highly inaccurate. [...]

According to Barr, Durham, however, concluded that the allegations — the nature of which remain secret — were without merit.

[...]

Ultimately, in a striking echo of other Barr schemes, several prosecutors left Durham’s team after being disturbed by his politicized tactics.

[...]

Barr had succeeded in creating a public impression that Trump’s baroque claims of a deep state plot actually had merit. Indeed, these fictional claims continue to be pursued, including by the new House “weaponization of government” subcommittee.

[...]

Barr resigned on December 15, 2020, in a letter showering Trump with praise. But soon thereafter, Barr began letting it be known that he objected to Trump’s election fraud claims, and later began to publicly, and harshly, criticize his former boss, whom he has variously accused of “extortion” and “sabotage.”

Yet these accusations flew in the face of Barr’s own aggressive efforts to bolster Trump’s election conspiracism before, during, and immediately after the election.

[...]

By resigning in mid-December, Barr avoided being in office when, only a few weeks later, the conspiracism he had enabled culminated in the attack on the Capitol.

  David Lurie

And it is certain that Barr was aware of what was coming.  Being the slimey character he is, he meant to get clear of any implication in the coup.  And in fact, he testified against Trump to the January 6 Committee.  A weasel of a man.

Some Democratic House members have called for the DOJ’s inspector general to commence a probe, which is certainly in order. But any investigation of Barr’s misconduct will, by definition, also be an investigation of the DOJ; and no institution can be relied upon to conduct a neutral and comprehensive investigation of itself. Therefore, the Senate, which now has a Democratic majority, with the authority to issue subpoenas and compel the production of documents, should conduct its own inquiry.

[...]

The recent, and notably successful, House January 6 investigation demonstrates that Congress remains capable of such inquiries. Those who recognize the importance of an effective DOJ, free of politically influenced misconduct, must hope that Durbin and his colleagues undertake their investigation of Barr’s repugnant legacy diligently and without fear or favor.

[...]

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Dick Durbin has announced that his committee will be undertaking an investigation. The question is whether the Senate inquiry will have the proper scope — it should encompass the entirety of Barr’s wide-ranging misconduct — as well as whether it will be as searching as past, successful Senate inquiries, including the Senate Watergate investigation.

Don't hold your breath.

.....but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

UPDATE 02/12/2023:

The point is his followers believe him

Yeah, I missed that, too.  

Also, stollen is a German fruit bread often served at Xmas.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

They weren't satisfied with one self-own committee

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

"It's clearly carnival barker territory."  -- Stephen

Yep.  It's good for fundraising.

Self-owning Republican committee

Despite their own past behavior, Republicans are using their newfound control of the House to probe Democrats’ and federal law enforcement agencies’ interaction with Twitter.

[...]

WHEN THE WHITE House called up Twitter in the early morning hours of September 9, 2019, officials had what they believed was a serious issue to report: Famous model Chrissy Teigen had just called President Donald Trump “a pussy ass bitch” on Twitter — and the White House wanted the tweet to come down.

That exchange — revealed during Wednesday’s House Oversight Committee hearing on Twitter by Rep. Gerry Connolly — and others like it are nowhere to be found in Elon Musk’s “Twitter Files” releases, which have focused almost exclusively on requests from Democrats and the feds to the social media company. The newly empowered Republican majority in the House of Representatives is now devoting significant resources and time to investigating this supposed “collusion” between liberal politicians and Twitter.

  Rolling Stone

Ooops.

The Trump administration and its allied Republicans in Congress routinely asked Twitter to take down posts they objected to — the exact behavior that they’re claiming makes President Biden, the Democrats, and Twitter complicit in an anti-free speech conspiracy to muzzle conservatives online.

[...]

But during both the Trump and Biden presidencies, these types of moderation requests or demands were routinely sent to Twitter by the staff of influential GOP lawmakers — ones with names like Kevin McCarthy and Elise Stefanik.

[...]

The obvious irony here is, the sources note, that Republican leaders and elected officials have long been committing precisely the kind of “government interference” that they are now investigating, fundraising off of, and accusing Democrats and the so-called anti-Trump “Deep State” of perpetrating. Some of the loudest conservative and MAGA voices on Capitol Hill — who’ve been endlessly demanding taxpayer-funded, high-profile investigations into Big Tech “bias” and “collusion” — were themselves engaged in the behavior they now claim is colluding.

I wonder if Matt Taibbi and Jonathan Turley - or indeed, Elon Musk himself - will have anything to say.

Other posts on this insane flop of a committee can be found here and here.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

UPDATE 09:24 am:

UPDATE 03:18 pm:  Well, we've heard from Turley now...

Maybe Taibbi will have something to say about that.

Katie, bar the door...

Too bad the yelling and screaming clips are what they're after - the fundraising value is priceless.

And wrapping it up...

The Age of Angry Torpor has descended on us all.

[...]

The House Committee on Oversight and Accountability had its first chance to air out its chuckleheaded conspiracy tales about Twitter's "suppression" of the news about Hunter Biden's laptop. It took up most of the legislative day on Wednesday.

[...]

When Rep. Lauren Boebert threatened a witnesses with arrest and prosecution for...something...and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez asked Comer if he didn't think this violated committee protocols on witness intimidation, Comer fumbled and foozled around until an aide at his shoulder prompted him to reply, “We don't agree there was witness threatening.” (He couldn't come up with that on his own?)

[...]

Comer put a blow-up of the NYP front page in question behind his chair. That story speculated that the laptop contained evidence that Joe Biden had gotten a Ukrainian prosecutor fired because the man was closing in on one of Hunter's business partners. This, you may recall, was the primary red herring Republicans tossed out as an alternate theory of the crime during Impeachment No. 1. One person who remembered that quite clearly was rookie Rep. Dan Goldman, whose previous gig was lead counsel for the House Judiciary Committee in that very matter. He took Comer out for a walk.

  Charlie Pierce

Continue reading.

We are failing as a nation

Ask him again.

h/t Stephen

Yep, another Karl Rove acolyte.

This troll is the philosophical heir to Joseph McCarthy.  And unfortunately, she has plenty of company in the current GOP.

Here's her problem with Roth:  "He permanently banned my Twitter account for a year during my election."  

Leave aside how a year is not permanent, this woman is the worst kind of troll - an anti-semitic rabble rouser.  Roth can expect death threats, and maybe attempts.

He has already been harassed to the point of selling his home and moving.  

[Roth] began by saying that the "Twitter Files" also affected more junior employees at Twitter, and that staff as far away as the Philippines were "doxxed, had their families threatened, and experienced harm equal to or greater than what I've experienced."

He added: "But concurrent with the 'Twitter Files,' Elon Musk also made the decision to share a defamatory allegation that I support or condone pedophilia and this lie led directly to a wave of homophobic and antisemitic threats and harassment against me of which Twitter has removed vanishingly little.

  MSN

The "Committee" is now hounding him over his role at Twitter to the tune of Joe McCarthy's House UnAmerican Activities Committee in the 50s. We're in another very dark period of our country's history. I don't know how we get out of it.

UPDATE 10:52 am:

Hunter Biden may have some shit to answer for, but I do hope his lawyers make this GOP obsession very costly.

The Twitter (Hunter Biden laptop) hearing is as crazy as you might have assumed it would be

Fucking lunatic.

Also, fucking lunatic.

Donalds is adding confirmation to the perception he gave during the Speaker of the House fiasco that he is indeed a fool.

Apparently, though, some Democrats are joining the fray.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

UPDATE 07:02 pm:

UPDATE 02/09/2023 :  Another Moskowitz clip...

Moskowitz is about to become another focus of the MAGA Menace.

UPDATE 02/09/2023 11:34 am:

UPDATE 02/10/2023:

I didn't realize until now that I have two previous posts on Clay Higgins.  From 2020, where he claims his wife had a premonition dream he thought worthy of tweeting, and 2019, where we learn he resigned from two police departments before he could be charged with brutality and breach of ethics, was married four times and was sued for $140,000 in back child support.

UPDATE 02/11/2023:

I think we all saw this coming for Moskowitz.

Of course

And because Swalwell and Schiff were on a "special" committee - intelligence - they didn't even get a vote.  They simply got booted.

And all three were simply payback for the legitimate removals of Marjorie Taylor Greene and Louie Gohmert from committees.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Committee assignments bought with support for McCarthy

Gosh, I hope Marj and Lauren Boebert can set aside their differences to work on the committee.

Marj isn't ready to make up with Matt Gaetz, and she's named herself Queen of MAGA in Congress, ahead of all the serious MAGA scum.

How'd she "earn" those?

They eat their own.

Also, I hear they gutted the Office of Congressional Ethics (not the Ethics Committee).

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

UPDATE:

Houe committee chairs and ranking members

So all that (Democrat supporters) talk about removing Democrats from committees was bunk.  Schiff, Raskin, Thompson, Lofgren - all members of the January 6 Committee - are still ranking members on important committees.