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Fire Virginia Foxx, But Not Because She Lied About Matthew Shepard

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Admits She Is Trying To “Scare You To Death”

 

 

“The hate crimes bill that’s called the Matthew Shepard Bill is named after a very unfortunate incident that happened where a young man was killed, but we know that that young man was killed in the commitment of a robbery.  It wasn’t because he was gay.  This – the bill was named for him, hate crimes bill was named for him, but it’s really a hoax that that continues to be used as an excuse for passing these bills.”

So said Rep. Virginia Foxx (R -NC) yesterday in a full session of the U.S. House of Representatives, in her bid to defeat the “Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act of 2009”, H.R. 1913, better known as the Matthew Shepard Act. There was one special guest in the House too: Judy Shepard, Matthew’s mother. Ten years ago, Matthew Shepard, a gay, 21 year-old college student who stood 5′ 4″ tall, and weighed just one hundred pounds, was lured out of a bar by two men claiming to be gay. He was robbed, pistol whipped, brutally beaten and tortured, and tied to a fence and left for dead until someone came by and found him in a coma eighteen hours later. (At first they thought he was a scarecrow.) Matthew died six days later. The two assailants did this to Shepard because he was gay. They are now in jail. These are facts. They have been proven many times over.

Via Wikipedia:

“Shepard suffered a fracture from the back of his head to the front of his right ear. He had severe brain stem damage, which affected his body’s ability to regulate heart rate, body temperature and other vital signs. There were also about a dozen small lacerations around his head, face and neck. His injuries were deemed too severe for doctors to operate. Shepard never regained consciousness and remained on full life support. As he lay in intensive care, candlelight vigils were held by the people of Laramie.”

For an elected Representative of the U.S. Congress to stand in front of hundreds of her peers, reporters, network television cameras, essentially the world, look at Judy Shepard, who, for ten years has worked to make her son’s death at least have some meaning, for Virginia Foxx to stand up and lie is inexcusable. Our elected officials are supposed to stand for our highest ideals. They are supposed to stand for truth. They are supposed to make the world a better place for all people. For Virginia Foxx to lie to the world, and to Matthew’s mother, is not only unacceptable, it is unforgivable. And it is time for Virginia Foxx to resign.

The country saw Rep. Foxx on television over and over and over last night. There are far too many pundits to quote, but I’ll let share with you perhaps the best portraiture of Rep. Foxx:

Yes, Keith Olbermann called Rep. Foxx’s statement “The most despicable thing said on the floor of the House in decades.” He goes on to say, “She is at best callous, insensitive, criminally misinformed, at worst, she is a bald-faced liar… She is not worthy to represent this country… she is our shame.

But, you say, maybe she made a mistake? Maybe she’s not that bad? Well, the Virginia Foxx of Thursday doesn’t really disagree with the Virginia Foxx of Wednesday. She released a statement today saying,

“The term ‘hoax’ was a poor choice of words used in the discussion of the hate-crimes bill,” Foxx said in a statement. “Mr. Shepard’s death was nothing less than a tragedy, and those responsible for his death certainly deserved the punishment they received.”

She goes on to say she took the information from two news sources,

“Referencing these media accounts may have been a mistake, but if so, it was a mistake based on what I believed were reliable accounts.”

So, here’s what’s wrong:

The name “Matthew Shepard”, sadly, is synonymous with the term “hate crime”. The case is over ten years old. An Amazon book search yields over 1200 results. There is no way any competent staffer could not have come up with the correct facts of the case. A bill this important and this much in the public eye warranted more than a partisan Conservapedia search. Even that biased account admits Shepard’s killers “planned to pretend to be homosexuals so that they could rob Shepard.”

Yes, “hoax” was a poor choice of words. A terrible choice of words, and a lie. Supporters of the hate Crimes Bill are not perpetrating a hoax on anyone. Even if, even if Foxx believed Shepard’s killing was not a hate crime, even if she does not believe in the concept of the term “hate crime”, to stand before the world and Judy Shepard and use that language dishonors every one in that chamber, and the people of America. Be against this important legislation if you must, but never, never abuse he memory of a beloved victim and icon. To do so harms history, your office, and yourself.

Her “apology” wasn’t an apology. It wasn’t even one of those “If I offended anyone” apologies. And by releasing her statement saying only that she made a poor choice of words, she is saying she doesn not believe that Matthew Shepard’s murder was in fact a hate crime.

Well, if her egregious comments aren’t bad enough to warrant her resignation, her performance is. Let’s look at some other comments Rep. Foxx has made:

About the Hate Crimes Bill, she said,

“If this bill becomes law, it will have a chilling effect on many law-abiding Americans’ freedom of expression.”

It “will start us down the road towards a public square that is less robust, more restrictive, and that will squelch our cherished constitutional right to free speech. … We should not live and legislate in fear of bankrupt ideas.”

Is “there such a thing as non-hateful violent crime?”

Anyone who is concerned that their actions could be punishable under a hate-crimes bill should be closely monitoring their actions.

Let’s look at how Foxx represents America’s fallen heroes, our military:

Horrendous. Yet again, Rep. Foxx ignored the mother who lost her son, this time in service to his country. Has she no shame? Has she no caring? has she no heart?

Evidently, no American icon is sacred to Foxx. Last year, also on the House floor, in an attempt to shore up her state’s lumber industry, she claimed “the origins of baseball [have] been the subject of debate and controversy.”

And her pattern of truth-transforming emerges: Regarding the October, 2008 Bailout Bill, Foxx said, “I don’t think it is too much of a stretch to say this may be the day America died.” (America hasn’t died. More people now than in the past five years feel America is on the right track.) During the presidential campaign, of Obama and Clinton, she remarked, “basically [they] are socialists, he more than she.”

An elected representative, as I said, should be a role model, an inspiration, someone who makes their people hopeful for the future, and delivers information that’s troubling with honesty and respect. On the eve of President Obama’s inauguration, in a campaign- fundraising letter, Rep. Foxx wrote, “for those of us who believe in limited government, individual liberty, free enterprise, this is a scary time.” Scary? That’s not inspiring. That’s not good leadership. That’s fear-mongering. It gets worse.

In March, just two months after her “scary” comment, Foxx “told a Charlotte Chamber of Commerce group visiting Washington, “You should fear for your country.” The Democratic majority in Congress, she warned, has become “bolder and bolder” with tax dollars and the rules of the House. “I am trying to scare you to death.”

I watched the Hate Crimes Bill debate in the House yesterday on C-SPAN. I heard all the wonderful and all the hateful comments. Rep. Foxx’s comments were the worst, though there were others that came close. Then I wanted President Obama’s press conference last night. And I thought, we have a true leader in the White House. A man who has a grasp of all the issues. A man who looks objectively at problems and tackles them with thought and facts as he attempts to gather consensus. And then I thought more about Representative Foxx. She does none of those things. She is none of those things. She is not a leader, she is a fear-monger. She doesn’t deal in facts, nor does she take time to find out what the facts are. And she doesn’t take responsibility for her mistakes.

I don’t live in North Carolina. But I do live in the United States. And, unfortunately, Representative Foxx, therefore, also represents me. And I am not going to sit by and allow any member of Congress to lie to the world without challenging them on it. Nor should anyone else. The time to replace Virginia Foxx is now. Not only for her hateful and ignorant comments about Matthew Shepard’s murder, but for all the hateful and ignorant comments she has made as the Congresswoman of North Carolina. And for her poor performance in representing those she was elected to serve.

Please take some action.

You can:

  • Call Rep. Foxx and share your thoughts about her cooments and about her performance:

Washington, DC: (202) 225-2071
Clemmons, NC: (336) 778-0211
Boone, NC: (828) 265-0240

  • Write Rep. Foxx:

    • 1230 Longworth House Office Building
    Washington, D.C. 20515

Finally, please share this article.

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OPINION

President Hands Howard Stern Live Interview After NY Times Melts Down Over Biden Brush-Off

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April 26, 2024

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President Joe Biden gave an nearly-unannounced, last-minute, live exclusive interview Friday morning to Howard Stern, the SiriusXM radio host who for decades, from the mid-1990s to about 2015, was a top Trump friend, fan, and aficionado. But the impetus behind the President’s move appears to be a rare and unsigned statement from the The New York Times Company, defending the “paper of record” after months of anger from the public over what some say is its biased negative coverage of the Biden presidency and, especially, a Thursday report by Politico claiming Times Publisher A.G. Sulzberger is furious the President has refused to give the “Grey Lady” an in-person  interview.

“The Times’ desire for a sit-down interview with Biden by the newspaper’s White House team is no secret around the West Wing or within the D.C. bureau,” Politico reported. “Getting the president on the record with the paper of record is a top priority for publisher A.G. Sulzberger. So much so that last May, when Vice President Kamala Harris arrived at the newspaper’s midtown headquarters for an off-the-record meeting with around 40 Times journalists, Sulzberger devoted several minutes to asking her why Biden was still refusing to grant the paper — or any major newspaper — an interview.”

“In Sulzberger’s view,” Politico explained, “only an interview with a paper like the Times can verify that the 81-year-old Biden is still fit to hold the presidency.”

But it was this statement that made Politico’s scoop go viral.

READ MORE: Justices’ Views on Trump Immunity Stun Experts: ‘Watching the Constitution Be Rewritten’

“’All these Biden people think that the problem is Peter Baker or whatever reporter they’re mad at that day,’ one Times journalist said. ‘It’s A.G. He’s the one who is pissed [that] Biden hasn’t done any interviews and quietly encourages all the tough reporting on his age.'”

Popular Information founder Judd Legum in March documented The New York Times’ (and other top papers’) obsession with Biden’s age after the Hur Report.

Thursday evening the Times put out a “scorching” statement, as Politico later reported, not on the newspaper’s website but on the company’s corporate website, not addressing the Politico piece directly but calling it “troubling” that President Biden “has so actively and effectively avoided questions from independent journalists during his term.”

Media watchers and critics pushed back on the Times’ statement.

READ MORE: ‘To Do God Knows What’: Local Elections Official Reads Lara Trump the Riot Act

“NYT issues an unprecedented statement slamming Biden for ‘actively and effectively avoid[ing] questions from independent journalists during his term’ and claiming it’s their ‘independence’ that Biden dislikes, when it’s actually that they’re dying to trip him up,” wrote media critic Dan Froomkin, editor of Press Watch.

Froomkin also pointed to a 2017 report from Poynter, a top journalism site published by The Poynter Institute, that pointed out the poor job the Times did of interviewing then-President Trump.

Others, including former Biden Deputy Secretary of State Brian McKeon, debunked the Times’ claim President Biden hasn’t given interviews to independent journalists by pointing to Biden’s interviews with CBS News’ “60 Minutes” and a 20-minute sit-down interview with veteran journalist John Harwood for ProPublica.

Former Chicago Sun-Times editor Mark Jacob, now a media critics who publishes Stop the Presses, offered a more colorful take of Biden’s decision to go on Howard Stern.

The Times itself just last month reported on a “wide-ranging interview” President Biden gave to The New Yorker.

Watch the video and read the social media posts above or at this link.

READ MORE: ‘Doesn’t Care if Pregnant Women Live or Die’: Alito Slammed Over Emergency Abortion Remarks

 

 

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CNN Smacks Down Trump Rant Courthouse So ‘Heavily Guarded’ MAGA Cannot Attend His Trial

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3 hours ago

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April 26, 2024

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Donald Trump’s Friday morning claim Manhattan’s Criminal Courts Building is “heavily guarded” so his supporters cannot attend his trial was torched by a top CNN anchor. The ex-president, facing 34 felony charges in New York, had been urging his followers to show up and protest on the courthouse steps, but few have.

“I’m at the heavily guarded Courthouse. Security is that of Fort Knox, all so that MAGA will not be able to attend this trial, presided over by a highly conflicted pawn of the Democrat Party. It is a sight to behold! Getting ready to do my Courthouse presser. Two minutes!” Trump wrote Friday morning on his Truth Social account.

CNN’s Kaitlan Collins supplied a different view.

“Again, the courthouse is open the public. The park outside, where a handful of his supporters have gathered on trials days, is easily accessible,” she wrote minutes after his post.

READ MORE: ‘Assassination of Political Rivals as an Official Act’: AOC Warns Take Trump ‘Seriously’

Trump has tried to rile up his followers to come out and make a strong showing.

On Monday Trump urged his supporters to “rally behind MAGA” and “go out and peacefully protest” at courthouses across the country, while complaining that “people who truly LOVE our Country, and want to MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN, are not allowed to ‘Peacefully Protest,’ and are rudely and systematically shut down and ushered off to far away ‘holding areas,’ essentially denying them their Constitutional Rights.”

On Wednesday Trump claimed, “The Courthouse area in Lower Manhattan is in a COMPLETE LOCKDOWN mode, not for reasons of safety, but because they don’t want any of the thousands of MAGA supporters to be present. If they did the same thing at Columbia, and other locations, there would be no problem with the protesters!”

After detailing several of his false claims about security measures prohibiting his followers from being able to show their support and protest, CNN published a fact-check on Wednesday:

“Trump’s claims are all false. The police have not turned away ‘thousands of people’ from the courthouse during his trial; only a handful of Trump supporters have shown up to demonstrate near the building,” CNN reported.

“And while there are various security measures in place in the area, including some street closures enforced by police officers and barricades, it’s not true that ‘for blocks you can’t get near this courthouse.’ In reality, the designated protest zone for the trial is at a park directly across the street from the courthouse – and, in addition, people are permitted to drive right up to the front of the courthouse and walk into the building, which remains open to the public. If people show up early enough in the morning, they can even get into the trial courtroom itself or the overflow room that shows near-live video of the proceedings.”

READ MORE: Justices’ Views on Trump Immunity Stun Experts: ‘Watching the Constitution Be Rewritten’

 

 

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‘Assassination of Political Rivals as an Official Act’: AOC Warns Take Trump ‘Seriously’

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19 hours ago

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April 25, 2024

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Democratic U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is responding to Thursday’s U.S. Supreme Court hearing on Donald Trump’s claim he has “absolute immunity” from criminal prosecution because he was a U.S. president, and she delivered a strong warning in response.

Trump’s attorney argued before the nation’s highest court that the ex-president could have ordered the assassination of a political rival and not face criminal prosecution unless he was first impeached by the House of Representatives and then convicted by the Senate.

But even then, Trump attorney John Sauer argued, if assassinating his political rival were done as an “official act,” he would be automatically immune from all prosecution.

Justice Sonia Sotomayor, presenting the hypothetical, expressed, “there are some things that are so fundamentally evil that they have to be protected against.”

RELATED: Justices’ Views on Trump Immunity Stun Experts: ‘Watching the Constitution Be Rewritten’

“If the president decides that his rival is a corrupt person, and he orders the military, or orders someone to assassinate him, is that within his official acts for which he can get immunity?” she asked.

“It would depend on the hypothetical, but we can see that could well be an official act,” Trump attorney Sauer quickly replied.

Sauer later claimed that if a president ordered the U.S. military to wage a coup, he could also be immune from prosecution, again, if it were an “official act.”

The Atlantic’s Tom Nichols, a retired U.S. Naval War College professor and an expert on Russia, nuclear weapons, and national security affairs, was quick to poke a large hole in that hypothetical.

“If the president suspends the Senate, you can’t prosecute him because it’s not an official act until the Senate impeaches …. Uh oh,” he declared.

RELATED: Justices Slam Trump Lawyer: ‘Why Is It the President Would Not Be Required to Follow the Law?’

U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez blasted the Trump team.

“The assassination of political rivals as an official act,” the New York Democrat wrote.

“Understand what the Trump team is arguing for here. Take it seriously and at face value,” she said, issuing a warning: “This is not a game.”

Marc Elias, who has been an attorney to top Democrats and the Democratic National Committee, remarked, “I am in shock that a lawyer stood in the U.S Supreme Court and said that a president could assassinate his political opponent and it would be immune as ‘an official act.’ I am in despair that several Justices seemed to think this answer made perfect sense.”

CNN legal analyst Norm Eisen, a former U.S. Ambassador and White House Special Counsel for Ethics and Government Reform under President Barack Obama, boiled it down: “Trump is seeking dictatorial powers.”

Watch the video above or at this link.

READ MORE: ‘They Will Have Thugs?’: Lara Trump’s Claim RNC Will ‘Physically Handle the Ballots’ Stuns

 

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