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RIGHT WING EXTREMISM

The Powerful GOP Oversight Committee Chairman Is Pushing a Baseless Narrative That Biden Is ‘Compromised’

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U.S. Rep. James Comer of Kentucky, the Republican chair of the powerful House Oversight Committee is repeatedly pushing a baseless narrative that President Joe Biden, who has served his nation for 50 years, is “compromised.”

Chairman Comer, who has promoted the false theory of fraud in the 2020 election, blaming alleged “troubling reports of irregularities and improprieties” on Democrats, has been regularly criticized. He was deemed “a fundamentally unserious, dishonest, laughable caricature,” by Democratic strategist Sam Cornale on Wednesday, and mocked by The Washington Post’s Dana Milbank last year.

“In interviews with Fox News and other public pronouncements, Comer has alleged that the president’s son is responsible for just about everything,” Milbank wrote last year. “Why is fentanyl flowing into the United States? Hunter Biden. Why is President Biden pushing electric vehicles? Hunter Biden. Why isn’t the president tougher on Russian oligarchs? Hunter Biden. Why isn’t the administration pinning the pandemic on a Wuhan lab leak and battling China over currency manipulation? Hunter Biden and Hunter Biden. Why did the United States rejoin the Paris climate accord? Hunter Biden.”

On Tuesday, Fox News’ Sean Hannity led a highly-criticized interview with Speaker Kevin McCarthy, Majority Leader Steve Scalise, Judiciary Chair Jim Jordan, and Oversight Chair James Comer that was shockingly filmed inside the U.S. House of Representatives.

READ MORE: ‘The Deep State’ Wants to ‘Wipe Out the American Cowboy’ Warns GOP Congressman in Conspiracy-Laden Rant (Video)

New York University Professor Ruth Ben-Ghiat, an expert on fascism and authoritarian leaders, responded by declaring, “Americans, I give you…President Murdoch and the coronation of Fox News as state media.”

Hannity and the top Republicans were surrounded by dozens of House Republicans, sitting quietly, as the Fox News personality promoted their talking points.

In addition to posting video, journalist Matt Laslo tweeted, “Hannity noted *to the lawmakers* (who are obediently sitting and saying nothing which is WILD) that many of the lawmakers in attendance might not make it on TV tonight but they gave up an hour to support the Speaker.”

But Chairman Comer made news for two remarks (both seen in the clip below): calling Ukraine – which is fighting to protect democracy in Europe and thus around the globe – an “adversary” of the United States, and strongly suggesting President Joe Biden is “compromised.”

READ MORE: Watch: Democrats File Ethics Complaint Against George Santos After GOP Leadership Calls It an ‘Internal’ Matter

“You know there’s a pattern here with Communist China, with Ukraine, with Russia, with our adversaries across the world,” he told Hannity. “And you look at the bad decisions that Joe Biden makes and this White House makes every day that has a detrimental effect on every American – you wonder, is this President compromised?”

Hannity himself has promoted the baseless claim that President Biden may be “compromised.”

In a December interview with Comer, Hannity, known to have had nightly conversations advising Donald Trump when he was president, concluded with this question: “Do you believe it’s possible Joe Biden is compromised by Russia and China?” Comer dutifully replied, “I fear that he is.”

That word, “compromised,” is now being used by Comer and his fellow House Republicans repeatedly against President Biden – and his family.

On Monday, U.S. Rep. Andy Biggs (R-AZ), the former chair of the far-right House Freedom Caucus, a former policy advisor to an anti-LGBTQ hate group, and an alleged co-founder of the Stop the Steal movement, called President Biden, First Lady Dr. Jill Biden, and Hunter Biden, “compromised” – while making false claims about classified documents (and the Biden think tank) that were immediately handed over to the National Archives.

On Wednesday, Chairman Comer again baselessly used the word “compromised” against President Biden.

“The Committee on Oversight and Accountability is investigating President Biden’s involvement in his family’s foreign business practices and international influence peddling schemes,” Chairman Comer wrote in an official letter published by ABC News, to Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, making an unsubstantiated clam as if it were fact.

“The Committee is investigating President Biden’s knowledge of and role in these schemes to assess whether he has compromised our national security at the expense of the American people,” Comer wrote.

ABC News adds that Comer “called the Biden probe a ‘top priority for House Republicans during the 118th Congress.'”

READ MORE: GOP Congressman From Texas Calls for Defunding Homeland Security

“The American people must know the extent of Joe Biden’s involvement in his family’s shady business deals and if these deals threaten national security and his decision-making as president,” Comer told ABC.

Comer wasn’t done using the “compromised” word against President Biden.

“In a letter to the White House counsel today,” Politico on Wednesday reported, “new Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.) said the committee ‘is concerned that President Biden has compromised (intelligence) sources and methods with his own mishandling of classified documents.'”

Chairman Comer has even set up a microsite on the House Oversight Committee’s website, titled, “Biden Family Investigation.”

On it, he alleges, “If President Biden is compromised by deals with foreign adversaries and they are impacting his decision making, this is a threat to national security.”

Donald Trump’s tax returns show numerous foreign bank accounts, including in China, and there were reports of real estate deals in foreign countries while he was president, but Republicans ignored that.

“Two years into his presidency,” OpenSecrets reported in 2019, “Donald Trump continues to make money from properties and licensing deals in nearly two dozen countries around the world, fanning the flames of concerns that the Trump administration is subject to unprecedented levels of foreign influence.”

“Trump continued to hold more than $130 million in foreign assets in a revocable trust as his second year in office came to a close, according to OpenSecrets’ analysis of the president’s most recent annual personal financial disclosure released by the Office of Government Ethics last month,” the website, which tracks money in politics, noted. “Trump’s business entanglements continue to leave him with positions, assets, trademarks and other business interests in more than 30 countries.”

In November of last year, CNN reported, “The governments of six foreign countries, including Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, spent more than $700,000 at then-President Donald Trump’s Washington, DC, hotel over the first two years of his presidency, according to newly released accounting documents.”

Watch the videos above or at this link.

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law

Arkansas Senator Files Bill to Abolish State Library, Give Education Department Control

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The right-wing war on knowledge continues as an Arkansas state senator filed a bill Thursday to abolish the State Library as well as the library board.

Sen. Dan Sullivan (R-Jonesboro), along with State Rep. Wayne Long (R-Bradford), filed Senate Bill 536 on Thursday. The bill would not just remove all references to the State Library from existing laws, but also put the state’s other libraries under the control of the Arkansas Department of Education.

A previous version of the bill, SB184, would have also shuttered the Arkansas Educational Television Commission, which oversees the state’s PBS stations, according to the Arkansas Advocate.

READ MORE: Clean Up Alabama Wants State to Dump ‘Marxist’ American Library Association

The Arkansas State Library is not just a regular library. In addition to providing information to state agencies and lawmakers, it also distributes funding to the other libraries around the state. Under SB536, the Department of Education would take on all its responsibilities. The State Library is officially a part of the Department of Education already, but it operates as an independent organization.

While the proposal may sound like a shuffling-around of duties, the main thrust of the bill is to allow more direct control over the Arkansas library system by controlling the purse strings. The bill would keep libraries from distributing “age-inappropriate materials” to those under 17 years old and sex education materials from those under 12. Libraries would also have to set up a system where those in the community could request that certain items be banned for minors, according to KARK-TV. Those that don’t meet these restrictions will have state funding pulled.

Earlier legislation filed by Sullivan and passed into law includes Act 242, which ended the requirement for library directors to have a master’s degree in library science, the Advocate reported.  Sullivan, however, was unsuccessful with a proposed amendment to another bill that would strip funding from libraries affiliated with the American Library Association—meaning most, if not all of them. That amendment was rejected this week over concerns the language in it was too broad, according to the Advocate.

The ALA has been a target of right-wing politicians and activists upset with its free speech stance and fights against censorship. Sullivan in particular has objected to a provision in the ALA’s Library Bill of Rights protecting library access for all ages, the Advocate reported. He also called for the state’s chapter of the ALA to be defunded—despite the fact that it receives no state funding.

Image via Shutterstock

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BIGOTRY

Texas to Investigate Anonymous Complaint Teachers Used Trans Student’s Pronouns

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After a Moms for Liberty member claimed that teachers at a Texas high school used a trans student’s new name and proper pronouns, Republican Gov. Greg Abbott ordered an investigation.

On February 13, Denise Bell of the right wing, anti-LGBTQ group Moms for Liberty, addressed the Houston Independent School Board. She read a statement that she said came from the parents of a trans student at Bellaire High School. The parents were upset that teachers used the student’s new name and pronouns, according to Erin in the Morning. The anonymous statement Bell read said that the change happened without parental consent, and “goes against our Christian faith, the advice of [their] therapist and quite frankly common sense.”

Bell then claimed that the school district was “purposely and secretively transitioning minors.”

READ MORE: GOP Candidate Complaining She Wasn’t Allowed to ‘Have Kids Laugh At’ Transgender Students in Viral Video Draws Rebuke

State Representative Steve Toth—who represents a different district than the school is in—informed Abbott of the complaint in a letter on February 26. Two weeks later, Abbott replied to Toth’s letter, revealing he told the Texas Education Agency to investigate the Bellaire High School, accusing the teachers of helping “to ‘socially transition’ a student—violating the express wishes of the child’s mother,” which Abbott called “inappropriate and potentially unlawful.”

Abbott directed the TEA to not just determine whether or not the teachers did indeed use the trans student’s name and pronouns, but also open a full investigation into the school. TEA was told to find out if the school had also violated “policies concerning sexual education curriculum, parental consent for communications with students, mental health services or guidance to students, and parent grievances”; if any school employees had “engaged in misconduct”; and whether any student “has been subjected to abuse or neglect.”

That last one has a footnote on “abuse or neglect,” referring to a statement from President Donald Trump’s March 4 speech in front of a joint session of Congress:

“A few years ago, January Littlejohn and her husband discovered that their daughter’s school had secretly socially transitioned their 13-year-old little girl. Teachers and administrators conspired to deceive January and her husband, while encouraging her daughter to use a new name and pronouns—‘they/them’ pronouns, actually—all without telling January, who is here tonight and is now a courageous advocate against this form of child abuse.”

This is not the first time Abbott and his administration have attacked the state’s trans community. In his “State of the State Address” this year, he said that teachers who discuss gender transition with students should be fired, according to KTRK-TV. Texas has also banned trans students from sports as well as the use of puberty blockers in cases of minors experiencing gender dysphoria, according to the Houston Chronicle.

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AMERICA FIRST?

Tim Walz: ‘Racism’ Motivates MAGA Movement to Pardon Derek Chauvin

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Minnesota Governor Tim Walz didn’t mince words when asked what the motivation was for the new movement among MAGA Republicans to convince President Donald Trump to pardon Derek Chauvin, the former police officer who killed George Floyd in 2020.

“Racism. It’s racist. OK? That’s what I believe,” Walz said in an interview with Semafor published Wednesday.

The calls to pardon Chauvin started with an online petition earlier this month, according to The Independent. The pardon push picked up steam this week when conservative commentator Ben Shapiro of the Daily Wire launched a webseries, “The Case of Derek Chauvin.” Shapiro claims the officer was convicted on “extraordinarily scanty evidence,” saying Floyd did not die from having Chauvin’s knee on his neck for over nine minutes, but rather from drugs in Floyd’s system and heart disease.

READ MORE: Derek Chauvin Sentenced to 22-and-a-Half Years for Murder of George Floyd – Less Than Maximum Possible Sentence

Walz, however, disputes this interpretation of events.

“This was a man who murdered George Floyd on TV,” Walz said, adding that a pardon “would undermine the faith in the system.”

The White House, however, has denied that a Chauvin pardon is in Trump’s plans. Earlier this month, Trump said he hadn’t even heard about a push to pardon Floyd’s killer, and on Wednesday, Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt repeated that a pardon is “not something he’s considering at this time,” according to The Grio.

However, some commentators, like The Hill’s Juan Williams are skeptical, pointing out that Trump has pardoned two police officers convicted of killing a Black man in the first days of his second term.

In 2020, after the killing, Trump condemned Chauvin.

“We all saw what we saw. It’s hard to conceive anything other than what we did see. It should have never happened,” Trump said.

If Trump were to pardon Chauvin, it would be largely moot. Presidents can only pardon those convicted on federal charges. Chauvin was convicted on both federal and Minnesota state charges. In the event Trump cleared the federal charges, the main thing that would happen is that Chauvin would be moved from the federal prison in Big Spring, Texas to a Minnesota state prison.

Minnesota sentenced Chauvin to 22 and a half years for murder; on the federal level, he was sentenced to 21 years for violating Floyd’s civil rights. Barring a federal pardon, the two sentences are running concurrently, not consecutively.

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