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RIGHT WING EXTREMISM

McCarthy Demands Work Requirements on ‘All the Programs’ Including Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and SNAP

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Republican Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy is under fire after announcing Tuesday he is demanding work requirements for “all” social safety net programs as part of his debt ceiling “negotiations” with President Joe Biden.

F0r decades, study after study show that work requirements are not effective for many reasons, including many people on programs such as Medicaid are not physically able to work, while Americans using other programs, like SNAP, often called food stamps, are not able to work for lack of child or elder care. And many Americans accessing social safety net programs are working already.

Speaker McCarthy, without evidence, baselessly disagrees.

“What work requirements actually do is help people get a job,” he told reporters. Work requirements do nothing to “help” people get jobs, they simply threaten them with increased hunger, emotional trauma, and disease if they do not.

“Every data point shows that, and it helps people move forward,” McCarthy said, which is also false.

READ MORE: DeSantis Just Made It Illegal for Doctors to Refuse to Treat Unvaccinated Patients – But Legal to Refuse LGBTQ Ones

McCarthy claims – again, falsely – “the public wants it, both parties want it.”

“The idea that they want to put us into a default because they will not work with on that [sic] is ludicrous to me.”

Republicans are the ones pushing for a default, not Democrats.

Asked by a reporter if he is “talking about SNAP, which program are you talking about specifically?” the Speaker freely admitted, “Look, we’re talking about all the programs.”

He then began to repeat his false claims.

“Because it helps people get into a job.”

McCarthy also claimed that forcing people who may not be physically or emotionally able to work, or who may have responsibilities that preclude them from leaving the house to go to a job “helps the supply chain.”

What the Speaker is ignoring are the millions of undocumented immigrants currently within our borders desperate to work at jobs that won’t threaten their ability to stay in the country – not to mention the thousands of others coming to the U.S. seeking asylum or a way out of poverty, gangs, drugs, disease, and corruption.

“The Trump Administration took the worst aspects of the Clinton policy and made them exponentially vindictive, and even less effective at helping the poor,” Anne Kim in 2021 wrote at Washington Monthly. “Arkansas’ Medicaid work rules, according to a Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) report, forced the disenrollment of about 18,000 people but prompted ‘no increase in employment or other community engagement activities.’ The tightening of SNAP or food stamp work requirements was especially nonsensical, given the program’s traditionally countercyclical role as a safety net for Americans who’ve lost their jobs during a recession. ‘Taking away food benefits doesn’t make it easier for anyone to find a stable job; it just makes people hungrier,’ as Ed Bolen of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities recently wrote.”

READ MORE: ‘Hairsplitting Quibble’: Former US Attorney Scorches Durham for Focusing on ‘Useful Scapegoat’ While Ignoring Facts

Despite McCarthy’s apparent implication that Americans accessing social safety net benefits are not currently working, in fact many who are, do.

Earlier this year the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities published a state-by-state report that also finds nationally, more than 41% of SNAP recipients are in working families.

And last month the Kaiser Family Foundation published a report showing the majority of adults using Medicaid who were also able to work, are working.

“Speaker McCarthy’s big red line is that we MUST impose work requirements that don’t actual lead to more work but do make the process so cumbersome that millions of people fall out of the program due to red tape – or else he’ll force us to default,” observed Bobby Kogan, the senior director of Federal Budget Policy at the Center for American Progress.

Watch Speaker McCarthy’s remarks below or at this link.

 

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RIGHT WING EXTREMISM

Watch: Fox News Smacks Down Far Right Republican Complaining He Gets Just 3 Days to Read Debt Ceiling Bill

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May 30, 2023

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Far-right House Republican Ralph Norman of South Carolina spent a good portion of Tuesday complaining about the debt ceiling bill, legislation that was brokered by President Joe Biden and Speaker Kevin McCarthy to avert a national and global financial meltdown, but even Fox News isn’t interested in his complaints.

“It’s an insult, to get a 100-page bill, and be asked to decide on it on the spot,” Congressman Norman lied while at the Freedom Caucus’s press conference Tuesday.

“I won’t buy a microwave, unless I get it in writing,” Rep. Norman said, although it was unclear what “it” is.

READ MORE: House Republicans Tied to J6 Admit Goals: Defeat Debt Ceiling Agreement, Kill Economy, Help Trump Win in 2024

That video on social media went viral, with nearly one million views in just six hours.

Congressman Norman previously has claimed children are being aborted after being born while also voting against legislation to protect child sex abuse victims, refused to wear a mask during the height of COVID because he was “tired” of them, voted for a federal vigilante “Don’t Say Gay” bill, denied the January 6 insurrectionists were Trump supporters, and urged the U.S. Supreme Court to declare it legal to discriminate against LGBTQ people.

Tuesday afternoon he continued his rant about having to vote on the debt ceiling bill while only getting three days to read it, but even Fox News was not putting up with it.

“We were on Memorial Day, and to get a call to come and support a bill, a negotiated bill that we hadn’t even read,” Norman complained.

“It’s like the [Speaker] Pelosi days. You gotta pass it before you can read it,” Norman said. For only one bill, the Affordable Care Act, which is 906 pages, and was written and negotiated over the course of more than a year, did Speaker Pelosi say it could only be read after it had been passed.

“But he is giving you 72 hours to consider it,” Fox News host John Roberts reminded Norman.

READ MORE: McCarthy Says GOP Put Work Requirements in Debt Ceiling Bill for a Child ‘Sitting on the Couch Collecting Welfare’

“Pelosi didn’t do that,” he claimed.

“We ought to have a lot more time,” Norman insisted.

READ MORE: ‘Sure Wasn’t by Drag Queens’: DeSantis Slammed for Ignoring Florida Mass Shooting That Included Children

“It’s only 99 pages,” Roberts also reminded Norman.

Norman, who has signaled he will not be voting for the legislation, insisted it’s “time to negotiate and go back to the table,” which will not happen.

Watch the videos above or at this link.

 

 

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RIGHT WING EXTREMISM

House Republicans Tied to J6 Admit Goals: Defeat Debt Ceiling Agreement, Kill Economy, Help Trump Win in 2024

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May 30, 2023

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Some members of the most far-right group of House Republicans, the Freedom Caucus, admitted Tuesday their goals are to defeat the debt ceiling agreement, thereby killing the economy, which some of them believe would then help Donald Trump win back the White House in 2024.

Many of the House Freedom Caucus members are tied to the January 6, 2021 insurrection, by various methods, including supporting efforts to overturn state elections and spreading false claims about the results of the 2020 presidential election.

U.S. Rep. Dan Bishop (R-NC) in Tuesday’s Freedom Caucus’s press conference pointed to the portion of the debt ceiling agreement, brokered by President Joe Biden and Speaker Kevin McCarthy, which says the nation’s debt limit will not have to be raised until 2025. Outraged, Congressman Bishop admitted Republicans had wanted to have another debt ceiling fight next year, which would, he claimed, help a Republican presidential candidate win the White House.

Surrounded by far-right Republican Representatives Byron Donalds, Lauren Boebert, Chip Roy, Freedom Caucus chair Scott Perry, former Freedom Caucus chair Andy Biggs, and others, Bishop angrily complained, “And what does the device of two years do?”

READ MORE: ‘Sure Wasn’t by Drag Queens’: DeSantis Slammed for Ignoring Florida Mass Shooting That Included Children

“It removes the issue from the national conversation during the presidential election to come. How could you more successfully kneecap any Republican President than to take that issue out of his or her hands?” Bishop asked, fully and freely admitting the GOP is trying to use the levers of government, and the U.S. and even global economy, to put a Republican back in the White House, regardless of cost to the American people.

As he spoke Rep. Boebert’s head was nodding in agreement.

Sirius XM host and journalist Dean Obeidallah blasted the North Carolina Republican: “GOP Dan Bishop says quiet part out loud: MAGA wanted to use debt ceiling in 2024 to tank economy to help Trump win.”

Freedom Caucus chair Scott Perry, who the Select Committee on the January 6 Attack reportedly saw as “central” to its investigation, also spoke at Tuesday’s press conference.

Rep. Perry tried to spin conspiracy theories, including by claiming that Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen has not been telling the truth on when America’s cash will run out.

“We’ve asked for Janet Yellen’s figures. And with all due respect, she comes with zero credibility to the discussion,” Perry claimed, falsely. “We don’t believe her figures, we’ve asked to see her figures.”

And he admitted Freedom Caucus members “will be absolutely opposed to the deal and will do everything in our power to stop it.”

Calling it a “bad deal…that we all campaigned to put an end to,” Freedom Caucus member Lauren Boebert also spoke at the press conference, declaring, “There is nothing real in this bill to enforce. In short, tomorrow’s bill is a bunch of fake news and fake talking points.”

U.S. Rep. Byron Donalds (R-FL) called the debt ceiling deal “crap.”

“Washington is doing it again,” Rep. Donalds declared, apparently attacking his own party since Republicans have the majority of the House seats.

READ MORE: McCarthy Says GOP Put Work Requirements in Debt Ceiling Bill for a Child ‘Sitting on the Couch Collecting Welfare’

“While you were celebrating Memorial Day, all of our men and women who gave their lives for this great nation, and you were spending time with your family and your friends, this town was cutting another crap deal that’s going to put you more in debt with no real changes whatsoever.”

“Washington is lying, again,” said Donalds.

Republican turned Democrat, attorney Ron Filipkowski mocked the extremist GOP lawmakers.

“The Freedom Caucus members just climbed out of their clown car, and are upset that their cult leader won’t be able to run for president on a crashed economy,” he tweeted.

“Wait,” tweeted Seth Kaplan, the managing editor for Fox affiliate stations in the Twin Cities. “He wants to help ensure a catastrophic economic situation just so it can be a talking point during the 2024 election? Please tell me I’m misinterpreting.”

Earlier this month journalist Jay Bookman observed, “So basically, the debt ceiling crisis is just another version of the Jan. 6 insurrection: Give us what we want, or we’re going to tear the whole damn thing down.”

Reps. Scott Perry, Dan Bishop, Byron Donalds, Lauren Boebert, Andy Biggs, and other Freedom Caucus members earned a “very poor” grade by the Republican Accountability Project, which has been tracking Republicans in the wake of the 2021 insurrection.

Among the criteria for earning a “very poor” grade include signing the Supreme Court amicus brief “that sought to nullify votes cast in Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Georgia,” (Boebert and Donalds were not in Congress at the time to sign to that brief.)

Also, objecting “to the certification of Electoral College votes from at least one state,” making “public statements that cast doubt on the legitimacy of the 2020 election,” voting “to hold Trump accountable via impeachment or conviction,” voting “to create an independent commission to investigate the January 6th insurrection,” and voting “to hold Steve Bannon in contempt of Congress.”

Watch the videos above or at this link.

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RIGHT WING EXTREMISM

DeSantis Slammed by Former High-Level FBI Official After Declaring How He Would Treat Bureau’s Independence

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May 26, 2023

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Florida’s Republican Governor Ron DeSantis is under fresh fire after launching his presidential campaign and declaring he believes the Federal Bureau of Investigation and even the U.S. Dept. of Justice are not “independent” agencies, and they should be subject to the scrutiny of the President of the United States.

After disgraced GOP President Richard Nixon left office, a virtual wall between the White House and the U.S. Dept. of Justice, including especially the FBI, was created to prevent turning the chief law enforcement agencies of the federal government into political, partisan tools to do the bidding of the nation’s chief executive and Commander-in Chief.

Days after the November, 2016 election, the Los Angeles Times reported on the “revelation that President-elect Donald Trump does not intend to seek a new investigation into Hillary Clinton,” calling it “startling,” but “not only because it seemed to reverse a campaign pledge.”

“It also suggested that Trump thinks that that’s his decision to make, reflecting an apparent lack of regard for the cherished independence of the Justice Department, which is responsible for conducting investigations without the influence or opinion of the White House.”

READ MORE: ‘Putinesque Kleptocracy’: DeSantis Slammed Over Bombshell His Administration Officials Are Soliciting Donations From Lobbyists

“Long-standing protocol dictates that the FBI and Justice Department operate free of political influence or meddling from the White House,” The Times explained. “That’s one reason that the FBI director serves a 10-year term and does not turn over the reins as presidential administrations come and go. It also means that presidents are not supposed to supervise, initiate or stop law enforcement investigations.”

As president, Donald Trump and his attorneys general would immediately obliterate those protocols, with the then-President literally directing his AGs to acquiesce to his demands, and he would do so publicly, via Twitter.

Under President Joe Biden that wall was quickly rebuilt, with Attorney General Merrick Garland issuing a “directive restricting Justice Department contact with the White House as a firewall against potential political interference,” as USA Today reported in July of 2021.

“The order, which reaffirmed some policies of previous administrations, marks a sharp pivot from the Trump era when the former president casually broke with institutional norms, repeatedly calling on the department to launch investigations of his political rivals, including President Joe Biden, Hillary Clinton and former FBI Director James Comey.”

And now, Gov. Ron DeSantis wants to not just rescind that order, if he wins the White House, he apparently wants to direct the activities of DOJ and FBI.

READ MORE: Bill Barr’s Former Special Counsel John Durham to Testify in House Hearing

In a little-noticed portion of his rare Fox News interview Wednesday, DeSantis told former U.S. Congressman Trey Gowdy (who once was the chairman of the House Oversight Committee and thus should know better,) of his apparent plans to remake the DOJ and the FBI.

“I would not keep Chris Wray as director of the FBI. There’d be a new one on Day One. I think that’s very important,” DeSantis declared, as the right-wing National Review reported. DeSantis is ignoring the fact that Congress has mandated FBI Directors be appointed for a full ten-year term, while allowing Presidents to remove them, generally for cause.

“Under the Constitution,” The National Constitution Center wrote in March of 2017, less than two months into Trump’s term, “the FBI Director is an executive branch official and can be removed if needed. But only in one instance since 1908, after the FBI and its predecessor agency were formed, has a President removed an FBI Director from office.”

Less than two months later, on May 9, Trump became the second president to fire an FBI Director. Trump terminated Jim Comey by falsely claiming it was over how he handled the investigation into Hillary Clinton’s emails, by announcing to Congress he was revisiting it after obtaining a laptop that had some of her emails. (Many, including FiveThirtyEight’s Nate Silver, and Comey himself, believe that move likely handed Trump the election.)

Now DeSantis, literally on the first day of his presidential campaign, is vowing to become the third president in history to fire an FBI Director.

“I think the DOJ and FBI have lost their way,” DeSantis continued in his Fox News interview. “I think that they’ve been weaponized against Americans who think like me and you, and I think they’ve become very partisan. Part of the reason that’s happened, Trey, is because Republican presidents have accepted the canard that the DOJ and FBI are independent.”

“They are not independent agencies. They are part of the executive branch. They answer to the elected president of the United States.”

Semafor’s David Weigel, pointing to the nascent GOP presidential candidate’s remarks, writes via Twitter, “DeSantis’s answer to Fox on why he’d fire Chris Wray = great example of how a norm fades away. D[emocratic] presidents grudgingly pick GOP FBI directors. Trump fires Comey, huge scandal, Mueller probe. DeSantis saying outright that the FBI is not ‘independent,’ president can reshape it.”

READ MORE: DeSantis Tells Evangelicals He Wants to ‘Improve’ Supreme Court So Justices Reflect ‘Gold Standard’ of Clarence Thomas

Pete Strzok is a former Deputy Assistant Director of the FBI’s Counterintelligence Division. He led the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections and earlier, as chief of the FBI’s Counterespionage Section led the investigation into Hillary Clinton’s use of a personal email server.

After being viciously targeted repeatedly by Donald Trump, Strzok was fired. He is suing for wrongful termination.

On Friday he responded to DeSantis’ remarks and Weigel’s tweet.

“ALL presidents pick GOP FBI directors. There has never been a Democrat FBI director. Ever,” Strzok tweeted.

He added he agrees with national security and civil liberties journalist Marcy Wheeler, and says, “this isn’t some norm fading away. This is a sudden assault on a generations-long norm by one man and those who support him, or seek the support of his base.”

In October of 2017, nearly one year after Trump was elected President, NPR published a report: “‘Breaching The ‘Wall’: Is The White House Encroaching On DOJ Independence?”

It includes remarks from several Democrats, weighing in on how Trump had been reshaping the White House’s relationship with DOJ and the FBI.

At the time, despite his extreme actions, Democrats generally pointed to a “perception” problem, not the legal crisis it would become.

Obama Attorney General Eric Holder, however, was more forceful.

“There has to be a wall” between DOJ and the White House, Holder told NPR. “History has shown us that when that wall is too low, that’s when Justice departments get in trouble.”

NPR also quoted Democratic U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein, then the Ranking Member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, who at a hearing in October of 2017 said: “The attorney general’s master is the people and the law.”

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