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Mississippi Governor Under Fire After Launching Re-Election Bid With ‘Cosplaying’ Video of Him ‘Shooting’ People of Color

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Mississippi’s Republican Governor Tate Reeves, who has the highest firearm mortality rate in the entire country, this week launched his re-election campaign with a video depicting him as Clint Eastwood shooting people of color.

Although the video (below) was released Tuesday, few seemed to notice until a Talking Points Memo article was published Friday afternoon.

“Reeves’ face is superimposed on Eastwood’s in clips from the classic Dollars trilogy movies. He’s seen cosplaying the white anti-hero, the Man with No Name, shooting at Mexican bandits with a Colt revolver and puffing on a cigarillo,” TPM’s Emine Yücel writes.

In addition to the inherent racism and violence in the video, there is no policy discussed, and not even any bragging about Reeves’ record.

There may be a reason for that.

Governor Reeves almost from the start of the coronavirus pandemic – due to policy choices he made – has one of the absolute worst records on COVID in the country.

Mississippi ranks 34th in population, yet was 18th in total cases per capita. It gets worse from there: Mississippi ranks third in deaths per capita.

Just one year into the pandemic, in March of 2021, Tate declared, “The governor’s office is getting out of the business of telling people what they can and cannot do,” as he lifted mask mandates and COVID-19 restrictions.

READ MORE: ‘Major Campaign Finance Complaint’ Filed Against Herschel Walker: Report

Under Tate’s leadership, Mississippi has suffered a huge health crisis. In September of 2020, the Mississippi Clarion Ledger revealed a “new report ranks Mississippi’s overall health care system dead last. ‘It’s an embarrassment,’ said one health expert.”

“Even before the pandemic, Mississippi’s health care system and outcomes were deteriorating under several metrics, according to a new report by The Commonwealth Fund” the Clarion Ledger added. “The health research organization’s ‘Scorecard on State Health System Performance’ ranked Mississippi No. 51 — below every other state and Washington, D.C. — where it has stood for several years. The researchers relied on data from before COVID-19.”

One year later, Politico scored each state on their response to COVID. With a score of 34 out of 100, Mississippi tied for second-worst.

And on overall health, Mississippi is also doing poorly. Forbes in January reported on the “Top 5 Least Healthy States.” Mississippi came in at number two, the second-worst.

In other areas, like education, Governor Reeves’ record is also bad. Mississippi, according to World Population Review, ranks 43 out of 50.

READ MORE: Clarence Thomas in 2001: Being a Supreme Court Justice Is ‘Not Worth Doing for What They Pay’

Meanwhile, back to Governor Reeves and his cosplaying video.

On Tuesday, as TPM also reported, Governor Reeves told supporters, “this is a different governor’s campaign than we have ever seen before in our state because we are not up against a local-yokel Mississippi Democrat, we are up against a national liberal machine.”

“They are extreme. They are radical and vicious,” he said of Democrats and the “national liberal machine.”

“They believe welfare is success. They believe that taxes are good and businesses are bad. They think boys can be girls, that babies have no life, and that our state and our nation are racist.”

Response to Gov. Reeves’ video has been highly critical.

Former Nettleton, Mississippi mayor Brandon Presley, a Democrat running to unseat Reeves, tweeted: “Mississippi has real problems and Tate Reeves releases this foolishness as his first video of campaign. I guess we will have to wait and see if any welfare dollars were diverted to his buddies for the production of this silliness.”

Presley was referring to what CBS News is calling “the largest corruption case in Mississippi state history.” which appears to involve Hall of Fame quarterback Brett Favre, who has not been criminally charged.

“Gov. Tate Reeves’ first 2023 re-election video features him as an AI cowboy killing a bunch of folks with a gun. Totally normal campaign launch in the state with the highest gun death rate,” noted Mississippi Free Press news editor Ashton Pittman.

“This is what Republican messaging has been reduced to, at least in Mississippi: ‘Watch me, a sitting governor, CGI cosplay as Clint Eastwood and shoot Mexicans,'” wrote Harvard’s Neiman Lab’s Joshua Benton.

Democratic consultant Brannon Miller appeared to agree with Benton.

“I know that Tate Reeves himself didn’t make this, but it’s such a perfect window into the psyche of everyone over in his shop,” Miller wrote. “There’s no message, no policy, no positive good. Just a man, role playing as a tougher man, who is himself role playing an actually tough man.”

The Lincoln Project’s Stuart Stevens, a top political strategist, announced, “The only conclusion to come to is that @tatereeves campaign hates him.”

Watch Gov. Reeves’ video below or at this link.

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Lawmaker Slammed for Claiming College Basketball Players Were Actually ‘Illegal Invaders’

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Michigan MAGA Republican state Rep. Matt Maddock is under fire after claiming three buses were “loaded up with illegal invaders.” The buses, according to multiple reports, were actually loaded with the Gonzaga University basketball team arriving for March Madness.

“Happening right now. Three busses just loaded up with illegal invaders at Detroit Metro. Anyone have any idea where they’re headed with their police escort?” Rep. Maddock wrote on social media Wednesday evening, tagging far-right former U.S. Congressman Pete Hoekstra, who served as U.S. Ambassador to the Netherlands under Donald Trump and is now the state’s Republican Party chair.

Informed of his error on social media, Rep. Maddock doubled down, and attacked.

READ MORE: Ronna McDaniel Is Just a ‘Normal’ Person Who ‘Never Denied the Election’ Says Hugh Hewitt

“Probably teams for the NCAA Mens Sweet 16 playing at LCA on Friday and Sunday,” a user on X wrote.

“Sure kommie. Good talking point,” Maddock quickly shot back.

ABC affiliate WXYZ executive producer Maxwell White, responding to the Maddock’s original post wrote: “Just to be clear, this was the Gonzaga basketball team. Photos show Gonzaga getting on an Allegiant plane to Detroit for the Sweet 16, and Flight Radar shows a plane from GEG to DTW landed at 7:25 p.m., around the time this photo was posted.”

“This is a wild tweet,” White added, before adding more evidence.

Hoekstra, who was accused of using racism and xenophobia to win his campaign for a U.S. Senate seat (he lost), did not respond directly to Maddock but did repost the apparently false claim.

Michigan State Senate Democratic Majority Whip Mallory McMorrow denounced Maddock’s claim as “dangerous.”

Maddock’s remark also made the national stage when U.S. Rep. Eric Swalwell responded.

READ MORE: Trump Campaign Says It Will Deploy ‘Soldiers’ to Polling Places

“Hey Einstein,” the California Democrat wrote, “your state is hosting the Sweet 16. Could it be a team bus? If it is, will you resign for your spectacular stupidity?”

In 2021 The Washington Post reported, “Michigan state Rep. Matt Maddock and his wife, Michigan Republican Party co-chair Meshawn Maddock, have repeatedly been called out by fact-checking journalists for promoting baseless claims of widespread voter fraud and falsely suggesting that covid-19 is comparable to the flu.”

See the social media posts above 0r at this link.

 

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Comer Refuses to Investigate Trump Family Member Over ‘Influence Peddling’ Allegation

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Last year House Oversight Committee Chairman Jim Comer acknowledged former President Donald Trump’s son-in-law and senior White House advisor Jared Kushner had “crossed the line” when he accepted $2 billion in foreign investment funds from the government of Saudi Arabia as he started up a private investment firm just months after leaving the White House.

Now, Chairman Comer says he will not open an investigation into any possible wrongdoing, Huffpost reports, despite top Democrats alleging Kushner engaged in “apparent influence peddling and quid pro quo deals.”

On Tuesday, the top Democrat on Comer’s Oversight Committee, Ranking Member Jamie Raskin, and Democrat Robert Garcia, the Ranking Member on the Subcommittee on National Security, the Border, and Foreign Affairs, formally requested Comer “convene a hearing regarding Jared Kushner’s apparent influence peddling and quid pro quo deals involving investments in exchange for official actions and to examine the resulting threats to our national security.”

“This Committee cannot claim to be ‘investigating foreign nationals’ attempts to target and coerce high-ranking U.S. officials’ family members by providing money or other benefits in exchange for certain actions while continuing to ignore these matters,” Raskin and Garcia wrote. “We therefore urge you to work with us to finally investigate Mr. Kushner’s receipt of billions of dollars from foreign governments in deals that appear to be quid pro quos for actions he undertook as senior White House adviser in Donald Trump’s Administration.”

READ MORE: Greene Says She Won’t Take Responsibility if Johnson Loses Speaker’s Gavel Before Election

The American people are deeply concerned about these business dealings and Mr. Kushner’s apparent influence peddling. We must address
those concerns with a fair, impartial, and public process to understand the truth and to institute meaningful reforms to safeguard public confidence in our executive branch.”

The two Democrats in their letter say their “request comes in light of allegations that Jared Kushner is pursuing new foreign business deals, just as Donald Trump becomes the presumptive Republican nominee for the presidency. Last year, well before these new allegations came to light, Chairman Comer had already conceded that Jared Kushner’s conduct ‘crossed the line of ethics’ and promised that the Oversight Committee would ‘have some questions for Trump and some of his family members, including Jared Kushner.'”

Raskin and Garcia paint a picture of “Kushner’s pattern of profiting off of his time in the White House.”

Citing The New York Times (apparently this article), they write, “Jared Kushner was closing in on investments in Albania and Serbia, leveraging relationships he built during his time as a senior adviser in his father-in-law’s White House. Reportedly, Mr. Kushner is considering an investment on the site of the former Yugoslav Ministry of Defense.”

“Mr. Kushner is reportedly being advised by Richard Grenell, another former senior Trump Administration official who served as U.S. Ambassador to Germany and, concomitantly, as ‘special envoy for peace negotiations between Serbia and Kosovo.’ Mr. Grenell reportedly ‘pushed a related plan’ for redevelopment of the same site during his time in the Trump Administration.”

READ MORE: Trump Says He Thinks He’s ‘Allowed’ to Accept Foreign Money to Pay Fines

“In pursuing investment opportunities in Albania, Mr. Grenell and Mr. Kushner have been openly leveraging their relationship with Edi Rama, the Prime Minister of Albania. While Commander-in-Chief, President Trump received unconstitutional payments from Prime Minister Rama and other senior Albanian government officials who spent thousands of dollars at theTrump International Hotel in Washington, D.C., over three separate stays,” Raskin and Garcia write.

They also allege, “Mr. Kushner successfully overruled State Department officials, including Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, to make President Trump’s first foreign trip as President to Saudi Arabia. Mr. Kushner personally intervened to inflate the value of a U.S.-Saudi arms deal and to finalize the deal President Trump signed, which was worth $110 billion. Mr. Kushner
also provided diplomatic cover and support to the Crown Prince after the brutal murder of Jamal Khashoggi, an American permanent resident and journalist. Mr. Khashoggi’s murder was assessed by American Intelligence to have been approved by the Crown Prince himself.”

Despite their extensive allegations, Chairman Comer is refusing to open an investigation.

“Unlike the Bidens, Jared Kushner has a legitimate business and has a career as a business executive that predates Donald Trump’s political career,” Comer said, as HuffPost reports. “Democrats’ latest letter is part of their playbook to shield President Biden from oversight.”

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Greene Says She Won’t Take Responsibility if Johnson Loses Speaker’s Gavel Before Election

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Despite filing a motion to vacate the chair last week, which could end Mike Johnson’s short term as Speaker, and despite pummeling him in the press, U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) says she will take no responsibility if House Democratic Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries becomes Speaker of the House before the November election.

Appearing on right-wing media Tuesday, the far-right Georgia Republican targeted Speaker Johnson again, telling GOP voters Johnson stabbed them “in the back.”

Johnson “has a duty and responsibility to care for our conference,” Greene told Real America’s Voice. “That means not force us to vote on full-term abortion, funding the trans agenda, DEI funding, 300 million to the Ukraine war, and many other horrific far-left funding wishlist items that the Democrats were thrilled with.”

“He shouldn’t make us vote on that in order to pay our military soldiers. That’s outrageous. It’s also an election year,” she continued, “and that means that Republicans are out trying to get re-elected and he forced our Republican conference, those that voted for this basically walked the plank for him and that is outrageous.”

READ MORE: $500 Per Second: Ronna McDaniel Reportedly Has a Few Expectations

After talking for several minutes about how Johnson “broke” and “violated” the rules by holding votes to keep the government from shutting down, she insisted her attacks are “not personal against Mike Johnson.”

“I filed the motion to vacate basically issuing a pink slip saying you’re going to be fired, we will not tolerate this any longer. And Republican voters all over this country agree with me,” she insisted.

In October, after Kevin McCarthy was ousted by his own party as Speaker of the House, CBS News reported its new polling “shows the American public wants the next Republican speaker to prioritize federal spending cuts, but also work across the aisle with Democrats and stand up against the ‘MAGA’ movement.”

Declaring, “Our conference needs a new Speaker of the House,” Greene insisted her actions have no effect on Republicans, who increasingly are exiting Congress early.

She also insisted that pinning a possible Speaker of the House Hakeem Jeffries on her is merely “twist” and “spin.”

READ MORE: ‘Absurd & Dangerous’: Truth Social Made Donald Trump Billions Today

“This is simple math,” she said. “The more Republicans like Mike Gallagher that resign and leave early, guess what that means we have less Republicans in the House. So every time a Mike Gallagher or Ken Buck leaves that brings our members down and brings us dangerously closer to being in the minority. It’s not Marjorie Taylor Greene.”

“I am not going to be responsible for Hakeem Jeffries being Speaker of the House. I am not going to for a Democrat majority taking over our Republican majority. That lies squarely, squarely on the shoulders of these Republicans that are leaving early because they don’t have the intestinal fortitude to handle the real fight, and the responsibility that comes with leadership at the end of our Republic when our country is nearly destroyed and when our Constitution is being ran through a paper shredder. So no one is going to blame that on me.”

Watch the videos above or at this link.

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