Connect with us

News

‘Misinformation’: Peter Doocy Smacked Down by White House Press Secretary

Published

on

Peter Doocy‘s efforts to promote hurricane misinformation got smacked down Monday when Biden Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre blasted the Fox News White House correspondent.

Doocy began his for-the-camera claims by declaring, “President Biden is fond of saying, ‘show me your budget and I will tell you what you value.’ If he’s got money for people in Lebanon right now, without Congress having to come back, what does it say about his values? There’s not enough money right now for people in North Carolina who need it,” Doocy declared.

The Fox News reporter was promoting part of the right-wing falsehood that alleges Vice President Harris offered just $750 to hurricane victims, part of the larger conspiracy theories put out by far-right wing influencers including Donald Trump.

“That’s not misinformation,” Doocy insisted.

READ MORE: ‘Trafficking in Nazi Race Science’: Trump Blasted After ‘Vile Trifecta’ of Antisemitism

“Wait,” Jean-Pierre patiently urged. “No, that is, your whole, your whole premise of the question is misinformation, sir.”

After a heated back-and-forth, the Press Secretary exploded, “I just mentioned to you that we provided more than $200 million to folks who are impacted in the area, and I just shared with you that people are deciding not to, people are deciding not to, not to.”

Doocy, Jean-Pierre tried to explain, is conflating different federal government programs, all of which are vital to victims of Hurricane Helene, and likely will after Hurricane Milton hits Florida later this week.

“This is nothing new. Peter, this is nothing new. Congress comes together. They provide money, millions of dollars for disaster relief. We’re asking them to do the job that they have been doing for some time under the President Biden, doing for some time,” Jean-Pierre added.

Republican Speaker Mike Johnson has refused to cut the House’s vacation short and order Congress back into session to provide more funding for FEMA and other disaster relief agencies.

“The President’s letter is not misinformation. Would you agree?” he continued.

READ MORE: ‘Trump Did This’: SCOTUS Blocks Biden Emergency Abortion Mandate in Texas

“No,” she replied, “the way you’re asking me the question is misinformation. “There is money that we are allocating to the impacted areas, and there’s money there to help people who truly need it. There are survivors who need the funding, who need the funding, and it’s there.”

“I actually said we have the money available to help survivors of Hurricane Helene and also Hurricane Milton. Now there’s going to be a shortfall, right? Because we don’t know how bad it’s, Hurricane Milton, is going to be, and so we’re going to need additional funding. We’re going to need additional funding,” Jean-Pierre explained.

“Congress needs to come back and do their job and provide extra assistance, extra funding to Disaster Relief Fund,” she added after Doocy pushed back. “That’s what Congress needs to do and we’re going to continue to urge that, you may not want that, but that’s okay. That’s what this President wants and that’s what the Vice President wants.”

Watch below or at this link.

READ MORE: Greene Mocked for Weather Control Claim as NC Lawmaker Pleads for Conspiracy ‘Junk’ to End

Continue Reading
Click to comment
 
 

Enjoy this piece?

… then let us make a small request. The New Civil Rights Movement depends on readers like you to meet our ongoing expenses and continue producing quality progressive journalism. Three Silicon Valley giants consume 70 percent of all online advertising dollars, so we need your help to continue doing what we do.

NCRM is independent. You won’t find mainstream media bias here. From unflinching coverage of religious extremism, to spotlighting efforts to roll back our rights, NCRM continues to speak truth to power. America needs independent voices like NCRM to be sure no one is forgotten.

Every reader contribution, whatever the amount, makes a tremendous difference. Help ensure NCRM remains independent long into the future. Support progressive journalism with a one-time contribution to NCRM, or click here to become a subscriber. Thank you. Click here to donate by check.

News

Trump NatSec Nominees Are ‘Worse Than Worst Case,’ ‘Functional Foreign Agents’: Experts

Published

on

National security and political experts are sounding the alarm over several of Donald Trump’s nominations to top Cabinet-level positions, saying they are not only “totally absurd and appalling,” but a threat to the nation’s—and the world’s—security.

Here’s the current list of all of Trump’s Cabinet-level nominations (Politico is keeping track):

• White House Chief of Staff – Susie Wiles

•Secretary of State – Marco Rubio

•Secretary of Defense – Pete Hegseth

•Attorney General – Matt Gaetz

•Secretary of Homeland Security – Kristi Noem

•Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency – Lee Zeldin

•Director of National Intelligence – Tulsi Gabbard

•Ambassador to the United Nations – Elise Stefanik

•Director of the CIA – John Ratcliffe

READ MORE: Musk and Ramaswamy Heading New ‘DOGE’ Prompts Legal and Ethical Concerns: Experts

“Good lord,” remarked Phillips O’Brien, a historian, professor of strategic studies, and author of books on World War II, “an outright Putin apologist is named to be head of US national intelligence.”

O’Brien was referring to Trump’s nomination of former Democratic Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard to be the Director of National Intelligence (DNI).

Economist Anders Åslund, a former economic advisor to Kyrgyzstan, Russia, and Ukraine, said: “Tulsi Gabbard appears a pure Russian asset. How can she become Director of US National Intelligence? How could she possibly pass a normal security clearance?”

“If Tulsi Gabbard becomes Director of National Intelligence,” Åslund added, “it would be better for US national security to close down all intelligence.”

The Washington Spectator’s Dave Troy, an investigative journalist with expertise on Russia and Russian President Vladimir Putin, explained: “This is the reality. This can’t happen. The other Five Eyes countries will cut us off. This is a decapitation strike.”

“Five Eyes” is the joint intelligence-sharing alliance of Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and the United States.

Dr Ruth Deyermond, a Senior Lecturer in Post-Soviet Security at King’s College London’s Dept. of War Studies writes: “Even by Trump standards, this an extraordinary demonstration of the extent to which Russia-aligned interests have captured the incoming US executive. What NATO partner (Hungary aside) will trust the US with any intelligence now?”

Journalist Craig Unger is a New York Times best-selling author of books about 9/11, the Bush family, and Trump, including: “House of Trump, House of Putin: The Untold Story of Donald Trump and the Russian Mafia.”

He writes: “As of now, NATO is effectively over. Why would any of our allies share intelligence with us when the head of National Intelligence is effectively in bed with Putin.”

Former FBI special agent Asha Rangappa, an attorney and legal contributor to ABC News, issued this warning: “I very much hope that the USIC [U.S. Intelligence Community] takes measures to protect sources (or hand them off to allied intelligence services) pronto because Pooty [Vladimir Putin] is about to learn EVERYTHING we know about them and Ukraine.”

The Guardian’s Carole Cadwalladr, who exposed the Facebook–Cambridge Analytica data scandal, posted the video below by Tulsi Gabbard and wrote: “Trump has just appointed this woman Director of National Intelligence. A pro-Russian, pro-Putin mouthpiece. To remind you the UK shares intelligence with the US. Worse than worst case scenario.”

Christopher Miller is the Financial Times’ award-winning chief Ukraine correspondent whose “reporting has focused on Ukrainian politics and various aspects of Russia’s war against Ukraine, exposing war crimes and revealing the plight of people forced to live under brutal occupation,” according to his bio.

He weighed in on the appointment of Tulsi Gabbard to ODNI:

The Atlantic’s David Frum, a former Bush speechwriter who recently renounced his membership to the Republican Party, declared Congressman Gaetz’s nomination is the “most absurd,” and former Democratic Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard’s is “the most sinister.”

READ MORE: MAGA Congressman Vows Loyalty: ‘If Trump Says Jump 3 Feet High We Jump 3 Feet High’

The Lincoln Project’s Stuart Stevens, author of “The Conspiracy to End America: Five Ways My Old Party Is Driving Our Democracy to Autocracy,” warned:

“A prediction: assuming we get through this period as a functioning democracy, there will be the first treason trials in America since 1949. Trump is giving functional foreign agents access to America’s security.”

Trump’s latest announcement, that he is nominating U.S. Rep. Matt Gaetz to lead the U.S. Dept. of Justice as Attorney General, drew consternation, with critics noting that the Florida Republican lawmaker is currently under investigation by the House Ethics Committee, and had been under federal investigation for a litany of possible offenses, including illicit drug use, sex trafficking, and having sexual relations with a minor. He also reportedly had asked outgoing President Donald Trump for a “blanket pardon,” to cover any number of possible crimes, including his alleged efforts to overturn the 2020 election.

“Evidence suggested that he had spent time with a number of young women who advertised on a Web site that seemed to be a thinly veiled venue for prostitution,” The New Yorker reported in February. “Gaetz, then a three-term congressman with a reputation for a freewheeling private life, appeared to have the impulse control of a teen-age boy.”

O’Brien also weighed in on Gaetz: “Good lord 2, Matt Gaetz as Attorney General. The GOP seems hellbent on turning the US Government over to Russia.” And he warned that “all of us who have been saying that Europe needs to take care of its own security without the USA…need to scream it louder.”

Gaetz has suggested Russia be admitted to NATO, instead of Ukraine.

Alyssa Farah Griffin, the former Trump White House director of strategic communications and a co-host on “The View,” suggested there may be a “strategy” in play.

“Perhaps there’s some strategy to the more *bonkers* Cabinet picks? Trump may be signaling to the Senate to be thoughtful in what nominees it considers blocking -Kristi Noem, for example, suddenly looks immensely qualified for DHS compared to say Gaetz as AG or Tulsi as ODNI.”

Media Matters’ Matthew Gertz observes, “Matt Gaetz pick is so crazy people have forgotten the Tulsi Gabbard pick which was so crazy people had forgotten about the Pete Hegseth pick. Who knows what tomorrow will bring.”

Watch the videos above or at this link.

READ MORE: ‘Tenfold Increase in Number of Deportations’: Trump Hands Stephen Miller Top Policy Post

 

Continue Reading

News

MAGA Congressman Vows Loyalty: ‘If Trump Says Jump 3 Feet High We Jump 3 Feet High’

Published

on

Bragging about his total fealty to Donald Trump, U.S. Rep. Troy Nehls (R-TX) made clear he and and the House Republican Conference are in complete lockstep with the President-elect and will do anything to support their leader.

“There’s no question, he’s the leader of our party,” Congressman Nehls told reporters after the President-elect visited with House Republicans Wednesday before heading to the White House for a photo-op with President Joe Biden.

“So now he’s got a mission statement—his mission, and his goals and objectives, whatever that is, we need to embrace it,” Nehls said, before holding up his finger and adding, “All of it. Every. Single. Word.”

READ MORE: MAGA Loses ‘First War’: Rick Scott Rejected by Senate GOP, Thune Elected Leader

“If Donald Trump says ‘jump three feet high and scratch your head,’ we all jump three feet high and scratch our heads,” vowed Nehls, a former sheriff who was accused of stolen valor last year.

Also last year, Congressman Nehls, who appears to be the subject of an investigation by the House Ethics Committee. bragged about House Republicans’ true motivation to impeach President Joe Biden: “Trump 2024, baby!” he told a reporter.

A few short months later, at the State of the Union, Congressman Nehls wore a t-shirt with Donald Trump’s booking mug shot and the words, “Never Surrender.”

See the photos and video above or at this link.

READ MORE: Musk and Ramaswamy Heading New ‘DOGE’ Prompts Legal and Ethical Concerns: Experts

Continue Reading

News

MAGA Loses ‘First War’: Rick Scott Rejected by Senate GOP, Thune Elected Leader

Published

on

Senate Republicans in a secret ballot election behind closed doors on Wednesday rebuffed President-elect Donald Trump’s hopes to install a Majority Leader who would allow him to usurp Senate power and freely make recess appointments without the constitutional requirements of advice and consent. Republicans immediately rejected far-right MAGA Senator Rick Scott of Florida on the first ballot, and rejected U.S. Senator John Cornyn of Texas on the second, choosing U.S. Senator John Thune of South Dakota, the current Senate Minority Whip and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell’s second in command, to lead the Republican conference.

Thune, seen as the least-extreme of the three candidates, will become Majority Leader in January. And while he did agree that recess appointments could be “on the table,” Thune has a history of not blindly bowing down to Trump.

“Rick Scott wants to help Trump sidestep the body to install extremists in the Cabinet,” Rolling Stone reported, suggesting that Thune is not a “MAGA fixer, greasing the skids to ram controversial appointees and legislation through the Senate.”

READ MORE: Musk and Ramaswamy Heading New ‘DOGE’ Prompts Legal and Ethical Concerns: Experts

Also suggesting the U.S. Senate might serve at least as a deterrent to me of Trump’s far-right and extremist tendencies, Rolling Stone noted:

“Following last week’s election, Republicans will have a small majority in the Senate, likely 53-47. Two of those votes are Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska who are perceived as moderates and could potentially withhold consent on extreme nominees. Another vote is a wild card: whomever Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine chooses to replace Vice President-elect J.D. Vance. DeWine recently clashed with Vance and Trump over their racist lies about Haitian immigrants living in Springfield, Ohio, and may not send a MAGA rubber stamp to Washington.”

Axios founder Jim VandeHei also agreed this was a repudiation of Trump’s MAGA machine:

MAGA media waged its first war – and lost badly. Scott eliminated on first ballot. John Thune wins Senate Republican leader race. He’s the closest thing to an establishment figure left in DC power.”

It is the end of the nearly two-decade long McConnell era. McConnell opted to hold the election for his replacement early, angering President-elect Trump.

Trump on Sunday had issued a threatening statement, signaling his desire to effectively co-opt the upper chamber of a co-equal branch of the federal government”

READ MORE: Trump Victory Was ‘Slim’ and Not the ‘Historic Mandate’ Republicans Claim, Analysis Shows

“Any Republican Senator seeking the coveted LEADERSHIP position in the United States Senate must agree to Recess Appointments (in the Senate!), without which we will not be able to get people confirmed in a timely manner. Sometimes the votes can take two years, or more. This is what they did four years ago, and we cannot let it happen again. We need positions filled IMMEDIATELY! Additionally, no Judges should be approved during this period of time because the Democrats are looking to ram through their Judges as the Republicans fight over Leadership. THIS IS NOT ACCEPTABLE. THANK YOU!”

Politico’s Kyle Cheney posted Thune’s statements on his votes after each of the Trump Senate impeachment trials. Thune made clear he opposed Trump’s actions.

CNN’s Manu Raju reports Thune’s “politics are much more in the mainstream of GOP orthodoxy,” and notes he “called on Trump to drop out” of the 2016 presidential are after the infamous “Access Hollywood” tape.

Thune had endorsed U.S. Senator Tim Scott for the presidency over Trump.

Watch CNN ‘s report below or at this link.

READ MORE: ‘No Excuse’: Dems Have Just Weeks to Get Dozens of Biden’s Judicial Nominees Confirmed

Continue Reading

Trending

Copyright © 2020 AlterNet Media.