Jim Jordan’s statement on Fox News is another example of violent rhetoric entering the Republican mainstream, analysts say
Congressman Jim Jordan. Photograph: Brian Cahn/ZUMA Press Wire/REX/Shutterstock
Anti-hate speech activists have condemned the Republican US congressman Jim Jordan for his apparent endorsement of Donald Trump’s declaration that members of Hillary Clinton’s campaign staff should have been executed.
Jordan asserted on Fox & Friends that the former president was “right on target” when he accused Clinton’s aides of spying on him, and that in another time in US history their “crime would have been punishable by death”.
But the position of the Ohio rightwinger and fierce Trump loyalist, who is resisting efforts from a congressional committee to explain his own role in the deadly 6 January Capitol riot that Trump incited, serves only to stoke further the country’s volatile political divisions and promote more violence, the groups say.
“Trump and Jordan are escalating tensions at a time when this country sorely needs healing,” Michael Edison Hayden, senior investigative journalist with the Southern Poverty Law Center’s intelligence project, told the Guardian.
“Couple those words with Marjorie Taylor Greene’s statements about breaking apart the country and you can pretty easily see how integrated the extreme far-right fringe has become in the contemporary Republican party.
“Some of these politicians sound more like 8chan posters, or Daily Stormer commenters, than leaders,” he added.
During his four years in the White House he failed to condemn white supremacists at a rally in Charlottesville, in which a protester was murdered, insisting there were “very fine people on both sides”.
During the first presidential debate with Joe Biden in 2020, Trump urged the extremist Proud Boys, notorious for street brawls, to “stand back and stand by” during a segment on political violence. And he told the 6 January rioters “we love you” in a video address after they ransacked the Capitol building.
In linking the specter of execution to campaign workers for Clinton, a familiar target of his ire despite his victory over her in the 2016 election, Trump is blowing on a familiar dog whistle, some analysts say. And politicians such as Jordan endorsing or amplifying his words merely continue to ingrain violence into the political mainstream, they add.
“The bottom line is that people pay attention to what is being said in the public square, whether it’s sitting presidents, former presidents, or other elected officials,” said Oren Segal, vice-president for the Anti Defamation League’s center on extremism.
“[We’re] in a time where we are seeing extremists feel that their agendas are legitimized. Any language that normalizes violence is simply dangerous.”
Jordan appeared on Fox & Friends to discuss a filing by justice department special investigator John Durham, a Trump appointee, that alleged operatives paid by the Clinton campaign had accessed White House servers in an effort to “dig up dirt”.
“In a stronger period of time in our country, this crime would have been punishable by death,” Trump’s statement said, in part.
During the Fox interview, Jordan was not asked directly about Trump’s allusion to executions, but over the weekend he retweeted a Fox News article about it that included the “punishable by death” comments in full.
“We’ve never seen anything like this in history,” Jordan said. “So President Trump’s statement is right on target. This is truly unprecedented, truly something that has never happened in the history of our great country.”
To Segal, the episode is a further example of extremism masquerading as mainstream.
“That sort of language about people should be put to death, or that there should be violent consequences to people’s actions, is quite common among extremist circles. It’s the lifeblood of social media, the propaganda we see in so many different spaces,” he said.
“And yet it’s not just limited to extremist discussions online, it’s now part of the public discussion amplified by elected officials. This is why it is so dangerous. It’s no longer fringe commentary that one would expect, it’s part of the broader public discussion, which only serves to animate the extremes more.”
Just so you understand the Durham filing did not say that Hillary’s campaign had anything to do with hacking in to the WH nor tRump tower. It was a 26 page conspiracy tale of stuff designed to give the right wing some talking points to change the conversation from tRump shredding papers, taking classified papers to Mar-a-Largo, and his long term accounting firm saying his financial filings were untrustworthy.
Amazing that after 30 years she is still their biggest boogieman. The right trots her out any time they need to deflect or distract knowing she is an easy way to enrage the base. The Durham filing added no new information. It was a screed of conspiracies designed to distract from a serious issue tRump has. Lawyers have publicly said the filing should have been half a page but Durham went on for 26 pages just to spin a misinformation tale. The crux of what Durham charged Michael Sussmann with is lying to the FBI by not answering a question the FBI never asked. Yes that is right, the FBI never asked him if he worked for Hillary as it was not important. It is going to be laughed out of court if it ever gets to one. Sussmann took information from some tech people on a bank from Moscow associated with Putin contacting a dedicated server in tRump Tower. He did not give them his life story, why would he. If you tell the bank about a bank robbery they don’t care if you ever had a bank account. So again an attempt to mislead and confuse, to muddy the water from the true criminal tRump by using a boogieman the right has demonized but never been able to prove did anything wrong.
Trump Organization reinstated as defendant in DC AG’s case against Trump’s inaugural committee
A Washington, DC, court reinstated the Trump Organization as a defendant in a lawsuit the DC attorney general brought against former President Donald Trump’s 2017 inaugural committee.
Equality Florida is launching a new, two-part ad campaign to address GOP legislative priorities the group says target — and could potentially harm — marginalized students, including those within the LGBTQ community.
One proposal (SB 1834, HB 1557), dubbed by critics as the “don’t say gay” bill, would closely regulate LGBTQ instruction in the classroom and conversations with younger students.
The other legislation targeted by the ad campaign is SB 148 and HB 7, referred to proponents as an “Individual Freedom” bill, seeks to ban required discussions and lessons in classrooms and workplaces of subjects Republicans contend are meant to “indoctrinate” cultural guilt in students and employees.
From Equality Florida:
“Not since the days of Anita Bryant have we seen such craven attempts by a leader to build political power by targeting and demonizing LGBTQ people,” said Nadine Smith, Equality Florida Executive Director.
“Governor DeSantis is pushing legislation to curb free speech, propagandize school curriculums, and monitor classroom conversations, private workplaces, and doctor’s offices — all in order to outflank Donald Trump to the right and build an onramp to run for President in 2024. As a parent of a 10 year-old, these bills fail to protect my child and our family. It is a tool for the state to censor and that encourages lawsuits against schools as a means of intimidation.”
The Don’t Say Gay bill (HB1557/SB1834) and the Stop WOKE Act (HB7/SB148) are being fastracked through the legislature, despite overwhelming opposition from the state’s largest parents group, the PTA; child welfare and medical experts; and from educators who warn of the chilling effect and chaotic implications of the broadly written bills.
Each bill would censor speech in classrooms across the state, effectively erasing large swaths of American history and society. While designed to fuel the governor’s political ambitions, both bills have profound impacts on LGBTQ people.
Can you show me where in the bill it says that a school district would *not* be seen as encouraging a discussion if young people are allowed & encouraged to present about their same sex parents in class?
A real estate broker was leaving the parking lot of a Mexican restaurant in Fort Myers, Fla., when a sheriff’s deputy pulled him over for an alleged traffic violation. The Dec. 16 stop escalated when Deputy Niko Irizarry, with the Lee County Sheriff’s Office, said he suspected there were illegal substances in the car.
With the help of drug-sniffing dogs, law enforcement found more than 50 bags of opioids, methamphetamines and other pills, police records show. Irizarry arrested the real estate broker and allegedly signed an affidavit stating he had witnessed the man putting the drugs in his car.
But the sheriff’s office now says the arrest was a setup. Irizarry, 25, was fired and charged with felony misconduct, Lee County Sheriff Carmine Marceno announced on Friday. The deputy, investigators said, had made a deal with a friend to arrest the victim in exchange for sexual favors and a trip to Europe.
Investigators said Charles Custodio, 37, had a vendetta against the victim and promised Irizarry he would provide the trip and would arrange for the sex if he made the arrest. Custodio then had a third man, Scott Snider, pose as a real estate agent and plant drugs in the person’s car, investigators said.
Custodio then told Irizarry where he could find the victim. Investigators say Irizarry then performed a traffic stop and arrested the victim on drug charges. Custodio and Snider, 29, were arrested for trafficking in fentanyl, possession of a controlled substance, and conspiracy.
Hit the first link above for a detailed breakdown of the alleged convoluted plot. It’s not clear from reports exactly who was to provide the “sexual favors.”
In the years since Colin took a knee, we’ve learned that, in the eyes of conservatives, there is no acceptable form of protest against racial injustice.
Republicans see a calamity and elect it. The Russians beam with pride.
Trump is absolute poison for America.
This what the people behind Florida's "Don't Say Gay" bill are really after. We don't have to guess or toss around hypotheticals. It's all right there, out in the open for all to see. https://t.co/Q9m420axHc
It seems Putin got what he wanted. Ukraine has said they wont join Nato. It is a shame that the local bully can keep the people from advancing their country with threats to destroy them.
Russia is not the USSR, but Putin would like it to be.
China is pushing it’s spear of influence all over the world. Just as the US did in the middle of the last century. And China is getting ever closer to places the US thought were in the US sphere of influence. The US is falling way behind and had better fix their interactions with other nations.
Oh I knew this was coming. It is pure distraction from tRump’s troubles. Basically Durham was appointed by Barr to find things to try to back up tRump’s claims that the Russia investigation was illegal. Several court cases and investigations found that the investigation was legal and valid. Every legal podcast I have listen too destroys the indictment. His indictment against the lawyer that brought the findings of the tech people to the FBI he accused of lying because he did not tell the FBI he once worked for Hillary. Once worked for her. He was not working for her then. The FBI did not ask because it did not matter, the information was what mattered. So it was not lying to the FBI to not says something they did not ask. If a person reports a bank robbery to the FBI the issue is not if the person reporting has a bank account. The other thing that jumps out is that these types of charges are normally one page. Durham wrote a screed of 26 pages of conjecture and conspiracies. He was building right wing talking points. Here is the weaponizing of the DOJ that the right seems to think Biden has done. It is being done right in the open, using the DOJ and the courts to attack political enemies like a banana republic.
Also this is an attempt to distract from the information given to the FBI. The fact is a Russian bank in Moscow that was tied to Putin was pinging a dedicated server in tRump Tower. There was no explanation for it. Especially when the talk was Russia was helping tRump. Their was an attempt to hide the server, to hide the data on it, to hide the connection, and that server only talked to that bank. Very suspicious. So The right deflects by saying the real crime that should be investigated was the person who delivered it had once worked for Hillary.
How about both when the deserve it? This is not jousting wind mills. This is calling out that acts of aggression and violating human rights.
So what should the US have done to truckers / people on the Canadian side of the border? Send troops into a sovereign country and blow stuff up, steal the trucks by towing them away, and kidnap the people by arresting them? Well that is what the new right wing hero Putin would do. This was Canada’s problem to solve and they did.
The current inflation problem is caused by price gouging and profit taking. Companies are making record profits. CEO pay packages are soaring. The ones being hurt are the consumers as companies try to make up for the slower times during Covid.
Again the current inflation is caused by price gouging and profit taking of businesses. Corporations have record profits. CEO pay packages / benefits are soaring. But they want the people to blame everything else especially the little increases in pay that workers may get.
It is about the data. The cases are falling in the areas where the mandates are being withdrawn. This is a great thing, less cases means less death and less really ill people in hospitals. Follow the medical science is what people should be doing. It is what the people in charge should be following.
Must be a Fox reporter, can’t wear a mask correctly. Only people that are insecure in their own sexuality are concerned with others sexuality. And Republican politicians, of course.
Durham made a filing, no charges, no indictment. He built up a 26 page conspiracy theory with no new information and all insinuation. He accuses the lawyer that took the information from the tech people to the FBI of lying by not telling the FBI he once worked for Hillary. That doesn’t matter. If someone reports a bank robbery the FBI doesn’t care if the person has a bank account or not. The important point was the information Durham and the Republicans want to bury, that there was a bank in Moscow connected to Putin communicating with a server in tRump tower. It was the only computer communicating with that server. This at a time when there when Putin had hacked the DNC and was rumored to be interfering in the election. So this is just an attempt to muddy the waters and create a misleading right wing talking point.
I guess if a minority of the people wanted to race their cars through school zones some times killing kids and themselves, we should let them because of “Freedom”. The mask and vaccine mandates saved lives. No one lost freedom. No one was forced to get a shot or wear a mask at gun point. But if you wanted the right to join in the fun, you had the responsibility to follow public health rules.
This cartoon really pissed me off. That is an asinine cartoon that insults child abuse victims. Wearing a mask is not child abuse any more than wearing shoes are. It causes no harm and protects the wearer. Most children are not bothered by masks, the only ones with a problem with them are because the parents have made such a stink over it. Masks are proven to prevent the spread of Covid. Period. They saved lives, of children and adults. Grow up.
Kids do not care about masks, they are too worried about boredom, tests, bullies, making friends, dates, and a hundred more things important to them. Masks are not even on the list.
Police funding is actually UP across the country, and that “Defund the Police” meme is about as valid as the “Critical Race Theory” and “Sharia Law” boogymen that right wing propagandists use to keep their gullible “base” riled up.
MEANWHILE Republicans are doing everything they can to destroy democracy and literally steal elections, while supporting thoroughly-rotten criminal candidates, starting at the top with their Dear Leader. But what’s important to right-wing propagandists is to distract with their shiny-object reminders of anger and fear.
Goodwyn is indirectly attacking BLM, since “Defund the Police” was a collateral slogan of those protests; demonize “Defund the Police” (blaming all crime on a non-existent policy), and you’re also reminding people why they hated and feared BLM, too.
Win, win, because you keep people angry, fearful, and aggrieved, keeping attention off the very real assault on America.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
And now some for fun
This what the people behind Florida's "Don't Say Gay" bill are really after. We don't have to guess or toss around hypotheticals. It's all right there, out in the open for all to see. https://t.co/Q9m420axHc
It seems Putin got what he wanted. Ukraine has said they wont join Nato. It is a shame that the local bully can keep the people from advancing their country with threats to destroy them.
Russia is not the USSR, but Putin would like it to be.
China is pushing it’s spear of influence all over the world. Just as the US did in the middle of the last century. And China is getting ever closer to places the US thought were in the US sphere of influence. The US is falling way behind and had better fix their interactions with other nations.
Oh I knew this was coming. It is pure distraction from tRump’s troubles. Basically Durham was appointed by Barr to find things to try to back up tRump’s claims that the Russia investigation was illegal. Several court cases and investigations found that the investigation was legal and valid. Every legal podcast I have listen too destroys the indictment. His indictment against the lawyer that brought the findings of the tech people to the FBI he accused of lying because he did not tell the FBI he once worked for Hillary. Once worked for her. He was not working for her then. The FBI did not ask because it did not matter, the information was what mattered. So it was not lying to the FBI to not says something they did not ask. If a person reports a bank robbery to the FBI the issue is not if the person reporting has a bank account. The other thing that jumps out is that these types of charges are normally one page. Durham wrote a screed of 26 pages of conjecture and conspiracies. He was building right wing talking points. Here is the weaponizing of the DOJ that the right seems to think Biden has done. It is being done right in the open, using the DOJ and the courts to attack political enemies like a banana republic.
Also this is an attempt to distract from the information given to the FBI. The fact is a Russian bank in Moscow that was tied to Putin was pinging a dedicated server in tRump Tower. There was no explanation for it. Especially when the talk was Russia was helping tRump. Their was an attempt to hide the server, to hide the data on it, to hide the connection, and that server only talked to that bank. Very suspicious. So The right deflects by saying the real crime that should be investigated was the person who delivered it had once worked for Hillary.
How about both when the deserve it? This is not jousting wind mills. This is calling out that acts of aggression and violating human rights.
So what should the US have done to truckers / people on the Canadian side of the border? Send troops into a sovereign country and blow stuff up, steal the trucks by towing them away, and kidnap the people by arresting them? Well that is what the new right wing hero Putin would do. This was Canada’s problem to solve and they did.
The current inflation problem is caused by price gouging and profit taking. Companies are making record profits. CEO pay packages are soaring. The ones being hurt are the consumers as companies try to make up for the slower times during Covid.
Again the current inflation is caused by price gouging and profit taking of businesses. Corporations have record profits. CEO pay packages / benefits are soaring. But they want the people to blame everything else especially the little increases in pay that workers may get.
It is about the data. The cases are falling in the areas where the mandates are being withdrawn. This is a great thing, less cases means less death and less really ill people in hospitals. Follow the medical science is what people should be doing. It is what the people in charge should be following.
Must be a Fox reporter, can’t wear a mask correctly. Only people that are insecure in their own sexuality are concerned with others sexuality. And Republican politicians, of course.
Durham made a filing, no charges, no indictment. He built up a 26 page conspiracy theory with no new information and all insinuation. He accuses the lawyer that took the information from the tech people to the FBI of lying by not telling the FBI he once worked for Hillary. That doesn’t matter. If someone reports a bank robbery the FBI doesn’t care if the person has a bank account or not. The important point was the information Durham and the Republicans want to bury, that there was a bank in Moscow connected to Putin communicating with a server in tRump tower. It was the only computer communicating with that server. This at a time when there when Putin had hacked the DNC and was rumored to be interfering in the election. So this is just an attempt to muddy the waters and create a misleading right wing talking point.
I guess if a minority of the people wanted to race their cars through school zones some times killing kids and themselves, we should let them because of “Freedom”. The mask and vaccine mandates saved lives. No one lost freedom. No one was forced to get a shot or wear a mask at gun point. But if you wanted the right to join in the fun, you had the responsibility to follow public health rules.
This cartoon really pissed me off. That is an asinine cartoon that insults child abuse victims. Wearing a mask is not child abuse any more than wearing shoes are. It causes no harm and protects the wearer. Most children are not bothered by masks, the only ones with a problem with them are because the parents have made such a stink over it. Masks are proven to prevent the spread of Covid. Period. They saved lives, of children and adults. Grow up.
Kids do not care about masks, they are too worried about boredom, tests, bullies, making friends, dates, and a hundred more things important to them. Masks are not even on the list.
Police funding is actually UP across the country, and that “Defund the Police” meme is about as valid as the “Critical Race Theory” and “Sharia Law” boogymen that right wing propagandists use to keep their gullible “base” riled up.
MEANWHILE Republicans are doing everything they can to destroy democracy and literally steal elections, while supporting thoroughly-rotten criminal candidates, starting at the top with their Dear Leader. But what’s important to right-wing propagandists is to distract with their shiny-object reminders of anger and fear.
Goodwyn is indirectly attacking BLM, since “Defund the Police” was a collateral slogan of those protests; demonize “Defund the Police” (blaming all crime on a non-existent policy), and you’re also reminding people why they hated and feared BLM, too.
Win, win, because you keep people angry, fearful, and aggrieved, keeping attention off the very real assault on America.
Hate crime prosecutor details Ahmaud Arbery killers’ racist history
The defense attorneys insisted the three men’s pursuit of the 25-year-old was prompted by “honest, though erroneous, suspicion that he committed crimes” and not because of his race.
An Arizona House committee has approved a bill that would ban pet owners from declawing their cats.
HB 2224 would impose fines on any veterinarian that performs the procedure unless it is for therapeutic purposes.
“With all the research and science that we have accumulated on this topic, it is cruel, it is mutilation, and it needs to stop,” said Arizona State Representative Amish Shah.
Declawing cats involves the surgical removal of the third bone – or the first “knuckle” of a cat’s toes, and has been condemned by the Humane Society and the ASPCA as an unnecessary treatment.
The bill has also met some criticism, with some saying it’s the owner’s choice if they want the procedure done.
Some argue that not being able to declaw cats might dissuade some people from adopting them.
The bill now heads to the full House for consideration.
I knew there was going to be a lot of Soup Nazi jokes after Marjorie Taylor Greene had a flub and said “gazpacho” instead of “Gestapo” in one of her bewildering brain-dead yee-haw rants. But then I thought that it’ll be OK to use Soup Nazi in a cartoon, despite all the memes and possibly other cartoons because everyone else would miss the context.
Hell, even while reading this cartoon, people will miss the context. What am I talking about? I’m glad you asked because I’m going to tell you what I’m talking about.
Stupid congressthing Marjorie Taylor Greene accused the January 6 Committee of going after political targets when they are in fact, going after people who tried to destroy our nation, overturn an election, and install a racist orange fascist puppet who lost an election as our dictator-in-chief. Simultaneously, she accused House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of having secret…
Scottie's Playtime 
Police funding is actually UP across the country, and that “Defund the Police” meme is about as valid as the “Critical Race Theory” and “Sharia Law” boogymen that right wing propagandists use to keep their gullible “base” riled up.
MEANWHILE Republicans are doing everything they can to destroy democracy and literally steal elections, while supporting thoroughly-rotten criminal candidates, starting at the top with their Dear Leader. But what’s important to right-wing propagandists is to distract with their shiny-object reminders of anger and fear.
Goodwyn is indirectly attacking BLM, since “Defund the Police” was a collateral slogan of those protests; demonize “Defund the Police” (blaming all crime on a non-existent policy), and you’re also reminding people why they hated and feared BLM, too.
Win, win, because you keep people angry, fearful, and aggrieved, keeping attention off the very real assault on America.