According to the Republican Party, sending lawmakers running for their lives and chanting about hanging the Vice President is simply “legitimate political discourse.”
Democrats must take this threat seriously — before there's no democracy left to protect. pic.twitter.com/zxpWATTXcq
And yet rather than spend money fixing the electric system to ensure that the power stayed on, Abbot instead shifted state money to pandering gimmicks like finish building the wall on the border. In fact the big money donors from the fuel and energy industry gave large donations to stop any requirements that Abbot had talked about implementing to keep the power on. Now again in winter with freezing temperatures the power is again going off. They made no effort to fix the very issues that happened before and were told would happen again. Seems they care far more over their personal finance than the health and welfare of the people that elected them
Maybe we should retire the phrase "saying the quiet part out loud," on the grounds that there is no longer any quiet part.
Conservatives are about submission. Their kids will rebel one day.
Kids have no problem wearing masks. It’s the parents who can’t think of others.
What is horrifying is the change in the Republican party that went from saying “Better dead than Russian red” to praising Putin and supporting Russia. Russia under Putin is still as authoritarian as it was under communism. Russia under Putin is still as much an enemy to the US and democracy as it ever was.
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Misleading right wing media cartoons / memes
This cartoon author is one of the right wing misinformation cartoonist normally but in this case I agree with her. The Chinese government has shown they will crack down on anyone who says what they don’t like even if done by the athletes. The big scandal in the comment section of the page is over Nancy Pelosi saying the athletes should be care and watch what they say to keep themselves safe, and she blasted the Olympic committee for picking China to host them. The right wing commenters can not seem to understand why she said these things and are attacking her at the same time they are attacking China. So it doesn’t matter what she said, the fact is them must scream in anger about anything she says.
Oh boy the right wing media is on fire over trying to make Whoopi the worst racist ever. Why? Because she is a left leaning black woman. They are drooling to attack her, it is a dream come true for them.
Fox News anchor Harris Faulkner on Thursday teed up a segment on the Canadian “Freedom Convoy” by seemingly criticizing the notion that such anti-vaccine activists are “fringe,” instead claiming their beliefs have gone “mainstream.”
Moments later, the program rolled footage of such demonstrators waving flags and signs boosting the crazed far-right QAnon conspiracy theory, which centers on the belief that Donald Trump is fighting a secret cabal of Satan-worshipping pedophiliac cannibals.
During Thursday’s broadcast of The Faulkner Focus, Faulkner declared that “Canadians say this is old, we are getting bold” while discussing the most recent developments in the ongoing protest—largely spearheaded by truck drivers who refuse to get vaccinated—against the nation’s coronavirus guidelines and restrictions.
In recent days, Ottawa was essentially shut down when thousands of protesters descended upon the Canadian capital, all while loudly honking 18-wheelers created gridlock by blocking downtown streets. The mass demonstration, which began when some truckers objected to vaccine requirements for crossing the U.S.-Canada border, has since morphed into a rejection of all of the nation’s COVID-19 policies.
After noting that the “Canadian Freedom Convoy” recently blocked a border crossing into Montana, the Fox anchor then brought up the fact that Canadian leaders have denounced the violence and some of the hateful ideology associated with the protests.
“Prime Minister Justin Trudeau tried to paint them all as a fringe group, but the mainstream is embracing them now! People from other nations with loud support,” the midday news host proclaimed.
She then followed this up with a montage of protesters saying they “are here for freedom” and that they want Trudeau to “give people their freedom back.” Faulkner then turned to Fox News correspondent Molly Line, who pointed out that the Ottawa chief of police has acknowledged they may call on the nation’s military to clear out the remaining protesters in the city.
While Line delivered her dispatch, and after she said the protests had driven “some city residents a bit crazy,” the network aired b-roll footage of a demonstration that prominently featured large QAnon flags and signs.
One sign featured the notorious QAnon slogan WWG1WGA, which is an abbreviation of their rallying cry “where we go one, we go all.” Additionally, protesters also waved a massive United States flag emblazoned with the letter Q.
Line wrapped up her reporting by observing that “there are international elements” to the protests now as it has “galvanized citizens on both sides of the border” and resulted in a GoFundMe page that has raised millions of dollars.
The Canadian police, meanwhile, have set up a hate crime hotline related to the pandemic protests after demonstrators racially abused a homeless shelter guard, harassed a couple with a Pride flag, desecrated memorials and statues with anti-vax messages, and were seen waving swastikas and Confederate flags.
The House select committee investigating the Capitol insurrection is now in possession of White House records that provide new details about a phone call Donald Trump made to Republican Rep. Jim Jordan on January 6, 2021 — as the investigation drills down on the former President’s communications that day and questions have long swirled around calls between him and lawmakers.
Two sources who have reviewed the call records tell CNN that Trump spoke on the phone at the White House residence with Jordan for 10 minutes on the morning of January 6. That afternoon, Jordan took to the House floor to object to the certification of President Joe Biden’s Electoral College win, and pro-Trump supporters attacked the US Capitol.
A key focus of the committee’s investigation has been on the runup to the insurrection and the myriad ways Trump and his allies, including those in Congress, tried to overturn the election results. The new details about the morning phone call come as the committee is debating whether to move forward with a subpoena for Jordan after he refused to voluntarily appear for an interview.
Since Jordan acknowledged last summer that he spoke to Trump on the phone that day, the Ohio Republican and Trump loyalist has waived off questions about it or been inconsistent in his answers.
When asked on Friday about the White House records, Jordan told CNN that he had multiple calls with Trump on January 6 but could only confirm that he spoke with Trump after he left the House floor and did not remember whether they spoke that morning.
“I talked to the President a number of times that day, but I don’t remember the times,” Jordan said.
A spokeswoman for Trump did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
One entry in the White House records shows a request from Trump to get Jordan on the phone from the White House residence on the morning of January 6. A second entry shows that the length of the call was 10 minutes.
These call logs are among the documents the National Archives turned over to the House select committee investigating the riot after Trump last month lost his bid at the Supreme Court to keep them secret. The records have been crucial for congressional investigators as they try to build a complete narrative of what happened that day, and the call logs help to deepen that understanding.
Records show Trump did not leave the White House until 11:40 a.m. ET on January 6, 2021, to give a speech to thousands of his supporters gathered at the Ellipse. According to footage of House proceedings that day, Jordan spoke on the floor for five minutes starting at 1:32 p.m. ET during the debate over whether to reject Biden’s electors from Arizona.
Jordan later spoke to request a roll call vote on the Arizona challenge at 10:27 p.m. when lawmakers returned to the chamber after being evacuated as rioters interrupted the congressional proceedings.
On Friday, Jordan said, “I don’t recall,” when asked specifically if he spoke with Trump in the morning before the violence started. “I know I talked to him after we left off the floor,” adding that he did not remember how long his calls with the former President lasted that day.
Jordan’s previous recollections of his conversations with Trump on January 6 have been inconsistent.
At a House Rules Committee hearing in October, Chairman Jim McGovern, a Democrat from Massachusetts, specifically asked Jordan when he spoke with Trump that day.
“I talked to the President after the attack,” Jordan said at the time.
When McGovern pressed Jordan again and asked him to confirm that the call did not occur before or during the attack, Jordan replied: “Right. And I’ve been clear about that.”
Months earlier, in July, he told a local reporter he could not recall when he spoke to Trump or how many times they talked.
“Uh, I’d have to go — I spoke with him that day after. I think after?” he told the Spectrum News TV channel in Ohio. “I don’t know if I spoke with him in the morning or not. I just don’t know. I’d have to go back. I mean I don’t know when those conversations happened. But what I know is that I spoke with him all the time.”
In the committee’s letter to Jordan seeking a voluntary interview, Democratic Rep. Bennie Thompson, who chairs the panel, said investigators specifically wanted to ask Jordan about his communications with the former President.
“We understand that you had at least one and possibly multiple communications with President Trump on January 6th,” Thompson wrote in December. “We would like to discuss each such communication with you in detail.”
The committee also wants to speak with Jordan about meetings he had with White House officials and Trump in the months between the 2020 presidential election in November and the January 6 attack about “strategies for overturning the results of the 2020 election.”
The message, which Jordan forwarded to Meadows on January 5, outlined a legal theory that then-Vice President Mike Pence had the authority to stand in the way of the certification of the 2020 election. The text message is just one example of how Jordan provided a megaphone to the narrative that the election had been stolen from Trump.
The panel’s letter to Jordan also sought to learn more about any communications he had with Trump’s allies, legal team and staffers about potential organizing, planning or strategizing around January 6.
When Jordan indicated earlier this month that he doesn’t plan to cooperate and dismissed the committee’s investigation as illegitimate, a spokesperson for the panel said that Jordan is a “material witness” because he has admitted to speaking directly with Trump on January 6.
The spokesperson also suggested, without evidence, that Trump and his team are the reason Jordan is not cooperating.
“Mr. Jordan has previously said that he would cooperate with the committee’s investigation, but it now appears that the Trump team has persuaded him to try to hide the facts and circumstances of January 6th,” the spokesperson said.
Jordan was originally selected by House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy to be one of five GOP members serving on the committee back in July. But House Speaker Nancy Pelosi rejected McCarthy’s selection of Jordan, along with GOP Rep. Jim Banks of Indiana, because she said their appointments could impact the “integrity of the investigation.”
The committee has long viewed Jordan as a top target for its investigation. In August, Jordan was among a group of Republican lawmakers whose phone records the committee asked various companies to preserve. At the time, Jordan warned about the precedent the panel would be setting if it went after sitting members of Congress.
The committee is still weighing whether it will take the next step and issue Jordan a subpoena, a move it is also considering with McCarthy and GOP Rep. Scott Perry of Pennsylvania.
The panel met on Thursday to discuss their options but did not settle on next steps when it comes to efforts to get their fellow lawmakers to cooperate. Chairman Thompson acknowledged on Thursday that it’s a complicated issue.
“You know, you have to respect this institution,” he told CNN. “You know, we have to see whether or not it’s ever been done before. If it had, on what authorities. So, we just want to be right. And if we are not in good standing with it, then I mean, we probably won’t do it.”
Today’s “The Daily” treats inflation as entirely a natural consequence of stimulus checks, etc – rather than a choice by corps with record profits. @mikiebarb@RBReich: “Slowing the economy will hurt the most vulnerable… reduce corporate market power.”https://t.co/Gq4HtzeEOi
Conservatives want to cancel non-white humanity. Conservatives want to cancel elections. Conservatives want to cancel the separation of church and state.
GOP: gaslight, obstruct, project
NEWS: The Jan. 6 select committee has subpoenaed for the phone records of Arizona GOP chair KELLI WARD and her husband Michael.
Both signed false Electoral College certificates and sued Pence as part of pressure campaign.
The above is about politicians in Kentucky trying to shield / block reports of bad actions done by cops and other political groups from the public and to make it easier for utilities to raise rates on customers with less input. Just jack prices for profit.
This is disgusting persecution of a woman who served her time. There is no justification for any of this. https://t.co/eGc9GBIcGU
You will typically get far less jail time, if any, by participating in an armed insurrection at the U.S. Capitol than you will by registering to vote after you were informed you were allowed.
No grey area here. Simply a black and white issue.
If this six year old could stand the discomfort of walking through crowds of shouting angry people screaming obscenities and throwing things at her, knowing that if they were allowed they would hurt her, then white six year olds can learn of her, what she did, and why.
"It's okay to murder children if you think they're bad" is incredibly immoral and evil. ffs. https://t.co/qqKFHsvBSd
What crimes! Oh the made up ones in Rudy’s mind? The right wing fever dream of Hunter being the worst being on earth? Oh Hunter used drugs. Have they seen the videos of Donnie Jr? He is clearly tanked up off his ass on something. The right did not care about Donnie Jr illegally hunting animals in other countries, they did not mind Ivanka getting an unheard of number of trademarks from China in a short time frame when China wanted things from tRump, they don’t mention that Jared couldn’t get a security clearance because he was such a risk but tRump gave him one anyway. Hunter Biden is an adult, he is not in the WH, he is on the WH payroll, he is not an unofficial advisor to the president. But the right needs desperately to find something to hit Joe Biden with, so they reach for the personal struggles of his son. Great people.
The right wing is preoccupied with crime as it again causes fear. Be afraid, be very afraid is the mantra of the misleading right wing media. Fact is urban crime is down, rural crime is up, and all crime is still far below historical levels. What is the rights solution to crime. Not to see what causes crime and fix it, nope. The right wants more militarized police officers to aggressively occupy the lower incomes and non-white people. They want more people in for profit prisons to do slave labor for the corporations. They want to cut any government assistance programs that would help curb crime such as after school programs and to cut any diversionary programs that help rehabilitate people as that might cost the wealthy a few bucks in taxes. And they blame democrats even though that is not the truth because they want the white people to be afraid and misinformed so they vote Republican.
The consequences seem to be causing Putin to have some second and third thoughts on invading. I wouldn’t mock Biden too hard on that front. He is pulling the world along with idea of sanctions if Putin invades. As for the minor incursions that was because there are already small groups of Russian military in the Donetsk. Biden did not want the misleading right wing media opinion hosts such as Hannity to use that to push the US into actions that would be premature. There are some Republicans wanting Biden to sanction and move aggressively against Putin now such as Lindsey Graham because that would force Putin to act and we would have the war Graham’s donors want.
The consequences seem to be causing Putin to have some second and third thoughts on invading. I wouldn’t mock Biden too hard on that front. He is pulling the world along with idea of sanctions if Putin invades.
A Missouri man who sought to ban several LGBTQ books from schools for depicting sexual content is now facing a felony charge of second-degree child molestation.
Ryan Utterback, a 29-year-old parent from a suburb of Kansas City, also faces a misdemeanor charge of fourth-degree domestic assault and, in a separate case, a misdemeanor of furnishing or attempting to furnish pornographic material to a minor.
Utterback had spoken at a school board meeting in November, as first reported by local news station KMBC-TV, an ABC affiliate, to advocate for the removal of books in North Kansas City Schools libraries that depicted sexual acts.
Ryan Utterback holds up prints of two pages from “Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic” at a school board meeting in October.NKC School District Board of Education
During another school board meeting in October, Utterback held up enlarged prints of two pages from the award-winning graphic memoir “Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic,” while a member of a parent association fighting for the ban spoke, arguing that handing the material to a child amounts to “solicitation of a minor.”
Accusations against Utterback, according to court documents, describe separate instances in 2020 in which he allegedly touched a 12-year-old girl under her clothes and rubbed a teenager’s leg underneath her jeans. Another case alleged in 2021 that he showed pornographic video footage to a child starting from when she was around 4 years old.
Utterback is next due in court on March 10. His attorney, David Bell, declined to comment on the record.
North Kansas City Schools declined to comment.
LGBTQ-inclusive books have long topped banned-book lists: Titles with lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer themes comprised half of the 20 most challenged and banned books of the decade spanning 2010-19, according to the American Library Association. While challenges against LGBTQ content have historically been “constant,” according to Deborah Caldwell-Stone, the director of the ALA Office for Intellectual Freedom, she told NBC News in November that the association had seen a “chilling” uptick in the previous year.
“I’ve worked at ALA for two decades now, and I’ve never seen this volume of challenges come in,” Caldwell-Stone said at the time.
“Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic” by Alison Bechdel.Mariner Books
Mary O’Hara, rapid response manager at the LGBTQ media advocacy group GLAAD, said in an email that challenged books in schools typically undergo an evaluation process by experts in literacy and education, who read them in their entirety to determine their academic and social merit. Many of these books then return to library shelves.
“Book ban advocates have long tried to inaccurately claim that LGBTQ representation in books, films, TV and ads is ‘unsuitable’ or ‘obscene,’ while other media with narratives and themes about opposite-sex relationships — even those with graphic sex or violence — are not targeted,” O’Hara said.
Those in favor of bans, including Utterback, have raised the issue of parental rights in choosing what to expose children to. The majority of the most recently targeted books feature LGBTQ- and race-inclusive storylines, O’Hara said.
“LGBTQ people and Black people are parents, too, and get a say in their children’s education,” they said, adding that schools should “ensure books are available to all children to learn about themselves and people different from themselves.”
Kansas City LGBTQ advocate Justice Horn, who was the first out Black student president at the University of Missouri-Kansas City, was present at the November school board meeting where Utterback spoke.
“The moral of this story is that book bans do not protect children,” Horn said of the allegations against Utterback. “Moreover, the people pushing book bans are not protecting children, and every lawmaker should take note.”
The “heroes” of the story, Horn said, are the North Kansas City students who spoke before the school board to fight against these bans.
“They are ensuring none of our stories are erased,” he continued. “We’ll be reading about them long after the people looking to ban books are out of the picture.”
After an Independence police officer was killed in a shootout in September, Missouri state law enforcement initially refused routine federal assistance in tracing the murder weapon. The same month, a Missouri State Highway Patrol trooper released a federal fugitive after a traffic stop.
The incidents are described in a blistering court brief filed Tuesday by the U.S. Department of Justice outlining the consequences of the Second Amendment Preservation Act, a new state law that prohibits Missouri police officers from helping enforce certain federal gun laws. The document paints a stark portrait of how SAPA, also known as House Bill 85, has disrupted cooperation between federal, state and local law enforcement.
The DOJ says the Missouri state crime lab, operated by the Highway Patrol, is refusing to process evidence that would help federal firearms prosecutions. The Missouri Information and Analysis Center, also under the Highway Patrol, no longer cooperates with federal agencies investigating federal firearms offenses. And the Highway Patrol, along with many other agencies, have suspended joint efforts to enforce federal firearms laws.
The DOJ brief comes in an ongoing lawsuit challenging SAPA, filed by St. Louis City, St. Louis County and Jackson County. A Cole County court this year upheld the law, a decision being appealed to the Missouri Supreme Court.
“The United States has an exceedingly strong interest in this suit because H.B. 85 poses a clear and substantial threat to public safety. Since taking effect, the law has already seriously impaired the federal government’s ability to combat violent crime in Missouri,” the brief says.
SAPA declares “invalid” many federal gun regulations that don’t have an equivalent in Missouri law. These include statutes covering weapons registration and tracking, and possession of firearms by some domestic violence offenders.
Local departments are barred from enforcing them, or risk being sued for $50,000 by private citizens who believe their Second Amendment rights have been violated. Police are also prohibited from giving “material aid and support” to federal agents and prosecutors in enforcing those “invalid” laws against “law-abiding citizens” — defined as those who Missouri law permits to have a gun.
Federal and local law enforcement officials have previously warned SAPA would harm their ability to investigate federal firearms crimes in Missouri. The DOJ, Democrats and other critics of the law, signed in June by Republican Gov. Mike Parson, have argued for months it’s blatantly unconstitutional.
The brief appears to include the most extreme examples to date of the measure’s toll on law enforcement. It says the law “is not only damaging valuable institutional relationships for enforcing firearms laws, but also increasing dangers in the field across a broad array of law enforcement operations.”
DOJ says a Highway Patrol trooper in September released a federal fugitive back into the community rather than risk liability for the state agency. The brief provides no additional details, including the location of the incident or what the fugitive was wanted for.
SAPA also initially hampered the investigation into the shooting of an Independence police officer in September, according to the DOJ. Officer Blaize Madrid-Evans was killed on Sept. 15 during an exchange of gun fire with a man sought for violating parole on a firearm conviction. The suspect, identified by authorities as Cody L. Harrison, died at the scene.
“Later the same month, after an Independence police officer was killed during a shootout with a burglary suspect, state law enforcement initially declined routinely provided federal assistance in tracing the murder weapon,” the brief says.
The DOJ provides no additional information about the circumstances of the refusal or how or why it was reversed. A Highway Patrol spokesman declined to comment, citing pending litigation. A spokeswoman for Parson didn’t immediately comment.
Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt’s office, which is representing the state in the challenge to SAPA, hasn’t yet filed a brief in the appeal’s case.
A week after Madrid-Evans’ death, Parson expressed an openness to amending the law. Speaking to reporters after a police officers’ memorial prayer breakfast in St. Charles, the former sheriff described SAPA as intended as a political statement.
“You’re going to have to work with federal partners,” Parson said, according to KFVS. “And you’re going to have to work with other agencies. And we’ve got to make sure that can happen.”
One of the bill’s sponsors, Sen. Eric Burlison, a Battlefield Republican who is running for Congress, and its other sponsor, Rep. Jered Taylor of Republic, have called the reactions of Missouri police, such as their withdrawal from federal partnerships, unnecessary. Taylor told “60 Minutes” in a story that aired In November that he is “not willing to even consider [changes to the law] at this point.”
In an October letter to Republican leaders, the Missouri Police Chiefs Association wrote that the law’s “wording and structure have caused confusion and potentially unintended legal implications.”
The MPCA has proposed specifying that the law would only apply to new federal gun restrictions approved after this past August, and that it doesn’t apply to suspects whom police encounter committing a crime.
It has also proposed clarifying which weapons-related federal crimes local police are allowed to help enforce. The current law allows them to help enforce gun restrictions that are similar to those in Missouri law, as long as those charges are “merely ancillary” to another criminal charge — wording that police groups have called vague.
Republicans would have you believe they are ‘tough’ on terror. They are, in fact, not tough.
Trump released over 5000 Taliban fighters, deserted our Kurdish allies, and abandoned American military bases, weaponry, and equipment to hostile foreign interests.
US Conservatives and Russians are both trying to dismantle American democracy
Lindsey went all in for Trump and Brett Kavanaugh. Non-stop bad faith. Never forget.
“When plunder becomes a way of life for a group of men in a society, over the course of time they create for themselves a legal system that authorizes it and a moral code that glorifies it.” – Frédéric Bastiat
Thinking things through isn’t their strong suit
Pass this on to your ‘both sides’ Putinists.
So… 250k gives you the *option* to *purchase* a 2 night stay at Mar-a-Lago.
The desperation runs from the right wing media to find anything to pin on Biden is driving them crazy. They think centralist Joe is following socialist Sanders. Have you seen the things Biden endorses right wing people, he is not being led by Sanders anywhere.
The right wing wants to paint Dr. Fauci as lying to the people. Why? Because their Doctors that push Ivermectin and other things that doesn’t work on Covid are lying or crazy. The head doctor of frontline doctors Stella Immanuel has often claimed that gynecological problems like cysts and endometriosis are in fact caused by people having sex in their dreams with demons and witches. She alleges alien DNA is currently used in medical treatments, and that scientists are cooking up a vaccine to prevent people from being religious. She is a pediatrician not a virologist or immunologist. But they believe her over a Immunologist because she says crazy shit they also believe.
At CNN, they hold their own accountable, while at Fox, they give them bonuses and promotions. Somehow because the CEO was having an affair with a vice-president executive in the company and did not report it he felt because he broke the rules he enforces he should resign, and did. Fox did not have anyone in high position that had the same integrity. But that some how makes CNN sinking? Get real.
While she was wrong in what she said I don’t think there was any malicious intent. I think she was trying to express a point about inhumanity and was not fully versed in the mentality of the Nazis. She apologized with a real apology, not some fake one that put the blame on the victim.
So these people believe infecting others and being 97 times more likely to die from the virus is freedom? What about their responsibilities to their fellow humans? I guess it is freedom to not care for others or how what you do effects them. Seems pretty selfish to me, and if that has been the principle we wouldn’t have had a nation, fought a war to end slavery, joined a war to fight fascism, and so much more that takes the idea that doing something for the good of others even if it costs you personally is worth while.
There is no war on police. There is a war on bad actions by police. There can be no defending police that shoot unarmed people, that torture and beat black people for no reason, police that kill believing they are entitle to do so. There is a movement to adjust the duties and role of police to end militarized policing and return policing to community based serve and protect. It really is that simple. There is no reason to have the police act as an occupying army.
Nice cartoon, but late to the game. See the rate of inflation has slowed. Food prices are stabilized or coming down. The Fed and most economists think that inflation was caused by Covid resulting having to shut down the economy and then the fantastic reopening of everything. Like trying to run a whole swimming pool through a small funnel. But sadly many corporations took advantage and engaged in price gouging also.
Debts and Deficits only seem to matter when Democrats are in the White House. Get the corporations and all the rich to pay their FAIR share. That stop in the 1970s. The lower and middle class can’t make up for that crap. Debts and deficits matter if payments can’t be made on them. The U.S. economy has been growing during my lifetime and it hasn’t been an issue.
Scottie's Playtime 