Republicans desperately need reality training or find truth serum

Republicans deny reality, create fake news and reinvent history.

• 2020 election deniers
• January 6th was just a group of Capitol tourists
• Black history is not American history 
• America is a Christian nation

Democrats have loudly expressed outrage about House Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s decision to grant Fox News’s Tucker Carlson exclusive access to surveillance footage of the January 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol. 

Democrats say this will compromise security and enable Carlson to rewrite the day’s history with cherry-picked footage shaped into cleverly concocted propaganda.

Kevin McCarthy, opened mouth, apparently waiting for his ventriloquist to tell him what to say?

Echo opinion published in The Washington Post by Greg Sargent:

But Democrats have a better response to the California Republican’s tactic than fulmination: They can access the footage themselves. They can either allow news organizations to view all of it or at least respond to any distortions Carlson might conjure up by making whatever footage is relevant available to outlets.

This would be smart politics, but it would also be good for the country. Carlson says his producers have gained “unfettered” access to about 44,000 hours of footage and already insists some of it does “contradict” what’s publicly known.

But Carlson has a track record of falsely depicting the attack as a “false flag” operation, absurdly portraying rioters as political prisoners, and pushing other distortions and lies. It’s obvious Carlson will selectively pick from footage to try to further obscure public memory of that day with confusion and agitprop. Democrats can’t let that go unanswered.

If they so choose, Democrats can access all the footage now. After McCarthy granted access to Carlson, the Capitol Police explained that they are required to release it to congressional leaders or oversight committees that demand it.

Fox News Tucker Carlson says this January 6th insurrectionist was a Capitol tourist.

So, it turns out, this applies to minority leaders, too. Investigators on the January 6 committee, of course, were permitted to view the footage (only a fraction aired in hearings) while Democrats were in the majority. But a Capitol Police spokesperson confirms that Democrats can access it in a GOP-controlled House.

“It doesn’t matter if it’s the majority or the minority,” the spokesperson tells me, noting that “we cannot control what congressional leaders or the oversight committees do with the materials we provide.”

House Democratic leaders, then, presumably have the option of making that footage available to other news organizations, just as McCarthy did for Carlson.

True, Democrats might hesitate out of security concerns. They have lambasted McCarthy’s decision for compromising information about security camera locations, procedures guarding lawmakers and other protocol. Democrats point out that the January 6 committee viewed footage under tight safeguards and didn’t air any unless the Capitol Police confirmed it wouldn’t endanger security. 

So they might justifiably be reluctant to reveal it now.

But now that Carlson already has access, Democrats should at least debate giving news organizations access as well. Presumably they would be at least as sensitive as Carlson — if not more so — to the risks of airing or reporting on specific footage without the Capitol Police signing off first.

Alternatively, Democrats could access the footage now by themselves, if only to prepare for the worst.

It’s hard to know what (fake news shenanigan) Carlson is planning. But it could involve graphic unseen footage of, say, the killing of Ashli Babbitt outside the speaker’s chambers (making her more of a martyr on the right) or of cops letting protesters enter the Capitol in isolated situations (making rioters appear unthreatening or supposedly exposing a “false flag” operation).

But if Republicans wanted transparency, why would McCarthy only grant access to Carlson? What makes McCarthy’s decision odious is the granting of special access to a propagandist with a history of serial deceptions about the attack. If Democrats make footage available, they’d be merely doing what Republicans pretend they want. How can they object?

However Carlson (yearns) and seeks to deceive, Democrats should be ready to invite in news organizations and fact-checkers to view context and visual information that conveys the full truth, on a case-by-case basis.

This would call Republicans’ bluff. After Democrats blasted McCarthy’s decision, some Republicans piously wondered why Democrats would oppose such admirable transparency.

But if Republicans wanted transparency, why would McCarthy only grant access to Carlson? What makes McCarthy’s decision odious is the granting of special access to a propagandist with a history of serial deceptions about the attack. If Democrats make footage available, they’d be merely doing what Republicans pretend they want. How can they object?

Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.), who served on the Jan. 6 committee, says strategic decisions should be left to Democratic leaders. But Lofgren told me, “Should Mr. Carlson try to distort, we would have the opportunity, I presume, to get information and rebut the distortions.”

Of course, Carlson’s threat to air footage might be pure grift. In this scenario, Carlson and Republicans are just throwing the base a fake sop in the form of advertised revelations to come.

Notably, (marshmallow fashioned street walker!) Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) has been priming (aka "soliciting") the base to think big things are afoot, tweeting that McCarthy’s decision means “the video tapes are coming.” The goal might be to create the impression that the official story of January 6 is about to collapse. 

Marjorie Taylor Greene is the "Q" Diva QAnon queen.

Following this, even nothing-burger footage will be hyped by right-wing media as damning.

Democrats might be reluctant to respond to such a pathetically hollow gesture, instead preferring to let the Jan. 6 committee’s revelations speak for themselves. But at a minimum, Democrats should be prepared.

Whatever depiction of January 6 that Carlson airs likely won’t stop there. Expect it to become the party-wide message, repeated by scores of Republicans and right-wing media as a scandal of epic or even historic proportions.

Amid such supercharged information warfare, Americans’ memory of the January 6 hearings can’t be relied upon to help them sort everything out. Carlson and Republicans know this. Democrats should, too.

Republicans are hypocrites and the leadership are cowards

Echo opinion letter published in the Las Vegas Sun, in Nevada

Ken Kolman in Henderson Nevada

Marjorie Taylor Greene Wants People to Know that She's Not Just Crazy, but she's also a bigot.

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (aka, a wooden dummy come alive!) of California is showing his true colors. 

Kevin McCarthy may offer proof for the "dummy is alive" syndrome!

First, he condemned #FormerGuy Trump for starting the Jan. 6th Capitol insurrection, and in his next breath he flew out to Florida to suck up to the almighty one and kiss the ring.

Then, he got Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., removed from her position in the House and replaced her with another Trump suck-up.

Now, he will not take any action against rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., (a GQP crazy!) ridiculously claiming that mask mandates are the same as the Holocaust, when Jewish people were made to wear a yellow star and sent to concentration camps. McCarthy has not said a word about these insults to the Jewish community because Greene is another Trump suck-up.

One member gets removed for telling the truth, but another keeps ridiculing ethnic groups and nothing happens to her. When it comes time to re-elect Greene, I hope that Georgians in her district think long and hard about having a lunatic making these statements. Their vote is their best tool to stop this lunacy, since McCarthy will not do anything to stop her. 

Republicans are politically impotent

Republican leaders slam Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene's Holocaust comments, but don't call for punishment

"fear...the painted devil"...Lady MacBeth, Shakespeare

Maine Writer:

Kevin McCarthy- The dummy lives!  He's alive, he's alive!

Charlie McCarthy

Opinion echo published in The Washington Post by Karen Tumulty

Dr. Victor Frankenstein would understand what House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) is feeling as he watches his party’s own creation careen across the political landscape, leaving wreckage and mayhem at every turn.

When a trove of lunatic social media postings that Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) made before she was elected to Congress came to light in January, McCarthy invited her to his office for what his spokesman described as “a conversation.”

As a supporter of the QAnon movement, Greene had spread conspiracy theories that included claims that the 2017 mass shooting in Las Vegas and the 2018 school shooting in Parkland, Florida, were hoaxes and that Hillary Clinton mutilated and murdered a child during a satanic ritual. She also endorsed calls for the murders of federal agents and her Democratic colleagues, including giving a “like” when a commenter on her Facebook feed suggested that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) might be removed with “a bullet to the head.”

In a closed Republican caucus held shortly after her talking-to by McCarthy, Greene apologized, claimed she no longer believed in conspiracy theories and got an ovation from her colleagues.

The minority leader expressed confidence that she had learned her lesson and predicted that Greene would hold herself to a “higher standard” now that she was a lawmaker and not a private citizen. Nonetheless, the full House, which has a narrow Democratic majority, voted to strip her of her committee assignments.

Greene, however, continues her bottom-feeding ways, apparently feeling even less constrained now that she has no actual policymaking responsibilities.

In April, it came to light that she had made tentative efforts to set up an “America First Caucus,” which was to be focused on promoting what a draft platform described as “Anglo-Saxon political traditions.”

The most recent controversy she has generated came during an interview on a conservative cable network. She claimed that Pelosi’s requirement that masks be worn in the Capitol, where many House Republicans refuse to say whether they have been vaccinated against the coronavirus, echoes the treatment of Jews under the Nazis.

“You know, we can look back in a time in history where people were told to wear a gold star, and they were definitely treated like second-class citizens — so much so that they were put in trains and taken to gas chambers in Nazi Germany,” Greene said. “And this is exactly the type of abuse that Nancy Pelosi is talking about.”

For those latter comments, McCarthy denounced Greene more sternly than he had before, saying “her intentional decision to compare the horrors of the Holocaust with wearing masks is appalling.” His statement was echoed by other top Republicans in the House.

Greene defiantly turned on McCarthy, and retweeted a post by a fan who called the minority leader “a moron,” as well as another word that won’t be repeated here. Though Greene later deleted her tweet, she had made her point that she was not chastened.

This predictable response merely underscored how impotent GOP leaders are in dealing with a figure who thrives on being outrageous and offensive. And along the way, she has raised millions — $3.2 million, to be precise, in the first quarter of the year — in contributions from tens of thousands of people who apparently share her views.

There was a time when Republicans might have stopped this creation of theirs, but it was back when she was still in the lab — or, in this case, running for her party’s 2020, nomination in a reliably red congressional district. Then-#FormerGuy Donald Trump singled her out as a “future Republican Star” and “a real WINNER.”

Though McCarthy denounced the pattern of racist and antisemitic comments that Greene was known even then to have made, he remained neutral in the primary runoff that all but guaranteed she would be joining the House Republican Conference in January. The minority leader’s fear of alienating the Trumpian voters who inhabit the more fetid corners of the Republican base was greater than his sense of duty to the institution that Greene now dishonors.

What all of this has shown is that Republicans must do more than simply denounce Greene. It is time for them to, at a minimum, rally behind censuring her. A resolution to do so is being drafted by Rep. Bradley Schneider (D-Ill.). Republicans should also kick her out of their caucus, as Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.) has proposed.

Anything less makes hollow Republican leaders’ efforts to portray Greene as merely a fringe player among their ranks. They created her, and they continue to elevate her.

This is the consequence of seeking power without regard to what else it may bring. To borrow the subtitle from Mary Shelley’s famous novel, Marjorie Taylor Greene is the fruit of Republicans’ own efforts to become the Modern Prometheus*.

*Prometheus is one of the Titans, the supreme trickster, and a god of fire. In common belief, he developed into a master craftsman, and in this connection, he was associated with fire and the creation of mortals.