Jan. 6 Committee Ready To F*ck Up Primetime For Nation's Most Famous Couch Potato
And Liz Cheney is leading the charge.
If you'd told us in 2019 that we'd be rooting for Dick Cheney's daughter, we'd have told you to put down the crack pipe. And yet here we are, and here's GOP Rep. Liz Cheney giving 'em holy hell yesterday as she accepted the John F. Kennedy Profile in Courage Award.
“This sacred obligation to defend the peaceful transfer of power has been honored by every American president except one,” Cheney said. “The question for every one of us is in this time of testing, will we do our duty, will we defend our constitution, will we stand for truth, will we put duty to our oath above partisan politics?
“Or will we look away from danger, ignore the threat, embrace the lies and enable the liar?” Cheney continued. “As we face a threat we have never faced before — a former president attempting to unravel our constitutional republic — at this moment we must all summon the courage to stand against that.”
This is consistent with reporting from the Washington Post last week that Cheney is pushing harder than the Committee's Democrats to go after Trump and subpoena the congressional Republicans who helped him try to overthrow democracy.
So let's give credit where credit is due: Liz Cheney has shown remarkable courage, bucking her party's insistence on creating an alternate universe in which Donald Trump won the 2020 election, only to be thwarted by a massive yet undetectable fraud. She got booted out of leadership and will likely lose her congressional seat, but she's not backing down. Mad props.
This morning, Hugo Lowell of the Guardian reports that the January 6 Select Committee has scheduled six hearings, with the first occurring Thursday, June 9, at 8 p.m. Eastern time. The last hearing will take place on June 23, also in primetime. There will also be 10 a.m. hearings on June 13, 15, 16 and 21.
Each presentation will focus on a theme and feature witness testimony, with video and still images projected on screens to reinforce the narrative. Lowell reports that the hearings are divided into color coded teams:
The “purple” team has focused on the militia groups, while the “gold” team has examined Trump’s efforts to overturn the election. The “red” team has looked at Stop the Steal, the “green” team at the financing for January 6, and the “blue” team at the government response.
Looks like we'll be hearing a lot about the plot to reject electoral votes for Joe Biden and substitute them for those cosplay electors Rudy Giuliani and his pals were rounding up in the swing states. And we'll be hearing a lot about the Oath Keepers and Proud Boys, their potential for violence, and their connections to Trump world. As Lowell notes, "the select committee is attempting to connect Trump’s political plan for January 6 and the militia groups’ violence at the Capitol in what could form evidence that Trump oversaw an unlawful conspiracy."
And speaking of violence, CNN reports that Mark Meadows's assistant Cassidy Hutchinson returned for a third session with the Committee last week, at which she confirmed again that her boss was told there was a potential for violence on January 6, and he went ahead with the event anyway.
Sounds like it's going to be a Live-Blog-A-Palooza here at your Wonkette. BRING IT!
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Did GOP Rep. Barry Loudermilk Lead Tour Of Capitol On Jan 5, 2021? Lordy, Sounds Like There Are Tapes.
The plot, she thickens!
The House January 6 Select Committee has requested the pleasure of the company of yet another member of Congress. This time they'd like to sit down for a little chitchat with Rep. Barry Loudermilk (R-Georgia), about a visit he got from some members of the public on January 5, 2021.
Immediately after the Capitol Riot, rumors began to swirl about MAGA members of Congress leading "reconnaissance" tours of protestors, essentially tipping them off as to how to navigate the notoriously complicated warren of hallways in Congress. On January 13, 2020, Rep. Mikie Sherrill wrote a letter, signed by 33 of her colleagues, asking the Capitol Police and the congressional sergeants at arms to investigate reports of "extremely high number of outside groups in the complex on Tuesday, January 5," an occurrence which was remarked on by staff "for several reasons, including the fact that access to the Capitol Complex has been restricted since public tours ended in March of last year due to the pandemic."
"The visitors encountered by some of the Members of Congress on this letter appeared to be associated with the rally at the White House the following day," they wrote, adding that "Members of the group that attacked the Capitol seemed to have an unusually detailed knowledge of the layout of the Capitol Complex."
In response, Loudermilk and Reps. Rodney Davis and Bryan Steil filed an ethics complaint alleging that Sherrill and her cosigners had violated House ethics rules by "making false, spurious, and unsubstantiated accusations against other members." Although Sherrill never used the word "reconnaissance" or mentioned who was giving the tours, Loudermilk angrily insisted that "no Republican Member of Congress led any kind of 'reconnaissance' tours through the Capitol on any date, including January 5, 2021." So, make of that one what you will.
But now it appears that storyline is coming back around, with the Committee's letter to Loudermilk.
"We write to seek your voluntary cooperation in advancing our investigation," Chair Bennie Thompson and Vice Chair Liz Cheney wrote. "Based on our review of evidence in the Select Committee’s possession, we believe you have information regarding a tour you led through parts of the Capitol complex on January 5, 2021."
And regarding the GOP's tantrum calling to release the tapes:
In response to those allegations, Republicans on the Committee on House Administration—of which you are a Member—claimed to have reviewed security footage from the days preceding January 6th and determined that “[t]here were no tours, no large groups, no one with MAGA hats on.” However, the Select Committee’s review of evidence directly contradicts that denial.
LOL.
Loudermilk is now screaming like a stuck pig.
"A constituent family with young children meeting with their Member of Congress in the House Office Buildings is not a suspicious group or 'reconnaissance tour,'" he insists, although none of the Democrats have characterized it as such. "The family never entered the Capitol building."
"The 1/6 political circus released the letter to the press before even notifying Mr. Loudermilk, who has still not received a copy," he screeched. "The Select Committee is once again pushing a verifiably false narrative that Republicans conducted 'reconnaissance tours' on January 5th."
"We call on Capitol Police to release the tapes," he concluded.
Safe bet that the congressman will not be accepting the Committee's kind offer to tell his own side of the story. But as for his wish that Americans get to see the tapes and decide for themselves ... that one seems a virtual certainty.
[Committee Letter to Loudermilk / Loudermilk Response]
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Guess Republicans Just Love Starving Babies And High Gas Prices
There's no accounting for taste.
Good news! The House passed two bills yesterday to help with the baby formula crisis. First off, there's the Infant Formula Supplemental Appropriations Act, which would appropriate $28 million to the FDA so it can quickly approve imported baby formulas and ensure the agency is better prepared for such shortages in the future so this does not happen again. Second is the Access to Baby Formula Act, which would ensure that low-income families have access to baby formula through the WIC program.
If you're a person who hates it when babies starve to death, you probably think these are some pretty good bills and are relieved to know someone is doing something about this.
And yet 192 Republicans voted against the Infant Formula Supplemental Appropriations Act. Only 12 of them joined the 100 percent of Democrats in passing this bill. Those Republicans were "Reps. Don Bacon (Neb.), Brian Fitzpatrick (Pa.), Anthony Gonzalez (Ohio), Trey Hollingsworth (Ind.), John Katko (N.Y.), Adam Kinzinger (Ill.), David McKinley (W.Va.), Tom Rice (S.C.), Chris Smith (N.J.), Mike Turner (Ohio), Fred Upton (Mich.) and Ann Wagner (Mo.)."
We can be assured that all of those who voted against this bill consider themselves very "pro-life."
The reasoning given by Maryland Rep. Andy Harris was that this was just "reckless spending."
“I rise in opposition tonight to H.R. 7790, the Infant Formula Supplemental Appropriations Act, a bill that just continues the majority’s reckless spending spree without actually fixing the infant formula crisis this administration caused,” he claimed.
To be clear, the Biden administration had absolutely nothing to do with any of this. The formula shortage happened due to a recall of baby formula produced by Abbott Laboratories after four infants contracted serious bacterial infections (cronobacter sakazakii and Salmonella Newport) after using the formula. Joe Biden did not sneak in there in the dead of night and spike the baby formula supply with germs.
The Access to Baby Formula Act was more popular, and only nine Republicans voted against that — Andy Biggs, Thomas Massie, Clay Higgins, Matt Gaetz, Chip Roy, Paul Gosar, Louie Gohmert, Lauren Boebert, and Marjorie Taylor Greene.
But starving babies is not the only thing the GOP apparently loves — they also love super high gas prices, looks like! (Easier to attack Biden for "high gas prices" when gas prices are high, we guess!) Republicans in the House Rules Committee successfully blocked the "Consumer Fuel Price Gouging Prevention Act," a bill that would have lowered gas prices for consumers at the pump.
Specifically, it would have made it unlawful for "any person to sell a consumer fuel, at wholesale or retail, in an area and during a period of an energy emergency" at a price that "is unconscionably excessive" or which "indicates the seller is exploiting the circumstances related to an energy emergency to increase prices unreasonably."
The emergency energy periods would be declared by the president and last no longer than 30 days, but could then be renewed depending on the circumstances.
Basically what it means is that oil companies can't exploit national emergencies to jack up their prices, increase their own profits and hurt consumers.
Calling it the "Socialist Energy Price Fixing Act," Republicans railed against the bill, which they warned would be like implementing "socialist price controls" and claiming it would lead to "rationing" and long lines at gas stations like in the '70s. This doesn't even make sense, and not just because that's not what socialism is. The 1973 gas crisis was caused by OAPEC declaring an embargo on oil, not by "price controls." The price per barrel was also significantly raised. In our case right now, the price of oil is going down, but there's been no corresponding decrease at the pumps, and Exxon is out here bragging that it's made record profits.
What they would prefer, as per Washington GOP Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers, would be "unleashing American energy production," i.e. giving oil companies more access to public lands for drilling, a thing that is already happening. Nearly 26 million acres of public land are leased to oil and gas companies.
Instead of unleashing American energy production, increasing supply, and lowering prices, Democrats are rushing through a bill to impose socialist price controls on gasoline.\n\nThe result will be long gas lines like in the 1970\u2019s.pic.twitter.com/4BWnIGYTvJ— CathyMcMorrisRodgers (@CathyMcMorrisRodgers) 1652741100
McMorris-Rodgers is also a big fan of fracking, because we guess allowing corporations to profit is more important than Americans having drinking water.
Each of these choices has consequences. The consequence of doing nothing is high gas prices. The consequence of "unleashing American energy" is contaminated water and other environmental hazards and probably also high gas prices. The consequence of implementing laws to combat price gouging is that oil companies can't charge you a ridiculous amount of money for gas just because they can.
Given the choice, would Americans choose "socialism" and lower gas prices or "not socialism" and higher gas prices? Would they really rather pay more for gas than have to live with the fact that the government is doing not-really-socialism to the poor big oil companies? It's possible! But what those people should know is that our government is already doing socialism to those poor extremely rich oil companies — in the form of fossil fuel subsidies.
Whenever the government provides opportunities in privileges for white people and rich people they call it “subsidized” when they do it for Negro and poor people they call it “welfare.” The fact that is the everybody in this country lives on welfare. Suburbia was built with federally subsidized credit. And highways that take our white brothers out to the suburbs were built with federally subsidized money to the tune of 90 percent. Everybody is on welfare in this country. The problem is that we all to often have socialism for the rich and rugged free enterprise capitalism for the poor. That’s the problem.
Sure, there are a lot of people still doing duck and cover, who would still be willing to pay ridiculous prices for gas if it helps some poor rich person get even more extremely rich. But at some point people are going to start to catch on that Republicans call pretty much everything that would benefit regular folks instead of the extremely rich "socialism."
There's not a specifically capitalist solution to problems created by capitalism. If we didn't have 83 percent of all baby formula being made by three companies, because monopolies, we wouldn't be in this situation. There's not a specifically capitalist solution to price gouging, because it's not caused by anything other than a desire for more money. If that were the case, these things would get fixed on their own, because laissez-faire would be the way to go. But they're very obviously not getting fixed on their own. If the big sacrifice Americans have to make to feed their children and drive their cars is that Republicans are going to whine and call things "socialism," that seems like the best way to go.
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Defense Inspector General Says Trump Lackeys Took Revenge On Vindman Brother For Impeachment. Yeah, No Sh*t.
We all saw it happen.
Hey, remember the first impeachment? The Ukraine one, after Donald Trump withheld military aid to blackmail Volodymyr Zelenskyy into announcing a fake investigation into Joe Biden? Wasn't that fun? Wouldn't it be delightful to revisit that again?
No?
Well, too bad, because today we're having a very special episode called Department of Defense Inspector General's Whistleblower Reprisal Investigation, Lieutenant Colonel Yevgeny Vindman US Army, Complainant. The DOD IG investigated the allegation that political appointees in the White House retaliated against Vindman, twin brother of Lieutenant Colonel Alexander Vindman, the impeachment witness who testified about Trump's not-so-perfect phone call with the Ukrainian president. And it turns out that things were exactly as disgraceful as they looked at the time.
As if it were possible to interpret frog marching both brothers out of the White House less than 48 hours after Trump was acquitted by the Senate as anything other than a gross and deliberate act of public reprisal.
Okay, to recap for those of you who don't still burn with white hot rage two years later:
Alex and Yevgeny Vindman were decorated military officers who spent their careers in government service, culminating in stints serving at the National Security Council (NSC). After Alex, the Eastern European expert, heard Trump try to extort a foreign leader by withholding congressionally appropriated defense aid in the infamous July 25, 2019, phone call, he went to his brother Yevgeny, the ethics lawyer, to talk about President Crime Time and what their obligations were vis a vis the blatantly illegal shit that had just gone down.
The brothers brought the matter to the attention of Yevgeny's supervisors, attorneys John Eisenberg and Michael Ellis. Remember those assholes?
Eisenberg is the guy who parked the transcript of that phone call on the "Bin Laden server" after about five people came to him and said HOLY SHIT this is a massive abuse of office for personal gain by the president of the United States. (Remember the secret server that's supposed to be America's deepest secrets, but in the Trump administration was used to hide God knows what embarrassing crimes Trump was committing?) Eisenberg is the reason the original whistleblower filed a formal complaint, after he/she went informally to the CIA general counsel and said HOLY SHIT look at this crime thing. Because when the CIA lawyer called him up, Eisenberg's plan was to bring the matter to Attorney General Bill Barr, despite the fact that Trump had promised to "have Attorney General Barr call and we will get to the bottom of it" right after warning that Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch was "going to go through some things."
Then after the whistleblower made a formal complaint, Eisenberg helped Bill Barr bury it at the Justice Department, even though in the first 100 words of the thing it says "the President of the United States is using the power of his office to solicit interference from a foreign country in the 2020 U.S. election" and "Attorney General Barr appears to be involved as well." Which is a wee smidge of a massive fucking conflict.
The statute unambiguously says Congress gets to see intelligence community whistleblower complaints that have been investigated and sustained by the Intelligence Community Inspector General (ICIG), as this one was. But instead Eisenberg and Barr routed it through the Justice Department's Criminal Division, which found that there were SURPRISE! NO CRIMES! and no need to mention the thing to congress. Which would have been the end of the matter if the ICIG hadn't turned whistleblower himself and told Democratic Rep. Adam Schiff.
Meanwhile, back at the White House, Eisenberg had suddenly decided that Yevgeny Vindman was a terrible lawyer who was bad at his job. On July 1, 2019, he'd called Vindman “MOST QUALIFIED,” the highest rating possible, and described him as "a top 1% military attorney and officer and the best LTC with whom I have ever worked.” On April 7, 2020, three months after the impeachment, Eisenberg rated Vindman “NOT QUALIFIED” and claimed that he "did not grow professionally; that with additional counseling and experience, his performance might improve; and that the Complainant would benefit from additional experience in a slower-paced work environment subject to less pressure and scrutiny." It wasn't exactly subtle.
As for Michael Ellis, he's the former Devin Nunes staffer who got put on the NSC and was Yevgeny Vindman's direct supervisor. Later he did a speed-read of classification law so he could ratfuck John Bolton's book, before waging an unsuccessful battle to get himself burrowed into the NSA as a career employee, rather than a political appointee.
Ellis tapped out on that about five seconds after he realized he'd have to cooperate with the inspector general if he remained in government service:
Mr. Ellis, through his counsel, raised various concerns regarding our request to interview him, including concerns about executive privilege. We contacted the White House Counsel’s Office (WHCO) on March 2, 2021, regarding our efforts to schedule an interview with Mr. Ellis, and officials from the WHCO did not object to our interest in the matter. On April 15, 2021, through Mr. Ellis’s attorney, we asked to schedule an interview with Mr. Ellis; on April 16, 2021, Mr. Ellis resigned from his position as the NSA General Counsel. We contacted his attorney on April 19, 2021, and July 21, 2021, to reiterate our interview request. Mr. Ellis did not cooperate with this investigation.
LOL.
Ellis also underwent a drastic change in his appraisal of Yevgeny Vindman's performance right around the time of the impeachment.
The orange line is Ellis's first assessment; the first blue line is the second evaluation; and the second blue line is the amendment after the Army reevaluated Vindman's performance review and said to the White House, "DUDE, WTF?" (More or less.)
Again, they weren't subtle.
After the Vindman brothers complained about the phone call, and Yevgeny brought up some other issues involving National Security Advisor Robert O'Brien's inappropriate behavior toward female subordinates — which was his job as the NSC's ethics lawyer— Yevgeny got frozen out of all meetings and his duties were reassigned to other attorneys.
And here's what the DOD IG said about that!
The Complainant experienced unfavorable and withheld favorable personnel actions under DoD Directive 7050.06 when he received an unfavorable 2020 OER, had his duties and responsibilities significantly changed to a degree inconsistent with his grade, was removed from the NSC, and when a recommendation for an end of tour award was not submitted. While the Complainant’s career may not appear to have been adversely affected as he has since been promoted to the rank of Colonel, his career is not over. The retaliatory actions taken by Mr. Ellis and Mr. Eisenberg could prove to be detrimental to the Complainant for the remainder of his career.
Which is a long way of saying they took revenge on him for telling the truth about Trump's effort to extort a foreign leader, and for his support of his brother in the face of a massive smear campaign. But we already knew that because we saw the two of them get booted out of the White House that Friday morning after the impeachment.
And in case that wasn't clear, Trump himself said that he'd fired the brothers to retaliate for the impeachment:
"Yeah, I obviously wasn’t happy with the job [Alex Vindman] did. First of all, he reported a false call. That wasn’t what was said on the call. What was said on the call was totally appropriate. And I call it a 'perfect call.' … There was no setup. There was no anything. And he reported it totally differently. And then they all went wild when I said that we have transcripts of the calls. And they turned out to be totally accurate transcripts. And if anybody felt there was any changes, we let them make it because it didn’t matter. So we had accurate—totally accurate transcripts. And it turned out that what he reported was very different. And also, when you look at Vindman’s—the person he reports to—said horrible things: avoided the chain of command, leaked, did a lot of bad things. And so we sent him on his way to a much different location and the military can handle him any way they want. General Milley has him now. I congratulate General Milley. He can have him, but—and the brother also.
Not subtle.
Eisenberg, Ellis, and O'Brien all refused to cooperate with the IG for this report.
Ellis's attorney David W. Butler whined to the Washington Post that the report was “based on a biased and incomplete investigation.” And Eisenberg's lawyer William A. Burck complained that his client would have helped, except the IG wouldn't give him the questions in advance.
“Mr. Eisenberg acted professionally and lawfully and the defamatory allegations by the IG are politically motivated fiction,” Burck said. “It’s a sad and dangerous day when government investigators pursue politics instead of facts.”
Which is HAHA FUCK YOU, because, again, we were all there.
Let's give the last word to Yevgeny Vindman, who remains an active military officer held in high regard by his peers.
“What happened to me and my brother is an outrage — one of many committed by the former president and his staff,” Vindman told the Post.
Amen to that, sir.
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