I DID NOT SAY THOSE ANTISEMITIC ANTI-VAX THINGS! Says Guy Who Said Those Antisemitic Anti-Vax Things
Highlights from another shitshow.
Jim Jordan’s Committee To Weaponize MAGA Republicans Against The American People had another one of its hearings Thursday, on “censorship,” so of course they brought in lunatic troll spoiler presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Definitely a productive use of Congress’s time.
But real Democrats know what to do in this situation, so they just repeatedly exposed Kennedy as a loser and a clown, over and over and over and over again.
(Aaron Rupar and Acyn live-tweeted the hearing, as per usual, so that’s where these videos came from.)
For our money, one of the best moments of the whole entire hearing was when Rep. Gerry Connolly essentially called Kennedy a shame to his family right to his face.
“I revere your name,” Connolly said. “You’re not here to propound your case for censorship. You are here for cynical reasons to be used politically by that side of the aisle to embarrass the current president of the United States, and you’re an enabler in that effort today. And it brings shame on a storied name that I revere. I began my political interest with your father, and it makes me profoundly sad to see where we have descended today in this hearing.”
He didn’t say the words “your father would be ashamed of you,” but we can all read between the lines.
And Kennedy continued to bring shame to his father throughout the hearing. He angrily yelled at Debbie Wasserman Schultz, who committed the sin of quoting his antisemitic batshit words about Covid verbatim.
“A few months ago, Mr. Kennedy, you compared Covid public health policies to barbaric murderous tactics of Nazi Germany, saying that Jewish people in Nazi Germany had more freedom than Americans facing Covid health restrictions. In hindsight, Mr. Kennedy, do you reject this absurd and deeply hurtful and harmful comparison, or do you still stand by it?”
And he called her a liar. So she entered his quote into the congressional record and reclaimed her time.
Kennedy lied and said, “I have never been anti-vax. I have never told the public to avoid vaccination.” He yelled about his views being misrepresented.
In response, Dems on the committee tweeted the receipts.
It was just kind of like that, the whole time. Some of it wasn’t even about Kennedy, but rather was just Republicans shouting out disinformation and doing auditions for Fox News’s primetime coverage tonight.
Jim Jordan started it off babbling right-wing conspiracy theories about Hank Aaron dying of the Covid vaccine, as opposed to dying of “old.” Harriet Hageman, the batshit conspiracy theorist who replaced Liz Cheney in the US House, said batshit conspiracy theories about the FBI stealing the 2020 election for Joe Biden.
Elise Stefanik maundered on about Hunter Biden’s laptop, and even Kennedy was like IDK, dude. (Maybe a vaccine ate the part of his brain responsible for opinions about Hunter Biden’s laptop.)
And Democrats just went HARD, both at Kennedy and at the entire charade.
There are a bunch of clips from committee ranking member Del. Stacey Plaskett that are worth your time, but this one is particularly awesome in its simplicity. Why are we having this hearing today? Plaskett explained:
"I want to be abundantly clear about what else is happening in this room,” she said. “The MAGA Republicans are trying to scare social media companies into not taking down blatantly false information in the lead-up to our 2024 presidential election. Chair Jordan knows, as we do, that when conspiracy theories succeed, so does Donald Trump.”
She reminded the class that Russia attacked the 2016 election, tried it in 2020, and is gonna try it again in 2024. And the only way Republicans have a prayer of “winning” is by having America’s most hostile enemy steal it for their best boy and his band of merry Republican congressional fluffers.
In response to the hearing, the usual braying asses at Fox News accused Democrats of “censoring” RFK Jr. In a hearing about censorship, no less!
“I never thought the Democrats would go after a Kennedy,” said Jason Chaffetz. “I never thought I would see that day. Unbelievable that they would, in literally a hearing about censorship, they would try to censor this witness. That is unbelievable to me!”
It is all so unbelievable to him!
Sure thing, dude.
Have the whole thing. Do what you want with it.
OPEN THREAD!
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I’m doing my first salon visit tomorrow since before Covid. I’m expecting some tisk-tisking about all my self-hair-cutting and self-coloring experiments from the last two years. Honestly, I deserve it on the cutting—its too hard to really do well on your own head. But I’m probably not going to stop coloring, it’s way too fun.
Tonight the Empire State Building is in red, blue and yellow in celebration of Columbian independence day. https://substack.com/profile/155618292-ziggywiggy/note/c-21103429