Republican BS Has Risen!

It's your post-Easter Sunday show rundown.

Happy Belated Transgender Day of Visibility! Oh and Easter, I guess. Huh. This year that happened on the same day. I’m sure nobody made a big deal out of that.

But as we suffer the first April Fools’ Day with people having widespread use of AI, let’s take a look at Easter Day’s fools.

Rotten Egg Mike Turner

The Republican chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, Representative Mike Turner of Ohio, was on CBS’s “Face The Nation” to drive home how weird it is he chairs a committee called “intelligence.”

Turner discussed the “Chaos Caucus” within his own party, but then showed what a thin line there is between those Republicans and his kind of Republicans.

Guest host Ed O’Keefe asked Turner about how appropriate it is for the “pious” president to be selling his $60 “White Nationalist God Bless The USA” Bibles. Turner deflectged to bullshit fearmongering about the White House Easter Egg Roll.

TURNER: You know, I haven't really seen that. I have heard some people talk about it.

I think I'm more concerned about the White House restricting the ability of children to put religious symbols on Easter egg – Easter eggs for the Easter egg roll at the White House. […] I can't imagine that we're certain – in a situation where the Biden White House is restricting, especially that of children, their ability to express their religious freedom.

First, this “I haven’t seen/heard/read” excuse GOP politicians use about crazy shit Trump does is ludicrous. He is not only the former president, but the leader of their party and 2024 nominee for president. This idea that you can be unaware of his attention-seeking actions or get-rich-schemes like we are in the 19th century rather than the 21st stretches logic.

Second, and this should come as no surprise by now, the “anti-religious” story that Turner DID HEAR about the White House Easter Egg Roll is utter horseshit.

As White House Deputy Assistant to the President Elizabeth Alexander tweeted on Saturday:

*Fyi on all the misleading swirl re White House and Easter: the American Egg Board flyer’s standard non-discrimination language requesting artwork has been used for the last 45 years, across all Dem & Republican Admins—for all WH Easter Egg Rolls —incl previous Administration’s.

So this rule even applied for the White House Egg Rolls when Trump said crazy shit. This writer is not especially religious, but there has to be a special place in Hell for assclowns who lie on Easter Sunday.

Can We All Turn Down The Violence Fomented By One Side?!

Representative Don Bacon of Nebraska was on NBC’s “Meet The Press.”

Host Kristen Welker asked if he endorsed threatening rhetoric from Trump, after Trump posted a video of a pickup truck depicting President Biden bound and gagged. Bacon tried to split the middle to say he endorsed Trump but NOT LIKE THAT. He also added a smidge of bothsides-ism:

BACON: I don't support the rhetoric. By the way, we see rhetoric on both sides. I'm the target of a lot of rhetoric on both sides. And I would want us to raise the bar of civility and how we treat the other side of the aisle, for sure. Now, I don't think he was inciting violence, but it is representative of the political dialogue we have today. And I see it first hand. I get the - I get the same treatment from the left and the right, right now.

Both sides? Really? Bacon gets the same treatment from both sides? Surely Bacon has an example to share? Maybe an all-electric Prius with a decal depicting Don Bacon tied up with organic hemp rope? Arugula somehow involved?

Welker asked a follow-up question about Trump’s rhetoric, but this time he chose to talk about Midwest niceness:

BACON: I'll just say it this way. That's not how I talk. […] And I think in Nebraska, in the Midwest, we don't like the nastiness, you know? We have a phrase here, "Nebraska nice," and it's real.

Anyone who has actually lived in parts of the Midwest and experienced this “niceness” — or in my case, “southern hospitality” — knows that this artificial kindness can be one Trump flag or a mistaken judgment of melanin levels away from them telling you about “two genders” and “violent illegals in New York.”

Speaking of bothsides-ism and New York, Representative Mike Lawler was on CNN’s “State of The Union,” doing his own version of what Bacon did for Dana Bash.

LAWLER: I think everyone needs to tone down the rhetoric, the language. And, obviously, social media has become a vehicle by which to bludgeon people. I just think, at the end of the day, the former president, current president, and on down, all of us have a responsibility to check our language, to watch what we're saying, and to focus on the issues at hand.

Unlike Bacon, Lawler has at least not endorsed Trump for president. And considering his stated stances on Ukraine and protecting IVF, I’m sure he gave a very concise answer for why he won’t endorse a guy who stands against everything he says he supports.

BASH: Before I let you go, you didn't endorse Donald Trump in the primary. Are you going to support him for president?

LAWLER: Look, I'm not focused right now on the presidential race. I am focused on my campaign and my district and the work that we are doing here. At some point, I'm sure I will have a comment with respect to the presidential race, but, right now, I'm focused on my district.

Right, forgot: There is no such thing as “good Republicans.”

Have a week.

Follow Michael Mora on Bluesky and Threads. (If you are still on Twitter, I’m also HERE)