War Crimes And Misdemeanors

It's you Sunday show rundown!

Last Wednesday, before Americans went into our annual tryptophan induced comas, Israel and Hamas made a deal for a four-day cease-fire in Gaza. On Friday, while customers were coming to the realization that the Black Friday scam had finally run its course, Israel and Hamas began releasing hostages and prisoners in a sign of progress. But these small rays of hope and optimism cannot last in a world filled with stupidity and warmongers, so let’s dive into the Sunday shows.

Tom Cotton’s The Negotiator 2

“Fox News Sunday” interviewed Arkansas Senator and genocide enthusiast Tom Cotton.

In what has to be an increasingly harder thing to do for Republicans, Cotton tried to see the bad side of hostage releases accomplished through the Biden Administration’s foreign policy negotiations.

But much like bringing up the 80s “Tanker Wars” as a positive example, Cotton may have inadvertently reminded people to look up another bad thing done under the Reagan Administration.

COTTON: […] This would have never happened under Donald Trump or Ronald Reagan. In fact if you’ll recall Jimmy Carter had a hostage crisis with Iran, Hamas’ patron, for over 400 days. Iran released those hostages the day Ronald Reagan took office because they were so scared of what Ronald Reagan might do to them. You don’t see that kind of fear of President Biden from Hamas or Iran or frankly anyone around the world […]

The deification of Ronald Reagan (and their current work to do the same for Trump) reaches new levels of absurd every year. They act like Reagan ushered such peace through fear and there were no issues. But since Cotton brought up the Iran Hostage Crisis and Reagan, because he counts on people not doing research, let’s take a quick gander.

In his 1992 book October Surprise, former Carter Administration official Gary Sick made a compelling case that Reagan’s 1980 campaign sabotaged the release of the Iran hostages to win the election.

From a biography of Jimmy Carter, His Very Best, by Jonathan Alter:

Gary Sick, Carter’s well-regarded NSC expert on Iran, came closest to cracking the case. In 1991 Sick, by then a professor at Columbia University, made a circumstantial argument: in July 1980 William Casey, while serving as Reagan’s campaign manager, slipped out of a World War II history conference in London, flew to Madrid, and met in a hotel with intelligence operatives and one of Khomeini’s closest associates. According to Sick and sources interviewed by PBS’s investigative news program Frontline and other news outlets, a follow-up meeting several weeks later finalized a deal whereby the Iranians would coordinate with the Reagan campaign on the timing of the release of the hostages in exchange for a promise that, after he was elected, the new president would unfreeze their assets and — through the Israelis — provide spare parts for Iranian weapons.

This was a rumor that haunted Reagan for years, made worse by the Iran-Contra scandal being seen as the quo part of the quid pro quo that began with the Iran hostage release.

But the rumor was all but confirmed this year when the New York Times reported a firsthand account from a veteran Texas politician named Ben Barnes. He said he had accompanied the late John Connally, the former Democratic Texas governor who was operating then as the Republican he’d become, to the Middle East for the purposes of striking a deal with Iran to hold the hostages until after the election. This was widely reported by many outlets, yet Cotton still tried to pass on this myth of Reagan’s “toughness” because he disdainfully counts on the Fox News audience being neither bright nor discerning — that or perhaps Tom Cotton’s own history in trying to pull a similar stunt during the Obama Administration but being called out and shamed in real time.

Either way, these moments are illustrative of who Republicans are: Willing to let innocent Americans suffer for their own selfish advantage.

Ken Buck’s Retirement Clarity

Republican House Rep. Ken Buck of Colorado announced his retirement earlier this month and with it comes that brief moment of honesty as he departs.

When asked by host Margaret Brennan on CBS’ “Face The Nation” about January 6, Buck is honest as fuck.

BUCK: […] everybody who thinks that the election was stolen or talks about the election being stolen is lying to America. That’s everyone that — that is — that is making that argument. Everyone who makes the argument that January 6th was, you know, an unguided tour of the Capitol is lying to America. Everyone who says that the prisoners who are being prosecuted right now for their involvement in January 6th, that — that they are somehow political prisoners or that they didn't commit crimes, those folks are lying to America.

No lies detected here, Buckaroo. But speaking of January 6 liars…

Mike Turner Is Not A Serious Person

The Republican Chair of the House Intelligence Committee, Mike Turner of Ohio, was on NBC’s “Meet The Press” to talk foreign policy.

But when host Kristen Welker asked him about Speaker Mike Johnson releasing all of the January 6 Capitol footage, putting the security of the Capitol at risk and giving liars things to cherry pick to minimize an insurrection, Turner made sure to show how much of a clown he is.

WELKER: Well, and speaking of which, some of your Republican colleagues have cherry-picked some of the images to frankly further some conspiracy theories. Do you — are you comfortable with that?

TURNER: I think it’s been cherry-picked by both sides. I mean, certainly the January 6 Commission itself —

Chuck Todd may be gone, but his legacy of “both sides” bullshit lives on.

Welker then asked about Marjorie Taylor Greene tweeting and removing a suggestion that January 6 was an inside job by the Capitol Police. Turner, showing that trademark Republican “toughness” from earlier, sidestepped the question.

TURNER: You’ll have to talk to Marjorie Taylor Greene about that. […]

Logan Roy best described the GOP:

Have a week.

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