Your Pre-America's Birthday Sunday Show Rundown!
We watch so you never have to.
When you get older, birthdays become more reflective as you face thoughts about your own mortality.
But when you turn 250 years old?
Let’s dive in and see how those we’ve elected represent this country’s true values on the Sunday shows, while trying to get past the nagging fear that no one will want to attend their party because they made things weird.
Send Away Your Hungry and Tired. We DGAF If They Yearn To Breathe Free!
We begin with Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin on CNN’s State Of The Union.
Coming fresh from a vile Supreme Court decision to remove temporary protection status for Haitian and Syrian refugees (and right-wingers openly racist gloating), the secretary with two first names but one working brain cell tried to explain how this somehow is a good thing.
Jake Tapper, in increasingly rare pushback that might upset his future employers, asked a valid question about deporting people to unsafe conditions. Mullin’s answer was revealing in its racist dog whistles and lack of basic humanity.
TAPPER: Is it the position of the Trump administration that Haiti is a safe country to send these people to?
MULLIN: […] Those that are coming to this country legally, they need to be able to contribute to the US, not be a burden on the taxpayers. […]
TAPPER: The reason I ask is because I heard Stephen Miller, who is driving a lot of this, say that Haiti is safe for Haitians. […] But do you maintain that it's safe in Haiti to send these people back? […] The State Dept has a level 4 do not travel advisory.
MULLIN: Well, the do not travel is not for Haitians. That's do not travel for the United States. […]TAPPER: I understand that, but, based on everything I have read, including the U.N. and Human Rights Watch, it doesn't sound safe for Haitians. More than 8,100 killings documented last year, those weren't Americans. Haiti is among the top five countries with the highest rates of rape and sexual abuse, with more than 1,200 cases of sexual violence last year. That's not Americans; 1.4 million people have been displaced. Those aren't Americans.
MULLIN: Is there a question in that? Jake, I'm sorry.
A few things:
Trusting Stephen Miller’s assessment that Haiti is safe for Haitians is like trusting the Grim Reaper at a game of chess for your soul. (Your better chance is with Battleship or Twister!)
Pretty telling Mullin is apparently OK with robbery, carjacking, sexual assault, and kidnappings, so long as it’s not done to those he and Miller deem “American.” Really strips away the veneer of “Christian values” the GOP swears it has and shows the true meaning of their “American exceptionalism.”
Markwayne Mullin is a grade-A asshole. His condescending “Is there a question?” retort reeks of every abusive prick you’ve ever known. Mullin is just relishing being villainous as he abuses his power.
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Fool Me 250 Times, Fool Me Again.
Staying on CNN, Tapper also talked to North Carolina Republican Senator Thom Tillis.
While he’s been a more vocal critic of Trump since his days in the Senate have been numbered, particularly about the Iran war/conflict/kerfuffle …
TILLIS: My goodness, how many ceasefires have we had over the past several months?
There is still a sign that true self-awareness and enlightenment elude him when he is asked about his likely vote to confirm Todd Blanche as attorney general.
TILLIS: I -- at this point, there -- I mean, I'm going to go through the nomination process. I have got a positive predisposition towards Blanche. […] But there's -- if there's even a whiff of a lack of independence, then that could influence my vote.
“A whiff of a lack of independence”? From Trump’s former personal attorney and Ghislaine Maxwell’s accommodations concierge? You don’t need to be Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson to smell this stench, Thom!
Over on CBS’s Face The Nation, Bill Cassidy seemed to show precisely the same amount of brief clarity regarding Trump’s view of power.
…. Only to immediately display astonishing levels of stupidity masquerading as naiveté to Margaret Brennan regarding his vote to confirm HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
BRENNAN: You’ve said that Secretary Kennedy broke promises to you.
CASSIDY: It’s pretty clear.
BRENNAN: Do you think he just made those promises to win your vote? That was it just political expediency?
CASSIDY: Easy to surmise.
Oh, you poor [checks notes] 68-year-old young man! Who could have foreseen a lying, disgraceful, charlatan like RFK Jr. would have been dishonest to you for political expediency?
Truly, Bill Cassidy is the most gullible of fools.
We’re Gonna Have To Agree To Disagree On Facts!
On NBC’s Meet the Press, Ryan Nobles was filling in for the normal host, Kristen Welker, and seemingly for journalism itself. While interviewing Kansas Republican Senator Roger Marshall, Nobles pushed him to name evidence of the supposed “election fraud” that the SAVE America Act is trying to prevent.
Marshall was left stammering when Nobles asked, "Are you trying to solve a problem that doesn't exist?"
After Nobles stomped Marshall with citations from Heritage Foundation going back all the way to the 1980s, Nobles asked a simple question that should be a slam dunk if this “fraud’ was real.
NOBLES: Just give me one example of where there was some level of fraud that the SAVE America Act would have prevented that would have altered an election.
Marshall’s answer was, shall we say, lacking.
MARSHALL: Yeah, Ryan, I guess we just look at this differently.
Beauty and art are subjective, but facts aren’t. Whether there is “election fraud” is not something “in the eye of the beholder.”
Have a week and a Happy Fourth of July.
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>>MULLIN: […] Those that are coming to this country legally, they need to be able to contribute to the US, not be a burden on the taxpayers. […]<<
The Haitians in Ohio have jobs. They aren't burdens. They contribute. It's just lies all the way down.
Imagine if Tapper had just confronted Mullin with the obvious fact that his guest believes Black people long to murder white people.