The House GOP is in reality-TV-cast-reunion-level chaos.

Wednesday, Sept 20, 2023
BY JULIA CLAIRE & CROOKED MEDIA

- Sen. John Fetterman ([link removed]) (D-PA), casual dress hero.

A government shutdown is looming because of Republican nihilism and incompetence…again.

* Republicans on the House Judiciary Committee brought Attorney General Merrick Garland in to testify on Wednesday ([link removed]) and did their best to spin a tale of corruption around him over the DOJ’s handling of the federal cases against President Biden’s son Hunter and disgraced former president Donald Trump. The usually mild-mannered Garland forcefully pushed back against House Republicans’ accusations that he exercised political bias, saying he is “not the president’s lawyer,” nor is he “Congress’s prosecutor.” Go off, Merrick.

* Garland repeatedly defended the Justice Department’s political independence, and asserted that he has not interfered in the probe of Hunter Biden. “No one,” he said, directed him to indict Trump ([link removed]) . Several members of the GOP congressional delegation have floated the idea of impeaching Garland as a retaliatory measure for the department’s indictment of Trump coupled with the fact that Republicans cannot govern to save their lives. Attorneys General Jeff Sessions and Bill Barr were, of course, models of political impartiality under Donald Trump. (Lol, can you imagine?)

* Over and over again congressional Republicans tried to nail Garland over his handling of the Hunter Biden case, accusing him of obstructing U.S. attorney-turned-special counsel David Weiss (an allegation Weiss himself has denied), preventing him from charging Hunter in a state outside of Delaware. Garland, who rightfully developed a tone of “Are you guys fucking serious?” as the deposition went on, continued to point out that Weiss is Trump-appointed, and could have brought the case in any jurisdiction he wanted. This congressional hearing was not meant to find facts or clarify any lingering questions. It was a show trial for Republican members of the Judiciary to grandstand ([link removed]) in the hopes of getting a clip on Fox News.

Moving on to different House GOP lunacy.

* The civil war in the House GOP (the one between the crazies and the mega-crazies) continued on Wednesday with Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) calling House Speaker Kevin McCarthy “unhinged” ([link removed]) and—get ready for this—accused him of being a misogynist for the Speaker’s verbal sparring with far-right freshmen Rep. Victoria Spartz ([link removed]) (R-IN). These two have a long history of feuding, but Gaetz has taken the impending shutdown as an opportunity to launch a mutiny to remove the Speaker’s gavel from McCarthy’s hand. That was particularly apparent on Tuesday when Gaetz apparently left a motion to remove McCarthy as Speaker in a Capitol bathroom ([link removed]) .

* President Biden has steered clear of the chaos in the lower chamber, but his aides have instead urged McCarthy to stick to the spending deal he struck with Biden back in May. One such aide said, “We agreed to the budget deal…House GOP should abide by it,” and added that their “chaos is making the case that they are responsible if there is a shutdown.” Gaetz was all too ready to lay the blame at McCarthy’s feet should a shutdown occur. On Wednesday afternoon, he said ([link removed]) , “We will have a government shutdown and it is absolutely Speaker McCarthy's fault. We cannot blame Joe Biden for not having moved our individual spending bills. We cannot blame House Democrats. We can't even blame Chuck Schumer in the Senate.”

If Congressional Republicans weren’t, you know, holding the government hostage and leading us to a shutdown, this internal fighting would be pretty fun to watch.

Got a burning question for Tommy Vietor? You’re in luck: Tomorrow, Tommy will be joining the Friends of the Pod Group Thread on Discord at 3pm PT for a community AMA. if you're around, come on by and get some answers. If not, we’ll see you again on September 27 for our second Republican Debate GroupThread. Join your favorite Crooked hosts and staff including Jon Favreau, Jon Lovett, Tommy Vietor, and Dan Pfeiffer to get our live reactions to Nikki Haley’s best Reasonable Person impression. Let’s experience the chaos together. Not a member? Head to crooked.com/friends ([link removed]) to sign up.
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Last month, a retired police chief in Nevada named Andreas Probst was killed in a hit-and-run incident. A crime reporter for the Las Vegas Review-Journal named Sabrina Schnur was the first journalist to arrive at the scene. She was also the first local reporter to talk to the man’s family, and instructed a source with video footage of the killing to take it to the police just hours before police announced a murder charge. Despite all of her work documenting the crash and her deference to the Probst family’s wishes, Schnur quickly became the target of anti-Semitic attacks and death threats over the weekend ([link removed]) as social-media users began posting “questions” about why the “media” was not properly covering the attack. Schnur had written Probst’s obituary for the paper based on statements from his widow and daughter, which ran on August 18—before the
police knew that the attack was intentional—under the headline “Retired police chief killed in bike crash remembered for laugh, love of coffee.”


On August 31, a source approached Schnur with video evidence showing the driver intentionally hitting Probst and laughing about it with his passenger. Schnur connected the source with authorities, and the paper covered the resulting murder charge. But a bunch of psychos circulated screen-shots of the August 18 obituary headline and scorned her use of the phrase “bike crash.” They doxxed her, flooded her inbox and social media mentions, and shared photos of her with anti-semitic comments, accusing her of being “anti-white.” On Sunday morning, right-wing billionaire pest and CEO of X (Twitter) shared one of the obituary screenshots with the message: “An innocent man was murdered in cold blood while riding his bicycle. The killers joked about it on social media Yet, where is the media outrage? Now you begin to understand the lie.” As of Wednesday, the post has 72 million views, and clearly is meant to suggest that murders of White people, particularly White men, are under-reported in the
media. Love that this guy is one of the most powerful people on earth!

The Senate finally confirmed the next chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff after Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer used parliamentary procedure ([link removed]) to isolate Air Force General Charles Brown Jr.'s nomination from the more than 300 others Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-AL) has obstructed. No overstating how much that guy sucks.


White House aides have asked U.S. Ambassador to Japan Rahm Emanuel to stop taunting Chinese President Xi Jinping on social media ([link removed]) . Who could have possibly foreseen that making Rahm an ambassador would cause some problems!


Former Trump White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson claims in a new book that Rudy Giuliani groped her on January 6 ([link removed]) .


MAGA nightmare Kari Lake will launch a bid for Senate early next month ([link removed]) .


Los Angeles City Council Member Kevin de León, who got caught last year speaking disparagingly about a colleague’s adopted Black son, announced that he will seek reelection ([link removed]) .

The Federal Reserve decided to not increase interest rates this month ([link removed]) , but left the door open for future increases.

One of the nation’s largest abortion rights advocacy groups, NARAL Pro-Choice America, has changed its name—a response, the group says,to the shifting political landscape around reproductive-rights issues in post-Dobbs America. The group’s new name—Reproductive Freedom for All ([link removed]) —is intended to signal that the struggle for abortion access is a fight for fundamental freedom. The term “pro-choice” has become viewed as dated in the past year, especially now that abortion laws are determined by individual states. Accompanying the new name is a new strategy to increase focus on state organizing and joining the campaign to eliminate the Senate filibuster, protect voting rights, and expand the Supreme Court.
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The White House has announced plans to reup the program to mail free rapid coronavirus tests to all Americans ([link removed]) . You can request four free tests per household beginning on September 25 at covidtests.gov


Democrats flipped a New Hampshire State House seat in a special election ([link removed]) and held on to a seat in the Pennsylvania House ([link removed]) of Representatives, retaining narrow control of that chamber.


President Biden and Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva launched an initiative on Wednesday to advance workers’ rights in both countries ([link removed]) .

On something of a roll, President Biden launched the American Climate Corps, a New Deal-style clean jobs training program, today via executive order. ([link removed])
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