The House Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government held its latest hearing Wednesday morning and the ranking Democrat once again set the proper tone of ridicule for this installment of the embarrassing farce led by House Judiciary Committee Chair Jim Jordan and his Republican lackeys.
Rep. Stacey Plaskett, a Democratic delegate representing the Virgin Islands, informed viewers that this is the ninth hearing held by this specific committee, six of which have been on the exact same subject supposedly being examined on Wednesday: “the Biden White House’s censorship regime.” The hearings have focused on social media companies’ conversations with White House officials regarding COVID misinformation and disinformation promoted on their sites.
She then refreshed everyone’s memory about how much money has been wasted by the “fiscally conservative” GOP on these baseless investigations.
“I'm going to give you a preview of what's going to happen in this hearing, because I've been sitting in this chair for a while, and I think I kind of know the ‘Groundhog Day,’ and how it goes.” Plaskett said before launching into a step-by-step breakdown of the Republican political theater about to unfold, complete with placards showing whiny Republican tweets about censorship, and even Hunter BIden’s laptop.
“You don't have a hearing unless you hear about Hunter's laptop,” Plaskett joked.
She finished by pointing out that Jordan timed this hearing, ahead of the Supreme Court’s decision on whether or not Donald Trump can claim immunity from prosecution, in a last-ditch attempt to influence the high court’s decision. Jordan has taken a well-deserved drubbing throughout these circus hearings, and Plaskett isn’t one to let him off the hook.
Up at the top row, we're going to get a poster with a tweet supposedly demonstrating how a member got labeled by a social media company as sharing potentially misinformation on COVID. That's going to happen. Then somewhere else down the line, we're going to hear about censorship in another country like Canada and how we as Americans need to be afraid of that happening here and how we need to make sure that that doesn't happen, and that's why we're having this hearing.
Then wait for it. Wait for it, because you know it's coming: We're going to hear about Hunter's laptop. Because you got to hear about the laptop. You don't have a hearing unless you hear about Hunter's laptop. And you're going to hear the story about how it was squashed by the FBI, and Trump would have won if that had been able to get out in more social media outlets. You're going to hear that one.
And then finally, the final campfire story that you're going to hear lower down there is about how scary the FBI is, because now they're going after people that look like them. You're going to hear that. That's going to be part of this hearing.
So everybody can go, because I've just outlined for you what we're going to do. Or you can watch the tapes of the six other hearings we've done, sometimes with the same witnesses. Thankfully we at least we've got some new witnesses here. We did bring back one, because it's the same subject. But I do want to thank the witnesses today, all of whom are appearing in front of this select committee voluntarily.
Then I'd also like to share with you all why we're hearing these witnesses, this twist on the social media spin that's important right now. Why this is so prescient—having this hearing with these witnesses.
Republicans are holding this hearing today in a last-ditch effort to influence the Supreme Court opinion in the case of Murphy v. Missouri. That's what's going on right now. During oral arguments in March, six justices questioned Republicans’ claim that the federal government interactions with social media companies are tantamount to censorship. The Supreme Court is presently working in their chambers, preparing and thinking and contemplating what that decision is going to be.
So when the chairman sent a letter to several of the witnesses asking that they testify today, the initial response was, shouldn't we wait until this court's decision? Wouldn’t it be bad form to hold this hearing now and use the U.S. Congress to unduly influence the decision? That's exactly what we want to do, is the answer! That's exactly why we're holding this hearing now, because we do want to influence the decision. We do want to use Congress for that.
There's no doubt that this is completely inappropriate use of congressional oversight powers, that my colleagues are the biggest projectors ever.
When Robert F. Kennedy Jr. entered the 2024 presidential race as an independent, many feared (and the MAGA faithful cheered) that he would siphon off important swing-state Democrats and independents from President Biden. That doesn’t seem to be so true anymore. In fact, the opposite may be true—and Donald Trump is hopping mad about it.
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