NATIONAL BAGEL AND LOX DAY UPDATES
Donald Trump Is A WHAT?!
-President Biden kept the pressure on Republicans in a speech in WI yesterday, happily pointing out that House MAGAts who bellowed that Biden was lying about the GOP wanting to end Social Security and Medicare was bunk. Biden bought receipts in the forms of 2022 GOP Senate Campaign chair Sen. Rick Scott (SkeletoR, FL) and his brochure outlining a plan that would force a five-year reaffirmation of the plans (knowing a full GOP majority would vote to end the plans), of Sen. Ron Johnson (R-ussia, WI) demanding such reviews be yearly, and Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) – who openly pshawed at the comment during the State of the Union address – telling voters “what they don’t want to hear” and putting the two wildly popular and needed plans on the block. Of course, Biden got Republicans to prove on video to NOT put those plans in danger, so as Biden said, “We shall see …”
-Fresh off being owned by President Biden’s ability to negotiate keeping Social Security and Medicare off the table of budget cuts in public, the GOP-led House went right to work on their number one priority in the 118th Congress: attacking Hunter Biden and his “laptop” (show me the actual laptop and we can begin discussing what might be on it). The so-called House Oversight and Accountability Committee began by calling in four former employees of Twitter, attempting to “prove” that the company was cowed by the Biden campaign to not promote stories about his son’s “laptop” as well as a photo that allegedly was Hunter’s private part.
-On the UltraMAGA side, Rep. Clay Higgins (GRRRR, LA) intoned that yesterday’s hearing was merely the “evidence-gathering” and that Higgins looked forward to deposing and “arresting” the four employees (apparently for not allowing the Hunter dick pic to be posted). Not to be outdone, GOP Leader Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (Z-Q-R, GA) gleefully smeared one of the witnesses by implying the witness was a pedophile with child pornography on his laptop (a charge she made later that night on Fox, which for the UltraMAGAts is the reason why they are Congresspeople).
-Unfortunately for the majority, those were not the takeaways of the hearing in the non-Fox (read: real and majority of the) world, as the Democrats on the Committee frequently dunked on the non-claims while taking the GOP argument of GOP suppression of free speech. As Ranking Member Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) pointed out, Twitter continues to be “a private media entity” that is thus not bound by the First Amendment, even with billionaire weirdo Elon Musk now owning the joint), so even if there were rulings that dick pics were free speech, Twitter can (and did) ban whateer the Hell they want.
-Besides which, the major takeaway from the hearing came thanks to questioning by Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-KY), who pointed to a 2019 Tweet by Chrissy Teigen that Ex-President Trump demanded be removed from Twitter because … and I want to get this exactly right as it was read into the Congressional record for all of history … Trump was angry that Teigen Tweeted “lol what a p*ssy ass bitch. Tagged everyone but me. An honor mister president.”
-In other words, the first Hunter Biden hearing showed that Ex-President Trump attempted (and succeeded at times) into forcing Twitter to change its rules to Trump’s demands, and that Twitter officials bent over backwards to appease Trump. Not Hunter Biden, and not the Biden campaign (which, let us remind everyone in class, was a campaign in 2020 and NOT yet President. That happened after Biden defeated Trump in November 2020.)
-Oh, and the hearing showed that Trump is “a PSB” according to the Congressional record.
-My work here is done for today, except for …
-On this date in 1825, the so-called “corrupt bargain” in the U.S. House resulted in the Electoral College making John Quincy Adams the winner of the 1824 election despite not winning the majority of votes (Andrew Jackson did that – and would do so again in 1828 and 1832). On this date in 1950, Rep. Joseph McCarthy claimed the State Department had over 200 “known Communists” in a speech in WV, starting the Red Scare in the U.S. On this date in 1960, the first star in the Hollywood Walk of Fame was dedicated (the first honoree: Joanne Woodward). On this date in 1992, Magic Johnson came out of retirement to play in – and become the Most Valuable Player in – that year’s NBA All-Star Game.
-Happy Birthday to William Henry Harrison, Bill Veeck, Ernest Tubb, Brendan Behan, Roger Mudd, J.M. Coetzee, Carole King, Joe Pesci, Joseph Stiglitz, Alice Walker, Mia Farrow, Joe Ely, Judith Light, Jim J. Bullock, John Kruk, Travis Tritt, Charlie Day, Vladimir Guerrero, Tom Hiddleston, Michael B. Jordan, and Rose Leslie.
-Rest in Peace/Rest in Power to Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Sophie Tucker, Gabby Hayes, Max Yasgur, Percy Faith, Bill Haley, Yuri Andropov, Bud Wilkinson, J. William Fulbright, Hank Bauer, Ed Sabol, Chick Corea, and Jeremy Giambi.