Brief summary:
.@ericswalwell describes GOP at Chris Wray hearing as "bananas" and "absolute chaos." Rep. Swalwell said, "The FBI director who oversees 38,000 employees, investigating terrorism, child exploitation, national security, walks right into the partners meeting of Insurrection LLC." pic.twitter.com/ZkFVm3QCqa
— Sarah Reese Jones (@PoliticusSarah) July 12, 2023
"It is not the fault of the FBI that Donald Trump surrounded himself with criminals" — brilliant line of questioning here from Ted Lieu highlighting how a range of Trump staffers were convicted by a DOJ overseen *by Trump staffers* pic.twitter.com/Y2hP4hoGzH
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) July 12, 2023
if Joe Biden did this during a live interview Fox would spent nights yelling about how he's in cognitive decline pic.twitter.com/BVfYxgCpoP
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) July 13, 2023
Per the Washington Post, “‘Insane,’ ‘ludicrous,’ ‘absurd’: FBI’s Wray shows teeth to GOP critics”:
… [W]hile the Trump-nominated FBI director was characteristically even-tempered in his testimony, there were times in which his exasperation at his predicament came to the surface — and in which he showed his critics some teeth.
Multiple Republicans peppered Wray with questions about whether FBI agents or sources were present on Jan. 6 during the attack on the Capitol — feeding a still baseless Tucker Carlson-fueled conspiracy theory that the FBI might have played a role in the insurrection.
Wray at one point remarked: “I will say this notion that somehow the violence at the Capitol on Jan. 6 was part of some operation by FBI sources and agents is ludicrous and is a disservice to our brave, hard-working, dedicated men and women.”
When Rep. Mike Johnson (R-La.) pressed Wray on the government’s efforts to crack down on misinformation and mentioned the covid lab-leak theory, Wray took exception.
He called it “ironic” and “somewhat absurd” to suggest the FBI was suppressing the lab-leak theory, because the FBI was once “the only agency in the entire intelligence community” to assess that as being the most likely origin for the virus, back in 2021…
None of it was terribly heated, and Wray clearly didn’t want to give the likes of Gaetz the angry Fox News-friendly exchange that Gaetz sought. But it was also clear that Wray increasingly recognizes that the reason many Americans — mostly his fellow Republicans — have soured on the FBI is the often-flimsy theories he was confronted with, also by his fellow Republicans…
‘Don’t make me angry. You won’t like it when I’m angry.’
Among the usual suspects, cosplaying for their reelection ads:
Rep. Thomas Massie just told FBI director Wray that something was "legal, but not constitutional." I believe the cement above his neck is hardening splendidly.
— Charles P. Pierce (@CharlesPPierce) July 12, 2023
Wray to Harriet Hageman after she accuses him of discriminating against conservatives *when he's a registered Republican*: "The idea that I'm biased against conservatives seems somewhat insane to me given my own personal background." pic.twitter.com/IhHRABNvSu
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) July 12, 2023
"FBI shouldn't get another dime for this witch hunt against the greatest president of my lifetime, Donald J. Trump," Troy Nehls. And now he's yelling about Ray Epps. This is the weirdest committee hearing in the history of the House. I keep waiting for the Soy Bomb dude.
— Charles P. Pierce (@CharlesPPierce) July 12, 2023
Swalwell: I think it's quite rich the guy that accused you of lawlessness is 400 days in violation of his own congressional subpoena over January 6th. pic.twitter.com/VK6rvYPGUP
— Acyn (@Acyn) July 12, 2023
Rep. Chip Roy (R-TX): “You don’t believe it’s tyrannical that FBI agents were a part of storming a father’s home in suburban Philadelphia?”
FBI Director Wray: “They did not storm his house … They knocked on his door and identified themselves. They asked him to exit — he did.” pic.twitter.com/BHyZJQGJeT
— The Recount (@therecount) July 12, 2023
A regular reminder that Chip Roy is not the Texas cowboy he pretends to be, but rather a milquetoast wonk from Maryland who was big-brothered into Congress by Rafael Theodore Edward "Ted" Cruz.
— The Notorious ROY G BIV (@robwoodyard1) July 12, 2023
But Hunter Biden’s laptop!…
Swalwell to Republicans: "The 2020 election was determined because the FBI didn't let more Americans see a private citizen's nonconsensual nudes? Is that what we're saying here? … that's bananas." pic.twitter.com/jJpZ3jMN0h
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) July 12, 2023
NotMax
Coo-coo for loco chuffs.
JWR
Maybe already mentioned today, but creepy IA rep Brad Sherman said this about Iowa’s 6 week abortion ban: “If they’re not prepared to have a baby they shouldn’t have sex.” Pure genius! Why hasn’t anyone else thought of this before? Also, the guy’s a pastor at one of those hinky mini mega-churches, and dollars to doughnuts he’s got some weird ass shit going on in there. (From Iowa Starting Line)
Note that this is IA’s evil rep Brad Sherman, not CA’s good rep Brad Sherman.
dmsilev
This is what happens when your primary elections select for true believers in every lunatic fringe theory that bubbles up from the fever swamp.
dmsilev
@JWR: Maybe we should start by castrating him.
BruceFromOhio
Anthrax and tire rims.
Chetan Murthy
@dmsilev: Surely he can bank some sperm for future procreation needs. That way, there’s no need for the “cod dangle” [h/t Upstart Crow] — just remove it.
patrick II
@JWR:
No doubt both he and his wife were virgins on their wedding night.
Danielx
@JWR:
Yes, let’s have that posted outside every high school in Iowa. I’m sure it will go over a treat.
JWR
@patrick II:
No doubt they were both pure as the driven snow. I wonder how many children he has. If more than the number of times he’s had sex, then I call hypocrite!
Leto
(YouTube) Rep Abigail Spanberger D-VA on Morning Blow, this morning, speaking about Sen Tommy Tuberville’s (R-Dumbfuckistan) continual block on military promotions, and what that’s costing us.
TriassicSands
What can I say, it’s obvious that Ted Lieu is a communist who hates America. How dare he use actual facts in a hearing chaired by a Republican. That is so low, so dirty, so despicable. The mind reels.
And Jim Jordan. I feel so sorry for him stumbling over words. How can anyone expect Jordan to construct coherent sentences when he isn’t shouting at the top of his lungs. Jordan’s brain doesn’t even kick in until he’s shattering glass and topping 200 dB. He was set up. And being the nice guy he is, he apologized for looking and sounding like Ronald Reagan in the last days of his presidency. I suspect Ted Lieu, communist, was responsible for Jordan’s difficulties.
Mallard Filmore
Might as well demand that they stop being humans.
Eolirin
@JWR: This is extra fucking stupid when you remember that most later term abortions are for issues with wanted pregnancies that make carrying those pregnancies to term either dangerous or cruel.
different-church-lady
All of these creeps are gonna have Alzheimer’s.
JWR
From ABC7, a newly released, as in just hours ago, year old video of L.A. County Sheriff’s Deputies beating up another Black woman, (who was just asking for it, I bet!)
It’s still early, but so far, Robert Luna seems a lot better at doing his job than the last Sheriff. Oh, and the punches are partially obscured, but once you know where to look, in the upper left, there’s no doubt that it’s bad.
David 🌈 ☘The Establishment☘🌈 Koch
Liberal F.B.I. is out of control
Captain C
@JWR:
To be fair, this does leave a lot of room for various forms of oral pleasure and sodomy, among other things. Though it takes a twisted mind to think that all [ETA: PIV] sex should be punished by pregnancy.
Depending on which word you emphasize can alter the connotations of that part of the phrase. And you’re likely correct.
Amir Khalid
When exactly did the Trumpista Party develop its grudge against the FBI, and over what? I do remember a scene from a 2018 episode of The X-Files where Mulder mentions it to Scully while they are engaged in pillow talk.
Martin
@Amir Khalid: It grew throughout Trumps tenure from the FBIs role in the Russia investigation, Comey’s firing, the FBIs role in the Muller report, the FBI refusing to pursue Clinton over the emails, the FBI then hovering up Jan 6 criminals, but it really peaked with the search warrant at Mar A Lago and the documents case.
Hkedi [Kang T.Q.]
@BruceFromOhio: Anthrax and tire rims + No true Scotsman = Algerian chicken farmer. A lesson for the ages if there was one……
trnc
“Now excuse me, I have to go vote against some birth control funding and education.”
Baud
@JWR:
I have a simpler solution: Elect Democrats and have all the sex you want.
Baud
@different-church-lady:
Wouldn’t that be an improvement?
satby
@trnc: IIRC, some of this discussion grew out of the heated debate about whether 10-12 year old girls should be forced to carry to term the results of their rapes.
Patricia Kayden
@NotMax: The Americans who put them in charge of the House are the idiots. How do you vote for the party which led a violent insurrection to overthrow our democracy? What do you think they’ll do when they control the House? Smh
Patricia Kayden
@JWR: He’s a pastor? Wth? I don’t know why I find that so shocking. Maybe it’s the callousness and complete lack of compassion for women (and girls) going through unwanted pregnancies.
Michael Bersin
Yesterday the atmosphere was quite soupy in west central Missouri. Sure enough, the storms brewed up late. Earlier in the evening I had set up the camera with a manual remote on a tripod, pointed it to the southwest and went back to doing something else (searching for lightning triggers on the internets – go figure). When I started hearing the thunder I came back to the camera. I had a clear view of a towering storm in the county to the south of us. The lightning was frenetic. I captured a few, but there were some spectacular ones that got away.
July thunderstorm
Click the images to enlarge.
bookworm1398
@12. Not exactly. Young people are having less sex.
Conservatives who make statements like this pastor assume that people will decide to have kids rather than give up sex. But real world statistics show the opposite. If no sex is what it takes to avoid kids, then no sex it’ll be.
Shalimar
Elon Musk’s new company
The guy who fires all his employees and doesn’t pay his bills thinks he is the genius who will figure out the universe.
Michael Bersin
@Shalimar:
Already been done. 42.
lowtechcyclist
@Baud:
Are we sure we’d be able to tell the difference?
satby
@Michael Bersin: Whoa, good ones!
LiminalOwl
Serious question: is Brad Sherman implying, a la Todd Akin (and many others—Google shows that this deficiency in sex education isn’t confined to Republican pols) that pregnancy cannot result from rape? Or is he just that callous? Both, probably.
🐾BillinGlendaleCA
@Michael Bersin: I have one of these pricey but quite good.
JWR
@LiminalOwl: Haven’t read your link yet, but was Akin the one who said something like “women have a way of activating their Pregnancy Shields” while being accosted?
Baud
I do support the idea of women abstaining from sex with Republican voters. Call it the Incelization of Fascists project.
Mai Naem mobileI
@Shalimar: apparently according to Elmo you don’t need any women, black, indigenous, south asian or hispanic people to figure out where the universe is going.
Ocotillo
Sadly, you have to be paying attention to see this insanity. Last night’s evening news barely touched on the clown show while NPR managed to both sides it saying some Democrats were critical of Wray.
Maybe a PAC needs to use highlights (lowlights) from the hearings to expose this lunacy to “low information voters” in commercials peppered in places they would be exposed to it.
Matt McIrvin
So, even Wray here is more or less speaking as if this is now universally agreed to be the truth. The huge gap between law-enforcement/intelligence assessments and scientific assessments on this subject continues to worry me–somebody is spinning into fantasyland. It kind of reminds me of the way that everyone in the defense establishment has seemingly decided flying saucers are real.
narya
@BruceFromOhio: One of the best things about this-here location on the intertubes is that . . . I know what that means. But if I said it to someone who isn’t a member of Jackalstan, I’d have some explaining to do.
Kay
@Matt McIrvin:
I think Covid really rattled more rigid and (perhaps) authoritarian people because it seems so random and out of control to have it arise organically. They really, really wanted it to be a lab leak, an identifiable human error that was then covered up – wholly in the control of people so therefore not so scary.
One of the amusing things about watching the Right respond to Covid – and law enforcement and intelligence are Right leaning – is how they accused others of freaking out and over reacting when really their response was MUCH more fear-based – the denials followed by a really nutty determination to blame it on government officials (lab leak) followed by conspiracy theories. A large group of people on the Right now believe the vaccines caused covid related deaths. That is much more a fear-based, irrational response than anything the center or Left did. One of the far Right SCOTUS justices apparently believes covid mitigations were the worst civil rights/liberties abuse in the history of the US. Now that’s nuts.
BellyCat
@Patricia Kayden:
You and I apparently have inverse biases about the motives of people who wish to lead unquestioning flocks.
Michael Bersin
@🐾BillinGlendaleCA:
Been looking at that one, too.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
The subtext to this is Evangelicals maintain that getting a blow job isn’t sex.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Kay:
The insane thing is it’s quite possible the CCP itself is the one pushing the lab leak theory under the table because the scientific consensus is basically “The pandemic started when the virus skipped species to humans in wet market, like SARS, because the CCP didn’t give a shit and then the CCP utterly blew any attempt to contain the outbreak in a mass frenzy of ass covering”
piratedan
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: unless you’re a sitting President who’s a Democrat, then its the absolute worstest thing evah…..
VOR
@Martin: Yep, the antipathy against the FBI is all because of Trump investigations. As someone put it, in 2016 Trump was saying “the FBI is investigating Hillary, that means she is corrupt”. But in 2020-23, Trump says “the FBI is investigating Trump, that means the FBI is corrupt”.
Shana
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: Tell that to Bill Clinton.
Shana
Who is the father that Chip Roy is ranting about?
Yutsano
@Michael Bersin: Just a suggestion: those would make a great On The Road post.
LiminalOwl
@JWR: Something like that. “If it’s a legitimate rape, the female body has ways of shutting that whole thing down” was the quote, I think. Too tired to look it up again.