Isolating during the pandemic, especially earlier on when we knew so little, led many of us to share vulnerable, open conversations with others. Looking for comfort and inspiration, text messages became a haven for some. Such is the case for a pair of the most influential far-right conspiracy theorists: Infowars’ Alex Jones and Fox News’s Tucker Carlson.
Text messages between the pair, reported by HuffPost, show the duo swapping Covid-19 conspiracy theories, at least one of which later showed up on Carlson’s show. It also reveals that the most watched cable news network in America is taking at least some editorial direction from Jones.
On March 16, 2020, Jones texted Carlson a link to a now-deleted Infowars article. It detailed how Carlson drove to Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort to urge the then president to take Covid seriously. “Fox News Host saves America,” the article’s subhead proclaimed.
“I tried man,” Carlson humbly responded.
After the victory lap, the demonic duo quickly shifted gears by the following month. As their beloved leader chose not to take the pandemic seriously, Jones and Carlson began an ongoing exchange of Covid conspiracy theories.
On April 27, as Trump was lauding the debunked idea of killing Covid by shining a “very powerful light” inside people’s bodies, Jones and Carlson were discussing YouTube removing a viral video promoting the same weird claim.
“They’re clamping down. We’ll be China soon,” Carlson said.
On April 28, Jones sent Carlson a link to a viral video of two California doctors downplaying the virus, falsely claiming it was no worse than influenza and that death rates were low enough to reopen businesses. About 2,000 people in America were dying daily at that point.
The video had been taken down for being what the American Academy of Emergency Medicine and the American College of Emergency Physicians called “reckless and untested musings.”
“This is our lede tonight,” Carlson texted Jones after receiving the video. That evening, the host told his massive audience that the video’s removal was just another example of “Big Tech” censorship.
The pattern would continue, though with Jones appearing to text Carlson more enthusiastically than vice versa. In earlier texts, Jones complains that The Daily Caller, a right-wing publication founded by Carlson, wasn’t allowing Infowars to feature its content on the Infowars website.
“Fucking crazy. I’m really sorry,” Carlson responded simply.
The text messages come after Jones’s legal team accidentally sent an entire copy of his cell phone and every text message he sent over the course of two years.
Read more at HuffPost.
House Republicans passed the first post–Roe v. Wade abortion bill, which would criminalize doctors for doing their job.
The so-called Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act passed the House Wednesday afternoon 220–210, largely along party lines. Though the bill is unlikely to pass the Senate, which is controlled by Democrats, it reveals Republicans’ priority now that they have control of the House.
The bill would require medical care be given to infants born alive during or after an attempted abortion, something that rarely happens, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Health care providers who fail to comply would face fines or up to five years in prison.
Abortion rights advocates argue that such a measure is both unnecessary—intentionally killing a living newborn is already classified as a homicide—and harmful, as it could negatively affect care for babies born prematurely or with fatal abnormalities by preventing doctors from helping relieve any pain those babies might be in or by punishing medical professionals who let families hold such newborns before they die.
In the clearest sign that Republicans simply cannot (or will not) read the room when it comes to abortion, Montana residents voted solidly to reject a similar measure at the state level during the November midterms.
Abortion rights group NARAL Pro Choice America slammed the bill as part of the Republicans’ “dishonest and out-of-touch crusade against reproductive freedom.”
“Despite the irrefutably clear message sent by voters last November in support of abortion rights, Speaker Kevin McCarthy and the House GOP are undeterred from moving to further restrict abortion for all Americans,” NARAL said in a statement.
The House also passed a bill condemning attacks on anti-abortion centers in the wake of Roe being overturned—but made no mention of the fact that reproductive health centers and care providers have been victims of often deadly attacks for decades.
Democrats oppose all forms of political violence, but
GOP refuses to denounce deadly violence against abortion clinics while denouncing vandalism of pregnancy crisis centers. Telling contrast.— Rep. Jamie Raskin (@RepRaskin) January 11, 2023
Voters have made their stance on abortion abundantly clear: The overwhelming majority of the population supports legalizing the procedure. Democrats ran on aggressively pro-abortion platforms during the midterms and achieved historic victories as a result.
Representative Nancy Mace criticized her fellow Republicans Monday for introducing the abortion bills, saying, “We learned nothing from the midterms if this is how we’re going to operate in the first week.”
The House is “paying lip service to life” because “nothing that we’re doing this week on protecting life is ever going to make it through the Senate,” she argued.
House Speaker Kevin McCarthy seemed Wednesday to overlook the fact that serial fabulist George Santos has already been charged with fraud, saying he would not ask the New York congressman to resign.
McCarthy—whose Republican Party holds the House majority by only a few seats and who needs every vote he can get—sought to defend Santos, even as the latter’s list of tall tales seems to grow longer by the hour.
“What are the charges against him?” McCarthy asked reporters, in what he clearly thought was a bump-set-spike of a response. “In America today, you’re innocent till proven guilty. So just because somebody doesn’t like the press you have, it’s not me that can oversay what the voters say.”
But as fate would have it, Santos has been charged—in Brazil, where he is accused of fraud for stealing a checkbook in 2008 and using it to make purchases. He is also at the center of three other criminal probes.
There are now four criminal investigations of George Santos taking place:
• Rio de Janeiro prosecutor
• Nassau County District Attorney
• Eastern District of New York
• New York Attorney General pic.twitter.com/1doKTGD8Kl— Mike Sington (@MikeSington) January 11, 2023
Federal prosecutors for the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of New York are looking into Santos’s finances and financial disclosures. The Nassau County district attorney is investigating Santos over the falsehoods in his résumé, although the office has not said what specifically it will be looking at. New York Attorney General Letitia James has said her office will investigate Santos and his multiple apparent fabrications.
The freshman congressman was also hit with two ethics complaints this week, one to the House Ethics Committee over his financial disclosures and one to the Federal Election Commission for alleged misrepresentation and misuse of campaign funds.
Santos has already received multiple calls to resign from Democrats, and on Wednesday alone, three House Republicans also urged him to step down. Leaders of the Republican Party in Nassau County, which Santos represents, called for him to resign, as well.
House Republican leadership, though, seems almost loath to even chastise Santos. Both McCarthy and Majority Leader Steve Scalise have evaded questions about Santos, and the New York Republican will still receive committee assignments (but don’t worry, they’ll be lower-tier ones).
Representative Barbara Lee says she’ll run for Senate in California in 2024, setting up a sure to be crowded Democratic primary.
During a closed-door Congressional Black Caucus meeting Wednesday, Representative Barbara Lee told her colleagues that she will be running for Senate, Politico reported Wednesday. Though no official announcement has been made, the decision comes one day after her progressive colleague Representative Katie Porter announced her own run for Senator Dianne Feinstein’s seat.
Lee, a member of Congress since 1998, has led a storied career in and around politics. As a college student, she helped bring Representative Shirley Chisholm to visit her campus; Lee went on to work for the congresswoman’s historic run for president in 1972 as the first Black candidate seeking a major party’s nomination. Lee also volunteered for the Black Panther Party’s community learning center and worked for Party co-founder Bobby Seale’s Oakland mayoral campaign.
Thereafter, Lee worked as a staff member for Representative Ron Dellums, before serving in the state Assembly and Senate. Finally, in 1998, Lee was elected to California’s 9th district.
Lee has garnered generally progressive bona fides throughout her time in Congress. She is a former chair of the Congressional Black Caucus and chair emeritus and former co-chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, and was a founding member of the Congressional LGBTQ+ Equality Caucus.
Lee’s most notable moment came as she was the lone member of Congress to vote against authorizing the use of force following the September 11 attacks. She warned fellow members to be “careful not to embark on an open-ended war with neither an exit strategy nor a focused target.”
“It was a blank check,” Lee wrote on September 23, 2001. “In granting these overly broad powers, the Congress failed its responsibility to understand the dimensions of its declaration. I could not support such a grant of war-making authority to the president; I believe it would put more innocent lives at risk.” Lee’s foresight proved prophetic. “We must respond, but the character of that response will determine for us and for our children the world that they will inherit.”
With two candidates expressing interest in the Senate seat, Feinstein has remained mum about her intentions. The 89-year-old senator has led a long career, having served in the Senate for 30 years. But in the past year, lawmakers and staffers alike have expressed concerns about Feinstein’s mental capacities and whether she can continue serving.
If Lee does indeed run, she will be joining a quickly filling competitive field alongside Porter. Representatives Ro Khanna and Adam Schiff are also rumored to be heavily interested in joining the field. Khanna has said he would take Lee’s intentions into account while considering his own decision; members of Schiff’s inner circle chided Porter for announcing while California faces a weather disaster (in a way only those in a primary opponent’s orbit might).
But based on Lee’s likely step in, the race is on—whether Schiff likes it or not.
New York Republicans are calling on George Santos to resign, saying he “disgraced” the House of Representatives with his serial lies.
Republican leaders of Nassau County, which Santos represents, said Wednesday there was “absolutely no way Mr. Santos can be an effective member of Congress” and urged him to step down immediately.
New York Republican leaders demand the immediate resignation of serial liar George Santos. (Video: MSNBC) pic.twitter.com/1VhQzcSTV5
— Mike Sington (@MikeSington) January 11, 2023
They also slammed him for being “insincere, glib, and insulting” when answering questions about his background, much of which he appears to have fabricated.
Santos stayed true to form in responding, tweeting, “I will NOT resign!”
I was elected to serve the people of #NY03 not the party & politicians, I remain committed to doing that and regret to hear that local officials refuse to work with my office to deliver results to keep our community safe and lower the cost of living.
I will NOT resign!
— George Santos (@Santos4Congress) January 11, 2023
Several Democrats have already said Santos should resign, but this latest call is the first from any form of Republican leadership. Representative Anthony D’Esposito became the first House Republican to call for Santos’s resignation, as he joined the press conference Wednesday.
The call for Santos’s resignation comes a day after he was hit with his second ethics complaint just this week. New York Democrats Ritchie Torres and Daniel Goldman filed a formal complaint Tuesday asking the House Ethics Committee to investigate whether Santos broke the Ethics in Government Act. On Monday, the nonpartisan Campaign Legal Center also filed a formal complaint with the Federal Election Commission, accusing Santos of masking the real source of his campaign’s funds, misrepresenting his campaign’s spending, and using campaign funds to pay for personal expenses. Meanwhile, federal prosecutors and prosecutors in Nassau County are investigating Santos’s finances and financial disclosures.
Santos has admitted he fabricated parts of his professional background. It appears he also made up details of his educational history, his ethnicity and religion, and even his mother’s death. His list of his tall tales appears to grow longer by the day.
House Republican leadership, however, still seems unsure of what exactly to do with him. With the party holding onto the House majority by only a few seats, every vote counts—and Santos proved his loyalty by voting for Kevin McCarthy in every round of votes for speaker. It appears that Santos will still get committee assignments, so any consequences for him remain unclear.
This post has been updated.
The Internal Revenue Service is finally semi-functional, which House Republicans apparently see as a good time to gut the agency entirely, even though doing so would cost the United States billions of dollars.
An independent watchdog agency reported Wednesday that the IRS began 2023 on a high note, having reduced its backlog of unprocessed tax returns by two-thirds over the past year. “We have begun to see the light at the end of the tunnel,” Erin Collins, the IRS’s national taxpayer advocate, wrote in the report. “I am just not sure how much further we have to travel before we see sunlight.”
But House Republicans, who control the chamber, voted Monday to rescind nearly $80 billion recently allotted to the IRS and will soon vote on the Fair Tax Act, which would eliminate the agency entirely. While neither measure will pass the Democratic-controlled Senate or White House, both are indicative of Republican plans to undermine any gains Democrats have made in the past two years.
The IRS recently received a massive $80 billion infusion from the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act, which Phillip Swagel, head of the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, predicted would produce more than $180 billion in revenue over the next decade. The money would help hire and train more agents, as well as modernize the IRS’s internal systems.
Republicans have argued that improving the IRS would lead to more audits for middle-class people, spreading a fearmongering, bananas theory that the new agents would actually be part of a highly weaponized “shadow army.”
In reality, as The Washington Post noted, Democrats point out that “audits are meant to collect money from very rich people who are avoiding taxes.”
The IRS is no one’s favorite agency. It is chronically understaffed and underfunded, and burdened with a seemingly Sisyphean task. Even though it has dramatically reduced its backlog, it still has 10 million unprocessed tax returns from previous years to get through. It has also come under intense scrutiny recently for apparently failing to audit former President Donald Trump’s taxes until two years into his term, in violation of standard operating policy.
But Republicans have a long-standing vendetta against the tax agency, and they certainly oppose the Biden administration, even at the cost of progress and their own purported ideals. Despite constantly talking about fiscal responsibility and needing to reduce the federal deficit, the House GOP still voted to rescind the IRS funding, even though doing so would actually increase the deficit by more than $114 billion.
Democrats have flipped a crucial state Senate seat in Virginia, ensuring greater protection of abortion rights in the state.
Democrat Aaron Rouse defeated Republican Kevin Adams in the special election race for Virginia’s 7th Senate district, flipping the seat formerly held by Republican Jen Kiggans. The win extends the Democrats’ advantage in the Senate to 22–18, almost certainly halting some of Republican Governor Glenn Youngkin’s most radical agenda items, including a proposed 15-week abortion ban.
The Virginia Public Access Project has declared Rouse the winner, with the Democrat leading Adams by fewer than 400 votes as of Wednesday morning (and absentee ballots still being counted). Adams conceded on Wednesday morning.
The election was prompted by Kiggans’s rise to the U.S. House of Representatives, after she defeated Elaine Luria for Virginia’s 2nd district seat in November. Rouse promised to safeguard abortion rights, while his Republican opponent supported a 15-week abortion ban.
Rouse’s win is yet another domino falling on the red-wave-that-never-was for Republicans—one that in no small part was hamstrung by voters motivated by abortion rights. Rouse, a former Virginia Beach councilman and NFL player, had campaigned significantly on the issue.
“One, two, three. One, we are going to protect a woman’s right to choose health care, we are going to build an economy that works for everyone, and we are going to support our public education system, making sure our teachers and staff have a salary they can be proud of,” Rouse said on Tuesday.
The election results will still need to be officially certified, which may take weeks. But if the results hold, the right to abortion in Virginia will have a more resilient safeguard against attacks from Republicans like Youngkin.
Illinois is now the ninth state in the United States to ban assault weapons. Governor J.B. Pritzker signed a bill late Tuesday night banning the sale and possession of assault weapons.
The state Senate passed the “Protect Illinois Communities Act” 34–20 on Monday, kicking it to the state House, which approved the bill 68–41 Tuesday. Pritzker signed the bill shortly thereafter, immediately enacting it into law. The bill passed just before newly elected officials were to be sworn in on Wednesday.
Illinois will halt the sale and possession of an array of assault weapons, handguns, and high-capacity magazines and “switches”—rapid-fire devices that can convert semiautomatic weapons into automatic machine guns.
The ban comes six months after a mass shooter killed seven people at a Fourth of July parade in a Chicago suburb. The gunman had used a legally purchased semiautomatic weapon.
“After nearly every mass shooting, we’ve seen efforts to ban dangerous weapons thwarted—and then leaders send their thoughts and prayers, while they throw their hands up, resigning themselves to the idea that gun violence is a sacrifice that Americans must accept,” Pritzker said at a press conference. “But it doesn’t have to be that way.”
Now nine states, as well as Washington, D.C., forbid the sale or possession of such weapons. The Illinois State Rifle Association has already threatened to challenge the ban in court. Meanwhile, a recent poll showed 63 percent of Illinoisans in favor of banning assault weapons.
“This assault weapons ban is a step in the right direction,” Pritzker said at a press conference. “But there’s no magic fix, no single law that will end gun violence once and for all. So we must keep fighting, voting, and protesting to ensure that future generations will only have to read about massacres like Highland Park, Sandy Hook, and Uvalde in their history books. It’s our burden and our mandate, one that we carry with solemn honor for our children who will grow up in a better and safer world.”
Flights have begun to resume Wednesday after the Federal Aviation Administration grounded planes nationwide earlier in the day due to a crucial information system outage, causing thousands of flight delays and cancellations.
The FAA issued the ground stop after the Notice to Air Missions, or NOTAM, system, which provides pilots and flight personnel with real-time information about hazards and restrictions such as equipment failures or closed runways, stopped working.
Update 5: Normal air traffic operations are resuming gradually across the U.S. following an overnight outage to the Notice to Air Missions system that provides safety info to flight crews. The ground stop has been lifted.
We continue to look into the cause of the initial problem
— The FAA ✈️ (@FAANews) January 11, 2023
More than 5,400 flights have been delayed throughout the United States and more than 900 canceled after the outage, according to the flight tracker site FlightAware. The FAA says it does not yet know the source of the outage, but White House spokeswoman Karine Jean-Pierre said there is “no evidence of a cyberattack at this point.”
President Joe Biden has been briefed on the issue and ordered the Department of Transportation to conduct a full investigation into the matter, she said.
Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg tweeted that he was in touch with the FAA and would be investigating the outage’s “root causes.”
The outage will put more scrutiny on Buttigieg, who is already facing criticism over the Southwest Airlines debacle during the winter holiday travel season.
Buttigieg made a splash during the 2020 Democratic presidential primary, and many speculated that his appointment to the DOT was setting him up as a potential Biden successor.
The airline crises are the latest tests of how Buttigieg performs under pressure, and so far, some find that he is coming up short: More than a dozen Democratic lawmakers sent him a letter last week, urging him to do “much more” to hold airlines accountable for cancellations and protect passengers’ rights.
House Republicans have recommended twice as many men named Michael to chair committees as women in general.
Majority Leader Steve Scalise released a list of recommendations that was ratified on Tuesday. Six men named Mike or Michael will be chairing committees, while only three women will be doing the same.
There will be more guys named “Mike” than women chairing committees under the new GOP House. https://t.co/EWcHfiBntm
— bryan metzger (@metzgov) January 10, 2023
The only women appointed were Kay Granger to the Appropriations Committee; Cathy McMorris Rodgers to the Energy and Commerce Committee; and Virginia Foxx to what was formerly the Committee on Education and Labor, now the Committee on Education and the Workforce.
Mike Rogers chairs the Armed Services Committee, Michael McCaul leads the Foreign Affairs Committee, and Mike Bost heads the Veterans’ Affairs Committee. Mike Turner chairs the Intelligence Committee, Michael Guest leads the Ethics Committee, and Mike Gallagher will helm the new House Select Committee on China.
An honorable mention goes to Mark Green, the new head of the Committee on Homeland Security, for having 50 percent of the same letters in his name as the Mikes. The imbalance is especially stark during an administration that has prided itself on the diversity of its appointees.
All nine of the Mikes, Mark, and women were loyal supporters of Kevin McCarthy during his seemingly unending bid for speaker of the House. Rogers went so far as to threaten to ban anyone who voted against McCarthy from sitting on a committee—and apparently got into a fight with Matt Gaetz on the House floor.
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