On the advice of our DSD….
We are initiating a weekly post here….
We ask that ANYONE of our regulars or visitors submit comments to be posted….
In honor of DSD?
We feature his kick off post….
Stupid Republican politician of the week (tough competition):my candidate is Rep. Jim Banks of Indiana, chairman of the Republican Study Committee
Even Chris Wallace had difficulty on Fox News Sunday trying to get Banks to say anything useful about reducing crime and violence beyond blaming it all on left-wing socialist Democrats and endorsing all police everywhere all the time.
Better a free five-minute attack ad on national TV than pertinent policy proposals. (Is Donald listening?)
CHRIS WALLACE: President Biden blames the rise in homicides and shootings across the country on the easy availability of guns and the reaction to a year of COVID.
Joining us now, Congressman Jim Banks, out of the Republican Study Committee in the House, who has a different view of the problem and the solution.
Congressman, welcome back to “FOX News Sunday.” I want to start the same way I started with Cedric Richmond. Why do you think there has been such a sharp increase in the number of shootings and homicides in this country over the last 18 months?
REP. JIM BANKS (R-IN), CHAIRMAN, REPUBLICAN STUDY COMMITTEE: Well, Chris, first of all, I agree with Joe Biden. Senator Biden in 2002 wrote an op-ed and he said more cops clearly means less crime. You will not hear Joe Biden say that today, because today Joe Biden is being held hostage in the White House by the Squad and the radicals in the Democrat Party who control their party, who have spent the last year stigmatizing one of the most honorable professions in America, in our law enforcement.
It’s not just about defunding the police, which they fully support, but over the last year they’ve talked about stripping qualified immunity, protections for police officers who do their job. They talk about cashless — cashless warrants and decreasing —
WALLACE: Bail.
BANKS: — sentences as well. Cashless bail, excuse me, and decreasing sentences. It’s a recipe that criminals in every city in America are liking what Democrats are selling. And that’s why you’re seeing unprecedented crime waves across America, murder rates this year alone that are higher than anything that we’ve seen before because we’ve taken police officers off the streets. And now Joe Biden wants to take guns away from law-abiding gun owners who have guns to protect themselves.
WALLACE: But, Congressman Banks, let me push back on that a little bit because in the program that he announced this week, the president said that the central part of his anti-crime package is the $350 billion in the American Rescue Plan, the COVID relief plan that was passed.
Take a look at what the president said.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: It means more police officers, more nurses, more counselors, more social workers, more community violence interrupters to help resolve issues before they escalate into crimes.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
WALLACE: Congressman Banks, you voted against that package, against that $350 billion, just like every other Republican in the House and Senate, so can’t you make the argument that it’s you and the Republicans who are defunding the police?
BANKS: Not at all, Chris. I mean, let’s go back again and look at the last year and the record of comments that Democrats have made from Rashida Tlaib, who said that —
(CROSSTALK)
WALLACE: No, No, wait, sir, respectfully —
BANKS: — policing is inherently evil.
WALLACE: Wait, wait, sir, respectfully, I heard you make that point but I’m asking you, there’s $350 billion in this package the president says can be used for policing. And let me put up some of the specific things he said.
BANKS: Chris, the point that I’m making is important.
WALLACE: Congressman Banks, let me finish and then I promise I’ll give you a chance to answer. The president is saying cities and states can use this money to hire more police officers, invest in new technologies and develop summer job training and recreation programs for young people. Respectfully, I’ve heard your point about the last year, but you and every other Republican voted against this $350 billion.
BANKS: When Representative Omar says that policing is rooted in evil and Nancy Pelosi compares police officers to Nazi stormtroopers, it makes it very difficult for police departments around the country to recruit people to become police officers. And that’s the crisis that we find a in police departments all over America. You can give them more funding, and that’s good, but if they can’t recruit people to become a police officer because we’ve stigmatized one of the most honorable professions in America, than we are at a dangerous point.
And that is directly related to the rise in violent crime across America. If we turn a blind eye to law and order and a blind eye to riots that occurred in cities last summer, and we take police officers off the street, we are inevitably going to see crime rise.
WALLACE: You say that more gun controls are not the answer. You heard former Congressman Richmond say that guns and the easy availability of guns is one of the biggest issues. You say that more gun control is not the issue and that most of the crimes are committed with handguns, not with assault weapons, but I think you’d agree that assault weapons create an enormous amount of damage, especially in these mass shootings, and, you know, perhaps if we had stricter background checks that some of the people who shouldn’t have handguns wouldn’t have handguns. Is there any gun control that you can support?
BANKS: Well, remember, Chris, that in 1994 when Joe Biden ushered through the so-called assault weapons ban, later the Department of Justice came out and said it did nothing to decrease violent crime. We know that 75 percent of gun crimes are committed with guns that are illegally obtained to begin with, so what I’m saying is that if we are serious about reducing violent crime in America, then Joe Biden will go on a national public relations campaign, admonish the radical voices in the Democrat (ph) Party that have stigmatized police officers and law enforcement.
That’s the first step toward reducing violent crime is to support police officers, back the blue. That’s what Republicans are doing. I have the only bill in Congress, by the way, to codify —
WALLACE: Right.
BANKS: — qualified immunity protections for our law enforcement agencies, and for our law enforcement agents. And I invite Republicans and Democrats, sign on as a cosponsor, show your support for our police officers and our law enforcement. If we do that we can reduce violent crime…
https://www.foxnews.com/transcript/fox-news-sunday-on-june-27-2021
Great Idea DSD…
This can take the place of my annual Dumbest Member of the U.S. Senate award.
It had grown stale because the perennial winner had been Sen, James Inhofe of Oklahoma, The well known climate change denier.This year he was looking at some fairly stiff competition from Tommy Turbeville ,the “who am I why am I here” fool from Alabama,Marsha Blackburn,the “ it’s not true that blondes have more fun” airhead from Tennessee, and Ron Johnson,the”I make it up as I go along” liar from Wisconsin.
Still it would be hard to deny the award to someone who against all evidence steadfastly refuses to admit the obvious,plus Turbeville gets some credit for becoming a forceful advocate for vaccines among the goofballs in Alabama,Blackburn is a total nonentity anyway ,and Johnson is more just a congenital liar than dumb.
Like a certain former President, Russ Feingold’s Republican successor seems genuinely incapable of discerning truth from fiction; i.e. he doesn’t even recognize that what he says might not be true.
But perhaps, that’s the meaning of “congenital liar”.
Ah?
This belongs to this post…
Pennsylvania Republicans are pushing to create a new office to oversee election audits in the latest push to address doubts sown by former President Trump and his supporters about the integrity of last year’s elections.
The state House of Representatives has approved a budget that would allocate an additional $3.1 million to the state auditor general to create a new Bureau of Election Audits…
…
But it is unlikely DeFoor’s office will ultimately see the extra money: Bradford said he and other Democrats are urging Gov. Tom Wolf (D) to use his line-item veto power to nix the provision….
More….
Wisconsin Republican Ron Johnson is “not fit to be your senator,” the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel declared in a stinging editorial published Wednesday.
The newspaper’s editorial board listed Johnson’s “long history of misleading claims” — including his “anti-science crusade” of sowing doubt on the COVID-19 vaccine and health measures aimed at mitigating the spread of the coronavirus pandemic, his downplaying of climate change, and his amplification of ex-President Donald Trump’s 2020 election lies.
Johnson is “the most irresponsible representative of Wisconsin citizens since the infamous Sen. Joseph R. McCarthy in the 1950s,” the editorial declared.
He “continues to put his own interests ahead of yours. He continues to put himself first and democracy second,” it concluded. “And he continues to show why he is not fit to be your senator.”
Read the full editorial here.
https://www.jsonline.com/story/opinion/2021/06/30/ron-johnsons-anti-science-crusade-harms-wisconsin-vaccination-drive/7802794002/
Gosar Dodges Questions About Event with White Nationalist
By JOHN MCCORMACK
“The Corner” at National Review
June 30, 2021 5:39 PM
https://www.nationalreview.com/news/hawley-warns-biden-nominee-will-usher-in-new-era-of-racial-engineering-in-federal-government/
As David Harsanyi noted yesterday, Arizona Republican congressman Paul Gosar responded to reports that a notorious racist and anti-Semite was hosting a fundraiser for him by tweeting that the left wouldn’t dictate his “strategy, alliances and efforts.”
Later in the day, Gosar cast doubt on whether the fundraiser was happening at all:
Whatever happens with the fundraiser, Gosar’s tweet and his decision to speak at a conference organized by Nick Fuentes in February have made it abundantly clear he wants an alliance with racists and anti-Semites.
And lest there be any doubt about Fuentes, here’s a sampling of his rhetoric: