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From my latest at Based Politics, “Carlson brought up two important points. For one, why should Americans die because of a conflict between Russia and Ukraine? Secondly, he reminded viewers that elites in both parties will clamor for war every time an international conflict arises.
Carlson is on to something. For the Right, an ‘America First’ foreign policy should mean putting actual Americans before elites’ interests and ideologies…
Most sensible people likely recoil at the idea of risking putting American lives on the line over Ukraine.
Yet to the degree that the American public can be convinced to support a war, how they consume their news—including mostly Republican and independent voters watching big time players like Carlson, Hannity and Ingraham—can play an important role.
Yes, George W. Bush and Dick Cheney had 9/11 as justification for their wars, but those who lived through it remember how much the conservative-leaning Fox News pushed for our military efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan. That two of the top personalities at Fox News now put out a non-interventionist message—something anti-war conservatives and libertarians couldn’t have fathomed 15 years ago—is a sight to behold.
Former President Donald Trump blew up the old definition of what constitutes a conservative or Republican foreign policy. Today, Tucker Carlson and Laura Ingraham can’t say 'America First' enough…”
Read the entire column.
From Based Politics, “In August, Sen. Rand Paul told top White House doctor Anthony Fauci that cloth masks were ineffective in stopping the spread of COVID-19. He repeated this in a video, which led to his suspension from YouTube.
ABC News reported, ‘YouTube has suspended Republican Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky from uploading content for one week after he posted a video claiming most masks are ineffective in combatting COVID-19…’
But it turns out, according to the CDC itself, that Sen. Paul was right all along about cloth masks being relatively ineffective.
The New York Times reported on Saturday, ‘The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Friday clarified its stance on various kinds of masks, acknowledging that the cloth masks frequently worn by Americans do not offer as much protection as surgical masks or respirators.”
Read the entire story.
“Let’s be clear: Rand Paul is fundraising off of his efforts to fire Fauci. He has a button on his website featuring this campaign. But what’s wrong with that?
As Paul said in an interview after their latest showdown, 'I’m proud of the fact people go to RandPaul.com raising money to fire Fauci because he is a menace. Everything he said has been incorrect. And I think he is part of the problem.'
We know Paul raises money over this issue, and he has no problem admitting that he asks for donations to help fire Fauci.
But does this mean this is the actual purpose of Paul’s questions?
The Washington Post’s Philip Bump asked the same question on Thursday in a column titled, ‘How politically helpful have Rand Paul’s attacks on Anthony Fauci been?’
Using spikes in Google traffic each time Fauci and Paul have squared off, Bump determined that Paul had raised his media profile each time and, yes, that has translated into increased donations.
But this didn’t seem to lead Bump to the conclusion that Paul’s Fauci questions were merely or even primarily about political or financial gain.
‘It’s clear that Paul is trying to generate contributions and attention from his fights with Fauci (the website to which Fauci referred is online, for example), but it’s not clear that this is central to Paul’s political efforts.”
‘Nor should one assume Paul’s confrontations are solely offered in bad faith,’ Bump wrote. ‘While Fauci has repeatedly pushed back on his line of questioning, it’s a line of questioning that our fact-checkers consider to be in a gray area.”
“A planner who believes he is the science leads to an arrogance that justifies in his mind using government resources to smear and to destroy the reputations of other scientists who disagree with him,' Paul said to Fauci. 'Do you think it’s appropriate to use your $420,000 salary to attack scientists that disagree with you?'
Fauci replied, 'That’s not what went on. There you go again. You do the same thing every hearing.'
No, this is what Fauci does every hearing.
"Fauci didn’t answer @RandPaul. In fact, he hardly ever answers Paul. But most stories on exchanges between Fauci and Paul do not focus on the fact that a government official being held accountable by a U.S. senator is never actually held accountable." https://t.co/nf8wCWKmta — Jack Hunter (@jackhunter74) January 12, 2022
"Fauci didn’t answer @RandPaul. In fact, he hardly ever answers Paul. But most stories on exchanges between Fauci and Paul do not focus on the fact that a government official being held accountable by a U.S. senator is never actually held accountable." https://t.co/nf8wCWKmta
Fauci didn’t answer Paul. In fact, he hardly ever answers Paul. But most stories on exchanges between Fauci and Paul do not focus on the fact that a government official being held accountable by a U.S. senator is never actually held accountable. Most reports just focus on the supposed audacity of Paul for challenging Fauci and Fauci getting mad about it.
So it becomes 'Furious' Fauci 'tearing' into Paul. That’s typically the story in the mainstream press—not what Paul actually asked Fauci. Most journalists seem far less interested in that.
They want the wrestling match and to cheer for their hero.”
My latest at The Week: “The View is apparently struggling to replace panelist Meghan McCain. ‘Sources close to the show said that the search has stalled as executives struggle to find a conservative cast member who checks all the right boxes,’ Politico reported Thursday. What are those boxes? Among them, ‘They will not consider a Republican who is a denier of the 2020 election results … or is seen as flirting too heavily with fringe conspiracy theories.’
"The View" doesn't want to hire a right-wing conspiracy theorist. But maybe they should be more worried about left-wing conspiracy theorists instead, argues @jackhunter74. https://t.co/sfBKjzir1s — The Week (@TheWeek) January 5, 2022
"The View" doesn't want to hire a right-wing conspiracy theorist. But maybe they should be more worried about left-wing conspiracy theorists instead, argues @jackhunter74. https://t.co/sfBKjzir1s
But the producers of The View don't seem to have the same level of concern when it comes to the equally troubling left-wing conspiracies pushed on the show.
As recently as Tuesday, rotating guest co-host and Never-Trump Republican Ana Navarro said during a discussion on the upcoming anniversary of the Jan. 6 Capitol attack, ‘Look, I felt that Donald Trump had not been legitimately elected. I thought he'd gotten help from the Russians.’ Apparently it is okay to deny presidential election results on ABC's popular talk show — so long as the year under discussion is 2016. “
My latest at The Week, “Today the Pentagon Papers are hailed by many as an example of how a free press and people function. Yet Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.), a leading Jan. 6 committee member who has positioned herself as a defender of democracy against former President Donald Trump and his supporters, wanted Iceland's government to shut down Wikileaks. ‘I would like to see them move aggressively to prosecute Mr. Assange,’ Cheney said in 2010, adding, ‘what he's done is very clearly aiding and abetting al Qaeda.’ She's far from the only leader on the Jan. 6 committee who feels this way.
"If Assange were found guilty of espionage for his actions, there is good reason to fear it would have a chilling effect on America's free press and do irreparable harm to our democracy," @jackhunter74 writes.https://t.co/ZtAxgzIZgZ — The Week (@TheWeek) December 19, 2021
"If Assange were found guilty of espionage for his actions, there is good reason to fear it would have a chilling effect on America's free press and do irreparable harm to our democracy," @jackhunter74 writes.https://t.co/ZtAxgzIZgZ
A free press is the cornerstone of any democratic society. Some will continue to argue whether the problematic Assange is actually a journalist, just as some now debate whether the Jan. 6 attack represents something greater than just the chaos of that day. But if Assange were found guilty of espionage for his actions, there is good reason to fear it would have a chilling effect on America's free press and do irreparable harm to our democracy.”
I recently used CBD oil for the first time to treat some bruising due to a recent accident. I was amazed at how quickly it helped soothe and heal my injury.
CBD treatment has only been legal in my home state of South Carolina since 2014. Based on my minor experience, it is insane and immoral that it wasn’t available to those who might have needed it prior to seven years ago.
Congresswoman Nancy Mace is also from my home state and District 1 in South Carolina, where she continues to promote her States Reform Act. This bill would allow states to pursue their own paths concerning marijuana with no federal involvement. As the Washington Examiner reported in November, “Mace’s bill would remove marijuana and THC, its main psychoactive compound, from the Controlled Substances Act, effectively decriminalizing the drugs, and allow states to regulate them like alcohol.”
Mace continues to gather both Republican and Democrat support for her bill calling it, “Most bipartisan piece of cannabis legislation ever filed in the U.S. Congress” during a recent interview on the podcast Based Politics.
Some of Mace’s personal comments registered with me most. When asked if working with veterans who have Post Traumatic Stress Disorder inspired her to pursue reforming federal cannabis law, Mace replied, “I am not a military veteran, even though I went to The Citadel. But there are special protections for military veterans who want to make sure that they’re not discriminated against if they are users of cannabis, that want to make sure that the doctors at the VA can prescribe them cannabis for medical use. So we have those protections in there.”
Then the congresswoman described her own traumatic experience and what cannabis did for her.
“I was raped when I was 16,” Mace said. “I have told this story before, but what I hadn’t told people until I filed this bill and talked about it publicly is that when that happened.”
“I had that trauma,” Mace explained. “I dropped out of school. I was prescribed pharmaceuticals, antidepressants, medication, that made my feelings of depression actually much worse than they really were.”
Mace continued, “I stopped taking that medication and started using cannabis. This was a long time ago. I’m 44, so we’re talking a very long time ago when I was 16. But even then I knew that it’s use cut my anxiety down and helped me.”
“So when I talk to veterans, when I talk to people with PTSD that have some sort of physical or emotional trauma, I can feel that pain in my heart and I know why they use it because I’ve had that pain before,” Mace said.
“As the daughter of a military veteran, as someone whose family are veterans, it’s just really important that we put special protections in there for our veteran community as well,” Mace added.
I know what a relative smidgen of CBD oil did for me and my injury. Mace claims cannabis helped her significantly as a teenager through one of the worst traumas a woman can endure.
I know the States Reform Act merely allows the 50 states to pursue their own paths and hopefully it passes with major bipartisan support.
But in the meantime, why should anyone, anywhere who is suffering to any degree, be denied the relief that this plant obviously provides?
Since when has anyone named Cheney felt obligated to uphold the Constitution? Set aside for a moment whether or not you believe Trump is a threat to constitutional order or anything else.
Let’s remember where Cheney has been a threat to the rule of law and our constitutional republic…
But if the War on Terror her father waged and Obama continued to oversee was also a war on the Constitution, Mrs. Cheney was all in on that battle too.
"The same congresswoman who now warns that former President Donald Trump threatens the 'foundations of our constitutional republic' has not cared about the most basic precepts of the U.S. Constitution for most of her career."@jackhunter74 with the ?:https://t.co/kRDwyrjCcz — Brad Polumbo ??⚽️ ?️? (@brad_polumbo) November 16, 2021
"The same congresswoman who now warns that former President Donald Trump threatens the 'foundations of our constitutional republic' has not cared about the most basic precepts of the U.S. Constitution for most of her career."@jackhunter74 with the ?:https://t.co/kRDwyrjCcz
A good example was when Cheney was promoting and defending CIA operative Gina Haspel in 2018, Trump’s pick to head that agency. Cheney said Haspel “spent her career defending the American people” and her critics were simply “defending terrorists.”
Haspel had a documented role in waterboarding abroad and other “enhanced interrogation tactics,” including covering up America’s role in carrying out these atrocities.
Constitutional liberties and protections, and the United States’ moral complicity in engaging in this illegal behavior, mattered little to Cheney at the time.
In January, a newly-elected President Joe Biden called for former President Donald Trump’s impeachment. He said at the time, “To preserve our Constitution, our democracy, our basic integrity, he should be impeached.”
Biden seemed concerned about enforcing the Constitution at the time. Biden would add, “We all laughed when he said he could stand on Fifth Avenue and shoot someone. And get away with it." "He is shooting holes in the Constitution and we cannot let him get away with it,” Biden insisted.
.@JoeBiden accused Trump of “shooting holes in the Constitution.” What in the hell makes him think his vaccine mandate is constitutional? He’s even defying federal courts at this point. Biden has gone completely rogue. #Constitution #unconstitutionalmandate pic.twitter.com/COMbpyvtFw — Jack Hunter (@jackhunter74) November 10, 2021
.@JoeBiden accused Trump of “shooting holes in the Constitution.” What in the hell makes him think his vaccine mandate is constitutional? He’s even defying federal courts at this point. Biden has gone completely rogue. #Constitution #unconstitutionalmandate pic.twitter.com/COMbpyvtFw
Biden’s vaccine mandate on businesses is unconstitutional. A federal judge just declared it unconstitutional.
So what does he do? He ignores the law. He ignores the judge. He ignores the Constitution.
Joe Biden is shooting holes in the Constitution.
From my latest column at Responsible Statecraft, “Liz Cheney, Bill Kristol and their friends may wag their fingers today at Trump and his supporters’ red meat rhetoric, but the anti-Islamic speech and conspiracy theories that plagued the Republican base throughout the aughts were never denounced by the neoconservative establishment at the time.
Such behavior was more often encouraged or at least ignored because it helped the war cause. Don’t forget Dick Cheney, before he was denouncing Trump’s Muslim ban when it was politically convenient, was telling fellow Republicans that Obama was supporting the Muslim Brotherhood. His daughter Liz, before she was denouncing MAGA conspiratorialists, was on 'Larry King' defending the so called ‘Birthers’ who didn’t believe Obama was born in this country:
‘I think the Democrats have got more crazies than the Republicans do,’ Cheney said at the time. ‘But setting that aside, one of the reasons you see people so concerned about this, I think this issue is, people are uncomfortable with having for the first time ever, I think, a president who seems so reluctant to defend the nation overseas …’
Kristol carried himself as being above the anti-Muslim fray, but rarely criticized the rampant, xenophobic Bush-era hate in the way that he goes after Trump today on a regular basis. Joseph Leone at Harvard’s Progressive Policy Review noted of Kristol in February, ‘The war, and the jingoistic propaganda Kristol peddled to support it, have also contributed to the rise in Islamophobia and anti-Arab and anti-Muslim violence within the United States and globally. Although Kristol now opposes Donald Trump, the former president’s Muslim ban and frequent incitement of violence against Muslims are the product of the war drums Kristol played for years.”