Rep. Jason Smith (R-MO) was a nauseating vision of phony-baloney concern for Americans as he exploited Fox News’ weaponization and distortion of the classified documents found in Joe Biden’s old office to further GOP political goals – and the heck with truth or working on behalf of Americans' welfare.
Spoiler alert: The small number of classified documents found locked up in Joe Biden’s old office, after he left office as vice president under President Barack Obama, which Biden immediately agreed to return, is nothing like the hundreds of classified documents Donald Trump stashed at a country club and refused to return.
But Fox and Smith very much want you to think the two are just the same.
Host Neil Cavuto got the ball rolling. “This could be a bubbling issue here,” he said. “Documents that we don’t know, but we know that now another round could be found, this at a time when the administration had denied there weren’t any in the very beginning.”
“It’s really concerning and it means you better be careful,” Smith said. “President Biden was so quick to go out there and throw President Trump under the bus about classified documents that were in Mar-a-Lago and he said it was reckless and careless. Apparently, he’s consistently doing it himself, and his team’s doing it. So, something that everyone’s going to have to be treated the same way, regardless if you’re the current president or the former president.”
Cavuto mentioned “bipartisan emphasis” to investigate this, saying, “Mark Warner, the Democratic senator, wants to look into it” and said “it seems to be moving in” a direction of hearings.
Smith suggested that Biden may be guiltier than Trump. “If they’re breaching federal law, you need to look into it, and this is when he was vice president. This isn’t when he was president. A president can declassify information, a vice president cannot.”
Then, after promoting an extension of the Trump tax cuts as a boon to the middle class (they benefitted the rich), Smith ducked out of saying whether George Santos “should go.” He said disingenuously, “I think the voters of New York are the ones to decide that.” Yet Smith knows full well that the voters of New York won’t have another opportunity for two years and that they just elected Santos based on a shockingly fraudulent resumé.
“It’s not for myself or other members of Congress to consider that,” Smith said. So, in addition to mischaracterizing the tax cuts, he mischaracterized his cowardice as principle.
Smith topped it all off by indicating he’s totally willing to hold the U.S. economy hostage in order to slash social spending - and blame the resulting catastrophe on Biden. “We need to use every tool in the toolbox” to cut “reckless” spending, he said about the upcoming need to raise the debt limit. And it would be President Biden’s fault for not capitulating, Smith wants us all to think. “I would never think that President Biden would ever, ever default on the debt limit if we give him a bill that increases the debt limit but also reduces reckless spending,” Smith said, with sickeningly fake concern.
Please consider letting this lying liar know what you think of his plans at 202-225-4404 or via email.
Meanwhile, you can get a good look at how Republicans will try to disguise their political power plays as working on behalf of the American people below, from the January 11, 2022 Your World.
The GOP has followed suit. Facts don’t matter, it’s all about APPEARANCES! See how quickly they all follow the same talking points: “Trump can’t be indicted, because Biden did the same thing!” They will continue to beat this drum long after Biden is exonerated.
It is notable that the Biden team immediately reported finding the materials and turned them over – as opposed to the staffers for Pence’s childish former spokesman, who lied about having them and then lied about having unilaterally “declassified” hundreds and hundreds of stolen materials.
The nonsensical “investigations” that angry Right Wingers wish to inflict in the House for the next two years have nothing to do with justice or fairness. They are about a childish need to take revenge. Dems are appropriately reluctant to dignify the false premises that the GOP are trying to get them to fall for here.
We should also note for the 8613th time that the 2017 GOP Tax Transfer was NOT AT ALL a “tax cut” for millions of Middle Class Employees and Blue State residents, who saw their federal tax burdens gleefully skyrocketed by thousands of dollars every year. Smith’s devotion to that attack on Middle Class America is telling.
And we should remember that the ominous threats GOP congressmen are making about the debt ceiling and “fiscal responsibility” are specifically about blackmailing the country into accepting disastrous massive slashes in Social Security and Medicare – ie another massive attack on Middle Class America. There are actual common sense adjustments that needed to be made with the funding mechanisms for SS and Medicare for the past 20 years, but angry Right Wingers in Congress refused to take any of them so they could establish a false “imminent disaster” to set up their latest attempt to gut the programs. Make no mistake – angry Right Wingers have no intention to make Social Security function. Their intention is to sabotage the program and retroactively prove their constant mischaracterizations of SS as a “Ponzi Scheme” and a “failure”. If they are allowed to get away with this, neither SS or Medicare will be available in any meaningful way to Americans born after 1967.
