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Home » And speaking of the GOP and fighting spirit…

And speaking of the GOP and fighting spirit…

The New Neo Posted on by

Ted Cruz picks himself up off the January 6th floor and asks this:

And Senator Roger Marshall of Kansas presses Fauci on COVID:

First, Marshall notes that there were more deaths under Joe Biden than under President Donald Trump. That’s the chart you see behind him in the following video. But then he tells Fauci that 59 percent of Americans didn’t trust him. Fauci replies that that was a real “distortion of reality.”

Next, Marshall hones in on the gain of function research lie. He noted how DARPA rejected a proposal but the NIAID didn’t reject it under Fauci. Marshall asks why had Fauci previously said that they hadn’t funded gain of function research when the report indicated that they had. He also asks if Fauci would commit to providing all the documents on this subject — unreacted — to Congress by the end of this week…

Fauci denies that they had funded the grant, but Marshall says they would have all the supporting information available. Fauci’s response to that is crazy, claiming that Marshall was “backing down from this,” which didn’t match what Marshall had said. Fauci just keeps saying that Marshall is incorrect, so Marshall challenges him to provide all the unredacted information.

Fauci doesn’t respond to that question and Committee Chair Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA) once again comes to his rescue…

More on that DARPA report can be found here and here.

Of course, when you’re out of power, it’s difficult if not impossible to enforce your words, so at this point it’s just rhetoric from the GOP and perhaps it will remain so. But the slow drip-drip-drip of rhetoric has some force as well, and the American public in general is also getting much more fed up with Fauci and the like through repeated experience.

Comments

And speaking of the GOP and fighting spirit… — 38 Comments

  1. I think Cruz’s questioning the FBI today was very telling. Those that think that the FBI had agents and “others” like Ray Epps at the Jan 6 event, just got a big boost.

  2. Cruz took the (wake up) call and is back to functioning like a conservative.
    So there’s that. Though his cross-examination technique could use work.

  3. The activist left and their supporters are evil. As 60+MILLION dead babies testify. They have engaged in mass murder of our elderly and are practicing collective punishment* through denial of life saving medicines. They are destroying the future of millions of children. They have destroyed the livelihoods of hundred of thousands of Americans. They are allowing the barbarism of rampant criminality. They are actively collaborating with America’s enemies. They are stealing our liberties right out from under our feet and our response is the drip-drip-drip of rhetoric.

    *https://youtu.be/u8ywWgNEYuQ

  4. The activist Left includes the Democrat party, the mass media, academia and the great majority of K-12 teachers and administrators. The upper echelons of the US Military and the leadership of every 3 letter Federal Agency.

  5. Accordingly to townhall, Fauci then proceeded to call Marshall a moron. What an arrogant SOB. Hopefully at some point he will get his, but the way the last few years have been, I doubt it will ever happen. We just seem to be Sisyphus rolling the rock up the hill of the Left.

  6. Thank you, Senator Cruz.
    “The Justice Department is establishing a specialized unit focused on domestic terrorism, the department’s top national security official told lawmakers Tuesday as he described an “elevated” threat from violent extremists in the United States.”
    “We have seen a growing threat from those who are motivated by racial animus, as well as those who ascribe to extremist anti-government and anti-authority ideologies,” [Asst AG] Olsen said.”
    https://citizenfreepress.com/breaking/doj-creates-special-unit-to-target-domestic-terrorism/

  7. So the J6 Committee says Epps wasn’t a fed, and Fauci denies his gain-of-function grants. All liars.

  8. Well, thankfully, Sen. Cruz asked questions that needed to be asked and it is on tape. And the non-answers are telling.

  9. Eva Marie @ 6:26: That is some quote from AAG Olsen: DOJ going to target “…those who ascribe to…anti-authority ideologies.” What might that cover? If I approach proven liars like Comey, McCabe, Strzok, Page, Wray et al. with a certain skepticism at their demands that I should shut up and believe, will that earn me a file entry with Main Justice? If I tell my school board that they are doing a lousy job, chasing phantoms conjured up by the Identity Politics gang, will I hear a knock on my door –or worse?
    What I find particularly irksome about this (besides its very questionable legality) is the waste of resources and the chilling effect on perfectly legitimate civil activity. A police state is comprised mostly of networks of fear and suspicion, and this sure looks like one.

  10. While Ted Cruz is using the terrorism word referring to 1/6 this is what Democrats are preparing for us:
    “11 North Carolina voters are trying to stop Rep. Cawthorn from running for reelection, citing his Jan. 6 speech.
    They issued a challenge to the State Board of Elections on Monday.
    They say Cawthorn violated the 14th Amendment, which forbids lawmakers from engaging or supporting an insurrection.”
    https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/11-north-carolina-voters-filed-a-challenge-to-block-madison-cawthorn-from-running-for-reelection-saying-his-jan-6-actions-are-disqualifying/ar-AASF3Ho?ocid=BingNewsSearch

  12. LeClerc @ 7:47: “…Whining like a schoolboy.”

    I learned it as “Whining like a schoolgirl,” but OK.

    How about “Beaten like a rented mule”? I always wanted to use that one.

  13. Maybe the last couple of days reminded Cruz and McCarthy that a major component of Trump support was because he fought back. They may not like fighting, but rolling over is a clear course to losing.

    And this is easy stuff. Pelosi is investigating a conspiracy to commit insurrection, but a guy that clearly encouraged people to enter the Capitol isn’t a conspirator? Bullshit. Why was Ray Epps there? Why isn’t he in jail with others arrested for trespassing at the Capitol? And yeah, all those names Democrats shouldn’t be on committees requiring that level of the publics trust. They’ve lost that trust and it is easy to prove. If the GOP can’t and won’t acknowledge this stuff and attack it, then they’ll always be the lesser of two evils.

  14. Eva Marie @ 7:16: You are flagging the real danger. Generalized rhetorical slanging is not so bad; it’s expected, it flares up and blows away. But Lawfare is something else. It’s specific and even if it looks absurd it can soak up time and energy, and provide another salient for other attacks. Every motion granted or denied in this BS case will give the plaintiffs and their allies another chance at the microphones, another golden moment to smear their target.

    And the “absurdity” of the complaint depends on one’s knowledge of Constitutional law and legal common sense (if that isn’t an oxymoron). Most people may read of the fight and think it’s real. The net effect on the defendant is a steady drain on prestige, message, credibility, and resources needed to address the complaint.

  16. Perhaps Cruz got reminded HIS Potential Voters HATE what is going on with Jan. 6th by the huge pushback, and he needs to pay more attention beyond his big campaign contributors and the GOP Establishment?

    Trump is changing the Overton Window on Elected GOP’s Actions, if they want to avoid being primaried with an opponent backed by Trump. I see a lot of Elected Establishment GOP getting a bit more spine, due to the fear of losing to a more conservative opponent.

    Or another view from Sundance is he did the Lyndsay Graham routine, and said the right words, with no action and followup, to regain favor with his potential voters.

    https://theconservativetreehouse.com/blog/2022/01/11/the-big-club-temporarily-modifies-ted-cruz-marionette-strings-so-he-can-regain-attention-of-his-audience/#more-224947

  17. “We have seen a growing threat from those who are motivated by racial animus, as well as those who ascribe to extremist anti-government and anti-authority ideologies,”

    So explicitly BLM and Antifa? The people who burnt and looted all last year? The people who took over whole sections of large American cities and threw out the police and tried to burn down Federal Court buildings?

    Nah, their all good. No racial animus or anti-government ideology there.

  18. First, in the previous post on Ted Cruz, Neo wrote, “Cruz was one of the main members of Congress defending the challenge to the 2020 election.”
    Then we have Tucker Carlson say that Cruz doesn’t misspeak – he’s very careful with his words.
    And lastly we have the news that Democrats are challenging Republicans’ right to run for office by saying they supported insurrection.
    Maybe Ted Cruz wanted to inoculate himself from that charge by making his speech on the Senate floor calling such acts terrorism. With the subsequent uproar, he probably accomplished that.
    If so then I draw 2 conclusions from this:
    1. Ted Cruz is a very smart man.
    2. The Democrats are even more powerful than we imagine.

  20. Eva (love that name – like my wife’s!) is doubly correct, and #2 is especially noteworthy.
    a) Dem power is that the College led elite culture now believes that Republicans are evil / bigots / homophobic / sexist / racist / islamophobic – evil, even tho they mostly don’t believe in God. (Evil is anti-God).
    b) It’s more “Elites are more powerful”, and they are firmly in control of most institutions – where no single election will dislodge them.
    c) Rep leaders who become elite find their personal interests more often aligned with other elites than with normal Americans.

    Ted Cruz has a family, including a 13 yo daughter who claims to be bi and is opposed to her father’s policies. (Sounds like Dick Cheney, sad) Twitter will be promoting this – and it will become a bigger stick against Ted personally. Unlikely that she’ll change her elitist views for her next 7 teenage years. Especially as she gets “fame” and supportive attention primarily by Ted-haters.

    A necessary step, tho not sufficient, is to stop Fed funding of colleges that have been allowed to discriminate against Republicans. Changing the culture will require years, decades, of more specific effort by more GOP activists than we’ve seen in the last few decades.

    Just “voting” is not enough, nor even “voting plus blog commenting”.

  21. “So the J6 Committee says Epps wasn’t a fed…”

    Well OK, BUT it depends on how one defines “a fed”. (That is, what “type” of “fed”?; or a “fed” working for whom?—and we know how much the Democrats “enjoy” using “precise” wording….)

    IOW it’s entirely possible that Epps was NOT FBI but was a so-called “free-lancer” working for someone else (e.g., Pelosi? “Biden”?—though these two may well be the same).

    This because Epps (and photo) was initially on the FBI wanted list of J6 “insurrectionists” for several weeks (or longer, I don’t remember exactly) before being removed from that list.

    IF he was FBI why was he even on the list in the first place? (Unless one branch of the FBI doesn’t know what another is doing, which is entirely possible, I suppose.).

    But might it make more sense if Epps was NOT FBI and his “employer”/handler, upon finding out he was on the list, promptly told the FBI to take him off…?

    So that technically, he wasn’t FBI….

  22. Wesson’s link to Megan Fox has her excellent advice:
    “As long as you live in my house, you will respect me and your mother and our rules. You will not get those devices back until I know you will never again betray your family in such a gross and inappropriate way with them. In the meantime, we will spend time together repairing what’s broken. I will play board games with you, build puzzles, or read you stories. I will take you with me to the Senate and you can be my intern when you’re on school breaks. That’s going to be your entertainment from here on out. This is my fault because I have ignored you and I have not given you the attention you crave. You now have all my attention, morning, noon, and night. You are my new best friend.”

    Excellent in theory, anyway.

    Teenage rebellion (wasteland?) was a problem with my wife running for Slovak Parliament and our then teenage, rebellious daughter strongly rejecting parental authority. Parents can NOT provide the same level companionship that same-age friends can. Our daughter and her mother are much, much closer now that daughter is married and (checks watch) has become a mother (2 days old!)

    Megan is correct that children need borders. Borders, house rules, that both parents agree on and both are willing to enforce. Neither loving parent wants to be the only policeman.

    The elite supporting gov’t becoming ever more involved in raising/ indoctrinating kids is likely to increase parents’ understanding of how bad the soft totalitarianism is becoming, and how bad it is.

    “Everything is political” is how totalitarians get more and more political power. Politics needs borders too – and our culture of freedom needs to enforce those borders more.

  23. I think we should have an Oxymoron Thread.

    Seeing GOP in conjunction with Fighting Spirit and all that…

  24. Wesson: I went to your links. Democrats are using his 13 year old daughter to get at Ted Cruz. That really is despicable.
    Megan Fox puts the blame on Cruz for not taking his daughter off social media. While I think that would be a good idea, the girl has 2 parents and Ted can’t parent unilaterally.
    Tom Grey: Yes, colleges are definitely another Democratic bastion. Schools, media, and the government bureaucracy – that’s an awful lot of power.

  25. Cruz was acting lawyerly getting that lame FBI person on the record, but follow up questions would have been even more enlightening and entertaining. Why not answer the question, beotch?

  26. Gowdy…or Cruz…. They can hammer a recalcitrant witness and get what resembles a confession. But if the republicans are in the minority, there’s nothing further they can do. So it’s not necessarily meaningless showboating. And it has the effect of publicizing the issue.

  27. There was an interesting exchange, copied below, posted on GETTR yesterday, re-posted by RevolverNews (presumably by Darren Beattie or with his approval):

    https://gettr.com/post/pntycr9f54

    Original Post by Art of California:

    Private Military Contractors (PMC) are used all over the world to work silently on behalf of governmental goals. The book “Zero Footprint” explains how PMCs are financed by/operate on behalf governments in order for them to maintain “plausible deniability”.

    Ray Epps and his crew were likely PMCs… which means the Feds can make statements it wasn’t an ABC entity and it technically be true/they won’t pursue them. Which PMC does Epps et al work for and how are they funded?

    Response by dirtsquirrel:

    the fbi contacting the independent journalist was a dead give away. ray called his handler. who calls the fbi when suspicious person shows up at the house? that’s right no one and if you do it’s local law enforcement.

  28. I agree with Richard Aubrey, that prior to Cruz, Gowdy used to look great at doing this, but in the end, nothing was done about it. And the nothing is big. Not only did Republicans fail to carry out investigations once they were in power to do so; they also failed to highlight these issues in campaigns.

    I just saw a simple statement at Instapundit: “If the FBI was not involved in inciting violence on Jan. 6th, wouldn’t they just say so?” This should be a rhetorical question asked at every serious GOP stump speech. Instead, we get “Jan. 6th was a terrorist attack”. This is why Cruz’s statement isn’t just a simple misspeak or misguided comment. It was the complete wrong message that needed to be made.

    Outside DC, nobody is buying that Jan. 6th was a frightening event nor a major insurrection. Outside DC, people want to know why there is such an effort to make it seem like a major event. The Capitol didn’t look like downtown Kenosha. Heck, Jan. 21, 2021 DC didn’t look half as bad as Jan. 21, 2017. These points shouldn’t be just Twitter meme’s. The GOP needs to be hammering these points, rather than discussing the finer points of whether Liz Cheney is authorized to speak as the ranking member of Pelosi’s committee.

    That’s the same thing the GOP did during the Russia Collusion Hoax. Rather than pointing out, like Rush Limbaugh did on his show, that the whole dossier was made by Hillary’s campaign; the GOP went along with taking the accusations seriously. Instead of saying, “it is absurd that Putin would expect favoritism from the right side of US politics”; the GOP was discussing whether Sessions should recuse himself. Hell, where in US law is it ok to collude with a UK spy to create an opposition dossier but not ok to collude with the Russian head of state? The answer should have been echoed over and over; there is no difference. You don’t collude with foreign governments to affect the outcome of the election. Trump understood this. Limbaugh understood this. It is getting harder to accept GOP politicians not understanding the obvious in front of them.

    PS, I know it is all just a game to the politicians. Well, it is not a game when people on one side are being jailed and the opposition never even gets investigated. Today we learn Michael Byrd wasn’t even questioned before being exonerated for shooting an unarmed person posing no risk of harm.

  29. Epps cannot be found. There is speculation that his disappearance is because he’s enrolled in the FBI’s witness protection program and has thus been disappeared.

    As to Fauci, in his recent insulting “testimony” addressing Rand Paul’s questions about gain-of-function, note he uses the present tense in claiming there was no such research as it’s presently –presently– defined.
    But the definition at NIH was just changed!
    Fauci’s NIAID made the EcoHealth Alliance grants funding gain of function to Wuhan when the older, more precise and restrictive definition was the rule.
    He is a sly bastard without a doubt.

  30. Tom Grey:

    “Everything is political” is how totalitarians get more and more political power. Politics needs borders too – and our culture of freedom needs to enforce those borders more.

    Well stated.

  31. Fauci is a lying, dissembling bastard. Kennedy’s book is damning evidence of his scheming nature.

    Is it true that if you leave government employment then you can ignore congressional subpoenas?

    If so, that’s what Fauci will do just before congress changes hands.

  32. Yawrate,

    That doesn’t seem to be working out for Steve Bannon.

    https://www.cnn.com/2021/10/21/politics/steve-bannon-house-contempt-vote/index.html

    The House of Representatives voted on Thursday to hold Steve Bannon, one of former President Donald Trump’s closest allies, in criminal contempt of Congress after he defied a subpoena from the committee investigating the January 6 attack on the US Capitol. The vote was 229-202…
    …The vote by the full House to hold Bannon in criminal contempt of Congress sets up a referral to the Department of Justice, which would then have to decide whether to prosecute. Attorney General Merrick Garland on Thursday said the Justice Department would review any referral, but at a House Judiciary Committee hearing, he did not say what the DOJ decision would be.
    “The Department of Justice will do what it always does in such circumstances, we’ll apply the facts and the law and make a decision, consistent with the principles of prosecution,” Garland said.

  33. Bannon has something in mind, perhaps using Discovery. He’s a smart guy and is willing to take his chances. The Congress will change a year from now. Possibly that is part of his plan.

  34. Related:
    Another Jan. 6 film is out there (by Nick Searcy)—
    https://blazingcatfur.ca/2022/01/12/new-film-capitol-punishment-counters-medias-jan-6-insurrection-narrative/

    Meanwhile, here’s Il Fauci acting—curiously!—like he’s…”Biden” (the MO is unmistakable):
    ‘Watch: Fauci Accuses Rand Paul Of Using COVID For Political Gain And “Kindling The Crazies’—
    https://www.zerohedge.com/political/watch-fauci-accuses-rand-paul-using-covid-political-gain-and-kindling-crazies

  35. @Leland:Well, it is not a game when people on one side are being jailed and the opposition never even gets investigated.

    There’s not two sides, there’s three: the Left, the Right, and the insiders (I call them “lizards” after Douglas Adams).

    The Left and the insiders, many of whom have (R) after their name, go after the Right. The Left because of ideology, the insiders because they want to keep the system working for them.

    It is getting harder to accept GOP politicians not understanding the obvious in front of them.

    They understand it perfectly, and they are using it against their real opponents, people who are not insiders but have the potential to disrupt their shenanigans.

    What they’re counting on is R voters not figuring it out. So they showboat for the cameras, ask “tough questions”, then go right back to cutting deals that advance their real agenda, which is appropriations. The R voters can be comforted that by voting for an R lizard they kept a D lizard out. And if they can elect the Washington Generals a deeper bench they’re sure to start winning against the Harlem Globetrotters real soon. Why the last game ended 104 – 98. So close.

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