I was taken back by Cummings saying Meadows is his best or one of his best friends. Also, Talib did nothing wrong and Cummings should have asked his friend, Meadows to stop interrupting Talib’s time.
This is why we need new leadership in the Democratic Party. We have all these old hacks who are too close with their racist, repugnant, lying
Cummings is one of those “leaders” (like Hoyer, Nadler, etc) who need to be given a big dinner and some kind of emeritus status, and then shown the door. Yesterday’s hearing (like the whitaker one) was a mess because the Chairperson did not give Democratic members their marching orders, telling them that there will be consequences for those who waste time grandstanding, rather than using their five minutes to find out what the hell has been going on.
These old warhorses aren’t going to change - -they aren’t suddently going to become sharp and quick witted, and will just continue to be rolled by the GOP who knows that the rules are different now.
Yeah,would have been nice to have a quote from her here.
That’s all hearings like this. The two days of closed testimony provided much of his real input.
In front of the cameras, for the too-many members of the committees, it’s their rare chance to get a moment in the spotlight which will translate into local coverage and contribute to their re-election.
except, of course, that the members who made news yesterday were the ones who actually got new information out of Cohen, like Hill, AOC, and Khanna. They are the members that the morning shows were talking about today…
I don’t think Meadows got the best of this deal. He was over bearing, loud mouthed, disruptive through out the whole hearing. That stunt he pulled with proving Trump was not racist, and the push back he received along with the video did not help him.
Oh, totally agreed. There’s a sea-change going on, and people are slow to realize it.
But don’t underestimate how that teamwork works, with the new folks and the experienced hands like Cummings. There’s a lot more to those leadership positions than just waving a gavel.
Their leadership allows AOC and the others the freedom of movement, while they’re still learning the vagaries of parliamentary procedure, to do big things and take the spotlight.
I somewhat wonder why she did. But I suppose the House is a workplace like any other in terms of people wanting to get along. Maybe that’s it.
From the outside, it always amazes me ,especially in the era of trump, that Dems can even stand the sight of their trump-loving colleagues across the isle, all of whom have behaved terribly (we won’t even get into the last 40 years of GOP assholery - what they are since 2016 makes them look sane before then). But maybe it’s that workplace thing. Or maybe most of them are so in the bag for their donors that everything else doesn’t matter. I don’t usually subscribe to such a cynical view, but…
In yesterday’s hearing, during the Meadows/Tlaib showdown, Meadows and Cummings were going back and forth about what good friends they are. Is it true? Or just show? It’s hard to believe, given Meadows is a tea partying, racist shitbag.
Ehh? What the feck ya say now? MEADOWS IS A RACIST!!! This motherfucker is on video saying Obama needs to go back to Kenya AND he blatantly exploited that black woman yesterday on National TV to support our National embarrassment of a POTUS who is a raging RACIST!! I’m sorry, this is total and complete bullshit, anyone that supports Trump the well documented criminal and rapist who throws his shit at immigrants and minorities stereotyping them as criminals and rapists is a stain on our Nation and should be treated as such. Noted this is an AP story so it’s hardly worth the pixels, seems to be quite a few broad assumptions for this piece of “journalism” but come on! What? Do they actually think if they butter this guy up he will vote with them at some point? Face-palm.
And so he gets a pat on the back and a hug just for saying he’s sorry for doing something that was clearly off-the-wall you know the one toke black person you have in your presence. Not to mention the fact that we have found tapes of this man calling all Barack Obama’s birthplace is Kenya, he’s a birther.
I find hip Pockrus he is out of sight here when you think of that governor in Virginia or West Virginia who did a black face costume 35 years ago and he’s all been asked to resign called names smeared and this man gets a free pass. Seriously some people better look at this picture not once but twice.
And the hearing was childlike symbolism sign Paid in big letters calling him or quoting liar liar pants on fire who does that? Yeah the symbolism was out rages yesterday the GOP are races you can look at their group and see by the fact that they have hardly any colored people are people of color and the fact that they have no women hardly there a big gets their races them and not generous and just how they present themselves. They’re disgusting.
Meadows should apologize for being an aggressive ignoramus and for his stunt with Patten on Wednesday. Tlaib and others might then consider accepting his apology, but only if the apology were in fact, you know, an apology and not another stunt.
It is an upside-down world when Tlaib feels it is she who needs to apologize. Utterly fucked up. In a fucked-up world, the likes of Republicans (corrupt belligerent assholes and traitors) do relatively well.
Tlaib screwed the pooch. The Cohen hearing was not the time or place to make her point, despite its validity. Cummings was forced to go full comity to regain control of the situation. It’s likely Tlaib had a heart to heart with both the Chairman and the Speaker last night.
National Brotherhood Week
National Brotherhood Week
national everyone smile at
one another-hood week, be
nice to people who are
inferior to you. it’s only for a week so have no fear
be grateful that it doesn’t last all year 
Exactly. She put Cummings in difficult position, and I don’t think he was too happy about that. The focus should have remained on Cohen and that was a distraction, right at the end when the story needed to be on him.
Part of the job of Chairman is to at least appear to rise above personal bickering and offense - to be the grownup in the room. If Tlaib wanted to make that point, she could have done very easily with something along the lines of,
“This display felt personally uncomfortable to me, even offensive, because…(blah blah blah)…I’m certain no member of the House would intentionally commit a racist act by standing a black woman up there like that, but that is the way it came across. I encourage Rep. Meadows to open a dialog with me about why this was offensive and how we can avoid this unfortunate insinuation in the future.”
Not as dramatic, and some people dislike that kind of politician circumlocution, but it serves a purpose.
Tom Leher. 
I thought it a seriously awkward and not smart move by Meadows to parade the young black lady before the committee yesterday. Tlaib was right to call him on it. Meadows got red faced and was gonna try to shut down Tlaib until Chairman Cummings stepped in… Meadows got put in his place.
Why? He’s testifying in closed hearings where the info is juicier, and coming back for another HIC hearing in a week. I expect the democrats with remaining time got together during the vote and agreed on who would call out meadows’ racist stunt.
AOC is why. In one 5 min segment, she got 6 additional names of witnesses and opened up a whole new area of liability on insurance fraud and tax fraud. Tlaib could’ve helped too.
You do realize how coordinated Thursday’s hearing performance was, right? (I admit it took me a day of reflection to understand that.) And that Cohen is going to so many other hearings that they have around a 100 other 5 minute segments to ask questions, often in closed sessions where they can be more direct.
One could as easily thank Tlaib for giving non-political-junkies a reason to check out the hearing.