NARRATOR: McCarthy will take no action.
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But the thing is he doesn’t have any degenerative neurological condition. I also don’t believe he’s as dumb as we all would like to believe. What he is, is a disgusting Republican who knows making comments like this gets him more donations and higher priced donations.
The fervor raised by the left, and one or two R’s, gets him more air time to raise even more money all the while knowing that McCarthy will never hold him accountable and that Fox News will be out in a day or two claiming that Dems just don’t know what a joke is.
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It’s one thing to see some fringe nutcase do something like this, it’s another to have it coming from senior government officials. When Kathy Griffin did her photo with Trump’s (fake) bloody head, everyone was outraged, and rightly so…threatening to kill politicians is just not how things should work in a democracy. Gosar, and others, have directly threatened the life of AOC and other Democratic politicians, and that’s on top of even more vile behavior coming from the Republican party base…not the extremists, it’s now base policy to threaten the lives of Democrats, especially women like AOC.
And, Republican politicians say nothing about it, we’re long past the point of McCain scolding his followers for saying Obama is a Muslim who wants to destroy America. Their cowardice to stand against the right wing hate is what really will destroy America, the fact that they are just fine with it because it will allow them to hold onto power is disgusting.
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I don’t get it, why should McCarthy censure Gosar? Did he vote for a a Democratic initiative? Did he participate in 1/6 Committee? Did he badmouth Trump? Threatening AOC is not only the Republican national sport, it’s the patriotic and Christian thing to do.
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IANAL, but my guess is that if a private citizen put up that video it would probably be covered under parody and 1st Amendment rights. Nobody kills anybody in real life by flying through the air on grapple hook lines using swords.
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At the same time, were the roles reversed here, and AOC had opted the same video with Gosar and Trump as the targets, Republicans would be foaming at the mouth with righteous outrage, n’cest pas?
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Where was the threat in Kathy’s joke? How was that any different other than the fact that she was a comedian, not a Representative in the US Congress, and the President “threatened” was not a Democrat.
But the FBI and the SS damn near wrecked her life utterly over that joke.
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Sincere question: what powers if any does the Speaker of the House have on her own, without having to call a vote, by way of disciplining members?
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I don’t know the technicalities of Kathy’s joke vs. this Anime cartoon. I’ll just point out that a severed head is something that happens in real murders. Flying through the air on grapple hook lines wielding swords, not so much.
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Absolutely! It’d be weeks of breaking news “AOC Crisis” bumpers and 24-7 outrage on Fox News until she, or any Dem resigned, if they had done something like this.
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McCarthy and his merry band of bucolic brigands are shameless. Full stop!
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If it was not beyond the pale you would have seen republicans regularly joke about killing Obama. That they did not is proof it was not allowable then.
Violence is also not allowable now either. In any form.
What you permit is what you promote.
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Just a day or two ago the Prime Minister of Iraq was attacked by someone using a drone. He was injured but not badly apparently. Several of his guards were also injured so not much is out of the realm of possibility these days.
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At some point someone is actually going to physically attack a member of Congress. When that happens, will there be outrage from the Republicans, or even a little soul-searching? I bet not.
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Well their voter base tried really hard to actually physically attack members of Congress on January 6. They would have too but for the incredible bravery of the Capitol police and the other security there.
Shortly afterward, many GOP were still so shaken they were saying shit like Lindsey Graham: “That’s it, I’m done.” Well that lasted about a half a week until somebody flipped the switch and they all ran down to Mar-a-Fuckoff to kiss the ring and change their stories.
So soul searching - hahahahahahahaha they have no souls.
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To be clear, I’m not saying that Gosar shouldn’t receive some attention from the FBI over this. I’m just surmising that it may fall under parody and not direct threat, because it’s a fantasy cartoon and not actionable. Nothing in that clip could ever happen.
I don’t know how much of a difference that makes. And obviously it’s something a sitting member of Congress should never do to threaten another member, even as a joke or parody. But the means to punish Gosar in any meaningful way short of expulsion – which I believe needs a 2/3 vote – are limited.
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It only took 13 years from McCain to this.
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Well, there is this to consider in Gosar’s case…
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So jokes about violent crimes, like murder, torture, and/or rape, are OK as long as they are super cute?
Which murder jokes are appropriate to be shared with the public? Say you wanted to tell them about your spouse and children? Tell me a zinger.
You see how dumb that sounds, right?
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When you are an elected official in Congress (or POTUS inciting a riot…), the law seem a lot more flimsy. I wonder how many Southern Congresscritters in 1860 said the same thing about Lincoln or Abolitionists?
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