Tag: republicans

Republicans ask why 9 boxes of Biden records were omitted in Special Counsel report

Department of Justice (DOJ) Special Counsel Robert Hur’s report on President Biden’s mishandling of classified documents omitted nine boxes of potentially classified records, according to Sens. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) and Ron Johnson (R-Wisconsin).

The senators made the existence of the records public after the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) responded to their oversight queries. NARA reportedly confirming that, at DOJ’s urging, it retrieved the 9 boxes out of concern for the sensitivity of their contents.

NARA further acknowledged to the senators that the FBI had reviewed the contents of the boxes. But it is unclear if NARA or the FBI shared their findings with Hur.   

Grassley and Johnson are pressing Attorney General Merrick Garland, FBI Director Christopher Wray and Hur on this “significant factual omission.”

Specifically, the senators are asking for a description of the boxes’ contents and an explanation of what the agencies did with them.  “…[W]e publicly revealed last year that NARA had retrieved nine boxes of Biden records from the Boston office of Patrick Moore, one of Biden’s personal counsels,” the senators wrote.

“Oddly, Special Counsel Hur’s report did not mention NARA’s retrieval of the nine boxes from Mr. Moore’s office… [I]t is unclear if Special Counsel Hur had any awareness of or reviewed the information contained in these nine boxes.” “DOJ, FBI, and the Special Counsel’s office owe Congress and the American people a complete explanation regarding this apparent omission in Special Counsel Hur’s report, a detailed description of the contents of the nine boxes, and what was done with them,” the senators concluded. 

Keep reading

Minnesota Republicans Warn Of ‘Blackouts And Brownouts’ From Marijuana Cultivation’s Energy Use

Two Minnesota Republican state lawmakers are claiming that home cultivation of cannabis as the result of the legalization law enacted by the Democratic legislature and governor last year could lead to a power failure as grow lights put an overwhelming strain on the state’s electrical grid.

“Now, I hope most of you are not familiar with the marijuana grow operation,” Rep. Paul Novotny (R) said at an event last weekend, “but I will tell you that it takes a ton of electricity.”

“Get ready for blackouts and brownouts. That’s what’s going to happen,” added Sen. Eric Lucero (R), who called cultivation under the law “unsustainable.”

As noted by Heartland Signal, which reported on the event, some states that have legalized marijuana, such as Massachusetts and Illinois, have taken steps to regulate energy use. Many, however, have done little to curb power consumption, according to a New Frontier Data report in 2018 that found that cannabis cultivation in the U.S. consumed about as much energy as the country’s Starbucks stores.

In addition to grow lights, indoor cultivation can also require various temperature and humidity controls, which also consume electricity.

Keep reading

GOP Congressman Stands By Accusation Some Fellow Members Have Been Compromised

One of the more colorful conservative members of the U.S. House told HuffPost he stands by recent remarks in which he said some of his fellow members were likely victims of blackmail.

But Rep. Tim Burchett (R-Tenn.), who made the comments on a Dec. 21 podcast with a right-wing commentator, declined to elaborate on who he was talking about or give any other details.

“You as a member of the media understand confidentiality, and I appreciate that, and I am going to keep that confidential unless those people tell me otherwise,” Burchett told HuffPost on Thursday.

Asked if he was standing by his comments, Burchett said, “Sure. I’m not going to back up.”

And when asked if he believed there were House members who had decided how to vote based on compromising material about them held by foreign powers, Burchett said, “Absolutely. And other powers. It doesn’t have to be foreign powers.”

On “The Benny Show” podcast, hosted by Benny Johnson, Burchett said, without pointing to specific evidence or names, that powerful people protect their own interests by blackmail.

“The old honey pot. The Russians do that. And I’m sure members of Congress have been caught up. Why in the world would good conservatives vote for crazy stuff like what we’ve been seeing out of Congress?” he asked.

He said members may be on a trip or at a bar, meet someone and buy them a drink.

“Next thing you know, you’re in a hotel room with them, naked. Next thing you know, you’re about to make a key vote, and what happens? Some well-dressed person comes up and whispers into your ear, ‘Hey, man, there’s tapes out on you. Were you in a motel room on whatever with whoever?’ And then you’re, like, ‘Uh-oh.’ And they say, ‘You really ought not be voting for this thing.’”

“They know what to get at. If it’s women, drugs, booze — it’ll find you in D.C. And other elected offices,” he told Johnson.

Keep reading

PROTECT Act Could Require Removal of All Existing Porn Online

Is Congress really trying to outlaw all sex work? That’s what some people fear the Preventing Rampant Online Technological Exploitation and Criminal Trafficking (PROTECT) Act would mean.

The bill defines “coerced consent” to include consent obtained by leveraging “economic circumstances”—which sure sounds like a good starting point for declaring all sex work “coercive” and all consent to it invalid. (Under that definition, in fact, most jobs could be considered nonconsensual.)

Looking at the bill as a whole, I don’t think this is its intent, nor is it likely be enforced that way. It’s mainly about targeting tech platforms and people who post porn online that they don’t have a right to post.

But should the PROTECT Act become law, its definition of consent could be used in other measures that do seek to target sex work broadly. And even without banning sex work, it could still wreak major havoc on sex workers, tech companies, and free speech and internet freedom more widely.

There are myriad ways it would do this. Let’s start by looking at how it could make all existing online porn against the law.

Keep reading

‘The way our society is going, this is going to be normalized’: Lawmaker introduces anti-cannibalism bill after seeing prank show in which no human flesh was consumed

An Idaho lawmaker introduced a cannibalism bill Thursday she said would keep human flesh and bone out of the food supply — and it appears the legislator based her proposal on a reality show prank.

Rep. Heather Scott, a Republican, introduced a bill that would expand the state’s existing criminal cannibalism law to prohibit any person from “willfully provid[ing] the flesh or blood of a human being to another person to ingest without such person’s knowledge or consent.” Idaho’s cannibalism law already outlaws the willful ingestion of the flesh or blood of a human being.

The official statement of purpose of House Bill 522 states that the expanded law “has no fiscal impact,” because it “causes no additional expenditure of funds at the state or local level of government, nor does it cause an increase or decrease in revenue for state or local government.”

On the legislative floor, Scott said she had two reasons for introducing the bill: to prevent human composting, and to ensure that duping people into eating human material is not “normalized.”

“I know this seems a heavy topic,” Scott said as she explained her proposal, “It might seem kind of gruesome. It kinda is.”

First, Scott discussed the dangers of human composting.

“In 2019, I heard that Washington state was starting to do human composting, and that disturbed me,” she said. “So, I wanted to address this because what I didn’t want to see is bags of compost with human bone fragments.”

“I didn’t want to see that in my Home Depot stores,” Scott said.

In 2019, Washington became the first state to legalize “human composting” — an environmentally-friendly burial practice in which people can be buried without embalming, caskets, or headstones. Since then, other states have allowed “green cemeteries” as legal burial alternatives to traditional cemeteries. The practice does not involve either the bagging or the consumption of human remains, nor is composted human material used in food production; accordingly, it is unclear at best how Scott’s proposed legislation relates in any way to the practice.

Next, Scott moved on to warning that society is moving toward normalizing using human flesh as a culinary ingredient.

She said that on a flight, she “watched a video of some food show,” and that on the show, contestants were told that human flesh was a possible ingredient in the food.

“I thought — this is going to be normalized at some point,” Scott said. “The way our society is going, and the direction we’re going, this is going to be normalized.”

“There is a lot of documentation out there,” Scott insisted. “If you just google it, people showing it, and how they’re doing it.”

In reality, according to the Idaho Statesman, the video Scott saw was not footage of anyone ingesting human flesh. Rather, it was an almost decade-old episode of comedian David Spade’s prank show “Fameless,” which uses improv comedy to test “how far real people will go to be famous.” Participants on the show are led to believe they have been cast on a reality show, then subjected to outrageous conditions by improv performers. In a 2015 episode, a contestant was served a sausage by a chef who claimed the meal contained human flesh. A few moments later, the host informed the relieved contestant that she was part of a prank for Spade’s comedy show.

Keep reading

Nanny State Social Media Mandates Are No Substitute for Effective Parenting

One of the basic tenets of American conservatism—at least it has been until the Make America Great Again movement has re-jiggered the Republican Party—is that individuals rather than government regulators are best suited to manage their own lives and raise their families. There’s always been an authoritarian streak in social conservatism, but progressives have traditionally been the ones to promote what we call the Nanny State.

“Whether it is forcing restaurants in England to print calorie counts on menus or banning energy drinks for under-18s, the government is full of ideas about how to protect people from themselves,” explained a 2018 BBC article. Although the term is of British origin, such policies are rampant throughout the United States and California in particular. One can think of any number of recent policies that fit the bill, but they all meddle in our lives to “help” or “uplift” us.

Most of these laws—from bans on single-use plastic bags and super-sized soft drinks to limits on trans-fats and e-cigarettes—accomplish little in terms of public health or the environment. There always are endless workarounds to render the edicts pointless. The Nanny State term is ideal, as we envision a hectoring nursemaid intent on depriving us of the simplest pleasures.

But now conservatives are giving leftists a run for the money. Throughout Republican-run Western states, lawmakers are passing legislation that treats adults as if they are children by mandating a variety of mostly pointless regulations in the name of protecting kids from pornography and other internet nastiness. Everyone wants to protect The Children, which makes it difficult to push back—even when such laws impose restrictions on everyone.

The latest frenzy started in Utah, which in 2021 passed a content-filter law that requires that all new cell phones and tablets sold or activated in the state be equipped with a filter that blocks “material that is harmful to minors,” as reports note. Because the law is contingent on five other states approving similar measures, lawmakers in other like-minded states have followed suit. The bills vary somewhat, but ultimately they require some form of age verification to disable the filter.

It’s obviously hypocritical for supposedly free-market lawmakers to mandate meddlesome business regulations. Device manufacturers don’t always know where their products will be sold or activated. Following the model of progressive California, these conservative legislatures are trying to use their muscle to create a de facto nationwide standard. But that’s the least of the problems with these proposals, which raise constitutional and privacy concerns.

If they pass, these laws will certainly get tied up in the federal courts. Previous U.S. Supreme Court decisions have made it clear that legislatures must take the least intrusive approach to limiting public access to websites. By foisting content filters on every device, these efforts take a heavy-handed approach. Such laws, as the court found, presume that parents lack the ability to protect their children.

In fact, parents have a nearly endless array of tools. They simply need to enable the filters and voluntary verification processes that are currently offered. The Competitive Enterprise Institute lists dozens of filter blockers from social media companies, Internet Service Providers, gaming companies, web browsers, and operating systems, as well as standalone app controls.

As the free-speech group NetChoice argued in testimony against Utah’s bill, such measures only provide a false sense of security, leading parents to believe their children are protected. Even the best filters are imperfect, so parents still need to be involved. The group also notes that it will stifle market innovation by imposing a one-size-fits-all standard.

Keep reading

Freedom Caucus leader wants to limit religious freedom by barring Satanic displays in Arizona

In a bit of irony, the leader of Arizona’s far-right Freedom Caucus has sponsored a bill that clearly infringes on the right to religious freedom. 

Sen. Jake Hoffman, a Queen Creek Republican, wants to ban Satanic displays on public property in Arizona, claiming that Satanism is not a real religion, and therefore not owed protection under the First Amendment. 

Hoffman is the sponsor of Senate Bill 1279, which he’s named the RESPECT Act, short for Reject Escalating Satanism by Preserving Essential Core Traditions. 

“It’s the blatant unconstitutionality of it,” Hemant Mehta, editor of The Friendly Atheist, told the Arizona Mirror. “It just violates every intention of the First Amendment of the Constitution. 

Mehta doesn’t believe that Hoffman actually thinks that this bill will ever become law, with Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs ready and willing to veto it, but that it’s simply sending a message to his followers. 

“It’s so hypocritical,” Mehta said. “This shows you how little Republicans like Hoffman actually care about freedom. He wants freedom for people like him and no freedom for people he disagrees with. It’s ridiculous.”

The bill was the subject of a heated debate during a Senate Government Committee meeting Wednesday, where Hoffman, who chairs the committee, repeatedly interrupted members of the public testifying against the bill. 

He spoke over them to correct them about what he said were their misinterpretation of it and admonished members of the audience for making faces and gestures at him and the other lawmakers on the committee. He also accused a member of The Satanic Temple of being disingenuous in her testimony, something that members of the public would not be allowed to say about Hoffman’s claims without being told they were in violation of the legislature’s rules against impugning the motivations of a lawmaker. 

The bill passed through the committee with a vote of 5-1, with the only Democrat present, Sen. Juan Mendez, of Tempe, voting against. The two other Democratic members of the committee were absent. 

Keep reading

Maryland Senators Take Up Bills To Let Police Search Vehicles Based On Marijuana Odor And Protect Gun Rights For Cannabis Patients

Maryland senators took up two GOP-led marijuana bills on Friday: one that would let police search vehicles based on the smell of cannabis and another that’s meant to protect gun rights for medical marijuana patients.

Members of the Senate Judicial Proceedings Committee discussed the legislation during a hearing, listening to testimony in support and opposition, but did not vote on the proposals.

Sen. William Folden (R) is sponsoring the bill to authorize law enforcement searches based on marijuana odor, a measure he said attempts to “correct a wrong, an error, that the legislature made” when it passed reform legislation that was enacted last year to specifically prevent such searches given that the state has legalized marijuana.

If the smell of cannabis is emitted from a car, that’s a “strong indicator that person is in violation of law and potentially impaired at the time,” Folden said, adding that “this strong odor is definitely discernible by law enforcement and those in the community.”

Two county prosecutors also testified in favor of the measure. But drug policy reform advocates, including ACLU of Maryland Public Policy Director Yanet Amanuel, defended the current policy that bars police from conducting cannabis odor-based searches.

Keep reading

Democrat Megadonor Reid Hoffman, Who Visited Epstein Island, Donated to Ohio Senate Candidate Frank LaRose

Democrat megadonor and LinkedIn cofounder Reid Hoffman, who visited alleged sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein’s island, donated to Ohio Secretary of State and Senate Republican candidate Frank LaRose.

In 2022, Hoffman donated $13,700 to LaRose. Hoffman was also once a fellow at the Aspen Institute, a George Soros-funded globalist institution described as a “retreat for the liberal elite.”

Hoffman once spent $4.5 million to work with several media firms and the anti-Trump Lincoln Project to produce ads attacking former President Donald Trump.

Hoffman, who reportedly visited alleged sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein’s island, helped fund former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley’s (R) presidential campaign.

In May 2023, Hoffman admitted to visiting Epstein’s private island, Little Saint James, which is more infamously referred to as “Pedophile Island.”

Hoffman also backed E. Jean Carroll’s civil case against Trump.

Hoffman is one of the Democrat Party’s largest donors. He, alongside leftist billionaire George Soros, helped run the clandestine group known as the “Good Information Foundation” and is accused of election meddling.

Keep reading

GOP Lawmakers Team Up With Marijuana Prohibitionists On Resolution Calling For Research Into High Potency THC Products

GOP House and Senate lawmakers well-known for opposing marijuana reform have introduced a concurrent resolution calling on federal agencies to study the potential risks of high potency THC products.

Rep. Pete Sessions (R-TX) and Sen. Pete Ricketts (R-NE) filed the legislation, which they promoted alongside the leading prohibitionist group Smart Approaches to Marijuana (SAM) at a press conference on Thursday.

The whereas section of the measure says that “high-potency marijuana has become increasingly prevalent across the United States,” which it claims carries “greater health risks,” particularly for young people.

It goes on to say that “education and awareness programs are essential to inform the public about the potential risks associated with the use of high-potency marijuana,” and “bipartisan effort is necessary to develop evidence-based policies to address” the issue.

To that end, the resolution would express the sense of Congress that agencies including the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) and National Institutes of Health (NIH) should “conduct and support research on the health effects of high-potency marijuana and its impact on vulnerable populations such as youth.”

Keep reading