'Something to hide': Watergate's John Dean offers Brett Kavanaugh advice at confirmation hearing
September 07, 2018
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GOP's latest 'weaponization' hearing compared to a 'Monty Python skit' in brutal report
March 30, 2023
House Republicans' hearings on the purported "weaponization" of the federal government against conservatives have gotten off to a rocky start, with even some Fox News personalities complaining that they've so far failed to dig up anything significant.
The hearings continue to misfire on Thursday, and USA Today reporter Bart Jansen likened them to a "Monty Python sketch" in his latest dispatch from the Capitol.
At issue was the fact that two witnesses called by House Republicans made incendiary claims about the federal government "censoring" them under President Joe Biden's direction, but then left the hearing before they could be asked any questions by Democratic members of the committee.
Rep. Stephen Lynch (D-MA) called out Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) for not allowing anyone to question the witnesses he brought before the committee.
RELATED: Dem Stacey Plaskett throws document back in 'mansplaining' Republican's face
"They have scurried away with your complicity,” he scolded Jordan. “That’s pretty disgraceful.”
A defensive Jordan replied that the two witnesses didn't "scurry" despite the fact that they had left before any of their claims could be scrutinized.
One witness who didn't "scurry," noted Jansen, was Stanford constitutional scholar Matthew Seligman, who emphasized to the committee that private companies such as Twitter and Facebook are not obligated to let everyone use them and that their decision to remove certain content did not amount to government-sponsored censorship.
"Once again it bears repeating: the First Amendment applies to governmental restrictions of speech, not private conduct," he said.
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Two US Army helicopters crashed during a nighttime training mission in Kentucky, killing all nine soldiers on board, a general said Thursday.
The helicopters -- variants of the Black Hawk designed for medical evacuation -- were taking part in a routine training mission the night before when the crash occurred, Brigadier General John Lubas told a news conference.
It "resulted in the death of all nine service members aboard the aircraft," all of them members of the 101st Airborne Division, which is based at Fort Campbell in Kentucky, he said.
Five soldiers were on one helicopter and four on another, Lubas said, noting that the military is still working to notify all the families of those killed.
The helicopters -- which were flying in formation with the pilots using night vision goggles -- were able to land in an open field across from a residential area, avoiding deaths or injuries on the ground, he said.
With an investigative team heading to Fort Campbell from the base where US Army Aviation is headquartered in Alabama, it was still unknown whether the two helicopters collided.
"We have a safety team coming... from Fort Rucker, Alabama who specialize in aircraft safety and specifically these investigations," Lubas said.
Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear mourned the lost soldiers and praised those who responded to the crash.
"We are blessed to live in the freest country in the history of planet Earth. But we must remember that that freedom relies on those who are willing to serve, some of which pay the ultimate price," the governor told the news conference.
'Just disappeared'
"We're going to do what we always do. We're going to wrap our arms around these families. We're going to be there with them, not just for the days but the weeks and the months and the years to come," Beshear said.
MSNBC quoted a local resident who witnessed the crash.
"Two helicopters just disappeared out of the sky. There was a large flash," Nick Tomaszewski said, adding that another helicopter circled the area for about 30 minutes before ambulances arrived.
There have been multiple crashes of US military aircraft in recent years, including another involving a Black Hawk that killed two Tennessee National Guardsmen during a training flight Alabama in February.
Four US Marines were killed during NATO exercises in Norway last year when their V-22B Osprey aircraft went down, possibly after hitting a mountain, investigators said.
And two US Navy pilots were rescued after their T-45C Goshawk jet crashed during a training exercise in a residential neighborhood near Fort Worth, Texas in 2021. The pilots ejected before the plane went down.
The 101st Airborne Division is the US Army's only air assault division. Nicknamed the "Screaming Eagles," it was activated in August 1942 and gained renown during World War II in the D-Day landings and the Battle of the Bulge.
More recently the division has seen action in Iraq and Afghanistan.
© Agence France-Presse
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'Trickle-down fantasy': AOC rips House GOP energy bill as everything oil lobbyists could want
March 30, 2023
Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives have proposed a fossil fuels-friendly bill they are calling the Low Energy Costs Act of 2023. If the bill passes, it will face two major hurdles: the U.S. Senate (where Democrats increased their small effective majority in the 2022 midterms) and Democratic President Joe Biden.
House Democrats who are critical of House Resolution 1, a.k.a. the Low Energy Costs Act of 2023, have another name for it: the "Polluters Over People Act." And one of the progressive Democrats who is being especially vehement in her condemnation is Rep. Alexandria-Ocasio Cortez (D-New York), who began serving her third term in January.
Speaking on the House floor on Tuesday, March 28, AOC declared, "The central argument and logic of this bill is that if you give big oil everything they want, then perhaps they will lower our gas prices. It's a form of trickle-down fantasy that just will not make life easier for everyday Americans."
The Bronx/Queens congresswoman went on to say that fossil fuel companies "already have thousands of unused permits on public lands, and yet, they want even more. This is not a problem of supply, it is a problem of greed and abuse of market power." And she slammed the bill as having "everything that" an "oil lobbyist" could "want."
AOC is not the only well-known Democrat who has been slamming the Low Energy Costs Act. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-New York) has said that if HR1 passes in the House, it will be "dead on arrival" in the U.S. Senate. And Biden has said he would veto HR1 if it went to his desk for approval.
The U.S. Office of Management and Budget (OMB) has issued a statement condemning HR1 and warning that it "would raise costs for American families by repealing household energy rebates and rolling back historic investments to increase access to cost-lowering clean energy technologies."
OMB warned, "Instead of protecting American consumers, it would pad oil and gas company profits —already at record levels — and undercut our public health and environment."
On March 27, the National Parks Conservation Association (NPCA) published, on its website, a listicle laying some reasons to oppose the bill — which, according to NPCA, would "gut existing environmental laws" and "worsen climate change."
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