Their "Freedom" is Authoritarian, 2022 Rallies Have Started
The David Pakman Show - January 18, 2022
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Swollen Trump at Insane Rally: "America is Not Great"
Donald Trump kicked off his 2022 rally calendar with an event in Florence, Arizona over the weekend. The rally sounded like it could have been from 2020, with the former president talking about how information will soon come out from the Arizona audit proving election fraud and vindicating him after all this time. Perhaps the most fascinating moment from the rally was when Trump was talking about January 6, 2021 and complained that the media never reports on how big the crowd was at the rally that preceded the insurrection. He said, “they talk about the people that walked down to the Capitol. They don’t talk about the size of that crowd. I believe it was the largest crowd I’ve ever spoken before.” Trump went on to spread conspiracy theories that he presumably learned about watching Tucker Carlson’s program, including one about race-based vaccine preferences and another about Ray Epps. Unfortunately, Trump will be doing these rallies all year leading up to the midterms with the next one being in Texas on January 29th.
Trump Rioters Charged with SEDITIOUS CONSPIRACY
The leader of the Oath Keepers and ten other individuals have been indicted in federal court on charges including seditious conspiracy connected to the January 6th Capitol riots. The main person in question is Elmer Stewart Rhodes III, a 56-year-old from Texas, who is the founder and leader of the right-wing Oath Keepers organization. The indictment alleges that Rhodes and his co-defendants tried to oppose with force the execution of the laws ensuring a transfer of power from Donald Trump to Joe Biden. These are highly serious charges and perhaps the most severe so far stemming from the Capitol insurrection. For over a year now, there’s been talk about the actions taken by some of those on the 6th being “sedition” and while true in a colloquial sense, only now are there actual charges alleging that. Perhaps it has taken so long because being such a serious crime, a mountain of evidence has had to accumulate in order to meet the standard to charge these folks.
From over the weekend:
Furious Dr Fauci Completely Destroys Rand Paul
Dr. Anthony Fauci testified in front of a congressional committee last week and had yet another heated exchange with Kentucky Senator Rand Paul. Paul got right to it and asked the NIAID director, “do you really think it’s appropriate to use your $420,000 salary to attack scientists who disagree with you?” Fauci’s salary obviously had no relevance to the topic at hand, but right-wingers have lately tried to hammer the point home in recent months that he’s overpaid. Dr. Fauci responded, “I think in usual fashion, Senator, you are distorting everything about me.” After some back and forth, the nation’s top infectious disease doctor said, “there you go again. You just do the same thing every hearing.” Senator Paul’s goal with these exchanges is obviously not to learn anything new about the pandemic. Rather, it’s to make Fauci look bad by berating him in an attempt to get a soundbite that will allow Paul to make his rounds in right-wing media circles and boost his personal profile.
From over the weekend:
Marjorie Taylor Greene Suggests Using "2nd Amendment" Against Democrats
Marjorie Taylor Greene went on Sebastian Gorka’s show last week and suggested using Second Amendment rights against Democrats. Gorka asked the Georgia congresswoman a question about guns and hinted that Joe Biden and Democrats have made them a focal point in their agenda, which they have not. He asked, “they’re coming for our guns and our civil rights, are they not?” Greene followed up by claiming that Stacey Abrams, who is running again for governor of Georgia, is coming for people’s guns. She went on to say, “I hate to use this language, but Democrats, they’re exactly — they’re doing exactly what our founders talked about when they gave us these precious rights that we have.” The congresswoman then tried to hedge her statement by claiming to not want violence or a civil war, but that doesn’t take away from the fact that she suggested using guns against Democratic politicians. Even just a few years ago, a statement like this would have come with serious blowback but this type of speech has been normalized in the modern Republican Party.
More on the show:
--Elizabeth Coppock, Assistant Professor of Linguistics at Boston University, joins David to discuss how "textualist" interpretations of law are sometimes based on mistaken readings of the relevant texts
--What Republicans increasingly refer to as "freedom" is actually a very dark authoritarian vision for the country
--Interviews with attendees of the latest Donald Trump rally in Florence, Arizona reveal a very disturbed group of people
--DirecTV will be removing right-wing conspiracy channel OAN
--MyPillow founder and CEO Mike Lindell's bank, Heartland Financial, is closing his account for fear of "reputational damage"
--Voicemail caller suggests David go back to his own f-ing country because he will never understand what's going on in the United States
--On the Bonus Show: The Texas synagogue standoff, the campaign to ban gas stoves, NC voters sue to ban Madison Cawthorn from ballot, much more...
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