(C) Daily Kos This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . Expect shouting and lies and shouted lies as the Jim Jordan show gets going for real [1] ['Daily Kos Staff', 'Backgroundurl Avatar_Large', 'Nickname', 'Joined', 'Created_At', 'Story Count', 'N_Stories', 'Comment Count', 'N_Comments', 'Popular Tags'] Date: 2023-02-09 The first panel of witnesses includes Republicans Sens. Chuck Grassley and Ron Johnson and former Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, who was elected to the House as a Democrat but is now an independent and a regular Fox News contributor. The Democratic witness on that panel is Rep. Jamie Raskin. Later, a second panel includes former FBI agents Thomas Baker and Nicole Parker and Jonathan Turley, the law professor who has become a go-to for Republicans. The Democratic witness will be Elliot Williams, a former Obama-era Justice Department official and current CNN contributor. Grassley and Johnson are expected to talk about their investigation into—of course—Hunter Biden in 2020, which they believe was undermined by the FBI. In the Trump era. Yet the Justice Department under President Joe Biden continues to investigate his son for tax crimes and a possible false statement relating to a gun purchase. It doesn’t actually look like he’s getting favorable treatment! Gabbard has a long history of admiration for authoritarian leaders around the globe, including Russia’s Vladimir Putin, and leveraging her identity as a Democrat or former Democrat to complain about Democrats. The two FBI agents bear grudges against their former employer. Turley is a reliable Republican mouthpiece. If that all sounds like fun, bear in mind that the panel’s main reason for existing is to give Jordan an additional platform from which to unleash high-pitched rants about how unfair everything is if you’re a Republican. In this setting, he’ll be able to insist that it’s not just unfair but downright nefarious that “They raided, they raided Trump's home. They haven't raided Biden's home,” without Chuck Todd there to respond, “Because Biden didn't defy a subpoena, congressman. [Trump] defied a subpoena.” The whole thing is a production developed to bolster the Fox News/Newsmax/OAN conspiracy theorist view of the world, from the very existence of this subcommittee to the rigged set of panelists. The Democrats on the panel will no doubt come armed with facts and push back hard, but nothing they do will be seen by the Republicans’ intended audience for this. The good news, though, is that the Republican insistence on hearings and attacks over getting things done is a serious turn-off for independent voters, so while Jordan and his crew will be exciting their base, they will definitely not be expanding it. RELATED STORIES: Todd confronts Jordan with the key fact about Trump's document stash: 'He defied a subpoena' Raskin interrupts Republican obsessing about Hunter Biden to talk about issues that actually matter How can you tell when a poll is actually high quality? Natalie Jackson, research director at PRRI, joins us on this week's episode of The Downballot to discuss that and more. Jackson tells us the indicators she looks for to determine whether a survey is worth taking seriously, what she thinks the future of polling aggregation ought to look like, and why white evangelical Christians are the real outliers when it comes to religious groups' views on abortion. Co-hosts David Nir and David Beard also break down Democrats' big special election victories in Pennsylvania; new efforts by progressives to pick their preferred GOP opponents in two key Wisconsin races; the first true retirement from the House this cycle; and a proposal to increase the size of the House, which has been capped at 435 members for more than a century. [END] --- [1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/2/9/2152004/-House-Republican-hearing-on-weaponization-of-government-is-designed-to-go-straight-to-Fox-News Published and (C) by Daily Kos Content appears here under this condition or license: Site content may be used for any purpose without permission unless otherwise specified. via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds: gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailykos/