Over the past few days Republican politicians have amplified a tidal wave of lies and disinformation from rightwing media. Ridiculous conspiracy theories about the President banning meat, and about the Vice President's book.

A new claim about Climate Envoy John Kerry is worse.
Republicans are spreading the highly dubious claim that Kerry secretly informed Iran's foreign minister Javad Zarif about 200 Israeli strikes against Iranian targets in Syria, based on a 2020 recording of Zarif reported by NYT. Republicans say it's "a criminal act" and "treason."
Mike Pompeo, one of the worst Secretaries of State in American history, is again slandering a diplomat for his own political benefit.

Nikki Haley, who said "we can’t trust them" of Iran, has chosen to take the word of Iran's foreign minister over a decorated American war hero.
But the secret intel Kerry supposedly gave Iran's foreign minister wasn't secret. Benjamin Netanyahu discussed the strikes by a hot mic in 2017; the Commander in Chief of the Israeli Air Force publicly confirmed that Israel had struck over 100 Iranian targets in Syria soon after.
Israeli strikes on Iranian targets in Syria continued regularly. 13 months later the number had risen to 200, the number Kerry supposedly gave Zarif.

Except that was public knowledge, widely reported by global press at the time and publicly confirmed by the IDF.
Republicans are slandering John Kerry, who risked his life in service to this country, of "betraying" a key ally by furnishing intelligence to an adversary that said adversary could have found with a google search.

This "secret" info came with a map at the Wall Street Journal.
John Kerry's "secret" info, the sharing of which Republicans say constituted a criminal act, is such a closely guarded secret that it has been freely available on Wikipedia for years.
There is a scandal involving the betrayal of Israeli intelligence. You know who did it? Donald Trump.

Donald Trump betrayed Israeli sources and methods to the Russians during a meeting in the Oval Office, and Republican leaders were nowhere to be found.
Republicans had their heads in the sand as Trump betrayed our national security interests and damaged our relationships with key allies. Their attacks on John Kerry are lies told in bad faith to try to weaken the President's ability to fight climate change. They will not succeed.

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More from @RepDonBeyer

10 Mar
House Republicans led by Marjorie Taylor Greene are attempting to block Covid relief for the American people by ending all business in the House for the day. It is 9:24 a.m.
House rules already provide mechanisms we all use to register opposition to legislation: debate, and our votes.

Greene and other House Republicans are trying to end debate before it starts and prevent us from voting at all.

Instead they'd just stop working for the day at 9:30.
Greene says Republicans "should do everything we can to stop" legislation to fund the safe reopening of schools. 3/4 of the House GOP are voting with her.

Republicans are now saying if they don't control the House, the House shouldn't pass bills at all.
Read 5 tweets
8 Mar
House Republicans led by Marjorie Taylor Greene are once again using process maneuvers to try to prevent the House of Representatives from functioning.

Last week they tried to adjourn the House for the day at 10:30 in the morning; today they are doing something even worse.
Congress speeds the consideration of uncontroversial bills, things like renaming post offices, bills that pass out of committees with unanimous support, legislation both parties agree on.

They pass on "voice vote," and if a single Member objects they can request a recorded vote.
This has always been a good way to fast track what we agree on to allow more time for consideration and debate of harder legislation. In in the pandemic it's especially important because we vote in groups to limit the danger of spreading the virus; a single vote takes 45 minutes.
Read 8 tweets
3 Mar
Marjorie Taylor Greene is once again trying to end all business for the day in the House. It's 9:30 in the morning.
The House is voting today on a major ethics and election integrity bill, H.R. 1, that would strengthen ethics requirements on federal officeholders, increase election security, end partisan gerrymandering, protect Americans' voting rights, and help get big money out of politics.
Votes are still coming in but clearly many Republicans in the House would rather stop working for the day at 10:00 in the morning than pass a bill that strengthens Congress' ethics rules and reduces the influence of money in politics:
Read 6 tweets
27 Feb
A late night observation, as the House debates the American Rescue Plan.

My Republican colleagues keep justifying their opposition to this desperately needed, wildly popular relief bill by repeating one particular lie.

It's about state and local funding. Here's the deal--
1/
All night House Republicans have called the American Rescue Plan "a blue state bailout," "corrupt," "a progressive wish list," it only spends "9% of its funds" on relief.

They couldn't be more wrong. States and localities are on the front lines of this pandemic and need help. 2/
Nearly a year ago the team of economists and policy analysts I lead at @JECDems identified federal aid to state and local governments as a crucial need to contain the pandemic. Republicans ignored us. State budget deficits - and case counts - exploded. 3/ jec.senate.gov/public/index.c…
Read 15 tweets
25 Feb
Marjorie Taylor Greene is once again trying to stop all House business for the day in order to derail the Equality Act, which would protect LGBTQ Americans from workplace discrimination. Yesterday Greene went on a transphobic rant and attacked the child of one of our colleagues.
Yes it is irritating to have House business ground to a halt by a bigot who is desperate for attention.

But Greene's attacks on trans Americans, including the daughter of our colleague whom she attacked yesterday, matter a lot more than the inconvenience to Members of Congress.
Update: a day after Marjorie Taylor Greene bullied our colleague's daughter, almost every House Republican is supporting her transphobic attacks and voting to end House business for the day to block the Equality Act.
Read 4 tweets
24 Feb
Marjorie Taylor Greene is trying to adjourn the House and end official business for the day because she opposes the Equality Act, which would prohibit workplace discrimination against LGBTQ Americans. She just made a long, bigoted speech on the House floor attacking trans people.
Update: every House Republican who has voted so far backed Marjorie Taylor Greene in trying to adjourn the House to block a bill protecting LGBTQ Americans.

Greene made it very clear that this was about bigotry against trans people. House Republicans are standing with her.
Yesterday Marjorie Taylor Greene equated protecting LGBTQ Americans from workplace discrimination with "protecting pedophiles." Today she gave a speech attacking trans people laced with bigotry, then tried to stop all House business for the day.

Here's how the vote is going now:
Read 7 tweets

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