Ben Cline, still silent on Donald Trump’s blanket pardons of the J6ers, who, five years ago this week, attacked the U.S. Capitol, and Capitol Police, in the guise of “peaceful protest,” but actually trying to overturn an election, now thinks, with respect to those who want to engage in peaceful protest of ICE, which is engaged in rounding up people of color, in the guise of “securing the border,” that while “protest is protected under your First Amendment right, you are not allowed to interfere with law enforcement in the performance of its duties.”
The mental gymnastics are strong in this one.
“Any time you have a loss of life, it’s a tragedy, but what we have here” – Cline, our lame-duck Sixth District congressman, was asked by Fox Business host Maria Bartirimo to weigh in on the shooting of an unarmed motorist by an ICE agent in Minneapolis on Wednesday – “is law enforcement engaged in enforcing the law, and what we need is for Americans to respect that action by law enforcement and to allow law enforcement to continue to do its job.”
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The shooter, since identified as Jonathan Ross, a 43-year-old ICE agent, released a video of the scene to the discredited MAGA “journalist” – the one who tried to infiltrate several Minneapolis daycare centers, and when he was denied, told everybody it was because they were closed – that, and this is beyond belief, Ross, the ICE agent, supposedly engaged in a law-enforcement action, recorded himself, with his cell phone.
You read that right – the agent was so focused on doing his job as a rent-a-cop that he circled the SUV driven by Rachel Nicole Good, 37, with his phone in one hand, his other on his gun, while also trading snappy one-liners with people on the street.
Watch the video: as he passes by the driver’s side window seconds before the shooting, Good, smiling at him, says, “Dude, I’m not mad at you.”
After Ross had made a 360 of the SUV, another ICE agent tried to reach into Good’s vehicle, and she reacted by trying to drive away, at which point, Ross, still recording the scene with his phone in his left hand, shot her three times, killing her instantly.
Cline didn’t let the name of Rachel Nicole Good cross his lips; his focus, as he continued his answer to Bartirimo, and her MAGA audience, was to blast Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz.
“When we see these tragedies occur, to have the governor of Minnesota inflame tensions by talking about using National Guard troops to prevent ICE from doing their job, that’s not only irresponsible and dangerous, that does cross a line,” Cline said.
An ICE agent shooting an unarmed motorist for content, though, does not cross a line.
Quick hits
Cline on healthcare
Cline voted no as the U.S. House passed legislation on Thursday to extend the Affordable Care Act premium tax credits.
The sunset of the tax credits that was a feature of the Big, Ugly Bill that we’re told will knock millions of Americans off the health-insurance rolls.
Seventeen Republicans voted with Democrats to pass the extension, which now heads to the U.S. Senate.
ICYMI
Cline’s bright idea: direct payments to taxpayers, along the lines of the $1,000 direct payments proposed under a Trump-backed healthcare plan, that would not come close to even approaching the huge deductibles for millions of Americans.
“Obamacare is broken. It is a broken system,” Cline said, reciting talking points that he’s had memorized since his days as a member of the Virginia House of Delegates, and he helped block the expansion of Medicaid in the state, which among other things helped prolong the opioid crisis in Southwest Virginia, the Roanoke area and the Shenandoah Valley.
“We can’t double down with subsidies, extended subsidies that just paper over costs and take taxpayer dollars and send them directly to insurance company CEO pockets. That’s not what we should be doing,” Cline said. “We should be putting this money in the hands of taxpayers, giving them more options to choose the health insurance plan that’s right for them.”
I wonder where Cline thinks the $1,000 healthcare payments that the Trump-backed plan will end up going, other than “directly to insurance company CEO pockets.”
Cline on Venezuela
Cline parroted the party line on the Trump-authorized kidnapping of Venezuelan President Arturo Maduro, regurgitating that the coup was done in the interest of “protecting the American people from drug cartels, from drugs that are coming in, killing American citizens, destroying American families.”
Fact check: the primary sources of illegal drugs in the U.S. are Mexico and China. China is the source of the precursors for fentanyl, which flows across the U.S.-Mexico border. Our heroin and meth also come across from Mexico. Colombia is the primary source for cocaine.
ICYMI
- Trump authorizes capture of Venezuelan president on drug, weapons charges
- Trump running interference for U.S. oil companies in Venezuela, at what cost?
- U.S. Senate advances measure to put curbs on Trump in Venezuela for key vote
Venezuela is attractive because of its untapped oil reserves, which Trump is pledging, imperially, to monetize in the name of the people of the United States of America, but primarily its fossil-fuel companies.
“The president is acting swiftly to bring oil companies in to talk about rebuilding the infrastructure,” Cline said. “I think that the benefits need to be with the people of Venezuela to make sure that we rebuild there the lives that were destroyed by the past dictatorships. But we also need to make sure that globally, as far as global energy goes, that prices stabilize and that we continue to focus on an American first energy policy that focuses on American energy production and independence for American producers and lower costs for American citizens.”
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Chris Graham
