Tangle - Paul Gosar gets censured.

Starting point is 00:00:00 Based on Charles Yu's award-winning book, Interior Chinatown follows the story of Willis Wu, a background character trapped in a police procedural who dreams about a world beyond Chinatown. When he inadvertently becomes a witness to a crime, Willis begins to unravel a criminal web, his family's buried history, and what it feels like to be in the spotlight.

Starting point is 00:00:19 Interior Chinatown is streaming November 19th, only on Disney+. Chinatown is streaming November 19th only on Disney+. From executive producer Isaac Saul, this is Tangle. JUDY WOODRUFF, The Cook Political Report, It was the first time the U.S. House of Representatives censured one of its own in more than a decade. And as we reported, when it took that step today against Republican Representative Paul

Starting point is 00:01:02 Gosar of Arizona, it was divided nearly along party lines. By its adoption of House Resolution 789, the House has resolved that Representative Paul Gosar of Arizona be censured. That Representative Paul Gosar forthwith present himself in the well of the House for the pronouncement of censure. That Representative Paul Gosar be censured with the public reading of this resolution by the Speaker. And that Representative Paul Gosar be and is hereby removed from the Committee on Natural Resources and the Committee on Oversight and Reform. Good morning, good afternoon, and good evening, and welcome to the Tangle Podcast, a place where you get views from across the political spectrum, some independent thinking without all that hysterical nonsense you find everywhere else.

Starting point is 00:01:50 I am your host, Isaac Saul, and on today's episode, we are going to be talking about, well, something that is kind of a bit of hysterical nonsense. Representative Paul Gosar from Arizona, the Republican who recently blasted off a Twitter video that has now gotten him in some hot water. We're going to be talking about what happened and some of the reactions on the right and the left, and then as always, my take. But before we jump in, some quick hits. First up, the QAnon shaman was sentenced over three years in prison for his role in the January 6 attacks at the U.S. Capitol. Number two, President Biden called on the Federal Trade Commission to investigate whether oil and gas firms are participating in illegal conduct that increases the price of gas. Number three, U.S. jobless claims remain steady at about 268,000 for the week ending in November 13th. Number four, former Trump advisor Steve Bannon said he will plead not guilty to charges of obstructing the January 6th congressional probe. plead not guilty to charges of obstructing the January 6th congressional probe. Number five,

Starting point is 00:03:12 the two men convicted of murdering Malcolm X will be exonerated nearly 55 years after they were charged. All right, that's it for today's Quick Hits, which brings us to our main story on Representative Paul Gosar. Yesterday, the House voted to censure Gosar by a 223 to 207 vote, mostly along party lines. Just two Republicans, Liz Cheney from Wyoming and Adam Kinzinger of Illinois, voted for the censure. Gosar was also stripped of two committee seats. The controversy started when Gosar posted a video on Twitter asking if he had any anime fans out there. In the video, Gosar's head is photoshopped into an animated scene where a cartoon character attacks an animated giant, this one with Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's head photoshopped on top. Gosar's character flies through the air with two swords and strikes her in the back as blood spurts out from her head. Interspersed in the

Starting point is 00:04:16 anime scene is real-life footage from the southern border, photos of House Majority Leader Nancy Pelosi, and videos of soldiers parachuting from helicopters. Toward the end of the video, the character with Gosar's face photoshopped onto it then flies through the air towards an image of Joe Biden with swords raised before a freeze frame concludes the video. The entire thing is a little more than a minute long. The video caused an immediate stir. Ocasio-Cortez and many House Democrats condemned it, saying Gosar was inciting violence at another congressional member. At first, Gosar refused to take the video down, and his team insisted the animated video was just a little more than a joke and that the left had no sense of humor. As outrage grew, though, they removed the video from Twitter without apologizing. Gosar said he does not espouse violence or harm toward any member of Congress

Starting point is 00:05:05 or Mr. Biden and said the video was truly a symbolic portrayal of a fight over immigration policy. Yesterday, the House voted to censure Gosar, a formal slap on the wrist but one that carries significant consequences. It was the first such vote in over a decade and cost Gosar two committee assignments, including his spot on the Committee on Oversight and Reform, which he sits on with Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Shortly after the vote on Wednesday, Gosar retweeted a tweet that included praise of him and the video clip once again. With nearly every House Republican voting against the censure and every House Democrat voting for it, I thought we'd take a look at some of the commentary about this divisive issue. We'll share some takes from the left and the right, and then my take.

Starting point is 00:06:00 So the left has condemned the video, saying it is an incitement of violence and that Gosar should be censured. In CNN, Kara Limo said Congress has to take a stand on the video. It is especially chilling that Gosar would tweet such a video in a year where we have already seen online extremism spill over into deadly violence at the Capitol, she wrote. On the heels of these events, Gosar's video will serve as a Trump-like nod to his supporters to take matters into their own hands when they disagree with the politics of certain politicians. Gosar's singling out of Ocasio-Cortez in the video is especially alarming, she added. Congresswomen are already the targets of disproportionate amounts of online abuse. A 2020 study of congressional candidates found that women received two to three times more abusive online messages than their male counterparts. Women from ethnic minority backgrounds like Ocasio-Cortez contended with the most abuse online. Jeopardizing the safety of our lawmakers

Starting point is 00:06:54 threatens the democratic system created by America's founders more than two centuries ago. If members of Congress and the President of the United States cannot safely do their jobs, they cannot represent their constituents, and the structure of our government becomes unstable. That's why every American should be outraged that anyone, let alone a sitting member of Congress from whom we expect respect for his own office, would share a video like this. In Arizona Central, Lori Roberts wrote that Republicans don't care. On Monday, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy finally managed to muster up a response of sorts to Gosar's shameful video targeting Alexandria

Starting point is 00:07:29 Ocasio-Cortez and Biden. He says he called Gosar after the video was posted. He took the video down and he made a statement that he doesn't support violence to anybody, McCarthy told CNN. Nobody should have violence against them. I called him when I heard about the video and he made a statement that he doesn't support violence and he took the video down, McCarthy said. Note that McCarthy didn't say he asked Gosar to take the video down, Roberts wrote. Nor did he condemn Gosar for posting the video. Nor could he even bring himself to say that he found the video depicting the murder of a congresswoman appalling or even inappropriate. But he did say on Tuesday that Gosar explained his actions during a private Republican conference meeting earlier in the morning. CNN reports that attendees said his explanation was well received. Ultimately, Roberts said Gosar didn't have to

Starting point is 00:08:15 worry, not about Republican criticism for his sick video and not about actual mainstream Republican candidates challenging him next year in overwhelmingly Republican district he represents. Apparently, it is now acceptable to produce a video in which you kill a member of Congress, presumably as long as said member is a hated Democrat. Such is the state these days of the party that claims to have the franchise on family values. Four years ago, both Republicans and Democrats rightly condemned comedian Kathy Griffin for her photo holding up the bloodied, severed head of then-President Donald Trump. Now a member of Congress does something equally appalling, and it's apparently up to Democrats to take the moral high ground and hold him accountable. In Slate, Jim Newell said the censure of Gosar matters.

Starting point is 00:08:58 The decision to punish Gosar, a decision that one can only assume Democrats did not make on a whim, given that it is the first censure of a member since 2010, is inseparable from January 6th, Gosar's so far overshadowed role in the planning and hyping of the events of that day, and Democrats' heightened alert of violent rhetoric at the top of the Republican Party, inspiring violent actions from elements of their base. At the censure proceedings, Majority Leader Steny Hoyer observed that piercing tweets become sharp knives, words bring out firearms, and cartoon killings beget real-life bloodshed. Voter Representative Ted Deutch, the Ethics Committee Chair, noted that just 10 months ago this chamber was attacked in an act of brutal blood savagery. Censures are essentially symbolic, Newell added. It's a recorded reprimand from your colleagues for ethical transgressions.

Starting point is 00:09:44 But members still treat a censure as a grave punishment, a stain they cannot rinse out. added. It's a recorded reprimand from your colleagues for ethical transgressions. But members still treat a censure as a grave punishment, a stain they cannot rinse out. Perhaps that's because while a member who's censured is free following the censure to proceed with their normal job duties, they have to undergo a medieval public shaming. The censured member must walk to the well of the house before all of his colleagues and have the resolution of censure read before them. For Gosar, this meant hearing about his threats of violence against the President of the United States and a fellow member of Congress. As the vote was about to be gaveled shut, Ocasio-Cortez moved to the front row of the chamber, taking a prime seat to watch as Gosar,

Starting point is 00:10:18 at long last, got the close-up he deserved. All right, so that's it for what the left is saying, and that brings us to the right's take. So the right has condemned the video, but has also expressed worries about the tit-for-tat of removing members from their committees. In his blog, Hot Air, Alaa Punda expressed concerns about what this will do to future Congresses. This makes two instances so far this year of the majority booting a member of the minority from a committee, Marjorie Taylor Greene being the other, he wrote. As repulsive as Gosar is, the precedent Dems are setting by not deferring to his own party on disciplining him will mainstream the practice of sidelining members of the House minority. That may have already been baked in the cake after Green's assignments were taken away, but it's a cinch after this that the GOP will retaliate against Ilhan Omar or whoever in 2023. Disempowering the minority's fringier cohort as a matter of common majoritarian practice is an ominous new turn in America's cycle of bitter

Starting point is 00:11:25 partisan one-upmanship. The video was reminiscent of the video Trump once tweeted of one of his WWE cameos showing him attacking a wrestler, except in Trump's clip the wrestler had the CNN logo superimposed on his face. Gosar's vid showed a character with his face leaping in the air and slashing a character with AOC's face, killing her. In isolation, it's a tacky joke, Ala Pandit said, but there's baggage on both sides here that make Gosar's tweets seem more menacing to Dems than just meme culture. He helped organize the January 6 rally, has been friendly with alt-righters, and is as prone to conspiracy theorizing as Green is. He's one of the biggest cranks in the house. Meanwhile, Ocasio-Cortez has talked about fearing for her life on January 6, was accosted by Green on the House floor, and has had other unpleasant run-ins with the House GOP's populace. After Gosar's tweet, she complained that harassment

Starting point is 00:12:14 by Republicans is nothing new. Based on Charles Yu's award-winning book, Interior Chinatown follows the story of Willis Wu, a background character trapped in a police procedural who dreams about a world beyond Chinatown. When he inadvertently becomes a witness to a crime, Willis begins to unravel a criminal web, his family's buried history, and what it feels like to be in the spotlight. Interior Chinatown is streaming November 19th, only on Disney+. are so establishment. Tweeting a cartoon is a perfect metaphor for today's House of Representatives. Democrats are naturally trying to exploit the episode for their own social media and cable TV gain, and on Wednesday they voted to censure Mr. Gosar and strip him of his two committee assignments.

Starting point is 00:13:15 Their political purpose is to use Mr. Gosar's tweet to assist their 2022 campaign narrative that the GOP is the party of inciting violence. This is overkill, if we may use that word in this context, since it was a stupid cartoon, not an actual incitement to violence, they wrote. The most recent case of actual violence against members was the 2017 shooting of Representative Steve Scalise by a deranged supporter of Bernie Sanders at a practice for the annual congressional charity baseball game. Mr. Scalise nearly died, and without Capitol Police on hand with guns, many others would have been shot. Mr. Gosar, who is 63 years old but acts like a teenager on TikTok, deserves ridicule more than censure, which should be reserved for serious

Starting point is 00:13:55 offenses. Stripping Mr. Gosar of his committee assignments is also over the top and will boomerang against Democrats when the GOP next takes power. Minnesota Representative Ilhan Omar's Twitter feed will be monitored 24-7 for anti-Semitic outbursts. In PJ Media, Stephen Kruiser said it's another display of Democratic hypocrisy. On Wednesday, the United States House of Representatives was busying itself with censoring and punishing Representative Paul Gosar because his office posted an anime video of him quote-unquote decapitating Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez with a sword. You know, the kind of thing that everyone in 21st century America has to worry about, Kruiser wrote. Democrats have been acting as if Gosar literally

Starting point is 00:14:34 physically accosted AOC in the Capitol. Might there have been a better use of the congressman's time? Yeah. Did the video in any way constitute a real threat of violence? Make the stupid go away, Kruiser said. I can't even pretend to care about the Democrats' feelings after they spent four years exhorting their supporters to publicly and physically harass Trump supporters. These are the same people who've spent the last month or so condoning the harassment of one of their own in a public toilet because she wouldn't vote the way they wanted her to. Watching them get their knickers in a twist over a stupid cartoon isn't really moving me all right that's it for the rights take. And that brings us to my take. So, God, I mean, I'm tempted, honestly, to just list all the horrible things that are broken about America,

Starting point is 00:15:35 which Congress could be spending its time working on. But I suppose that wouldn't be a very original thing to do. I mean, there are very few direct defenses of Gosar from Republicans out there, and for good reason. There really aren't any to be made. Gosar's tweet is just another bullet point on a laundry list of absurdities that have made up his career in Congress. The ones I take particular offense to personally are his hodgepodging with the teenage Twitter Nazis who want to evaporate me and my fellow Jews, but most Americans would probably just take 10 minutes on his Wikipedia page and you can find something he's done that you think is reprehensible. When people say Gosar spoke at a white nationalist conference heralded by the same crowd who chants, the Jews will not replace us, it's actually not leftist hyperbole

Starting point is 00:16:19 in this case, as it sometimes is in other cases. He actually literally did that. That's probably why his entire family has spent years trying to warn Americans about him. Of course, this was compounded by those of his ilk in the fringe sectors of the Republican House world. Colorado Representative Lauren Boebert delivered a dazzling speech on the floor where she referred to Representative Ilhan Omar as a member of the, quote, jihad squad. Without diving into all of her flaws, it should be noted that Omar, a Somali refugee, quote, jihad squad. Without diving into all of her flaws, it should be noted that Omar, a Somali refugee, was raised in a moderate Sunni Muslim family that was actively opposed to rigid interpretations of Islam, though I very much doubt Boebert, whose congressional

Starting point is 00:16:55 career so far has basically been one giant Facebook screed of nonsense, could even find Somalia on a map. Thankfully for all of us, Omar and her friends in Congress are also fond of retweets and social media celebrities, so she quickly responded to Boebert's jihad squad jab by tweeting, luckily my dad raised me right, otherwise I might have gone to the floor to talk about the insurrectionist who sleeps with a pervert, a not-so-subtle reference to Boebert's husband who was once arrested for exposing himself to two women in a bowling alley. Congress debasing itself daily since the turn of the century. As for Gosar, the censure seems to have only further clouded what

Starting point is 00:17:31 was already his insufferably bad judgment. Over the weekend, he had the gall to compare himself to the journalist killed in the Charlie Hebdo massacre, in which 12 members of a French satirical magazine were murdered by Islamic extremists for publishing a degrading image of the Prophet Muhammad. I wish I could say I was shocked by Gosar comparing his own plight to their literal murders, but it's really just another chapter in the perpetual victimhood game I've been writing about recently. Gosar earned the censure, not just for the tweet, but for his entire body of work. That only two Republicans could muster the decency to join the majority is honestly disappointing and certainly points to a tit-for-tat committee removal coming if Republicans take over the

Starting point is 00:18:09 House in 2022, which they probably will. But fear of potential reprisals is not a good reason not to do the right thing. And in this case, it was the right thing. Gosar has crossed the line far too many times, and he finally got the response he deserved. Whatever happens in retaliation for that should be judged on its own merits. All right, that's it for my take. I'm fired up today, man. That brings us to our reader question of the day. This one comes from Pat in Cheney, Washington. It's a great question. Pat wrote, I continually hear most Democrat politicians rant about other folks not paying their fair share of taxes. I've yet to hear a cogent definition of what they define as someone

Starting point is 00:18:54 else's fair share, unless of course it's simply the one word definition of more. So Pat, one of the issues with pay your fair share is that it is an incredibly malleable statement that can basically mean whatever someone wants it to mean at any given situation. According to the Tax Foundation, the top 1% earn 20.9% of all adjusted income and pay 40.1% of all federal individual income tax, which one could easily argue is, quote, twice their fair share. argue is, quote, twice their fair share. As one reader put it to the Wall Street Journal, the bottom 50% make 11.6% of the money and pay 2.9% of the taxes, which looks like a pretty good deal for them. All of this really depends on what society you are trying to build. If you want a society that prizes equity, one where the goal is to maximize everyone's well-being across socioeconomic statuses, then you could easily make the case for having the top 1% pay 90% of their income in taxes.

Starting point is 00:19:49 Why? Because they'd still have millions upon millions of dollars, but even $1,000, a fraction of those millions a month, say, would make a massive difference for, you know, 50%, the bottom half of Americans. The other side of the argument is that you want to balance a tradeoff between helping those in need and also trying to not distort incentives. All of this obviously comes in the larger context of wealth inequality, which opens up a whole other Pandora's box, and one might want to take that inequality into account when considering what a fair share is. So 5% of a billionaire's income obviously is going to have a different impact on a billionaire than

Starting point is 00:20:25 5% of someone who makes $30,000 a year. This is a really interesting topic. I'm not going to be able to answer it in this podcast or in this newsletter as well as I want to because I could write a book about this, but I've linked to a couple of interesting articles about it in today's newsletter if you want to go check it out, and maybe a good topic for a future Friday edition. All right, that brings us to our story that matters for the day, and it is not a good one. Overdose deaths in the United States topped 100,000 over a one-year period for the first time ever. The record high was reported by federal researchers yesterday who said lost access to treatment, rising mental health issues, and the

Starting point is 00:21:10 wider availability of street drugs like fentanyl all played a role in the huge number of overdoses. The number of deaths in the 12-month period that ended in April was a 30% increase from the 78,000 deaths in the prior year, and overdose deaths have now doubled since 2015. Overdose deaths related to use of stimulants like meth, cocaine, and natural and semi-synthetic opioids such as prescription pain medication also increased during the 12-month period. All right, and with that, we're going to move on to the numbers section. 23 is the number of censures of members of the House of Representatives before Paul Gosar was censured yesterday. He became the 24th.

Starting point is 00:21:51 69.8% is the percentage of the vote Paul Gosar won in his 2020 race in Arizona's 4th District, a dominant win. 59% is the percentage of Americans who are fully vaccinated against COVID-19, 69% is the percentage of Americans who are fully vaccinated against COVID-19, according to the CDC. 60% is the percentage of office firms that are now planning to redesign their office spaces for the COVID-19 era. $700 million is the amount of money Crypto.com paid to rename the Staples Center in Los Angeles to Crypto.com Arena for the next 20 years. All right. And that brings us to our Have a Nice Day story. Before we jump in and I give it to you, I just want to remind you and give you a heads up briefly that tomorrow we're releasing a subscribers only edition in the newsletter on the pros and cons of legalizing marijuana and whether we should actually do it, which I think is probably a more

Starting point is 00:22:42 interesting argument than you might think it is. It's going to be newsletter only. There won't be a podcast, but if you want to get that newsletter, you need to be a subscriber. So you can go to readtangle.com backslash membership to do that. All right. I have a nice day story for the day. Tonight, this one is for all you sky watchers out there. You are going to be treated to a near total lunar eclipse, an event that hasn't taken place for more than 500 years. The full moon will be plunged into the blood red light cast by Earth's shadow, as the Washington Post put it,

Starting point is 00:23:15 and the event will be visible to the entire lower 48, Alaska and Hawaii. At the peak, 97% of the moon will be covered by the Earth's shadow and the eclipse will last for 3 hours, 28 minutes, and 24 seconds. That's the longest eclipse in 580 years, which is what makes this such an unprecedented event. Or I guess precedented, but not recently. For context, 580 years ago was Thursday, November 18th, 1441, which is about the same time the Mayans were fighting a civil war and Alfonso V of Aragon was laying siege to Naples. I don't even know who that guy is. The eclipse will begin at 1.02 a.m.

Starting point is 00:23:51 Eastern on Friday morning and at 10.02 p.m. Pacific time on the West Coast. Space.com has some more info if you're interested, but yeah, maybe worth staying up late tonight to check it out. I think I'm probably going to do it. I think I'm going to wake up, take a look. Seems pretty cool. All right, everybody, that's it for today's podcast. As always, if you want more information, go to readtangle.com. And like I said, if you are interested in hearing from us tomorrow, you need to become a subscriber. So go to readtangle.com and do that. Otherwise, we'll see you on Monday. Peace. Otherwise, we'll seereadtangle.com. Thanks for watching! crown character trapped in a police procedural who dreams about a world beyond Chinatown. When he inadvertently becomes a witness to a crime, Willis begins to unravel a criminal web, his family's buried history, and what it feels like to be in the spotlight.

Starting point is 00:25:37 Interior Chinatown is streaming November 19th, only on Disney+.

Tangle - Paul Gosar gets censured.

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