A Republican Profile in Courage

     “You don’t seem to know how to tell the difference between the good guys and the bad guys,” said Rep. Seth Magaziner of Rhode Island to Kristi Noem.

     Magaziner had grilled Noem on hers and ICE's track record of indiscriminately rounding up American citizens who were guilty of no serious crimes or even none at all as well as US veterans. Noem had disingenuously claimed at the hearing, as she had in the past, that no veterans have been deported under her watch or people without criminal records.

     Of course, being the idiot she is, she stepped right into Magaziner's trap and the Rhode Island congressman who then pulled the snare: An iPad with the face of a military veteran, a man who'd taken two bullets in Panama and was arrested and deported to South Korea. He then had another veteran, Jim Brown, stand up in the hearing room, one who's had his wife imprisoned for four months while she awaits deportation.

     Predictably, she looked like a deer in the headlights and offered vague platitudes about appreciating military service, "I'll look into it", blah blah blah. Then Rep. Dan Goldman's turn came and he grilled Noem abut illegally deporting people legally living in the US under asylum status. Rep. LaMonica McIver had had her turn and basically laughed in Noem's face.

     Then Rep Julie Johnson from Texas was about to ask her questions when Noem announced she had to leave the hearing to attend a FEMA meeting (Yes, a "scheduling conflict"). As she left the hearing room, she was roundly heckled by people. Here's the thing: According to Rep. Jared Moskowitz, the FEMA meeting was abruptly canceled right after Noem scuttled away from the hearing.

     To put it mildly, it wasn't a good look for Noem.

     I've seen countless hearings and confirmation hearings in both chambers in the nearly 21 years I've been blogging. They've ranged from the ridiculous to the sublime, with right wingers making fools of themselves screaming and crying (Think Brett Kavanaugh) and being openly combative and belligerent with the lawmakers who'd questioned them. But the one thing virtually all them had in common was an ability to remain in the hot seat regardless of how foolish they looked.

     But Noem, a woman who loves to cosplay as the tough cop she isn't, couldn't remain to answer questions from legislators. Yes, the woman whose goons subject innocent people to the third degree at airports, workplaces and so forth, didn't have the intestinal fortitude to defend her own policies. Instead, she lied, blamed the Biden administration for "breaking the asylum process" then fled like a whipped cur.

     It was a shameful, cringey display of the cowardice of right wingers going back to the time of the Nazis in the bunker. I pray I live long enough to see the day when right wingers like Trump, Noem, Stephen Miller and all the other Republican rat fuckers are chased from this country and forced to use rat lines to see to their own escapes as we relentlessly pursue them.