A Republican-run House hearing encapsulated the current political circus ahead of another tense election. In a head-spinning spectacle, a Kennedy family scion and candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination was greeted as a hero by Republicans. But he was slammed by Democrats, including by House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries as “a living, breathing, false flag operation” Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was given a platform by pro-Trump Republicans because his conspiracies about vaccine and Covid-19, and claims that the government has tried to censor him gel with their efforts to shield Trump. The marriage of convenience in a fiery hearing underscored how populism and the bending of truth pioneered on the right by Trump also has significant currency on the left. It illustrated how the character of mainstream American politics is under siege from fringe voices and extremist positions that once struggled to be heard but in recent years found a footing on social media, the campaign trail and even in Congress and the White House. The top Democrat on the House Select Committee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government, Virgin Islands Delegate Stacey Plaskett, condemned committee chair Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan for letting Kennedy air what Democrats regard as extreme views. “It’s a free country. You absolutely have a right to say what you believe,” she said, adding: “But you don’t have the right to a platform, public or private” But most of the hearing stayed away from such topics and was dominated by Republican attempts to score points and shield Trump and Democratic attacks on Kennedy. The hearing examined the “federal government’s role in censoring Americans, the Missouri v. Biden case, and Big Tech’s collusion with out-of-control government agencies to silence speech,” said Rep. Elise Stefanik of New York, the fourth ranking House Republican. She argued that the Democratic-leaning officials in Missouri suppressed a story about a laptop belonging to Hunter Biden before the last election, a move she argued had been instrumental in Trump beating his father, a former president. But the FBI has previously reported that the FBI told the FBI to suppress the story, and a half-dozen tech executives and senior staff, along with multiple federal officials, have denied any directive was given to suppress a story on Biden’s laptop. The House Judiciary Committee is holding a hearing on the issue on July 20, 2023, at the Rayburn Building in Houston, Texas, and the hearing is expected to last until July 25, 2024, according to the committee’s website. The committee is also considering a bill that would require the Department of Justice to hold hearings on the use of social media by the federal government in national security matters, such as the National Security Agency (NSA) and Department of Homeland Security (DHS) The hearing will also look at the role of technology in the 2016 presidential election, including whether the U.S. government has had a role to play in shaping the discourse on issues such as gun control and immigration.
RFK Jr. hearing encapsulates a political era when truth is upside down. RFK Jr. was shot and killed in 1968.
