Pay for play
Remember the pay for play aspect of the Clinton Foundation and access it allegedly bought to the former first couple prior to the time Hillary Clinton became the 2016 Democratic nominee for president? Well, they've got nothing on President-elect Joe Biden.
As time draws near for Biden to name ambassadors and other members of his administration, his team pulled a list from his campaign website of individuals who raised at least $100,000 for his election. After criticism from conservative groups, the list of more than 800 people was returned.
It's not unusual for presidents from both parties to award top fundraisers with ambassadorships, but 2020 Democratic presidential contenders Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, both U.S. senators, said they would not do so if they were elected. Sanders called it "Washington corruption at its worst." Biden never agreed but said his nominees would be the "best people" for their jobs.
"Nobody, in fact, will be appointed by me based on anything they contributed," he said in December 2019.
Well ... three of his Cabinet nominees, Xavier Becerra (Health and Human Services), U.S. Rep. Deb Haaland, D-New Mexico (Interior) and Marty Walsh (Labor), are among those contributors, and at least three people who have good chances to get ambassadorships (Miami real estate developer Michael Adler, Disney executive Bob Iger and former U.S. Rep. Steve Israel) are as well.
But we're sure they're the best people for their jobs.
Words mean things
Funny, how words come back to haunt you, though with Democrats they rarely receive consequences.
In light of Twitter suspending the account of President Donald Trump for saying in various ways that the 2020 election was stolen, a 2017 tweet from now-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-California, has resurfaced basically saying the same thing about the 2016 election.
Twitter has been at the center of First Amendment and free speech arguments since it announced on Jan. 8 that it had banned Trump from the platform. In light of Trump's tweets that challenged President-elect Joe Biden's victory, the social media platform slapped various labels on his activity and then temporarily suspended him before banning him.
Pelosi, in early 2017 on the eve of Robert Mueller's appointment as a special counsel to investigate allegations of collusion between Russian officials and the 2016 Trump 2016 campaign, tweeted: "Our election was hijacked. There is no question. Congress has a duty to #ProtectOurDemocracy & #FollowTheFacts."
Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey, naturally, has not commented on the double standard.
Call and response
If erstwhile cable news leader CNN had any scruples, it would have fired or suspended host Jake Tapper last week after he questioned the "commitment" to fighting for democracy in the United State of double-amputee U.S. Rep. Brian Mast, R-Florida. Mast had said he would not be voting to impeach President Donald Trump for his speech to protesters who came to Washington, D.C., to rally against the certification of Electoral College ballots favoring Joe Biden.
"Congressman Brian Mast," said Tapper, "a Republican from Florida, who lost his legs, by the way, fighting for democracy abroad, although I don't know what his - I don't know about his commitment to it here in the United States."
Mast, who served in the military from 2000 until he lost his legs to an IED in Afghanistan's Kandahar region in 2010, continued to give back by spending a recent morning with military who are deployed to protect the Capitol from further incidents.
"I lost two legs for Jake Tapper's right to say whatever the hell he wants," the congressman told the Washington Free Beacon in response to the remark. "But that free speech also protects the Republicans he is so eager to condemn for asking constitutional questions about the election."
Mast was first elected to the House in 2016 and comfortably re-elected in November.
And Twitter banned ... ?
In an episode with similarities to Nick Sandmann, the Kentucky school boy who was erroneously outed as someone who attacked a Native American protester during a 2019 Washington rally, a retired Chicago fire fighter was identified on Twitter as a man wielding a fire extinguisher and attacking a policeman, who eventually died, during the Jan. 6 Capitol protest.
The only problem was David Quintavalle was 600 miles away shopping for groceries and celebrating his wife's birthday. Yet, someone named him, and the word spread on the social media platform. Since then, he said, he's gotten calls saying he was a "f------ murderer," and police staked out his house to watch his moves. "This story has f----- up my life," he said.
"Social media has killed David Quintavalle," attorney John Nisivaco said. "This has been an absolute disaster to him personally and his family."
Eventually, a Pennsylvania man was arrested for the crime.