My videos genuinely seek to present information in as raw a form as possible so that a wider audience will have access to unfiltered information, in an attempt to allow people to see the actual stories, that can be otherwise lost in news-spin and headline bias. I don’t always succeed, sometimes I get wrapped up my own story and forget my mission, sometimes, I just don’t do a very good job, but that’s my overarching goal. I begin this story with that explanation, in order to explain my rather wishy-washy take in the above video.
There are several pieces of information that came out of last night’s House Rules Committee hearing that I believe are crucial for people to hear. It is inevitable however that most viewers/readers will stop absorbing information, the moment I offer a crazy headline like, “Republican’s blocked release of the Epstein files.”
So let me break out a few points that are incredibly important (beyond the obvious headline), hidden between the lines of the raw information I have attempted to present in the above video:
One Republican did break ranks (possibly two) to support forcing release of the Epstein files.
Representative Norman of SC voted in favor of the Democrat-sponsored Amendment to force a release of the Epstein files. The anger over the recent messaging shift by the administration has spread beyond the blogosphere, to the actual rank and file of the Republican Party. If elected members of the House are starting to break ranks in committee, this is actual news.
Whether Representative Roy’s (the second Republican) recusal was notable or not remains to be seen. But this left a dangerous margin of 5-7 in committee which cannot make the President’s team feel very safe.
Even those Republicans who are upset over the Epstein files are unwilling to directly confront the President.
Congressman Norman voted in favor of the Amendment to force release of the Epstein files, but against the Resolution to force release of the same files. The major difference? The Resolution included language that “affirms Congress’s Article I authority to conduct oversight, [and therefore] demands that the Trump Administration release…” (etc).
Republicans in Congress are not yet angry enough to start throwing around their own Constitution given powers to take Daddy Trump to task for his malfeasance, or even suggest that their demands are rooted in such a power. This is where the rank and file are standing today. Beginning to get hot under the collar, but not hot enough to truly and constitutionally defy the President quite yet.
In a bill regulating digital currency, Republican members of the Rules Committee will not deny their colleagues a side hustle.
Just after the two Epstein votes, the same 8-4 split defeated an amendment barring Members of Congress, other elected officials, or candidates for office from “issuing or endorsing digital assets, and requires any existing assets to be placed in a blind trust.” Obviously this would have angered Trump as well, who is already increasing his own personal wealth through such a scheme. But in an age where insider stock trading by Congress Members is increasingly suspect, it is unclear how this is somehow different.
This clear divide down ideological lines over lawmakers abusing their positions to pad their own pockets, should have been a bigger news story, but was lost in the Epstein melee. My hope is to draw a little attention to it.
It’s hard to gauge whether my approach to providing information works. I can see a hot take on the above video that espouses an apologist view, giving cover to a party that will not hold a president to account. I hope instead to get people to read past the headline and see some of the data points underneath, and process them for themselves, even if the most likely and sensible conclusion is the same one reached by those headlines.
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