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Tag: lauren boebert
Lauren Boebert

Boebert's Lewd Public Misconduct? It Was All A Liberal Conspiracy!

Rep. Lauren Boebert is getting the kind of attention that even she presumably doesn’t like. Last week she was kicked out of a Colorado theater for vaping, recording the show, and other disruptive behavior. After Boebert denied vaping, the theater released security footage showing her doing just that—and more. She and her date were fondling each other in ways that had to be uncomfortable for their neighbors.

To her credit, Boebert has apologized for her behavior. However, not content with the explanation that Boebert is who she has always appeared to be, some on the right have turned the incident into a conspiracy theory: Boebert was set up.

The New York Post emphasized that her date was a Democrat who owns a bar that’s hosted at least one drag show, and many took this as evidence of Boebert’s hypocrisy, while others used it to bolster the notion that she was set up. The latter claim is showing up all over social media, led by so-called journalist and Pizzagate conspiracy theorist Liz Crokin. “It turns out Lauren Boebert's mystery man is a Democrat bar owner,” Crokin tweeted. “If I was a wagering enthusiast, I would bet this guy was paid to set her up.”

Crokin laid out an elaborate scenario: “She’s coming off a divorce, and she’s vulnerable. This guy comes into her life, charms her, seduces her and then probably gets her liquored up and takes her out in public. Stage set.” Honestly, Boebert probably is vulnerable as she divorces her longtime husband, and she gets to be privately messy over that if she wants to. But this was public misbehavior that impacted other people and ended, according to reports, with her repeatedly busting out the classic, “Do you know who I am?” That’s a statement of entitlement: I get to disrupt other people’s theater experience because I’m important.

Next, Crokin moves to the conspiracy that the stage was supposedly set for: “He then instigates her by fondling her in a theater that just happens to have night vision cameras right on them. Then the whole incident is released to the public in what looks like high-definition video in an attempt to harm her reputation.” Of course, Boebert did not need to be persuaded into bad behavior. Even if you didn’t know who she was, she would stand out in the theater’s security video as the person vaping, waving her arms above her head, and taking flash photos. No one else visible in the video, which shows many rows in the theater, appeared to be behaving that way. (While the video is impressive for night vision, high-definition it is not.) Additionally, Boebert being kicked out of the theater and asking, “Do you know who I am?” had gotten plenty of attention before the video emerged. The vaping and taking pictures and disruptive behavior had already been publicly reported based on what the people around her in the theater were saying.

Crokin concluded: “This is all way too convenient. Whether her date was a part of it or not, this seems like a well-coordinated setup. These types of tactics and traps are used all the time, and I would know.” A well-coordinated setup? It kind of seems like there just happened to be a camera on Boebert being Boebert. If she had sat through the show without vaping and taking photographs and groping, they could have released video showing her in actual high definition through the entire show and it wouldn’t have made a splash. And you’d think a conspiracy theorist like Crokin would be aware of how often we are under surveillance in this day and age.

Boebert herself doesn’t seem to be embracing the conspiracy theory. Though she joked ruefully to TMZ that “I learned to check party affiliation before you go on a date,” she had nothing but positive words about the man in question, calling him “a wonderful man” and a “great man, great friend” although they’ve “peacefully parted.”But Crokin’s “Boebert was set up” theory went viral, with a stream of responses showing how eager some people are to believe the elaborate conspiracy over the idea that a woman with a history of minor arrests who spent the 2022 State of the Union yelling and heckling the president might not be the best-behaved person in a theater, either.

Boebert’s unruliness, her disrespect in political settings, is what her fans like about her. No one should be surprised that it’s not all a political calculation and that she really is that way.

Reprinted with permission from Daily Kos.

Lauren Boebert

Unruly Lauren Boebert Booted From Denver Theatre Performance

Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO) was kicked out of a theater last weekend, The Denver Post's John Aguilar reports.

Boebert was "escorted out of a Sunday night performance" of Beetlejuice after she was caught "vaping, singing, recording, and 'causing a disturbance,'" Aguilar writes.

"In an incident report shared with The Denver Post on Tuesday afternoon, officials with Denver Arts & Venues wrote that two patrons were asked to leave the city-owned Buell Theatre during the performance of the touring Broadway show," Aguilar reveals. "They previously were issued a warning during the intermission regarding behavior that prompted three complaints from other theatergoers, the report says."

Aguilar continues, "The report does not name Boebert as one of the patrons or identify the other person. But her campaign office — while disputing the behavior alleged — confirmed that she was escorted from the Buell on Sunday night during the Beetlejuice show. The incident report states that after receiving the intermission warning, about five minutes into the second act security officials received 'another complaint about the patrons being loud and at the time (they) were recording.' Taking pictures or recording is not permitted at shows."

One usher recalled to the Post, per Aguilar, "They told me they would not leave. I told them that they need to leave the theater and if they do not, they will be trespassing. The patrons said they would not leave. I told them I would (be) going to get Denver Police. They said go get them."

Reprinted with permission from Alternet.

Why A Biden 'Impeachment Inquiry' May Make Democrats Secretly Smile

Why A Biden 'Impeachment Inquiry' May Make Democrats Secretly Smile

Impeaching Joe Biden doesn't rank high on the list of political priorities for most Americans — who are far more concerned with economic security, gun violence and crime, health-care costs and whether Republicans and Democrats can work together to address those issues.

While the president's approval ratings languish, most Americans display little interest in the tortuous House investigations targeting him and his son Hunter Biden. A recent Morning Consult poll found that only 30 percent of voters, including less than a quarter of independents, see any urgency in launching a Biden impeachment inquiry.

Yet under intense pressure from their party's loudest voices, including former President Donald Trump, House Republicans may soon embark on the first stage of that process. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy privately told GOP leadership and some members last week that he is "moving closer" to an impeachment inquiry. When he realized that he had encouraged his party's most extreme faction in its mania, he stepped back. "Impeachment inquiry is not impeachment," he assured reporters.

Dim as he is, McCarthy nevertheless should realize that an "inquiry" without an actual impeachment will amount to a public exoneration of Biden. He already may have noticed what his more fanatical members like Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO) have not: a distinct absence of proof that Biden has committed "high crimes and misdemeanors" that warrant his removal from office.

The most damning piece of evidence uncovered so far by Rep. James Comer, the House Oversight Committee chairman, is a scrap of an interview with an FBI informant who claimed to have heard a Ukrainian businessman say he had paid off Biden during the Obama administration. Unfortunately for Comer, that very same individual had already denied, on tape, that he ever had any contact with Biden.

As Philip Bump noted in The Washington Post, that episode exemplifies the feeble case cobbled together so far by Comer, who has confessed forthrightly that his purpose is political, not forensic. He doesn't care whether he has enough facts to make a persuasive argument for Biden's guilt. The smear is good enough for the chairman and is indeed good enough for many or even most Republicans.

Is such flimsy and contradictory material enough to sustain an impeachment inquiry, however, let alone a vote to oust the president? For those Republicans who still insist that Biden was not duly elected, perhaps it is. For anyone with a functioning brain, including many elected Republicans, it may not be. Before McCarthy starts down the path toward impeachment, he ought to listen to the Republicans who are waving him off. They include Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY), who publicly warns that impeachment is "a trap," and Rep. Ken Buck (R-CO), a Freedom Caucus member who mocks "impeachment theater" as a distraction and delusion.

For Buck, Paul and other Republican skeptics, it is unpleasant to recall what happened the last time a leader of their party impeached a Democratic president without respect to public opinion. Driven by an intense hatred for President Bill Clinton (and First Lady Hillary Clinton) among their base, and by the proliferation of far-fetched accusations and conspiracy theories in right-wing media, then-Speaker Newt Gingrich committed an historic blunder.

The ugly spectacle produced by the Republicans dragged them down and elevated Clinton. Despite the president's admitted misbehavior with a former intern — and his perjured testimony to shield that private affair — the American people saw him as a victim of partisan hypocrites and Pharisees. When the dust cleared, Clinton was riding high, the Republicans had unceremoniously booted Gingrich and the Democrats had gained seats in a midterm that should have seen them lose.

None of those rather basic considerations discourage the most zealous figures on the right, who demand Biden's impeachment as vengeance for the two Trump impeachments. It's an obsession that leaves voters cold and alienated. Before the impeachment caucus gets too excited, they ought to ask why that threat makes so many Democrats smirk.

To find out more about Joe Conason and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.

Kevin McCarthy

McCarthy Won't Endorse Trump -- And America Will Pay The Price

Republican House Speaker Kevin McCarthy has reached that stage of a GOP-controlled congressional session where he is simply perfecting the art of playing political Whac-A-Mole—nothing more, nothing less.

Whatever supposed agenda House Republicans were pursuing, that all ended when McCarthy struck a deal with the White House on raising the debt ceiling that miraculously avoided a catastrophic debt default. While the country undoubtedly benefited from that relatively reasonable outcome given McCarthy’s band of heretics, we will all be paying the price for his betrayal of the caucus extremists for the remainder of his speakership.

The first bill came due in early June, when House GOP extremists shut down the floor and McCarthy was forced to recess the chamber for the better part of a week. Several weeks later, Florida Rep. Anna Paulina Luna went on a censure crusade against Rep. Adam Schiff of California over comments he made several years ago about Donald Trump's ties to Russia. Luna originally folded a $16 million fine into the measure, which she pushed in the form of a privileged resolution in order to skip going through committee and using regular order. But when 20 vulnerable Republicans sided with House Democrats to table the resolution, McCarthy sprang into action, trying to convince Luna that this very bad look for the GOP was only benefitting one person: Schiff, who ultimately raked in more than $8 million in second-quarter donations for his Senate bid. Luna dropped the fine, McCarthy backed the measure, and the censure passed on a party line vote, 213-209.

That same week, McCarthy went through the exact same drill with a privilege resolution pushed by Rep. Lauren Boebert of Colorado to impeach President Joe Biden: no investigation and no high crimes, misdemeanors, or explicit violations of the Constitution. She just felt like it—so there.

McCarthy once again convinces this low-level GOP talent that her resolution will fail, embarrass the Republican majority, and be a boon to Biden. Instead, she agrees to refer the articles to the Homeland Security and Judiciary Committees in return for bragging rights that she initiated the impeachment push.

But that's what McCarthy exists for now—he's a glorified cat herder in a necktie.

"The best he can do in these situations is mitigate the damage," remarked The New York Times' Annie Karni on The Daily podcast. "And he knows every day that his troubles are not behind him and are only probably getting worse."

McCarthy's next challenge is avoiding a massive rift within his caucus over which 2024 Republican hopeful to back. For now, he has declined to endorse Trump—yet another slap in the face to the MAGA misfits who would just as soon burn the House down as build bridges.

It's a placeholder position that could yield fast considering how quickly McCarthy walked back his recent observation that Trump might not be "the strongest" Republican candidate in the GOP field.

Trump fumed over McCarthy’s disloyalty and, in a near-immediate clean up interview with Breitbart, McCarthy asserted, “Trump is stronger today than he was in 2016.”

Sure, watching McCarthy squirm amid the MAGA death grip is entertaining. But the longer McCarthy holds out on endorsing Trump, the bigger the price we'll pay. McCarthy owes his precious speaker’s gavel to Trump, and when Trump wants something, he'll hang McCarthy's delinquency over his head like the Sword of Damocles.

And more than likely, Trump will extract the biggest pound of flesh he can get from McCarthy, whether that's a massive investigation escalation into Biden’s son Hunter, or a full on impeachment proceeding. One way or the other, Trump will get his due.

Reprinted with permission from Daily Kos.