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aristarchus [soylentnews.org] writes:

We have all seen him in the news, "Florida Man" [miamiherald.com], followed by stupid criminality. But now, Florida Man has been elected to Congress. Of course, he is a Republican. And he is leading one of those "Brooks Bros Riots" that Florida Republicans, or at least Republicans in Florida, are so fond of. (Shades of Bush v. Gore, if you are too young, or from Florida and male.)

Our source is The Daily Beast New Civil Rights Movement [thedailybeast.com].

Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) led a crowd of Freedom Caucus members to storm a secure room where Democrats and Republicans in the House Intelligence Committee have been holding depositions.
Intelligence Committee, not a place for Florida Republicans
An MSNBC interview with Gaetz on Thursday began after he overheard the introduction and sound of a Q&A with Rep. Jackie Speier (D-CA), who mocked the Republicans as a bunch of angry white men conducting a stunt. Gaetz was livid asking why his whiteness had anything to do with it.
“Did she say we were a bunch of white men? What does the fact that we are white men have to do with our desire to represent the millions of constituents we serve?” he asked rhetorically. “I was deeply offended. When Jackie Speier walks in I don’t say, ‘a white woman comes in.’ This is the type of Identity politics from the left that seems to permeate any substantive or procedural arguments they make and it’s sickening to me that’s how we would be thought of. People we serve are diverse and it’s just really kind of sickening.”

House Republicans took their impeachment grievances to a more confrontational level on Wednesday, barging into a secure facility during a closed-door witness deposition and refusing to leave until Democrats held open hearings.

The gambit—cooked up by the pro-Trump brawler Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) and endorsed by House GOP leadership—derailed the closed-door deposition of Laura Cooper, a Pentagon official with jurisdiction over Ukraine policy, before it even started. And it left Democrats indignant that their colleagues had violated long standing rules about interviewing witnesses in classified settings.

Cell phones, for example, are not allowed in Sensitive Compartmented Information Facilities (also known as SCIFs). But the Republican members who barged into those facilities had taken their phones with them inside the room. Lawmakers and aides said that, as of noon on Wednesday, the SCIF was being swept for electronic surveillance devices because the Republicans brought in their phones, delaying the start of Cooper’s deposition. Democrats were also contemplating whether to bring in the U.S. Capitol Police in order to drag out the protesting members.

The standoff began shortly after a press conference in the morning, in which GOP members denounced what they called Democrats' "sham" impeachment process—a complaint that they’ve made central to their impeachment pushback.

Matt Gaetz says he’s about to lead this phalanx of House Republicans into the SCIF to check out what’s going on with the whole impeachment thing.

Ha! As if some Florida man understands what a phalanx is. They would fall to the first thrust of my spear, or the first ruling of the House Oversight Committee about what the actual rules are.

Close to two hours after they first went in, a core group of Republicans remained there, according to a tweet from Rep. Andy Biggs (R-AZ). The number two House Republican, Rep. Steve Scalise (R-LA), was with them. Three hours into the standoff, the Republican crew remained—and they had ordered pizza from We The Pizza, a Capital Hill joint.

“They’re a bunch of brave freedom fighters having pizza in a secure conference room,” complained Rep. Tom Malinowski (D-NJ).

At one point, a GOP member appeared to broadcast his thoughts from the SCIF via Twitter.

Well, there it is. Not much to say about it, really. Idiots. Republicans. Runaway's people.

Original Submission