Promised to investigate

Bree Newsome tweeted:

The left actually does decent job of mobilizing around talking points & challenging false narratives, just doesn’t have same access to major media outlets as right wing. That’s why platforms like Twitter become the primary medium & also why Twitter sparks such consternation. The right wing is able to spew BS unfiltered on networks they control but aren’t able to do it on platforms like this one without sparking an equal pushback from the left that then influences the way things are reported in the news.

Dominique Mosbergen of HuffPost reported that the Equality Act has passed the House. This is the second time the House has passed it, the first time two years ago. The act bans discrimination against people based on sexual orientation and gender identity by extending the Civil Rights Act of 1964. It also overrides the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (which conservatives have been using to claim religious freedom (to discriminate) is more important than LGBTQ rights. Because the Equality Act is not part of budget reconciliation it can be subjected to a Senate filibuster. So far Sen. Susan Collins of Maine has given support – she was a co-sponsor in 2019 – so we need another nine Republicans. And, alas, we know how likely that is. Sarah Kendzior has lamented that Democrats promised to investigate the nasty guy administration as part of the 2018 campaign. Kendzior has also said the failure to do that (the first impeachment trial could have been about so much more) was a big reason why Democrats lost seats last November. To make her case Kendzior reposted a tweet from December 2019 linking to a HuffPost article of August 2018 listing the 52 things Democrats said they would investigate. The HuffPost article groups the items into broad categories: The nasty guy’s corruption. The pandemic prince’s conflicts of interest. Government business done through private email accounts (the thing they kept nagging Hillary Clinton about). Michael Flynn’s contacts with foreign governments. The 2016 campaign. The failure to produce requested documents. The citizenship question in the 2020 census (thankfully kept off). Issuing security clearances to questionable people (such as the pandemic prince). Plans to gut government agencies. And a general category of waste, fraud, and abuse, which included the botched response to hurricane ravaged Puerto Rico. The Muslim ban. Politicized hiring of immigrant judges. Loyalty tests in the State Department. And much more. By Kendzior’s reposting that tweet I suspect this was a campaign promise that was not at all met. The list is longer now and still isn’t being met. Which leads to an important question: Why?