by Caitlin Johnstone, Caitlin Johnstone:

Democratic Party royal family member Chris Cuomo delivered a pearl-clutching, hand-wringing monologue on CNN last night about how appalling and outrageous it is for Republicans to accuse Democrats of having covert loyalties to a foreign government.

Cuomo, who is the son of a Democratic New York Governor and the brother of another Democratic New York Governor, began his “Closing Argument” segment rationally enough, berating the 194 Representatives who voted against opposing Trump’s ability to initiate an Iran war without congressional approval. Obviously the more resistance there is to Mike Pompeo manipulating the highly suggestible Commander-in-Chief into any more reckless warmongering against Tehran, the better.

But then, without any coherent segue, Prince Fredo began babbling about Republicans leveling baseless accusations about Democrats having loyalties to Iran.

“Shame on you and every Trumper and never-Trumper who voted against this.”@ChrisCuomo addresses those who voted against the Iran War Powers resolution and those in the GOP who aim to divide the country when unity is a life and death matter. pic.twitter.com/kNMnXEeTdJ

— Cuomo Prime Time (@CuomoPrimeTime) January 10, 2020

“They’re in love with terrorists,” we see Republican Representative Doug Collins saying in Cuomo’s clip. “They mourn Soleimani more than they mourn our Gold Star families, who are the ones who suffered under Soleimani. That’s a problem.”

Cuomo made some sputtering outraged face noises about Collins’ comments, then highlighted Republican Representative John Rutherford’s tweet accusing Democratic Representative Pramila Jayapal of belonging to a “squad of Ayatollah sympathizers” for her condemnation of Trump’s indefensible assassination of Iranian General Qassem Soleimani. Democrats were quick to condemn Rutherford’s obnoxious accusation on Twitter.

Cuomo also highlighted a tweet by Republican Representative Mark Meadows claiming that “Democrats are falling all over themselves equivocating about a terrorist” (which also drew angry Democratic backlash on the platform), and expressed astonishment at war crime fetishist Nikki Haley’s ridiculous claim that “The only ones that are mourning the loss of Soleimani are our Democrat leadership, and our Democrat presidential candidates.”

“So on the right, stop spreading toxic gossip about who likes terrorists,” Cuomo bloviated in a long-winded conclusion, making no mention at any time of the fact that Democrats have been spouting this exact same sort of “toxic gossip” for more than three years now.

If only we had a word for this — something-ism https://t.co/ubMlhdqGj2

— Jonathan Chait (@jonathanchait) January 9, 2020

President Trump and House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy kicked it up even further than Cuomo’s examples, on Thursday openly accusing House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of “defending Soleimani” with criticisms of Trump’s drone strike assassination.

“I never thought there would be a moment in time that the Speaker of the House of Representatives would actually be defending Soleimani,” McCarthy said, adding, “Did you listen to what the Speaker just said? ‘Soleimani was a bad person, but…’ There is no ‘but.’”

“If only we had a word for this — something-ism,” quipped notorious Russiagater Jonathan Chait of McCarthy’s comments. The joke, obviously, being that [Kevin] McCarthy was practicing [Joe] McCarthyism by accusing political rivals of having loyalties to a hostile foreign government.

This would be the same Jonathan Chait who authored what was arguably the single most bat shit insane Trump-Russia conspiracy article that ever made it past the editors of the mainstream press in a 2018 New York Magazine masterpiece titled “What If Trump Has Been a Russian Asset Since 1987?”, which was just as crazy and full of baseless speculation as the headline suggests. McCarthyite Russia hysteria was being mainlined into the veins of rank-and-file Democrats so aggressively at the time that Chait was subsequently granted a (serious, non-mocking) interview with Chris Hayes on MSNBC to expound upon his fact-free conspiracy theory.

Read More @ CaitlinJohnstone.com