December 1, 2022

It Took Ye Praising Hitler Before the House Judiciary GOP Took Down Its Infamous Tweet

The GOP sure seems willing to put up with a hell of a lot of anti-Semitism.

Photo taken before Balenciaga dropped West—which also predated the House Judiciary GOP's deletion of its tweet.Jana Call Me J/Abaca/Zuma

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On October 3, the rapper formerly known as Kanye West (now Ye) attended Paris fashion week wearing a shirt that said “White Lives Matter.”

Three days later, the Twitter account associated with the Republican members of the House Judiciary Committee (ranking member: Jim Jordan) tweeted, “Kanye. Elon. Trump.”

When Ye tweeted on October 8 that he wanted to go “death con 3 on THE JEWISH PEOPLE,” the House Judiciary GOP’s tweet stayed up.

Throughout October, as Ye claimed that a Jewish doctor had misdiagnosed his mental illness; repeated stereotypes about Jews controlling finance and the media; and refused to apologize for his remarks or disavow anti-Semitism, the tweet remained.

Today, after West explicitly praised Hitler on conspiracy theorist Alex Jones’ InfoWars podcast, the tweet came down.

“I see good things about Hitler also,” Ye said. “This guy that invented highways, invented the very microphone that I use as a musician, you can’t say out loud that this person ever did anything good, and I’m done with that. I’m done with the classifications. Every human being has something of value that they brought to the table, especially Hitler.”

Within about an hour of West’s comments going viral on Twitter, the House Judiciary GOP deleted its tweet.

As for a public apology and repudiation of white supremacy and anti-Semitism, well, I wouldn’t hold my breath.

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WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

About that: It’s unfathomably hard in the news business right now, and we came up about $28,000 short during our recent fall fundraising campaign. We simply have to make that up soon to avoid falling further behind than can be made up for, or needing to somehow trim $1 million from our budget, like happened last year.

If you can, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones—that exists to make a difference, not a profit—with a donation of any amount today. We need more donations than normal to come in from this specific blurb to help close our funding gap before it gets any bigger.

payment methods

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