Morning Politocadoes!
The US House of Representatives agreed to hold a vote for today on removing Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Georgia) from her committee assignments. Republican leader Kevin McCarthy had placed her on the committees for labor, education, and budget committees. The assignments caused an uproar for many given her public belief that the Sandy Hook and Parkland Shootings were false flag events, and more recently, her support for the execution of Democratic elected officials. The chamber attempted to put pressure on McCarthy to have the Republican caucus strip her of the assignments themselves. The Republicans wouldn’t do that and here we are.
“After several conversations and literally running away from reporters, Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (Q-CA) made clear that he is refusing to take action against conspiracy theorist Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, As a result, the House will continue with a vote to strip Greene of her seat on the esteemed House Committee on Education & Labor and House Committee on Budget. McCarthy’s failure to lead his party effectively hands the keys over to Greene — an anti-Semite, QAnon adherent and 9/11 Truther.”
A solid burn were you on the Thursday Politics Thread, Madam Speaker.
For her part, Rep. Green made apologies to the caucus prior to their vote. Which apparently made them feel much better about having a conspiracy theorist in their ranks. McCarthy, despite having denounced it months ago, responded “I think it would be helpful if you could hear exactly what she told all of us — denouncing Q-on, I don’t know if I say it right, I don’t even know what it is,”
Come now Kevin, you know damn well whom you brought to the dance. You denounced the conspiracy months ago.
https://video.foxnews.com/v/6183170865001#sp=show-clips
Given reports that Rep. Greene’s speech before her colleagues received a standing ovation and that House Republicans actually held a vote on whether to strip Rep. Liz Cheney of her leadership position for voting to impeach Trump, we can see that McCarthy’s hands are tied. A party in the minority needs to stand united, I suppose. But at what cost? This isn’t about how much corporations should be taxed, or how to protect the environment. This is about reality and un-reality.
Most of the political discourse has been something along the lines of “the battle for the soul of the GOP” and I respectfully disagree. The battle is over. Whatever the GOP stood for has long since died and the Q Anon dorks are what drive the party now. It is troubling to see even after everything that has happened for a political party to embrace a base of violent zealots in thrall to an online cult, determined to not just beat the opposing party, but violently execute them in a coup.
I hope the Democratic Party has the constitution to deal with this. Quite why, someone like Greene isn’t being expelled altogether from the chamber (there’s Rep. Gomez’ resolution after all) isn’t clear to me. There’s an argument that it will only give more fuel to the fire, but it seems to me that either way her being in Congress legitimizes what she and others believe in.
I guess I’d feel better if I felt like any of the mechanisms the Constitution has set in place were actually used to punish bad actors. It’s a wonder we even got a second impeachment for Trump, after all. All I see is a group of people not really seeing consequences for bad behavior. Yeah, the Q Shaman guy and other pawns are gonna get thrown in jail, but the politicians that encourage that behavior? They’ll be fine. This is their strategy and chillingly, I feel like they’ll be fine with whatever comes out of this.
Please be excellent to each other in the comments. The Mayor McSquirrel Rule remains in effect. As the Covid-19 pandemic continues, please continue to maintain social distancing measures, wear masks in public areas, and practices sanitation policies as circumstances dictate.
You must be logged in to post a comment.