Behold the atrocity, as reported by The Hill:
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) apologized for her past controversial remarks and embrace of the QAnon conspiracy theory during a heated closed-door House GOP conference meeting — and received a standing ovation at one point from a number of her colleagues.
Greene told her colleagues that she made a mistake by being curious about “Q” and said she told her children she learned a lesson about what to put on social media, according to two sources in the room.
She also denied that she knew what Jewish space lasers were and defended her comments that past school shootings were staged by stating that she had personal experience with a school shooting.
It’s hard to understand how anything Greene said here merited a standing ovation. House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy was expected to strip the freshman lawmaker of her appointment to the Education Committee, but he backed off and issued a press release that equated Greene’s past statements with the behavior of Democratic members:
“While Democrats pursue a resolution on Congresswoman Greene, they continue to do nothing about Democrats serving on the Foreign Affairs Committee who have spread anti-Semitic tropes, Democrats on the House Intelligence and Homeland Security Committee compromised by Chinese spies, or the Chairwoman of the House Financial Services Committee who advocated for violence against public servants.”
Despite McCarthy’s wording that implies there is more than one Democrat “compromised” by more than one Chinese spy, this is actually a reference to one Democrat and one spy. It refers to Rep. Eric Swalwell of California who sits on the House Intelligence Committee and was recently assigned to the Homeland Security Committee as well. Swalwell was given a defensive briefing from counterintelligence officials six years ago informing him that one of his fundraisers was most likely a Chinese spy. He had no further contact with her and cooperated with the investigation.
The member of the Foreign Affairs Committee who spreads anti-Semitic tropes is Rep. Ilhan Omar of Minnesota. The charge is defensible albeit her comments have never come close to Green’s comprehensive history of Jew-baiting.
The Chairwoman of the House Financial Services Committee who “advocated for violence” is Rep. Maxine Waters of California. This one goes back two years and it wasn’t about violence. Vox explains:
It started over the weekend at a Los Angeles rally, when Waters urged attendees to keep “push[ing] back” against members of the Trump administration with whom they disagreed, apparently referring to attention-grabbing incidents in which administration officials were confronted by the public.
“You think we’re rallying now? You ain’t seen nothing yet,” Waters said at the event, according to a HuffPost report. “Already you have members of your Cabinet that are being booed out of restaurants … protesters taking up at their house saying ‘no peace, no sleep.’”
“If you see anybody from that Cabinet in a restaurant, in a department store, at a gasoline station, you get out and you create a crowd and you push back on them and you tell them they’re not welcome anymore, anywhere,” she added.
I can see why this hot rhetoric would concern Republicans but it’s a long way from endorsing the murder of Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, Nancy Pelosi and FBI agents, as Greene has done in the past.
The Republican comparisons are horribly strained but this is still basically an argument about whether the majority party can kick members of the minority off of committees or out of Congress entirely, and under what circumstances this can be justified. Greene is so extreme that it’s not hard to make a case against her. But I could definitely see the Republicans using this precedent to strip Democrats off of committees for far less.
In my opinion, the Democrats should not kick Greene off of committees. If they do anything at all, they should move to expel her from Congress. This would require an Ethics Committee investigation and recommendation followed by a two-thirds vote, as spelled out in Article 1, Section 5, Clause 2 of the Constitution. Most likely, the effort would fail.
The Democrats can succeed in kicking her off committees, but that won’t get rid of her either and will just invite the Republicans to take up the same practice the next time they’re in control.
And, no, this isn’t an example where the Republicans will do this anyway.
Greene will be an embarrassment to the GOP for as long as she serves. I say, give them a chance to be rid of her entirely and if they don’t take it, then make them pay for it at the ballot box. That’s the most sensible way to deal with this. Otherwise, we’ll see Maxine Waters getting kicked off Financial Services for telling people to “create a crowd” around Republicans, as if this were somehow the same as saying that Democratic leaders should be executed. We’ll see Swalwell pushed off his committees for a totally trumped up charge.
It’s not a pattern of tit-for-tat that we need.
I’m not sure that “Democrats shouldn’t do something because then the Republicans will do it to them even worse” is very good advice at this point. I’m sure we’d all like to see Greene expelled from Congress, but the problem is that it’s a lot harder to do that, and by your argument, why wouldn’t the Republicans then do that to a Democrat? It’s also pretty much the same argument used against impeachment, and against ending the filibuster. I’m tired of that kind of argument. Democrats got to do what they got to do to stop fascism and restore democracy, period. And they seem to be doing it. The Democrats need to come down hard on these bastards, I really don’t care what nonsense they spout in return, because they have no case. And remember, there are several other members who are nearly as bad as Greene, such as Boebert. The Republicans are getting all riled up six ways to Sunday, but they are hemorrhaging power at the same time.
Well, first, even if the House GOP did try to expel Maxine Waters, they would fail, But they could and would strip her of her committees.
Agree. The people of Taylor Greene’s district wanted a kook and they got one. There are better ways to make them pay,
I’m conflicted. I can’t really decide where I fall on this. Just looking at the long game, I’m not sure this move is certain to be a net positive for Dems. But I also feel like we need to confront this overt fascism at every corner with at least some measure of response. The Republicans are rapidly sliding down this slippery slope, so I’m not sure anything Dems do is going to impact what they decide to do in the future, as they descend into this madness.
This is why they should try to expel her.
That certainly seems the better option. Throwing her off the committee just seems to be quasi-pyrrhic sort of victory.
If I were someone, which I’m not, I’d allow her to keep her committee assignments, and continue letting her wear her CENSORED mask while sounding like a crazy fucking moron to as many people as possible.
Throwing her off the committees allows her to camouflage herself amongst 434 other Representatives. And she obviously won’t be thrown out of the House.
Let her wear her CENSORED mask and let her make a fool of herself and her constituents. “Cancelling” her isn’t going to bring any Republican voters over to the Democratic Party. And it isn’t going to stop the collapse of this country.
I think this is the right thing to do. When they kick Waters off her committee, call them out for the hypocrites they are. I’m glad to finally see some fighting spirit in my party. They tend to be so measured. Your strategic advice is off base in my opinion, Martin. I’m a peaceful guy but we’re long past due for standing up to the bully. Now let’s pass some legislation through reconciliation. Then let’s take down the filibuster or at least convince Manchin and Sinema to poke holes in it. Perhaps to get a public option, increase ACA subsidies and bring down drug prices. Would love to see the Republicans kick and scream and lose in the court of public opinion big time.