The House Republican Caucus just voted to keep Liz Cheney as their chair, after a good number of them gave Marjorie Tayler Greene a standing O. This happened after Kevin McCarthy said bad things about Greene but isn’t going to do a fucking thing. This will force a vote in the House to determine if they’ll strip her of her committee assignments.
I get that there’s probably nothing that matters to your average Trumpy Republican voter except owning the libs. But even if you keep most of them in the dark and covered in shit by watching Fox News, it’s gonna be a real interesting question when local media asks their Member of Congress why having someone who denied that Sandy Hook (and I believe, Parkland) happened should be on the Education Committee. Sandy Hook troofing isn’t a “space lasers” or “pedophiles at a pizza shop” goofy conspiracy theory. It’s extremely hurtful to parents of real, dead children, and I think it’s pretty toxic when people who don’t follow politics and don’t worship Trump hear about it.
I guess the theory of the case is these MoCs will just live in a bubble forever and never have to answer for any vote, which is fine if you’re in a R+14 district like McCarthy (or a R+27 district like Greene). But if you’re in a tough district, you’re either gonna have to answer for your vote against Greene to your MAGAt primary challenger, or you’re going answer for the vote for Greene to any journalist or civic organization to the left of the Proud Boys.
McCarthy should have just taken the hit and removed her from committees, just like they did to Steve King. But he’s apparently too stupid and/or gutless to do that.
NotMax
Another one in line to borrow Collins’ furrowed brow appliques.
Roger Moore
McCarthy is a Republican in the age of Trump. You can assume he’s stupid and gutless until he proves otherwise.
Starboard Tack
@NotMax:
I think she uses a few drops of super glue. Lasts longer.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
it’s light years too early to say much of anything about 2022, but it is interesting to me that Mitch McConnell–who shares many traits with McCarthy but stupidity is not one of them– seems to be sensing danger like the Robot from Lost In Space
Lord Fartdaddy (Formerly, Mumphrey, Smedley Darlington Mingobat, et al.)
Republicans are to Trump (and other Trumpy loons) what that one guy in Brokeback Mountain was to the other one: they just can’t quit them.
KrackenJack
Not to give McCarthy any credit whatsoever. Part of the calculation may be losing a few percent of persuadable R voters (not his problem) or depressing the base and getting a primary opponent (a real risk to him).
randy khan
It’s like the perfect split decision – they anger the base by leaving Cheney in place and don’t discipline the crazy anti-Semitic conspiracy theorist, so they further alienate reasonable people.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Rachel Maddow discussing this issue, and it reminds me of when she went on a couple week campaign to entice Liz Cheney (always, to me, Dick Jr) to come on her show. I can’t remember exactly when that was– when Dick Jr was tanking as a Senate primary candidate, when she ran for the House, or after she won. Maddow got pretty snarky, “I promise I will not bite”. Cheney wouldn’t bite, either.
Just thinking how weird it is that Dick Jr gave up on that Senate seat, which was open last cycle. Does/did she think she might become Speaker? President? Does she still hold ambition for higher office? Does she regret throwing her sister, sister-in-law and their kids under the bus for ambitions that have more than likely evaporated?
SP123
I think they don’t care about her getting booted from committees but by doing it this way it gives them cover to boot Democrats for pseudoscandals at some future time when they hold a majority. “I’m disappointed in Congressman Rogers for wearing a tan suit, but Democrats were the first to say that such things must be punished by stripping committee assignments.”
sdhays
@SP123: That was essentially what the Clinton impeachment was about. “See, we can impeach Democrats too!”
PsiFighter37
I wonder if CA’s redistricting commission can do us a solid and draw McCarthy into a swing/lean D district.
dmsilev
So now, instead of disciplining her behind closed doors in a party caucus vote that could remain safely anonymous, the GOP gets to vote on her suitability in public, on the House floor, and the best they can do to try to thread the needle is the same ‘defense’ they’ve offered for T****: that the process is wrong, so therefore they can oppose without ‘really’ supporting Greene or T****. I doubt it will convince many people.
TS (the original)
@SP123:
I would like to think most people understand the difference between shooting an opponent in the head and wearing a tan suit, but with trump GOP members it might be a bridge too far.
dmsilev
@PsiFighter37: Bakersfield? Good luck with that. I’m pretty sure gerrymandering that area into a competitive mix would entail using fractals and wormholes.
Patricia Kayden
Well, she did apologize to her GOP colleagues so it’s all good.
PsiFighter37
@dmsilev: I’m sure they could draw a district stretching out to the coast or down to LA. It won’t happen, I know – but it is nice to daydream.
Jim Appleton
2020 just keeps on going …
Kent
He is being smart. He’s making the Democrats do his dirty work for him. And at the same time giving the GOP leverage in some future GOP Congress to expel minority Dem congressmen from committees for stepping outside some other line
Where this actually will hurt Greene is in fundraising. Typically Congressmen and women do most of their fundraising through their committee assignments. Banking committee folks get donations from financial interests. Ag committee members get donations from big Ag. And so forth.
But Greene is more of a Trump style national level of crazy and maybe doesn’t need traditional fundraising channels. Plus, I think she is some kind of heiress so independently wealthy.
PsiFighter37
@Kent: Please don’t call Kevin McCarthy smart. He isn’t. He is dumb as rocks.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
Found this exchange on the Reddit r/ParlerWatch on this topic which I found interesting:
These Redditors make the case that Greene will be an asset to the GOP going forward, not a hindrance like what is being discussed here; to the contrary she may replace Trump as the party’s leader at some point and does not have his weaknesses; that Trump didn’t really lose that dramatically in the first place (I’m reminded of members of the European far-right remarking on how much “staying power” Trump had after the election), and that in a sane world our victories should’ve never been so narrow. And since they were and in light of recent events, “political suicide” does not exist anymore for the GOP.
Personally, I’m not so sure I agree. I do think Greene will be an anchor for the GOP going forward for the reasons you outline provided we move forward with the 1.9 trillion COVID AID package (which Dems are doing). The S&P analysis of the package’s potential impact, particularly just in time for the 2022 midterms, will mean hundreds of millions of people’s lives will be materially improved, which could very well give us a very good fighting chance going into the midterms. We will have likely largely conquered the pandemic by the point as well.
Omnes Omnibus
@Kent: No, randy khan, above, got it right. Shooting himself in both feet.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Kent:
They would just find some other excuse to do that in the future
waratah
I think the Republicans forget how many women are members of Congress now. They are not going to forget what happened and who did it.
Patricia Kayden
Perfect Republican package.
Starboard Tack
@Patricia Kayden:
Whenever I find myself looking at her picture and thinking “She doesn’t look crazy” I imagine her in Klan robes and everything makes sense.
Shalimar
@PsiFighter37: 5 of the 6 districts that border McCarthy’s 23rd are also represented by Republicans, so no, that isn’t going to happen.
topclimber
Removed by department of redundant repetition department.
Kent
Dems are going to expel her from her committee assignments. They already submitted the motion. In two years no one is going to remember that it was the full congress and not just the GOP delegation that did the dirty work. Safe MAGAts will vote against. A few swing district GOP-ers might vote to expel. The vote is already pre-ordained because Dems have the majority.
We are still on Trump Time. This is going to be completely forgotten history in a matter of 5 days once impeachment starts. I don’t see McCarthy suffering at all. I don’t know what the 2022 elections will be run on. But it won’t be this vote.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Patricia Kayden:
Ah, the “Great Replacement Theory”
Remember the Tiki Torch Nazis chanting “Jews will not replace us!”? Greene buys into that shit too. I remember Steve King spouted similar drivel that got him expelled from his committee assignments in 2o18
But I guess since Greene said she was Super Duper Sorry in the closed door House Republican Conference, that makes it all ok ?
Mary G
Just saw a sound-off clip of Kevin tapdancing for the press in his best Sgt. Schultz “I know nozthing” performance, and he looks ten years older than the last time I saw him. He’s going to go the way of Boehner and Ryan soon because nobody can control the craziness that is Republican House members. Then the knives will come out and I have ordered a case of popcorn.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Kent:
I think the GOP will suffer long-term consequences from this. They’re effectively making themselves the Qanon Party, just like Kay said. Going forward, it’s going to be increasingly difficult for them to assemble a governing coalition at the federal level because the Qcumber crap is affecting ever greater numbers of people who are being alienated by the same
Patricia Kayden
Kent
There is no “making” involved. They already are the Q party. The only question at this point is how they get out of the box that they are in. I’m guessing the McCarthy’s of the world are just hoping that the problem will eventually go away without them having to rip off the bandaid. I think they are wrong. And the actual time to rip off the bandaid was November 5th when the race was called (or whatever date that was). They were too cowardly then, so they will continue to be cowardly now.
Hoppie
@PsiFighter37: A candidate does not have to reside in a congressional district to represent it in California. Also, redistricting is done by a citizen’s committee with clear goals for non-partisanship. Which is not to say coyote mightn’t just smile on us and make his options, uh, challenging, by throwing two current repukes together so they can fight over who gets to be a carpetbagger.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Jeffro
@Patricia Kayden:
Maybe Gary Abernathy can square this circle in his next WaPo magnum opus; good luck, Gary! That trumpov-ism sure is looking good, isn’t it? ;)
Jeffro
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): these moves by the Dems – from the pressure to remove Greene from committee assignments down to Nancy Smash calling McCarthy the rep from “Q-CA” – are excellent.
Continue to make them deal with the fact that they’re (at least) half looney-bin material, unacceptable to all Dems, a good majority of independents, and a decent % of Republicans.
And I hope they keep pressing on corporate sponsors like crazy, too. Let their sad-sack individual donors try to prop up the loss of all those corporate donations. Good luck with that, GQP!
randy khan
@Kent:
I understand your argument, but I disagree with you. What I think is important is the combination – failing to defenestrate Cheney is going to be the kind of thing the angry MAGA base remembers, and Greene will continue to upset suburban white women, making it harder to forget that she wasn’t disciplined by the Republicans (who, remember, will vote against the resolution to strip her of her committee assignments and so can be targeted in ads quoting whatever outrageous thing she’s said or done recently).
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
These folk don’t get the appeal of Trump. He had certain things going for him in 2015-16 than no other candidate had and each was worth a percent or two in the vote.
None of these things are actually true, but it’s a perception that low information voters get. Added to that in 2020 Trump gave them money with his name on the damn check, add another 1 to 2 percentage points too. I said in 2015 that Trump would get at least 1 percent of the vote just from being a celebrity, I think I was still right.
Rep. Greene has none of that, plus she lacks a penis. The only thing she has in common with Trump is saying the quiet parts out loud.
Shalimar
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Matt Gaetz for Minority Whip.
Patricia Kayden
Gvg
If McCarthy was smart, he never would have allowed a nutter to have any significant committee assignment in the first place. Republicans have been making stupid committee choice since at least Ryan that I have noticed. Trump isn’t the only idiot they have.
Dan B
I was on the phone with a politically astute friend who observed that MTG is part of the new ‘high speed internet fast-messaging / say what you think and keep going ‘ crowd. Mc Carthy is part of the old guard. He is guarded and calculating. That comes across as suspicious and dishonest. Biden seems more in touch with the ‘say what you think’ and ‘deal with the blowback if you feel like it’ crowd. He’s telling it like it is, as is Margarine Greenie. In that regard Biden is stealing her thunder. He doesn’t come across as an old school elitist, although the Faux Mediasphere may try it, to their dismay.
We’ll see if this perspective has any validity.
Mary G
@Jeffro: Piling on – I love it!
ETA: Just wanted to see Qevin McQarthy again – chef’s kiss.
Dan B
@?BillinGlendaleCA: “telling the quiet parts out loud” is pretty hard to tell from the exit polls of Tr***p voters, “He speaks his mind / tells it like it is.” It’s another version of ”I hate / don’t trust politicians.”
It’s gone ballistic in the Tweet, F’book era.
Wag
@dmsilev:
In other words, standard operating procedures for years for states run by the GQP
...now I try to be amused
@Dan B:
When Trump said “I am your voice!” at a rally it really struck me; it’s about the only true thing he ever said.
HumboldtBlue
@Mary G:
That’s our boy Jared!
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Dan B: Trump wouldn’t have gotten far with just that, he needed the other stuff too and that took decades to build
ETA: The other stuff amplified Trump’s ability to “tell it like it is”. The only person that can come close to being a Trump is Fucker Carlson. The others are just politicians and not to be trusted.
NotMax
Okay, though not up to his best – new Rainbow.
(Whose clothes closet might well be a TARDIS.)
Poe Larity
Trump is the man every Republican man wishes he was, and they can look at MTG and think “yeah, I’d tap that.”
Suburban mom’s are all over QAnon. It’s out of the little Chad’s 8chan screen in his basement lair and at mom’s tupperware party now.
NotMax
@Poe Larity
Trumperware?
“Keeps reality out.”
Ken
In the sense of “Hollywood Squares” or “The Match Game”, where for many of the celebrities, their only claim to fame was that they were on HS or TMG.
Or, as the Patrician of Ankh-Morpork mused in Pratchett’s Moving Pictures: “Yes, it was fascinating. You could become famous just for being, well, famous. It occurred to him that this was an extremely dangerous thing and he might probably have to have someone killed one day, although it would be with reluctance. (On his part, that is. Their reluctance probably goes without saying.)”
Omnes Omnibus
@Poe Larity: Do Tupperware parties still exist?
Ken
@Omnes Omnibus: According to google, yes, though the pandemic has of course reduced the number, and most of their sales are online or brick-and-mortar now.
mrmoshpotato
@NotMax:
Oh? Not the Rainbow I expected.
Buskertype
part of me thinks that the republicans voted to keep Cheney in her leadership role partly out of fear that if she was gone they might be next in line to get it.
Alison Rose
@Mary G: A local rep for me! Not actually my rep, he’s got the neighboring district in the same zip code, but I like him a lot.
mrmoshpotato
@Omnes Omnibus:
Are you implying that plastic containers no longer know how to par-tay?
bluehill
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
Adam thinks she’s got a good chance.
NotMax
When do the nutballs’ calls ranging from boycotting curling to declaring war on ‘Cancelda’ begin?
Omnes Omnibus
@mrmoshpotato: I just though they were a ’70s thing like musk colognes and harvest gold appliances.
JoyceH
Oh. For. Pete’s. Sake. Some loony judge gave Kyle Rittenhouse bail, which he paid with online donations- and now he’s in the wind, moved out of his house and there’s a warrant out for his arrest. Here’s a crazy idea – how about NOT letting folks charged with murder out on bond?
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@JoyceH: I hope this doesn’t mean Ricky Schroeder is gonna have to pick up extra shifts
Omnes Omnibus
@bluehill:
I disagreed with him then. I disagree now.
Brachiator
I vote for stupid. Something happened to the Republicans under Trump. They feel the false exhilaration of having no moral compass and of being entirely disconnected from values and truth. It feels good. It is a dead end. But they won’t know it, won’t even feel it when doom overtakes them.
Delk
@Omnes Omnibus: gay Tupperware parties were pretty big 15-20 years ago. I have my mom’s bacon storage Tupperware. We use it for leftover pizza.
Omnes Omnibus
@Delk: What about musk colognes and harvest gold appliances?
NotMax
@Omnes Omnibus
More like 50s.
And then there’s Dixie.
:)
Brachiator
@Buskertype:
It’s kinda like becoming the new Al Qaeda Guy Number 2. A very uncomfortable spotlight starts shining on you.
Delk
@Omnes Omnibus: I’m an OEQ I don’t know what the kids are up to these days. I was Canoe and avocado green.
Kent
They voted that way because they agree with her is what I suspect. At least a majority of them. It was easy to do in a closed caucus vote that isn’t recorded. But out in the open when votes are recorded they are going to have to go full MAGA. Unlike her, they don’t have the guts to defy Trump in public.
NotMax
@Omnes Omnibus
Colognes:
50s – Bay rum (but only when applied by a barber)
60s – Hai Karate for special occasions, Irish Spring soap (“Manly, yes. But I like it too.”) for everyday
70s – Musk
.
Appliances:
50s – turquoise
60s – harvest gold
70s – avocado green
.
bluehill
@Omnes Omnibus: Yeah, seems like a longshot, but I’m still scarred by the last time I thought that.
Omnes Omnibus
@NotMax: All before my time.
Omnes Omnibus
@bluehill:
Let’s stomp on her nascent candidacy now. Kill it before it grows, and Bob said.
WaterGirl
@Omnes Omnibus: Are they billed as Tupperware-Covid parties now?
The Moar You Know
You folks who think Greene is going to be some kind of liability to the GOP are out of your fucking minds. She’s selling just what they want. And Cleek told you what that was years and years ago.
NotMax
@Delk
Still sitting in the medicine cabinet is half a bottle of Canoe which dates from the 1960s. Purchased at a duty free shop in The Bahamas.
Omnes Omnibus
@The Moar You Know: That’s just like your opinion, man.
Suzanne
Petty complaint (the best kind): MTG’s hair is gross. The ends need to be cut. She needs to stop bleaching. It looks terrible.
Delk
@NotMax: When a man becomes a man his cologne becomes canoe
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@The Moar You Know:
true, but she selling it in a state that just elected two Dem Senators, and she had to use her inherited fortune to carpetbag her way to a district she could win, cause the one she used to live had elected Lucy McBath, and just re-elected Lucy McBath, pretty comfortably, I believe. Even in Georgia, she had to looking for a they that wanted what she’s got
ETA: Per Wiki, Lucy McBath beat incumbent Karen Handel by barely 1% of the vote, fewer than 4,000 votes. In their 2020 rematch, McBath beat Handel by 9%, almost 25,000 votes. It’s Newt Ginrich’s old district. It is not my habit to quote Peggy Noonan, especially when I haven’t had a drink in over a month, but… Let us savor.
dm
@Starboard Tack: Every time I see a picture of her in her “Molon Lane” facemark, I find myself reading it as “Moron Label”.
janesays
@PsiFighter37: That would be good, because as of right now, it’s the most GOP-friendly district on the entire Pacific coastline (including Alaska and Hawaii). We’re not going to unseat him if it still close to an R-14 in 2022.
NotMax
@Omnes Omnibus
Bought a number of bottles of this to give out as gifts during the Bicentennial year. (It was much, much more affordably priced back then, and didn’t yet come in a spray bottle.)
?BillinGlendaleCA
@NotMax:
Yeah, that screams 70’s.
Kent
ETA: Per Wiki, Lucy McBath beat incumbent Karen Handel by barely 1% of the vote, fewer than 4,000 votes. In their 2020 rematch, McBath beat Handel by 9%, almost 25,000 votes. It’s Newt Ginrich’s old district. It is not my habit to quote Peggy Noonan, especially when I haven’t had a drink in over a month, but… Let us savor.
GA redistricting is going to be interesting because nearly all the growth has been in the urban areas and suburbs. So they won’t be able to have so many red rural districts. Of curse they will gerrymander. But they already have done that.
NotMax
@Delk
Heh. That I don’t recall. Do remember the slogan “Do you Canoe?”
Kent
Trump was supposed to be a liability too.
Omnes Omnibus
@NotMax: I’ve got a tiny bit of Davidoff’s Good Life left. And some Dune by Dior that my ex liked. It’s not really my thing.
Mary G
@JoyceH: And my recollection is that his attorneys are in trouble too, because they are required to say the address where he lives in paperwork they filed. It’s public information unless they get a waiver to not disclose it. They asked the DA for the waiver and either the DA said no or hadn’t replied yet, so they put a fake address on the filing and sent it to court. Their argument on why that was cool was a mishmash of unrelated conservative talking points, and I imagine the judge is very much not amused.
Omnes Omnibus
@Kent: We can make her a liability.
WaterGirl
@Omnes Omnibus: I am with Team Omnes on this.
janesays
That’s… not really accurate. I suppose it depends on how you define things. It is true that Biden is the first president to defeat an incumbent while winning more than 50% of the total popular vote since 1932, but that’s almost certainly because there was no significant third party candidate in the 2020 election. The two most recent elections in which an incumbent was defeated included third party players who won 6.6% (Anderson in 1980) and 18.9% (Perot in 1992) of the popular vote in their respective elections.
Reagan beat Carter by a 9.7% popular vote margin and a 450 electoral vote margin. Carter won 41% of the popular vote.
Clinton beat Bush (41) by a 5.5% popular vote margin and a 202 electoral vote margin. Bush (41) won 37.5% of the popular vote.
Biden beat Trump by a 4.5% popular vote margin and a 74 electoral vote margin. Trump won 46.9% of the popular vote.
Looking at those figures, it’s kind of absurd to say that Trump suffered the biggest landslide of a sitting president since Hoover, given that he won larger shares of the popular vote and the electoral vote than both Jimmy Carter and George H.W. Bush, as well as the fact that his margin of defeat was narrower than either of theirs.
SoupCatcher
This is the knife edge, and every single election going forward is the most important election of our lifetimes.
Republicans think they can put in enough voter suppression to take back the House in 2022.
We need at least five years of Democratic control of the Presidency and Congress to even think about making a course correction.
It’s not rocket surgery.
NotMax
@BillinGlendaleCA
Continuing on:
80s – burnished coppery brown
90s – stippled texture
00s – stainless steel
10s – black
;)
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Kent: They said the same thing about Reagan.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@janesays: Jimmy Carter and HW Bush were in three candidate races.
patroclus
I’m sorry, but I don’t think it’s a good idea for the Dems to strip the QAnon Lady’s committee assignments. Back prior to 1908, one of the reasons for the revolt against “King” Joe Cannon, the notorious authoritarian Speaker was because he would determine the committee assignments for the Dems (and the Progressive Republicans). It was an awful practice and led to a once-in-a-century revolt resulting in substantial changes to the committee assignment process. And, back in 1961, before Sam Rayburn enlarged (i.e., packed) the Rules Committee to overcome Howard Smith’s obstructionism, he briefly flirted instead with purging Bill Colmer from the Rules Committee because he had endorsed Nixon rather than JFK. He decided to go with enlargement because the then-Republican leader Charlie Halleck made it clear that they would in turn move to purge Adam Clayton Powell from the Education and Labor Committee, and, with conservative Democrats, may well have had the votes to do it. In my view, purging Greene will only lead to African American Congressmen and women being purged in the future by vengeful Republicans when they have the majority.
I hope cooler heads prevail and the Dems don’t actually do this tomorrow. There will be blowback…
Brachiator
@janesays:
But this also is not really accurate. It is not just that there was no significant third party candidate. It is that the voters decided that they would not trifle with third parties. Voters saw that it was about Trump and a strong Democratic Party challenger.
The “usual suspects” of third parties were still around, but the got less attention and fewer votes.
burnspbesq
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
And she’s back in her office, snickering behind closed doors because the rubes fell for it. Elle ne regrettes rien.
gwangung
@Omnes Omnibus: Yeah, make her a liability.
That will make her be loved by the troglydytes….but I wonder if all of them have the sustained willpower of the religious right. The newer Q-nuts may get easily bored and frustrated by defeats.
And if the business class peels off, that’s still a big enough chunk to give them real problem in national elections; our margin is slim, but by the same token, so is theirs. Losing a segment of support gives both sides problems.
I’m betting that the Q-nuts can last for a decade, like the Know Nothings before them, but a persistent GOTV, and battling the Q-nut legislatures on voting rights can beat them back.
Brachiator
@patroclus:
You can’t accommodate insanity.
gwangung
@patroclus: No. NEVER give in to that sort of blackmail. Because that only incentivizes them to get more outrageous.
NotMax
@NotMax
Some more backstory on Number Six.
NotMax
@patroclus
So there are no lines in the sand they can’t cross? May as well hand over the keys to the place, then.
patroclus
@Brachiator: Rayburn’s actions preserved Powell’s seniority and led to massive education gains (especially ESEA, Head Start and school construction) under Powell during the Great Society. If Powell had been purged, much of that might not have happened in the way it did. Moreover, it got Tip O’Neill on to the Rules Committee, which led to his great Congressional career. Moreover, Cannon’s blatant abuse of the committee assignment power effectively led to 8 years of Dem majorities in the New Freedom era, which resulted in the FTC, the Clayton Act, the Federal Reserve and the regulation of securities in the railroad industry. I simply disagree with this move and I hope they don’t do it. It will be a long-term mistake.
patroclus
@NotMax: No, we may as well enact liberal legislation and stop fixating on Members of Congress in the minority who have no power to do anything.
Brachiator
@patroclus:
You cannot accommodate insanity.
Yutsano
@patroclus:
By doing nothing this signals not only to Greene but her supporters that they can pretty much do anything they want and suffer no consequences. The Republicans had their chance to be adults here. Now it’s time for Marjorie to learn why you should never cross a nonna.
Omnes Omnibus
@patroclus:
Congress should be able to enact legislation as well as police its own ranks.
NotMax
@patroclus
Build the bookcases and ignore the termites? Nope, no thanks. Power unexercised becomes flaccid.
Also too, nothing about this step impedes passing legislation.
gwangung
@patroclus: It’s a long term mistake NOT to do this move. Seriously, you think the system can accommodate this type of undermining?
No, that’s not going to happen. You are proposing more appeasement…and you will get rewarded with more extreme behavior. Guaranteed.
Stop and think. WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU INCENTIVIZING?
patroclus
@Omnes Omnibus: A censure resolution would be a more appropriate way to police ranks. An ethics investigation would be more appropriate. Both such procedures have long-standing precedents which have been effective. Monkeying around with committee assignments is not an appropriate method. This is a mistake, as historical examples from Champ Clark to Sam Rayburn show.
patroclus
@gwangung: You need to calm down.
Another Scott
There’s always a tweet..
Cheers,
Scott.
patroclus
@Yutsano: I’m not arguing doing nothing. Just not this. You need to pay attention to what I’m saying and stop arguing against a straw man. The Republicans will retaliate if/when they attain a majority. Maxine Waters, Ilhan Omar, AOC and many others do not deserve to be treated like Greene, but they (or others) will be.
NotMax
@patroclus
Permitting an infection on the body politic to fester isn’t a long-term problem?
Neither Clark nor Rayburn was facing members holding a box of matches in one hand and a Molotov cocktail in the other.
piratedan
@burnspbesq: and not on camera, so not on the record,. Thus she gets to keep polishing that Rep to the public and the GOP co-workers get to be all indignant if the Dems call her ass to account.
and who is right? that we have 74million people willing to Vote for Trump after his last 4 years, why wouldn’t they vote for Greene?
Let’s say Biden runs the gauntlet, gets Covid under grips, starts to have the economy rebuilt, a sense of normalcy returns, a newer greener economy starts to bloom. If the other side (Faux, Newsmax and OANN) continue to frame each success as some kind of grievance (and you know that they will), i.e. you violated my rahhhts forcing me to do something for the public good, I didn’t work in the old economy, I’m damn sure not gonna work in this one, etc etc etc… these duplicitous fuckers will run the same playbook if the same tools are available to them.
In my mind Joe has to do something to turn off the misinformation spigot, regulate the fuck outta Facebook, force fairness broadcast standards into all communication models, cable, streaming, what have you… and above all else, prosecute these fuckers that participated in crimes. No one cares if you’re/we’re a bunch of vindictive fucks, guess what, our opponents already are and they will never recognize you for being nice and doing them a solid, so don’t. If they broke the law, put their asses in the courtroom.
patroclus
@NotMax: Actually, both Clark and Rayburn had to deal with active KKK members of Congress as well as some that could be accurately described as anarchists. The idea that this is the first time we’ve ever had a crazy Member of Congress is utterly absurd. Prior to the Civil War, we had real secessionists and insurrectionists.
Doc Sardonic
There are a lot of cards left to turn over in this Congress. I have a feeling, could be wrong, but my gut is telling me that there are going to be some members of the Republican caucus in both houses facing some charges related to the coup attempt of 1/6/2021. If that is the case the complexion of things is going to changes in ways we have little to no precedent to base predictions on. That being said the Bleach Blonde Bomb Thrower needs to be made an example of. The GQP was given the opportunity to do so in the same manner they handled Steve King for similar reasons but they refused, so we see what happens.
Another Scott
Good, good.
Cheers,
Scott.
Yutsano
@patroclus:
With all due respect: SO THE FUCK WHAT??? The Democrats are supposed to tolerate bigotry and ignorance because of something that might happen in the future? They’re not doing this out of spite. They’re doing this because Marjorie Taylor Greene does not deserve to be on any committee of importance like Education. The majority has the right to do this. You don’t stop doing the right thing just because of what your opponent might do in the future. That shouldn’t even begin to be a consideration.
patroclus
@Yutsano: Absolutely not. The majority does not have the right to do this; it has the power to do this. Might does not make right. Doing the right thing means using an appropriate method to marginalize Greene; not an inappropriate method. From Cannon to Halleck, history has shown that monkeying around with committee assignments by a majority is not the right thing to do. (In my opinion).
NotMax
@patroclus
Nip it in the bud before it has time to put down substantial, tenacious roots.
Something no one – no one – except you has voiced.
Yutsano
@patroclus:
I’m not talking you off your cross any more.
patroclus
@NotMax: Other than you.
NotMax
@patroclus
Not once. Not no way, not no how.
@Yutsano
Ditto. Scoot over bit so I can sit six feet from you.
patroclus
@Yutsano: That’s your prerogative. But while your not responding, you should consider that Rules, Ways and Means, Commerce, Judiciary, Armed Services, Foreign Affairs and Appropriations are typically regarded as important committees in the House; not Education. Which, unless a major bill is being considered, is typically regarded as a legislative backwater. And gaming out future scenarios is precisely what leadership should consider when contemplating and considering committee assignments (or any other action). A censure resolution or an ethics investigation would each have more precedents in marginalizing Greene. Why you are stuck merely on the committee assignment option is something else to consider. Why not a different method?
Bruce K in ATH-GR
A freshman Congressperson who advocated the assassination of political opponents cannot be handled with kid gloves, no matter the party. The GOP’s handling this particular fascist with kid gloves because they’re afraid of pissing off the fascist voting bloc without which their electoral power base collapses. And they’ve already broken damn near all the norms of American government.
Worrying about retaliation is nonsense. The GOP’s going to break the rest of the norms anyway; the last twenty years have proven that all they need is the flimsiest of excuses.
Gvg
@patroclus: No. She said Democratic Congress people should be killed, by mobs. That is NOT comparable to measly endorsing the loser of an election. She should actually be in jail if our laws were being enforced, and so should a lot of non Congress people.
Chris Johnson
It would be good to remember, that YES Trump won the Presidency saying the quiet parts out loud, but do you have any idea how much effort it took on the part of Russia, starting from God knows how long ago and continuing to the present day even as Putin’s own country falls apart around him, it took to MAKE that happen?
Don’t ever think this happened in a vacuum or reflects anything normal. HUGE effort went into making these outcomes happen, and part of the propaganda attack is and has always been, ‘which happened totally naturally and reflects the will of the people’. Also, Russiagate and there’s no such thing as subverting the election, oh goodness no. There’s no massive voter disenfranchisement, no propaganda networks, and clearly a YUUGE majority of Americans just love them some Trump because they just naturally do, okay? NOTHING TO SEE HERE…
I think it’s interesting that Pelosi is hammering the Q thing, because she’s been up to speed with the Russia thing. I suspect she figures she’s got them dead to rights and all the Dems know they’re dealing with outright traitors and Russian assets. My question becomes, what are we doing to hobble the propaganda networks the Trumpists depend on to be directed by, and fed their kool-aid with? Parler’s offline, at least. Twitter and Facebook have just as much to answer for, but are not purely ideological. Maybe this means the Dems are now able to pressure Twitter and Facebook into not being seditionist enablers?