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GOP LEADERSHIP GETTING SERIOUSLY COMPROMISED DailyKos: The idea that Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene is in Congress must tell you comething ... and it is not good. 
Original article: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/1/31/2150335/-Rep-Marjorie-Taylor-Greene-s-committee-debut-was-exactly-as-disgraceful-as-expected Peter Burgess COMMENTARY Peter Burgess | ||
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One of the unfortunate results of this past election was that while the Republican Party’s attempts at a “red wave” or “red tsunami” were thwarted, they did end up with a slight majority in the House of Representatives. Beyond having to type “Speaker” in front of Kevin McCarthy, the real problem is that abhorrent misanthropes like Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene and Paul Gosar have been put back on oversight committees. This means they get to grandstand during committee hearings, on top of their general grandstanding everywhere else. On Tuesday, during the House Committee on Oversight and Accountability, Democratic Rep. Jasmine Crockett of Texas introduced an amendment to reestablish the Oversight Subcommittee on Civil Rights and Civil Liberties. The subcommittee began in the 116th Congress in 2019, when the Democratic Party took back leadership of the House under Donald Trump. Rep. Crockett referred to the recent police brutality case and suspected murder of Tyre Nichols by Memphis law enforcement. Crockett’s call for the committee to continue its work was received well by most. Of course, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, who represents Georgia, made sure she could figure out a way to stain the entire proceedings with her special brand of racism and seditious self-aggrandizement. Rep. Greene began with what sounded like a surprising olive branch, saying, “Ms. Crockett, I do agree with you about Tyre Nichols' death. I watched the video and it was tragic and extremely difficult to watch.” Now, if that’s where this ended, we could all agree to disagree about taxes and big business, while also agreeing that human life shouldn’t be demeaned because of discrimination and the abuses of power in law enforcement. But this is Marjorie Taylor Greene, a woman who mostly lies all of the time about everything, and she wouldn’t be on brand if she weren’t going to add something racist, wrong-headed, and seditious into the mix! “I would also like to point out,” Greene began, “that city is Democrat-controlled and the five officers that have been arrested and charged are Black, and I don’t think this is an issue of, ah, racism or anything like that. I think the judge and the jury and the trial needs to work out what happened there, but I share that with you.” Hmmm. Not sure exactly what you think “share” means. Let’s follow some MTG logic here so far: Is it not racist because being “Democrat-controlled” makes things inherently not racist? Would that mean the opposite is true in Republican-controlled areas? Or is it that the cops who killed Nichols were Black that makes it not systemic white supremacy? It is hard to say, but no worries. If you think Ms. Greene can’t get a little more offensive and wrong-headed, then you haven’t been paying attention to Ms. Greene. She starts by saying, “But I’d like to point something that I hope you share with me.” That’s verbatim. No need for copyediting on that “point something.” [Ed. note: Noted.] “There’s a woman in this room whose daughter was murdered on January 6th.” Yes, that’s right. Political theatre begins as Ashli Babbitt, the woman who was shot while attempting to breach a secured Capitol building wing through a broken hallway door window, by way of her mother, enters the conversation. Greene proceeded to say that the civil rights and liberties that should be investigated are those of the Jan. 6 insurgents. She gave a vague explanation of how the prison conditions were terrible (fair enough), but forgot to mention how she’s never worried about the civil rights of people in Georgia prisons. (Go figure.) Let’s all get back up to speed. Ms. Greene believes that what happened to Tyre Nichols is “tragic,” but is not “racism or anything like that,” which means it doesn’t rise to the level of civil rights abuses; but Ashli Babbitt, who was killed before she could be charged with a variety of charges for her part in an attempted coup d’état, does deserve federal civil rights investigations, along with the other people charged in federal court for crimes similar to Babbitt’s. Tyre Nichols was pulled over for a traffic stop that the police have yet to prove they needed to make in the first place. Babbitt’s mother was in the committee room while this was happening, and Rep. Lauren Boebert made her way to shake her hand. Welcome to the 118th Congress of the United States of America. Bad theater. Editor’s Note: Story was corrected to note it was Memphis police involved in the death of Tyre Nichols, not Atlanta. Cristina Tzintzún Ramirez, President at NextGen America, is back to talk with us about young voters. She talks about whether the rising numbers of young voters we saw during the midterms are sustainable, and what still needs to be done to achieve more young voter participation in our democracy as we progress toward a better America. Greene humiliated in surprisingly fun House amendment vote-a-rama https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/1/27/2149605/-Greene-humiliated-in-surprisingly-fun-House-amendment-vote-a-rama Joan McCarter ... Daily Kos Staff Friday January 27, 2023 · 11:27 AM EST US Representative Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) speaks to US Representative Marjorie Tayor Greene (R-GA) on the floor of the US House of Representatives at the US Capitol in Washington, DC, on January 4, 2023. - The Republican-led US House of Representatives found itself in a deepening crisis Wednesday as it was forced to close shop for a second straight day after failing to elect a speaker. (Photo by OLIVIER DOULIERY / AFP) (Photo by OLIVIER DOULIERY/AFP via Getty Images) Marjorie Taylor Greene might be McCarthy's bestie, but no one else likes her. The week of substantive work in the Congress continues with a Friday session in the House. Yes, the House is on the floor doing a real bill on a Friday. So that’s something Barely Speaker Kevin McCarthy accomplished. Since he and his crew also did away with proxy voting, everyone actually has to be there, as well. The House is continuing to plow through amendments in their new “modified open rule” to a bill to limit President Joe Biden’s use of the Strategic Patroleum Reserve, tying it to release of oil leases on public lands. Members brought about 140 amendments in the process, many from Democrats. By the end of Thursday, they had worked through a couple dozen of them with two-minute votes, and delivered a stinging rebuke to McCarthy’s darling Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA). Many of the amendments had been dispensed with by voice votes. They all had 5 minutes of debate before the voting began. The voting process kept all the members on the floor, and some actually pretty impressive work by the presiding officer, Rep. Steve Womack (R-AR), who kept the process clicking along. It also brought some fun. While Greene might be McCarthy’s favorite, she is definitely not held in high esteem by her colleagues. She had one amendment, and it only got 14 votes. (She did get the support of fabulist Rep. George Santos, so there’s that.) That brought out some not-so-veiled gloating on the part of old-guard Republicans. Former House Rules Committee chairman Rep. Pete Sessions (R-TX) opined that this open amendment process would be a good learning process for members like her. “We are trying to open things up for everybody,” he said “There were several people, or at least one, that only got 18 votes. So it also has a way to—over time—to lessen the stupidity factor.” Don’t hold your breath! Democrats seemed to thoroughly and genuinely enjoy the process. “If I get some amendments passed then I’m gonna like it a lot,” Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI), told The Hill on Thursday, adding that she is “absolutely for a transparent process.” Rep. Steve Cohen (D-TN) agreed, highlighting the fact that the Freedom Caucus did Democrats a favor by pushing the process. They wanted the ability for their members to get more say in legislation, but doing that meant Democrats had that new power, too. “I think it gives the Democrats an opportunity to offer amendments,” Cohen said, pointing out that they’ll have more success getting amendments through on the floor than in the GOP Rules Committee, which normally controls amendments. The House was busy Friday morning wrapping up the remaining amendments that weren’t dispensed with in voice votes. This bill can only be considered a warm-up for the process, because it is purely messaging. The Senate isn’t going to take it up, and President Joe Biden would veto it, anyway. But it’s provided the whole House a chance to flex some lawmaking muscle that’s sort of atrophied over the past decade or so. Over on the other side of Capitol Hill, the Senate is out Friday, still waiting on the Republicans to get their shit together on committee assignments. The committees can still meet and have hearings and do work because like the Senate as a whole, they are continuing bodies. It’s not like the House, where literally nothing could happen until the Speaker was elected. But it does mean there could be no real legislative work. They had just two roll call votes, one an a non-binding resolution and one executive confirmation. They still have not adopted their organizing resolution that will allow legislation to start moving. That’s largely because a bit of disarray in the GOP, when newly elected Sen. Eric Schmitt (R-MO) announced that he wanted one of the Judiciary Committee Republicans to step down and let him have their seat. He even called Sens. Marsha Blackburn (TN) and Thom Tillis (NC) to ask them to make room for him. They were not amused. The first problem for Schmitt, other than being an entitled asshole who totally bucked all the norms and traditions of learning his place as a freshman, is that his colleague from Missouri, Sen. Josh Hawley, is already on the committee. The Senate Republican Conference has a rule against that. He asked for a waiver and didn’t get it. But that process kept the Republicans from finishing committee assignments for all the members. He has to come up with new committee requests and submit them. That has pushed the Republicans’ organizing into next week, and with it, the formal organization of all the Senate committees. That means the Senate can’t adopt its whole organizing resolution. It appears that Schmitt decided to stake his claim as the Senate’s most obnoxious member early on. Look out, Ted Cruz and Rand Paul. You’ve got some stiff competition. On Thursday, they designated January as “National Stalking Awareness Month,” on a 94-0 vote, just to have something to do. Usually, these kinds of resolutions are done by voice votes or under unanimous consent. On Monday, they confirmed Brendan Owens as assistant defense secretary for energy, installations, and environment, 60-35. RELATED STORIES
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