MTG KO'd

It's a knockout.

If looks could kill, they probably will, which is why I'm glad that U.S. Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) has to wear a "face covering" in Congress.  ("Censored" - what a kidder!)  But at least Representative Taylor Greene has been neutered. MTG (as I will call her hence) lost her House committee assignments when the House Democratic majority and eleven Republicans voted to remove them from her portfolio.  Now all she can do representing Georgia's Fourteenth U.S. House District is vote on bills.  She has no more power than anyone who takes part in the the surveys on Michael Smerconish's weekly CNN program but she'll still be around to shoot off her ironically covered mouth.

And that is why Republicans are afraid to deal with her.  Despite her crazy beliefs about staged mass shootings, Jewish space lasers, and demonic sacrifices, the QAnon congresswoman has so much support from the Republican - i.e., Trump - base that no one wants to offend the Trumpists by punishing or even reprimanding MTG, so the Democrats had to do it for them.  House Republican leader Kevin McCarthy has warned the Democrats that he and his caucus can discipline Democratic House members next time the Republicans are in the majority in the House - which, thanks to gerrymandering and voter suppression, could happen as soon as 2023 - by removing a Democrat from committee assignments . . . maybe like, say, Rashida Tlaib for calling Trump a motherfucker.  Or maybe they'll do the same for Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez for her barbs against fellow politicians.  Please - AOC is too busy going after other Democrats to bother bashing Republicans.  But the Democrats have no regrets about punishing MTG for her hateful, wacky comments, and they're certain that they will be vindicated in the end.  Though I would get ready to sue the Republicans for voter suppression as soon as they start pulling their tricks.  (They've already started; they're trying to tighten voting requirements in MTG's home state of Georgia.)   

Meanwhile, in the Senate, Josh Hawley and Ted Cruz must think that all of the attention MTG is getting have allowed them to get off the hook for their treasonous crimes.  Don't look now, guys - you're next! 

Greene New Deal

Lawrence O'Donnell attempted to set the record straight on his MSNBC show about the vote in the Senate earlier this week on whether or not to have an impeachment trial for Trump was actually a vote for whether or not to have a debate on the constitutionality of a trial for a former President now or later.  The outcome of the vote was in favor of having the debate later - and Senate Republicans such as Rob Portman of Ohio (who's retiring after his current term expires at the end of next year) and John Thune of South Dakota have made it clear that a vote for such a debate now doesn't mean they'll vote to acquit Trump later.  So there's some sanity in the Republican Party.

But not in the House.  It seems that Marjorie Taylor Greene (above), freshman Republican congresswoman from Georgia, has some interesting ideas she's bringing to Washington.  For example, she wants Nancy Pelosi executed.  She also thinks that the 2018 school shooting in Parkland, Florida was faked to embarrass gun-rights activists, and explains the California wildfires as having been caused by space lasers funded by the Rothschilds and other Jewish interests.

Even the leaders of Nazi Germany would have found that to be ridiculous.

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy would have talked to her about all this like he promised, but he was too busy kissing Trump's ring at Mar-a-Lago in Florida, which is why he couldn't talk to Florida Republican congressman Matt Gaetz about his trip to Wyoming to rally voters against the state's at-large House member, Liz Cheney, for voting for Trump's second impeachment.

The only way President Biden is going to get any unity in this country is to do something about those promoting disunity.  These people - Republican congressmen and right-activists alike - are dangerous, and it may not be long before QAnon folks like Taylor Greene are forced out of Congress - because they can't not be forced out - and other extremists are investigated and ferreted out by the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security.  A new war on terror.  I'm certain mainline Republicans like Mitt Romney would approve.

By the way, remember all of those calls for more women in Congress.  Next time, those folks should be careful what they wish for. 

QAnon and On

Republican Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia won the GOP nomination for the U.S. House seat of her district, and the party establishment happily welcomed her to the team after having previously denounced her for being a follower of the QAnon phenomenon, which is a cult of tin-foil-hat-wearing individuals who believe in an anonymous person known as "Q".  Q claims to be a supporter of Donald Trump who has information linking d many Democratic politicians and politically liberal celebrities to devil-worshipers and an international child sex-trafficking ring. Q has also claimed that Donald Trump pretended to collude with the Russians to get Robert Mueller to investigate him so he could, by "accident," expose a plot by Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, among others, to stage a coup d'état against Trump in their quest for world domination.

 

So many Republicans buy this theory, though, that it threatens to dictate policy in Washington and have Republicans go after Democrats in a witch hunt that suggests that Nancy Pelosi is literally a witch.

I miss the Tea Party right now.

Conspiracy theories have been a part of the American body politic for a long, long time, but now it's going beyond the pale, so undereducated and misinformed are Americans today.  Anyone who doesn't take this QAnon thing seriously had best wake up, because if enough of them get into power, they'll snuff out the freedoms that they pretend to be standing up for.

We must look even more ridiculous to the rest of the world than we ever did before, and that's a huge accomplishment.  If Biden wins the Presidency, and if Democrats keep the House and gain back the Senate,  one can only hope that the QAnon caucus is relegated to back benches so far back they'll be sitting in broom closets during congressional sessions.  There may not be enough broom closets in the Capitol to fit them.