Tuesday, January 26, 2021

I ASSUME NOTHING WILL HAPPEN TO MARJORIE TAYLOR GREENE, EITHER (updated)

Oh, what's the use?
All but five Republican senators backed former president Donald Trump on Tuesday in a key test vote ahead of his impeachment trial, signaling that the proceedings are likely to end with Trump’s acquittal on the charge that he incited the Jan. 6 Capitol riot.

The vote also demonstrated the continued sway Trump holds over GOP officeholders, even after his exit from the White House under a historic cloud caused by his refusal to concede the November election and his unprecedented efforts to challenge the result.

...senators ... voted on an objection raised by Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) questioning the constitutional basis for the impeachment and removal of a former president.
It's clear that nearly everyone in the GOP is afraid of Trump, which is why this is pointless:
Sens. Tim Kaine and Susan Collins are privately pitching their colleagues on a bipartisan resolution censuring former President Trump, three sources familiar with the discussions tell Axios.

... In some ways, a censure vote could be more difficult for Republicans, because they can't rely on the argument that a resolution is unconstitutional — like they are for an impeachment conviction.

It would also be a history-making vote. No other president has been censured after leaving office.
Right, and the same way Republicans have all rallied around the argument that it's wrong to impeach someone who's no longer president, they'll rally around the argument that it's wrong to censure someone who's no longer president. Soon we'll learn that Trump is threatening consequences for any Republican who votes for even this toothless chastisement. So this won't pass, either.

But it's not just that Trump is a crime family boss whom no one dares to cross. Watch nothing happen to this backbencher who's been in office less than a month:
Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene repeatedly indicated support for executing prominent Democratic politicians in 2018 and 2019 before being elected to Congress, a CNN KFile review of hundreds of posts and comments from Greene's Facebook page shows....

In one post, from January 2019, Greene liked a comment that said "a bullet to the head would be quicker" to remove House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. In other posts, Greene liked comments about executing FBI agents who, in her eyes, were part of the "deep state" working against Trump.

In one Facebook post from April 2018, Greene wrote conspiratorially about the Iran Deal, one of former President Barack Obama's signature foreign policy achievements. A commenter asked Greene, "Now do we get to hang them ?? Meaning H & O ???," referring to Obama and Hillary Clinton.

Greene replied, "Stage is being set. Players are being put in place. We must be patient. This must be done perfectly or liberal judges would let them off."

...In one speech, promoting the petition, Greene suggested Pelosi could be executed for treason.

"She's a traitor to our country, she's guilty of treason," Greene says in the video, which she posted on Facebook at the time. "She took an oath to protect American citizens and uphold our laws. And she gives aid and comfort to our enemies who illegally invade our land. That's what treason is. And by our law representatives and senators can be kicked out and no longer serve in our government. And it's, uh, it's a crime punishable by death is what treason is. Nancy Pelosi is guilty of treason."
In a different America, members of both parties would be demanding Greene's resignation. But we now live in a country where Donald Trump won 74 million votes in his second presidential run, and where he could urge on a mob that rioted in the Capitol and still leave office with poll numbers 10 or more points higher than the worst ratings recorded by Harry Truman, Richard Nixon, Jimmy Carter, or George W. Bush. (If they poll Trump again in a month, I guarantee he'll be back in the 40s.)

No one is afraid of Greene, but Republicans are afraid of the voting bloc that regards her as a hero. So they'll protect her. They'll describe any attempts to drive her from Congress as "cancel culture."

And why not? Democrats will never make a habit of arguing that the entire Republican Party is as bad as Greene. Only Republicans do that. They equate the entire Democratic Party with Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Ilhan Omar -- who are decidedly to the left of center but have never threatened any president or member of Congress with death. Democrats, inexplicably, will never say that the GOP is the Marjorie Taylor Greene party.

When voters abandon the Republican Party because it's lousy with extremists and conspiratorialists, when prominent officeholders are regulalry asked whether they'll disavow the party because of its clear support for extremism, then someone like Greene will be treated as the liability she is. But we're not even close to that.

*****

AND: This repulsive libel won't matter either.
In another newly uncovered 2018 Facebook post, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) endorsed a conspiracy theory that former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was videotaped murdering a child during a satanic ritual and then ordered a hit on a police officer to cover it up....

Greene is ... a backer of the violent and absurd “Frazzledrip” conspiracy theory, which is linked to QAnon and Pizzagate and essentially claims that Hillary Clinton and former aide Huma Abedin sexually assaulted a child, filleted her face, wore her face like a mask, and then drank her blood as part of a satanic ritual to ingest something called adrenochrome....

Greene endorsed the conspiracy theory on Facebook in May 2018. She posted a picture of the mother of slain New York Police Department Detective Miosotis Familia with former President Donald Trump. A commenter wrote: “This is the mother of a NYPD officer who watched a horrific video seized on anthony weiners laptop of huma and hillary filleting a childs face. This was another hillary hit.” Greene liked that comment and replied: “Yes Familia.”
Axios says that with all this going on, Kevin McCarthy intends to give Greene a good talking-to.
Mark Bednar, a spokesperson for McCarthy, told Axios he is aware of the comments and will discuss them with Greene.

"These comments are deeply disturbing and Leader McCarthy plans to have a conversation with the Congresswoman about them," Bednar said in an emailed statement.
Yeah, that'll show her!

It's said that Donald Trump was such a scandal machine that we went numb during his presidency and weren't able to respond to outrages the way we used to. Well, he's gone now, but we're still numb, aren't we?

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