mtg 2 anglo-saxon 0 0%
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3 22 bak
MERRI OK
neg 3 22 on vlad ukraine disinfo
crazy pending
omfg won
omg promote 2nd 920
SEE MTG 3 TROLL CAUCUS
see great replacement
primary 221
html fringe phenomenon.
521 mtg anglo-saxon bak...
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https://scorecard.lcv.org/moc/marjorie-taylor-greene
// boebert 0 0%
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qanon cands: 2020
Candidates elected to Congress
Lauren Boebert (Colorado)
:{:{Lauren Boebert was a Republican nominee who won in Colorado’s 3rd Congressional District during the general election after winning the Republican primary on June 30. She appeared on the online show Steel Truth, hosted by QAnon supporter Ann Vandersteel, during which Vandersteel asked her if she knew about “the Q movement.” Boebert responded that she was “very familiar with it” and said that while she did not focus on it a lot, she hoped that QAnon “is real because it only means America is getting stronger and better.” }:
She also said that everything she heard about QAnon “is only motivating and encouraging and bringing people together, stronger, and if this is real, then it can be really great for our country.” In May, Boebert also appeared on Patriots' Soapbox, a major QAnon YouTube channel, and she also appears to have a YouTube account that subscribes to multiple QAnon channels. Despite all of that, Boebert has since claimed, “I don’t follow QAnon” and that “QAnon is a lot of things to different people.”}:
Marjorie Taylor Greene (Georgia)
Marjorie Taylor Greene was a Republican nominee who won in Georgia’s 14th Congressional District during the general election after coming in first in the Republican primary on June 9 with a plurality and then subsequently winning the primary runoff on August 11. In 2018, she posted on Facebook about an “awesome post by Q” and echoed another “Q” post about a conspiracy theory that the Obama administration got MS-13 gang members to kill Democratic staffer Seth Rich.
:{:{Greene has posted the QAnon slogan on Facebook and on Twitter, the latter in response to a tweet defending the legitimacy of “Q” where she also wrote, “Trust the plan” (another catchphrase QAnon supporters use). She also has tweeted the QAnon-connected hashtag "#GreatAwakening" to far-right conspiracy theorist Alex Jones. She has also appeared in a video where she discussed following QAnon, calling “Q” a “patriot” and “worth listening to,” and in a now-defunct website wrote favorably about the conspiracy theory. }:
According to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Greene also “has posted a series of tweets defending QAnon, including one” -- now deleted -- “encouraging her followers to message her with questions so she can ‘walk you through the whole thing.’” In August, Greene dubiously claimed to Fox News that she has since chosen “another path” due to “misinformation” from “Q” about the 2018 midterm elections. Greene has also pushed the debunked Pizzagate conspiracy theory.}:
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July 12, 2023, NBC
By Scott Wong and Rebecca Kaplan
WASHINGTON — A member of the House Freedom Caucus confirmed Wednesday that Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., has been removed from the conservative group, citing her repeated “attacks” on GOP colleagues.
“She’s not a member of the Freedom Caucus, and she shouldn’t be in the future,” Rep. Ken Buck, R-Colo., said in an appearance on NBC News' “Meet the Press NOW” in some of the most definitive comments yet about Greene’s status in the group.
Greene, a fundraising powerhouse with an enormous social media following, has been one of former President Donald Trump’s top defenders on Capitol Hill. She is the first lawmaker to be ousted from the Freedom Caucus since it was started in 2015 by Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, then-Reps. Mark Meadows, R-N.C., and Ron DeSantis, R-Fla., and others.
Other members of the ultraconservative group had said a vote was taken June 23 to eject Greene over her altercationwith Rep. Lauren Boebert, R-Colo., and her vocal support for Rep. Kevin McCarthy’s ultimately successful bid for speaker and his trillion-dollar debt-ceiling deal with President Joe Biden.
But for the past two weeks, there was confusion about her status after Freedom Caucus Chairman Scott Perry, R-Pa., declined to comment about the matter and Greene insisted that no one had informed her that she had been voted out. Some Freedom Caucus members suggested that Greene has been avoiding Perry’s attempts to reach her to deliver the news.
By Wednesday, Perry and Greene still had not personally spoken about the issue, even though they would have been on the House floor together during votes.
“No, I haven’t talked with him about any of that,” Greene said. “I’m mostly focused on the work I’m doing and serving my district, not interested in any drama.”
A spokesman for Greene had no immediate comment about Buck’s remarks. Greene did not attend a Freedom Caucus meeting Tuesday night after lawmakers returned to Washington from the July Fourth recess.
Buck, who is one of the more mild-mannered members of the often rambunctious Freedom Caucus, said Greene’s ouster was about not her political views but her repeated attacks on other members of the group, including her criticism of colleagues for blocking McCarthy, R-Calif., from winning the speaker’s gavel in January.
“She has consistently attacked other members of the Freedom Caucus in an irresponsible way, and as a result of that she was kicked out of the Freedom Caucus,” Buck said, “and she should not be, she should not be a member.
“We have diverse opinions in the Freedom Caucus. It’s not monolithic, but insofar as attacking other members, it just shouldn’t be tolerated over and over again,” he continued. “It’s not one simple attack. It’s not what happened on the floor a few weeks ago with Lauren Boebert. It is a series of really poorly thought-out attacks on other members.”
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npr stripped of committee
Marjorie Taylor Greene Loses House Committee Assignments : NPR
House Removes Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene From Her Committee Assignments
February 4, 2021
By
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., faces a vote over whether she should be removed from her two committee assignments because her past comments and social media posts promoting conspiracy theories and violence.
Nicholas Kamm/AFP via Getty Images
The House of Representatives has voted to strip Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of her committee assignments, following uproar over her past incendiary comments and apparent support of violence against Democrats.
Thursday's vote was 230-199, with 11 Republicans joining with all Democrats to back the resolution.
The vote comes a day after the House Rules Committee advanced a resolution, put forth by Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, D-Fla., to remove Greene from her assignments on the Budget panel and the Education and Labor Committee.
The Georgia freshman has come under fire in recent weeks for her history of trafficking in racism, anti-Semitism and baseless conspiracy theories, along with her support for online comments encouraging violence against Democratic officials prior to taking office.
Greene spoke on the House floor ahead of the vote and said her past comments "do not represent me."
Greene's defense
Calling herself a "very regular American," Greene said she "stumbled across" the far-right QAnon conspiracy theory at the end of 2017 but stopped believing in it a year later when she "started finding misinformation." But Greene has continued to spread false, QAnon-fueled theories since then, telling a local news reporter in July 2020 that she was "concerned about a deep state."
"I was allowed to believe things that weren't true," she said on the House floor Thursday. "I would ask questions about them and talk about them and that is absolutely what I regret." WHAT?
Politics
GOP Discord Over Liz Cheney, Marjorie Taylor Greene Is Still All About Trump
Greene went on to say, "If it weren't for the Facebook post and comments that I liked in 2018, I wouldn't be standing here today and you couldn't point a finger and accuse me of anything wrong."
She then went through a litany of retractions of past statements, saying school shootings are "absolutely real" and the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks "absolutely happened."
She recounted: "I remember [9/11] crying all day long, watching it on the news. It's a tragedy for anyone to say it didn't happen."
But back in 2018, Greene
Sept. 11 conspiracy theories while speaking to the American Priority Conference.
"We had witnessed 9/11, the terrorist attack in New York and the plane that crashed in Pennsylvania and the so-called plane that crashed into the Pentagon," she said at the time. "It's odd there's never any evidence shown for a plane in the Pentagon, but anyways, I won't — I'm not going to dive into the 9/11 conspiracy."
[
Elections
Pro-Trump Election Conspiracist Lin Wood Investigated Over Possible Illegal Voting
Technology
Unwelcome On Facebook And Twitter, QAnon Followers Flock To Fringe Sites
Her comments Thursday on school shootings follow a resurfaced
of her berating and mocking a Florida school shooting survivor. She's also faced criticism for a series of videos unearthed by Politicoin June in which she made numerous racist and anti-Semitic remarks.
Rep. Jim McGovern, D-Mass., responded to Greene's remarks on the floor, noting her defense sidestepped her "liking" social media posts prior to her election that advocated for violence against Democratic leaders.
"I just have to say that I did not hear a disavowment or an apology for those things. I did not hear an apology or denouncement for the claim, the insinuation that political opponents should be violently dealt with. I didn't hear anybody apologize or retract the anti-Semitic and Islamophobic remarks that had been made that have been posted over and over and over again."
Setting a precedent
Rep. Tom Cole, R-Okla., distanced himself from Greene's past rhetoric but said the issue of kicking her off of committees should be adjudicated by the House Ethics Committee.
"What the majority is really proposing to do today is establish a new standard for punishing members for conduct before they ever became a member," he said. "This change opens up troubling questions about how we judge future members of Congress and whether or not we as an institution should impose sanctions on members for actions they took before they were even candidates for office."
[
Politics
McConnell Slams Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene Conspiracies As 'Loony Lies'
McGovern countered saying he "hopes" the resolution does, in fact, set a precedent.
"Because if this isn't the bottom, then I don't know what the hell is," he said. "I hope we are setting a clear standard for what we will not tolerate. Anyone who suggests putting a bullet in the head of a member shouldn't serve on any committee period."
He added that Greene has been profiting off of her past remarks, referencing a tweetfrom Greene where she says she "will never back down." Greene tweetedthat she has raised over $160,000 on Tuesday alone.
"If anyone has any question about the things that she has said or done, anybody who's watching, just spend a moment and look at her social media posts, don't take my word for it. Go research it for yourself. Google it. It's all there," McGovern said.
"I'm a big believer in the ethics committee process, but I don't need an investigation to tell me what I can read with my own eyes."
In a powerful moment, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Md., walked around the floor showing his colleagues a poster featuring a screenshot of a Facebook ad on Greene's campaign page.
The image featured a photo of Greene holding a gun alongside isolated images of Democratic Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib. Underneath was the caption: "Squad's worst nightmare."
"I urge my colleagues can look at that image and tell me what message you think it sends," Hoyer said. "Here she is armed with a deadly assault rifle pointed toward three Democratic members."
Hoyer added: "In 2019, during the same election cycle in which she ran, [Greene] showed support for comments online that the quickest way to remove [House] Speaker Pelosi from power would be, and I quote, a bullet to the head. Did any of you hear Steve King say anything like that?" referencing the former Iowa congressman who was removed from committee assignmentsfor comments on white supremacy.
Republican discord
Democrats repeatedly pointed to the lack of action by House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy on behalf of Republicans. McCarthy released a statement Wednesday night condemning Greene's past comments but didn't indicate that any party disciplinary action would be taken against her.
For her part, Greene has touted a particular ally in her corner: former President Donald Trump.
She tweeted Saturday that she had a "GREAT call" with him and that she is grateful for his support. Trump has not publicly commented on this week's actions.
Greene has been rebuked many in her own party, though, including Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, who called rhetoric like hers a "cancer" on the GOP.
Greene is not the only Republican congresswoman who faced questions about her political future this week.
Wyoming Rep. Liz Cheney, the No. 3 Republican in the House, was the subject of discussions in the GOP Conference over her vote to impeach Trump. Late Wednesday night, House Republicans voted to keep Cheney in her leadership position.
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an 9 22 scary pix ar 15 silencer? no mag
U. S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) is furious at the entire news industry, and especially HuffPost, after it published a report highlighting her latest stunt: a video portraying her as some kind of lighting-powered superhero with a helicopter and an AR-15 shooting a feral pig and criticizing Democrats.
In the video, posted to Facebook, she claims there is “skyrocketing inflation, high diesel fuel, and America last policies.”
“Democrats aren’t the only ones destroying farmers’ ability to put food on the table. We’ve got wild hogs destroying farmers’ fields,” says Greene, who has nearly no responsibilities as a Member of Congress. “So we decided to go hog hunting.”
READ MORE: Biden White House Smacks Down Marjorie Taylor Greene in a Tweet
Greene takes a large AR-15-styled assault weapon into a helicopter so she can shoot and kill a feral hog from the air. She later poses with the dead carcass on the ground.
Her stunt does nothing to help farmers, but it does help her image with the pro-gun right and serves as a fundraising stunt — she uses the video to announce a contest for supporters to join her in a helicopter hog-shooting trip.
Wednesday morning HuffPost published a story titled, “Marjorie Taylor Greene Likens Dems To Hogs, Wants Help Shooting Them Dead.”
The report notes Greene had “been stripped of her House committee assignments over her use of violent rhetoric, including toward Democrats,” and says the “extremist Republican’s announcement of a competition to hunt feral pigs did not go over well.”
Greene was outraged.
In a seven-part Twitter thread directed at HuffPost she writes, “I demand you change this headline and your lies about me immediately. Your freedom of press is not freedom to lie about me. I NEVER said anything like this and did NOT call for violence on Democrats.”
She calls for the reporter and editor to be fired, and then goes off on the entire news media.
“You don’t get to lie about me and many of my colleagues calling us Nazis, fascists, and any other nasty label you type up and get away with it,” she tweeted.
“There is not one single Republican that has ever aligned with Nazism, fascism, Marxism, socialism, communism, or any other awful political ideology,” she says in carefully-chosen rhetoric.
There are Republicans today exhibiting fascistic behaviors and promoting fascistic ideology. President Joe Biden has clearly criticized the ideology of “MAGA Republicans” as “semi-fascism.”
In late August the White House singled out Greene to defend President Biden’s “semi-fascism” criticism, saying: “Rep. Marjorie Taylor Green has publicly expressed support for shooting prominent democratic elected officials and suggesting physically assaulting transgender school officials.”
Greene this week celebrated Italy’s election of a new neo-fascist prime minister.
Recently, Greene has proudly promoted her support of Christian nationalism, which has been likened to fascism.
“Christian Nationalism is what America needs,” she said in August. She promoted it, by name, in September, and as far back as June.
On Wednesday, in her indictment of the entire news media, across all points of view including the right, she asks: “Does America have any journalist of such high character and moral ethics that can resist the powerful temptation to lie, abusing their power of freedom of the press, in order to serve their political party?”
“Tragically, we do not,” she concludes.
Watch Greene’s video below or at this link:
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https://www.alternet.org/2022/07/marjorie-taylor-greene-highland-park/
false flag
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ron fein does better w/ MTG on block election, she rattled
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an 6 22
as even Fox News was broadcasting the testimony of the House Select Committee Investigating the Jan. 6 Attack on the U.S. Capitol, controversial GOP Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia took to the House floor to complain about the backlash she is receiving.
Greene, who has echoed the QAnon conspiracy theory and suggested that California wildfires might have been started by a Jewish space laser, was stripped of all of her committee assignments after only a month in office.
She rose to speak about how she had "been mistreated as a freshman member of Congress and how crimes have been committed against me."
She complained about how an anti-transgender sign that she posted outside her office for over ten minutes had been defaced before complaining about "Triumph the Insult Comic Dog" and staffers of CBS’ Late Show who were arrested inside the U.S. Capitol building.
As the select committee hearings continued on all of the other networks, Greene kept on ranting on C-SPAN.
She was recognized for an entire hour.
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6 22
united States Congressman Matt Gaetz (R-Florida) appeared on a recent edition of Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Georgia)'s podcast and suggested that Congressman Jamie Raskin (D-Maryland) is unable to do his job because his son committed suicide.
Raskin served as the House of Representatives' manager of former President Donald Trump's second impeachment for inciting the January 6th, 2021 Capitol insurrection. Raskin also sits on the Select Committee investigating the attack, which was triggered (at least in part) by Republican lawmakers refusing at Trump's behest to acknowledge President Joe Biden's victory in the 2020 election.
Now, with just 24 hours remaining before public hearings revealing what the bipartisan congressional commission has found begin, Gaetz and Greene have launched a new and unusually cruel offensive against Raskin.
"When people encounter trauma, they often associate a lot of the other things around that trauma with it, even if they don't naturally or even rationally associate. And what I worry about for the Congress and for Jamie Raskin, you know, no one would ever want to lose a child, particularly to suicide," said Gaetz.
"As human beings, our hearts go out to him. But I think that he takes that trauma and he associates it now with his work in the Congress to such an interwoven way that he's unable to do the congressional experience outside of just the dungeon of that personal trauma," Gaetz continued, "and I think it makes him look at everything in these very like, dark and severe ways."
Greene agreed.
"You know, we try to come to the job to uplift people," Gaetz resumed.
"We're here to serve the people," Greene interjected.
"Well and we love this country," Gaetz added.
"Absolutely," said Greene.
"We're not here out of a sense of grievance or hatred. We love America," Gaetz said.
"No we love it," Greene chimed in again.
"And we want to vindicate the rights of our citizens and we want to champion their causes and battle their dislikes," Gaetz remarked.
"Yes that's right," Greene said.
"But I think for Jamie Raskin, it's really like, his service in the Congress has almost become like inextricably attached to this sad personal trauma he's had," Gaetz proclaimed. "And I do think it clouds his judgment and you could see that, that very darkness and that pain manifest on Thursday in a way that's not particularly relevant to the challenges that we've talked about, but it might be deeply relevant to what he's going through. And the country shouldn't have to go through all that with him."
Greene then stated the quiet part out loud.
"Well my goodness, it's a horrible thing, what he went through, but it doesn't change the fact of, uh, his political beliefs," she said, "andI believe he's a communist and I believe what he's doing on the January 6th Committee is completely wrong."
Watch below via PatriotTakes:
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an
no lnx twt
Trump’s most strident House 'exhibitionists' are spending more than they’re bringing in: report
[Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia speaking at the 2021 AmericaFest at the Phoenix Convention Center in Phoenix, Arizona, Gage Skidmore]
Alex Henderson April 20, 2022
In the 2022 midterms, a long list of far-right House Republicans — from Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia to Rep. Madison Cawthorn of North Carolina to Rep. Lauren Boebert of Colorado — are running for reelection. And if Republicans regain control of the U.S. House of Representatives as many pundits are predicting, extremists like Greene and Boebert, assuming they are reelected, will be part of the House’s majority party.But the Daily Beast’s Roger Sollenberger, in an article published on April 20, reports that some of Trump’s most strident “exhibitionists” in the U.S. House have been underperforming from a fundraising standpoint in 2022.
“Last year, it was a fundraising feast for the MAGA Goon Squad,” Sollenberger explains. “But in 2022, without the donor stimulus of an attempted insurrection, things are going in the wrong direction. The first three months of the year took more than $275,000 combined out of the pockets of Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), Lauren Boebert (R-CO), Madison Cawthorn (R-NC), and Matt Gaetz (R-FL) — the foursome of America First, Donald Trump-loving, exhibitionist election objectors. All told, it was their worst showing to date.”
Sollenberger continues, “It wasn’t always like this. In 2021, that crew saw eye-popping returns, stacking up a combined year-over-year gain of $4.8 million. The only one who showed a net loss on the year was Gaetz, whose campaign account shed $95,000 amid a drumroll of bombshell headlines and steep costs related to an ongoing child sex trafficking investigation. Still, the post-insurrection fundraising ground was so fertile that even he posted record fundraising hauls, taking in $3.2 million in the first half of 2021.”
Greene’s 2022 reelection campaign, according to Sollenberger, is spending more money than it’s bringing in.
“The campaign that led the way last year has also done the most damage this year,” Sollenberger observes. “That distinction would go to the Greene campaign, which, after banking $5.2 million last year, kicked off 2022 with a $3 million haul. While stunning, that total didn’t outstrip the record spending that ultimately left her $314,000 in the hole. It was Greene’s first negative fundraising return since she was elected.”
Sollenberger notes that Boebert “hasn’t turned in a quarterly loss,” but Gaetz and Cawthorn have. And even Boebert’s “quarter’s totals represented her smallest gains by far,” according to Sollenberger.
“The Gaetz campaign took a bath in both the second and third quarter last year, and Cawthorn hasn’t bulked up since his million-dollar fundraising spree on the heels of the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol,” Sollenberger writes. “After losing another $41,300 since January, the Cawthorn campaign only holds about $282,000 — a little more than half its stash this time last year. And he’s sapped whatever firepower he might hold in his other committees, in the process rankling potential allies.”
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Marjorie Taylor Greene and conspiracy theorists are now suggesting Dems are torching facilities to cause food shortages
no lnx twt
Meaghan Ellis May 14, 2022
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) is pushing a new conspiracy theory centered around the food and baby formula shortage currently plaguing the United States.
During a recent appearance on the far-right broadcast, InfoWars, the Republican lawmaker echoed the bizarre claims of conspiracy theorists as she suggested that Democratic lawmakers are responsible for torching food facilities to create shortages. According to Rolling Stone, the latest theories appear to be based on the fires that actually do occur.
Greene suggested that: "Democrats are starting the fires on purpose in order to deprive the nation of food, which would be advantageous for them because they’re playing some sort of globalist long game and don’t want anything to be manufactured in America … or something like that. It’s not totally clear."
Citing a report from the National Fire Protection Association, Rolling Stone noted: "Nearly two dozen food processing plants have gone up in flames this year. This isn’t out of the ordinary — there are thousands of fires at manufacturing facilities every year." But in true conspiracy fashion, Greene and other far-right extremists have misconstrued facts to fit into a disturbing narrative they appear to have created.
When Greene appeared on InfoWars, she ranted about the current issue with host Alex Jones.
"The Biden administration and the Democrats … are destroying the very important, most critical part of the fabric of America, and that is our farmers,” Greene ranted. “They’re doing it on purpose. They want to be the global economy. They want to be completely involved. And here we have these ‘random,’ supposedly accidental fires at food processing plants.”
Jones also signaled in agreement with Greene. Claiming to have spoken with "mathematicians," Jones said, it seems “'mathematically impossible' for processing plants to be catching fire like they have been so far this year."
He added, “Everything the globalists are doing is about destroying real sustainability and making things collapse to bring in their new world order."
Greene's latest conspiracy theory follows criticism for a multitude of previously debunked claims.
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maybe the states/districts that vote for wackos shd be made to live under the policies they push?
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[[CLICKS --> CLOUT
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rt qanon loses mind b/c last bastion of binary thinking B/W rt/wrong good/evil ~ sec hum moral relativism postmod?
https://www.alternet.org/2022/03/marjorie-taylor-greene-2657046068/
tells mayor pete and boyfriend to stay out of girls bathroom
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aha yikes they are monetizing victimization, polarization, demonization see crensharrrrh vs mtg
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note rubber glue (how much of that is " See they do it too" so not only are they corrupt, they are hypocrites, not to be trusted , morally deficient; how dare they [global coastal elitist) accuse real patriotic americans of wrongdoing; putin disinfo is to tear down trust in system/gov't/civil society/ pols, a pox on both houses leads to apathy if not polarysis; soc med gives instant quantitative feedback (it's an instant poll of your constituents/maga base?
an 3 22
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), like many other Republican lawmakers, has made this week’s U.S. Supreme Court confirmation hearings for justice nominee Ketanji Brown Jackson into more of a political circus than a professional inquisition.
From subtly misogynistic insinuations the blatantly racist remarks, Republican lawmakers have been deeply criticized for their treatment of Jackson.
Now, The Daily Beast's Matthew Fuller is offering an unfiltered breakdown of all that has transpired this week. At one point during the 200th episode of The Daily Beast podcast, "The New Abnormal," Fuller joined the panel to speak with the show's co-host Andy Levy as they rehashed the Republican senator's bizarre behavior.
Fuller, who bluntly describes Republican lawmakers' actions as "the full-flavored version" of “straight racism," weighed in with his reaction to the grotesque displays during the confirmation hearings.
"I think I expected it to be maybe a little bit more coded, a little bit more dog whistle-y," Fuller said. "'Certainly, I knew that they were gonna bring up stupid things like critical race theory. I didn’t expect the line of attack to be just so overtly racist, with false suggestions that 'Jackson is soft on crime, she’s soft on child pornographers' even though her sentencing practices were well in line with the average sentences people were getting.'”
Fuller went on to express concern about the bigger problem as he noted the real reason for Republican lawmakers' antics during the confirmation hearings.
“But the broader issue,” Fuller explains, “is Republicans know Democrats have all the votes. At the end of the day, I'd be very surprised if Jackson is not confirmed, and confirmed with probably a couple Republican votes. They know that, and the hearing is just aboutscoring points, which is why yousee Cruz giving his speech and then checking his Twitter mentions. This isn’t about actually moving people. This is about raising money. This is about adding to their own clout.And it’s been frankly a pretty disgusting confirmation.” ]]
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https://www.alternet.org/2022/03/bipartisan-group-marjorie-taylor-greene/
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3 22 trade vote ukraine
The vote was 424-8.
Here are the eight “no” votes – all from Republicans:
Lauren Boebert (CO)
Thomas Massie (KY)
Matt Gaetz (FL)
Andy Biggs (AZ)
Marjorie Taylor Greene (GA)
Dan Bishop (NC)
Chip Roy (TX)
Glenn Grothman (WI)
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===
on Thursday, far-right activist Lauren Witzke issued an apology that could only be described as groveling; in fact, she described it as such.
“I feel like I’ve been going through—it’s almost like a breakup. I wanted to say publicly how sorry I am,” Witzke said on her livestream.
“It’s been a rough last few days. I’ve been crying like a woman. And of course, I did what any rational adult would do and called Mommy Malkinto help me. So like I said, this is a groveling session, I have to pay my penance where penance is due, apologies where they are well deserved, and that’s why I am doing this stream,” Witzke said. “I respect our great and merciful leader, who has forgiven me by the way."
twt]
that “great and merciful leader” is Nick Fuentes, the white nationalist who organized theAmerica First Political Action Conference held last week in Orlando, Florida. So why was Witzke, who was the GOP nominee for U.S. Senate in Delaware in 2020, apologizing to Fuentes?
Witzke had defended her boss, the far-right conspiracy theorist Stew Peters, who had criticized Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene. Fuentes and his self-described army of“Groypers” defended Greene—who spoke at AFPAC and whose initials they chanted during her speech—in the only way they knew how: with harassment of her critics.
The unfolding drama among the far-right activists who attended AFPAC offers a glimpse into Fuentes’ and his white nationalist America First movement’s commitment to bring their message into the mainstream GOP discourse—and to make dissenting voices fall in line.
Witzke had made the mistake of defending her boss. But Peters, who hosts “The Stew Peters Show,” is not getting off easy either.
After Greene gave her opening speech in which she spoke about Christian nationalism and attacked transgender people, a slew of other extremist speakers followed, including Vincent James, whopromoteswhite nationalism on his livestream, and Peters.
Peters said on his show Monday that he was unaware that Greene was the surprise mystery speaker. When one of his producers, presumably Witzke, asked whether they should change his speech in which he had planned to criticize Greene (as he has done in the past), Peters said he decided to go ahead with his speech as planned.
At the AFPAC podium, Peters blasted Greene, calling her a “faker.” He criticized her as perpetuating the “useless own-the-libs conservatism” and accused her of “embracing race-based reparations to own the libs”—”disgusting!” he added. (Later in the speech, he also declared that Dr. Anthony Fauci should be “hanging by the end of a noose somewhere”and that Georgia congressional candidate Vernon Jones “belongs in a prison cell, actually, truthfully, he probably belongs in an electric chair.”)
As the evening wound down, Fuentes made a point of thanking Greene for her appearance. “God bless Marjorie Taylor Greene, you have no idea what a big deal it was for her to come out and do that,” Fuentes said, adding that it was easy to talk and yell but that it was hard work to bring the fight to Congress.
Of course, the next day, Greene spoke at the Conservative Political Action Conference and told reporters that she didn’t know Nick Fuentes or his views and that she was only there to speak to “young conservatives.”
Peters was livid. “It is unsurprising to see liar and fraud Marjorie Taylor Greene so quickly stab Nick Fuentes in the stomach mere hours after pretending to fawn all over his fast-growing movement,” hetold The Daily Beast’s Zachary Petrizzo.
But instead of appreciating the attack on Greene, Fuentes’ America First crowd lashed out at Peters, calling him a “boomer.”
“Very disappointing that Stew Peters— a former ‘rapper’ and criminal is trying so hard to sabotage a perfect night by running to Zach Petrizzo at the Daily Beast to attack one of our featured speakers. He was disrespectful to our staff, looked like a slob, and stormed out of the conference after his speech,” Fuentes wrote on Telegram. (If you’re wondering what his rapping sounded like, givethis a listen.) “And for people who think he’s just ‘too hardcore’ or whatever, he also tried to get me to promise to stop saying the n-wordbefore even agreeing to attend the conference lol. Good riddance loser.”
In a broadcast Monday, Peters appeared bewildered by what took place. He explained why he attacked Greene—she’s “fake”—claimed “we always promise to give you the unvarnished truth,” and recounted the so-called “Groyper Wars” of 2019 in which Nick Fuentes and the “Groypers” attacked Charlie Kirk, influencing him to take more extreme positions. That’s what he was trying to do, Peters said, adding, “Her speech was lame, too.”
Peters brought on his guest Neil Kumar, a candidate for Congress in Arkansas who has peddled white nationalism, whom Peters looked to for reassurance. Kumar delivered,accusing Fuentes and the “Groypers” of being sellouts for chasing clout by “simping for this serial adulterer who wears hot pants everywhere she goes. Marjorie is a pathological liar and a total fraud.”
Peters went on to take a softer tone, hoping only that the “Groypers” would find their way back.
The Groypers’ attacks on the far-right who disagree with them wasn’t limited to Peters and Witzke. They lashed out at Joe Kent, anextreme MAGA congressional candidate in Washington state whom Fuentes had endorsed last year, fordisavowingFuentes Thursday. That harassment continued even after Kent stood by his comments that Fuentes should not have been placed on a no-fly list. On Thursday night, Fuentes spent his livestream trashing Kent.
These attacks could be seen as far-right actors following the whim of their leader whooperates his movement like a cult and will suffer no criticism without striking back twice as hard. But it is also clear that Fuentes has already decided that this is the moment for the movement to partner with extreme politicians whose ideology may not directly align with his in order to bring white nationalism to more mainstream Republican audiences.
While Greene’s politics lie, asRolling Stone put it, “at the area of greatest overlap between ‘bigotry’ and ‘self-promotion,’” her speech at AFPAC didn’t dip into white nationalism. Instead, it focused on transphobia and Christian nationalism—takes that anyone sensible would find deeply troublesome but which the “Groypers” consider child’s play.
In a livestream Monday, Vincent James, a close ally of Fuentes,explained why what she said in her speech didn’t matter.
:{“We are breaking through this Overton Window, and speakers like Marjorie Taylor Greene… it doesn’t matter what they say. You have to really think about the end game here,” James}
:{. “It’s about gaining legitimacy.”}:
“It’s about mainstreaming our message,” James added.
And while Kent, Peters, and Witzke may be useful to Fuentes and his movement, they’re nowhere near as valuable as Greene in spreading their message to a broader audience.
Back on Witzke’s livestream—where the live chat included takes like “Never trust a femoid” and incessant use of the N-word—Witzke thanked Fuentes for forgiving her.
“Thanks, Nick, for forgiving me,” she said. “I’m glad I’m not getting the Joe Kent treatment right now because God knows, I guess I deserved it.”
Tags: Joe Kent Marjorie Taylor Greene Neil Kumar Nick Fuentes Stew Peters Vincent James America First Political Action Conference groypers
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U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, continuing to move closer and closer to Russian President Vladimir Putin, says “real Americans” only care about “open borders,” gas prices, and inflation but not Ukraine. She also declared that “COVID doesn’t exist.”
“What real Americans care about is gas prices they can’t afford, inflation that goes up enough to where grocery bills are unaffordable, and they’re very concerned about our out of control open border,” Greene said on the floor of the House Thursday. “Crime is out of control,” she added, ignoring that major crimes like murder are “out of control” mostly in just red states.
“But yet Washington has completely disconnected and seems to care more about sending our sons and daughters to a potential war where they do not belong,” she claimed, saying “we need to focus on our country first.”
“America first” is a Trump-era “policy” that essentially says America first and only, period.
The extremist Republican Congresswoman from Georgia just yesterday,in what she claimed was an “address to the nation”that was carried only on Facebook Live, inaccurately announced “both sides” – Russia and Ukraine – have violated their treaties.
The Washington Post called her Facebook Live speech a “10-minute riff,” noting she repeatedly called Ukraine defending itself from the harmful and dangerous Russian attacks and slaughter “a war they cannot win.”
“False claims, debunked nonsense, echoes of Russian propaganda,” is how the Post describes her remarks from Wednesday, in its piece titled “A layer cake of misinformation, dishonesty and pro-Russia apologism.”
Watch Greene on the House floor today:
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no lnx twt vid pix[nice dataviz]
'Actual Russian propaganda': Conservatives pile on as Tulsi Gabbard named 'most influential' spreader of disinformation
Jon Skolnik and Salon March 17, 2022
Republicans are attacking former Rep. Tulsi Gabbard for spreading "Russian propaganda" after she posted a video claiming that the U.S. is funding and operating bioweapons labs in Ukraine.
On Sunday, the Hawaii Democrat published a two-minute video laying out the completely unproven conspiracy theory that the U.S. is funding between 25 and 30 biolabs in Ukraine to develop "dangerous pathogens".
"Like COVID, these pathogens know no borders," Gabbard said. "If they are inadvertently or purposely breached or compromised, they will quickly spread all throughout Europe, the United States and the rest of the world, causing untold suffering and death."
Those comments did not sit well with many Republicans, some of whom accused the former lawmaker of playing into the hands of Kremlin-backed disinformation.
Rep. Adam Kinzinger, R-Ill., called Gabbard's remarks "actual Russian propaganda." "Traitorous. Russia also said the Luger center in Georgia was making zombies," he said on Sunday. "Tulsi should go to Russia."
Sen. Mitt Romney, R-Utah, expressed similar thoughts, accusing Gabbard of "parroting false Russian propaganda."
"Her treasonous lies may well cost lives," he wrote on Sunday over Twitter.
On Monday, Alyssa Farah, the former director of strategic communications under Donald Trump, said that Romney was "absolutely right."
"What this is, is the Russians are spreading propaganda to try to create a pretext for potentially using chemical weapons against the Ukranians," Farah said during a segment of ABC's "The View."
"What Tulsi Gabbard is spreading is actually helping Putin get away with criminal acts against innocent Ukrainian civilians," she added.
The U.S. has repeatedly dismissed claims that it is holding or developing bioweapons in Ukraine. However, there are a number of biological labs in Ukraine, which the U.S. funds, to prevent the deployment of bioweapons, according to The New York Times. The funding of those labs stems from the Pentagon's Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA), founded in 1998. In 2005, the U.S. and Ukraine signed an explicit agreement ensuring that the labs would not be used to develop bioweapons.
Back in 2018, Filippa Lentzos, a Norwegian scientist researching threats posed by biological agents, called the Kremlin's claims "unfounded" after visiting a number of Ukrainian biolabs herself.
"We were given access to all areas of the site, examined relevant documentation, and interviewed staff, and concluded that the Center demonstrates significant transparency," Lentzos said. "Our group observed nothing out of the ordinary, or that we wouldn't expect to see in a legitimate facility of this sort."
Gabbard has since scrambled to explain her tweet and called on Romney to resign.
Suggesting that there might have been some "miscommunication and misunderstanding" about the terms bio labs and bio weapons labs, Gabbard tweeted: "'Biolabs' are facilities which contain and experiment with dangerous pathogens, ostensibly for the purpose of serving the public good (i.e. vaccines, etc.). 'Biological weapons labs' are facilities which exist for the purpose of turning pathogens into weapons so they can be used against an enemy (i.e. 'bioweapons')," Gabbard tweeted.
On Wednesday, Gabbard was listed alongsideGOP Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-GA and Fox News' Carlson as the "most influential" in spreading anti-Ukraine disinformation and misinformation. Disinformation and digital authoritarianism researcher Marc Owen Jones, an assistant professor of Middle East studies and digital humanities at Hamad bin Khalifa University, featured Gabbard's tweets about Ukraine and "biolabs" as the latest Russia conspiracy theory propagated by right-wing media in the U.S.
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an 3 22
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) on Wednesday slammed President Joe Biden for sending more military aid to Ukraine, and said that things would be better off if Ukrainians just gave up their efforts to resist the Russian invasion.
In a Facebook address to her supporters, Greene laid out the case against helping the Ukrainians with more weapons.
"If we truly care about suffering and death on our television screens, we cannot fund more of it by sending money and weaponry to fight a war they cannot possibly win!" she said. "The only effect of more arms and more money from America will be to prolong the war!"
Greene went on to say that America was giving Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and his people "false hope about a war they can't win."
In fact, many military experts think that Russia's invasion has broadly stalled, and Ukraine reports that it has killed four different Russian generals after less than a month of fighting, which suggests that the possibility for victory by the Ukrainians is far from hopeless.
Greene concluded by saying that she wanted to stop the Ukrainain arms shipments because "as Christians" she didn't want to produce "any more human suffering."
Watch the video below.
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see below her maga endorsement sought, big fund-raiser, is she hurt by fashy bad behavior or helped?
boos at sotu were ~ heckle? fox or someone said USA chant was shut down, but was ironic Dems?
nbc
reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., and Lauren Boebert, R-Colo., repeatedly interrupted and interjected during President Joe Biden's State of the UnionaddressTuesday night.
Greene was heard grumbling through the entire part of Biden's speech about Covid policy before she shouted a remark about women's sports when Biden mentioned new laws targeting transgender Americans and their families.
Boebert and Greene tried to start a "build the wall" chant — a reference to former President Donald Trump's calls to construct a wall across the U.S. southern border — when Biden referred to securing the border and reforming immigration law.
[vid]
but the moment that stood out most was when Boebert shouted "13 of them" — referring to the 13 U.S. service members who died in an attack in Afghanistan during the U.S. withdrawal last year — when Biden discussed battlefield conditions that may contribute to veterans' developing cancers "that would put them in a flag-draped coffin."
Boebert's remark came just before Biden mentioned that one such veteran was his son Beau Biden, who served in Iraq and died of brain cancer in 2015.
Her remark prompted some boos from fellow lawmakers.
"Her disruption was inappropriate, especially given the substance of the comments that the president was making at the time, which is to continue this way, which is to protect service members and our veterans," Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., said.
Sen. Mike Braun, R-Ind., said: "It's something that I think that there's a place. That's not the place to do that."
The heckling came a day after Republican leaders condemned Greene for speaking at a gathering of white nationalists in Florida over the weekend. Both Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., and House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., condemned her appearance at the America First Political Action Committee conference, which was organized by a prominent white nationalist and where attendees chanted in praise of Russian President Vladimir Putin.
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all purpose get out of jail card for libtard assholes?
FRREEEEEDUUUUUMMMB!
an 3 22
federal judge dismissed an anti-mask lawsuit against Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi on Wednesday, brought last year by three far-right-wing members of Congress, including Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene. The three extremist Republicans argued that the mask mandate, instituted to protect their fellow members of Congress and their staffs, was a violation of the First and the Twenty-Seventh Amendments.
The judge disagreed:
U.S. Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), Thomas Massie (R-KY), and Ralph Norman (R-SC) “said they were fined for entering the House to vote without wearing masks in May 2021,” Bloomberg Law reports.They were initially fined $500, but Congresswoman Greene has since racked up thousands of dollars in fines since last May.
“The representatives said they wanted to engage in a ‘protest against the double standard being enforced,’ and to demonstrate ‘the well-founded beliefs’ they shared that mask wearing ‘is not scientifically based’ and ‘not necessary for the vaccinated or naturally immune.'”
It was clear during oral arguments in December thatSenior U.S. District Judge Reggie Walton, a Bush 43 appointee, disagreed.
“Maybe if we took this pandemic seriously we wouldn’t have so many Americans in the grave,” Judge Walton said at the time, admonishing the three extremists.
In his ruling, Judge Walton was also dismissive of their victimization claim of being discriminated against for what the three called, “contrary viewpoint-based symbolic speech.”
Judge Walton also rejected their false claim of “recent scientific findings that the use of face coverings has no appreciable effect on slowing or halting the spread of COVID-19.”
Walton “said the consensus within the scientific community is clear that masks—and, in particular, well-fitting, protective masks—are effective in slowing the spread of the Covid-19 virus.”
A large part of their argument was the 27th Amendment makes it unconstitutional for them to be fined, which they claimed is a reduction in salary. The judge also tossed out that argument.
Here’s Congressman Massie complaining on Fox Business last year. “We’re ready to take this all the way to the Supreme Court,” he declared.[twt vid]
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House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) says many things, mostly because he desperately wants to become Speaker of the House. He recently promised that he's going to have a talk withReps. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA.) and and Paul Gosar (R-AZ) about their "appalling" decision to speak at a conference organized by a far-right fringe figure and self-proclaimed white nationalist Nick Fuentes.
Greene smiled and waved to the crowd right after Fuentes asked for a “round of applause for Russia” as Vladimir Putin rained down missiles and mortars on Ukraine. It's not clear exactly what McCarthy plans to say to Greene and Gosar or when, but as Politico reports he might be postponing "the talk" because there's really nothing he can do to control their behavior.
The two already have been stripped of committee assignments and any move to censure the pair only would draw attention to the far right faction of the GOP. One House Republican, Rep. Kelly Armstrong (R-N.D.), says the wanna-be speaker should focus on issues much more important than Greene and Gosar.
“Dealing with dumb, stupid things people do in Congress should probably go down — and go pretty far down — on the list when you’ve got peacekeeping tanks rolling into a country that was not in conflict, when you’ve got record inflation, when you’ve got all of these things,” Armstrong said.
One centrist Republican, who spoke about the flap on the condition of anonymity, observed that the GOP leader has few options with which to threaten Greene and Gosar because House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Democrats have “fired all our shots” by stripping their panel assignments.
“I want them to shut up. Just stop it,” this Republican said. “[But] there’s nothing else. What else can Kevin do officially through the conference?”
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https://www.alternet.org/2022/03/americans-admonish-mgt-sotu-response/
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sotu 3 22
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) wasn't part of the Republican response to President Joe Biden's State of the Union Address, but she tried to be. In her own SOTU response video, she ranted against everything President Joe Biden stands for, Newsweek reported.
Republicans have been criticized as the "party of no," for the past two Democratic presidents, columnist Nicholas Goldberg noted in the Los Angeles Times. Greene brought that to a whole new level Tuesday night after the big speech. While many Republicans gave Biden standing ovations over bipartisan initiatives and cheers for America, Greene struggled to find anything she liked. Instead, she sought to rant against Democrats in a 30-minute, conspiracy-laden, word-salad for the Right Side Broadcasting Network.
Greene was one of two Republicans, with Lauren Boebert, who attempted to heckle Biden during the speech, drawing boos from both sides. While Biden addressed the international coalition he's worked to build to help Ukraine, Greene maintained, "under President Trump, this [war] would have never happened. For four years, our country had a real leader that led America and the entire world to peace for strength."
Greene didn't clarify how Trump would have prevented the war, however, or clarify how Trump is stronger. The international community has praised Biden, making it clear that there's no way Trump could have crafted the coalition that Biden worked months to build.
The congresswoman hurled insults, calling Biden "a mentally incompetent, feckless, dementia-ridden piece of crap."
Her speech came after she was triggered into making a video on the right-wing site Gettr. "Joe Biden, you are not a president. You are a piece of s*it," she said.
Greene went on to rant about Afghanistan, falsely claiming "thousands of Americans" were still stuck there. As of Jan. 11, that number was closer to 80. On Feb. 1, Qatar reached a deal with the Taliban to restart the flights and evacuations.
She then claimed that Biden was "compromised" by foreign leaders due to the conspiracy theory about his son's laptop. Biden, she said, is working for "anyone, anywhere that has blackmail evidence on his sexually deviant drug-addled deadbeat dad pathetic, sorry, embarrassing excuse of a son."
Newsweek noted: "Fox News' Tucker Carlson also promised to reveal 'authentic, real and damning' documents regarding Hunter Biden's business dealings in China and the Ukraine, which he later claimed were lost in the mail."
Greene has been criticized this week after she spoke at a white supremacist conference where Vladimir Putin and Adolf Hitler were praised from the podium. Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) took the rare opportunity to rebuke her and Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) promised to give her another "talking to." But according to Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-IL), it's Republicans like Greene who are actually running the caucus now.
See the complaints from angry Americans below:
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no twt lnx
Marjorie Taylor Greene asked journalists to judge her by her own words — and this one accepted the challenge
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia speaking at the 2021 AmericaFest at the Phoenix Convention Center in Phoenix, Arizona, ]
Alex Henderson March 01, 2022
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia is being slammed by her critics for speaking at the America First Political Action Conference — an event organized by White nationalist and anti-Semite Nick Fuentes — on Friday, February 25. Greene, in response to the criticism, has challenged journalists to judge her by her own words. And Washington Post opinion writer Catherine Rampell, in her February 28 column, accepts the challenge and describes some of the many appalling things that Greene has said since being elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 2020.
“Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) doesn’t want to be held accountable for the White supremacists she pals around with,” Rampell explains. “Judge her instead by her own words, she pleads. Sure thing, Congresswoman. Challenge accepted.”
Greene wasn’t the only far-right MAGA Republican who spoke at the America First Political Action Conference, described by Rampell as a White nationalist equivalent of the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC). Others included Arizona State Sen. Wendy Rogers, Rep. Paul Gosar of Arizona and Idaho Lt. Gov. Janice McGeachin. All of them were welcomed by Fuentes.
“Minutes before Greene addressed the crowd,” Rampell notes, “Fuentes crowed that ‘our secret sauce here, it’s these young White men.’ He declared that the January 6 insurrection was ‘awesome.’ He solicited a ‘round of applause for Russia,’ to which the crowd chanted ‘Putin! Putin!’ And he seemed to suggest that attempts to compare Russian President Vladimir Putin to Hitler are flattering.”
After the event, a defensive Greene tweeted, “I am not going to play the guilt by association game in which you demand every conservative should justify anything ever said by anyone they’ve ever shared a room with…. I’m only responsible for what I say.”[atom/ frag/libtard]
Rampell, in response, writes, “Well, we at least agree on that last part. Greene should be held responsible for what she says, at a neo-Nazi confab or elsewhere. For instance, Greene should be held accountable for continuing to compare every Democratic policy she opposes — whether mask mandates, vaccination requirements or January 6 responses — to the Holocaust…. She has shared other anti-Semitic garbage over the years.”
The Post columnist continues, “These include claims about Jewish space lasers supposedly sparking California wildfires. And how ‘Zionist supremacists’ are conspiring to replace the West’s White Christian population with non-White Muslim immigrants, an endorsement of the ‘Great Replacement’ theory that was also voiced by other speakers in Orlando.”
Other offensive things Greene has said, Rampell observes, range from “her remarks that Muslims do not belong in government” to “her claim that 9/11 was an inside job, with no plane ever crashing into the Pentagon” to saying “that leading Democratic officials should be executed.”
Many Republicans are afraid to saying anything against Greene, as former President Donald Trump likes her and they dare not offend Dear Leader. But Sen. Mitt Romney of Utah isn’t afraid to call Greene out. When Romney was asked about Greene and Gosar appearing at a White nationalist event, he responded, “I’m reminded of that old line from the ‘Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid’ movie, where one character says: ‘Morons. I have got morons on my team.’”
Rampell writes, “She has been denounced by some of the few Republicans who still have principles…. Most Republicans, it seems, would prefer to keep the morons on their team.”
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https://www.alternet.org/2022/02/twisted-and-warped-maga-republicans-fears-justin-trudeau-more-than-vladimir-putin-conservative/
wingnuttery c owen no twt
'Twisted' and 'warped' MAGA Republicans fear Justin Trudeau more than Vladimir Putin: conservative
Alex Henderson February 22, 2022
At a time when Russian President Vladimir Putin appears likely to invade Ukraine, many right-wing media outlets — from Fox News to the Daily Wire to Breitbart News — are vigorously defending Putin and Hungarian strongman Viktor Orbán while arguing that Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is the real authoritarian. Trudeau’s unforgivable sin, according to the MAGA far right, is enforcing vaccine and testing requirements for people entering Canada from the United States.
Conservative Daily Beast opinion writer and Never Trumper Matt Lewis, in a February 22 column, compares the MAGA movement’s views on Trudeau versus Putin — arguing that the American right has truly gone off the deep end when it considers Trudeau the enemy but defends Putin.
“If you want to understand someone’s values or worldview,” Lewis writes, “take a look at who and what provokes outrage and who and what evokes sympathy. The cognitive dissonance inherent in much of the American right can make such an examination problematic. That’s because some of the most prominent voices on the right today view Vladimir Putin as a misunderstood victim. Meanwhile, they cast Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau as an authoritarian strongman.”
Lewis goes on to offer specific examples, noting that the Daily Wire’s Canace Owens tweeted, “STOP talking about Russia. Send American troops to Canada to deal with the tyrannical reign of Justin Trudeau Castro.”
The Never Trumper adds, “Or consider Fox News host Tucker Carlson, my friend — though we disagree profoundly on politics — and former boss. Carlson isn’t outraged over what is happening to Ukraine, but found time last week to bash ‘strongman’ Trudeau as ‘the dictator of Canada,’ while saying that ‘Canada canceled democracy.’ There’s also Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, who says Trudeau has gone ‘full dictator.’ And J.D. Vance, celebrated author and Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate in Ohio, who recently declared that he ‘doesn’t really care what happens to Ukraine.’”
Lewis injects some humor into his column, noting that Marty McFly — the time-traveling Reagan-era teenager Michael J. Fox portrayed in the 1985 fantasy film “Back to the Future” — would be shocked to see so many Republicans fawning over a former KGB agent. Indeed, back in the days of Madonna, Run-D.M.C. and Duran Duran, Reagan Republicans railed against the Kremlin nonstop; now, MAGA Republicans consider Putin and his ally Orbán people to be admired.
“If the 1985 version of Marty McFly transported to 2022,” Lewis writes, “it would be impossible to explain to him why so many conservative Republicans are willing to look the other way on Russia invading a sovereign nation, while they simultaneously blast Canada for imposing consequences on protesters blocking traffic…. To be clear, Putin is a former KGB agent and an actual authoritarian. He literally kills and imprisons his critics. And don’t forget the little matter of 100,000 of his troops massed on the Ukrainian border.”
Lewis adds, “Meanwhile, Justin Trudeau is the elected leader of a free nation. He took action to restore law and order [and GNP!]after three weeks of truckers blocking traffic and generally disturbing the peace.”
The conservative Lewis has spent plenty of time bashing the left, but he has been a blistering critic of former President Donald Trump and the MAGA movement. And he wraps up his February 22 column by stressing that MAGA Republicans are as “warped” now as they were when Trump was still in the White House.
“If you find someone willing to defend Vladimir Putin for threatening to invade and kill his neighbors, while simultaneously calling Justin Trudeau a ‘dictator’ for shutting down a lawless protest after three weeks,you have found someone who either is intellectually dishonest or has a warped sense of reality,” Lewis warns. “If you thought the gaslighting would end with Trump, you were wrong. The American right is getting in the habit of calling evil good and good evil. It’s a truly twisted and perverse perception of a dangerous world, and the scary thing is, it’s catching on.”
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soup nazi gazpacho
When Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) decided to address the controversy behind her latest embarrassing "Gazpacho Police" blunder, she probably didn't count on her rebuttal leading to more mockery and criticism. But, it did.
On Friday, February 11, the conspiracy-driven Georgia lawmaker took to her Congressional Twitter account as she attempted to pivot on her initial error. Days ago, Greene attempted to level an attack against President Joe Biden but confused Adolph Hitler's secret law enforcement agency, known as the Gestapo, for Gazpacho, a chilled soup.
"Some of us slip up a word every now and then, but Joe Biden doesn’t even know the words coming out of his mouth practically all the time," she tweeted on Friday. "The good news is that the people know the difference."
Greene ended the bizarre tweet with a reference to one of former President Donald Trump's biggest blunders on Twitter. "So in the famous words of som eone I hold dear.. Covfefe!"
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aha yikes they are monetizing victimization, grievance, polarization, demonization see crensharrrrh vs mtg
mtg huge fundraiser 7m 2/22? demon is flipside of victim: tyranny gazpacho pelosi; likes/donation is a cheap fast hit way to feel you are taking action/sticking it to the woMAN who is oppressing you, stealing US and ruining Am dr = commie socialist; fear anger amplified by soc med algo
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aha: note trumpista reptile brain sensitive plus soc med algo amp --> qanon?
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kpfa fri mtg endorse as more sought than trump?!
https://www.alternet.org/2022/02/marjorie-taylor-greene-2656645182/
Texas Republican candidate Bianca Garcia is vowing to become a "mini Marjorie Taylor Greene" if elected to the Senate, according to Newsweek. On Wednesday, February 9, Garcia —who currently serves as the president of the conservative group, Latinos for Trump— appeared on The McFiles podcast.
During the interview, Garcia discussed her platform as she gave listeners a depiction of the type of politician she'd be. Although Greene is often at the center of controversy, Garcia has applauded her for her political stance. In fact, Garcia believes Greene is "the only one right now that's really fighting back."
"They don't like her. So I might be a little mini Marjorie Taylor Greene," she said. "I don't know. They're going to call me BRG."
The Republican candidate went on to issue an ultimatum to local pastors in her area saying they would "be held accountable" if members of their church did not cast their votes for her. "You're going to either have to show up and show out, or you're going to have to deal with it with the Lord," she said.
Garcia's remarks come as she continues her campaign for the Texas Senate seat located in the 11th district. Her area covers vast metropolitan areas including suburbs south of Houston, Pearland, Texas, and Galveston.
Her praise of Greene comes just days after the extremist Republican lawmaker was mocked on Twitter for confusing Adolph Hitler's private german state police, the Gespado, with the Spanish chilled soup, Gazpacho.
During an appearance on One America News Network's (OANN) Real America with Dan Ball, Greene said, "So everything is completely out of control. Not only do we have the DC jail, which is the DC Gulag, but now we have Nancy Pelosi's Gazpacho Police spying on members of Congress."
Although Garcia is a fierce supporter of Greene, some Republican lawmakers have expressed disapproval of her. In fact, Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R-Texas) recently spoke out against the controversial lawmaker.
"She [Greene] doesn't want solutions and she doesn't care if you get censored," Crenshaw said back in January. "She just wants to be a victim so she can keep asking you for campaign donations. It's a scam."
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national divorce --> 2a
https://www.alternet.org/2022/01/marjorie-taylor-greene-2656392983/
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rww January 7, 2022
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene says that Twitter “has appointed itself as God” and asserts that banning her from the platform is “really an attack on the American people.”
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is that english? newsmax
https://www.alternet.org/2022/01/marjorie-taylor-greene-2656247250/
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Marjorie Taylor Greene has become the 'ideological enforcer' of House Republicans: Charlie Sykes
Alex Henderson December 01, 2021
At first glance, the attention-grabbing headline of Charlie Sykes’ December 1 column for The Bulwark might seem like clickbait: “Speaker Marjorie Taylor Greene.” But when one reads the column, it become...
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https://www.alternet.org/2021/11/gop-southern-strategy/
thom h
on Wednesday, all but two Republicans in the House of Representatives went on record saying it's okay to openly encourage the assassination of one of their own, a person of color and elected Member of the House.
That part about Representative Ocasio-Cortez not being white was no coincidence, by the way. It was really at the core of the issue: Republicans now openly refer to her and the women of color who call themselves "the Squad" as the "Jihad caucus." As in "Muslim terrorists," as in "the Other."
Earlier in the day, known antisemite and racistRepresentative Marjorie Taylor Greene called for her followers to prepare for warbecause "Joe Biden didn't win the 2020 election" and "the only way you get freedom back after you've lost it is with the price of blood."
We heard this rhetoric, too, many years ago when a much earlier generation of white supremacists tried to gin up bloodshed in America....
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hayes
: Kevin McCarthy understands Republicans like him are not the future of the party.
The troll caucus—Gosar, Greene, Gaetz, Boebert—"they are where the Republican Party is headed
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https://www.alternet.org/2021/10/marjorie-taylor-greene-aoc/...
Crenshaw slams Marjorie Taylor Greene's 'stupid' plan as 'messy internal spats' plague House GOP: report...House Republicans are "embroiled in messy internal spats" and suffering from "self-inflicted wounds" that could hurt their chances of regaining the majority in 2022, Politico reported Wednesday night....
jihad squad:
https://www.alternet.org/2021/11/rep-ilhan-omar-torches-lauren-boebert-following-bizarre-rant-on-house-floor/
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https://www.alternet.org/2021/11/first-act-of-newly-elected-head-of-house-gops-most-extreme-group-is-announcement-hes-just-tested-positive-for/
badash ncrm
Members of the Freedom Caucus, the most extreme group of House Republicans, just elected a new leader, U.S. Rep. Scott Perry of Pennsylvania. His first act was to announce he has just tested positive for COVID-19.
Perry is a far right wing extremist who has repeatedly spread falsehoods about election fraud – and compared Democrats to Nazis.
He was first elected to Congress in 2006, ran unopposed or with no Republican challenger several times, thanks in part to what was later found to be an unconstitutional gerrymandered district.
Rep. Perry, "an outspoken Pennsylvania Republican, played a significant role in the crisis that played out at the top of the Justice Department," in December of 2020, The New York Times reported, "when Mr. Trump considered firing the acting attorney general and backed down only after top department officials threatened to resign en masse."
Perry introduced Trump to DOJ attorney Jeffrey Clark, the acting chief of the civil division, who "was sympathetic to Mr. Trump's view that the election had been stolen."
Mr. Perry introduced the president to Mr. Clark, whose openness to conspiracy theories about election fraud presented Mr. Trump with a welcome change from the acting attorney general, Jeffrey A. Rosen, who stood by the results of the election and had repeatedly resisted the president's efforts to undo them.
Congressman Perry was also one of just 18 members of the House to vote against a resolution condemning the dangerous anti-Democratic conspiracy theory QAnon, "a collective delusion that alleges President Donald Trump is fighting a Satan-worshipping cabal of elites who abuse children," Buzzfeed reported last year, noting the vote came just "three days after its followers targeted Democratic Rep. Tom Malinowski with death threats."
In June Rep. Perry compared Democrats to Nazis, as The Jerusalem Post reported, when he said: "It wasn't a government in Germany that took the people's rights away immediately. It was fascism. Fascism took it away, because the government put the heavy hand on the companies and the companies did the government's work. Well look around, ladies and gentlemen."
"The Left are always coming… We have to be stronger and louder than them… They are destroying our economy. They are destroying our energy sector. They are going to do this if we let them, and we can not let them… Go fight them."
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https://www.alternet.org/2021/11/sedition-caucus/
no lnx twt
house Republicans have no problem with one of their members posting a tweet depicting him murdering Democratic Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez but they are outraged at 13 members of their caucus who voted to pass President Joe Biden's infrastructure bill.
According to Jake Sherman's Punchbowl News, rank and file GOP members of Congress are trying to force Republican Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy to strip the 13 of their committee assignments, noting that "GOP leadership is bracing" for the attempt. McCarthy was opposed to the bill, which will vastly improve basic necessities like roads, bridges, rail, and the nation's ports, expand broadband access, and help localities protect against climate change.
Not only are GOP members of Congress angry the 13 voted for the legislation, they are angry they voted "early," rather than forcing Democrats to cross the majority threshold of votes to pass the bill without Republicans.
"Much of the anger is directed at Rep. John Katko (R-N.Y.),who voted early for the legislation. Katko is the ranking member on the Homeland Security Committee. Katko told multiple lawmakers on the House floor that he had seen Rep. Jim Banks (R-Ind.) on television talking about the infrastructure bill, and he was voting early."
Members of the Sedition Caucus, including Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene, Lauren Boebert, and Matt Gaetz have publicly attacked their fellow Republicans for voting to help the American people by voting for the bill.
Greene especially has been at war with her 13 GOP colleagues, even posting their phone numbers. Here are two of several of her attacks:
And CongressmanGaetz told far right Newsmax host Grant Stinchfield Katko should be stripped of his ranking member status:
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David Badash and The New Civil Rights Movement October 25, 2021
U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), the most prominent lawmaker named in the bombshell Rolling Stone article, unleashed a wild a conspiracy theory-fueled attack against Democratic Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Monday.
Her tweetstorm, 12 posts long (although she did label one #6 twice) included the demand, usually made by right wing Twitter trolls, to "debate me," along with false claims AOC is "tear[ing] our country apart because you are a communist," and "participated in [a] civil war."
Greene started by retweeting Rep. Ocasio-Cortez's tweet calling for any "member of Congress who helped plot a terrorist attack on our nation's capitol" to be "expelled."
Rep. Greene complains "ALL of the thousands of Antifa/BLM foot soldiers of the Democrat Communist Party that attacked innocent Americans, looted & burned private businesses, & more crimes have not been properly charged yet & many were let off."
She claims AOC and other Democratic lawmakers engaged in a "civil war that was waged in the streets of America during the communist revolution of 2020," which is a flat-out lie.
Greene also falsely calls U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) a "terrorist sympathizer," and claims the BLM protests caused over $1 trillion in damage, which is wildly false.
In her provably false screed Greene uses variations of the word "communist" five times, "Socialist" and "Fascist" once each, "civil war" and "vaccine" three times, "Democrat" seven times, "America" or "American" nine times.
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no lnx
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an 10 21
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) is promising to "take back the House" by endorsing a candidate who is primarying a GOP Congressman in a safely Republican district in South Carolina. If she's successful and her candidate wins the primary and the November election she will have increased Republicans' hold on the House by exactly zero seats.
"Repubs must take the House back & FIRE Nancy Pelosi in '22," Greene tweeted Tuesday afternoon . "The only way to do that is w/ America First Repubs who fight & not cower in fear like so many spineless RINOs who care more about being liked by the Fake News & their Dem counterparts than they do about America First."
The candidate she is endorsing,Graham Allen, is primarying U.S. Rep. Tom Rice, a hard core Republican who opposes masks and, along with his family, contracted COVID. Rice, first elected in 2012, did vote for Donald Trump's second impeachment.
On his website Allen explains his reason for running for Congress: "Tom Rice abandoned his duty to represent the conscience of the voters of his district when he sided with Nancy Pelosi to support the sham impeachment of President Donald J. Trump."
Aside from a few words about protecting the First and Second Amendment, restoring "the integrity of our elections," and defending "our country from foreign threats," including bad trade deals and migrants at the border, Allen lists zero policy positions.
Greene also attacked Democrats, falsely claiming they "are no longer an American Party. They're the party of woke corporate communism. They're party of AOCs Green New Deal which enslaves us to cheap Chinese energy. They're the party of skyrocketing inflation, illegal invasion at the border, vaccine mandates & election fraud," all of which are false.
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fraudit
backfire lower turnout?
maddow blog ...In reality, of course, the Republican's claims were stark raving mad. What was less obvious was the underlying irony: News organizations and pollsters haven't suppressed GOP votes, but what if Trump has?
It's no secret that many Republicans blame Trump for the party's failures earlier this year in Georgia's U.S. Senate special elections. The more the then-president lied about the integrity of the electoral system, the more GOP voters believed their ballots would go uncounted.
There's fresh evidence to suggest the problem persists. The New York Times reported yesterday:
Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia has supported exhaustive audits of the 2020 results to look for evidence of voting irregularities that repeated reviews have failed to produce. Still, she has told colleagues that she was surprised by a recent survey of Republican voters in her district, according to one person who spoke with her about it.
According to the Times' reporting, the right-wing congresswoman's survey found that 5 percent of local Republican voters planned to skip the 2022 elections unless Georgia conducted a "forensic audit." An additional 4 percent said that without an audit, they'd at least consider sitting out the election cycle. [Update: See below.]
Republican strategists reportedly found the results "alarming." Taylor Greene's congressional district is one of the reddest districts in the nation, and if nearly one-in-10 GOP voters in the area are prepared to effectively boycott upcoming elections, because of bizarre concerns over wildly unnecessary "audits," that's a problem for the party....
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==
1021 AN
According to a report from Mother Jones, the PAC created by Reps. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) and Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) with great fanfare and a national tour has already blown through what money it had and now is close to broke.
As Russ Choma reports, the publicity-seeking lawmakers started up the Put America First PACand then launched what turned into a troubled "America First" tour -- that saw events canceled or moved multiple times due to problems securing venues -- which, in turn, burned through their early cash donations.
According to Choma, "Marjorie Taylor Greene and Matt Gaetz both have a knack for ginning up outrage and stealing headlines. All this sound and fury is assumed to hoover up dollars from the riled up grassroots, but that's not true, according to the most recent campaign finance filings, " adding, "Despite the two spending the summer barnstorming the country on a grand fundraising swing they dubbed the America First tour, (the moniker adopted after scraping the "Anglo-Saxon" caucus), neither Greene nor Gaetz lived up to expectations on the fundraising end. And, just six months after founding it, the joint fundraising committee they launched to drive their tour is nearly broke."
As the report details, the two lawmakers' PAC raised $360,000 initially but donations dropped off and a recent filing shows a meager $13,000 on hand.
Choma reports that Greene is having her own fundraising issues as well.
"While Greene is definitely more successful—in her short Congressional career she's raised more than $8.8 million—the most recent numbers filed by her own campaign show her fundraising totals are increasingly eaten up by the costs of chasing donors and paying off the operatives and professional fundraising consultants and vendors that she hires," he reported.
As for Gaetz... "Gaetz campaign's latest filing shows that his fundraising has all but dried up. He raised just $527,000 from July 1 to September 30. He spent far more—$627,000—trying to raise that money. In another parallel to Greene, Gaetz's biggest expenses are direct mail and paying fundraising consulting costs to his vendors. In fact, those two things ate up more than 60 percent of his donations," Choma reported.
You can read more here.
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no lnx twt
'Deeply dangerous': MSNBC host reveals the history behind the GOP embrace of a deadly conspiracy theory
Mehdi Hasan // Hasan
Alex Henderson October 01, 2021
Fox News' Tucker Carlson generated considerable controversy when, on his April 8 show, he promoted the Great Replacement Theory — a racist conspiracy theory that has become prominent in white supremacist and white nationalist ideology. And almost half a year later, Carlson is still claiming that President Joe Biden and other Democrats are trying to "replace" white voters with immigrants from developing countries. MSNBC's Mehdi Hasan called Carlson out on his show this week, warning that he is promoting a claim that "gets people killed."
The progressive firebrand described the Great Replacement as a "conspiracy theory so vile, so extreme, so dangerous" that it was, in the past, avoided by mainstream conservatives and kept "on the furthest fringes of the far right."
Hasan told viewers, "What is the Great Replacement? It's a story, or a theory if you will, about liberal elites secretly changing our demographics, helping Black and Brown immigrants to invade America and replace white people. It's a white supremacist story about so-called white genocide. Scary, right? Bonkers, too. And yet, this year, Fox's Tucker Carlson came along and thought, 'Hmmm, let's bring this idea into the light to a prime-time cable audience."
The MSNBC host went on to say that the Great Replacement Theory has become a "rallying cry for the neo-Nazi far right," noting that it originated in France with white nationalist author Renaud Camus and his book "Le Grand Remplacement." And Hasan noted that a series of terrorist attacks have been carried out by White supremacists who embrace and promote that theory.
"The Great Replacement Theory gets people killed," Hasan warned. "And yet, you now haveTucker Carlson— the most influential right-wing cable news host in America — defending it, promoting it, mainstreaming it. And elected Republicans are now following in his footsteps…. Members of the GOP are now openly trafficking in neo-Nazi rhetoric."
Hasan showed clips of Rep. Scott Perry of Pennsylvania, Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin and Rep. Brian Babin of Texas promoting the Great Replacement Theory, arguing that "members of the GOP are now openly trafficking in neo-Nazi rhetoric" rather than simply using racist "dog whistles" like Republicans of the past. And he noted thatRep. Matt Gaetz of Floridahas vigorously defended Carlson by explicitly promoting the Great Replacement Theory by name.
"This is how white supremacy is normalized in America today: the marriage between Rupert Murdoch's Fox and Donald Trump's GOP," Hasan warned. "And they make us numb to this stuff…. This is a deeply dangerous moment for America."
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BBB commie plot
https://www.alternet.org/2021/10/marjorie-taylor-greene-vote/
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921
rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) lost her most senior staffer on Friday after she made a scene on the steps of the U.S. Capitol.
NBC News reported Greene "instigated a shouting match with a group of House Democrats who were holding an event outside the U.S. Capitol on Friday."
Greene screamed that Democrats support "murder" for supporting abortion rights.
Following the incident, Greene announced that her chief of staff had "advised" her that he would no longer be working in her office.
"I want to thank my Chief of Staff, Patrick Parsons, for helping me take the fight to the Socialist Democrats as I've transitioned into Congress. He's advised me he will be moving back into the political arena to help elect America First conservatives who can fight alongside me," she posted to Twitter.
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ha at covid kia
https://www.alternet.org/2021/07/marjorie-taylor-greene-2653883365/
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twt covid BS
https://www.alternet.org/2021/07/marjorie-taylor-greene-suspended/
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The leaders of the Republican Party—Rep. Matt Gaetz and Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene—have been touring the nation. Whether this is part of Gaetz's plans for expanding his sex trafficking ring, Greene's recruiting drive for terrorists, or simply a cash grab by both, isn't clear (except for the part where it definitely is a cash grab). What is clear is that it's a keen demonstration of the GOP is making a "star" out of anyone who is merely willing to be disgusting on a regular basis.
As a quick reminder, Greene was taken off her House committee assignments for continually promoting the Big Lie in a way that encouraged violence, and downplaying the events of Jan. 6. Meanwhile, Gaetz is under investigation for his involvement in a multi-state scheme to recruit young women, provide them with fake IDs, and jet them around the country for sex in exchange for cash and prizes—a scheme that is complicated by the fact that at least one of these women was underage. Both these things together, and you have the makings of a modern Republican dream team.
The two have been touring the country making appearances that allow their followers to own the libs by showing that they don't care about details like rape or insurrection, so long as they get to hear jokes about Nancy Pelosi and watch Gaetz sputter on in his obsession with AOC. They also have been talking up a proposed political caucus to defend "Anglo-Saxon" culture by strictly limiting immigration.
But a funny thing has happened when it comes to the West Coast edition of the Gaetz and Greene show. Funny in the "ha ha" sense. Because nobody wants them. For the third time in a week, venues have put out the Not Welcome mat, leaving the pair looking for somewhere to gestate their hate supposedly right on the eve of their next appearance.
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stripped of comm assignments b/c attacked gop
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https://www.alternet.org/2021/06/greene-atf/
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aha note politics no longer about legislation [cf guy said i have no legis staff just PR, // cawthorne] but attacking libs/dems score pts in media eg talk radio and soc med
an 621 ah
no lnx twt
When Rep. Ilhan Omar of Minnesota was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 2018, the progressive Democrat expected to have frequent policy differences not only with Republicans, but also, with centrists in her own party. However, attacks on Omar from the far right — including Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, Rep. Lauren Boebert of Colorado and pundits at Fox News — go way beyond policy disagreements, painting her as fundamentally anti-American and an outright enemy of the United States. And on June 9, Omar tweeted a racist, threatening message her office received following a tweet by Boebert and the June 7 publication of an anti-Omar article by Houston Keene on Fox News' website.
In a June 8 tweet, Boebert — a supporter of the far-right QAnon conspiracy cult — described Omar as an "honorary member of Hamas" and one of the "terrorist [NOTE SUBS COMMIE-] sympathizers in Congress." Members of QAnon were among the violent extremists involved in the January 6 insurrectionist assault on the U.S. Capitol Building.
In her June 9 tweet, Omar — who is a Muslim and is originally from Somalia — noted that it isn't unusual for her to be "inundated with death threats." And she cited the call that she tweeted as a prime example. That racist caller can be heard saying, "Muslims are terrorists. And she is a raghead n*****. And every anti-American communist piece of shit that works for her, I hope you get what's fucking coming for you."
Omar tweeted that calls like the one she posted are "incited directly by articles like this" — a reference to Keene's article for Fox News' website — and "far-right politicians like" Boebert.
TW: Every time I speak out on human rights I am inundated with death threats. Here is one we just got. “Muslims ar… https://t.co/tKLay3dwdl
— Ilhan Omar (@Ilhan Omar) 1623286390.0
This is incited directly by articles like this and far right politicians like this. And it is enabled by a politic… https://t.co/6Ogf2nXnMX
— Ilhan Omar (@Ilhan Omar) 1623286456.0
Here are some reactions to the racist, threatening call Omar's office received:
@IlhanMN Its really ironic since Boebert is literally a terrorist sympathizer (if not directly involved) when it co… https://t.co/RBMVTRqWyJ
— AnarchyPunished2:ElectricBoogaloo (@AnarchyPunished2:ElectricBoogaloo) 1623287545.0...
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https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2021/06/donald-trumps-parting-gift-to-washington-was-a-party-of-shitposters/
rkj
i've seen many things at the Conservative Political Action Conference over the years, including many things I wish I hadn’t. But until Ted Cruz spoke to a ballroom of activists from the main stage in Orlando in February, I had never seen an elected official interrupt his own speech to promote a podcast.
“Please go subscribe,” barked the Texas Republican, sounding more like a street performer with a SoundCloud than a second-term senator. “Verdict With Ted Cruz! Verdict With Ted Cruz! Click on ‘subscribe.’ Five stars, please!”
One week earlier, Cruz had left his constituents and his poodle behind to wait out his state’s deadly grid failure at the Ritz-Carlton in Cancun. It was the sort of PR disaster that would leave many politicians reeling. Cruz tried to monetize the controversy instead, printing a line of Barstool Sports–chic “spring break” tank tops with a caricature of his nascent mullet. He may never lead the Republican Party, but Cruz always knows its temperature, and in the space of a few minutes in Orlando, between jokes about his ill-advised Mexican vacation and plugs for his side project, he managed to distill this conservative moment to its essence. Increasingly, as world-historical crises unfurl all around them—often exacerbated by their own policies and actions—the GOP’s most ambitious officials view their primary responsibility less as public servants than as content creators, churning out an endless stream of takes, memes, stunts, and podcasts. So many podcasts.
The Republican Party has long been infused with an irrepressible hustle, what the historian Rick Perlstein calls “mail-order conservatism.” Talk radio and direct mail were not only effective at peddling reactionary politics to voters; they were also perfect vehicles to sell products, such as gold and home-security systems. For decades these conjoined strains of politics, entertainment, and marketing have eroded trust in public institutions and the media and provided a template for self-aggrandizement and enrichment. There is nothing really like this on the left; Infowars and Goop sell the same pills, but Gwyneth Paltrow is not fomenting rebellion.
The way conservatism manifested itself over the airwaves has shaped what rank-and-file conservatives expect to be told and how they expect to feel about it. The late Rush Limbaugh’s listeners called themselves “dittoheads,” eager to nod along with everything. Newt Gingrich used to distribute tapes of himself talking so that candidates could emulate his language. In the 1980s, he weaponized C-SPAN’s new House cameras—where members previously addressed each other, Gingrich and his allies began speaking past them. They turned the Capitol into a studio and made politics into a product. Donald Trump easily won the Republican base because it had been primed for someone who could provide both the programming and the commercial breaks, sometimes all at once; in conservative politics, after all, you’re always being asked to buy something.
Trump’s presidency blew past the old frontiers: The performance of politics became the purpose of it.
But Trump’s presidency blew past the old frontiers: The performance of politics became the purpose of it, and the grind of governance became secondary to the responsibilities of posting.
It was as if, after years of awkward but largely profitable power-sharing between conservative politicians and conservative media, the Republican Party at last stumbled upon the ultimate efficiency: What if both roles could be played by the same person? Trump once dreamed of spinning a losing presidential bid into his own media entity.
During the pandemic, in lieu of crisis management, he turned briefings into a variety show, assembling a rotating cast of characters, and plugging an array of sponsors—MyPillow, Carnival, Pernod Ricard. You would not necessarily get good medical advice, but you would learn that Hanes is a “great consumer cotton products company” that’s being recognized more and more.
no lnx
There was no issue grave enough to take seriously and no controversy too petty to weigh in on. Anything could be resolved via tweet, precisely because nothing really can; the ephemerality was the point. And a rising generation of politicians learned an important lesson about what conservative voters wanted. If Limbaugh taught them all how to talk, Trump taught them how to govern. His enduring gift was a caucus of content creators.
Just consider the Republican congressional class of 2021—the new arrivals to Washington who modeled themselves most directly after Trump. They seem almost blissfully detached from the work of Congress. There is 25-year-old Madison Cawthorn of North Carolina, who was elected on the strength of a largely invented personal story amplified with loads of influencer-style Instagram posts. He recently posted a 19-second video of himself punching the bark off a tree. Cawthorn boasted to his colleagues that he had built his staff “around comms rather than legislation.” He was in Washington, in other words, mostly just to post.
Cawthorn boasted to his colleagues that he had built his staff “around comms rather than legislation.”
When Marjorie Taylor Greene, the QAnon representative from Georgia, was stripped of her committee assignments in February by colleagues upset that she had harassed fellow members of Congress and blamed forest fires on the Rothschilds, she greeted the news with relief. “If I was on a committee, I would be wasting my time,” she said. Now she was more free to share videos of her CrossFit workouts with the hashtag #FireFauci. Not that showing up for committee hearings necessarily means you’re there to work. Colorado’s Lauren Boebert, who like Cawthorn and Greene spent her first weeks on the job scaring the shit out of her co-workers, recently hijacked a virtual committee hearing by posing like John Wick in front of a shrine of firearms in her living room. (“Who says this is storage?” she responded to critics. “These are ready for use.”)
Cawthorn, Greene, and Boebert were all members of the National Republican Campaign Committee’s “Young Guns” program, which takes its name from an earlier trio of House Republicans—one of whom, Paul Ryan, went on to become a vice presidential nominee and speaker of the House and unite the party behind a vision of budget austerity. There is surely some sort of ideology at work here, too, but it’s more Jake Paul than Paul Ryan; they are treating the Capitol like their own hype house, using the stature of their office for clout.
R. Kikuo Johnson
These younger, gunnier guns are taking cues from their elders. Texas Rep. Dan Crenshaw, a content farm of a congressman who has filmed not one but two Avengers-style videos in which the ex–Navy SEAL parachutes out of airplanes to fight Democrats, also hosts a podcast. So does Devin Nunes. Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz has a podcast called Hot Takes. Before he became publicly embroiled in a federal sex-trafficking investigation (“If you aren’t making news, you aren’t governing,” Gaetz once said), he was considering retiring to take a job at the conservative cable channel Newsmax. In February, more than a dozen House Republicans—including Gaetz and Nunes—skipped work to speak at CPAC with Cruz. They took advantage of a covid-era policy that let members vote by proxy in medical emergencies; to them, promoting their brands is the job.
After watching Cruz’s speech I took his advice and checked out Verdict, which he co-hosts with Michael Knowles, who rose to prominence after publishing an entirely blank book called Reasons to Vote for Democrats. Cruz recorded the first episode at 2:40 a.m. after the opening day of Trump’s Ukraine impeachment trial—hence the name of the show—and returned to the studio every night of the proceedings. Within days of its debut, Verdict had passed Joe Rogan on the iTunes charts. At CPAC, Cruz announced it had been downloaded 25 million times. It is almost certainly the most popular thing he has ever done.
From the start, there were gestures that this was all “for work”; while Cruz plugs his book with regularity, he does not hawk brain pills or sell ads. In the premiere episode, Cruz solicited listener questions he could ask during the impeachment. When Knowles asked him why he was doing the show, Cruz replied with two words: “Substance. Matters.”
This is true in a technical way: Cruz talks on his show about many of the things he and his Republican colleagues talk about in the Capitol. But that Washington conversation is increasingly just an extension of what they talk about on their podcasts. The biggest crises in America right now, according to Cruz, CPAC, and Trump, are the interlocking threats of Big Tech and “cancel culture.” Hearings with tech executives have become a must-watch for conservatives. Cruz advertised his hearing-room clash with Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey last summer with a Christopher Nolan–ish movie trailer and a poster reminiscent of welterweight boxing—“The Free Speech Champion vs. the Czar of Censorship.” There are substantive things to say about corporate power, but this brand of conservative opportunism zips past what’s real to fixate on what isn’t. Twitter moderators, or someone being “canceled,” is not something Congress is really positioned to do much about. They are just creating content about content creation; this is the uroboros of mail-order conservatism.
Twitter moderators, or someone being “canceled,” is not something Congress is really positioned to do much about. They are just creating content about content creation.
Big Tech and “cancel culture” have emerged as key villains for the new right, not just because of how neatly they fit into long-standing tropes about “cosmopolitan elites,” but because so much of modern conservatism lives online. Offline, there are issues that warrant serious attention from one of the nation’s two governing parties—cities without water, cities soon to be underwater, whole states without power, and a world still suffering from a deadly virus. But with a nudge from Trump, the right has become ever more dissociated from reality, channeling its energy into an endless series of fights over “deplatforming” and who’s triggering whom. During the Obama years, a Breitbart provocateur interrupted a White House press conference to complain about losing his Twitter verification badge. Then, it was a sideshow; now, it’s the whole point. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, a likely presidential candidate, recently signed a law prohibiting social media companies from banning public officials.
The rise of politics as content creation is hardly the sole domain of the right. After his 2016 presidential campaign ended, Bernie Sanders kept his media imprint running. He organized town halls on Facebook Live and recorded a regular podcast. Sanders, who has made no secret of his distaste for corporate-owned media, hoped to build out his own information stream for his supporters. So did Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the New York representative whose prolific posting has gotten her in trouble with other members of her caucus. (Her arrival in Washington precipitated a closed-door meeting in which a colleague pleaded, “Everyone stop tweeting!”)
The content creators of both the left and the right pose some of the same big-picture challenges—the rise of politicians as independent news sources, of politics as stan culture, and the acceleration of the permanent campaign. A Pew analysis found that the outgoing 116th Congress was one of the least productive of the last half-century, but the most prolific ever when it came to posting. Members sent 50 percent more tweets than they did two terms ago; they were still talking—just not to each other. The more politicians function as affinity brands peddling a product to be consumed, the more “politics,” the entertainment vehicle, becomes dissociated from politics, the distributor of power. Barack and Michelle Obama run a media company now and each hosts podcasts, too; the ease with which political figures can rebrand themselves as entertainers speaks to the two spheres’ increasing coziness. This is not what “seizing the means of production” was supposed to mean.
But the way this dynamic is unfolding on the left and the right is asymmetrical. Though you would not necessarily know it from listening to Gaetz, Obama is not in office. Sanders and Ocasio-Cortez are not angling for TV gigs; nor are they reducing the world of lawmaking to the kind of retrograde distractions that get you booked on Tucker. They use their enormous social media platforms for civics lessons, offering behind-the-scenes glimpses of the legislative process and the work of movement building, in an effort to get more people invested in both. You can buy the “Tax the Rich” sweatshirt Ocasio-Cortez wears when she holds court on policy and procedure on Instagram Live, but it is not the only thing she is selling. She and Sanders are trying to make the online world more engaged with the real world, rather than the other way around, to advance an ambitious governing program. It is a theory of change, of which clout and performance are merely a means, not the endpoint, of politics. That is the opposite of the reductive nihilism of Cawthorn or Boebert, or the eternal stagecraft of Cruz.
In the first few months of the Biden administration, the world of Twitter and real life have become increasingly estranged. In a paradoxical way, the transformation of a major political party into a meme factory has even eased some of Washington’s dysfunction. While Republicans were pitching their podcasts and talking about Dr. Seuss and his imaginary canceling—Cruz began selling copies of Green Eggs and Ham, signed by himself—Democrats pushed through a $1.9 trillion covid relief and stimulus package with little dissent.
In March, Trump, banned from Facebook and Twitter, announced that he was considering launching his own social media network. “I’m doing things having to do with putting our own platform out there,” he promised. “You’ll be hearing about [it] soon.” The website he unveiled didn’t amount to much, but that’s what made it so perfectly Trump—there’s not supposed to be a there there. Meanwhile, younger Republicans aiming to take his place continued their auditions. In April, Marco Rubio called on the government to treat companies that pollute “our culture” just as harshly as it treats companies that pollute our water—sort of like an Environmental Protection Agency for tweets. Cruz, himself accused of poisoning the discourse by John Boehner, polled his hive on whether he should shoot the former speaker of the House’s new book with a machine gun.
But none of the Republicans vying for Trump’s role have embraced the new posting reality as fluidly as DeSantis. In May, not long after guaranteeing Florida politicians the right to shitpost, DeSantis scored his biggest coup yet: passage of a bill to roll back voting access in the state, fueled by Trump’s lies about the 2020 election. When it came time to sign it, local reporters were stopped at the door—only a crew from Fox and Friends got in. DeSantis had turned an attack on fundamental rights into a live television event. Supporters of the ex-president stood behind him, cheering on cue, as the governor bantered with the hosts via satellite. Then he picked up a blue Sharpie, scrawled his name, and held up the embossed legislation for the cameras.
Trump may be gone, but the show never ends.
===
===
https://www.alternet.org/2021/06/joe-biden-gop/
biden not good for gop $raising; mtg called him socialist fail 621 an
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===
https://www.alternet.org/2021/05/david-brody-marjorie-taylor-greene/
cbn defends holo comment
===
https://www.alternet.org/2021/05/gop-hate-crimes/
raw
The "COVID-19 Hate Crimes Act" signed into law Thursday by President Joe Biden has been hailed as a rare breakthrough in the partisan gridlock that poisons American politics.
That's a fair assessment, given that the law was passed by whopping margins of 94-1 in the Senate and 364-62 in the House of Representatives. The big story was the bipartisan goodwill -- however fleeting -- that accompanied a measure that will, among other things, provide long-overdue greater protections to members of the AAPI community.
But every silver lining has a cloud in Washington D.C. So it's not unreasonable to wonder who would possibly stoop so low as to vote against a resolution "condemning the horrific shootings in Atlanta, Georgia on March 16th and reaffirming the House's commitment to combating hate, bigotry, and violence against the AAPI community."
The answer is 63 Republican members of Congress. But not just any 63.
They are the worst of the worst, a veritable who's who of the most hateful, treasonous and otherwise irrational voices on the national landscape.
Missouri Senator Josh Hawley reveled in his lone "no" vote in the Senate. His quest to claim the title as most bodacious seditionist this side of the Dear Leader could not have been more transparent.
On the House side, 62 members shamelessly stood apart from 147 other Republicans to take a collective public stand on behalf of hatred. All of them have terms that expire in 2022 -- and almost none have anything to fear electorally other than perhaps a primary from their right -- so they fired stray bullets in the culture war. Or perhaps they really love hate.
Considering that their fellow 147 Republicans have a pretty clear record of enabling Trump and his racist agenda, it's no small feat to put together a group that makes the others moderate in comparison. They've definitely planted their QAnon-ish flag.
What has emerged is the handiest roster of the nastiest scoundrels in the House.
Most striking about the 62 House members-- overlooked in the media focus on bipartisanship -- is the high-profile nature of this rogue's gallery. Virtually every major reprobate of the Far-Right defiantly went out of the way to make it more difficult to protect the AAPI community from acts of hatred.
It's an all-villains registry featuring the biggest of the big names: Matt Gaetz, Lauren Boebert, Marjorie Taylor Green, Mo Brooks, Louie Gohmert, Jim Jordan, Madison Cawthorn, Paul Gosar, Ronny Jackson, Andy Biggs and more. If they're in Congress and have made a public splash on behalf of insurrection, racism and the like, they're almost certainly listed in this program guide.
To borrow a phrase offered today by ultra-conservative Rep. Liz Cheney, these people embody "evil lunacy." And though not all of the 62 hate enablers are household names, as a group they share one trait: This isn't their first act of treachery, just the most recent.
Consider some statistics:
Of the 62 members, 40 were among those joining as a group the disgraced and dismissed December lawsuit in Texas to overturn the results of the 2020 election. A unanimous U.S. Supreme Court flipped it aside.
Another 17 of the members weren't part of that legal effort because they hadn't yet taken office. These freshmen members of Congress represent 38% of the Republican class of newcomers--a chilling glimpse into the direction the party is heading.
Of the remaining five members, three -- Gosar, Cole and Davidson -- didn't join the lawsuit (citing concerns over federalism) but did vote to overturn the election on January 6. The others, Massie and Roy, have still continued to support the Big Lie.
Sixty of the 62 members voted to overturn the results, with two -- Mace and Massie -- saying Congress lacked power to do so (while repeating the Big Lie about the election having been stolen from Trump).
In a strange footnote, Cole claims he voted "no" by mistake on the anti-hate bill and had that read into the Congressional record. His official "no" vote stands in the final count.
Here, as reported at CNN, is an alphabetical list of the House Republicans who voted againstthe COVID-19 Hate Crimes Act:
Robert Aderholt of Alabama
Rick Allen of Georgia
Jodey Arrington of Texas.
Brian Babin of Texas
Jim Banks of Indiana
Andy Biggs of Arizona
Dan Bishop of North Carolina
Lauren Boebert of Colorado
Mo Brooks of Alabama
Ted Budd of North Carolina
Tim Burchett of Tennessee
Kat Cammack of Florida
Jerry Carl of Alabama
Madison Cawthorn of North Carolina
Michael Cloud of Texas
Andrew Clyde of Georgia
Tom Cole of Oklahoma
Warren Davidson of Ohio
Byron Donalds of Florida
Jeff Duncan of South Carolina
Virginia Foxx of North Carolina
Matt Gaetz of Florida
Louie Gohmert of Texas
Bob Good of Virginia
Lance Gooden of Texas
Paul Gosar of Arizona
Mark Green of Tennessee
Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia
Michael Guest of Mississippi
Andy Harris of Maryland
Diana Harshbarger of Tennessee
Kevin Hern of Oklahoma
Yvette Herrell of New Mexico
Jody Hice of Georgia
Clay Higgins of Louisiana
Ronny Jackson of Texas
Mike Johnson of Louisiana
Jim Jordan of Ohio
Trent Kelly of Mississippi
Doug LaMalfa of California
Barry Loudermilk of Georgia
Nancy Mace of South Carolina
Tracey Mann of Kansas
Thomas Massie of Kentucky
Tom McClintock of California
Mary Miller of Illinois
Alex Mooney of West Virginia
Barry Moore of Alabama
Ralph Norman of South Carolina
Steven Palazzo of Mississippi
Gary Palmer of Alabama
Scott Perry of Pennsylvania
August Pfluger of Texas
Tom Rice of South Carolina
John Rose of Tennessee
Matt Rosendale of Montana
David Rouzer of North Carolina
Chip Roy of Texas
John Rutherford of Florida
Greg Steube of Florida
Tom Tiffany of Wisconsin
Randy Weber of Texas
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===
Marjorie Taylor Greene says Nancy Pelosi's COVID policies are 'exactly' like the Holocaust
David Badash The New Civil Rights Movement
https://www.alternet.org/2021/05/marjorie-taylor-greene-2653074645/
===
no twt pix dress all blk looks like skater chick
U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA)is leading the charge among House Republicans to refuse to follow Speaker Nancy Pelosi's rule continuing the mask mandate, with at least a dozen far right lawmakers flouting their obligation.
"Masks are oppressive and nothing but a political tool. End the oppression!" Greene tweeted Tuesday.
As with many issues from the far right House members, they are literally the cause of their own issues. The House mask mandate has remained in place because, according to CNN, less than half of the House members say they are vaccinated. One hundred percent of House Democrats are, the unvaccinated are all Republicans.
Forbes' Andrew Solender reports among those refusing to wear masks on the House floor are "some of the House's most vocal right-wingers: Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), Laure Boebert (R-Colo.), Mary Miller (R-Ill.), Ralph Norman (R-S.C.), Chip Roy (R-Texas), Louie Gohmert (R-Texas), Madison Cawthorn (R-N.C.), Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) and Beth Van Duyne (R-Texas)."
The hypocrisy isn't limited to refusing to be vaccinated.
Congressman Jamie Raskin (D-MD), the Chairman of the House Subcommittee on Civil Rights and Civil Liberties, according to Solender, "says he 'got into it' with the GOP lawmakers and joked that they are pro-choice when they told him the mandate is a 'violation of their right to decide for themselves.'"
They replied 'absolutely not, it's a totally different thing,' he says."
The U.S. is approaching 34 million cases of COVID-19, and just passed 600,000 coronavirus deaths.
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https://www.alternet.org/2021/05/arizona-audit-2653014328/ "bloodbath" gop civil war ninja?
----
ineptitude
https://www.alternet.org/2021/05/maricopa-county-audit/
---
https://www.alternet.org/2021/05/doj-trump/
Four right wing GOP lawmakers on Monday teamed up to send a letter advancing a far right conspiracy theory promoted by Donald Trump over the weekend.
U.S. Reps. Matt Gaetz (R-FL), Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), Andy Biggs (R-AZ), and Paul Gosar (R-AZ) have signed the joint letter drafted by the embattled Florida Congressman to the top DOJ official in charge of civil rights, telling her to stay out of the Maricopa Country, Arizona recount. That recount, being conducted by a company that has no experience in election recounts and that has been soliciting funds for the effort despite that the taxpayers fund it, has now been going on for well over three weeks, with no end in sight.
The four extremist lawmakers include a man accused and under DOJ investigation for possible sex-trafficking and possible sex with a minor; a QAnon supporter accused of illegal tax fraud; and a white nationalist. All have voted to overturn the 2020 election.
Their letter is addressed to Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General Pamela Karlan of the Civil Rights Division of the United States Department of Justice.
In the letter they claim: "It has also been widely reported that before the equipment was delivered to independent auditors, an entire 'Database' directory of election information was deleted from the Election Management System Primary machine. According to Senator Fann, 'this suggests that the main database for all election related data for the November 2020 General Election has been removed.'"
On Saturday in a blog post Donald Trump wrote, "The entire database of Maricopa County in Arizona, has been DELETED!"
The claim is absolutely false, according to the Republican county recorder in Maricopa County, Stephen Richer, who calls Trump's conspiracy theory "unhinged" and "insane":
[twt mentions newsmax]
the four Republican end the letter by demanding a response by Thursday.
===
an 521marjorie Taylor Greene fires up Florida crowd with 'Big Lie' that Trump is still president
Bob Brigham Raw Story May 07, 2021
Controversial QAnon Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) pushed the "Big Lie" that Trump won the 2020 election during a Friday evening rally at a Florida retirement community with Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL).
"God bless you guys," Greene said.
"Alright, I just got to check something, I just want to make sure I'm the right place," she said. "Tell me, who is your president?"
"Trump!" the crowd roared in response as Greene pumped a fist in the air.
"That's my president, too," she told them. "I just want to be sure I'm with friends and family, not with antifa or BLM or Democrat (sic) socialists."
"Did anyone in hear vote for Joe Biden? Do you guys really think he won?" she ask as the crowd shouting "no" despite the fact Joe Biden did, in fact, win.
Watch:
===
gOP's Marjorie Taylor Greene fumes after admitting defeat in costly legal battle
March 27, 2021
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) griped after she was prohibited from blocking other Twitter accounts as part of a lawsuit filed by a Los Angeles-based political action committee.
==
prolly neglect regular BS guam ambush
https://www.alternet.org/2021/03/marjorie-taylor-geen/
===
https://www.alternet.org/2021/02/marjorie-taylor-greene-2650703861/
~ lgbt god
---
https://www.alternet.org/2021/02/marjorie-taylor-greene-2650333948/
Last night, nearly a dozen Republicans joined all the Democrats in the House to strip Marjorie Taylor Greene, a Donald Trump protégé from Georgia, of her committee appointments — in particular, her place on the powerful House Budget Committee. This was in response to her incendiary speech and fear-mongering before taking office. In effect, they neutralized her, as it were. If you don't have a seat at the table, especially the big government money table, you don't have much in the way of leverage or bargaining.
You could say, however, this was her second neutralizing. The first one she did herself. As Jonathan Bernstein noted this morning, it's not like Greene went to Washington to govern. Her role is demagogic. Leverage and bargaining, bills and laws—these are beside the point. The main point is creating conditions in which she can appear to be in a near-total state of persecution to speak for Americans who feel the same way.
Marjorie Taylor Greene did not go to Washington to represent the will of the people, because, to God's chosen people, representing the will of "the people" is an abomination.
Constituents from Georgia's most conservative corner didn't send her to the United States Congress to represent them, to fight for their interests or their share of the big government money, to "bring home the bacon." They sent her to Capitol Hill to die on that hill, like Jesus Christ on the Cross at Calvary, in order to reenact the suffering of God's chosen at the hands of His enemies. Her job is to manufacture crisis in the absence of one. "The whole point of evangelicalism is that you get to constantly be persecuted,"said Chrissy Stroop, "and you enjoy moral superiority from that."
A worldview in which you're always persecuted is a worldview in which you're never responsible, because being responsible would mean you're possibly to blame, which is impossible, because the persecuted are always blameless.Acting out some measure of contrition, when absolutely forced to, is an opportunity to show why you're always persecuted. Before the vote last night, Greene said she was being wrongfully accused, and because of that, the Democrats should be apologizing to her, not the other way around, which totally makes sense given they're the enemies of God's chosen people. [TURMP ALSO AGENT OF CHAOS, B/C GOV'T IS ALWAYS ALREADY BROKEN CORRUPT, PARALYSIS IS GOOD DEFENSE; ALSO // HE HAS 2 MODES, I AM A WINNER OR I AM THE VICTIM B/C THEY KEPT ME FROM WINNING FOR YOU [WHICH DOES NOT NEC MEAN ENACT BILL THAT WILL MAKE YOUR LIFE BETTER B/C SEE ABOVE, BUT BEAT UP OUR ENEMIES DEMS POC]
"I was allowed to believe things that weren't true,[HUH? PASSIVE, BY WHOM?] and I would ask questions about them and talk about them, and that is absolutely what I regret," Greene said. "Because if it weren't for the Facebook posts and comments that I liked in 2018, I wouldn't be standing here today, and you couldn't point a finger and accuse me of anything wrong." [SO SHE WAS THE BRAVE SEEKER OF TRUTH, BUT HER ERROR WAS WRITING IT DOWN SO SHE CAN'T DENY IT NOW? // CHENEY NOTE STRATEGY]
A worldview in which you're accountable to God only, rather than to people of equal worth and dignity with whom you share responsibility in human affairs, is a worldview inherently hostile to a free republic. It will not tolerate diverse interests, nor will it tolerate a republic's tendency to flatten hierarchies of power and privilege. But "demographic change," as the thinking goes, is not the only reason for this hostility.
Marjorie Taylor Greene did not go to Washington to represent the will of the people, because, to God's chosen, representing the will of "the people" is an abomination. Authority does not arise from below, from the consent of the governed. It comes from above, from God. It doesn't matter to Greene that she was removed from committees—that the tools of lawful democratic engagement with other human beings worthy of dignity and respect were taken away—because democracy is the problem. To engage democratically in a republic of equals is to make common cause with the enemy.
Jim Jordan, the House Republican, made a lot of noise the day before Thursday's vote. On Fox, he portrayed accountability for Greene as a "slippery slope." "Who's next?" he said. If the Democrats "keep attacking people, their First Amendment free speech rights, where does it end? … It won't stop with Republicans. It'll go to all of us. If we don't stop it now, every single American is at risk. And that's what concerns me."
Jordan, Greene and most of the rest of the Republicans do fear a slippery slope, but it's not a slippery slope into tyranny. It's a slippery slope into freedom—for all. What they aim to preserve is a social hierarchy that protects but does not bind the privileged few while it binds but does not protect the unprivileged many. What they want is a state in which the small in-group and the huge out-group are separate and unequal. What they fear is a slippery slope threatening to bring liberty and justice to everyone else.
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AOC accused of hysterical overreation to 1/5 she relates sex assault survivor; on floor of house? ~ MTG male dem leader steny hoyer shownd mtg poster squad B&W worst nightmare ar15 aviators // seal team action hero
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===
https://www.alternet.org/2021/02/marjorie-taylor-green/
conason joe
With their cowardly refusal to discipline Marjorie Taylor Greene, the retreat from integrity of the House Republicans is now complete. Only under the threat of sanctions against Greene by House Democrats did Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) even pretend to address the Georgia representative's many offenses against decency, comity, and sanity. And when the Republican caucus met behind closed doors, McCarthy's weak leadership allowed Greene to take over the meeting, which reportedly concluded in applause for her.
What were the Republicans applauding? The gun-toting Greene has not apologized for any of her endorsements of violence, including those spittle-flecked threats to assassinate House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. She hasn't withdrawn any of her racist slurs against Blacks and Muslims, or her gutter excursions into anti-Semitic fantasy. Only under duress has Greene admitted the reality of the 9/11 attack and the school shootings upon which she had cast paranoid doubt, after inflicting renewed grief on the families of the dead. She didn't apologize to them, either.
Behind closed doors, Greene reportedly told her Republican colleagues that she is sorry for embarrassing them. Her alibi was that she was drawn to QAnon only because she was suffering a "dark period" in her life. Yet that too was a lie. She praised the conspiracy cult on Twitter as recently as December 4.
So this wretched character deserves to be booted off the prestigious budget and education committee assignments that McCarthy had unaccountably awarded her. But with little intellectual aptitude and no interest in policy, she will hardly suffer from that sanction. Instead she now gloats that all the attention to her baneful idiocies is elevating her profile, a boast that is surely accurate. She will bask in attention – and rake in money – from the aggrieved bigots for whom she stands.
There can be no doubt that Greene and others like her pose a continuing threat to democracy, as they proved with bloody ferocity on January 6. In their psychotic fantasies -- as she hinted in her own social media posts -- they would exterminate every Democrat and liberal in America, because "freedom" is only for them and nobody else.
But what these violent extremists are much more likely to destroy is conservatism.
In one of her many defiant public rebukes to her critics, Greene wrote that Pelosi persecutes her because she is "a Christian" and "a conservative." Obviously her brutal style does no credit to Christianity, but it is conservatives who should worry more about her claim to being one of them.
At their best, conservatives are supposed to defend American institutions and values. They are supposed to believe in civility, protocol, manners, and traditional standards. The conservative instinct is to reject excess and uphold personal responsibility. They valued reason and logic over maddening emotion. Or at least those were the things they believed about themselves.
In recent decades, however, that venerable sort of conservatism has increasingly given way to a coarser and uglier version, which is now epitomized by Trump and his followers such as Greene. If she is a conservative, with her crazy theories about a Jewish space laser and her stupid prejudices, then conservatism is intellectually bankrupt and merely a political scrim for fascism.
This was the same danger perceived by William F. Buckley, the framer of modern conservatism, when he sought to isolate the authoritarian and conspiratorial John Birch Society from his movement. With its wild accusations against Dwight Eisenhower and its hatred of democracy, he knew that the society would poison conservatism in its cradle.
Some Republicans, notably including Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and a handful of Senators and Representatives, seem to recognize this peril. The question is whether they have the courage and energy for a sustained fight against it....Prominent GOP 'mega-donors' enthusiastically supported ... ...Marjorie Taylor Greene gets a standing ovation in closed-door ... ›
===
qAnon-loving Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene in 2018 posted a bizarre conspiracy theory on her Facebook page involving then-California Gov. Jerry Brown using a giant space laser to deliberately start wildfires.
Media Matters on Thursday revealed that Greene, in a since-deleted Facebook post from November 2018, speculated that Brown started the fires in order to clear out forests in areas where he wanted to build a high-speed rail line up the California coast.
At the center of Greene's theory was a partnership between utility company Pacific Gas and Electricity (PG&E) and renewable energy startup Solaren.
Greene argued that PG&E and Solaren sent solar power generators up into space that were then used to beam the sun's energy back down to Earth to start the California wildfires.
===
https://www.alternet.org/2021/02/qanon-party/
rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, the QAnon-loving construction heiress who recently won a deep-red congressional seat in Georgia, is getting quite a bit of attention for her nutty, violent, and racist views that she has long enjoyed sharing freely on social media. There is no doubt that she's a doozy, from her 2019 video demanding that her followers "flood the Capitol" and use violence "if we have to" to her 2018 Facebook post blaming wildfires on Jews with space lasers. Democrats in Congress have been making hay over Greene's committee assignments, using the presence of someone who stalked a school shooting survivor on the House Education and Labor Committee to embarrass House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy and highlight the way that extremism has been mainstreamed in the GOP.
The whole situation is apparently too much for Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., who started to insult Greene in public on Monday, in a belated bid to suggest that the QAnon faction is more fringe in the Republican Party than it actually is. "Loony lies and conspiracy theories are cancer for the Republican Party and our country," McConnell groused in a statement that did not name Greene explicitly. Sen. Todd C. Young of Indiana, a close colleague of McConnell's, picked up the baton on Tuesday, calling Greene "nutty" and "an embarrassment to our party."
It's tempting to be comforted by these words and to imagine that powerful Republicans are drawing a line in the sand when it comes to how far the party will go in catering to the extremist element. In reality, however, it's just a feint to make McConnell appear to be a reasonable person while he continues to empower and support the fascistic faction of the GOP. This is about looking good to the cable news pundits while not doing anything substantive that would actually curtail the power of the Trumpist right.
"[E]verything Greene has said, done and endorsed has been similarly said, done and endorsed by Donald Trump,"Josh Marshall of Talking Points Memo noted, arguing that Greene is a "scape goat some Republicans are trying to push off the cliff to expiate the sins of Donald Trump, who they can never cross."
As usual, this is a situation where it's more useful to look at what Republican leadership does, rather than what they say.
What Republicans are planning to do is let Trump off the hook for inciting a violent insurrection at the Capitol on January 6. Ninety percent of Senate Republicans voted against even holding a trial for Trump, using nonsense procedural objections, because they know full well that he's guilty and can't be defended on the merits.
There is no wiggle room here: Acquitting Trump is endorsing his insurrection. Trump himself made that clear by getting rid of a legal team that expressed queasiness about centering his lies about a "stolen" election. His new lawyers are more willing to make Trump's false claims about election fraud part of their defense.
Senate Republicans want to have it both ways. They want to encourage and benefit the kinds of conspiracy theorists that stormed the Capitol, because they think pandering to these people — and coddling their "god-emperor" Trump — is the way to win elections. But they also don't want to look like a bunch of loons and fascists, wanting to present themselves as eminent statesmen on the Sunday shows. That's why Senate Republicans are flipping out over the very idea that the House impeachment managers might bring forward actual evidence in Trump's impeachment trial next week. Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina was so freaked out at the idea of hearing testimony from victims of the Capitol riot that he made a bunch of impotent and incoherent threats that he would retaliate by having "the FBI to come in" to talk about "the security footprint at the Capitol." (Not sure why this would bother Democrats, who have also criticized Capitol security and even forced the Capitol Police chief to resign.)
It's no mystery why Graham and other Republicans don't want Democrats airing live testimony from Capitol officers and congressional staff who were assaulted and terrorized by rabid Trump fans attempting to overturn an election. The severity of the injuries and the trauma will underscore how truly depraved it is of Senate Republicans to acquit Trump of his crime.
Greene makes an easy scapegoat for Republicans. For one thing, she's a woman, and it's always easier to make a spectacle of women in power than it is to do the same to men. Note that McConnell and his buddies aren't targeting Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida, even though he was filmed cheering on the insurrectionists at the Capitol, or Rep. Madison Cawthorne of North Carolina, who keeps doing uncomfortably Nazi-friendly stuff.
For another thing, Greene relishes the attention, dramatically playing the victim of "career politicians" who "murdered babies with your tax dollars." Few, if any, people have ever been so excited and eager to step into the role of the bug-eyed lunatic here to make the rest of the caucus seem saner by comparison.
But it's all a charade.
Even if Republicans toss Greene on her duff, the larger problem — that the party is catering to a radical minority who supports the insurrection and has soured on democracy itself — remains in place. We know this because Republicans are doing everything they can to shield Trump from the consequences of inciting an insurrection. If Republicans really wanted to clean house, they'd start by convicting Trump and barring him from running for president again. Their unwillingness to do this shows that the GOP really is the party of QAnon now, regardless of what happens to their most obnoxious new congresswoman.
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===
===
is gaetz pro greene or just ~ Liz C?
https://www.alternet.org/2021/02/marjorie-taylor-greene-2650284645
no lnx twt
members of the House Republican caucus gave Rep. Marjorie Taylor Green (R-GA) a standing ovation Wednesday evening after the QAnon Congresswoman gave a short speech defending herself. About an hour earlier Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy announced his support of Greene and refused to strip her of her committee assignments.
NBC News and MSNBC political analyst Jake Sherman, a cofounder of Punchbowl News, tweeted that "roughly 30 more members of the House Republican Conference are waiting to speak tonight about @Liz_Cheney and her future." Cheney faces losing her leadership position in the GOP House caucus for voting to impeach President Donald Trump.
Sherman later added:
...
Vice News senior political reporter Cameron Joseph confirms, saying the number of Republicans giving a standing ovation to Greene is about half.
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Marjorie Taylor Greene: Most House Republicans silent over viole
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an 121 kinda squishy ~?
QAnon Congresswoman Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) caused quite an uproar when she revealed her plan to file articles of impeachment against newly-elected President Joe Biden just one day after his inauguration. Many of Biden's Democratic supporters have pushed back against Greene's efforts, but they are not the only ones who disapprove.
According to The Hill, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) has also made it clear he does not agree with Greene's stance or her effort to move forward with articles of impeachment against Biden.
On Friday, Jan. 23, McCarthy conducted an interview with Greta Van Susteren where he weighed in with his opinion on the newly-elected lawmaker's plan. While he admitted that he does not agree with her, he also noted that she does have a right to move forward with her agenda.
"I called her. I disagree with that. That's exactly what the Democrats did with President Trump, and why we disagreed with when they wanted to come after him for purely political reasons," McCarthy said. "I think Republicans are better than that. That this is one of the arguments we used against the Democrats, and I don't think we should use it either."
"She has a right to, as an elected member of Congress to submit those," he added, "I just don't think the timing and the case is right at this time, in this moment."
McCarthy's remarks come just days after Greene released a statement arguing that Biden is "unfit to hold the office of the presidency." Less than one day after Biden was elected Greene also charged that Biden displayed a pattern of abusing his powers when he served as Vice President from 2008 to 2016.
"President Joe Biden is unfit to hold the office of the presidency. His pattern of abuse of power as President Obama's Vice President is lengthy and disturbing," Greene said in a statement on Thursday, Jan 21. "President Biden has demonstrated that he will do whatever it takes to bail out his son, Hunter, and line his family's pockets with cash from corrupt foreign energy companies."...
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https://www.mediamatters.org/false-flag-conspiracy-theory/rep-marjorie-taylor-greene-facebook-2018-parkland-school-shooting-was false flag
In a previously unreported interaction, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) agreed with a 2018 Facebook comment that the deadly mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, was actually a “false flag” planned event.
In a separate Facebook post in 2018, Greene also claimed: “I am told that Nancy Pelosi tells Hillary Clinton several times a month that ‘we need another school shooting’ in order to persuade the public to want strict gun control.”
Greene was a right-wing commentator before successfully running for Congress in Georgia’s 14th Congressional District. She has pushed the QAnon and Pizzagate conspiracy theories; falsely claimed that there’s no evidence a plane crashed into the Pentagon on 9/11; labeled the 2018 pipe bomb packages to members of Congress and others a hoax; accused the Obama administration of killing former Democratic staffer Seth Rich; and pushed anti-Muslim and anti-Semitic rhetoric, among other things.
Greene has frequently used social media to spread misinformation, toxic rhetoric, and conspiracy theories. Twitter recently suspended Greene’s Twitter account for 12 hours after she spread lies about the U.S. Senate elections in Georgia.
On February 14, 2018, a gunman took the lives of 17 people in a school shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. The tragedy spurred survivors to become activists and call for new gun laws.
The shooting also resulted in conspiracy theories, including the claim that it was a “false flag” event -- an incident that is either faked or planned by someone other than the actual perpetrator -- to take away people’s guns. Those toxic claims were especially spread through right-wing and social media.
Greene, now a member of Congress, was one of those people who spread such claims on Facebook. In May 2018, she posted a story about disgraced Broward County sheriff’s deputy Scot Peterson receiving a retirement pension.
In the comments section, someone wrote: “It’s called a pay off to keep his mouth shut since it was a false flag planned shooting.” Greene replied: “Exactly.” (Update 1/20/21: These remarks have since been removed.)...
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roger/roy cohn delta deny all, make ctr-accusation keep head down and keep moving?
there's this odd kneejerk projection mirror (crypto?) move to accuse left of whatever right /gop has just been busted for usually with facts/evidence to right offers none? eg Gaetz left stole election, insurrection was antifa...made easier/required by echo/escalaot post truth trump maga world?
https://www.alternet.org/2021/01/marjorie-green/ will impeach biden
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1120 rww stop the steal dc march
greene:
Marjorie Taylor Greene, the QAnon-supporting Republican from Georgia who will be walking the halls of Congress come January, closed out the rally at Freedom Plaza with a torrent of falsehoods, offering a sense of what kind of colleague she’ll be on Capitol Hill.
“This is only the beginning,” she said. “The Democrat Party is the party of socialism, the party of riots, the party that wants to murder babies up until birth and make taxpayers pay for it, they’re the party that wants to take away your guns.”
With that, the rally blasted the song “YMCA” unironically, and the march to the Supreme Court began. ...
...The far-right QAnon conspiracy theory also made a showing, with the QAnon slogan, “Where we go one, we go all,” abbreviated to “WWG1WGA,” on T-shirts, “Q” pins on hats, and posters about child-sex-trafficking. One man wore a sweatshirt that read, “Investigate Pizzagate,” referring to the debunked Pizzagate conspiracy theory that preceded QAnon and ended with a gunman showing up to a Washington, D.C., pizzeria.
Meanwhile, Alex Jones, who pushed that theory, was given the microphone on the same stage at which recent electeds Lauren Boebert and Madison Cawthorn, who both have dabbled in QAnon, would later speak.
After claiming that “globalists are making their move against us,” Jones led the crowd in a prayer. “We absolutely commit to you on your holy altar to never submit to Satan and these globalist pedophiles, and we will defeat their new world order. Amen!” he yelled before starting the crowd on a “U-S-A!” chant.
...
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https://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/qanon-supporters-win-seats-in-congress-city-council/
several politicians with ties to the far-right QAnon conspiracy theory have been elected to positions of power.
Republican Marjorie Taylor Greene [pix w/ uzi ar15] was declared the winner in Georgia’s 14th Congressional District, becoming the first QAnon supporter to win a U.S. House seat.She wasfollowed shortly thereafter by mixed martial arts fighter Tito Ortiz, a fellow QAnon supporter who was elected to Huntington Beach City Council.
Greene made headlines for her anti-Muslim, anti-Semitic, and bigoted statements, reported on back in June. Videos acquired by Politico appeared to show her comparing Black Lives Matter to the Klu Klux Klan, claiming that Muslims should be banned from serving in the U.S. government, and propagating anti-Semitic statements about billionaire George Soros.
The Georgia Republican also faced scrutiny for her support for QAnon, a far-right conspiracy theory turned virtual cult that claims a cabal of elite pedophiles made up of Hollywood actors, Democrats, and other high-ranking officials, is behind a global child sex-trafficking ring. The Federal Bureau of Investigation has labeled the movement a “potential domestic terror threat.”
“Q is a patriot, we know that for sure,” Greene said in a 2017 video, which has since been deleted. “There’s a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to take this global cabal of Satan-worshiping pedophiles out, and I think we have the President to do it.”
Despite her controversial statements and tinfoil hat conspiracies, Greene received support from influential GOP donors, as well as from groups associated with White House chief of staff Mark Meadows.
As for Ortiz, the MMA fighter finished first among 15 candidates in the Huntington Beach city council race, receiving 14.3 percent of the overall total (34,901 votes). He will serve a four-year term once he is sworn in.
Ortiz, known as the “Huntington Beach Bad Boy” during his MMA career, was elected without any previous political experience. A fierce Trump loyalist, the fighter used his platform to amplify the president, associate with far-right groups, and propagate dangerous conspiracy theories such as QAnon, all while campaigning with the Trumpian slogan of “Making Huntington Beach Safe Again.”
For a while, Ortiz sold apparel marked with QAnon slogans such as WWG1WGA (short for Where We Go One We Go All) through his Punishment Athletics clothing line. (It appears that Ortiz has since removed the QAnon apparel from his site.) He also claimed that the coronavirus was “man-made” and a political scam devised to suppress protests around the world. “Once again, it’s population control by the left. They’re trying to get rid of all the older people who are getting Social Security,” Ortiz:{ }
:{ }:during a podcast appearance.:{ }:
Ortiz, who ran as a conservative, was endorsed by the Huntington Beach Police Officers Association, the Republican Party of Orange County, former Huntington Beach mayor and convicted felon Dave Garofalo, as well as Orange County Sheriff Don Barnes.
(Author note: Right Wing Watch covered Ortiz’s campaign, including his support for the QAnon movement, here
It should also be noted that Lauren Boebert, the Colorado Republican who was criticized for supporting QAnon, won the race for Colorado’s 3rd Congressional District on Wednesday.Back in May, Boebert joined QAnon conspiracy theorist Ann Vandersteel on her “Steel Truth” program, where she said she believed the conspiracy theory was “only motivating and encouraging and bringing people together, stronger—and if this is real, then it can be really great for our country.” Boebert was endorsed by the American Conservative Union, which hosts the annual The Conservative Political Action Conference.
According to The New York Times, Boebert has since “disavowed” the baseless conspiracy theory.
Republican Madison Cawthorn will also be heading to Congress as the youngest member elected in modern U.S. history. The 25 year old defeated Democrat Moe Davis for North Carolina’s 11th Congressional District. He came under scrutiny earlier this year for Instagram photos that show him visiting Adolf Hitler’s vacation house in Germany in 2017. And while he reportedly disavowed QAnon, he repeated some of the child sex trafficking claims promoted by the far-right conspiracy theory.
“But what’s really going on is we are having a large group of cartels coming into our country, kidnapping our American children and then taking them to sell them on a slave market, on the sex slave market,” Cawthorn said in a campaign video posted on Instagram.
Tags: Lauren Boebert Madison Cawthorn Marjorie Taylor Greene Tito Ortiz QAnon
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an 1020
marjorie Taylor Greene, a QAnon conspiracy theorist and Republican candidate who is expected to win her House race in Georgia next month, donated $450,000 to her own campaign after receiving a six-figure Paycheck Protection Program loan from the government for her construction company.
Greene, who has promoted the QAnon conspiracy theory and posted videos attacking Black people, Muslims and Jews, won the Republican primary in Georgia's 14th congressional district in August despite opposition from Republican leaders. She is almost certain to take over the seat now held by retiring Republican Rep. Tom Graves, especially after her Democratic opponent dropped out of the race last month in a district President Trump carried by 50 points. Trump has since praised Greene as a "future Republican star."
Greene's bid was partially funded by a super PAC allied with the House Freedom Caucus, which has opposed additional funding to provide coronavirus relief to Americans. Greene has opposed additional spending as well, declaring in a Facebook video that "the best stimulus for Americans is allowing Americans to go back to work!"
Despite her opposition to the stimulus funding and the PPP, her family's company, Taylor Commercial, received a six-figure PPP loan worth between $150,000 and $350,000 earlier this year. New York Magazine reported that her name had stopped appearing on the company's registration forms in 2012 but was added back in 2019.
Greene, who had loaned her campaign $900,000, donated $450,000 to her campaign about two months after the PPP loan, according to Federal Election Commission records.
Her main opponent in the Republican primary, neurosurgeon John Cowan, raised questions about the donation during the campaign.
"Earlier this week, you said that you didn't want Congress to pass more COVID-related emergency funds for businesses. But your business took as much as $350,000 in PPP loans from the federal government at the same time you were putting $900,000 into your campaign,"
. "So if you don't need the money and you have the discretionary funds, will you commit to returning that money to the citizens?"
Greene accused Cowan of being "disconnected" from business owners and "people who have struggled during this government shutdown."
"I am appalled at the fact that you cannot comprehend that I have a construction company and we can't do construction remotely at home," she said, not denying that she opposed the very funds that her company drew from.
"Construction companies were considered essential and they didn't shut down," Cowan shot back. "So you were making plenty of money — plus you used $900,000 of your own money during the campaign. Don't you think you had a little extra to pay your employees? I find it disingenuous that you took money from taxpayers to pay for your employees while you were paying yourself."
Spencer Hogg, Cowan's campaign manager, later said in a statement that Greene's company "wasn't one of those facing hardships."
"She says she's a fiscal conservative, she said last week that she opposed additional emergency funding for businesses forced to close because of COVID, but as we've seen on multiple issues, Marjorie doesn't let principle interfere with self-interest," he said in a statement. "If she has enough money to spend nearly $1 million to advance her own political ambitions, then she has enough to pay her employees, particularly in an industry that didn't have to stop working during the lockdown."
Greene's campaign did not respond to questions from Salon.
Greene is not the only Republican candidate who has self-funded a campaign while taking PPP loans.
Former Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., received a PPP loan for one of his companies worth between $150,000 and $350,000 in May, weeks before he loaned his campaign $150,000. Issa, who has a net worth of $280 million to $400 million and was the richest member of Congress between 2000 and 2018, is trying to stage a political comeback by running for the Southern California seat recently vacated by convicted former Rep. Duncan Hunter, a Republican.
Issa's Democratic opponent ,Ammar Campa-Najjar, called for "millionaires like Darrell Issa" to be banned from collecting PPP loans during a debate last week.
Issa said at the debate that he opposed funding the PPP entirely, arguing it would be "foolhardy" and that "paying people not to work has run its course."
Another California Republican candidate, Michelle Steele, also received a PPP loan worth between $150,000 and $350,000 in April for her family law firm. She donated $500,000 to her campaign in California's 48th congressional district against Rep. Harley Rouda, a Democratic freshman narrowly elected in the 2018 "blue wave."
Rep. Vern Buchanan, a Florida Republican, received PPP loans worth up to $7 million for his auto dealerships before donating $250,000 to his campaign.
Accountable.US, a progressive watchdog group that tracks recipients of PPP loans, called on all four candidates to return the money to taxpayers.
"The PPP program was meant to save jobs, not bail out business owners looking for a gig in D.C.," spokesman Derek Martin said in a statement to Salon. "These candidates should return this money and tell the president to get back to work on a relief bill that will help all Americans during this pandemic."
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no lnx pix twet
https://www.alternet.org/2020/09/qanon-believing-gop-candidate-threatens-offense-against-the-squad-with-ar-15/
qAnon-believing GOP candidate threatens ‘offense’ against ‘The Squad’ with AR-15
Written by Common Dreams September 13, 2020
The Democratic congressional candidate running in Georgia’s 14th district against Marjorie Taylor Greene, a far-right proponent of the QAnon conspiracy theory, raised alarm Thursday after Greene suggested Republicans “go on the offense” against progressives in Congress.
In an image posted to her official Facebook page, Greene was shown brandishing an AR-15—the same semi-automatic weapon Kyle Rittenhouse used late last month to shoot three protesters in Kenosha, Wisconsin, killing two.
The post also included images of Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), and Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.)—progressive members of what’s been called “The Squad.”
Greene suggested in her caption that progressives who back Medicare for All, a Green New Deal, and far-reaching economic reforms to end sky-rocketing wealth inequality, are “‘Hate America’ leftists” who “want to take this country down.”
00:03
“We need strong conservative Christians to go on the offense against these socialists who want to rip our country apart,” wrote Greene. “Americans must take our country back.”
The post appeared to be a “threatening message” to the congresswomen and the left, Washington Post reporter Rachael Bade tweeted.
“Anyone not realizing that Marjorie Greene really thinks it is justified and patriotic to talk about violently taking out Democrats isn’t actually listening to Marjorie Greene,”tweeted Kevin Van Ausdal, the Democrat running against Greene in November.
Earlier this week, Greene announced on Twitter that she is raffling off her AR-15 to a supporter.
Greene easily won the Republican primary in the district last month, and is widely expected to win the general election.
President Donald Trump called Greene a “future Republican star” last month after her victory, days before giving his tacit endorsement to the QAnon conspiracy theory for which Greene has also expressed support. In June, Politico uncovered footage of Greene espousing Islamophobic views, saying that Muslims such as Omar and Tlaib shouldn’t serve in the U.S. government, and expressing other racist and anti-Semitic beliefs.
In late 2017, Greene recorded a video in which she promoted the QAnon theory, which bizarrely holds—among other things—that Trump was hand-picked by military commanders to take down a global child sex-trafficking ring run by public figures including Hillary Clinton, Oprah Winfrey, and the Dalai Lama.
“There’s a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to take this global cabal of Satan-worshipping pedophiles out, and I think we have the president to do it,” Greene said in the video.
Greene is one of 15 candidates for public office who have verified Twitter accounts and have promoted QAnon, which has been linked to several violent crimes and has been classified as a domestic terror threat by the FBI.
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https://theintercept.com/2020/09/12/georgia-district-14-qanon/
gEORGIA DEMOCRAT DROPS OUT, PAVING THE WAY FOR QANON CANDIDATE TO ENTER CONGRESS
George Chidi
The question now is whether Georgia’s secretary of state will allow Democrats to replace Kevin Van Ausdal on the ballot.
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funny, ithink it was harvard fascist guy or something on alt rt milita portland kenosha suggested next phase is round up dem leaders // Qanon:
https://www.alternet.org/2020/09/gop-candidate-and-qanon-supporter-posts-threatening-picture-targeting-democratic-lawmakers/
no pix twt
one of the summer’s biggest political shockers came when QAnon extremist Marjorie Taylor Greene won a GOP congressional primary in Georgia. Considering how overwhelmingly Republican her district is, she is likely to win the general election and be sworn into the U.S. House of Representatives in January — and Greene, who has a history of racist, anti-Semitic and Islamophobic remarks, now appears to be directing threatening congresswomen of color she is likely to be colleagues with next year.
On her Facebook page, Greene posted an image of herself holding a gun alongside images of three Democratic progressives — Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York City, Rep. Rashida Tlaib of Michigan and Rep. Ilhan Omar of Minnesota — and wrote: “We need strong conservative Christians to go on the offense against these socialists who want to rip our country apart.”
Facebook removed Greene’s post, describing it as a terms of service violation. And Omar is speaking out about the post, accusing her of inciting violence.
Omar tweeted, “Posting a photo with an assault rifle next to the faces of three women of color is not advertising. It’s incitement. There are already death threats in response to this post. Facebook should remove this violent provocation.”
In a different Facebook post attacking those congresswomen, Greene wrote, “Hate America leftists want to take this country down. Politicians have failed this country. I’m tired of seeing weak, establishment Republicans play defense. Our country is on the line. America needs fighters who speak the truth.”
Given Greene’s willingness to promote the unhinged QAnon conspiracy cult, Omar is right to be concerned. QAnon believes that an international ring of pedophiles and Satanists has infiltrated the United States’ federal government and that President Donald Trump was chosen to combat the ring. The “Q” is a reference to an anonymous figure who supporters of the cult believe is giving them updates on Trump’s battle. And the FBI has linked QAnon to acts of violence.”
Ocasio-Cortez, Tlaib and Omar, along with Rep. Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts, comprise the four congresswomen of color who are known as The Squad in the House. All of them were elected during the huge blue wave in the 2018 midterms that gave Democrats control of the House.
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820 mma
qAnon candidate Marjorie Taylor Greene shared an anti-Muslim video that portrayed Jewish people as trying to destroy Europe through immigration.
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https://www.alternet.org/2020/08/prominent-gop-mega-donors-enthusiastically-supported-congressional-candidate-marjorie-taylor-greene-despite-her-extremist-pro-qanon-views-report/
no lnx pix twt
Prominent GOP ‘mega-donors’ enthusiastically supported congressional candidate Marjorie Taylor Greene despite her extremist pro-QAnon views: report
Written by Alex Henderson August 24, 2020
One of this summer’s most disturbing Republican victories came on Tuesday, August 11, when QAnon supporter Marjorie Taylor Greene defeated fellow Republican John Cowan in a primary in Georgia’s 14th Congressional District. Given how overwhelmingly Republican Greene’s district is, she is likely to win in November — and bring her pro-QAnon views to the U.S. House of Representatives. Journalist Julia Carrie Wong discusses Greene’s campaign in an article published in the Guardian on August 24, stressing that some well-known GOP mega-donors have supported the Georgia Republican despite her extreme views.
Greene’s campaign, Wong reports, received financial support from “groups connected to White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows and his wife” as well as “the chairman of the board of prominent conservative think tank the Heritage Foundation” and “multiple Republican mega-donors.”
The QAnon conspiracy cult believes that President Donald Trump, who congratulated Greene after her primary victory, was sent to the White House to combat an international ring of pedophiles and Satanists that has infiltrated the U.S. government and that an anonymous figure named “Q” is giving them updates on Trump’s battle. And Greene gave the QAnon movement her enthusiastic support in a video posted on YouTube in 2017.
In addition to her support of QAnon, Greene has a history of racist, anti-Islam and anti-Semitic remarks. Her opponent in the congressional primary, John Cowan, is a hard-right Trump supporter, but he wasn’t extreme enough for some Republican voters in Georgia’s 14th Congressional District.
Wong notes that Greene “received significant backing” from the House Freedom Fund, a political action committee associated with the far-right House Freedom Caucus — and the Meadows-associated political action committee Your Voice Counts donated $2000 to Greene’s campaign in March.
According to Wong, “Greene received further support from the Meadows family when the RightWomen PAC, whose executive director is Debbie Meadows, Mark’s wife, endorsed Greene and spent $17,500 to oppose Cowan in the runoff…. In addition to spending more than $30,000 on an independent expenditure campaign to support Greene over Cowan, the House Freedom Fund raised nearly $90,000 from its own donors, earmarked for Greene’s campaign. These earmarked donations include $5600 from Barb Van Andel-Gaby, the chairman of the board of the Heritage Foundation, an influential conservative think tank.”
One outfit that is now making a point of distancing itself from Greene is Koch Industries, which donated $5000 to her campaign though its PAC. After Greene’s victory, a spokesperson for Koch contacted AlterNet and stressed that “Koch does not support her campaign” — pointing out that “in June, upon learning of Ms. Greene’s past comments, KOCHPAC immediately requested a refund of its contribution” and saying that Koch does not condone Greene’s “harmful and divisive rhetoric.”
Never Trump conservative Tim Miller, who formerly served as communications director for former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush and is now political director of Republican Voters Against Trump and a frequent contributor to The Bulwark, is vehemently critical of Republicans who have openly supported Greene. Miller told the Guardian, “Getting involved in a primary on behalf of an absolutely insane, conspiracy-minded, explicitly racist candidate in a seat that is reliably conservative is mind-bogglingly irresponsible. This is how you signal to the Trump base, ‘We are with you. We
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https://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/some-republicans-finally-denounced-qanon-thats-great-but-its-too-little-too-late/
analysis
Some prominent Republicans and institutions are stepping up to denounce the QAnon conspiracy theory after Georgia Republican Marjorie Taylor Greene, who has voiced support for the outlandish conspiracy movement, won her primary runoff this week and became Georgia’s all-but-certain next member of Congress.
Condemnations of Greene and the conspiracy theories she believes are a refreshing change of pace in a Republican party that has allowed the QAnon movement to fester and grow in its ranks with tacit silence and winking online engagement. But the unfortunate truth is that any condemnation, no matter how powerful and from what perch, is likely to be ineffective in halting its spread or dissuading believers. QAnon has existed for nearly three years and has grown into an alternative universe to be reckoned with. As I wrote in July: “GOP leaders could have stopped it, and now it may be too late.”
Greene is among the dozens of Republican candidates seeking office this year who have embraced QAnon, a conspiracy theory that at its core alleges a network of demonic child sex abusers is leading the world and plotting its destruction. The FBI considers QAnon a potential source of domestic terrorism; followers of QAnon have been linked to criminal activity, including kidnapping and murder.
Republican Rep. Adam Kinzinger of Illinois denounced QAnon after Greene’s victory, calling it “a fabrication.”
“Could be Russian propaganda or a basement dweller,” Kinzinger tweeted. “Regardless, no place in Congress for these conspiracies."[twt rep k]
the editors of the National Review published a column yesterday urging Republicans to follow Kinzinger’s lead. They wrote:
House Republicans should go further and deny Greene committee assignments when she arrives in Congress in January. Stripping Iowa Republican Steve King of his committee seats in 2019 sent a message that there are boundaries of decency in the GOP that should not be crossed, and it signaled to GOP primary voters in Iowa that they should choose more wisely next time they had an opportunity. Thankfully, Iowans did just that in June.
Any such move would surely lead Greene to conclude there is a conspiracy against her, but some paranoids deserve enemies.
Managing editor of the Washington Examiner Jay Caruso admitted that his earlier doubt that QAnon believers could take power in Congress “was wrong and the GOP invited this mess.”
Politico reported that Republican Rep. Denver Riggleman of Virginia said the GOP would be in trouble if Greene was the face of its future. “QAnon is the mental gonorrhea of conspiracy theories. It’s disgusting and you want to get rid of it as fast as possible,” he said.
But for every condemnation of QAnon, there were congratulations directed at its followers that seemed to ring louder.
President Donald Trump congratulated Greene on her primary runoff win, calling her a “future Republican Star.”
“Congratulations to future Republican Star Marjorie Taylor Greene on a big Congressional primary win in Georgia against a very tough and smart opponent. Marjorie is strong on everything and never gives up – a real WINNER!” Trump tweeted[djt twt]
the Chicago Tribune reports that Greene maintained support from many of her fellow Georgia Republicans, including Sen. Kelly Loeffler and Rep. Doug Collins. “It’s clear that we need more outsiders with business sense in Washington,” Loeffler said. Rep. Matt Gaetz also offered his support to the QAnon candidate Thursday, tweeting, “Proud to be in your corner, Marjorie!”
House Republicans denounced Greene earlier this year after Politico surfaced a trove of videos in which Greene espoused racist and bigoted views. Republicans began to distance themselves from her candidacy and some endorsed her primary opponent, but nearly all remained mum on QAnon.
QAnon conspiracy theories have also taken rootwithin conservative evangelicalism, an essential part of the GOP base.
Tags: Marjorie Taylor Greene Election 2020 QAnon
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https://www.mediamatters.org/qanon-conspiracy-theory/qanon-may-be-coming-congress-and-journalists-need-be-ready
parker m
“Gun-toting” restaurateur Lauren Boebert came out ahead of incumbent Rep. Scott Tipton in the Republican primary for Colorado’s 3rd Congressional District. She was described as a “guns rights activist” by Twitter, USA Today’s headline read, “5-term Rep. Tipton backed by Trump loses in Colorado primary, upset by businesswoman Lauren Boebert,” and The New York Times’ headline about her victory read “Lauren Boebert, Gun-Rights Activist, Upsets House G.O.P. Incumbent in Colorado.”
One aspect of Boebert’s history that initially received less prominent attention was her support of QAnon, a pro-Trump conspiracy theory baselessly alleging that Democratic officials are leaders of a worldwide pedophilia ring. The QAnon movement was name-checked in a leaked May 2019 FBI document highlighting the emergence of conspiracy theory-fueled domestic terrorism threats, and devotees have committed a number of murders, engaged in armed standoffs, and made politically motivated death threats. QAnon followers have vandalized churches, taken police on high-speed chases, and in one case, conspired with fellow followers to commit kidnapping.
“I hope that [QAnon] is real because it only means America is getting stronger and better,” Boebert told QAnon supporter Ann Vandersteel on Vandersteel’s SteelTruth show in May, adding that she was “very familiar” with QAnon. She also appeared on Patriots’ Soapbox, a popular QAnon YouTube channel. Additionally, Boebert appears to have a YouTube account that subscribes to multiple QAnon channels.
Since winning her primary, Boebert has tried to distance herself from the movement, telling Colorado Fox affiliate KDVR, “No. I’m not a follower. This is just a fake attack from the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee,” and adding, “QAnon is a lot of things to different people. I was very vague in what I said before. I’m not into conspiracies. I’m into freedom and the Constitution of the United States of America. I’m not a follower.”
While it’s good news that KDVR asked her directly about her connections to the movement, several experts on the subject worry about how the press will handle QAnon, generally.
In many ways, Boebert and other QAnon-following candidates have been normalized in the press. FiveThirtyEight published an article about the likelihood that Republican women will increase their representation in Congress with the November elections, and used a photo of Boebert. Her fringe beliefs are not mentioned anywhere in the article or accompanying tweet.
When The New York Times wrote about Boebert’s victory, it made a passing reference to her support of QAnon, saying in the lead that she’d “spoken approvingly of the pro-Trump conspiracy theory QAnon.” It wasn’t until the 11th paragraph that the movement got mentioned again, and even that was framed in the context of how “Democrats immediately went on the attack” for her support of QAnon.
Media Matters’ Alex Kaplan has reported extensively on the QAnon movement, and he has identified two concepts that journalists need to understand when reporting on this movement. The first has to do with QAnon-supporting candidates and the need to probe their actual beliefs. “Some of these candidates seem to see QAnon and its supporters as an explicit political constituency to appeal to for support, and are trying to use existing QAnon infrastructure to do so, such as using QAnon hashtags (particularly #WWG1WGA) and going on QAnon YouTube channels,” he says. “So they seem to be treating a far-right conspiracy theory group tied to violence and flagged by the FBI as some normal voting block when it's clearly not.”
The second issue is that reporters often seem unaware of, or aren’t reporting on, the actual number of QAnon-supporting candidates who are progressing in their races. Kaplan says, “I keep seeing just a few specific candidates mentioned over and over regarding those who made it out of primaries or to primary runoffs (Lauren Boebert, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Jo Rae Perkins), when it's way more than that; it's at least 14 candidates that made it out of primaries to the ballot in November or to primary runoffs (and that's leaving out independent/write-in candidates).”
Boebert certainly seems to fall into Kaplan’s category of QAnon candidates who may not be true believers of the conspiracy theory, but have found it politically expedient to associate themselves with it during the primary. Unfortunately, Boebert is nowhere near the only Q-curious candidate running for office. Kaplan has counted a total of 63 current and former congressional candidates who’ve either endorsed or lent credence to the theory. More than a dozen of those candidates will appear on the ballot come November.
Marjorie Taylor Greene, who came in first in her Georgia Republican primary, sending her on to an August 11 runoff, is an extremely vocal Q supporter who shared a campaign video in which she holds an assault weapon and demands that “antifa terrorists stay the hell out of northwest Georgia.”
“Q is a patriot. We know that for sure, but we do not know who Q is,” Greene says in a video. She later adds, “I think [Q] is something worth listening to and paying attention to.” The Cook Political Report lists Georgia’s 14th district as an R+27, meaning that if she wins in her August primary runoff, it’s extremely likely that she will be elected to Congress.
It’s worrisome that politicians who believe in outlandish conspiracy theories may soon be in positions of massive power without being given necessary scrutiny.
What will it mean to put someone in power who honestly believes that President Donald Trump was secretly working with special counsel Robert Mueller to uncover a “deep state” conspiracy and fight back against a global child-trafficking cabal being run by celebrities and leaders in the Democratic Party? This is a movement that believes that the current global pandemic is the result of a biological weapon released by shadowy global elites, that celebrities like Ellen DeGeneres and Tom Hanks are secretly under house arrest for child trafficking, and that John F. Kennedy Jr. is actually alive, 21 years after his death. The movement has been amplified repeatedly by Trump allies and even the president himself. Online, QAnon followers have picked up on Trump and allies’ promotion of Q-related posts, citing them as proof that QAnon is real.
The long-term effect of this movement remains unclear, but journalists need to be ready to confront this issue when they are faced with it.
Travis View, one of the hosts of the QAnon Anonymous podcast, wonders what it will take for journalists to treat QAnon and its believers as a genuine threat to people’s safety.
“The question isn’t whether QAnon-connected murder, terrorism, and law enforcement scrutiny will cause the mainstream press to take QAnon as a serious extremist threat. We’re past that point,” he tells Media Matters. “The question is now how much QAnon-connected crime and death are required for the press to understand the dangers associated with QAnon.”
“Characterizing QAnon as merely a ‘pro-Trump conspiracy theory’ undersells it and misleads readers,” says View in a nod to how several news outlets have covered the movement. “I sense that most mainstream political reporters have a narrow grasp of extremism. They may understand the basic principles of white nationalism or salafi jihadism, but anything outside of that is invisible to them.”
For View, that means journalists have to make an effort to understand where candidates and their party backers stand on some of the more outlandish QAnon claims. View suggests asking Greene what she found “brilliant” about a cryptic Q post reading, “BOOM. BOOM. BOOM. BOOM. A WEEK TO REMEMBER. DARK TO LIGHT. BLACKOUT NECESSARY. Q,” or why she showed interest in Rachel Chandler, a seemingly random woman QAnon followers have baselessly tried to connect to Jeffrey Epstein.
"Are the QAnon candidates at all concerned about the movement they’re associated with being called out as an extremist threat by the FBI?” asks View. “Even if these candidates no longer subscribe to QAnon beliefs, then there is journalistic value in discovering that as well.”
It’s easy to brush conspiracy theories off, but there could be long-term consequences to inaction in the fight against them. Yale philosophy professor and author of How Fascism Works Jason Stanley faults journalism’s normalcy bias for some of the surface-level failings on coverage of QAnon candidates.
“The U.S. media has a seemingly unyielding need to normalize the political process, especially when it comes to developments on the far right,” he tells Media Matters. “Pandering and minimizing extremist far-right conspiracy theories is presented as ‘balance’ and ‘objectivity’ -- sadly, this generosity is not extended to the left, where even mild forms of social-welfare democracy present in Canada and Europe are often presented as utopian fantasy. As Republican politicians become ever more extreme in their fantasies [such as] child sex rings run by the Democratic Party, we are yet again receiving lessons about how this false conception of journalistic objectivity leads to the destruction of our shared reality, rather than an improvement in our understanding of it.”
On Twitter, Stanley has expressed concern that the Trump administration and his supporters in Congress will try to “reverse engineer QAnon to make it seem plausible.” Trump’s ramblings about “Obamagate” would seem to be a part of this.
This wouldn’t be the first time Trump had taken a ludicrous claim and tried to reverse-engineer it into reality. After Trump baselessly accused President Barack Obama of illegally tapping his phone lines prior to the 2016 election, Trump used the power of his administration along with right-wing media to try to validate what he said. Theadministration’s decision to have John Durham conduct a wide-ranging investigation into the Mueller probe feeds into the QAnon “deep state” narrative. Should a large enough QAnon contingent come into power, it doesn’t seem to be a stretch to think that they would unleash a series of specious investigations and hold show trials to prosecute targets of the movement.
Some reporting on the QAnon movement has been great and should serve as examples to reporters who may not be familiar with it.
NBC News’ Ben Collins and Brandy Zadrozny stand out as examples of journalists who produce good, in-depth coverage of this conspiracy theory and corresponding movement. Similarly, the aforementioned QAnon Anonymous podcast as well as the work of Jared Holt of Right Wing Watch (and formerly of Media Matters) have been must-follows for anyone looking for a detailed breakdown of some of the movement’s biggest players and what they believe.
Will Sommer of The Daily Beast has provided excellent reporting related to the conspiracy theory, Adrienne LaFrance at The Atlantic published a remarkable long-form piece on the history of the movement, and The Guardian’s guk Julie Carrie Wong carried out an investigation about how Facebook has helped promote QAnon and other conspiracy theories.
Without a thorough understanding of internet culture and a familiarity with conspiracy theories, journalists may very well find themselves unprepared to cover Q-supporting politicians when they inevitably end up in the halls of Congress. Their ascension to those roles should in no way be an excuse to accept the conspiracy theory as anything less than a dangerous and deranged belief, but there’s reason to worry that will happen, as the eternal fight for balanced coverage in media often means accepting the far-right’s most outlandish beliefs as rational. Political journalists should spend time between now and November familiarizing themselves with this movement, because it’s not going away.
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https://www.alternet.org/2020/08/fox-news-has-been-afraid-to-criticize-the-dangerous-extremist-ideology-of-qanon-media-matters/
congratulations to future Republican Star Marjorie Taylor Greene on a big Congressional primary win in Georgia against a very tough and smart opponent. Marjorie is strong on everything and never gives up - a real WINNER!
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ak: Qanon is a fabrication. This “insider” has predicted so much incorrectly (but people don’t remember PAST predictions) so now has switched to vague generalities. Could be Russian propaganda or a basement dweller. Regardless, no place in Congress for these conspiracies.
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:{:{:{no lnx some twt}:Fox News has been afraid to criticize the ‘dangerous extremist ideology’ of QAnon: Media Matters:{Written by Alex Henderson August 14, 2020}::{On Tuesday, the QAnon conspiracy cult achieved a disturbing victory when Marjorie Taylor Greene, a QAnon supporter, won a GOP congressional primary in Georgia — and President Donald Trump, on Twitter, congratulated her on her victory. Some Republicans have been willing to criticize Greene, including Rep. Liz Cheney. But Matter Gertz of Media Matters, in an article published this week, takes a close look at Fox News’ reluctance to call out the QAnon cult}::{. In his article, headlined “Fox News’ dangerous dance with QAnon,” Gertz argues, “The network’s unwillingness to challenge QAnon, an all-encompassing extremist ideology which postulates that President Donald Trump is on the verge of uncovering a worldwide satanic pedophilia ring composed of Democratic leaders and celebrities. Fox and its cadre of right-wing stars could have tried to prevent QAnon’s rise. And as an overwhelmingly powerful force in conservative politics, they may have been able to do it and have a responsibility to try. But instead, they have alternately ignored and flirted with QAnon, even as its supporters have multiplied and infested the Republican Party.” Gertz writes that “Greene’s primary win seems to have spurred a gut check for some on the right” and inspired vehement criticism from “the generally pro-Trump National Review.”}::{This week, the public relations department at Koch Industries — which donated $5000 to Greene’s campaign — contacted AlterNet to stress that is has distanced itself from her. The spokesperson was quite emphatic, saying that “Koch does not support her campaign” and noting that “in June, upon learning of Ms. Greene’s past comments, KOCHPAC immediately requested a refund of its contribution.”}::{But Fox, according to Media Matters, has “has been almost entirely silent” about QAnon.}::{“The QAnon cult is now large enough that it overlaps with a solid swath of staunch Trumpists, which is also the network’s devoted viewership,” Gertz argues. “At this point, Fox hosts would risk alienating their audience if they were to criticize QAnon}::{.}::{ The movement is particularly enamored of Hannity’s program…. Second, Fox is a cog in the Republican Party’s propaganda apparatus, and while it has at times challenged the GOP establishment from the right, it has shown zero inclination to act as a guardrail against the party’s extremists.”}::{Gertz adds, “And indeed, third, Trump himself is hanging over the entire debate. While he dodged a direct question about Greene’s QAnon support on Friday, he has endorsed her as a ‘future Republican star,’ and one of his top campaign aides lashed out at Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-IL) when the congressman criticized QAnon.”}:
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MattWolking
When will @RepKinzinger condemn the Steele Dossier fabrications and conspiracy theories pushed by Democrats? That actually WAS Russian propaganda.
And on Friday, when asked by a reporter about whether he supports the theory — which centers on him — Trump refused to address it:[she comes from a gt state]
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https://www.alternet.org/2020/08/conservative-writer-warns-the-gop-is-increasingly-embracing-the-utter-lunacy-of-qanon/
no lnx twt vid?
Conservative writer warns the GOP is increasingly embracing the ‘utter lunacy’ of QAnon
Written by Alex Henderson August 14, 2020
On Tuesday, August 11, the QAnon conspiracy cult enjoyed a major victory when far-right QAnon supporter Marjorie Taylor Greene won a Republican primary in Georgia’s 14th Congressional District and was congratulated by President Donald Trump — who wasn’t the least bit troubled by her pro-QAnon views. And veteran conservative pundit/author Mona Charen, in an article published in The Bulwark on August 13, laments the willingness of prominent Republicans to endorse those who embrace the “utter lunacy” of QAnon.
The QAnon cult believes that Trump was elected president to combat an international pedophile/child sex ring that operates within the U.S. government and that an anonymous figure named “Q” is providing updates on Trump’s battle. Greene, in a 2017 video that has been posted on YouTube, expressed her solidarity with QAnon. And considering how deeply Republican her district is, Greene has a very good chance of defeating the Democratic candidate, tech worker Kevin Van Ausdale, in November and taking a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives in January 2021.
Charen explains: “Pizzagate morphed into the QAnon conspiracy in which Q followers wait for signals from their leader that a vast conspiracy of Satanic child abusers, run by the ‘Deep State,’ George Soros, the Supreme Court, and God knows who else is about to be unmasked. Did I mention that they think Beyoncé is only pretending to be black? It’s a hydra-headed thing, this conspiracy, and contains multitudes. But the one common thread is this: the great deliverer will be Donald J. Trump.”
QAnon, Charen writes, is a “paranoid conspiracy (theory that) has gathered momentum at the Republican grassroots.”
Greene is not an anomaly: support for QAnon has been growing in the Republican Party.
“No fewer than 60 current or former congressional candidates have expressed interest in or support for the QAnon conspiracy,” Charen laments. “One of them, Jo Rae Perkins, got the Republican nomination for Senate in Oregon. And now, Marjorie Taylor Greene seems almost certain to be going to Congress.”
Charen notes that although some prominent Republicans condemned Greene — including Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming, Rep. Adam Kinzinger of Illinois and House Minority Whip Steve Scalise — Trump and others have embraced her.
“Greene received backing from the House Freedom Fund, an arm of the House Freedom Caucus,” Charen observes. “Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio and former Rep. Mark Meadows, now Trump’s chief of staff, also backed Greene.”
To make matters worse, Charen adds, Greene critics like Kinzinger are being slammed by Trump supporters for speaking out against her.
Voters in Georgia’s 14th Congressional District, Charen points out, could have chosen her GOP primary rival, Dr. John Cowan — who she describes as a “gun-rights-supporting, anti-abortion Trump loyalist” — to run against Van Ausdale. Instead, they went with someone even further to the right: a QAnon extremist.
“It’s odd that Republicans, who pride themselves on their practical understanding of life — incentives matter, money doesn’t grow on trees, personal responsibility is essential to a well-ordered society — should display such a marked weakness for utter lunacy,” Charen laments. “I don’t offer an explanation, just a warning. This disordered thinking is no longer just a fringe phenomenon.”
BOLD LOST?
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