REX TILLERSON DID CORRECTLY CALL THE PRESIDENT AS HE SAW HIM

 MAJORIE TAYLOR GREENE IS ASKING FOR TROUBLE FROM THE MAJORITY DEMOCRATS

 

                          …Once again, the trouble maker, Marjorie Taylor Greene

 

Ms. Greene’s moves infuriate the Democrats, and some within her own party

 

The Georgia Republican Representative, Marjorie Taylor Greene, is what we call a real, “Piece of Work”.  For her absolute support of former President Trump, and for her bazaar comments that the 9/11 terrorist attacks were orchestrated by US government entities.  Because of that and her other false statements, among those of which I will later describe, the Democrats made the unprecedented move of stripping her of her committee assignments.  She has since used her extra time on the House floor by obstructing what she calls her opponents “far-leftist” proposals.  She then tries to push her colleagues even harder to the far right.

Greene had for months made comments on social media suggesting that some of the nation’s mass shootings were staged by supporters of gun control.  And that a Jewish cabal had sparked a deadly California wildfire with a laser beam directed from space.  Greene also falsely implied that the Capitol Rioters were not Trump supporters.

Greene, has kept her promise to obstruct.  She has repeated motions to adjourn legislative debate over the past several weeks which have forced members to scramble to the House floor and vote to remain in session.  This is a move that is infuriating Democrats and, increasingly, members of her own party.

This week she moved to adjourn as the House was preparing to debate the coronavirus relief package.  The motion was defeated, with 40 Republicans joining Democrats in opposing it.

That marked the fourth time in recent weeks that Greene moved to adjourn.  Each time, the number of Republicans voting against her has increased, including some of the chamber’s most conservative GOP members.

In an interview, a defiant Greene stressed that her colleagues of both parties should get used to her trying to delay consideration of Democratic priorities.

“These are tactics I will definitely use, and I’ll have more tactics to use.  You see the difference in me is I’m not one of those that gets in line and says ‘Yes sir’ and does as I’m told,” she told this to The Washington Post this week.

“When people go against me, I’m an honest person, I have no problem saying, ‘Hey guess what, if you’re whining about walking down to the floor and having to vote and it may have interrupted what you’re doing, well guess what, your voters back at home and the American people don’t really care. They’d rather see you govern, and they want you to do the job that they elected you to do.’ ”

But Ms. Greene is not the only Republican in recent weeks to use delaying tactics.  Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) demanded a reading on the floor of the roughly 630-page American Relief Plan, which delayed consideration of the coronavirus relief bill for 11 hours.  Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) requested a motion to adjourn late Friday evening to delay the final vote on the $1.9 trillion bill. Fortunately, the motion was defeated.

But Greene, who entered Congress only two months ago, has obstructed often and attracted sharper criticism from both parties.  Democrats, who have the majority, they denied Greene those committee assignments last month in the rebuke of her embrace of many extremist ideologies.

“Marjorie Taylor Greene is clearly in need of a serious intervention, and she needs to find a hobby, other than engaging in unproductive activity and miring herself in conspiracy theory after conspiracy theory,” Democratic Caucus Chair, Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) said this week.

Ms. Greene was even blasted by her opponents for attacking a colleague’s transgender daughter.  Even her opponents said Greene’s attack was “sickening, pathetic and unimaginably cruel.”

As recently as late last year, Greene was an adherent of the false claims of the QAnon ideology.  Only recently did she renounced some of her most outlandish claims.

After Greene’s recent adjourn gambit, Rep. David Cicilline (D-R.I.) was so irritated he said he will propose a rule that only a member of a committee can make a motion to adjourn. “I’m dead serious,” he said.

Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.), one of the 11 Republicans who voted with Democrats to remove Greene from committees, released a statement Tuesday criticizing Greene’s motions.

“Representative Greene is doing a further disservice to her constituents by obstructing the work of Congress for her own personal satisfaction and wasting the time of Members who actually want to get things done for the people they represent,” the statement said.

Some of the most combative Republicans do support Greene, however, noting that Democrats should have expected her to get creative after they eliminated her committee assignments. It was the first time a majority party has voted to remove a member of the minority party from committees.

“The Democrats are the ones who created that situation, and that’s ridiculous what they did. It’s wrong what they did, and now they’re all upset that Marjorie’s asking them to do their job. I don’t have a problem with it,” said Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio).  Jordan is a loud-mouth member of the staunchly conservative Freedom Caucus. “I walked on the floor when she made a motion to adjourn, and I said, ‘Marjorie, you’re doing your committee work,’ ”Jordan said.

Greene is undeterred by any criticism and has not been shy about criticizing colleagues. She called out the Republicans who opposed her Wednesday, releasing a statement on Twitter that said, “These Republican votes are the 40 white flags of the Surrender Caucus.”

“Our Republican voters want to see Republican members in the House standing up and fighting back,” Greene said in an interview, “not whining about, ‘Oh, we had to get off our Zoom call’ or, ‘Oh, this interrupted my meeting with the Chamber of Commerce back home.’ ”

Actually, Rep. Greene, as a promoter of QAnon’s baseless theories, she rose up in the party due to serious support of key Republicans.

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) declined to comment specifically about her delay tactics, but he said he is negotiating with Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) about them.

One House Republican aide says McCarthy has not told Greene to stop her maneuvers, understanding the frustration the caucus feels at Democrats’ fast-tracking legislation without their input. (This aide was not authorized to speak publicly.)

Trying to delay the majority party’s agenda is not a new tactic for members of the minority party.  Democrats have done it, including in 2016, when they participated in a sit-in on the House floor after they demanded a vote on gun reform legislation following the Pulse nightclub shooting in Orlando that killed 49 people.

But the frequency of Greene’s tactics are highly unusual.  Republicans gave Democrats another headache when Rep. Chip Roy (R-Tex.) joined Greene and several members of the Freedom Caucus to move for a roll-call vote on all 13 “suspension” bills.

After Tuesday’s Republican conference meeting, Minority Whip Steve Scalise (R-La.) said that leadership has not taken a formal position on whether members should delay floor procedures but said they have “been very vocal on the Republican side that we want an open congressional process, and we want all bills to go through committee.”

Jeffries, the Democratic caucus chair, said Greene’s jockeying has reminded him of some wisdom from his grandmother. He said Greene’s tactics could cause Democrats to block GOP bills from reaching the House floor.

“My grandmother used to say to me, be careful what you wish for….because you just might get it,” Jeffries said.

Ms. Greene would deserve the Democrats blocking of any key Republican bills, just for all the havoc she has brought on due to her adjourning activities.

Copyright G. Ater 2021