Not every House Republican was on board with booting Ilhan Omar from the House Foreign Affairs Committee in a transparent act of racist retaliation. Victoria Spartz, Ken Buck, and Nancy Mace had expressed concerns about due process, but House Speaker Kevin McCarthy won them over after promising that he'd come up with a less railroad-shaped procedure in the future. It was basically "let me execute this one innocent person and I swear next time, we'll have a trial."
So McCarthy is creating a "bipartisan task force" that will establish a process for expelling members from committees. House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries will try to keep it honest, but ultimately, this is a sham solution for a problem that doesn't exist.
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Kevin McCarthy Secures Republican Votes To Hurl A Bunch More Racism At Ilhan Omar
Democrats bounced Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene from her committees for legitimate reasons, specifically all the unhinged violent rhetoric she directed at her colleagues. She'd also promoted racist conspiracy theories on social media. Rep. Paul Gosar was booted because he posted a video of himself decapitating and killing Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Even Rep. Matt Gaetz admitted that Republicans had targeted Omar because they simply didn't like her. It was revenge for Greene, Gosar, and a lot of other things.
McCarthy straight-up slandered Trump critics Eric Swalwell and Adam Schiff when removing them from the House Intelligence Committee. There is no true "bipartisan process" that will help this craven coward punish the MAGA cult's political enemies while ignoring how a sitting member of Congress and McCarthy's BFF actively promotes the dissolution of the United States.
But, hey, Nancy Mace gets to chair a brand-new committee! She was reportedly the last holdout on booting Omar, so maybe this task force is her reward for getting over her peak Susan Collins-level "concerns." Shelater went on Fox News and called Ocasio-Cortez and Rashida Tlaib "drama queens" because they said Omar was racially targeted. Mace's fellow Republicans — especially Greene and Lauren Boebert — have smeared Omar with anti-Muslim sentiment. It's not that difficult to criticize the actual person and not their personal identity.
Joining Mace on the task force are Republican Reps. Tom Cole, David Joyce, and Buck, as well as Democratic Reps. Jim McGovern, Veronica Escobar, Nikema Williams, and Derek Kilmer, according to NBC News.
Arguably, this bipartisan task force's first order of business would involve Rep. Lance Gooden, who questioned Democratic Rep. Judy Chu's loyalty to the United States because she's Chinese-American.
“Questioning my loyalty to the United States promotes the ugly stereotype that Asian Americans are forever foreigners in their own land. It is racist, it is disgusting, and it is dangerous.”
— Judy Chu (@Judy Chu) 1677295425
Gooden told Fox News host Jesse Watters last week: "I think that Judy Chu needs to be called out. I question her either loyalty or competence. If she doesn’t realize what’s going on, then she’s totally out of touch with one of her core constituencies.”
"Core constituency" here means white. It always means "white" when racists are talking.
Gooden suggested that Chu, who sits on the House Ways and Means and Small Business committees, shouldn't have access to intelligence briefings because of racist conspiracy theories that claim Chu has ties to the Chinese Communist Party.
Unfortunately, as long as Republicans hold even a narrow House majority, this "bipartisan task force" will likely provide cover for punishing Democrats, especially women of color like Chu, and never lay a finger on gross seditionist bigots like Gooden.
[ NBC News / Washington Post ]
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That's what I thought I remembered too.
If the earth really is flat, as these folks seem to believe, then they have truly slipped over the edge.