SCOTUS To Marge Taylor Greene: PAY UP!
Here's that spanking from Nancy Pelosi you ordered.
The Supreme Court of the United States of America was like I don’t know her yesterday morning, rejecting a challenge to mask fines levied on perpetual Republican whiners Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, Thomas Massie of Kentucky and Ralph Norman of South Carolina. These three have now spent three years moaning how ugh, unfair it was that they got $500 for a first infraction and then $2,500 for subsequent ones deducted from their paychecks every time they broke COVID masking rules. Not even Clarence Thomas cares! Or speaker Mike Johnson, who urged SCOTUS to let the ruling stand under the Speech and Debate Clause.
Way back then, Massie and Norman eventually shelved their First Amendment protest against the fake GIIIIII-NA virus when they realized that the price of daily fines wasn’t worth the attention they were no longer getting. But not Marge, who showed up without a mask for many more days, ultimately getting more than $100,000 in fines docked from her $174,000 salary.
Greene, Massie and Norman then pouted, stomped, and sued in the DC Court of Appeals over this illegal paycut orchestrated by Nancy Pelosi to punish them for their First Amendment Free Speech Protest. Though they did wear masks to court! But still, Judge Reggie Walton was all, it’s not my business to tell Nancy Pelosi how to run the House, and also, did you even read your own complaint?
“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, as demonstrated by the very articles cited by the plaintiffs in their Complaint.”
Later days, and GTFO!
At some point Greene realized it wasn’t so bad to wear a mask, after all, as long as she could put slogans like “TRUMP WON” and “MOLON LABE” on them. But still, THE FINES WERE SO UNFAIR! PLZ FIX IT, SCOTUS!
No dice, oh well. We hope Mike Johnson appreciates the donation to the House kitty. Maybe he can use it to install new panic buttons in reps’ offices.
It’s a lot of cash, but for Marge, maybe it was publicity money well spent? Pre-COVID, she was just some racist QAnon nutjob from Rome, Georgia, who had been allegedly cheating on her husband with her CrossFit trainer. COVID gave her a real chance to dip her toe in the pool of public histrionic martyrdom, and it was a vibe she could work with:
“You know, we can look back at a time in history where people were told to wear a gold star, and they were definitely treated like second class citizens, so much so that they were put in trains and taken to gas chambers in Nazi Germany,” Greene history-splained on the Christian Broadcasting Network. “And this is exactly the type of abuse that Nancy Pelosi is talking about.”
Conspiracy-theory-Americans, they’re the real victims here! It was just the right tune to dance to to become the belle of the Turner Diaries/groyper ball. Boebert who?
After the decision Tuesday, Marge agreed. “Even though I was fined over $100,000 by Pelosi, I wouldn’t change a thing,” she gloated.
What I never got was the whole comparison to the gold star. EVERYONE had to wear the mask for a long time, and then later you could get out of it if you were vaccinated. But there's nothing stigmatizing about the state of not being vaccinated. Young children and immunocompromised people everywhere were told not to take the vax and not a single person thought the worse of them.
And choosing not to vax while choosing the mask wasn't a bad thing. Even if it was optional and not required to manage a medical condition, choosing to mask up was a way of taking responsibility for your choices. Sure, you were kind of stupid not to vax if you had no risk factors that made it dangerous, but it was your choice AND you were taking responsibility for your own actions. That's willingness to be personally accountable and responsible is a good thing, even if you're a weirdo. But hey, I'm a weirdo, so ... well done weirdos who voluntarily masked up!
The only problem, the ONLY one was with people who wanted to pair active refusal of the vax when medically indicated with active refusal to mask up for the protection of those around you. Rather than stigmatizing you, masking up rendered you indistinguishable from the people who weren't idiots and weren't assholes.
The mask, in short, was camouflage allowing evil, stupid melonfuckers to blend in. The gold star was a brand designed to make competent and good people stick out.
It's not remotely the same, Marge.
I like how Nancy the Boss just had the fines deducted from her paycheck. Because you know Marge would be a total bitch about actually coughing up the fines.