117th Congress

One of the many major problems confronting our political system is prioritizing scoring political points over the good of the country. What is better for the country, scoring a short lived win over Republicans? Or working to erode a conspiracy theory that led to a riot at the Capitol?

I dont view this as a short lived event but like when Ralphie stood up to Farkus in A Christmas Story..
That movie was made 40 years ago and on regular loop during the holiday season.

Suppose we ( actually (R) )stood up to Sarah Palin in the fall of 2008 .

I have maintained since the aftermath of 2008 we have all been living in a (R) civil war.
Perhaps this is when someone stood up and said enough.

Of course (R) should have handled this in house
 
Thought this on spot

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Benjy Sarlin
@BenjySarlin
·
27m
To me one reason she's such a relevant story is she's the first

national politician to come up *entirely* through Trump and the MAGA

information environment. There are tons of Trumpy politicians,

but they all had pre-Trump political identities within the right.
 
Greene is an embarrassment to my district who should never have been elected. That being said, what the Democrats did was stupid.

No one in Washington will learn that when you fire a weapon, you've just set the precedent for firing that weapon and it will only get easier to fire it.

Suppose the Republicans take over the house in two years and AOC puts her foot in her mouth like she tends to do or Omar says something anti-semitic. Well there goes their committees.

MTG should be treated the same as other ridiculous Representatives, they should be ignored. Targeting them gives them a spotlight.

I missed this. Omar has made anti-semitic comments and is on the Foreign Relations committee. Swalwell slept with a Chinese spy and is on the Intelligence committee. The removal of both from those specific committees is at least as reasonable as the removal of MGT.
 
I dont view this as a short lived event but like when Ralphie stood up to Farkus in A Christmas Story..
That movie was made 40 years ago and on regular loop during the holiday season.

Suppose we ( actually (R) )stood up to Sarah Palin in the fall of 2008 .

I have maintained since the aftermath of 2008 we have all been living in a (R) civil war.
Perhaps this is when someone stood up and said enough.

Of course (R) should have handled this in house

But stripping her of her committees isn't any kind of effective resistance. If MTG was simply a rogue Representative then stripping her of anything resembling power might be effective. She's not though. She's the product of a far larger group. Attacking her like this does nothing except agitate that group and drive more people towards it. You can call it taking a stand but it's taking a stand in a way that results in nothing but negative consequences.

Let's take Iran as a case study. Iran is run by extremists who brutalize their own people. So you're president and want to "take a stand" against the evil of the Iranian government. So you start an invasion of Iran. Is this an effective way to "take a stand"? It's similar to Ralphie standing up to Farkus. You're just beating in the face of the bully who is opposing you. No. The situation requires a far more nuanced approach.

If you just invade Iran you're going to cause Iranians to rally around the flag against you, you'll end up in a long occupation, you'll suffer thousands of casualties, you might destabilize the oil market, etc. There are some situations where simply taking a stand isn't a great idea. You have to be smart about it.

Stripping MTG of her committees was a terrible way to take a stand. She had minimal power anyway so this isn't much more than a symbolic act. It doesn't harm the right wing conspiracy theorists in any way. In fact it gives them a martyr and the ability to act as if they're being persecuted by the Democrats. That will only help them. Then you have the fact that this gives Republicans the excuse to retaliate against Democrats they want to punish next time Republicans are in power.

Taking a stand can feel good but unless it's done right, it often does more harm than good.
 
We disagree. This action was long over due.
Freshman Reps generally have no sway .
She is on record threatening violence toward her fellow legilators.
No HR department in US would let that sit
 
A passive-aggressive approach is how we have gotten here.

As in Sen Collins thinking Impeachment 1 humbled DJT.
 
I missed this. Omar has made anti-semitic comments and is on the Foreign Relations committee. Swalwell slept with a Chinese spy and is on the Intelligence committee. The removal of both from those specific committees is at least as reasonable as the removal of MGT.

I don't know about Swalwell, but that's something to watch. I believe there is a difference between Omar (of whom I am no fan) and Greene. Omar can within the bounds of legitimate policy discussion object to what she views as an oversized role Israel may play in US foreign policy. The anti-Semitism which she spews is out of line and was addressed by a House resolution (weak soup, but something). It all depends on what one believes Greene is being charged with. If it's merely for what she says, that is a misguided use of the House's authority to remove her from her committee assignments. I fear what the House has done is jump the gun and isolate her on suspicion of something she has done--supposedly assist the participants in the insurrection--without a smoking gun. By doing so, they've opened themselves up to retaliation. It just makes the legislative process more difficult. Some level of censure would have been more appropriate.

To striker's point, the more Greene talks and the more those who support her talk, the better it is for Democrats. The optics on her are simply terrible. She's Michelle Bachmann with ADHD.
 
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We disagree. This action was long over due.
Freshman Reps generally have no sway .
She is on record threatening violence toward her fellow legilators.
No HR department in US would let that sit

I have no problem taking action, just take smart action. What they did helped her more than hurt. It was an emotional response and not a tactical one.

The Democrats are doing for MTG what Republicans did for AOC. In their angry reactions to her, Republicans gave AOC more of a voice than she'd ever have had otherwise. MTG has more of a bully pulpit now than she had with her committee assignments.
 
I don't know about Swalwell, but that's something to watch. I believe there is a difference between Omar (of whom I am no fan) and Greene. Omar can within the bounds of legitimate policy discussion object to what she views as an oversized role Israel may play in US foreign policy. The anti-Semitism which she spews is out of line and was addressed by a House resolution (weak soup, but something). It all depends on what one believes Greene is being charged with. If it's merely for what she says, that is a misguided use of the House's authority to remove her from her committee assignments. I fear what the House has done is jump the gun and isolate her on suspicion of something she has done--supposedly assist the participants in the insurrection--without a smoking gun. By doing so, they've opened themselves up to retaliation. It just makes the legislative process more difficult. Some level of censure would have been more appropriate.

To striker's point, the more Greene talks and the more those who support her talk, the better it is for Democrats. The optics on her are simply terrible. She's Michelle Bachmann with ADHD.

It's all a plot to make Michelle look nice and reasonable.
 
Except AOC didnt give a nod and wink to assasinating Kevin McCarthy.
Distinguish berween actual threats and poliicy disagreements .
We keep coming back to that
 
Except AOC didnt give a nod and wink to assasinating Kevin McCarthy.
Distinguish berween actual threats and poliicy disagreements .
We keep coming back to that

What AOC did or didn't do is irrelevant to my point. My point is that had she been ignored by the right, there wouldn't be anywhere near as much media coverage of her. Ultimately she was a freshman representative who said some outlandish things. Without the reaction by the right, she gets little attention.

The same would be true with MTG. Ultimately, the reaction to her gives her way more attention that what she's said. She's just a crackpot freshman representative from suburban/rural Georgia without the reaction. Now she's the center of attention and lapping it up.
 
you also read that she lied about her experience Jan 6
masks are useless


you do better chasing The Faux Outrage of the Day or better known from here on FOD
 
What AOC did or didn't do is irrelevant to my point. My point is that had she been ignored by the right, there wouldn't be anywhere near as much media coverage of her. Ultimately she was a freshman representative who said some outlandish things. Without the reaction by the right, she gets little attention.

The same would be true with MTG. Ultimately, the reaction to her gives her way more attention that what she's said. She's just a crackpot freshman representative from suburban/rural Georgia without the reaction. Now she's the center of attention and lapping it up.

I would equate AOC's PR as a Fr Congressperson to Paul Ryan
MTG as Sarah Palin -- who if memory serves advised a crowd in Florida in fall 2008 to use the 2nd Amendment to correct politics
.....

Certain you agree that rhetoric has no place in our politics
 
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