Says Who?
Written by Nick Carraway.
Majorie Taylor Greene said something puzzling in her defense before the Republican caucus. This is the one where half of the caucus decided to give her a standing ovation in spite of the fact that she never really apologized for the statements made. At least not directly.
She of course admitted that she believed 9/11 actually happened. That’s awfully nice of her. Of course, I wasn’t there, so I didn’t hear every word, but I have yet to hear anything directly addressed death threats on Nancy Pelosi or the myriad of kooky theories she has been broadcasting. What she did say was that “she was allowed to believe those things.”
I’m a reasonably well educated guy and I’ve spent the better part of a day trying to figure exactly what she is trying to say there. Who exactly was supposed to prevent her from believing anything? Whose responsibility was it if it wasn’t her own? As is usual these days, I was hit with an answer when I was perusing my own social media and ran into conservative friends and their posts.
The pattern is inescapable. Someone shares a tweet, Instargram post, or meme written by someone else that they agree with. Everything is fine until you call them on the offensiveness of the post they shared. How could they possibly think such a thing? Except they claim they don’t. They were just sharing what someone else had produced.
I could produce a number of examples, but I think you all have seen enough examples for yourselves. I can only assume that MTG has somehow convinced herself that she hasn’t really said anything outrageous. She’s just shared what others have been saying. It’s the ex-president’s “people are saying” gamut.. Well, who’s saying? Why are you sharing it if you don’t agree with it? Thankfully, at least MTG was left out in the wilderness in terms of committees, but we know we haven’t heard the last from her. Then again, maybe we have. Maybe we will just continue to hear her voice quoting others that she may or may not choose to agree with.”
Nick.
To get a really good view of the Qanon fringe, google frazzledrip. It’s not for the squeamish.
1With the exception of Mitch MccConnell’s castigation it would seem an umbrella of safety has enclosed around most of these anarchists – e.g. Kyle Rittenhouse skipping bail and Marjorie Taylor Greene, who was suspended from Twitter on Sunday for 12 hours after she repeatedly tweeted election misinformation…. ouch, that stings!
2With every passing day I am more glad to have never had an account on Facebook, Twitter, IG, etc. I just really don’t feel like I’m missing out on anything important, y’know?
3You hit the nail on the head, Nick:
“Whose responsibility was it if it wasn’t her own?”
That’s the thing with current Republicans generally and Marjorie in spades. It’s not their responsibility. Or fault. Ever. It’s always “those other people” who are at fault or not being responsible.
It works every time among the brainwashed. As to the rest, not so much.
4Some of us love chocolate. But we didn’t need to invent the Easter Bunny to get our fix.
5I’d like to sign up for some of this RWNJ ‘social media’ crap, particularly how to contract for a regular ‘jewish space laser’ [JSL] application.
Most of y’all are probably not familiar with the process of disposing of one’s trash when you live out in the boonies. Many country folk use a “burn barrel”, like a 55gal drum, into which you put much of your trash and simply burn it [with a little kerosene/diesel assistance], instant incineration.
The whole thing is a PITA.
Getting that ol’ burn barrel targeted by one of them thar ‘jewish space lasers’ would be the cat’s meow.
Just stuff that barrel, call up them good ol’ JSL peeps [or go to their website, surely they have a website…], and hold on momma, stand back…
6When that ol’ JSL satellite swings overhead, look out– zaappp, poof, trash gone, vaporized! Yeehaaa! Whooffaa, trash gone.
I like Tim O’Brien’s (from The American Independent) tweet:
“I was allowed to believe things that weren’t true.”
Translation:”One part of myself allowed another part of myself to believe in Jewish Space Lasers and QAnon’s idea that Satan-worshipping, cannibalistic pedos run a sex-trafficking ring targeting Trump”
7When she appeared in Congress, I couldn’t help but notice that it appeared she was wearing a sweater, jeans and knee boots. I thought everyone except Jim Jordan had to follow a dress code. Little things like that tell the story of her lack of respect for us as much as what comes out of her mouth.
8Yep, Party of Personal Responsibility, until it gets personal.
9I don’t believe a word MTG says. I don’t believe for a minute she thought 9/11 or mass murders were faked, and I don’t believe she believes the Qanon crap. What I believe is that she know spewing that garbage would win her points in northwestern Georgia, and she was (and is) willing to say anything to get elected. She’s nothing but a debauched showboater. A lot like her hero, who goes on trial tomorrow.
10Sandridge, I know a thing or two about lasers and aiming them, after a couple of decades of watching would-be technicians awkwardly trying to align a beam so as to hit a target a few meters away. Seems to me it’d be a lot cheaper and easier to buy a box of matches.
11Yesterday I saw a statement she made on camera since the house voted against her. She’s now a martyr and says she’s picked up a lot of supporters and will have lots of time to travel the country meeting with them. She’s dreaming of holding Trumpf like events and raising $$$. She’s just as much of a narcissist as her hero and I think in her delusional mind she believes she can run to be the first female president. Her spewing craziness is far from over. Hope Kevin McCarthy enjoys what he’s created.
12Years ago, I had a neighbor who forwarded every pro Republican email she received. Especially the stiff legged marching troops and animated US flags furling and unfurling like ocean waves. The old days of gifs.
When I occasionally read them they were inevitably filled with broken links, links that supposedly led somewhere and proved the writer’s point. Before the Affordable Care Act was passed she sent one with the death camps, etc, especially rife with links to nonexistent websites. I asked her about this & she said never clicked them – – but she would check on that.
A few weeks later she sent an especially lie filled screed. When I saw her I pointed out the false statements and added, the people who read this and know you probably accept it as if you wrote it yourself. With all these inaccuracies, is that what you want? She never spoke to me again.
13Unfortunately, we’ve eliminated the concept of shame. When you censure someone or strip their committee assignments it is supposed to trigger their shame. It also should trigger the shame in her congressional district as well. Unfortunately, we now seem to live in a post-shame environment. In that case, stripping committee assignments and censuring only does so much.
The hope is that in less than two years a primary challenger and Democrat can both convince the people in her district that having someone shut out from committees doesn’t serve their interests. Something tells me they may dig in though.
14She said it that specific way because she denies that a plane hit the Pentagon. So she’s denying something she hasn’t been accused of; it’s an old dodge. She’s a specific form of 9/11 troofer.
15The way social media pages are structured, it’s difficult to use the buttons to say that you’re sharing, or “liking”, something NOT because you agree with it, but because you think it’s important to read in the “Know your enemies” sense. Even if you have that in your profile…”Shares do not indicate approval” someone will take it like that. But if you think it needs to be shared as an example of Pure Awful…it’s a problem. And no, just trying to share the link IN your post is not the answer…first off, tricky to do (for me, anyway) and secondly, can be seen as a personal attack and in either FB or Twitter used to get you jailed for awhile.
16azrgrl @11, But it would be so much more fun to watch JSLs than plain ol’ matches [I have an assortment of laser pointers in different colors, drives barncats crazy].
Besides, I was going to give those JSL peeps the GPS coordinates for Mar-A-Pendejo… -evil grin ;]-.
17[which is almost at my latitude, but about 15+ degrees of longitude east iirc].
Sometimes cross-checking two stories suggests answers that we’re obvious from either. Rep. Boebert, the Colorado version of MTG, was said to have dropped out of high school and futzed around her hometown awhile, working as a bartender. Eventually owned a bar, and a whole lot of debt. Then a few years ago some well-funded Republican foundation who is on the hunt for talent found her, cleaned her up, paid for her GED (or paid somebody to take it for her) paid off her debts and gave her polish to run for Congress.
Now, Rep. Greene said in this speech Nick is describing that she believed a bunch of insane stuff, until late 2018. She doesn’t say just what happened in December 2018, only that she no longer believed a bunch of what she’s been quoted as saying. What happened in that month that turned so much around for her, and set her on a path to winning a seat in Congress? One hint is that “I was allowed to believe” comment. So before her 2018 enlightenment she was being misled by something or someone, but now she’s not. Could it be the same or a similar organization picked her out, told her how BS most of what she was reading and believing was, and –who knows? Maybe cleaned her up, paid her debts, polished her up to run for Congress.
There’s an insane amount of right wing money out there, driven by decades of Republican tax cuts for the rich. Seems there must be full time talent search and cleanup crews going around looking for “talent” worth developing. A similar trajectory was described for our newest SCOTUS justice, Coathanger Barrett, plucked from an obscure Tennessee college, her legal education and faculty appointment seemingly supported by someone, groomed for very young entry onto our highest court.
Do you think the rich might be tilting the playing field just a bit?
18Have a look at the Hatton Sumners Foundation in Dallas, one of whose Board members is the newly minted Republican Congresswoman from Irving, Beth van Duyne. It’s named for, and originally endowed by, long time Dallas Congressman from almost 100 years ago Hatton Sumners, a dyed-in-the-wool racist. It’s mission is to finance the college or legal educations of promising young conservatives. No mention of debt payments, arranging professorships, or hiring GED ringers, but you know, anything for the cause.
19She was only presenting a different version of: that’s not who I am.
20Nick @ 14:
21If you haven’t already seen it, check out her press conference the day after she was voted off committees. From the time she walks down the steps of the Capitol building until the time she walks away. Pretty certain it’s the one Steve talks about @ 12. Make no mistake, that’s not a lack of shame. That’s self-righteous pride. She’s basking in it. She held a press conference with the Capitol building as her backdrop a day later to make sure all the media outlets had time to get a reporter there to cover it. She may well be narcissistic. But it worked for trump. More importantly, she comes across as sincere, competent and
determined to fight for her conservative values in way trump never could.
That woman is effective as hell.
It was the best campaign ad/announcement she could have wished for. And clips from it will be in her ads for as long as she’s in politics.
Not shame.
Pride.
That wasn’t a mea culpa.
It was a mic drop.
She never did come ot Congress to actually do a damn thing like a real congressperson like Rosa DeLauro, for instance. She just wanted a particular pulpit to continue to spew her bull**** to a much wider audience with the seal on the wall behind her making it “look” legitimate. She is actually as dumb as Tommy Tuberville.
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