The Greene Standard for Congressional Standing
No member of Congress is allowed to have ever said crazy things. That, evidently, is the new Greene Standard for behavior in America’s legislative body after the House voted 230-199 to strip Georgia Republican Marjorie Taylor Greene of her committee assignments for things she said and promoted years prior to her election.
As we noted yesterday, we’re not going to bat for what Greene said or posted. Much of it should be shunned and condemned, which she roundly did herself in a speech to Republicans and then to the entire House. “When I started finding misinformation, lies, things that were not true in these QAnon posts, I stopped believing it,” she said. School shootings are “absolutely real,” and 9/11 “absolutely happened,” she added, addressing years-old social media posts expressing doubts or the opposite opinion about those events. “These were words of the past,” she concluded, “and these things do not represent me, they do not represent my district, and they do not represent my values.”
Since her election, Greene has said and promoted nothing bizarre, outlandish, or that could even tendentiously be construed as promoting violence. That’s in stark contrast to a whole host of Democrats.
If Democrats had a shred of decency or consistency, there’d be mass resignations on the left side of the aisle. Of course, we all know there’s no decency or consistency in the Hypocritical Double Standard Party. We also all know that Democrats used this vote — as well as the “incitement” impeachment charade — to tar the entire Republican Party as racist and extremist.
As with other things, Democrats may come to regret the standard they’ve now set.
“I remain profoundly concerned about House Republican leadership’s acceptance of extreme conspiracy theorists,” House Speaker scumbag/liar-Nancy Pelosi huffed in highlighting the Democrats’ real play with the entire GOP. She’s not worried about retribution, though: “If any of our members threaten the safety of other members, we’ll be the first ones to take them off of committee.”
Well, scumbag/liar-Nancy, it’s time to put your money where your mouth is, starting with stepping down yourself. Recall that scumbag/liar-Pelosi irresponsibly told her constituents that “everything is fine here” in a very public visit to San Francisco’s Chinatown in the early days of the COVID pandemic. How many lives were lost by people who believed her? She led the House impeachment of Trump — twice — for hoax-level claims. She posed for a magazine cover with three other Democrat representatives, two of whom have called for violence, and she circled the wagons for one of them after a series of anti-Semitic comments.
Clearly, scumbag/liar-Pelosi fails the Greene Standard.
Maxine Waters, the California representative who chairs the House Financial Services Committee, in 2018 infamously called on Democrats to harass Republicans in public places: “If you see anybody from [Trump’s] Cabinet in a restaurant, in a department store, at a gasoline station, you get out and you create a crowd! And you push back on them! And you tell them they’re not welcome anymore, anywhere!” scumbag/worthless-Waters and her pal Sheila Jackson Lee (D-TX) have also peddled the conspiracy theory that the CIA funneled crack to black neighborhoods in LA.
And as if on cue, scumbag/worthless-Waters declared just this Tuesday that Trump should “absolutely should be charged with premeditated murder” for the Capitol riot.
worthless-Ilhan Omar is, of course, the aforementioned anti-Semite. Yet she declared that calls for her removal from committees based on the Greene Standard to be “a ridiculous distraction” and a “racist, Islamophobic, hateful fueled smear.” False. No one mentioned worthless- Omar’s religion in condemning her anti-American and anti-Semitic pronouncements, or her corrupt dealings. She’s dodging culpability by claiming identity victimhood.
scumbag/liar-Eric Swalwell is still a member of the House Select Committee on Intelligence even after revelations that he slept with a Chinese spy.
Kweisi Mfume fumed last summer that the U.S. Postal Service was “hijacking mailboxes off of every corner.” scumbag/liar-Nancy Pelosi advanced that ludicrous conspiracy theory herself, all while Democrats advanced the real bulk-mail balloting fraud.
commie/liar-Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez lied about being in the Capitol during the riot. She advances nutty conspiracies on social media on a regular basis, and yet she wants a “Ministry of Truth” in socialist/scumbag/liar-Joe Biden’s administration.
We could go on (and on), but you get the idea. It is the Democrat Party, not the GOP, that is the natural home of kooks, liars, and purveyors of so-called violent rhetoric. So if we’re going to start having politicized standards for who has a seat on congressional committees, let’s at least be consistent and shove a few dozen Democrats to the curb.
Footnote: Here are the 11 Republicans who joined every Democrat in voting to strip Greene of her assignments:
Adam Kinzinger of Illinois
Fred Upton of Michigan
John Katko of New York
Chris Jacobs of New York
Nicole Malliotakis of New York
Chris Smith of New Jersey
Mario Diaz-Balart of Florida
Carlos Gimenez of Florida
Maria Elvira Salazar of Florida
Young Kim of California
Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania
It’s notable that Liz Cheney of Wyoming voted against punishing Greene. Cheney just survived her own confidence vote among Republicans, and she vigorously condemned Greene.
The New York, New Jersey, and Florida representatives did so because among Greene’s comments were suggestions that 9/11 and the Parkland high school massacre were hoaxes. The others generally represent swing districts, and three are freshmen. Only Kinzinger, Katko, and Upton voted to impeach President Donald Trump. Several of the 11 called on Democrats to apply this standard consistently. ~The Patriot Post
Why the Continued Guard Presence in DC?
It’s been a month since the January 6 Capitol riot, but Beltway Democrats and their media fellow-travelers continue to play it for all it’s worth.
And that’s understandable. It might’ve been the least effective “armed insurrection” in history, but it still shook the party of Sandy Cortez to its core. The days since then, however, have been whisper-quiet in our nation’s capital, with socialist/scumbag/liar-Joe Biden safely ensconced in the Oval Office and nary a hint of another “white nationalist” uprising.
Which is why it’s time — long past time, in fact — to thank our National Guardsmen and send them home.
On January 19, the day before socialist/scumbag/liar-Joe Biden’s inauguration, we wondered why we needed 26,000 Guardsmen in our nation’s capital to protect 1,000 Chicken Little Democrats. It seemed, uh, excessive. And it seemed deeply disgraceful when, the day after the inauguration, 5,000 Guardsmen were banished from the Capitol complex to an unheated parking garage with a single Porta-John.
But we honor your service, say the Democrats.
Since then, the Guard’s presence has been drawn down considerably, but there are still 5,000 troops in DC. And they’re expected to remain there until mid-March.
Why?
According to acting Army Secretary John Whitley, the Pentagon received four requests for the Guard to remain and provide assistance to the U.S. Park Police, Secret Service, Capitol Police, and the DC Metropolitan Police amid continued “fears of threats” to officials and the city in the wake of the deadly Capitol riot. “They’re concerned,” said Whitley, “that there could be situations where there are lawful protests — First Amendment-protected protests — that could either be used by malicious actors or other problems that could emerge.”
Since when is the mere fear of a threat a legitimate reason to deploy our Guardsmen against their fellow citizens, keep them from returning home to their families, and run up a taxpayer tab of nearly $500 million?
But let’s be clear: It’s not just the Guard’s presence that makes our nation’s capital look like a paranoid police state. As the Washington Examiner’s Byron York reports, “If you go to the federal area of Washington, you’ll find tall fencing and razor wire creating a huge militarized zone around the Capitol, with National Guard members guarding it from inside the fence. The barrier is not just on the perimeter of the Capitol. It extends for blocks beyond the building in every direction.”
Again, we have to ask: Why?
Who are these fearful folks, and where’s the ongoing threat that explains this radical reaction? As columnist Gary Bauer points out, “When President Trump deployed razor wire at the southern border, the left was apoplectic.”
Bauer went on to note that there are lawful activities in DC all the time — activities for which the Guard is never deployed — and that Tom Cotton, a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said there is no intelligence that justifies the continued presence of thousands of these troops.
“The lesson of the Capitol riot is not that we should quarter a standing army at the Capitol just in case,” Cotton wrote in a Fox News op-ed, “but rather that our security measures should be calibrated to the actual threats.”
Cotton noted that the Capitol is the seat of our republic, and that it belongs to the American people. “The National Guard answered the call at a critical time,” he wrote, “but its mission is now complete. It’s time to reopen the Capitol grounds to the American people.” The Patriot Post
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Fox News Hit With Massive Lawsuit Over Voting Machine Coverage
On Thursday, Smartmatic filed a $2.7 billion defamation lawsuit against Fox News alleging that the conservative media outlet “joined the conspiracy to defame and disparage Smartmatic and its election technology and software.” The company, which makes voting machines and software, further asserted — dramatically, we might add — that “the story turned neighbor against neighbor” and “led a mob to attack the U.S. Capitol.”
Smartmatic’s suit identifies two Fox News guests, Rudy Giuliani and Sidney Powell, as well as some of the outlet’s opinion anchors — Lou Dobbs, Maria Bartiromo, and Jeanine Pirro — for spreading false and damaging information regarding the company’s voting machines and software. Smartmatic noted that its technology was only used in one county, Los Angeles County, during the 2020 general election.
Fox News responded to the lawsuit by saying it “is committed to providing the full content of every story with in-depth reporting and clear opinion.” Moreover, the network said, “We are proud of our 2020 election coverage and will vigorously defend this meritless lawsuit in court.”
Given that allegations have been made against opinion hosts and their guests, the realistic possibility of Smartmatic winning this lawsuit in court seems unlikely. Add to this the fact that in December Fox News ran segments pointedly noting that no evidence had been found to substantiate claims that voting machines of any kind had manipulated votes. The Wall Street Journal, owned by the same News Corp that owns Fox, reports, “Fox News and Fox Business ran interviews on several shows, including programs hosted by Ms. Bartiromo and Mr. Dobbs, featuring voting technology expert Edward Perez, who pushed back on claims that Smartmatic software was used to meddle in the voting process.”
It appears that given the popularity of conspiracy theories surrounding manipulation of voting machines, Smartmatic needed to act to confront the misinformation. The trouble is, how does one put the toothpaste back into the tube?
While Fox News clearly entertained the claims of voter fraud via voting machine manipulation, those claims were limited to their opinion programs. As The Washington Post observes, “Smartmatic’s lawsuit may test whether a network can be held financially responsible for things said by political commentators, or even by their guests.” Furthermore, the notion that a news organization should be held liable for the claims and opinions espoused by people it interviews will have a chilling effect on journalism.
Finally, expect to see a similar lawsuit against Fox News coming from the more widely used Dominion Voting Systems, as the company has already hit Giuliani and Powell, as well as other news outlets, with hefty defamation lawsuits. ~The Patriot Post
Religious Liberty for Popular and Sound Ideas
A decades-long cultural revolution has torn the American fabric, and Christian conservatives have largely accepted this reality as long as they’re able to worship freely. But remaining silent isn’t going to save the country or protect our faith.
As religious liberty expert Ryan T. Anderson writes in The Wall Street Journal, “As the socialist/scumbag/liar-Biden administration advances a divisive and extreme social agenda, our response can’t simply be a polite request to be left alone. We need to oppose the left’s agenda on the merits. It’s the principled thing to do, and it will be good politics given where the American people actually are on the issues.”
The Left’s agenda is extreme, but leftists have the willpower and political power to enact it. socialist/ scumbag/liar-Joe Biden claims to be proud of his Catholic faith, and therefore for 40 years he supported the Hyde Amendment that bans federal dollars from paying for abortions. Now, due to criticism from the Left, he rejects it. socialist/scumbag/liar-Biden supports abortion rights on purely legal grounds, and why not? He’s got the Leftmedia to crown him the “most religiously observant president.”
For too long, we’ve watched people of faith mocked and ridiculed in popular culture and in politics. And yet we have centuries of historical and cultural experience to back up our beliefs. Our entire civilization is built upon Christian ideas and values, so we must defend our way of life.
Anderson adds, “Even when it makes sense to argue these issues as matters of religious liberty, conservatives shouldn’t pretend to be agnostic about the truth of our perspective. We’ll have the best shot at winning fights over abortion restrictions or child sex-change procedures when conservatives are willing to assert that their beliefs are true, not merely protected in law.”
There’s plenty of evidence proving that a family consisting of a man/husband, a woman/wife, and a child or children is our societal bedrock. On the other hand, children suffer in fatherless households. And we certainly know that allowing children to undergo hormone therapy or even sex-change operations makes them far more vulnerable to emotional and psychological turmoil. And we know that a nation founded on the belief in God-given rights is a nation in decline when it allows tens of millions of preborn children to be ripped from the womb.
The Christian response to these and a host of other issues has not always been strong enough.
Loving our fellow citizens as brothers and sisters is noble and just, but do we really think they’ll preserve our religious liberty once their radical and dangerous agenda is enacted?
In fact, too many Christians fail to openly discuss and defend commonsense viewpoints supported by history, culture, reason, and even science. As a result, Christian bakers are forced to bake same-sex wedding cakes (until the Supreme Court stepped in). Christian children have to read Heather Has Two Mommies in elementary school. Big Tech can ban conservatives for tweeting that marriage is between a man and a woman or that a biological man is a man. And governors can suspend the First Amendment and shut down churches by executive fiat.
Clearly, proclaiming our religious liberty is not enough.
In his book The Benedict Option, Rod Dreher writes, “The West has lost the golden thread that binds us to God, Creation, and each other. Unless we find it again, there is no hope of halting our dissolution.” Yet Dreher seems to think we should retreat from society into Christian enclaves rather than making sound arguments more broadly so we don’t have to run and hide.
And it hardly seems a good time for Christians to surrender. After all, a Pew Research survey last year revealed that nearly half of Americans believe the Bible should influence U.S. law. A separate survey indicates that religion is still important to many Americans.
In the end, conservatives of faith need to confidently and clearly explain to their opponents why our social, cultural, and political beliefs are good for everyone. If not, we’ll lose the debate, the country, and eventually our religious liberty. ~The Patriot Post
Woke Pentagon Attacks Warmism and Extremism
It’s good to know the adults are back in charge. Otherwise, we’d lie awake in bed at night, wondering what we’re going to do about those twin scourges of global warming and white supremacy.
But with socialist/scumbag/liar-Joe Biden and lowlife/liar-Kamala Harris running the show, and with the world’s finest military at their disposal, the sky’s the limit. After all, what organization could be better equipped to tackle these two existential threats than the world’s foremost killer of bad guys and breaker of bad things?
As for sending a clear signal of resolution to our geopolitical foes, what could be more convincing than an avowed commitment to rooting out the lactose-intolerant Einsatzgruppen in our midst?
Weakness is provocative, but the socialist/scumbag/liar-Biden DoD is so strong it doesn’t even need to worry about military readiness.
So don’t mess, China. You either, Russia. Iran, NoKo, jihadists, ditto.
Naturally, the architect for this new approach to national defense will be socialist/scumbag/liar-Joe Biden’s man at the Pentagon. As The Washington Times reports, “Across the armed forces, climate change and its ripple effects are taking center stage. … The military’s climate change mitigation efforts certainly did not stop during the Trump administration, but the issue was pushed to the political back burner. Top leadership in the Defense Department rarely spoke out on environmental matters despite mounting concerns behind the scenes that it remain a top priority. Now, analysts and military insiders say, the Pentagon under Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin has an opening to reshape the climate change debate fundamentally and permanently, perhaps putting an end to any remaining internal skepticism over whether the issue is deserving of time and resources.”
Got that? The Pentagon will no longer tolerate climate skeptics. Because, well, the science is settled.
Austin, 67, is our nation’s first black secretary of defense and therefore the perfect embodiment of the Biden administration’s obsession with race. A West Point graduate and former commander of U.S. Central Command under Barack scumbag/liar-nObama, Austin retired in 2016 and therefore needed a waiver from Congress to override the law that says a member of our military must wait seven years from active service to take the top civilian post.
“Given the immense and urgent threats and challenges our nation faces, he should be confirmed swiftly,” socialist/scumbag/liar-Biden wrote in a predictably hagiographic Atlantic op-ed. “The fact is, Austin’s many strengths and his intimate knowledge of the Department of Defense and our government are uniquely matched to the challenges and crises we face.”
Austin got his waiver, and he was quickly confirmed on a 93-2 vote in the Senate. Missouri’s Josh Hawley and Utah’s Mike Lee were opposed.
Once confirmed, Austin didn’t waste any time getting to the crux of what ails our nation’s military. As The Hill reports, “Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin on Wednesday ordered a U.S. military-wide ‘stand-down’ to address extremism in the ranks, an issue that has long stumped Pentagon leaders but came to the forefront after the Jan. 6 breach of the U.S. Capitol. The Defense Department is still scant on details on Austin’s decision, which came after he met with Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Mark Milley and the service secretaries and chiefs on Wednesday morning. Leaders are expected to hold ‘needed discussions’ with subordinates about extremism in the next 60 days, top department spokesperson John Kirby told reporters at the Pentagon.”
The Washington Examiner adds, “The FBI is reportedly investigating 25 individuals at the riot who might be active service members or veterans, according to the Military Times. Almost nothing is known about the status or details of any of the investigations. The only service member who authorities have fingered as part of the siege on the Capitol is Timothy Louis Hale-Cusanelli, an Army reservist.”
Lloyd Austin, said socialist/scumbag/liar-Joe Biden, “is the person we need in this moment.” We’re to assume, then, that this moment demands that our military focus on the non-calamity of climate change and the white supremacist “extremism” that has infected its rotten ranks. If those two initiatives don’t build troop morale, it’s hard to imagine what will.
But here we thought the mission of our Department of Defense was “to provide the military forces needed to deter war and ensure our nation’s security” — you know, like it says right here on its website.
We can only hope that our military readiness doesn’t suffer, and that our failure to focus on war-fighting doesn’t prove provocative.
~The Patriot Post
socialist/scumbag/liar-Biden Admin Endorses Yale's Racial Discrimination
The party that loves to lob the spurious charge of racism against conservatives and Republicans is, more often than not, the party actually guilty of the charge. On Wednesday, socialist/scumbag/liar-Joe Biden’s Social Justice Department withdrew a lawsuit against Yale University that had been filed under the Trump administration over the Ivy League school’s discrimination against Asian and white applicants.
A spokeswoman stated that the DOJ “has dismissed its lawsuit in light of all available facts, circumstances, and legal developments.” Well, that’s one way to put it. The lawsuit alleged that Yale’s “oversized, standardless, intentional use of race has subjected domestic, non-transfer applicants to Yale College to discrimination on the ground of race.”
Similar to the case against Harvard University regarding its quota system for Asian students, Yale also used a similar race-weighted admission system. According to the Trump DOJ’s investigation, Yale granted blacks who scored in the tenth decile (the top bracket) a 60% rate of admission compared to 20% for whites and just 14% for Asians.
socialist/scumbag/liar-Biden’s DOJ not only dropped the lawsuit against Yale, it withdrew the notice charging the school with having violated Title VI of the Civil Rights Act. So much for racial equality. And what about all that “equity” Team socialist/scumbag/liar-Biden was yammering about? If any organization could be rightly charged with systemic racism, it would seem that Yale fits the bill.
Speaking of racism and higher education, a recent report released by the Center for Equal Opportunity has concluded that affirmative action polices aimed at increasing racial diversity on campus have only worsened racial relations. The report is titled “Campus Diversity and Student Discontent: The Cost of Race and Ethnic Preferences in College Admissions.” Researchers found that not only did school “diversity” initiatives not produce greater acceptance, they produced a sense of “greater alienation” among black students as well as “a general sense of campus discontent among non-minority students and faculty.”
In other words, elevating racial diversity above other considerations produced greater unease and distance rather than greater appreciation, camaraderie, and acceptance between different racial groups.
Once asked how to solve racism, actor Morgan Freeman famously responded, “Stop talking about it.” Indeed, just as constantly picking at a scab prevents a wound from healing, incessantly focusing on race and racism prevents racial harmony. ~The Patriot Post
HANS VON SPAKOVSKY
Lawyers Are Facing Reprisal for Representing Trump
“So… you represented Trump?” That question is unfairly haunting a number of the former president’s lawyers.
Because of his legal counsel to former President Donald Trump, constitutional scholar and law professor John Eastman — the former dean of the law school no less — was pushed out of Chapman University, where he spent his entire, very distinguished academic career.
The same thing happened to Cleta Mitchell, a well-known and highly respected Washington, D.C. lawyer who had practiced with Foley and Lardner for decades.
Now, Michigan lawyers Greg Rohl, Scott Hagerstrom, and Stefanie Junttila, who represented the Trump campaign in election litigation in the state, are being unfairly and unjustly targeted for disbarment by Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and state Attorney General Dana Nessel.
These lawyers find themselves in the all-too-familiar position today of being punished for carrying out their professional duties to the best of their abilities — as required by the codes of conduct that govern all attorneys — by representing a client who is politically unpopular with those in power.
This is not just wrong, but un-American — something we don’t say lightly. This country is fundamentally based on the rule of law, which depends on protecting the ability and independence of lawyers to take unpopular clients and unpopular cases, something that has been done by brave, principled lawyers throughout our nation’s history.
This is one of those lessons that people on both sides of the political aisle selectively defend and selectively forget.
Unfortunately, we’ve been here before.
scumbag/liar-Hillary Clinton was attacked for defending a child rapist as a court-appointed attorney. Lawyers who represented detainees at Guantamo Bay were also attacked for defending terrorists.
Some progressives deride prosecutors for enforcing laws they view as unjust, and some conservatives deride defense attorneys for defending dangerous or unsavory individuals charged with committing heinous crimes. And just about everyone derides divorce lawyers.
But we are, as John Adams said, a nation of laws and not of men. That means that we insulate our justice system from the fickle whims of human nature with processes and procedures. These are designed to minimize human error and to diminish the influence of the court of public opinion.
The independence of lawyers is one of the most important parts of that system. Adams himself put his famous line into practice when, in 1770, he defended British soldiers accused of killing American colonists during the Boston Massacre. A more unpopular representation could hardly have been imagined, but Adams risked his reputation and career because he believed in the rule of law.
The right to counsel is one of the most precious rights we have because it is essential to an individual’s ability to assert any other right. As distinguished law professor Geoffrey Hazard, Jr. once said, the adversarial system “stands with freedom of speech and the right of assembly as a pillar of our constitutional system.”
Harassing or punishing lawyers who represent unpopular clients or take unpopular cases undermines the rule of law.
That is exactly what the governor and attorney general of Michigan are trying to do by calling for the disbarment of several of Trump’s lawyers, who did exactly what rule 1.3 of the Michigan Rules of Professional Conduct directs them to do, which is practice “zeal in advocacy upon the client’s behalf.”
They claim that the lawyers should be disbarred because they “undermine[d] the faith of the public in the legitimacy of the recent presidential election, and lent credence to untruths that led to violence and unrest.”
But a commitment to the rule of law separates a lawyer from the implications of the cases they undertake. If not, then scumbag/liar-Hillary Clinton “protected a child rapist,” and Guantanamo defense lawyers “undermined our national security and tried to free terrorists.”
Nonsense. In each of these cases, the lawyers upheld the rule of law by playing their proper role in the process. The same goes for Trump’s lawyers. They made legal claims under applicable laws that were reviewed by the courts, which is just as it should be.
That is not only an absurd claim but a dangerous one. Under that bizarre theory, all of the lawyers who represented Al Gore in 2000 in his election contest should have been disbarred. So too the lawyers who represented Democratic congressional candidate Dan McCready in North Carolina in 2018 in an election contest that the state’s Board of Election overturned due to absentee ballot fraud. And Democrat lawyer Marc Elias should also be disbarred for claiming that voting machines produced incorrect results that favored Republican Claudia Tenney in the race for New York’s 22nd district.
When lawyers violate their ethical obligations by, for example, filing a meritless lawsuit, the courts already have rules and procedures to deal with them. The justice system is designed to do that. But taking on an unsavory client or a client that state officials don’t like for partisan reasons does not amount to litigating in an unethical manner.
When people intentionally blur that line, as Whitmer is doing, they undermine the rule of law, the fair administration of justice, and access to the protections of our legal system.
Elections are decided at the ballot box and, in some cases, issues arising from an election and potential recounts may require legal resolution. Punishing the lawyers who represent candidates and their campaigns in these cases is not only wrong, it is disgraceful.
No matter which candidates you supported in the last election, no matter which political party you believe represents your points of view on how this country should be governed, everyone should agree that the retribution, reprisals, and payback being imposed on lawyers involved in the 2020 election has no place in our civil society. ~The Patriot Post
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