The House resolution which Nancy Pelosi wants to see passed, condemning Donald Trump’s tweets about four congresswomen going “back where they came from” as “disgusting, disparaging and racist” is being fought by House Republicans, because of course it is. Congressman Doug Collins (R-GA) even went to far as to declare Pelosi’s remarks as “unparliamentary” and asked that they be removed from the Congressional Record, for violating House rules. (The last time remarks were removed from the Congressional Record was 1984.)
While waiting for the Chair to rule, here's the applicable section from the House rules to using the word 'racist' when referring to a President during House debate pic.twitter.com/l9im1yAklb
— Jamie Dupree (@jamiedupree) July 16, 2019
Note the dates showing when the Rule was last updated. Most of them are November, 2016 or after.
The argument was made that Pelosi was calling the *resident’s tweets racist, not the *resident himself, which since he authored the tweet, is somewhat amusing, and the fur is flying across the aisle. Then the House Parliamentarian ruled that the remarks should be stricken from the record and as of the time of this writing, the matter has not been resolved. The vote was temporarily halted as of 2:00 p.m. PDT. Either this post will be updated or a new one written to reflect the outcome of today’s House meltdown.
Meanwhile, we heard crickets from the GOP over the weekend about Trump’s rabid attacks of The Squad on Twitter, and then a few of them went on record, because they had no more time to avoid the question and nowhere to hide. The Hill:
One of the strongest denunciations came from Rep. Will Hurd (Texas), the only African American House Republican, whose district has a large number of Hispanic residents. He blasted Trump’s tweets as “racist” and “xenophobic” in a CNN interview.
He called the president’s remarks “unbecoming of the leader of the free world.”
Sen. Tim Scott (S.C.), the lone African American Republican in the Senate, characterized Trump’s language as “unacceptable” and “racially offensive.”
The president’s comments also drew rebukes from GOP lawmakers facing tough reelection campaigns.
Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), who is seeking another term in a state that voted for Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton in 2016, urged Trump to delete his tweets attacking the Democratic lawmakers and implying they’re not real Americans.
“I disagree strongly with many of the views and comments of some of the far-left members of the House Democratic Caucus … but the President’s tweet that some Members of Congress should go back to the ‘places from which they came’ was way over the line, and he should take that down,” Collins said in a statement.
Sen. Pat Toomey (R-Pa.) said Trump was “wrong” to say the four Democrats — Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (N.Y.), Ilhan Omar (Minn.), Rashida Tlaib (Mich.) and Ayanna Pressley (Mass.) — go back to the countries where they are from.
“Three of the four were born in America and the citizenship of all four is as valid as mine,” Toomey said.
Well, that’s white of Toomey to say that. Lindsey Graham, fresh from playing golf on Sunday with Trump said, “We don’t need to know about them personally, talk about their [the four congresswomen’s] policies…They are American citizens. They won an election. Take on their policies. The bottom line here is this is a diverse country.” Believe it or not, Graham’s weak tea efforts towards conciliation drew a reprimand from Trump, who turned around and said that Graham had called the whole group of women “communists,” in the past. Apparently Lindsey needs a few more house-breaking lessons from Vladimir, before he’s the perfect Trump shill and Russian asset.
The most interesting take of all is from Rep. Andy Harris (R-MD) who emphatically stated that the Trump tweets were not racist.
“No, they’re not, they’re obviously not racist,” Harris told WBAL’s Bryan Nehman when asked about Trump’s Sunday tweets. “But again, when anyone disagrees with someone now the default is to call them racist, and this is no exception.”
The tweets were obviously not racist. What were they then, obviously speaking?
This is how the GOP, leadership you can depend on, is responding to Trump, who today tweeted, “There is not a racist bone in my body.” He’s probably right, actually. it’s all that racist fat doing the work. Denial is more than a river in Egypt.
Aaaargh!!!!!!
It failed. Her remarks stay in the record.
http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2019/roll480.xml : 190-232
As predicted and I, for one, am glad. I was surprised that the parliamentarian even said anything, but in all fairness, s/he doesn’t get called upon to enter the heat of battle too often in that position, I would imagine. Even in student council in high school, we rarely had a dispute over parliamentary procedure.
Fortunately the motion to strike her remarks was voted down. I do however have a couple of thoughts on the matter.
1) I was watching some coverage after the flap broke out and one of the people reporting on it said Pelosi had cleared her comments with the Parliamentarian prior to making them. I have to wonder what all of a sudden caused that individual to change their mind? Let’s face it – the GOP are masters at bullying (and worse) so if the reporting was accurate either the Parliamentarian allowed being bullied into changing the ruling given to Pelosi prior to her speaking or schemed/agreed ahead of time to set her up to be sandbagged. I’d love to be a fly on the wall for any conversation the Speaker has (or perhaps has already had) in private when she asks WFT?
2) I find it “amusing” in a disturbing but not surprising way that House rules were amended r.e. this topic mostly since 2016 – IOW proof the GOP knew damn well what they had on their hands with Trump from the get-go and engaged in a willful, calculated way to try and cover Trump’s (and the GOP’s) ass because they knew damn well who/what he was and that for all the professed hope he’d moderate himself and “grow into the office” they didn’t believe for a second it would happen. That means everything, every awful thing they have done since with their legislation & the things (like repeal of the ACA) they tried to do was all a cold, calculated trade off to allow their Party to become the new version of what used to be the “southern” Democrats/Dixiecrats – the racist wing of the old pre-New Deal (and for a while post WWII) Democratic Party which in the wake of the Civil & Voting Rights Acts began migrating over to the GOP.
I can well believe that nobody believed Trump would “grow into” the job — or that it would matter. What got him there was being an a$$hole and he’s depending upon that to be what keeps him there. He might get a big surprise when a lot of people who don’t vote suddenly come out and register and cast a ballot. That is the salvation that I am depending upon. I see no other way out of this mess — unless he does get reelected and we impeach him then.
If that worst happens, I told my husband that we would be moving to Canada, period, end of discussion. I will not sit here and watch him diddle while the country burns!
I seem to recall they’ve bullied the parliamentarian before.
Wow, seriously? What in the name of God could you bully a parliamentarian over? Or why? Would it change a piece of legislation if the parliamentarian said that the procedure was slightly different? Not saying I don’t believe it, I believe everything that happens since the inmates took over the asylum, I’m just appalled.
The last time remarks were removed from the record for a sitting Speaker was 1984, remarks for other members are removed more often. But I can’t find a historical list because the Pelosi story is taking over any searches for previous instances.
What’s interesting to me on this one is that Speaker Pelosi wanted this fight. She knew that her language would come under scrutiny, she knew there’d be a debate, and she knew she had the votes to overcome any challenge.
So she wanted very specifically for a sitting Speaker of the House to enter into the record an official condemnation of the president’s behavior as racist, which is just really remarkable.
Finally Democrats stand up. Trump and Mitch McConnell have turned our politics into a “no rules” game and Democrats need to follow and not whine about getting along or civility. Those days are over until Mitch and Donald are long gone.
Plus a rule which began to take form in 2016 as Trump was becoming President is another example of a “no rules” game