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Tag: Marjorie Taylor Greene

  • Twitter stops enforcing its COVID misinformation policy

    Twitter stops enforcing its COVID misinformation policy

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    Twitter will no longer enforce its policy against COVID-19 misinformation, raising concerns among public health experts that the change could have serious consequences if it discourages vaccinations and other efforts to combat the still-spreading virus.

    Eagle-eyed users spotted the change Monday night, noting that a one-sentence update had been made to Twitter’s online rules: “Effective November 23, 2022, Twitter is no longer enforcing the COVID-19 misleading information policy.” That policy, first put in place in May 2020, labeled tweets about the COVID-19 pandemic deemed to be incomplete, misleading or disputed.

    By Tuesday, some Twitter accounts were testing the new boundaries and celebrating the platform’s hands-off approach, which comes after Twitter was purchased by Elon Musk.

    “This policy was used to silence people across the world who questioned the media narrative surrounding the virus and treatment options,” tweeted Dr. Simone Gold, a physician and leading purveyor of COVID-19 misinformation. “A win for free speech and medical freedom!”

    Twitter’s decision disappointed many public health officials, however, who said it could lead to more false claims about the virus, or the safety and effectiveness of vaccines.

    “Bad news,” tweeted epidemiologist Eric Feigl-Ding, who urged people not to flee Twitter but to stay and stand up for accurate information about the virus. “Stay folks — do NOT cede the town square to them!”


    The price of free speech – and censorship

    08:39

    Moderation only somewhat successful

    Twitter was one of several social platforms to try to control the online conversation in early 2020, after the emergence of a new and deadly virus led to hysteria and speculation, and as the scientific understanding of the illness evolved.

    Twitter has struggled with enforcement of the policy, as other platforms have. Even when it was in place, posts making bogus claims about home remedies or vaccines could still be found, while factually accurate posts were suppressed if they were perceived as critical of vaccination or masking. It was difficult on Tuesday to identify exactly how the platform’s rules may have changed.

    Messages left with San Francisco-based Twitter seeking more information about its policy on COVID-19 misinformation were not immediately returned Tuesday.

    The virus continues to spread, although fewer Americans are dying from COVID-19 today than at the start of the pandemic. Nationally, new COVID cases averaged nearly 38,800 a day as of Monday, according to data from Johns Hopkins University. The numbers are far lower than last winter, but are also a vast undercount because of reduced testing and reporting of the virus. About 28,100 people with COVID were hospitalized daily and about 313 died, according to the most recent federal daily averages.

    Cases and deaths were up from two weeks earlier. Yet a fifth of the U.S. population hasn’t been vaccinated, and most Americans haven’t gotten the latest boosters. Many have also stopped wearing masks, as a majority of venues aren’t now requiring them.

    Musk, who has himself spread COVID misinformation on Twitter, has signaled an interest in rolling back many of the platform’s previous rules meant to combat misinformation.

    Last week, Musk said he would grant “amnesty” to account holders who had been kicked off Twitter. He’s also reinstated the accounts for several people who spread COVID misinformation, including that of Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, whose personal account was suspended this year for repeatedly violating Twitter’s COVID rules.

    Greene’s most recent tweets include ones questioning the effectiveness of masks and making baseless claims about the safety of COVID vaccines.


    Why Elon Musk reinstated Trump’s Twitter account

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    Under the policy enacted in January 2020, Twitter prohibited false claims about COVID-19 that the platform determined could lead to real-world harms. More than 11,000 accounts were suspended for violating the rules, and nearly 100,000 pieces of content were removed from the platform, according to Twitter’s latest numbers.

    A search for common terms associated with COVID misinformation yielded lots of misleading content, but also automatic links to helpful resources about the virus as well as authoritative sources like the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

    Combating lies a “collective responsibility”

    Dr. Ashish Jha, the White House COVID-19 coordinator, said Tuesday that the problem of COVID-19 misinformation is far larger than one platform, and that policies prohibiting COVID misinformation weren’t the best solution anyway.

    Speaking at a Knight Foundation forum Tuesday, Jha said misinformation about the virus spread for a number of reasons, including legitimate uncertainty about a deadly illness. Simply prohibiting certain kinds of content isn’t going to help people find good information, or make them feel more confident about what they’re hearing from their medical providers, he said.

    “I think we all have a collective responsibility,” Jha said of combating misinformation about COVID. “The consequences of not getting this right — of spreading that misinformation — is literally tens of thousands of people dying unnecessarily.”

    CBS News’ Irina Ivanova contributed reporting.

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  • Newspaper Risks Wrath Of Toddlers Everywhere With Warning About GOP

    Newspaper Risks Wrath Of Toddlers Everywhere With Warning About GOP

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    The St. Louis Post-Dispatch warned that the House of Representatives needs “toddler-proofing” by Democrats before Republicans take control in January.

    The incoming GOP House majority is “a crowd that has literally announced its intention to threaten America’s fiscal stability, block election reforms and abandon Ukraine,” the paper noted.

    Extremist Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) is among House Republicans who have promised to ax U.S. funding for Ukraine’s defense against Russia’s invasion.

    “Under Republicans, not another penny will go to Ukraine. Our country comes first. They don’t care about our border or our people,” Greene said earlier this month.

    Potential GOP House speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) has struck a more moderate tone, but has promised no more “blank check” for Ukraine.

    “Democrats who still control Congress now have not just a right but a duty to ensure that the worst instincts of the incoming majority are reined in before they’re seated,” the editorial concluded. “Let’s cover those plug sockets.”

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  • Musk says granting ‘amnesty’ to suspended Twitter accounts

    Musk says granting ‘amnesty’ to suspended Twitter accounts

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    SAN FRANCISCO — New Twitter owner Elon Musk said Thursday that he is granting “amnesty” for suspended accounts, which online safety experts predict will spur a rise in harassment, hate speech and misinformation.

    The billionaire’s announcement came after he asked in a poll posted to his timeline to vote on reinstatements for accounts that have not “broken the law or engaged in egregious spam.” The yes vote was 72%.

    “The people have spoken. Amnesty begins next week. Vox Populi, Vox Dei,” Musk tweeted using a Latin phrase meaning “the voice of the people, the voice of God.”

    Musk used the same Latin phrase after posting a similar poll last last weekend before reinstating the account of former President Donald Trump, which Twitter had banned for encouraging the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol insurrection. Trump has said he won’t return to Twitter but has not deleted his account.

    Such online polls are anything but scientific and can easily be influenced by bots.

    In the month since Musk took over Twitter, groups that monitor the platform for racist, anti-Semitic and other toxic speech say it’s been on the rise on the world’s de facto public square. That has included a surge in racist abuse of World Cup soccer players that Twitter is allegedly failing to act on.

    The uptick in harmful content is in large part due to the disorder following Musk’s decision to lay off half the company’s 7,500-person workforce, fire top executives, and then institute a series of ultimatums that prompted hundreds more to quit. Also let go were an untold number of contractors responsible for content moderation. Among those resigning over a lack of faith in Musk’s willingness to keep Twitter from devolving into a chaos of uncontrolled speech were Twitter’s head of trust and safety, Yoel Roth.

    Major advertisers have also abandoned the platform.

    On Oct. 28, the day after he took control, Musk tweeted that no suspended accounts would be reinstated until Twitter formed a “content moderation council” with diverse viewpoints that would consider the cases.

    On Tuesday, he said he was reneging on that promise because he’d agreed to at the insistence of “a large coalition of political-social activists groups” who later ”broke the deal” by urging that advertisers at least temporarily stop giving Twitter their business.

    A day earlier, Twitter reinstated the personal account of far-right Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, which was banned in January for violating the platform’s COVID misinformation policies.

    Musk, meanwhile, has been getting increasingly chummy on Twitter with right-wing figures. Before this month’s U.S. midterm elections he urged “independent-minded” people to vote Republican.

    A report from the European Union published Thursday said Twitter took longer to review hateful content and removed less of it this year compared with 2021. The report was based on data collected over the spring — before Musk acquired Twitter — as part of an annual evaluation of online platforms’ compliance with the bloc’s code of conduct on disinformation. It found that Twitter assessed just over half of the notifications it received about illegal hate speech within 24 hours, down from 82% in 2021.

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  • Marjorie Taylor Greene Sparks Anger With ‘Pure Bloods’ Tweet About Unvaccinated

    Marjorie Taylor Greene Sparks Anger With ‘Pure Bloods’ Tweet About Unvaccinated

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    The conspiracy theory-endorsing lawmaker on Tuesday responded to a warning from Dr. Anthony Fauci, the retiring head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, that the “real danger” this winter “is in the people who have not been vaccinated” with this boast about being unvaccinated from the deadly disease:

    Greene swiped at COVID-19 mask and vaccine mandates in other tweets.

    She then tweet-quoted a photo shared by Juanita Broaddrick, who has accused Bill Clinton of rape, which he denies. It featured a pie with the words “Unvaccinated and ready to talk politics” written on it.

    Broaddrick herself was reinstated to Twitter this week. Her account was locked in April after she falsely claimed that COVID vaccines “alter DNA.”

    “Come to my house Juanita!” Greene wrote. “We will call our gathering ’Pure Bloods and Politics.′ We’ll cook and discuss how we will ever survive another upcoming dark winter that Fauci has just announced.”

    The “Pure Bloods” description of the unvaccinated stuck in many Twitter users’ craws:

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  • ‘Irony Is Dead’: Marjorie Taylor Greene’s ‘Candidate Quality’ Tweet Goes Awry

    ‘Irony Is Dead’: Marjorie Taylor Greene’s ‘Candidate Quality’ Tweet Goes Awry

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    Twitter users claimed irony was dead after far-right Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene posted about the need for “candidate quality” in the GOP.

    In a lengthy thread that the Donald Trump loyalist shared on Elon Musk’s social media platform Friday, Greene explained why she “truly” believes “one of the most important paths to saving America is by having as many strong Republican governors as possible” and “keeping them in place.”

    “How about candidate quality, individual campaign work ethic & ability, and their campaign strategies,” Greene wrote in one message.

    The call for “candidate quality” was too much for folks online, given how Greene has been stripped of her House committee assignments for liking social media posts calling for the murder of prominent Democrats.

    Greene could be reinstated and take a more prominent role in the House, though, if Republicans take back the chamber in the 2022 midterms. Greene won reelection over Democrat Marcus Flowers in this week’s vote.

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  • Biggest Winners And Losers From The Midterm Elections

    Biggest Winners And Losers From The Midterm Elections

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    After running to the polls to “vote” and feel like they have power, all the little sheep went home to watch their little streaming shows, eat their fast food, and consume all manner of societal opiates, keeping the flock passive and ripe for slaughter.

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  • Marjorie Taylor Greene projected to win reelection in Georgia

    Marjorie Taylor Greene projected to win reelection in Georgia

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    CBS News projects incumbent Rep. Marjorie Taylor Green has easily defeated her Democratic challenger Marcus Flowers in the race for Georgia’s 14th Congressional District. If reelected, Greene’s committee assignments are expected to be restored after the House in February 2021 voted to strip her of them because of controversial remarks she made on social media. 

    Greene raised nearly $12 million in campaign funds, according to Open Secrets, which tracks candidate fundraising and spending, while Flowers raised over $15 million. Both were in the top 10 for fundraising among House candidates these midterm elections. However, just $400,000 was spent in advertising to defend the 14th district seat. 

    Former President Donald Trump endorsed Greene, who frequently appeared as a speaker as his rallies. In 2020, he won in her congressional district by a landslide. 

    Greene was also one of the many Republican candidates running this year who raised unfounded doubts about the 2020 election and objected to the Electoral College certification on Jan. 6, 2021. Greene still continues to incorrectly insist the 2020 election was stolen from Trump, even though those claims are unfounded. 

    Greene repeatedly made false claims and perpetuated conspiracy theories during her first term. In January, her personal Twitter account was permanently suspended for perpetuating false claims about COVID-19. She can still tweet from her Congressional account, however.

    Before she was elected, Greene posted several right-wing conspiracy theories and shared videos with antisemitic and anti-Muslim sentiment. She expressed support for violence against Democratic leaders in Congress. She “liked” a Facebook post that challenged the veracity of the 2012 mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut. Another video captured her confronting Parkland, Florida, school shooting survivor David Hogg.

    After her posts resurfaced, Congress voted to strip Greene of her committee assignments, meaning she could not write bills. She could only vote as a member of the House of Representatives, but could not attend committee hearings. At the time, every Democrat and 11 Republicans voted for the measure, but Republican House minority leader Kevin McCarthy’s opposed it.

    Some Republicans have rebuked Greene for her comments, but many were opposed to to stripping her of committee assignments. In an interview with CNN this week, McCarthy said Greene will serve on committees again if the GOP wins control of the House.   

    Each party assigns members of the House and Senate to different committees. Democrats were particularly opposed to her seat on the Education and Labor Committee, since she had previously promoted conspiracy theories related to the Parkland and Newtown school shootings. 

    Caitlin O’Kane


    caitlin-okane.jpg

    Caitlin O’Kane is a digital content producer covering trending stories for CBS News and its good news brand, The Uplift.

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  • Things A Republican-Held Congress Plans To Do Immediately

    Things A Republican-Held Congress Plans To Do Immediately

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    The GOP has rightly taken issue with the Biden administration killing foreign civilians in airstrikes and causing mass starvation in Afghanistan by freezing its government assets, not to mention the brutal sanctions on—wait, no, it will be over some Marjorie Taylor Greene bullshit.

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  • Marjorie Taylor Greene Doesn’t Think Older Women Should Get a Say on Abortion

    Marjorie Taylor Greene Doesn’t Think Older Women Should Get a Say on Abortion

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    Marjorie Taylor Greene has apparently decided to go the Matt Gaetz route of issuing personal, petty attacks on anyone expressing a desire to maintain their reproductive freedoms. Gaetz has made multiple comments on various occasions about how he thinks women who support abortion rights are unattractive. As for Greene, during a call-in talk show, she snidely told a woman (who she couldn’t even see) that she sounded like she was too old to be able to have an opinion on the matter.

    The caller confronted Greene on her virulent anti-abortion views, saying “My body is my body and I don’t want the government telling me what I can do with my body.”

    Greene responded to the woman’s voice, which sounded like it was likely that of an older person, and asked, “Ma’am, are you having children any time soon?” Without pausing to let the woman answer, she continued defensively, “That’s my question, I’m asking a legitimate question.” She went on—still without letting the caller answer—to say a fetus is “not your body” and called abortion “murder of another human being.”

    This should go without saying, but there is no age restriction on having an opinion about reproductive rights, and Greene’s insistence on belittling this woman over her presumed age—”I don’t think you’re having children any time soon,” she told her repeatedly—is both mean and unnecessary. Abortion is a human right and everyone is allowed to fight to maintain it, whether they can/will/want to have children or not.

    Also, given that the abortion bans being passed in state legislatures across the country are overwhelmingly being written and passed by (older, white) men, anti-abortion zealots shouldn’t be arguing that the physical ability to have children is a requisite for having a say on this issue.

    I’m not sure how long after this call it happened but at some point, Greene made the bizarre decision to simply disappear. The show went to commercial break and when it came back, Greene was gone.

    “Well, we’re back without Marjorie Taylor Greene,” the host said. “She’s gone.”

    “We’ll take your calls and comments and whatever you have to say, but she left. She said she’d enjoyed my show and she’s through, and she got up and left. So, she’s outta here. Nothing I can do about that.”

    Nothing says “free speech warrior” like cutting and running during an ad break.

    (via Vanity Fair, Raw Story, image: Jeff Swensen/Getty Images)

    —The Mary Sue has a strict comment policy that forbids, but is not limited to, personal insults toward anyone, hate speech, and trolling.—

    Have a tip we should know? [email protected]

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    Vivian Kane

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  • Joe Rogan Claims School Has Litter Box For Girl Identifying As Cat

    Joe Rogan Claims School Has Litter Box For Girl Identifying As Cat

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    Did this litter-aly happen? On the October 11 episode of his Joe Rogan Experience Spotify podcast, Rogan claimed that a school “had to install a litter box in the girls room because there is a girl who’s a furry, who identifies as an animal.” He went on to assert that “her mother badgered the school until they agreed to put a litter box in one of the stalls.” And in case you were wondering what one might do in a litter box, Rogan got quite litter-all by adding, “So this girl goes into the litter room or to the girl’s room and urinates or whatever — I don’t know if she poops in it, that’s pretty gross.” Later on, Rogan dumped even more on this, saying, “Use a [expletive] bathroom. It’s sanitary. It’s much better. Like, you want your house to smell like human pee?” Yeah, if this were indeed happening, then you’d think the local health department might have an issue with such arrangements. If this were happening, that is.

    So how did Rogan find out about all of this and what evidence did he provide to support this story? Well, apparently, according to Rogan, “My friend, his wife is a schoolteacher, and she works at” the said school. But Rogan did not give the actual names of the people involved or the name of the school or the location of the school. In fact, he didn’t give too many more details beyond what you can see in the video accompanying the following tweet:

    So essentially all Rogan left you with was this happened at my-friend’s-wife’s-school. Hmm, does that sound a little like the my-cousin’s-friend’s-balls-got-swollen-after-he-got-the-Covid-19-vaccine claim that Nicki Minaj had made about a year ago, which I covered for Forbes back in September 2021? It ended up being practically impossible to verify that ballsy claim since Minaj never really specified the name of the person who owned the testicles or made that person or his testicles available for interviews. Similarly, you’ve got to take Rogan’s story with a litter box full of salt until he provides more specifics that can allow everyone to actually double-check what he had said.

    During the episode, Rogan’s guest, Tulsi Gabbard, who served in the U.S. House of Representatives for Hawaii’s 2nd congressional district from 2013 to 2021, listened to Rogan’s catty story without really questioning any of the assertions. In fact, later in the episode, Gabbard said, “There are no boundaries anymore” to which Rogan responded with, “Right. The teachers in the school and the school itself should have said no to the parent.”

    Speaking of no boundaries, these days there seems to be no boundaries as to what personalities and politicians can claim on podcasts, radio, TV, social media, and other platforms without providing hard evidence versus hardly no evidence. Rogan hasn’t been the only person to make such litter box claims. Looks like a number of politicians have been littering the airwaves with such furry-ious assertions. In fact, Tyler Kingkade, an investigative reporter for NBC News, put together “a thread of the 20 politicians who’ve falsely claimed this year that schools are accommodating who kids identify as cats, putting little boxes on campus for them [sic],” in his words:

    That thread included statements from U.S. Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colorado), as you can see above, and Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Georgia), as you can see below:

    Litter boxes in schools bathrooms and hallways could be health code violations. But again, where is the evidence that such accommodations are being made in schools. And where is the evidence that there is a “growing crisis” in schools of people identifying as cats using a litter box in a hallway, as a Tennessee state lawmaker claimed in the video accompanying Kingkade’s tweet below:

    There is certainly no shortages of crises in the U.S. right now, ranging from the Covid-19 pandemic to the obesity epidemic to mass shootings to pollution and climate change. With all that, this is what legislators are spending their taxpayer-supported time talking about right now? And, once again, where exactly is the evidence supporting such cat-astrophic claims?

    If you really think that schools are providing litter boxes and allowing kids to take dumps in them in an unsanitary manner, why not contact public health officials? Have them investigate and collect real evidence on what is really occurring. It should be too difficult to investigate. An investigator can ask, “Is that a litter box?” And then if so, “what is it doing in the hallway?” Let science lead the way on what to do. And if you truly believe that all of this has become a “crisis,” maybe commission a study on it. That way you can get enough data to determine whether any real legislative action is necessary and maybe even get it into the scientific litter-ature.

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    Bruce Y. Lee, Senior Contributor

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  • Marjorie Taylor Greene’s Husband Files For Divorce

    Marjorie Taylor Greene’s Husband Files For Divorce

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    Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene’s husband, Perry Greene, filed for divorce on Tuesday, according to court documents published online.

    The petition, filed in the Floyd County, Georgia, court, said the marriage was “irretrievably broken” and indicated that the couple, who have been married for 27 years, had been separated for some time.

    In a statement to HuffPost via a spokesperson, the extremist lawmaker said: “Marriage is a wonderful thing and I’m a firm believer in it. Our society is formed by a husband and wife creating a family to nurture and protect. Together, Perry and I formed our family and raised three great kids. He gave me the best job title you can ever earn: Mom. I’ll always be grateful for how great of a dad he is to our children. This is a private and personal matter and I ask that the media respect our privacy at this time.”

    Rep. Greene’s spokesperson also provided a statement from Perry Greene.

    “Marjorie has been my best friend for the last 29 years and she has been an amazing mom!” it said. “Our family is our most important thing we have done. As we go on different paths we will continue to focus on our 3 incredible kids and their future endeavors and our friendship.”

    Greene was elected to Congress in 2020. She has since gained national prominence for her inflammatory rhetoric, diehard support of Donald Trump and embrace of conspiracy theories. Prior to her election, she helped run a family construction business with her husband.

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  • Impeachment push set to take center stage in House, bringing new chapter for GOP | CNN Politics

    Impeachment push set to take center stage in House, bringing new chapter for GOP | CNN Politics

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    CNN
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    House Republicans are preparing to let the push for potential impeachment proceedings dominate their agenda over the next few months, as Speaker Kevin McCarthy faces growing pressure from an increasingly restive right flank eager to take aim at President Joe Biden and his Cabinet.

    The increased focus on impeachment — with Biden’s attorney general and homeland security secretary the highest on the GOP’s list — underscores how Republicans are quickly shifting their focus to red-meat issues that could fire up their base, even as some in their conference are nervous about voter backlash over the more aggressive approach.

    Between July and September, Republicans are slated to hear high-profile testimony from a trio of Biden Cabinet officials who have been top impeachment targets on the right: Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, FBI Director Christopher Wray, and Attorney General Merrick Garland.

    Just this week, a new focus emerged for McCarthy when he announced that Republicans are prepared to open an impeachment inquiry into Garland if an IRS whistleblower’s claim about alleged meddling in the Hunter Biden case holds up, an idea that has been heavily promoted by the far-right bloc of his conference.

    McCarthy’s comments then set off fresh momentum. He appeared side by side with House Judiciary Chair Jim Jordan on Fox News Wednesday night to reaffirm his position. And on Thursday, Jordan, along with House Oversight Chair James Comer and House Ways and Means Chair Jason Smith requested transcribed interviews with Department of Justice, FBI and IRS officials involved in the Hunter Biden case, including US Attorney David Weiss, the Trump-appointed attorney who oversaw the criminal investigation. Garland has rejected claims that the Justice Department improperly interfered in the probe.

    The moves come amid pressure on House GOP leaders and committee chairmen to launch official impeachment proceedings – potentially on Biden himself. House Homeland Security Chairman Mark Green said he is conducting a “five phase” investigation into Mayorkas over problems at the southern border that could culminate in an impeachment recommendation to the House Judiciary Committee, which Green expects to finish by this September. His committee is also expected to include a review of Biden’s handling of the border as part of that impeachment probe.

    “We’re looking at all the things that they’re failing to do,” Green told CNN. “There’s not going to be that much of a change other than we’ll dig into the actual actions of the president in conjunction with what’s happened.”

    With patience on the right wearing out, one hardline GOP member, Rep. Lauren Boebert of Colorado, tried to force a snap floor vote last week on impeaching Biden, though Republican leaders rebuffed the effort and referred the matter to relevant committees instead.

    “We’ve been investigating this failure at the southern border now for a little while … and now the House has asked us to add the president’s actions into this,” Green said. “And we’ll dig into that too.”

    Conservative firebrand Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, who has introduced a slew of impeachment articles against Biden and various Cabinet members, has also signaled she intends to force floor votes on her resolutions, meaning the issue is sure to take center stage for the House GOP in the weeks and months ahead.

    “I’ve talked to everyone here until I’m blue in the face for a long time about impeachment,” Greene told CNN.

    It all represents a new chapter for the nascent House Republican majority – and particularly for McCarthy, who has up until this point been reluctant to lean into impeachment proceedings, instead insisting that his committee chairs focus on gathering evidence and holding hearings before going down that route. And he has instead tried to channel his conference’s focus on messaging bills like energy and immigration.

    Many in McCarthy’s conference are uncertain about the new focus.

    “Impeachment should be treated in the serious matter it deserves,” said Rep. Don Bacon, who represents a Nebraska swing district and said he would review the facts before deciding how to proceed with any impeachment proceedings. “We’ve lowered the bar over the last four years, and it’s not healthy.”

    After facing backlash from conservatives for cutting a debt limit deal with Biden and as the clock ticks toward the 2024 elections, McCarthy has started to warm up to the idea of impeaching a member of Biden’s Cabinet – whether it be Garland or Mayorkas or both, according to multiple sources familiar with this thinking. The move could win over some on his right flank.

    McCarthy has also faced pressure behind closed doors as members like Greene have met with him to personally make their case for why the House GOP should launch impeachment proceedings.

    And McCarthy will need every ounce of conservative support he can get as he heads into spending season, where he may be forced to ultimately compromise with Democrats once again and fall short of the demands from the far right.

    “I think what the House is going to do, we’re going to continue to investigate. We’re going to continue to follow this chain of evidence,” Rep. Byron Donalds, a member of the hardliner House Freedom Caucus, told CNN after the IRS whistleblower testimony was revealed. “I think the evidence is leading us to clear issues of obstruction of Justice at the Department of Justice. And with the White House.”

    Impeaching a Cabinet official has only happened once in US history when William Belknap, the secretary of war, was impeached by the House before being acquitted by the Senate in 1876. But some in the GOP view the idea of charging a Cabinet member with committing a high crime or misdemeanor as an easier sell than impeaching Biden himself.

    Yet McCarthy would still have some serious work to do in wrangling the votes for impeachment, with some moderate and vulnerable House Republicans still concerned about the optics of the politically contentious move, which would be dead on arrival in the Democrat-controlled Senate. Some of those Republican holdouts serve on the House Judiciary Committee, whose panel would be responsible for launching any official impeachment proceedings.

    “I don’t know why we have members on Judiciary that can’t vote for impeachment,” Greene told CNN.

    In the meantime, committees are expected to plug away with their investigative work. The House Oversight panel intends to conduct transcribed interviews with witnesses in the investigations into Biden’s mishandling of classified material and potential Biden family influence peddling, an Oversight Committee aide told CNN, while Weiss faces a deadline of next week to hand over documents related to the Hunter Biden probe.

    And in addition to taking aim at Biden, some key Republicans are pushing the House to take up a symbolic effort to clear Trump’s name, in just another example of how Republicans are using their power to run defense for Trump. Last week, Greene and House GOP Conference Chair Elise Stefanik introduced a pair of resolutions to expunge both of Trump’s impeachments – something McCarthy also said he supports.

    “It is past time to expunge Democrats’ sham smear against not only President Trump’s name, but against millions of patriots across the country,” Stefanik said in a statement.

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  • Marjorie Taylor Greene downplays House Freedom Caucus vote to eject her | CNN Politics

    Marjorie Taylor Greene downplays House Freedom Caucus vote to eject her | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia told CNN on Tuesday afternoon that she still hasn’t been informed by the House Freedom Caucus that she has been kicked out of the far-right group.

    But she said she’s “not really concerned about it.”

    “No one has told me that,” Greene told reporters on Capitol Hill. “As a matter of fact, all the information I found out was from you guys.”

    She added, “I’m here for Georgia’s 14th District. That’s who voted for me. That’s who sent me here and that’s who I work for. And I don’t have time for the drama club.”

    CNN previously reported that the Freedom Caucus ejected Greene from the group just before the July Fourth recess because of her allegiance to GOP leadership and fights she had with members of the caucus, but Freedom Caucus Chairman Scott Perry wasn’t able to get in contact with Greene over the break to tell her the news. Greene’s ejection from the group is the first time the caucus had voted to remove a member since formally launching in 2015.

    Perry, a Pennsylvania Republican, told CNN Tuesday, “I don’t discuss that” when asked about Greene’s membership status and whether he’s gotten a hold of her yet.

    House Speaker Kevin McCarthy – who worked to bring Greene into the fold, which is part of the reason for her Freedom Caucus ouster – offered praise for the congresswoman, calling her “one of the most conservative members” and “one of the hardest working members.”

    McCarthy called it a “loss” for the Freedom Caucus that they decided to boot her.

    “I don’t know why they would do something like that from any perspective,” he told reporters. “I will tell you this – Marjorie Taylor Greene is a very good member, works hard, represents her district night and day. She is always here fighting for the process where it may. I think it’s a loss for the Freedom Caucus.”

    Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio, a Freedom Caucus co-founder, echoed a similar sentiment, telling CNN: “I was for keeping Marjorie.”

    Jordan praised the Georgia Republican as a “fine member” who “fights hard for her constituents” and “does a great job,” but declined to get into any internal Freedom Caucus dynamics.

    Another member of the caucus, Rep. Ralph Norman, told reporters that Greene’s beliefs were too far apart from the rest of the Freedom Caucus for her to remain a member.

    “She left the Freedom Caucus. Her views were not the same, which is fine,” the South Carolina Republican said. “She’s a good friend, we just disagree. So it was good for her and it’s good for the Freedom Caucus.”

    Norman added, “She was critical of us, of the 20 in January,” referring to the 20 House Republicans who opposed McCarthy’s bid for speaker. “She had different opinions on different things, the 20, of what we did in January, she just disagreed with, and that’s fine, but she’s very vocal and continued on.”

    News of Greene’s removal was confirmed publicly by members during the July Fourth recess.

    “A vote was taken to remove Marjorie Taylor Greene from the House Freedom Caucus – for some of the things she’s done,” Republican Rep. Andy Harris of Maryland told reporters last week.

    Colorado Republican congressman and Freedom Caucus member Ken Buck also confirmed Greene’s ousting to CNN’s Dana Bash in an interview on Tuesday.

    “My understanding is they voted to remove her, and the chairman has tried to contact her to let her know and there haven’t been any returned phone calls,” Buck told CNN’s Dana Bash on “Inside Politics” Tuesday. “This week she will undoubtedly get notified.”

    Buck said he was not in the Friday morning meeting before recess where the vote had been held, but if he had been there, he would not have voted to kick her out, despite his belief she doesn’t belong within the conservative group.

    “I don’t want her to be in the Freedom Caucus, but I wouldn’t vote to kick her out,” Buck told Bash. “Once she is in the Freedom Caucus, I think she is what she is.”

    This story has been updated with additional developments.

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