Censuring -- er, closing the tabs ...
LOL: The House of Representatives voted to CENSURE Rep. Al Green, and Democrats starting SINGING on the house floor in "protest."
— Townhall.com (@townhallcom) March 6, 2025
Speaker Mike Johnson had to literally SHUSH them.
This is PATHETIC!
🤣 pic.twitter.com/jqt9eMic8T
Ed: I posted my thoughts about this earlier, but it's still worth leading off tonight's discussion with this absurd spectacle.
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"It wasn't entirely clear how this was supposed to help Democrats win back young and working-class voters," writes the Free Beacon's Andrew Stiles. According to another poll, this time from CNN, "80 percent of Americans who watched Trump's speech found Green's behavior to be inappropriate."
"Binyamin Appelbaum, an Ivy League graduate and member of the New York Times editorial board, disagreed with the majority. The professional journalist argued Green's act of 'civil disobedience' was the best moment of Trump's entire speech. 'Why did he stand alone?' Appelbaum wondered."
Ed: Maybe House Democrats were Googling the lyrics to "We Shall Overcome"? Or maybe because Al Green is a ridiculous figure and always has been? If Democrats want to make nonsense obstructionism their main strategy, then they will have to deal with an American electorate that just soundly rejected the agenda that they offered without the mindless nonsense.
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Just look at those numbers. This is a unity president enacting a unity agenda around deeply popular policies that have purchase with big majorities of Americans. And everyone knows it but the elites in the Democratic Party and their handmaidens in the media. https://t.co/0IAjpVXwpv
— Batya Ungar-Sargon (@bungarsargon) March 5, 2025
Ed: Even with the normal SOTU/quasi-SOTU skew of audiences toward the president, that is pretty impressive. And it makes Al Green and House Democrats look even more disconnected from reality.
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Congressional Democrats are nearly all on the far left, the difference is whether they conceal the extent of their leftism to be electable in moderate districts. Swing-district Democrats are angry at safe-district Democrats for blowing their cover.
There is more at the link, which is publicly accessible. For me, the takeaway is that the conflict in the Democratic Party is over optics and political strategy. Some Democrats think it is a bad look to refuse to clap for, say, Laken Riley’s family. But evidently there are no Democrats who think their party has actually been wrong on the issue of illegal immigration, or, to take another instance, advocating for men in women’s sports. Until the Democrats get serious about issues, not just image, they will continue to wander in the wilderness.
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...With this vote and the subsequent protest in the well, the party has cut itself adrift from any principle of decorum or civility. It turns out that only 8 Democrats voted for the motion. Two voted present. Green said he would do it again and the rest of the party supported him
— Jonathan Turley (@JonathanTurley) March 6, 2025
Ed: It was ten House Dems, not eight, but the point still stands.
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What’s next for Green? Despite the censure, Green isn’t going anywhere. He’ll continue to serve as a representative for Texas, but this reprimand will certainly follow him. It’s a reminder that even in the highly charged world of politics, there are rules of conduct that members of Congress are expected to follow.
At the end of the day, this move is just one example of how Congress tries to maintain order and keep things running smoothly—even when things get a little tense.
Ed: Or not. The incentives have swung in the other direction. Green's clown show has become more the norm than the exception, and if you don't think that's true, consider who Democrats believe to be the future of their party.
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https://t.co/AA6iSoG15X pic.twitter.com/1wXlu8JRLV
— Ed Morrissey (@EdMorrissey) March 6, 2025
Ed: We could not possibly be this lucky.
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Special counsel Hampton Dellinger says he is dropping his lawsuit to try to keep his job after President Donald Trump fired him. His decision comes a day after the federal appeals court in Washington temporarily removed him from the position and ends what was poised to be a major test of Trump’s power to fire officials with some independence in the federal government.
Dellinger’s case had the potential of rewriting the law around Congressionally approved protections for the federal civil service. But it is no longer going to move forward in the court system, removing the possibility of the Supreme Court to revisit Dellinger’s job’s independence from the president’s wishes.
Ed: Someone woke up and smelled the coffee ... belatedly. Trump's efforts to cut the bureaucracy is proving popular, as Harry Enten discovered in CNN's latest poll. And the idea that executive branch officials are accountable to the elected president is getting more popular at SCOTUS, too.
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"Wait a minute...Whoa." Trump's efforts to cut govt spending are more popular than many think.
— (((Harry Enten))) (@ForecasterEnten) March 6, 2025
-54% say Musk/DOGE should influence govt spending
-51% approve of Trump trying to cut staff govt agencies
-More say Musk (42%) is cutting wasteful spending than needed programs (36%) pic.twitter.com/HsYgnte8RE
Ed: Maybe Democrats should listen rather than sing old songs.
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