DL Open Thread: Friday, September 13, 2024

Laura Loomer And Marjorie Taylor Greene In A Steel Cage?  When you’re too racist for MTG…:

GOP Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene criticized far-right activist Laura Loomer on Thursday, saying that her “rhetoric and hateful tone” is concerning and a problem and “doesn’t represent MAGA as a whole.”

The comments from Greene, a Georgia Republican who has her own high-profile history of incendiary and inflammatory remarks, come after the congresswoman called on Loomer to take down an X post, in which Loomer said if Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris, who is half Indian, wins, “the White House will smell like curry & White House speeches will be facilitated via a call center.”

Greene called the post “extremely racist,” and wrote in response on X, “This does not represent President Trump.”

Loomer has been on a handful of trips with Trump, appears often at events where he is speaking and there have been times her bombastic social media posts have appeared to preview Trump’s next line of attack.

Loomer told CNN of the post: “It’s interesting how the media wants to, once again, falsely accuse me of being a racist. This is a woman who is on video cooking Indian food with Indian celebrities talking about how she likes cooking with curry.”

My theory?  Loomer agreed to do something that MTG wouldn’t:  Change his diapers.

Congressional Rethugs: Not Serious People:

Donald Trump and Speaker of the House Mike Johnson are very proud of their plan to link a must-pass piece of government funding legislation to a bill that lays the groundwork for Trump to blame undocumented immigrants for his potential defeat in November. The only problem, we’re now learning, is that no one of any influence is on board with this plan besides the two of them.

Johnson hatched the plan at the beginning of the month, caving to pressure from members of the House Freedom Caucus (the Trumpy tail wagging House-Republican-conference dog) to attach the SAVE Act to any funding bills the House passes to keep the government open. The Act would outlaw non-citizen voting in federal elections, which is already illegal and statistically rarely happens, and require proof of citizenship in order to register to vote; experts say it is both unnecessary and would suppress the vote. For this reason, the bill could not pass the Democratic-controlled Senate, and so would risk a government shutdown.

…(E)very faction of his House majority is not happy with the bill:

• Defense hawks in the conference are reportedly concerned about maintaining current spending levels for the Pentagon for six months.
• While hardline members of the Freedom Caucus are supportive of the coupling — which, as TPM has reported, is merely an exercise in producing election denialism fodder for Trump if he loses in the fall — they really hate short term spending bills in general and are not on board with the can-kicking. That was one of ousted Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s (R-CA) greatest sins, in their eyes, and part of why so many members of the Freedom Caucus got on board with the motion to vacate.
• Moderate (aka vulnerable) Republicans are not thrilled about risking their reelection prospects for the sake of helping Trump get his Big Lie 2.0 locked and loaded before the election. Per reporting from The Hill (Fox News also highlighted a similar dynamic): “Still others saw the bill as a meaningless exercise, as it would have been dead on arrival in the Democratic-controlled Senate. Some moderates were also weary of the strategy, as worries rose about having a shutdown threat so close to Election Day.”

Rethugs HATE It When Confronted With Facts.  Watch the odious Stephen Miller blow up when challenged on his lies:

Trump senior adviser Stephen Miller had an on-camera meltdown after being asked by a journalist to back up questionable claims he was making about Venezuela’s crime rate, video of the episode posted to social media shows.

The four-minute video shows an emotional Miller yelling at NTN24 reporter José María del Pino on Tuesday after del Pino questioned Miller over his claims that Venezuela has become safer than the United States because its convicts are now all in the U.S.

Miller also repeated a since-debunked story that a Venezuelan gang has taken over Colorado apartment complexes.

“The crime rate in Venezuela is down, I believe, a little bit over 60% over the last several years,” Miller tells the reporters. Trump has made a similar claim.

Del Pino then interrupts him to ask if he is trusting official crime figures from Venezuelan President Nicholas Maduro, whose office is not known for releasing accurate information.

This back-and-forth exchange goes on for more than a minute — with Del Pino repeatedly asking him to clarify his source for the numbers — before Miller erupts.

“I am trusting the fact that Kamala Harris is letting illegal immigrants into this country who are raping and murdering children,” Miller yells back.