The new QAnon extremist in the House, Georgia Republican Rep. Majorie Taylor Greene, wore out her welcome with fellow members in about a week's time. Now House leadership is ready to step in where Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy has failed, doing something to keep this dangerous member constrained. Democratic Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz is filing a resolution to remove Greene from her committee assignments because of her "repulsive" comments and behavior. "If Republicans won't police their own, the House must step in," she told reporters Monday.
That's the first step of an ultimatum Majority Leader Steny Hoyer is giving McCarthy. If he doesn't move to strip her of her committee assignments within 72 hours, the resolution comes to the floor and every single Republican will have to vote on it, showing whether they're standing with QAnon or not. So far, McCarthy has only said he'll have a "conversation" with her, and she's vowed to "never apologize." So that's going well.
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Greene is among those whose behavior and statements House Speaker Nancy Pelosi called out last week, citing the direct threat they pose to other members. "What I'm concerned about is the Republican leadership in the House of Representatives, who is willing to overlook, ignore those statements," Pelosi said. About Greene specifically: "Assigning her to the Education Committee when she has mocked the killing of little children at Sandy Hook Elementary School, when she has mocked the killing of teenagers in high school at the Marjory Stoneman Douglas high school—what could they be thinking?" She continued, "Or is thinking too generous a word for what they might be doing? It's absolutely appalling, and I think the focus has to be on the Republican leadership of this House of Representatives for the disregard they have for the death of those children." She told reporters that the House will need more funding for security "for members when the enemy is within the House of Representatives, a threat that members are concerned about in addition to what is happening outside."
Meanwhile, one new representative, Cori Bush, has had to move offices to be away from Greene because she's already been harassed by the her and her staff. The extremely long list of anti-Semitic, racist, threatening, violent and just batshit things Greene has said and done made the threat to Bush very real. Greene has called for the murder of her House colleagues. She's called mass school shootings "false flags," and harassed survivors. There isn't a Pizzagate conspiracy theory beyond her sensibilities. She isn't just a direct threat by her presence to her colleagues, she's a threat in what she can bring to the Capitol from the outside.
"We’re focused on making sure that we can render powerless the poisonous nature of this member," Wasserman Schultz told reporters Monday. "The House has to be able to take actions to police its own membership." Her privileged resolution is just one option. Leadership could also send a motion trough the House Rules Committee to strip Greene’s committee assignments. Democrats have also discussed measures from formal censure to expulsion from the House. That would take a lot of Republican votes, and Greene is already intent on shoring up her position in the GOP. She's using Trump to do it.
Her latest move is claiming over the weekend that she talked to Trump and has his complete backing, which may or may not be true. This follows McCarthy's pilgrimage to Mar-a-Lago last week, so you can guess how that little sit-down between McCarthy and Greene is going to go. In 2019, McCarthy kicked former Rep. Steve King off of his committees following King's interview in The New York Times in which he questioned why the idea of white supremacy was offensive. Greene makes King look like an amateur when it comes to deplorable; that's how far the GOP has fallen. How—or whether—Republican leaders deal with Greene will demonstrate whether there's anything salvageable in that party anymore.