Republicans lined up to get their Fox News sound bites in on Tuesday during a hearing on Attorney General Merrick Garland’s memorandum on protecting school board members against violence—the very kind of violence promised by the folks Donald Trump and Texas Sen. Ted Cruz have been inciting with barely intelligible lies over the past five-plus years.
And, of course, Cruz was once again vying for lead peacock.
Yes, doing a Nazi salute in public is considered protected speech under the First Amendment. There really should be no question about that. Yet unlike Cruz, vehemently defending such behavior is hardly a hill most of us want to die on.
Somehow, Cruz, whose dignity is still languidly circling the baggage claim carousel at the Cancún International Airport, managed to stand in the gap to oppose all the anti-American fiends who might naively suggest that Nazi saluting ain’t cool. Seriously, who gets in this much of a lather and then tops it off with a full-throated defense of sieg-heiling? Ted Cruz, that’s who.
In the second tweet below, Cruz notes that one of the examples of bad behavior that the National School Boards Association (NSBA) included in a recent letter to President Joe Biden was a Nazi salute a protester made during a Michigan school board meeting.
Transcript!
CRUZ: “I did a quick count just sitting here during this hearing; I counted 20 incidents cited. Of the 20, 15 on their face are nonviolent. They involve things like insults, they involve a Nazi salute. That’s one of the examples. My God! A parent did a Nazi salute at a school board because they thought the policies were oppressive. General Garland, is doing a Nazi salute at an elected official, is that protected by the First Amendment?”
GARLAND: “Yes, it is.”
To be clear, here’s what the NSBA letter actually said:
“School board meetings have been disrupted in California, Florida, Georgia, and other states because of local directives for mask coverings to protect students and educators from COVID-19,” the group’s letter says. “An individual was arrested in Illinois for aggravated battery and disorderly conduct during a school board meeting. During two separate school board meetings in Michigan, an individual yelled a Nazi salute in protest to masking requirements, and another individual prompted the board to call a recess because of opposition to critical race theory.”
As noted in the letter, a school board member in Ohio received hate mail that said: “We are coming after you and all the members on the … BoE [Board of Education]. … You are forcing them to wear mask — for no reason in this world other than control. And for that you will pay dearly.”
And here’s Garland’s rather measured take on the Department of Justice’s inquiry into these alarming incidents: “The only thing the Justice Department is concerned about is violence and threats of violence. That’s all it’s about.”
Pretty boilerplate, and yet Senate Republicans could scarcely contain their bilious bullshit.
Following are a few more of the day’s greatest twits.
Sen. Josh Hawley, who knows a little something about encouraging violent protests, thinks Garland should resign.
So does Sen. Tom Cotton, who’s also relieved that Sen. Mitch McConnell and the GOP stole a Supreme Court seat in 2016 (second tweet):
Meanwhile, it was up to Democratic Sen. Cory Booker to lend some perspective to this circus (second tweet):
Of course, in a narrow sense, Cruz is right. Silencing even the most repugnant speech without sufficient cause is anathema to the Constitution and our way of life. So, naturally, Cruz must have fiercely defended former NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick’s silent, nonviolent protests in the face of deadly police violence, right?
Right?
Erm, not so much.
In September 2016, the guy who apparently wasn’t smart enough to be the Zodiac Killer said this: “You know, it's sad when you see rich, spoiled athletes that don't recognize what an incredible blessing this country is. You know, it's very easy when you're sitting there rolling in millions of dollars to disrespect this country … I come at it from a different perspective. I come from a perspective of my dad was imprisoned and tortured in Cuba, and America has meant what it's meant to millions across the globe. It's meant hope. It's meant freedom.”
Exactly. It’s meant freedom … to protest against tyranny and oppression. Not against the teaching of things elementary schools don’t actually teach. Though if parents want to act like asses in protest of fake controversies, that’s certainly their right under the First Amendment.
Of course, it’s not all that surprising that Cruz and his ilk would defend Nazi salutes. They defend Donald Trump constantly, and he’s 90% meat sweats and feral rage. Nazi salutes are just a stepping stone away from where they’re already standing.
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