US House Committee Drama Llama: Adam Schiff, Eric Swalwell, and Ilhan Omar Kicked Off of Committees

[Derec]

Summer Lee on Twitter: "Nobody should have to endure the constant unfair targeting and disgusting attacks she does. She shouldn't have to be graceful in the face of hatred everyday.

Summer Lee of course being another Israel hater in Congress.
It is a disgrace that she won that primary against Irwin. It is yet another example how our partisan primary system selects for extremists (on both sides).

 

[Patooka]

We should probably all cut her some slack about this. "I wasn’t aware of the fact that there are tropes about Jews and money." So she shouldn't have been kicked off the committee for being an antisemite. She should have been kicked off for being an idiot.

So an immigrant from Somalia is supposed to know every American bigotry trope or she's an idiot. Right, got it.

She came to America when she was twelve.

So? You'd be surprised how many reich wingers state they don't know anything about QAnon despite it being 2023. Growing up in a country doesn't mean you know all the tropes. For example, I didn't hear the phrase "I'm not here to fuck spiders" until I was 34 and I heard it said by a Canadian in Toronto. Apparently it's a very common Australian piece of slang.

 

[Bomb#20]

Fried julienne potatoes, aka frenched and fried potatoes, originated in Belgium, and rapidly became hugely popular on both sides of the Channel; The English, being culinary and linguistic philistines, rapidly contracted and corrupted the name of the dish to "french fries".

Fascinating. So actually we should be calling them Sprout Fries? Phlegm Fries? Or maybe we can't think of anything more derogatory than Belgian Fries?

 

[Derec]

Well that's weird. Everyone I've seen be critical of Israel is because of their Apartheid-like approach towards Palestinians

Apartheid? The only apartheid is by Palestinians.
Abbas wants 'not a single Israeli' in future Palestinian state

and the casual way they indiscriminately shoot at terrorists and civilians with equal abandon.

That is very false, and bordering on blood libel.
If IDF were shooting "indiscriminately" there would be a lot more dead civilians compared with combatants. Of course, you need to stop reading Palestinian propaganda that views every under-18 year old as "child who was murdered" even though most are teenage combatants like this 17 year old "child".

Another Palestinian "child" soldier killed

If you read Palestinian propaganda, you will read that he was 17 and killed by IDF, but they will omit to mention that he was a combatant.
Of course, in any military action there is danger of collateral damage, including those by US. Especially when fighters deliberately use civilian areas to stage attacks. But there is no evidence of IDF using force indiscriminately.

In fact most of the criticisms go out of their way to compare Israel to Apartheid and make no mention of Judaism. But I guess I'm not a mind reader like you. Maybe Michael Brooks secretly was an anti-semite before he died.

What is the motivation to condemn Israel for doing something every other country would do (defending itself against aggression like Gaza rockets and going after terrorists who want to murder their civilians) other than antisemitism? What is the motivation of bogus charges of "apartheid" other than antisemitism?

 

[Derec]

Or maybe we can't think of anything more derogatory than Belgian Fries?

It is considered the dirtiest word in most of our galaxy.

 

[Derec]

WATCH: Ocasio-Cortez defends Ilhan Omar on House floor - YouTube - saying that IO was being removed for something not nearly as bad as threatening a fellow member's life, that a certain member gets away with conspiracy theories about Jewish space lasers, and saying that this was about targeting "women of color".

GOP majority removed Adam Schiff and Eric Swalwell from their committees as well. But somehow removing two white men and one black woman is all about "targeting women of color". Identity politics in a nutshell.
Not to mention that it was Dems who started with removing people from committees. A bit disingenuous to complain now that GOP returned the favor.

Cori Bush and Jamaal Bowman were sitting behind her,

Two people who definitely should not be in Congress, let alone on any committees.

and they both appreciated her speech. Some people claimed that AOC was ripping off the style of some black preachers, however.

I am sure she don't feel no ways tired.

 

[Bomb#20]

What is the motivation to condemn Israel for doing something every other country would do (defending itself against aggression like Gaza rockets and going after terrorists who want to murder their civilians) other than antisemitism? What is the motivation of bogus charges of "apartheid" other than antisemitism?

Um, the progressive stack? Who needs to have anything specifically against Jews when you have a double standard according to which westerners are automatically the oppressors and non-westerners are automatically the oppressed?

 

[bilby]

Fried julienne potatoes, aka frenched and fried potatoes, originated in Belgium, and rapidly became hugely popular on both sides of the Channel; The English, being culinary and linguistic philistines, rapidly contracted and corrupted the name of the dish to "french fries".

Fascinating. So actually we should be calling them Sprout Fries? Phlegm Fries? Or maybe we can't think of anything more derogatory than Belgian Fries?

For what it's worth, I understand the Belgians are quite touchy about their one genuinely popular invention being almost universally believed to be French.

They were already a mite peeved that the world's most famous Belgian citizen, Hercule Poirot, is a fictional creation by an Englishwoman.

Which reminds me of the time back in my military reenactment days, when a group of us were discussing tactics and strategies from the Napoleonic era with some French counterparts. The French guys had excellent and highly fluent English, but my French is dreadful, and I was seeking to learn the French term for "No-mans Land".

I defined it for them as "The strip of territory between two warring armies, controlled by neither, and constantly fought over".

"Ahh", said one of the frenchmen. "We do have a word for this thing. We call it: Belgium".

 

[Patooka]

So what's your theory for why so many leftists have such a blatant double-standard when it comes to Israel? For instance, Ilhan Omar accused Israel of Taliban-like atrocities, but declined to support a resolution condemning the Armenian genocide.

My theory is not to equate the entire left with one decision Omar has made. As to her views with regards to Armenia, it's not that hard to find her position,

"I also believe accountability for human rights violations—especially ethnic cleansing and genocide—is paramount. But accountability and recognition of genocide should not be used as cudgel in a political fight. It should be done based on academic consensus outside the push and pull of geopolitics. A true acknowledgment of historical crimes against humanity must include both the heinous genocides of the 20th century, along with earlier mass slaughters like the transatlantic slave trade and Native American genocide, which took the lives of hundreds of millions of indigenous people in this country. For this reason, I voted ‘present' on final passage of H.Res. 296, the resolution Affirming the United States record on the Armenian Genocide."

Show me a resolution where Omar has voted for condemning Israel, and you might have some proof in there being a double standard. Go on, please point out such a resolution. I did try to search, but maybe your google-fu is better than mine.

 

[Jarhyn]

In Republican land, criticizing Israel for any reason is "anti-semitism", while openly supporting Nazism is just "our freedoms".

Indeed. It's almost as if they have some kind of faith that they can be bad and just use two different lexicons for when they want it to be a freedom (them) and when it is "anti-Semitism", and for them, it's "are they me or someone I like?"
Faith.
Bad Faith.

Because most criticism of Israel is actually politically acceptable anti-semitism. "Israel" is just being used as a proxy for "Jews".

How the fuck do you figure that considering most of the criticism towards Israel is not even towards Israel entire but their right wing politicians like Netanyahu, Itamar Ben-Gvir and Naftali Bennett? I haven't seen anyone tell Ehud Olmert to go fuck himself in recent times.

Exactly!

This person's critique of Israel is "Israel needs to reject their conservative faction".

Nothing about Jews.

Much like "Iran is rejecting their conservative faction".

Nothing about Islam is really required there, either.

The West Bank, when they have independence, will probably have a conservative faction they need to oust.

The more education can be brought into a nation, good strong scientific education and the corollaries this reveals when we look at the world rather than solely at a book written by people who just talked about it, the more good comes to the world.

For many, religion is about looking at the world itself and saying "how wonderful this all is, let us look closer at it and know more of the world we live in, to commune with God through the surface of Creation.

For others, it is to learn how principles and rules may be applied through an organization of things, and to use such organizations of things to tell stories that use those same principles of creation.

And, for others, it is... Reading a dead and decaying document and trying to squeeze every last bit of nonexistent nuance out of it because they think it is touched by perfection?

I choose a combination of "look" and "apply so as to be in the image of 'that which creates'"

I reject trying to squeeze water from a stone, when I have a community of people telling far better stories that use far better rules than "goddidit" and as such are able to tell far better lessons through their characters.

Ancient conservative traditions on health and safety aside, it's all garbage, and even what isn't strictly garbage is suspect.

The most important health and safety restriction through all time is "don't use heavy metals, including and especially lead, or friable mineral materials where living creatures can get impacted by them or their use or manufacture."

Right behind that is "don't extract too much bound up carbon"

Maybe something about having an acceptable disposal pathway before introducing new materials, and having introduction be a function of whether the disposal system works out?

It's a lot more work intensive, and slower that way, but I think we have burned ourselves.with plastic bad enough that is necessary.

Those are good conservative values, to move slow until we have things figured out well enough to not fuck it up horribly, and to stay away from the things that fucked all humanity up horribly, as is evidenced by actually looking at the evidence left by the past.

 

[TomC]

The most important health and safety restriction through all time is "don't use heavy metals, including and especially lead, or friable mineral materials where living creatures can get impacted by them or their use or manufacture."

Right behind that is "don't extract too much bound up carbon"

Maybe something about having an acceptable disposal pathway before introducing new materials, and having introduction be a function of whether the disposal system works ou

Wouldn't it be nice if God had gotten around to the 11th commandment, "Thou shalt not despoil the earth."
Tom

 

[Bomb#20]

So what's your theory for why so many leftists have such a blatant double-standard when it comes to Israel? For instance, Ilhan Omar accused Israel of Taliban-like atrocities, but declined to support a resolution condemning the Armenian genocide.

My theory is not to equate the entire left with one decision Omar has made.

Sorry, I didn't realize the vernacular term for "equate the entire left with one decision Omar has made" was "For instance". I offered her as an example because this is an Omar thread, but it's endemic and we can find more examples in pretty much any of the innumerable Israel threads there've been on IIDB.

As to her views with regards to Armenia, it's not that hard to find her position,

"I also believe accountability for human rights violations—especially ethnic cleansing and genocide—is paramount. But accountability and recognition of genocide should not be used as cudgel in a political fight. It should be done based on academic consensus outside the push and pull of geopolitics. A true acknowledgment of historical crimes against humanity must include both the heinous genocides of the 20th century, along with earlier mass slaughters like the transatlantic slave trade and Native American genocide, which took the lives of hundreds of millions of indigenous people in this country. For this reason, I voted ‘present' on final passage of H.Res. 296, the resolution Affirming the United States record on the Armenian Genocide."

I.e., she didn't want to single them out. There are quite a few countries with much worse human rights records than Israel's. Go on, please point out where Omar supported a Boycott, Divest and Sanction movement against those countries.

Show me a resolution where Omar has voted for condemning Israel, and you might have some proof in there being a double standard. Go on, please point out such a resolution. I did try to search, but maybe your google-fu is better than mine.

Voted for? Have there been any resolutions to condemn Israel that ever made it out of committee to be voted on, or were you just trying to set up impossible goal posts as a rhetorical tactic?

I can google-fu a house resolution condemning Israel that Omar cosponsored. Does that count?

McCollum Resolution Calls on U.S. House to Condemn Israel’s Repressive Decision to Designate Six Prominent Palestinian Human Rights and Civil Society Groups as Terrorist Organizations

Congresswoman Betty McCollum (DFL-Minn.), Chair of the House Defense Appropriations Subcommittee, introduced a resolution calling on the U.S.

mccollum.house.gov

 

[Derec]

Wouldn't it be nice if God had gotten around to the 11th commandment, "Thou shalt not despoil the earth."
Tom

Must have been written on the third tablet.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Well that's weird. Everyone I've seen be critical of Israel is because of their Apartheid-like approach towards Palestinians and the casual way they indiscriminately shoot at terrorists and civilians with equal abandon. In fact most of the criticisms go out of their way to compare Israel to Apartheid and make no mention of Judaism. But I guess I'm not a mind reader like you. Maybe Michael Brooks secretly was an anti-semite before he died.

Shoot at civilians with abandon?? Hint: Israel has a considerably better record than the US in avoiding collateral damage. Also, beware that an appreciable portion of the civilian deaths that "Israel" causes are short-falling Hamas rockets. Look at the damage--when Israel hits something it's smashed. When you see an "Israeli" strike where things are just banged up it's probably either a short-falling Hamas rocket or something thrown by an Israeli strike on a Hamas ammo dump.

 

[lpetrich]

Greene knocks Gaetz in exchange over committee assignments | The Hill - 01/18/23 - a month ago

Matt Gaetz appreciated the news of MTG getting into the Oversight and Homeland Security committees.
Matt Gaetz on Twitter: "Bravo @mtgreenee!
She’s going to do amazing work for the people on these key committees she has EARNED.
“Rep. MTG of Gerogia is back on committee assignments now that Republicans have retaken the House and the Rep. Gaetz-led revolt has put some steel in McCarthy’s spine.”" / Twitter

But MTG was not as appreciative.
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene on Twitter: "Thanks to @SpeakerMcCarthy & Steering for voting me on the committees I requested on the submission form most of us filled out.
Too bad we’re weeks behind after you spent a week only getting MTV from 5 to 1.
As the leading MAGA voice in Congress, I look forward to committees." / Twitter

MTV = “motion to vacate”

Among the many concessions that McCarthy made to GOP holdouts in his bid to become speaker was allowing just one member to file a motion to vacate — a move to remove the speaker — down from five members under a previous agreement.

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene on Twitter: "@mattgaetz @SpeakerMcCarthy The rules package did not change at all from Jan 1st to Jan 6th, except MTV went from 5 to 1.
Literally anyone can read them online and see that.
All substantial negotiations happened in conference & 5 families meetings before the 15 ballots starting on Jan 3rd." / Twitter

 

[Derec]

This person's critique of Israel is "Israel needs to reject their conservative faction".

Why? A healthy democracy should have both sides of the aisle thriving. The problem with politics in Israel is not that it has a conservative faction, but that the left-of-center faction (Labor etc.) is moribund. Labor itself got <4% in last elections.

By the way, in "Palestine" conservative and moderately left factions would be a great improvement. All factions with any detectable support are either some flavor of fascist (Fatah, Hamas, Islamic Jihad) or else Marxist-Leninist (PFLP, splitters!). Not that they had any elections recently. Mahmoud Abbas, the PA president, is in the 19th year of his 4 year term.

Nothing about Jews.

Do not be deceived. The reason Israel is judged by a very different standard than any other country is that it is the Jewish state.
If US kills Al Shabab terrorists in Somalia or ISIS terrorists in Syria, nobody bats an eye. But if US takes out Hamas and Islamic Jihad terrorists in Gaza or Jenin, many people lose their minds.

The West Bank, when they have independence, will probably have a conservative faction they need to oust.

As I said, them having a conservative faction would be a great improvement over their current political landscape.

The more education can be brought into a nation, good strong scientific education

Israel has that. That's why there are a lot of science and technology innovations coming from Israel.

The most important health and safety restriction through all time is "don't use heavy metals, including and especially lead, or friable mineral materials where living creatures can get impacted by them or their use or manufacture."

Lead has many legitimate uses. And while we can transition away from lead now, we probably would not have been able to develop modern technology that we do have. And technically uranium is a heavy metal, and nuclear power is a very clean and safe one (based on deaths per TWh produced).

Right behind that is "don't extract too much bound up carbon"

What is too much? Would we have technology for modern EVs if we did not use carbon based high energy density sources like coal and oil to jumpstart the industrial revolution? I doubt it.

Also, we are getting a bit far afield from the topic of Israel being judged by a separate, more severe, standard because it is the Jewish state.

but I think we have burned ourselves.with plastic bad enough that is necessary.

Plastics is great class of materials! Esp. in the field of medical devices.

 

[Derec]

Um, the progressive stack? Who needs to have anything specifically against Jews when you have a double standard according to which westerners are automatically the oppressors and non-westerners are automatically the oppressed?

That surely explains a lot. It does not explain people who accept US going after Al Shabab terrorists in Somalia and ISIS terrorists in Syria, but attack Israel for going after Hamas and Islamic Jihad terrorists in Gaza or Jenin.

 

[Swammerdami]

MTG and Gosar were booted off committee for treason and insurrection. Schiff et al were booted for working to expose the treason and insurrection. This simple fact tells us all we need to know about GOP hypocrisy.

And Omar made many openly anti-semitic statements.

Anyone who believes Mr McCarthy about anything is either a kneejerk partisan or extremely gullible.

More hypocrisy. It is the GOP which is most fervently anti-Jew. They babble about Jewish Space Lasers. They insist that Hollywood, run by Jews, is a hotbed of communist sedition. They consider that György Schwartz (who changed his name to George Soros to hide his Jewish-Communist background) has allied with atheists and is a key player in the Gates-Rothschild-Hillary conspiracy to inject nanobots into Christian Americans. The Bible makes clear that the Jews killed the Baby Jesus. In the words of one right-wing scholar "Why have the Jews been so hated for centuries if there's nothing wrong with them?"

Although they hate Jews, the GOP loves Netanyahu's Israel -- the fascist Israelites like to kill Arabs and Muslims whom Christian America hates as much as it hates Jews. They're happy to move the Embassy to Jerusalem and poke sticks in the eyes of Islam without worry that the kike Jesus-killers will prevail in the Middle East: After they've done God's work -- killing Muslims -- we'll enter the Final Days; and the Rapture that sends Republicans to Heaven will send Jews, Democrats and other enemies to Hell.

A tiny number of QOPsters have 100+ IQs and will know I'm being sarcastic. But a majority of Trumpists will applaud my words.

 

[Bomb#20]

Um, the progressive stack? Who needs to have anything specifically against Jews when you have a double standard according to which westerners are automatically the oppressors and non-westerners are automatically the oppressed?

That surely explains a lot. It does not explain people who accept US going after Al Shabab terrorists in Somalia and ISIS terrorists in Syria, but attack Israel for going after Hamas and Islamic Jihad terrorists in Gaza or Jenin.

Not sure which people you're referring to; but the prima facie distinction is that progressives are apt to think it's okay to go after Al Shabab and ISIS because Al Shabab and ISIS attack their fellow nonwesterners. Hamas and Islamic Jihad get a pass on their terrorism due to targeting people lower than themselves on the progressive stack. But Al Shabab and ISIS don't get that, so their oppressor status gets evaluated based on oppression instead of on identity.

 

[lpetrich]

MTG and Gosar were booted off committee for treason and insurrection. Schiff et al were booted for working to expose the treason and insurrection. This simple fact tells us all we need to know about GOP hypocrisy.

That's not the reason. It's threats of violence against fellow Congressmembers.

Marjorie Taylor Greene Loses House Committee Assignments : NPR

The Georgia freshman has come under fire in recent weeks for her history of trafficking in racism, anti-Semitism and baseless conspiracy theories, along with her support for online comments encouraging violence against Democratic officials prior to taking office.

As Democrats Call For Marjorie Taylor Greene's Removal, Republicans Stay Silent : NPR

The list is long of the baseless conspiracy theories that Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene has embraced. She's denied that a plane hit the Pentagon on Sept. 11; supported the idea that the Parkland school shooting was a "false flag" operation meant to usher in tighter gun laws; seemed to agree that Hillary Clinton was recorded "filleting" a child's face.

Greene has also "liked" social media posts that called for executing "deep state" FBI agents, or that advocated removing House Speaker Nancy Pelosi with "a bullet to the head." Greene supports QAnon and has said Muslims do not belong in government.

Gosar censured, stripped from committees over threatening video | Congressman Ted Lieu

The House on Wednesday voted 223-207 to censure Arizona Republican Paul Gosar and remove him from his committee roles for posting an animated video that depicted him killing New York Democrat Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, an action he has refused to acknowledge as inappropriate.

Two Republicans joined all Democrats to force Gosar off of the Oversight and Reform and Natural Resources panels and take the rare act of censuring him, which is reserved for “more serious violations” and a step below expulsion. One Republican, Ohio’s David Joyce, voted present.

As to Jewish space lasers and George Soros,

Marjorie Taylor Greene Tries To Squirm Out Of Jewish Space Laser Conspiracy Theory

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) struggled on Monday to back away from one of her most widely derided conspiracy theories suggesting that the Rothschilds, a Jewish banking family, were connected to the wildfires in California in 2018.

...
She said she wasn’t aware that attacks on the Rothschilds are often coded anti-Semitism.

That they are involved in Jews taking over the world.

 George Soros - born György Schwartz, August 12, 1930

Soros was born in Budapest in the Kingdom of Hungary to a prosperous non-observant Jewish family, who, like many upper-middle class Hungarian Jews at the time, were uncomfortable with their roots. Soros has wryly described his home as a Jewish antisemitic home.[33] His mother Erzsébet (also known as Elizabeth) came from a family that owned a thriving silk shop.[34] His father Tivadar (also known as Teodoro Ŝvarc) was a lawyer[35] and a well-known Esperanto authors who edited the Esperanto literary magazine Literatura Mondo and raised his son to speak the language.[36] Tivadar had also been a prisoner of war during and after World War I until he escaped from Russia and rejoined his family in Budapest.[37][38] The two married in 1924. In 1936, Soros's family changed their name from the German-Jewish "Schwartz" to "Soros", as protective camouflage in increasingly antisemitic Hungary.[39][40] Tivadar liked the new name because it is a palindrome and because of its meaning. In Hungarian, soros means "next in line," or "designated successor"; in Esperanto it means "will soar".[41][42][43]