By Matt Vespa | Townhall.com
Source: AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite
House Democrats may have appeared united in the
resolution condemning President Trump for a series of tweets aimed at Reps.
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), Ilhan Omar (D-MN), Rashida Tlaib (D-MI), and
Ayanna Pressley (D-MA), but behind the scenes we have chaos.
A few talked to
Tapper off the record and noted this whole fiasco has been a massive win for
the Trump White House.
There was infighting between AOC and Speaker Pelosi,
which is good, but what’s even better is forcing the Democratic leadership to
re-embrace this Leninist Girl Scout Troop from Hell and their extremist agenda
and anti-Semitic remarks. Oh, and Omar made sure to make it clear to CBS’s
Gayle King that she doesn’t regret her remarks.
"The president won this one,” said one House
Democrat to Tapper, “What the president has done is politically brilliant.
Pelosi was trying to marginalize these folks and the president has now
identified the entire party with them."
There were also worries that AOC and her crew’s antics
won’t help moderate House Democrats keep their seats in 2020. With them
defining the party, that’s very possible. Have you seen the polling? The agenda
peddled by these women are
viewed as straight trash.
“Anything that takes away from bread and butter issues is
playing into his [Trump’s] hands, said another Democrat.
There’s also great hesitancy to defend this quartet over
their absurd claims that we have concentration camps on the southern border in
a not so subtle reference to the Nazi Holocaust.
The irony is that soon after
these allegations were lobbed by AOC, she quoted a Nazi sympathizer on Twitter. And defending these
women means defending their anti-Semitic antics, which Omar has been their top
quarterback.
While some tried to work on a package to help the overcrowding in
the detention centers, this crew attacked them for being complicit for putting
kids in cages. Why? Well, anything that enforces immigration law is seen that
way. It’s evil in their eyes. They’re for open borders.
“I can't tell you the number of Members who are angry and
annoyed about them criticizing us,” said another Democrat.
Where were these people when the House tried to condemn
anti-Semitism. Over the weekend, Trump said that these women should go back to
their crime-infested places from whence they came, fix it, and come back. He
later doubled down and said if they don’t like it here, they can leave.
Oh, and there’s the whole part about this four-headed
monster backing primary challenged. AOC and her Justice Democrats have said
they are in no way backing off from possibly challenging incumbent Democrats
next year. Needless to say, that hasn’t sat well with their Democratic
colleagues. It looks like Trump just outflanked them.
_____________________
House votes to kill Rep. Al Green's
resolution to impeach Trump
The House of Representatives on Wednesday voted to set
aside a resolution by Rep. Al Green, D-Texas, to introduce article of
impeachment against President
Trump – the third time the Houston-area lawmaker has taken a shot at
impeaching the president, but the first since Democrats regained control of the
House.
Lawmakers voted 332-95 to table Green’s resolution, which
was widely opposed by House Speaker Nancy
Pelosi, D-Calif., and other top Democrats worried that the measure would
force vulnerable swing-district lawmakers into peril ahead of the 2020
elections.
The bipartisan vote shelved any chance of bringing forth articles of
impeachment against Trump in the near future.
"The president has committed an impeachable
offense," Green said on the House floor earlier on Wednesday.
"Yesterday, we condemned him for that. Today is our opportunity to punish
him."
137 Democrats voted in favor of tabling the resolution
compared to just 95 who voted against shelving it. Only one lawmaker, Rep.
Peter DeFazio, D-Ore., voted present.
Trump tweeted afterward, "The United States House of
Representatives has just overwhelmingly voted to kill the Resolution on
Impeachment, 332-95-1. This is perhaps the most ridiculous and time consuming
project I have ever had to work on."
Green later denied he was playing into the president's
hands. "The president, at some point, will be impeached... people are
starting to pay attention," the congressman said.
Instead of moving ahead with articles of impeachment,
most Democrats have appeared to prefer waiting to see if a stronger case for
removal could be developed that would win broader public support, and they're
eagerly awaiting next week's scheduled testimony to two House committees by
former Special Counsel Robert Mueller.
"With all due respect in the world for him, we have
six committees that are working on following the facts in terms of any abuse of
power, obstruction of justice and the rest that the president may have engaged
in," Pelosi said. "That is the serious path that we're on."
Recent polling has shown majorities opposed impeachment.
Even if the House voted to impeach Trump, which would amount to filing formal
charges, the Republican-run Senate would be unlikely to remove him from office.
The showdown over Green's resolution also came amid
tensions between Pelosi and the same four progressive congresswomen of color
whom Trump singled out in a tweet and implored them to "go back and help
fix the totally broken and crime infested places from which they came. Then
come back and show us how it is done."
All four of the women Trump
apparently singled out – Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, Ilhan
Omar of Minnesota, Rashida Tlaib of Michigan and Ayanna Pressley of
Massachusetts – are American citizens and three of the four were born in
the United States.
The four have waged an increasingly personal clash with
Pelosi over how assertively the House should try restraining Trump's ability to
curb immigration.
But, if anything, Trump's tweets may have eased some of that
tension, with Pelosi telling Democrats at a closed-door meeting Tuesday,
"We are offended by what he said about our sisters," according to an
aide who described the private meeting to The Associated Press on condition of
anonymity.
The freshman lawmakers also have been vocal advocates for
Trump’s impeachment.
"Opening an impeachment inquiry is exactly what we
must do when the President obstructs justice, advises witnesses to ignore legal
subpoenas, & more," Ocasio-Cortez tweeted last
month.
The House late Tuesday voted to condemn Trump’s comments
after a bizarre floor fight when Pelosi was found to have violated a House rule
over decorum.
Despite a lobbying effort by Trump and party leaders for
a unified GOP front, four Republicans voted to condemn his remarks: moderate
Reps. Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania, Fred Upton of Michigan, Will Hurd of
Texas and Susan Brooks of Indiana, who is retiring. Also backing the measure
was Michigan's independent Rep. Justin Amash, who left the GOP this month after
becoming the party's sole member of Congress to back a Trump impeachment
inquiry.
