Below is my column in the Hill on the Tennessee controversy over the expulsion of two Tennessee legislators. Liberal members and pundits have lionized the two legislators who shutdown the proceedings while declaring the GOP “fascists.” The controversy perfectly captured our increasingly amplified age of rage.
Here is the column:
Nobel Laureate Albert Camus once said, “Insurrection is certainly not the sum total of human experience but … it is our historic reality.” Those words came to mind this week when Tennessee’s House of Representatives expelled two members accused of disrupting legislative proceedings in what some called an “insurrection” or a “mutiny.”
The scene on the floor of the Tennessee House perfectly captured our “age of rage.” Protesters filled the capitol building to protest the failure to pass gun-control legislation. However, they were in the minority in both the state and its legislature. Three Democratic state representatives — Justin Jones from Nashville, Justin Pearson from Memphis, and Gloria Johnson of Knoxville — were unwilling to yield to the majority. They disrupted the floor proceedings with a bullhorn and screaming at their colleagues.
It is a scene familiar to many of us in academia, where events are regularly canceled by those who shout down others. The three members yelled “No action, no peace” and “Power to the people” as their colleagues objected to their stopping the legislative process. Undeterred, the three refused to allow “business as usual” to continue.
Nothing says deliberative debate like a bullhorn. American politics, it seems, has become a matter of simple amplification.
Many on the left lionized the three for their disruption of the legislature. President Biden denounced the sanctioning of their “peaceful protest” as “shocking, undemocratic, and without precedent.”
There was little criticism of the members for obstructing the legislative business or refusing to accept the democratic process that rejected their gun-control demands.
Today, for many, there is no room for nuance. Instead, they live in a world occupied only by “fascists” and “insurrectionists.”
I have long been critical of the media declaring the Jan. 6, 2021 riot on Capitol Hill as an “insurrection” in spite of my criticism of Trump’s speech on that day and the riot that desecrated our constitutional process. Many in the public agree. Despite the efforts of the House’s Jan. 6 committee and the media referring to the riot as an insurrection, some polls show that 76 percent of the public view it as a protest that went too far. Likewise, a Harvard study showed more citizens viewed Jan. 6 as motivated by loyalty to Trump than a desire for a national insurrection.
The public sees these distinctions. Most of us are supportive of the prosecution of rioters while recognizing that most of the protesters that day did not participate in any violation of law. Likewise, most citizens are able to denounce members for taking a bullhorn to a legislative debate while rejecting calls for their expulsion.
What these Tennessee House members did was wrong — but it was no insurrection. Nor was it worthy of expulsion, as opposed to censure or other sanctions.
Yet, every controversy is now repackaged to amplify talking points, even when they cannot withstand the most cursory examination.
Take Rep. Johnson’s insistence that, as the only white member of the three, she was spared expulsion due to racism. That ignored distinctions raised by Johnson and her supporters during the debate that, unlike Jones and Pearson, she did not use a bullhorn; her counsel also insisted that she separated herself from the protesters. Johnson’s distinctions swayed one member to defeat expulsion, but Johnson then declared the result was evidence of sexism and racism: “pretty clear I’m a 60-year-old white woman, and they are two young Black men. I was talked down to as a woman, man-splained to.”
The media was also captured perfectly in this controversy. For example, it was difficult to distinguish between CNN reporter Sara Sidner and protesters. Sidner corrected Republican Caucus Chair Rep. Jeremy Faison (R-Cosby) as he tried to explain why the members were expelled for “riling up” the crowd. Sidner insisted that the crowd already was “riled up” by the failure to protect them from guns. She then explained that the public was “extremely upset that your legislature wasn’t trying to deal with the issue of keeping children safe.”
House Minority Leader Karen Camper (D-Memphis) praised the protest as “good trouble,” a reference to the words of the late U.S. Rep. John Lewis’ guiding principle on civil disobedience.
This is now our “historic reality.” Liberals and the media, long criticized for downplaying violence from the left, are now rationalizing a disruption of legislative procedure as “good trouble” because the cause is considered to be correct. Conservatives are equally quick to declare protests by those on the left to be “insurrections,” or to declare their opponents to be (in the words of Donald Trump) “enemies of the state.”
Only a few days before the Tennessee House floor fight, a confrontation occurred off the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives in Washington which captured perfectly this new political reality.
Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D-N.Y.) was shown on videotape screaming about gun control in the Capitol as his colleagues left the floor following a vote. Various Democratic members, including former House Majority Whip Steny Hoyer (D-Md.), tried to calm Bowman. However, when Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) asked Bowman to stop yelling, Bowman shouted back: “I was screaming before you interrupted me” — which could go down as the epitaph for our age.
Jonathan Turley is the Shapiro Professor of Public Interest Law at The George Washington University. Follow him on Twitter @JonathanTurley.
So it seems that we are definitely well into a Cold Civil War. When will the hot version begin? Or has it already? Only this civil war, as we see in Tennessee and other so-called red states, it’s not states v. states, but cities v. suburbs and rural. Scary times that I never thought in my lifetime I would see. The MSM is greatly to blame for carrying the water of the left and the right and not maintaining journalistic integrity and objectivity. Such a pity that so much blood has been shed for the protection of freedoms and liberty over the last 247 years and we’re going into the abyss.
Step by step slowly and steadily moves the left. Gaining ground until a Stalin, a Mao, or a Hitler enters the picture. The future is bright only for those having the common sense, guts, and stamina to say no and stand firm.
“evidence of sexism and racism:”
No sexism, no racism. The actions were a foot put down, too harshly or not, the only way to treat violent fascists.
S. Meyer,
Agreed.
They also need a distraction from the fact the Nashville school shooting was carried out by a “trans” man.
But dont let that fact get in the way of the truth.
Who would have guessed that Testosterone injections could lead to violence ?
“Who would have guessed that Testosterone injections could lead to violence ?”
That had nothing to do with the shooting. Stop making up lies about the motivations behind the shooting.
Because you say so ?
You have no idea what lead to the shooting.
Oh, Wait no, you are a left wing nut – you beeleive that the Siren sound of an AR-15 in a gun shop lured this person into a mass killing. That the gun was an irresistable force.
Pretty sure Testoerone injections are a more likely cause.
Though there are other choices – SSRI’s have been know to lead to this.
Anxiety and depression are big causes – and anxiety and depression are near universal in Trans people.
it is likely as evidenced by the concurrent epidemic of anxiety and depression and gender dysphoria that gender dysphoria is just a less common symptom of anxiety and depression. There is a viscious circle between cognative distortion and anxiety and depression.
I am not making a claim about the shooters motivation – there is plenty available from the shooter on that.
I have presented a specific biological factor that is a reasonable probability contributing factor.
Again do you actually think about what you write before posting ?
Testosterone is not a “motivation”
It is a hormone that is frequently given to FTM trans that among other things increases aggression.
That is not motivation, it is not speculation. it is FACT. Sceince, specifically medicine, endocrinology.
Turley is being his same disingenuous self. There is little comparison between what happened on Jan 6 and Tennessee. It’s a false equivalency. Jan 6 involved an attempt to overturn a fair election by force. Some called it a legitimate protest and those who did not actively participate in the destruction of property, assaulting law enforcement, theft, issuing death threats, and defecating on the walls were people who were genuinely protesting. In Tennessee, people were protesting the lack of action on a problem that has gone on for too long and people are genuinely tired of it. The three legislators using a bullhorn and disrupting the session were doing the most American of things one can do. Protest and be uncooperative. They were not destroying property, assaulting law enforcement, or issuing death threats. They were shouting their displeasure at the lack of any action about the problem with guns.
What Tennessee Republicans did was racist and undemocratic. It was very clear to everyone except those who are willfully blind to it as usual. The TN legislators chose to send a message to the minority instead of simply censuring them. They were saying that they should “know their place” in this legislature dominated by Republicans. They went to the most extreme measure first because they were black and young, They wanted to teach them a lesson in the most dramatic way possible. Things became worse when only one of the three who happened to be a woman and white was spared this extreme measure. The Republicans did what any run-of-the-mill authoritarian government does when they face opposition or demands to do something, exert their power to let three legislators in the minority know where their place is. It’s as simple as that.
The rage in this instance is valid because there is little to nothing being done about the problem with guns and schools and the constant shootings that make schools unsafe. Republicans’ answer to this is MORE guns, MORE armed teachers, and continued denigration of other groups to deflect from any possibility that some restrictions are necessary. Turley, YOU feed the rage too. You engage in the very same “age of rage” rhetoric you complain about daily. The network you work for fox news has been doing it for as long as it has been in existence and you have said nothing. The level of hypocrisy and deliberate disingenuousness is breathtaking and sadly typical of you. No wonder your credibility is so poor and why you’re often ridiculed and mocked mercilessly by legal analysts and journalists such as Above The Law’s Joe Patrice. The mockery is well deserved.
In just a few days Fox News will be on trial to face the consequences of feeding their “age of rage” to their viewers and YOUR lack of condemnation of the very thing you seem to be against. Will the trial free you of the need to remain silent or will it help you double down on hypocrisy and further denigration of your tattered credibility as a “distinguished” law professor?
In Tennessee, people were protesting the lack of action on a problem that has gone on for too long and people are genuinely tired of it.
Elections over the last decades prove you wrong. Voting in politicians that run on the promise to increase “gun control” laws. Would have accomplished their desires.
invading the legislature? Not so much.
iowan2, as usual, you miss the point. People are tired of the constant shootings, school children murdered, and the lack of concrete action other than “thoughts and prayers”. Elections over the last few decades have shown Republicans are willing to accept that children can die in schools because their need to protect the right to bear guns is far more important. This is the “pro-life” party. The party is so concerned about other people “killing babies” is perfectly willing to infringe on the rights to protect those helpless unborn children. They are also perfectly willing to infringe on free speech rights to protect children from drag reading events and drag shows that parents are perfectly OK with letting their children attend with them. But they draw the line at protecting children when it comes to guns. The number one cause of children’s deaths in this country is guns. If it takes shouting down or disrupting a legislative session to express people’s exasperation with legislatures, more specifically Republicans may be what is needed. Many here openly agree that as a last resort, people should have the right to enter their legislatures and demand action. Isn’t that what many here supported when Trump supporters attacked the capitol?
The only reason these legislators got expelled and why they chose to apply the harshest possible punishment is because they were black and one white female. They wanted to send a clear and loud message, “know your place”. They wanted to let them know that they need to “shut up and sit down”. All they needed to do is censure them. But no, they chose to punish them in the most dramatic and authoritarian manner. To kick them out because they dared to demand and protest the lack of solutions and enabling of the problem by Republicans.
“because their
needsworn oath to protect the Constittuional right to bear guns is far more important.You always get the fact wrong.
But its not Republicans that are causing the problem
Democrat governance is the problem. Cities like
Chicago,
Detroit
Baltimore
Washington DC
New Orleans
Democrats are the ones failing to pass laws to protect the Children.
Iowan2, Republicans have no trouble violating the rights of others to protect children from people reading in drag to children. So it’s BS that they are “sworn” to protect the Constitution. They are picking and choosing what to protect. That is NOT what they swore an oath to do. The Constitution also allows for the regulation of arms.
Which rights are they violating?
There is no right to read in drag to other peoples children.
Children can not get tattoos, cigarettes, alcohol vape pens, and many other things.
Are you ging to repeal those laws too ?
Regardless of how odious school shootings and gang violence is, anty remedy must comply with the United States Constitution.
https://archive.is/mgil3
You are no different than those who demanded warrantless searches of the Robert Taylor Homes!
How many children were killed in mass shootings last year ? or this year ?
How many die each day in automobile accidents, drownings, poisonings, ….. ?
As is typical of those on the left – you do not want to address problems that it is possible to actually do something about.
You want to do things that will restrict peoples freedom with no actual benefit.
The debate over gun control ended a long time ago. It does not work.
But as is typical those on the left constantly demand things of government they KNOW will not work as left wing nut virtue signalling.
“If it takes shouting down or disrupting a legislative session to express people’s exasperation with legislatures,”
When are you releasing ALL the J6 protestors ?
With respect to the expelled legislators:
I am perfectly happy to agree that we can take bullhorns into the capitol and grind government to a complete halt.
If that is what you want – Fine lets go for it
Kavanaugh protestors can completely make it impossible to confirm kavanaugh.
J6 protestors and prevent the certification of the election.
Those in TN can shutdown the legislature.
We will just shutdown all legislatures, all courts, all city governments, ….
I can live with that.
But I suspect you can’t.
Now if you want a system in which we do not have complete anarchy. in which there is atleast some govenrment,
Then there must be SOME rules.
The TN 3 were in trouble for violating the TN legislatures rules – rules that date back to when Democrats controlled the state.
Do you have a problem with those rules ?
I will be perfectly happy to discuss rules changes with you.
But what I can absolutely guarantee you is that whatever the rules we agree to they will apply equally to republicans and democrats.
But we all know – that is NOT what you want.
You want rules for me, but not for thee.
Regardless, the two TN legislators were expelled for violating the rules. Just as Stanford law students are being disciplined for violating the rules.
Just as the students that kidnapped Riley Gains should be prosecuterd for violating the law.
Protestors at the TN capital were more violent and rowdy than those at J6.
And should be treated accordingly. As should the J6 protestors.
Personally that means nothing should be done. The J6 protestors shoudl be released and compensated for false imprisonment.
Guns are only a significant cause of death among children – when you define children as those 19 and under.
A very large proportion of violent crime in in the US is committed by those under 19 against hose under 19.
Please quit gaming the states.
The homicide rate for 15-19 is 8.9/100,000 the Suicide rate for the same group is 10.0
Homicides 14 and under are 1/5 of 15-19. Suicides are 1/10 15-19.
For kids 14 and under – guns do not make the top 10 causes of death.
If their desire is to be safe from the street thug and the gangbanger, “[v]oting in pol iticians that run on the promise to increase “gun control” laws would not achieve that.
What was racist about it?
Professor Turley, “shutdown” should be two words because you’re not using the noun form.
Also, why do you follow that silly “capitalize Black, but lower-case white”?
God bless Bobby Kennedy and decision to challenge Joe Biden for the 2024 Democratic nomination for president. Kennedy will reacquaint America with a time, not so long ago, when political opponents debated in an atmosphere of free speech instead of censorship, threats, and violence.
Kennedy barely has name recognition.
Unless Congress impeaches Biden over Hunter and his scheme to defraud Americans at the expense of our national security… he is merely a blip.
Trump will steal the oxygen from other candidates thanks largely to the MSM.
So we’re looking at a Trump vs Biden round 2.
Only this time Trump will win.
Its not an endorsement for Trump, but rather just how bad Biden is.
Bobby Kennedy is running not to win but to communicate truths on topics including, but not limited to, corrupt pharmaceutical companies, the dangers of SOME vaccines, corrupt government agencies, and unnecessary wars. Kennedy will appear in debates. He will change minds. He is no slouch. There was a time, not so long ago, when you could admire and respect someone you were not going to vote for.
a staggering percentage of a gerrymandered into existence republican party.
When I was in High School, (still taught civics and American History) Gerrymandering was a good thing, according to my leftist civics teacher (“communism is a great governing structure, it hasn’t been done ‘right”…yet.”)
Gerrymandering secured legislative seats for Blacks (African Americans at that time I think). He showed maps of cities that connect population zones by drawing he lines on either side of a road that ran for blocks, but had no houses inside. He very much admired the architecture. One of my classmate asked of it didn’t encourage African Americans to self segregate, assuring they would never integrate into a homogeneous population. The teach droned on until the bell, and never did answer. That nagging experience started my notion that leftist don’t really seek what they claim.
I see no problem with their expulsion. They deserved it by taking a bullhorn into the house chamber and using it to disrupt the business of the house and then refusing to yield the floor. All break the rules of the house. The house had the right and power to expel them. They will be back and re-elected by their constituents. The same occurred with Adam Clayton Powell in 1966. Because of Scandals he was involved with, he was excluded from the House of Representatives when he presented to the House in 1967 (after being re-elected in 1966). This ended up in the Supreme Court and it was decided that he could not be excluded from taking his oath and being seated since only the constitution decided the requirements for office. However they could expel him once seated (by a 2/3 majority). He stayed in office for only a short time before being beaten by Charlie Rangel in 1970.
I see no reason whatsoever while they should not have been expelled. I think the professor is being somewhat pussyfooted about the expulsion. If you don’t take these types of actions then the next thing you are likely to deal with is an assault on a member or a severe beating and caning of a member as once occurred in the US House prior to the civil war. Worse things have occurred in legislatures around the world.
The actions in the Tennessee House were only there to try to drown out the real news about a trans person murdering children in Nashville and then later breaking news of another trans person in Colorado planning a massacre. You know, what we call mental health issues not being treated appropriately.
I agree. The expulsion was fully justified, and they should have expelled the third as well. And where are the manifesto and other writings of the Nashville killer? Why have they not been released?
In 2016, “Representative John Lewis leads fellow Democrats in staging a sit-in on the House floor to force action on “common-sense” gun control legislation in the wake of the mass shooting in Orlando, Florida.” (https://www.c-span.org/video/?c4842207/representative-john-lewis-leads-house-floor-sit-gun-violence&playlist=29425f014645e26e7fca24466dad2bf2 ). Do you think they should have been expelled from Congress too?
How about the Tennessee Reps who actually broke laws but weren’t expelled. Should they have been expelled?
John Lewis should have been disciplined. Not expelled.
Gun control legislation is not common sense – it si common nonsense.
What TN reps that broke what laws ?
The expulsion was the most extreme measure. That was not appropriate for the situation. They chose the most extreme in a petty and vengeful need to send a message to those three legislators. That they should “know their place”. There was a better more measured response to their protest and disruption. Censure. That is what they should have done instead of expulsion. This was akin to a lynching instead of a trial in the eyes of their constituents and they are not wrong. Tennessee Republicans went full-on authoritarian in their attempt to squelch a genuine protest for not acting on an issue that they have been ignoring for a long time.
The two legislators that were expelled can and should run again for their seats and it looks like they will be nominated again and voted back in by their constituents, and there is nothing the legislature can do about it. I for one say they should run again and have their constituents vote them back in as a show of defiance to the authoritarian Republican legislature.
The expulsion was the most extreme measure. That was not appropriate for the situation.
Followed to the letter, the rule being applied. Stop being such a snowflake.
I see no reason whatsoever while they should not have been expelled. I think the professor is being somewhat pussyfooted about the expulsion.
Agreed on both points. I have long argued that Professor Turley’s “pussyfooting” is part of the problem. He too has adopted relativism as demonstrated in his writings on these pages. The fact is, we have to agree on what is truth, what is good, what is evil, what is moral, which the Founding Fathers defined these using natural law. Natural Law is as ancient as the Greek Stoic philosophers. Alas, few today can define it
A few years ago on this forum, I referenced a Jesuit historian and theologian by the name of Fr. John Courtney Murray, SJ. His book We Hold These Truths was a best-seller and wildly lauded by liberals and conservatives when it was published in 1960. In brief, he argued that America was on a trajectory of losing a common consensus, which is to say, we do not agree on much. His book was published in 1960, based on his observations of SCOTUS rulings dating back to the early 1900s. We are there now.
There is no longer a unified sense of purpose, of identity, of principles, never mind morality, in America. Fr Murray was prophetic. William F. Buckley, Jr, gave a glowing review of Fr Murray’s book in 1961. National Review republished it in 2006. If you wish to understand why America collapsed like Rome, Fr Murray’s book is a must read. Buckley used it as his guide in understanding America’s Founding Fathers and birth of the nation.
The natural law, which is indestructible, exists, but we do not acknowledge it, and hence fail to elaborate a public consensus based on it. The consensus is probably still there, in the interstices of our mind, and the natural law continues to govern our soundest instincts and emotions. But during the last century we got way behind, we were dazed by the shock troops of epistemological relativism and still are. The century is of Comte, Freud, Marx, and Dewey, and their industrious epigoni, who require such extensive educations to be so ignorant. We have failed to elaborate the consensus, admit its essential place in intelligible society, lavish upon it the kind of attention needed to rebuff the assault on the very idea of America. We are left with nothing substantive to believe in.
William F. Buckley, Jr.
Maybe Professor Turley pussyfoots for a reason. He has a job and a young family. Maybe, he thinks long-term and says what good is he with his voice box removed by the left? Or maybe, he is pussyfooting, but then he is braver than you or me because he uses his real name and address.
amen
Good post Seth. Perhaps we should look at JT as the canary in the coal mine. Dan Bongino has a theory that our nations steady decline is continuing because things have not gotten bad enough yet. We see the Leftists on this blog attack JT every day. And every day he’s back. The controversies over the years have changed, but JT has not. This is the canary still singing away. Perhaps things will get bad enough for the American people that they will finally rise up against this Leftist ideology. Let’s pray they do before the canary stops singing.
👍👍
Great points. Not sure why Turley didn’t see this coming or why he’s positioned that what’s politically sown should not be reaped.
I do not agree with expelling them.
Though I agree with some form of discipline.
Probably the most appropriate would be to charge them with disorderly conduct.
HOWEVER – despite my objections I am hard pressed to defend these people.
It is very hard to be outraged over the expulsion of two representatives for participating in a riot,
when ordinary people are serving long jail sentences for peacefully protesting.
Expulsion would have been outrageous a decade ago.
Today it seems ho hum.
I wonder if Sidner is aware that there is no political will to combat urban gun violence.
https://www.nbcphiladelphia.com/news/local/how-the-gun-control-debate-ignores-black-lives/80445/
@Michael,
What to combat urban gun violence?
Simple.
You arrest, prosecute and jail the offenders. Treat minors who commit gun crimes as adults.
Enforce the laws that are already on the books.
Remove the street dealers/sellers of the weapons.
The irony… the call to defund the police is the wrong action. When you have police who act out, you fund better training. You recruit better officers.
While some would have claimed that to be ‘theory’. Look at the results in those cities who can’t maintain a proper level of policing or recruit new officers.
Just saying.
And yes… its that simple.
-G
The problem with this article is that the left is an organized, radical mob that is not interested in measured responses. The problem with the right is that they have been too measured for too long to the point that we may lose the struggle to preserve our republic. Ironically, conservatives carry a knife while the left carry guns in political fights. There is a case to be made for fighting fire with fire.
@Turley
Lets apply some common sense.
If you’re going to foment an insurrection, would you go into the Capitol unarmed?
Again the videos released by McCarthy paint a drastically different picture than what the Jan 6 Committee did or what the prosecution did in court. (It was malicious prosecution.) This isn’t to condone the actions of the mob, but that as you say… it wasn’t what the Dems claimed.
In TN, you have a group of three state legislatures interrupting session. I guess you didn’t really talk about the mob of people outside who also rushed the building and were arrested for their part in this protest. While I get that you’re focuses on the fact that the Dems thought it proper to use a bull horn to shout down their opposition and which is admittedly the point of your article… I wonder if you’re missing part of the picture.
This wasn’t a spontaneous event where the legislators got caught up in the fervor and were planning on using the bullhorns outside. And to keep the protest outside.
No. It was clearly planned by the three along with others.
When they entered the session, they knew exactly what they were doing.
One of the three asked to be expelled. One of the GOP members went on television and explained his vote.
When the two were expelled while the white woman who stood in silent defiance wasn’t. The issue wasn’t their actions but that the GOP led majority acted out of racist and fascist beliefs.
Tell me that wasn’t planned. What’s the term? Gaslighting?
Call it for what it is Turley.
Kabuki theater.
-G
The only mistake the TN Republicans made was being somewhat fair and moderate with the “white woman”. The “white woman” begged for mercy, pointed out that she should not be expelled due to the fact that she did not use a bullhorn and that she separated herself from the mob unlike her to colleagues, and the idiot Republicans agreed and did not expel her. Of course the minute she was “pardoned” she attacks her not being expelled as a sign of racism. This is a nasty, fascist, arrogant jerk and she should never be given a committee assignment again.
Well, if you scream and disrupt a proceeding for a Democratic cause, you get free tickets and a photo at Scranton Joe’s Whitehouse. If you are a Conservative who screams and disrupts a proceeding, you get accused of insurrection, attempting to overthrow the government, and jailed. Thank you, Jonathan, for an excellent article.
And get put on every morning show in the Country calling you BRAVE!! They are famous now, and they don’t even talk about the Transgender who murdered 6 people.
Hmmm.
Let me get this straight.
A group of people, enter a state’s Capitol and disrupt their ability to perform their state’s business.
(Its a felony)
Joe Biden calls this a ‘peaceful protest’.
Flash back to Jan 6th.
We now have the videos thanks in part to McCarthy.
Many of those arrested were charged w Insurrection along w stopping Congress from performing their duty. (A felony)
Yet Demented Joe who condemns Jan 6th, praises this stunt in TN?
Really?
Just food for thought.
-G
IMG, I would add, Biden refuses to comment about things that that the White House claims are outside the purview of the office, or are under investigation.
But weighing in on the mechanization of a State legislative body, he has a very verbose response.
For some reason Joe and Kamal, are very interested in the power of State Legislative body, except when they are passing abortion laws.
@iowan2
Biden will only comment on things when he has to, or thinks he can score points. He goes silent when he knows he’s on the short end of the stick.
Trump? He was never quiet which gave the Dems and the MSM lots of fodder.
Joe Biden is the worst POTUS in the history of this nation. That takes a lot of work.
Only Jimmy Carter and Obama are pleased because they just moved up a notch.
-G
Agreed. Just pointing out, Biden speaks ONLY to score political points, to keep and expand power. Nothing about the common good.
The raw hipocrisy is so common it no longer garners much comment.
The obvious response to this situation, “The legislature was only abiding by the zero tolerance rules they were forced to administer”
You forgot he also speaks up when it impacts his 10%.
Just saying. 😉
Lol that you see what happened in Tennessee as rage driven, but don’t acknowledge the network where you work as being the very model of rage driven propaganda…
Your network willing lied to their viewership such that they got so whipped up they attacked the Capitol. That’s right…, you guys got a group of people to try to overthrow a fairly elected government driven by a character making up lies…, all while he raised the taxes of the people doing that attacking.
What happened in Tennessee was just Jim Crow level racism. Not realizing the public is done with the gun lobby ruling the republican party such that their kids are in danger just by going to school is amazingly tone deaf on your part, Turley. That’s what the “screaming” in Tennessee is about.
Anonymous-J 6, rage driven attack on the Capital, TN-innocent people not riled up but being attacked in Jim Crow fashion?
Consistency is not your forte’. Neither is logic, fairness, intelligence, proportion, maturity or legality. You are a loser!
Hullbobby grunts nonsense yet again.
@Anon,
Did you bother to watch the videos that Tucker released?
Probably not.
Not much of an insurrection when an elderly woman escorts her mother into the Capitol and were later charged.
And if you’re going to have an insurrection, do you go unarmed?
-G
I watched the unedited versions before Tucker had his tech team make a mockery of the footage.
Where did you watch the unedited version? How much pot and alcohol did it take for the antennas in your head to catch the signal?
April 6 was my 40 year sobriety anniversary.
How?
Then make it all completely public.
I have no idea what your editing claim is.
But Tuckers footage exposes incontrovertable FACTS.
Chansley was LEAD arround by CP officers.
And he walked in an open front door.
Both of these falsify LIES by the left.
Lets compare and contrast the video from TN and the Capitol
Okay.
There’s 44,000 hours of video and we’ve seen 5 minutes.
Then Tucker got shut down from showing any more.
I’d withhold praise for GOP House and McCarthy.
We will never know the fighting behind the scenes at Fox that prevented Tucker from airing more video footage.
And we will not see another minute of J6 video aired on Tucker’s show.
They are playing us all for fools. GOP, McCarthy, Fox execs.
@Anon(s)
Yes 44K hours.
The fact that Tucker showed videos that the Dems didn’t want you to see… destroyed their narrative.
There’s more… including an ongoing investigation.
Ray Epps is going to be a key figure if he gets placed in front of the congressional committee. Jordan will crucify him. Either in public or behind closed doors.
you guys got a group of people to try to overthrow a fairly elected governmen
So blinded by your rage, you keep repeating the lie.
Lol. Moron.
Aa! So says the person that believes we elect government, and not persons.
Riddle me this.
Why does same side that has said, for over two years, that the police are racist sociopaths who habitually hunt down and gun down unarmed Black men, that the criminal justice system is irredeemably systemically racist…
…also want stricter gun control laws whioch would be enforced by these very same police in this very same system.
Easy answer to your riddle. You’re a victim of the stereotypes you create and you underestimate those who disagree with you. The ‘defend the police’ was never a monolith on the left. In fact, as trump often does by stealing talking points just in order to monotize them, he’s now appropriated the ‘defund’ sentiment and applied it to the FBI.
“The *’defend* the police’ was never a monolith on the left. “
You are correct *defending* the police is not leftist, but defund the police is.
I did not mention defund the police.
I do know that this same side p[ushing for more gun control laws accused the criminal justice system of being systemically racist.
https://www.vox.com/2019/3/22/18259865/great-awokening-white-liberals-race-polling-trump-2020
So why would you want stricter gun control alws when you are certain they will be enforced in a systemically racist criminal justice system?
Can you answer this riddle?
Democrats are activists by definition. They can’t debate civilly with people disagree with then. Outrage is the low way of trying to impose their will. The majority of Americans are mainstream person and the left is a radical movement.
Back in the days they would’ve been a lots of duel to such unbecoming behavior.
Like Mr O taught them “you didn’t build that”, they just want to destroy Americanism and all of our traditions 🇺🇲
“Nor was it worthy of expulsion, as opposed to censure or other sanctions.” Sounds right to me.
I still remember how long my butt hurt after violating the no fighting rule in study hall in junior high. I can confirm the use of a paddle with holes was effective in driving home the consequences of breaking the rules. If memory serves me the jerk whom I hit got a lot more swats than I did as he was a repeat offender. I don’t think he was expelled.
Mark
@kakatoa
Your first mistake was getting caught. Or you just didn’t care.
Expulsion sounds about right.
That’s not to say their constituents won’t vote them back in. (They can).
Unlike their followers, you can’t charge them with a felony or arrest them. They have immunity.
You can remove them from chambers, and then look at punitive options, which is what they did.
They chose the more punitive punishment because they wanted to send a message that this type of action was not going to be permitted.
At the same time… one of the expelled members wanted to be expelled because he knew he would be voted back in.
The white woman who stood silent, used that as her defense… that she stood silent. She wasn’t expelled. Then she claims it was because she was white.
Thus the GOP majority who expelled them were racists and fascists.
Lets look at this for what it was.
Its a bit of Kabuki theater.
Did you fall for it?
-G
“Your first mistake was getting caught. Or you just didn’t care.” Interesting analysis. Faulty but interesting all the same. My approach of belittling the jerk/bully in front of all the 7th graders at the table he was shaking down didn’t work. I thought he would back down. I was wrong. After dodging a chair and his off-target punches the mistake I made was not dodging a bit more before I hit him. The hall monitor stepped into to stop the fry in no time.
As to being “fooled.” Maybe, but it seems to me that the team doing the expelling thought they were playing checkers (vs chess).
Had three Repblican Members of Congress have been Ashley Babbitt on January 6th….or had been seen in the Capitol Building using a Bull Horn….is there any doubt they would be in Prison today….either sentenced for multiple felonies or being held without Trial in Solitary confinement? The Professor notes the Tennessee Legislature was disrupted by the Riot….and states the riot rejected the democratic process that saw the Gun Control measure voted down but skips over the fact that it was also a democratic process that yielded the Expulsion of the two members.
Sorry Professor Turley but we cannot pick and choose which democratic process we are going to accept.
The Tennessee Legislature acted in a democratic fashion when it held BOTH votes.
I see this as a clear example of how simple majority votes on issues sets us up for mob rule no matter how we paint the outcome.
Simple majority votes allow for poor outcomes since such votes by an unenlightened. or unwise group of Legislators can ignore the will of the people.
The Tennessee riot was no different than January 6th in its intent and those, especially the elected members of the Legislatiure, should be punished to the fullest extent of the Law.
The problem with protests becoming riots is riot is no longer punished as the crime it is.
Protests should be protected by law enforcement….but riot should be put down and criminal sanctions imposed.
We cannot have a just and lawful….or peaceful society otherwise.
@Ralph,
If there were members of Congress using bullhorns on the floor of the Capitol before they were evacuated… they could be expelled, however they couldn’t be arrest. There’s actually legal protection for them.
In TN expulsion was the right call.
The white woman should have been censured. While the two who were expelled could run again and be reinstated by their constituents, they should still not be given any committee assignments.
PLEASE Professor — enough with the “age of rage” phrase already. The hundredth time was 99 times too many. It’s a cute rhyme, but that’s all it is — a cute rhyme.
“. . . enough with the ‘age of rage’ phrase already.” “[T]hat’s all it is — a cute rhyme.”
Really? There are no facts of reality that make the phrase appropriate?
Or is it your view that if we just don’t name it, it won’t exist?
It’s still appropriate, Sam. However, like repetitive calls of “TDS” having no effect on those who suffer from it, the phrase has lost ‘something’ through overuse.
Decent writers don’t contually repeat themselves. Do you think Abe Lincoln walked around repeating “of the people, by the people, for the people”?
No — he used the expression ONCE — and that was a good expression. “Age of rage” is just a DUMB rhyme.
if it scream and denouncing like a fascist, it is a Fascist!
Listening to these two being interviewed on ‘The Sunday Shows’, the language which they use reflects the mindset they possess with respect to the conduct they feel appropriate to the office they were raised by their constituencies. The more that those of their ilk are incorporated into the legislative process, the more the change will occur to the formerly revered ‘Roberts Rules of Order’. If the constituencies support such behaviors, so it will be. The mindset and comportment of the college campus and the streets has now invaded the hall of legislature and intends to stay.
@ZZDoc,
Yes, clearly their action and rage was manufactured.
The TN legislators acted correctly in expelling them.
The message is that such actions are not to be rewarded or tolerated.
The whole thing was a calculated and planned act. It wasn’t spontaneous and being caught up in the event. They wanted to see the black males expelled while the white woman was not because she was silent. They wanted to be able to claim that the GOP led legislation was racist and fascist. All on top of the “think about the children” as a way to rally their base and to have fodder for 2024.
Some would say I’m being cynical… yet that is what the evidence suggests.
Turley would come to the same logical conclusion as he slowly leans to being a centrist as his party moves further to the left at the expense of the law.
-G
Coming attractions?
https://youtu.be/aN0X7jqAw0I
An IQ test setting a minimum standard for all elected officials should be a constitutional requirement.
RE:”An IQ test..” Elected officials only become so due to the will of the electorate. The recommendation for IQ testing needs to be applied elsewhere. I suggest that the requirements to be eligible for candidacy for the President of the United States, with an age reduction to 30, be required for anyone to hold elected local, state or federal office.
Mike, the Democrats had that with Biden and Fetterman. They elected the brain damaged candidates, because it increased their power. Democrats have ceded their autonomy for an agenda as laid out by self proclaimed experts. Democrat voters have no idea what they want, only what they are told they need.
Regardless of climate data, there is exactly zero science the supports the elimination of fossil fuels with move the mercury in the thermometer.
Transgender effects a meaningless small number of people. Its a deformity, like being born without a limb. Sad, but nobody desires to discriminate against the disabled.
But the Dem experts tell their loyal followers, what the themselves know to be true, is wrong.
“Regardless of climate data, there is exactly zero science the supports the elimination of fossil fuels with move the mercury in the thermometer.”
Ugh. It’s clear that, all things being equal, increased CO2 exerts upward pressure on global temps. So, it stands to reason that reducing carbon emissions will reduce global temps. The question turns on a cost/benefits analysis, and that’s judgment not science. But denying that CO2 is a driver of heat retention by Planet Earth is silly.
So, it stands to reason that reducing carbon emissions will reduce global temps.
First you cite a hypothisis, that does not qualify as a hypothisis, for there is no experiment that can falsify the Hypothisis.
Then you assume a result, that has never even been tested
I would ask you to follow the science, but CAGCC has yet to practice any science to follow.
Another viewpoint…one that really is worth the time to read.
http://raconteurreport.blogspot.com/2017/06/aliens-cause-global-warming-by-michael.html?m=1
“Democrat voters have no idea what they want, only what they are told they need.”
++++++
The democratic process is not always used to protect democracy. From the US Holocaust Memorial and Museum website:
“In January 1933, Hitler did not immediately become a dictator. When he became chancellor, Germany’s democratic constitution was still in effect. However, Hitler transformed Germany by manipulating the democratic political system. Hitler and other Nazi leaders used existing laws to destroy German democracy and create a dictatorship.”
https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/hitler-comes-to-power
As an aside, Hindenburg was old and senile in January 1933 when he appointed Hitler chancellor. Within six months of his appointment, Hitler’s National Socialist party was declared the only legal political party in Germany (coming, as it was, after months of book burnings and attacks on German Jews). The rest, as the saying goes, is history.
@Mary: “Holy ‘Seven Days in May’, Batman!”, given your analogy, a ‘Night of the Long Knives’ is not beyond possibility either.
I’d be for that. It would immediately disqualify a staggering percentage of a gerrymandered into existence republican party.
@Anonymous: Emerging science about brain development suggests that most people don’t reach developmental maturity until the age of 25. Areas of most concern are the prefrontal cortex and rewards center which control impulse inhibition, behavioral planning and organization, the tendencies to seek out and explore uncertain situations .i.e. risk. Given that, setting the threshold at the age of thirty might give that brain some time to ‘rest’. much like a steak off a BBQ. One would hope that, in the intervening time, whatever prior life experiences said brain would have to reflect upon, particularly those who have not been seriously challenged by anything outside of a classroom between pre-K and graduate school might be instrumental in guiding its behavior and decision making forward in a mature, constructive, and positive fashion. This, of course, would be deemed necessary, independent of political persuasion. Unfortunately, given the recent history of moral and ethical turpitude demonstrated and perpetrated by Democrats their party, candidates for office, and their ever so willing minions in the Department of Justice and the Federal Bureau of Investigation the age factor does not appear to play any significant role in the manner in which those in which power is invested will conduct themselves. As example, the abomination that was the Steel Dossier gambit, which those involved would have been drawn and quartered for in less civilized times, has yet to be brought to the bar of justice.
We all know trump had those hookers piss on the bed Obama once slept in. And that the Russians taped it to blackmail him.
@Anonymous….”and that Adam Schiff had incontrovertible evidence, attested to on more than one television broadcast, of that and more which the world is yet awaiting with baited breath to be revealed. I wouldn’t trust that feckless scrap of human detritus to clean my toilets properly, yet his constituency never fails to return him to office. So much for them, others of their ilk, and the state whose Governor they support, who would see the rest of the nation succumb to that fate..
“I’d be for that.” IQ test.
Good because when I vote, I won’t be seeing you at the polls.
RE:”I won’t be seeing you at the polls…”Unfortunately, you’ll have to rely on your service dog’s skills in that regard. It benefits both of us in that WILL be there.