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.
Judd Legum: “Tennessee Speaker @CSexton25 expelled two members of the House for violating “rules of decorum.” But Popular Information has learned that Sexton has trouble with Tennessee’s tax laws. He has failed to pay property taxes on his condo on Crossville for the last 2 years”
“@CSexton represents Crossville, which is two hours from Nashville, in the House. But yesterday, in response to a report from http://Popular.info, he admitted that he and his family live in Nashville, not Crossville.
“…
“Sexton is also billing taxpayers tens of thousands of dollars for his “commute” from Crossville to Nashville that he doesn’t actually have to make since he lives in Nashville”
https://twitter.com/JuddLegum/status/1645784181530656774
Sounds like ATS is trying to deflect from the death of six people. He doesn’t care about adults because he probably thinks they were Republicans and when it comes to babies he is used to killing them.
Nancy Pelosi Stock Tracker ♟
@PelosiTracker_
Well this is odd.
Pelosi seems to be building a habit of reporting her trades around market holidays
Day before New Years – filed $3M of buys
Friday before MLK Day – filed $8M of sells
Week after Thanksgiving – filed $5M of sells
Good Friday – filed $2M of buys
https://twitter.com/PelosiTracker_/status/1645837532171739136
if Democrats accuse you of a crime…they most likely are DOING THAT VERY CRIME
why is no one in jail for the Russian Hoax Conspiracy…the biggest crime in US History?
Just wondering, how much money the federal government has spent on mental health issues. A troubled woman goes into a Christian school and kills 6 people. Some guy Ali’s into a bank and starts lilling people. Robbery is not the motive. Transgender woman goes into a Christian school murders 6 people and the FBI investigates the Catholic Church for domestic terrorism. Up is down, down is up.
For those who are interested in the Tennessee legislature (which evidently is not as ‘sacred’ as the federal legislature), and who think that racism was involved in the expulsions, a link to an article in The Spectator, which is definitely not mainstream media, and perhaps a reminder that the United States is a representative republic, not a popular democracy. You can find those governments in places like the People’s Republics of China and North Korea, but not in France, Britain, or Germany, although you might find some expamples of ‘direct democracy’ (referenda) in a lot of places, even if the elites in some places are reluctant to honor the results of a “democratic” vote.
https://spectator.org/the-wonderfully-awful-empty-suit-named-kamala-harris/
The US is both a federal republic AND a representative democracy. France and Germany are also representative democracies. China is a communist party led state, and North Korea is a dictatorship.
We are both less than precise, but you missed the point. You might want to reread Mill on representative government; it’s complicated. Among other things, he argues that there are many types, and both of our categories are too simple.
I was for the screaming before I was against the screaming.
“American Politics has Become Amplified Rage”
– Professor Turley
______________
If America has become amplified rage, what was it in the beginning and what was it intended to be?
Answer: Representative self-governance and never one man, one vote “amplified rage” – a restricted-vote republic, if you can keep it.
Turnout was 11.6% and general vote criteria were male, European, 21, with 50 lbs. Sterling or 50 acres in 1788. America was designed to be a restricted-vote republic under an infinitesimal government which exists merely to perpetuate the dominion of the meaning and intent of the Constitution and Bill of Rights. One man, one vote democracy is moot. The things that “voters” vote for in a one man, one vote democracy are unconstitutional. The American thesis is “Freedom through self-reliance,” which has no relationship at all to “From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs.” One man, one vote democracy is incoherent and impossible; it IS the very “dictatorship of the proletariat.”
The vote must be restricted to capable, accomplished, ambitious people, and denied to dependents and parasites. The meaning and intent of the Constitution and Bill of Rights must prevail. Justices of the Supreme Court and judges must be impeached and convicted for failing to fulfill their sworn-oath duties. The entire communist, American, welfare state is unconstitutional and must have been and must be struck down immediately and with extreme prejudice. Congress has the power to tax for ONLY debt, defense and general Welfare, and the power to regulate ONLY money, commerce and land and naval Forces, and ONLY the owner has the power to “claim and exercise” dominion over private property. Government must be eliminated by about 85%.
Tennessee court BLOCKS anti-democratic law #HB48, which would have forced Nashville — and only Nashville — to cut the size of its Metro Council. Lawsuits argued that the law disenfranchises voters and violates the state constitution.
During a special called meeting Monday, the Council unanimously voted to reappoint Jones to the seat. Three members were not present for the vote. …..
Jones will serve as an interim representative until a special election can be held to permanently fill the position. He is eligible to run for reelection….. When he was done, Jones raised his fist into the air.
https://www.tennessean.com/story/news/politics/2023/04/10/justin-jones-expulsion-updates-rally-planned-outside-metro-nashville-council/70099458007/
3 members were not present in the Council that reappointed him
Interim position
American Sign Language sign for Communist is fist in air, so naturally the BLM Marxist thrust his Commie fist in the air while the aggrieved cultists roared with rage…naturally
Yeah, like Trump and Josh Hawley, who are also well-known Communists.
More than 99% of Americans know absolutely nothing about American Sign Language.
Lord, make me an instrument of your peace:
where there is hatred, let me sow love;
where there is injury, pardon;
where there is doubt, faith;
where there is despair, hope;
where there is darkness, light;
where there is sadness, joy.
O divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek
to be consoled as to console,
to be understood as to understand,
to be loved as to love.
For it is in giving that we receive,
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned,
and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.
Amen.
~St. Francis
I need this reminder, too. Please, Lord, write it on my heart and make Your Peace ready on my tongue.
Trump ’24
He’s going to lose again.
If you are that sure—I, myself, have no idea who is going to win or lose—maybe you should put some real money down on it.
“He’s going to lose again.” Only if the left gets away with cheating again.
The communists (liberals, progressives, socialists, democrats, RINOs, AINOs) have been cheating since 1860 when they cheated with guns and murder.
Trump came very close to winning in 2020 in spite of massive cheating by the left. Since then, Twitter has become significantly less corrupt, the prices of food, transportation, and housing have skyrocketed, millions of illegal immigrants have flooded across our southern border, our nation has become a police state, China has become cozy with Russia and Iran, and now we are at war. Trump has a very good chance of winning in 2024.
Jonathan: You go on in your column to repeat your false claim that Jan. 6 was not an “insurrection” but just a “riot” that got out of control. According to the revisionist GOP telling those people who stormed the Capitol were just “hot heads” who were just out to have a good time. Many had probably never seen the inside of the Capitol nor the insides of the offices of House members or Senators. They were shouting “Where is Nancy Pelosi?” and “Where is Mike Pence?”–just to show their respects. It was like going to Disney World for the first time. A fun outing. It was all peaceful. Unfortunately, for the over 800 who have already plead guilty or have been convicted of various crimes they know the reality is quite different.
Case in point. Stewart Rhodes, the founder of the Oathkeepers, was convicted of seditious conspiracy under 18 USC, Section 2384 and other criminal statutes. Not the kind of charges you would expect from a simple “riot”. Maybe trespassing or destruction of property but not “seditious conspiracy”. One of Rhodes co-conspirators was Donald Trump. He incited the insurrection. Will he get a pass from Jack Smith arguing Jan. 6 was just a “riot” that got out of hand? You know the answer as well as I do.
As to the polls, a new one by ABC News/Ipsos, as of 4/1, shows 50% of Americans support the criminal prosecution of Trump by Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg. That’s up 5% over the previous week. The trending doesn’t look good for the Trumpster. But, of course, you know as a criminal defense attorney, that prosecutorial decisions are not made on the basis of polls. I’m sure the students at your law school taking Criminal Procedure could explain all of it to you. So why do you cite polls? Probably as a distraction to not have to discuss the other looming cases facing Trump that are much more serious than what Trump faces in Manhattan. Diversion and distraction. That’s the game you are playing now.
Dennis McIntyre, it’s not just Professor Turley who is saying that Jan 6 was a riot that got out of control. Seventy six percent of the American people also believe that it was a riot and not an insurrection. I know, I know, it’s obvious that Dennis McIntyre is smarter than seventy six percent of Americans. Dennis is indeed a legend in his own mind. This is from the guy who said that there was no shadow banning on Twitter and that CRT was not being taught in the public schools. These positions should be taken into account when evaluating anything that Dennis makes up in his mind and posts on this blog. Credibility lost is credibility lost and should not be forgotten.
Thinkitthrough: You got one thing right. I am smarter than 76% of Americans. But that’s not saying much considering the low educational standards in this country. But you missed the point of my comment. Prosecutors don’t base their decisions to prosecute someone based on the polls. That’s not how the criminal justice system works. Turley knows that but you don’t.
Trump was impeached twice. In the first one over half of Americans supported the impeachment. In the second impeachment 56% supported that impeachment. But in both cases the Senate Republicans refused to convict. The GOP ignored the polls. Trump should have been convicted on the first impeachment. The public supported that. But Senate Republicans stuck with Trump like glue. When Justice Alito wrote his decision overturning Roe do you think he looked at the polls. Had he done that he might have written a different decision. Even today more than 62% of Americans believe abortion should be legal in most circumstances. Alito ignored the polls. This shows polls don’t really count much when it comes to GOP Senators’ calculations or the opinions of right-wing Justices. Turley knows this but you don’t.
do you even know what the first impeachment was about?
Justice Potter Stewart said in regards to obscenity & pornography:
“I KNOW IT WHEN I SEE IT”
When I viewed the Jan 6th “insurrection” on Television (Live), it struck me as ‘Staged’, the immediate Coverage was choreographed.
It was not like 9.11 when Planes Struck Buildings and their collapses sent People running from the Dust in the Streets.
The Jan 6th Capitol was ‘orchestrated’ – “I KNOW IT WHEN I SEE IT” – I knew it when I saw it.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_know_it_when_I_see_it
This did not happen on January 6, 2021
OT
Biden lied. Merrick Garland lied. the National Archives misled Congress in its role in the FBI raid, which is tantamount to election interference
Biden White House Directly Coordinated With FBI to Set Up Trump Raid According to New Docs
https://trendingpoliticsnews.com/new-records-knab/
I couldn’t have said it before because it doesn’t exist? Right?
Jonathan, until we destroy the corrupt judicial system in which judges blatantly rule in favor of their friends, who are responsible for putting them on the bench, this nation has no moral integrity. Unless you or someone leads a revolution to abolish this system of rewarding one’s friends from the bench and receiving kickbacks, we are doomed.
You know this is true. You chose the Law as a career to uphold it, to ensure everyone was entitled to justice under the law.
If I know how desperately we are in need of cleaning house, you know it that much better. You cannot do anything more deserving of all your time and energy in your chosen field, than to initiate the necessary changes to save this land.
Twitter is trending “pronouns” for a reason because people realize individuals who identify their pronouns are groomers, are pedos, are sick violent terrorists who get their kicks out of killing children and adults.
Democrats need to Stop defending the mentally deranged trans psychos. Stop selling guns and rifles to people who wear their pronouns on their sleeves
https://twitter.com/search?q=pronouns&src=typed_query
DC_Draino
@DC_Draino
Another mass shooting and yet another shooter with pronouns in his profile and a history of anti-Trump posts
When will Democrat leaders start condemning the growing threat of Leftist violence?
Collin Rugg
@CollinRugg
JUST IN: Louisville mass shooter identified as Connor Sturgeon, who identified as a He/Him.
I’ve said it once I’ll say it again: It’s not the guns. It’s the pronoun extremists.
End Wokeness
@EndWokeness
Pronouns in bio is a massive red flag
Fenix Ammunition
@FenixAmmunition
Leftists banker with pronouns in bio commits murder suicide at his own workplace, so this of course is the work of the NRA and the gun manufacturers.
Lmao.
Get the f*** out of here; we’re not surrendering our rights because of YOUR mental illness.
So stop asking.
Anonymous…I am trying to wrap my brain around this trans mental illness logic too. The whole justification for mutilating and medical interventions is if we don’t – they’ll kill themself. That is to say transitioning is their mental health therapy. Yet when you look at entrance requirements for say the dod….if you got anything suicidal about you they won’t accept you to join. Yet they accept trans…and even pay for conversions even though the converted have higher suicide rates than the norm. Even the questioning who may lean toward trans have a higher suicide rate than the norm. It’s all so absurd. Maybe one way to look at it is if suicide is an act of violence. Then Frank suicide ideation or threats of it ought to be akin to the type of mental illness we deny guns to. Think of it this way if you or I said x believed x of something out of societies standards….and pitched a tanty we’d get a 72 hour hold. And because that industry likes it’s profits …it easily turns into a 30 day involuntary. And then bingo no gun for you ever again….not even after you matured past your tanty….but for life. Meanwhile the trans whose entire therapy is premised on if we don’t let them….they’ll be violent and commit suicide. Of all the hundreds of mental categories the dmsv pigeon holes ppl into….this trans one is actually by definition of people posing a threat at least unto themselves. It’s how can we justify their mental health treatment ….”if we don’t trans them they’ll kill themself” …. that lights end it – No guns for trans ought to meet Scalia’s Heller justification on bans. Because the very mental treatment now prescribed is justified by preventing harm to self…but for that patently or latent “threat” that underlies the transitioning as treatment….these confused ppl would have to be committed involuntarily. Then again as Fl top doc… says it’s all just an experiment! I’ll add we are all the guinea pigs in the controlled group!
The Nashville City Council has just voted unanimously to reinstate Rep. Justin Jones.
And Jones just led a march with thousands of people back to the Tennessee Capitol building and has now reentered the state legislature.
Jonathan, until we destroy the corrupt judicial system in which judges blatantly rule in favor of their friends, who are responsible for putting them on the bench, this nation has no moral integrity. Unless you or someone leads a revolution to abolish this system of rewarding one’s friends from the bench and receiving kickbacks, we are doomed.
You know this is true. You chose the Law as a career to uphold it, to ensure everyone was entitled to justice under the law.
If I know how desperately we are in need of cleaning house, you know it that much better. You cannot do anything more deserving of all your time and energy in your chosen field, than to initiate the necessary changes to save this land.
BTW, we need an Abraham Lincoln figure to bring us back from this morass, He was smart, patient, decent, a truly extraordinarily beautiful human being. We were blessed to have him as a president of this fallen land. Jimmy Carter shared more of his qualities than any other.
God have mercy on this dump, even though we know what we are doing, and do it anyway. 62,000,000 bloody, torn to pieces, human beings never even had a chance
Lincoln/Carter ’24!
That’s the ticket!
“Crazy Abe” will kill everybody and flame out the Constitution.
Carter will destroy whatever is left of America with gross incompetence and buffoonery.
BLM Florida Teacher encouraged students to engage in fights, now charged with delinquency of minors
“No screaming, no yelling, no phones:’ Court records detail teacher accused of organizing fights at Griffin Middle School”
https://www.wctv.tv/2023/04/08/no-screaming-no-yelling-no-phones-court-records-detail-teacher-accused-organizing-fight-club-griffin-middle-school/
KY bank shooter was a Leftist, BLM supporter who broadcast his “pronouns” on his now scrubbed LinkedIn account, and posted Leftist talking points on reddit. Don’t expect the Leftist media to report any of this. All of his social media accounts have been deleted because they reflect his leftist leanings.They obviously want war in America, and stoking violence is their present talking point
https://heavy.com/news/connor-sturgeon/
“According to The Daily Beast, the now-deleted Twitter account included, “posts in support of the Black Lives Matter protests of 2020, as well as some criticism of police violence and of then-President Donald Trump,”
Sturgeon also posted political memes, mainly mocking conservatives, former President Donald Trump and Fox News, on several subreddits, including “DankMemes,” “F***thealtright,” and “trollychromosome,” along with “Leopardsatemyface.” He posted a meme in July 2020 on the “f***thealtright” subreddit of a cartoon of a musclar figure responding to someone asking how he got his muscles by saying, “Every time Trump tweets some racist s*** …. I do one push up.”
Meanwhile the Left are calling for GOP to be exterminated
https://twitter.com/JonathanTurley/status/1645463110549897243
Jonathan Turley
@JonathanTurley
Guitarist and actor Steven Van Zandt calls for others to “Exterminate” GOP “Cockroaches.” No media outcry over inflammatory rhetoric or reckless speech. It is all just part of “channeling voices” and defending democracy.
OT
Joke Biden, at the behest of President Susan “Suzy Q” Rice and Dear Leader and General Secretary Obama, who previously gave China the South China Sea, is focusing like a laser and working as hard as he can to Make America Junk Again (MAJA).
“Woke” Pentagon under “woke” African-Uhmerican Lloyd Austin leaks Ukraine intel to demonstrate to America’s enemies that the “woke” Navy won’t last 5 minutes in the Taiwan Strait, giving China a nod and the “go ahead.”
The U.S. Petrodollar is replaced by the Yuan in Saudi Arabia, France, Brazil, Russia, Japan and the rest of the un-free, communist world.
Biden stops drilling and uses up the SPR.
China on verge of Taiwan invasion which is likely without a shot being fired.
After the dollar collapses, and actual Americans are broke, Obama will have “fundamentally transformed” globalized America and it will be Communist China’s latrine.
Dang! Did they take it or did you give it away?
OT: today a federal judge refused to loosen anonymous jury restrictions in the civil trial for E. Jean Carroll v. Trump, which starts this month, citing Trump’s recent attacks on Justice Merchan and his family in the hush-money criminal case.
In other Trump news, as a presidential candidate, he was required to file a financial disclosure by March 15, and he still hasn’t filed it.
In still other Trump news, he’s filed an appeal of the Pence executive privilege ruling in an attempt to prevent Pence from testifying before the J6 grand jury.
NEWSFLASH – CNN
Donald J. Trump crucified Jesus Christ!
Oh, and he commanded 9/11, the Alamo, the Little Big Horn, Kasserine Pass and Pearl Harbor.
Film at eleven!
😊👍
George, this Trump guy really gets around.
Also, Trump is scheduled to return to NYC Thursday to sit for a second deposition as part of New York Attorney General Letitia James’ $250 million civil fraud lawsuit. Poor Trumpy, so many law suits to keep track of.
See what happens when the direct and mortal enemies of a country invade and conquer?
Lesson #1 for next time: Repulse and Neutralize the enemy with extreme prejudice.
York Attorney General Letitia James’ $250 million civil fraud lawsuit.
Because even she wasn’t so debased as to turn a simple misdemeanor into a felony.
I think she is trying to claim his property valuations some how harmed someone. Except the persons harmed (Big Banks), don’t know they were harmed.
go read about mao, hitler, stalin and how they operated…JUST like Democrats