Tag: Rashida

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Elie Mystal Says If Rep Marjorie Taylor Green Wasn’t A White Republican She’d Be Charged With Perjury

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Elie Mystal on MSNBC’s Cross Connection Show(04/23/22)

Elie Mystal, Justice Correspondent for The Nation and Author of the New York Times bestselling book “Allow Me To Retort: A Black Guy’s Guide To The Constitution”, appeared on MSNBC’s Cross Connection show on 04/23/22. Mystal dropped a bombshell on the show, telling host Tiffany Cross that the only reason Rep Marjorie Taylor Greene(R-GA) has not been charged with perjury for her highly evasive court deposition on 04/22/22, was because she is a White Republican woman. He added that if Reps Rashida Tlaib, Ilhan Omar, or Ayana Pressley(all women of color), had engaged in similar conduct, they would have been hit with perjury charges before they validated their parking. Whoa!!

Host Tiffany Cross(video at 1:06):“She[MTG]was clearly involved and I’m just curious your thoughts on what repercussions this case might have on other pro-insurrectionists who are currently in office, or currently running for office?”

Elie Mystal: “Well, I don’t think there are going to be repercussions because she is a White Republican woman, quite frankly. Black people cannot get away with this. The evasiveness that we saw at her hearing yesterday, where she all but perjured herself versus the tape that you just played, Black people cannot get away with that. Everybody at home knows that. Everybody at home knows that if[Reps]Rashida Tlaib, if Ilhan Omar, if Ayanna Presley had tried what Marjorie Taylor Greene tried yesterday, they would have caught a perjury charge before they validated their parking…At the end of the day, what Marjorie Taylor Greene did was perjury and if she was a non-White person, she would be at least been investigated for that. In fact, if she was just a Democrat, she would be at least investigated for that. You know how I know that? Because I’m old enough to remember when Republicans impeached Bill Clinton for less. The evasiveness that Bill Clinton did in his deposition was less than what we all saw Marjorie Taylor Greene do yesterday…Republicans, and White people get away with this all the time.”

There is no other way to interpret Elie Mystal’s remarks other than race and class, even in 2022, are still major factors when it comes to how our criminal justice system makes decisions about who to prosecute and who not to. According to Elie Mystal, White Republicans like Marjorie Taylor Greene are the biggest beneficiaries of such decisions because they are almost always let off the hook for conduct that Blacks and Browns would almost certainly be prosecuted for–a sad state of affairs indeed.

Bottom line folks, it’s not a lot to ask that “equal justice under law” mean exactly that–equal justice under law. It doesn’t take a genius to realize, given her numerous public utterances, that Rep Marjorie Taylor Greene serially lied under oath on Friday 04/22/22.

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Briefing By AOC & Fellow Dems On Banning Stock Trading By Members Of Congress

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Rep Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez(D-NY) joined fellow Democrats for a briefing(04/07/22) on their push to ban stock trading by members of Congress. Others on the briefing were Senator Jeff Merkley(D-OR), Rep Joe Neguse(D-CO), Rep Rashida Tlaib(D-MI), Rep Abigail Spanberger(D-VA), Rep Pramila Jayapal(D-WA), Rep Andy Kim(D-NJ) and Rep Angie Craig(D-MN).

Rep Ocasio-Cortez said banning stock trading by members of Congress will not only address legitimate concerns about conflicts of interest, but that it would also tackle the other urgent problem involving crisis of faith in our institutions. She said: “We are also tackling a crisis of faith in our institutions in the United States, and that exploitation of that crisis of faith is a direct threat to our democracy, as we have seen over the last two to four years. It is our responsibility to ensure that we eliminate that perception of impropriety, because it is these perceptions that can be exploited to undermine our most sacred institutions.”

The final speaker, the epitome of “save the best for last”, was Minnesota’s Rep Angie Craig(remember that name folks, vivacious Angie is going up the Dem ladder). She said: “My background experience in this issue is I actually sat on a corporate executive team for 12 years before I came to Congress, and this is not hypothetical to me, it’s not hypothetical. I helped run the investor relations department of a major fortune 500 company. I know that information moves markets, and it moves stocks. That’s why when I first got here, I wrote something called the Humble Act, which as part of it, would ban members of Congress from owning individual stocks. And it’s also not hypothetical to me because before I was sworn in to Congress, I had stock from the company I had worked for for 12 years. I had stock options from that company as well. Every single one of those shares were sold in the open market before I stepped foot into the U.S. Capitol, every single one. And if we can’t find 535 people in the damn United States of America, who are willing to give up their personal stock portfolio in order to serve their constituents, then shame on us, just shame on us.”

Bottom line folks, as some of the speakers here pointed out, banning stock trading by members of Congress should be a no-brainer, and no Democrat should be opposed to it. Opposing a stock trading ban for members of Congress is bad optics, bad morally, bad politics, and a sure loser at the polls this Fall. It’s really that simple.

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