Many GOPers Have Lost A Sense Of Reality After Being Pulled Into "A Dark Underworld Of Conspiracies"

The quote in the title above is from Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-IL). We'll take that up in a minute. Last night I fell asleep with the TV on and woke up exactly as Chris Hayes asked AOC to explain the House Republicans' "desire to turn the page." I woke up this morning and found the clip and watched it again. She scorched them as a bunch of white nationalists and white nationalist sympathizers. She worries that McCarthy "having a talk" with Marjorie Taylor Greene after the QAnon sociopath's latest display of hateful crackpottery will just be to pat her on the back and tell her to keep up the good work. "In the House Republican caucus," she told Hayes, "Kevin McCarthy answers to these QAnon members of Congress, not the other way around."

She told the MSNBC audience that "There are no consequences in the Republican caucus for violence. No consequences for racism. No consequences for misogyny. No consequences for insurrection. And no consequences means that they condone it. It means that that silence is acceptance." Even before dawn this morning, CNN was reporting that even as Democrats were lining top to condemn Taylor Greene's outrageous divisive remarks, most Republican members have been silent, just as AOC predicted they would be. So what if she publicly advocated murdering Obama, Hillary and Pelosi? How many people would actually take her up on it and try to do it anyway?

This morning, while reporting on Jimmy Gomez's resolution to expel Taylor Greene from Congress, every Democrat I spoke with said they didn't think there was any chance they could get any Republicans to vote for it-- and that even some of the more conservative Democrats would vote against it if it ever even came up for a vote. Louisiana right-winger and GOP minority whip Steve Scalise told CNN that he's "consistently condemned the use of violent rhetoric in politics on both sides, and this is no exception. There is no place for comments like that in our political discourse." Both sides. Yawn. Democrats don't talk that way.

Democrats have spoken out forcefully about Taylor Greene's danger, Hillary tweeted: "This woman should be on a watch list. Not in Congress." House Rules Committee Chairman Jim McGovern(D-MA) tweeted, "And they wonder why we don't want Members carrying guns onto the House Floor."

CNN's reported that "Greene has a track record of incendiary rhetoric, including past comments using Islamophobic and anti-Semitic tropes. She also has ties to the baseless and thoroughly debunked QAnon conspiracy theory. The CNN KFile report once again puts Republican leaders in a position of deciding how to respond-- and so far most are declining to weigh in. Republican Rep. Adam Kinzinger of Illinois, a frequent critic of former President Trump who has urged Republicans to denounce QAnon, responded critically to the CNN KFile report, tweeting, 'She is not a Republican. There are many who claim the title of Republican and have nothing in common with our core values. They are RINOS. She is a RINO.'" The QAnon Republicans claim he's the RINO. In fact, Kinzinger admitted on a podcast last night that he could well lose his next election for having voted to impeach Trump. Trump won his district with 56.9%; Kinzinger was reelected with 64.7%. "I did it knowing full well it could very well be terminal to my career," he said. "But I also knew that I couldn't live with myself having, you know, try to just protect it and just felt like the one time I was called to do a really tough duty, I didn't do it. I'll say to anybody that thinks my vote was for politics, they don't know me. And I would say now they don't know politics because, you know, you have to get through a primary. And would it make me more able to win a general election? Probably. But that's not why I did it... I'm more passionate about this country than I think I was January 5, even. I know my passion is the restoration of the Republican Party. I know I may go down fighting like that."

In one post from January 2019, Greene liked a comment that said "a bullet to the head would be quicker" to remove House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. In other posts, Greene liked comments about executing FBI agents who, in her eyes, were part of the "deep state" working against former President Donald Trump.

After CNN reached out to Greene, her personal Twitter account posted a statement in which she did not deny that she liked posts and replied to comments but claimed that many people have run her Facebook page.

"Over the years, I've had teams of people manage my pages. Many posts have been liked. Many posts have been shared. Some did not represent my views. Especially the ones that CNN is about to spread across the internet," she wrote.

...Students who survived the Parkland, Florida, school shooting and families of the victims have called for Taylor Greene's resignation after comments surfaced that showed her agreeing with people who said the 2018 shooting was a "false flag" operation.

Taylor Greene tweeted on Tuesday that she was "very excited" to join the House Education and Labor Committee after Ranking Member Virginia Foxx [another extremist crackpot] announced her appointment to the committee.

CNN has reached to the chair and ranking member of the House Education and Labor committee about Greene's appointment with no response so far.

Democratic Rep. Haley Stevens, who serves on the Education and Labor committee, called for Greene's removal in a statement provided to CNN.

"I am deeply disturbed by the unearthing of Rep. Greene's denial of the Parkland school shooting and the video showing her publicly taunting a teenage survivor of the massacre. The GOP conference committed an offensive error in placing her on the committee."

Stevens said, "I respectfully ask the GOP conference to withdraw her appointment to the Education and Labor committee as her appointment does not represent the deep care and concern that all Members of Congress should show towards American children. Her hurtful antics are a distraction to addressing the challenges our nation faces and are threatening to children across the country. I will always be a fierce advocate for American children and will fight to make our schools safer. I am praying for Rep. Greene and I hope the GOP conference moves swiftly to right this wrong."

Aside from Taylor Greene, another extremist and seditionist, North Carolina Nazi Mad Cawthorn, was appointed to the Education and Labor Committee. This morning, Kinzinger became the first Republican to call for Taylor Greene to be stripped of all committee assignments. Again insisting she is a RINO, he said "I personally don't think she should have any committees. I look at that and I go, well, the Education Committee is not considered a good committee to get on, but I don't think she should have the privilege any of committees... Obviously, we saw what happened at the Capitol. You see things like Pizzagate. We all know friends that have lost a sense of reality because they've been pulled into this dark underworld of conspiracies. And that's where it is incumbent on leaders and everybody to expose that darkness, to bring light to darkness, to disinfect that. We have members of Congress that embrace anything like that or become completely unmoored from truth, we can't accept that. And that's where the battle begins. It's just letting people know it's okay to speak out against this stuff and defend the integrity of the party... In this moment, I don't think she in any way can define the party, and everybody calls me a RINO, and I'm as conservative as anybody out there. It's okay to look at this and say, somebody that espouses beliefs that a Satanist cabal runs the United States governmen... is unhinged from the Republican platform. We have to go back to being a party of principles first. We'll be competitive and earn people's trust."