During official proceedings of the G.O.P.-controlled chamber, speaking about former President Donald J. Trump’s felony conviction has been forbidden, while disparaging President Biden and Democrats is routine.
The floor of the United States House of Representatives is supposed to be a dignified place, where lawmakers refer to each other as “gentleman” or “gentle lady,” speak only to the presiding officer, and never engage in personally disparaging remarks against rivals, an offense known as “engaging in personalities.”
But what happens when the leader of one party is a convicted criminal whom a jury has found guilty of things that would normally be considered unmentionable on the House floor?
The history-making felony conviction of former President Donald J. Trump has raised some historic questions for the House’s rules of decorum, which have existed for centuries but can be bent to the will of whichever party controls the majority-driven chamber.
The Republicans who now hold the majority have used those rules to impose what is essentially a gag order against talking about Mr. Trump’s hush-money payments to a porn actress or about the fact that he is a felon at all, notwithstanding that those assertions are no longer merely allegations but the basis of a jury’s guilty verdict. Doing so, they have declared, is a violation of House rules.
In short, perhaps the only place in the United States where people are barred from talking freely about Mr. Trump’s crimes is the floor of what is often referred to as “the people’s House,” where Republicans have gone so far as to erase one such mention from the official record.
The end of the article is great:
For his part, Mr. Raskin has tried to come up with creative ways to invoke Mr. Trump’s criminal cases without running afoul of the ruling.
During a recent floor speech, he made reference to an “unmentionable American felon, one of 19 million in the country” and an “unrepentant and anonymous convicted felon from New York” without mentioning the former president by name. He referred to Mr. Trump’s hush-money case as “the trial whose very existence must be sent down the Orwellian memory hole to save someone’s hurt feelings.”
In the interview, he noted that no rule could erase the facts of Mr. Trump’s status as a felon.
“I’m afraid the Republicans have now invited a contest for how creative we can be in talking about Donald Trump’s criminal convictions without explicitly stating those words,” Mr. Raskin said.
The party of law and order. Their law, and their order.
Democrats should mention it all the time and invite the republicans to look like jerks when they react. It’s not like the house gets anything done anyway.
Why the fuck are we going through any of this shit?
High Crimes And Misdemeanors…
Because more than half of the machine has been reprogrammed. Its worse than it seems.
There’s a certain rule that comes from early America regarding how to handle traitors. What ever happened to that rule? 🤔
“You mean like Biden?”
That is how many conservatives on the streets talk, when interviewed by e.g. The Daily Show.
Words apparently mean the precise opposite now - people “defended” (rather than attempted to overthrow) the government, in “support” (rather than defiance) of the Constitution, and despite Trump’s felonious facts, he is touted as a fucking “hero”, and the legitimately elected President as the one who is “traitorous”.
Sad.
Free speech is only free speech if it’s what the GOP want you to say.
