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.
Point of order this shit until it grinds all business to a halt.
Point of order does engaging in personalities refer to both Joe Biden and the convicted felon Donald Trump or just the convicted felon Donald Trump.
Ad nauseum.
Can’t get booted for point of order requests can you?
In fairness, a lot of people gag when someone mentions Trump having sex.
I love the creativeness of the word plays, but no. Do not abide by the ruling. Ignore it. Don’t even acknowledge it exists.
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.
Free speech is only free speech if it’s what the GOP want you to say.
