Nation
House to vote on removing Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene from committee assignments
CORRECTION: The original version of this story said that Rep. Greene had already been voted out of her committees. The House is still deciding whether to remove Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene from those committees and will vote Thursday.
Standing on the floor of the House Thursday, an embattled Greene admitted that she had promoted and supported QAnon conspiracy theories and social media posts calling for violence against Democratic lawmakers and that she regretted them.
When describing her past social media activity regarding QAnon, Greene said she “stumbled across” the theory back in late 2017 and “got very interested in it.”
“So I posted about it on Facebook,” the freshman congresswoman said Thursday while wearing a “Free Speech” mask. “I read about it, I talked about it, I asked questions about it. The problem with that, though, is that I was allowed to believe things that weren’t true and I would ask questions about them and talk about them, and that is absolutely what I regret.”
“Because if it weren’t for the Facebook posts and comments that I liked in 2018,” she added, “I wouldn’t be standing here today and you couldn’t point a finger and accuse me of anything wrong because I’ve lived a very good life that I’m proud of […] and that’s what my district elected me for.”
“I was allowed to believe things that weren’t true and I would ask questions about them and talk about them and that is absolutely what I regret,” Greene continued. “If it weren’t for the Facebook posts and comments that I liked in 2018, I wouldn’t be standing here today and you couldn’t point a finger and accuse me of anything wrong, because I’ve lived a very good life that I’m proud of.”
Furthermore, Greene said that “later in 2018, when I started finding misinformation, lies, things that were not true in these QAnon posts, I stopped believing it.”
“I walked away from those things” she added, then saying she decided she was “going to work hard and try to solve the problems that I’m upset about.”
Politifact has reported that the Georgia congresswoman expressed support for certain elements of the QAnon conspiracy theory as recently as February 2019.
In January 2019, Greene also liked a Facebook comment saying that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) should get a “bullet to the head,” CNN reported last week. The month after which, the Georgia Republican during a Facebook Live session from Pelosi’s office said the House speaker would “suffer death or she’ll be in prison” for “treason.”
Also during her floor speech, Greene walked back her past comments about the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, saying “9/11 absolutely happened.” She had previously questioned if one of the hijacked planes had actually crashed into the Pentagon, which they did alongside the two that crashed into both towers at the World Trade Center in New York and the one in a field in Somerset County, Pennsylvania.
On Wednesday, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) had chosen not to remove Greene from her committees but instead pushed for her to openly denounce her past comments.
You can follow Douglas Braff on Twitter @Douglas_P_Braff.
Nation
Boston Celtics Player Legally Changing Name to ‘Enes Kanter Freedom’ to Celebrate U.S. Citizenship
Boston Celtics center Enes Kanter is celebrating becoming a U.S. citizen in an incredible way. The 29-year-old athlete from Turkey is having his citizenship oath ceremony Monday, and will legally change his name to Enes Kanter Freedom.
Kanter is an outspoken human rights advocate who had his Turkish passport revoked in 2017 after he criticized Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Mediaite reports “he has also criticized NBA stars Michael Jordan and LeBron James for not doing enough to help the Black community and not speaking out against exploitative labor practices in China respectively.”
Celtics head coach Ime Udoka told the Boston Globe the team is “all for” the player’s name change. Kanter’s manager says the player will complete his legal name change to have Kanter become his middle name and Freedom be his new last name at Monday’s ceremony.
“We congratulated him as a group for getting his American citizenship last week,” Udoka said. “That’s who Enes is, we’re proud of him. Enes is who he is. He’s passionate about his stances and the name change; you look at [Ron] Artest [who changed his name to Metta Sandiford-Artest in the middle of the COVID-19 outbreak] and guys that have done it in the past. It’s something he wants to express and we’re all for it.”
Kanter has already changed his official Twitter account to Enes Kanter FREEDOM with his new last name in all caps. Freedom made waves when he tweeted the following on November 18: Money over Morals for the ‘King’. Sad & disgusting how these athletes pretend they care about social justice. They really do ‘shut up & dribble’ when Big Boss [inserted Chinese flag] says so. Did you educate yourself about the slave labor that made your shoes or is that not part of your research?”
The tweet included photos of basketball shoes he wore painted with human rights depictions and phrases such as “hey still researching and getting educated?” as well as “I am informed and educated on the situation.”
The statement is with regard to his criticism of LeBron James’ partnership with Nike. “Nike remains one of the NBA’s biggest sponsors as both organizations feed off their partnerships with China” reports Mediaite. Kanter Freedom also made an offer to take Michael Jordan and Nike co-founder Phil Knight to China in order for the men to “visit these slave labor camps and you can see it with your own eyes.”
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