House Dems Block Resolution Condemning Looting and Rioting
House Democrats made it clear on Thursday whose side they’re really on — and the American people need to remember it in November.
A resolution introduced by Republican Rep. Greg Steube of Florida that went down in defeat on Thursday condemned the rioting and looting that followed the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis in May and failed to attract a single Democratic vote in support, according to the Washington Free Beacon.
FLOOR ALERT: @HouseDemocrats just refused to allow a vote on a resolution calling for justice for George Floyd, condemning violence & rioting & urging peace. @RepGregSteube’s resolution also denounces the misguided & dangerous demands to defund the police. pic.twitter.com/2prPzi2Awd
— House Rules Republicans (@RulesReps) June 25, 2020
Considering this is the same House majority that was unable to find the moral strength to condemn anti-Semitism in 2019, the development might not be too surprising. But it shouldn’t be forgotten.
And the fact that Democrats were apparently motivated by a portion of the resolution that condemned efforts to “defund” police departments around the country — the latest fad among the radical left — only makes the point more urgent.
The resolution from Steube begins with the words “Calling for justice for George Floyd and others, and condemning violence and rioting.”
That would seem to be something literally all Americans could get on board with — who’s against justice for victims and in favor of violence and rioting?
That’s followed by a lengthy list of “whereases,” ranging from the facts of Floyd’s death to the degeneration of the protests that followed into “looting, destruction of business and personal property, and additional loss of life, including the deliberate targeting of law enforcement officers,” to the current liberal mania of defunding police that would increase the “risk of violent crime to the communities of the United States, especially vulnerable communities.”
Granted, that last part might alienate the leftiest among the Democratic conference – no one would expect Rep. Ilhan Omar or her fellow traveler Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to sign onto the idea that defunding cops increases the risk of crime. (It’s too blatantly true, for starters.)
But Americans could surely expect at least some Democratic members of Congress to sign on.
While it’s true that the looting and rioting that the country experienced in early June left huge swaths of the country untouched, it’s also true that Americans everywhere saw the destruction on television, and had to wonder if their community could be next.
The drama of Seattle’s Capitol Hill Organized Protest — the CHOP-formerly-known-as-CHAZ commune where lawlessness ruled at night (and resulted in one killing) — likely wasn’t lost on many either.
But not one Democrat could break party ranks to take a stand for law and order.
According to Townhall, Democrats used a procedural maneuver to keep the measure from coming to the floor for a vote. That might have kept individual House Democrats from having to declare openly to voters and their party where they stood, but it also sent the message to the American people loud and clear whose side the party itself is on.
Nestled in the document’s legalese, the resolution merely points out what sane people already know. As Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio said on the House floor, peaceful protests are not what the country has been witnessing.
“What happened in Minneapolis we all know was a tragedy. Never should have happened. Wrong as wrong could be and [Floyd’s] family deserves justice,” Jordan said, according to Fox News.
“There is a big difference between peaceful protest and rioting. There is a big difference between peaceful protests and violence. There is a big difference between peaceful protest and attacking police officers. And there is certainly a big difference between peaceful protest and forming CHAZ or CHOP or any type of autonomous zone.”
The resolution, Jordan noted, “strongly opposes what I think is one of the craziest public policy proposals I have ever seen: This idea that we’re going to defund the police.”
That may have been the deal-breaker for Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s party — one that has set itself firmly on the side of lawlessness in what’s supposed to be a nation of laws.
As is routinely the case these days, the social media reaction to the House Democrats’ embarrassing decision was swamped by liberals attacking the very idea of attacking the “mostly peaceful protesters” who wreaked such havoc on American streets.
Fortunately, many Americans have clearer vision.
This is your Democratic Party. Embarrassing, and I am being as nice as possible.
House Dems Unanimously Block Resolution Condemning Violence and Rioting https://t.co/KIDLuLWoMf
— catgal (@ladycatgal) June 25, 2020
Well @TheDemocrats:
Can you explain what is so wrong with this?
“The resolution called for justice for George Floyd; condemned violence, rioting & looting; and called for Congress to unequivocally oppose autonomous zones & efforts to defund the police.”https://t.co/910teAIZ3z
— America First (@AmericaFirstPAC) June 25, 2020
This is damning evidence that congressional demorroids WANT violence & destruction in America to continue. Demorroids only vote to pad their own pockets. #FDems
House Dems Unanimously Block Resolution Condemning Violence and Rioting https://t.co/0sOWDdl0OU
— kroncker (@kroncker2) June 25, 2020
Again, this is the party that last year allowed a resolution giving the ancient evil of anti-Semitism a richly deserved condemnation to be watered down to a weak statement that condemned hatred generally.
It’s the party that, with less than a handul of exceptions, voted in the House to impeach President Donald Trump on the most spurious of charges.
But every one of those Democrats is going to be up for re-election this fall.
And the ones who won election in 2018 by presenting themselves as some kind of responsible alternative to the #Resistance-crazed progressives who flooded the streets in response to Trump’s election in 2016 are going to have to face their own voters as representatives of a party that can’t bring itself to condemn riots.
Every voter who has been awake for the past month, watching rampant looting in the country’s great cities, watching mobs tear down statues of national heroes, and listening to an endless drumbeat of liberal politicians and the mainstream media paint American police officers as some sort of hostile occupation force needs to keep this in mind.
Democrats showed whose side they’re on Thursday. Voters need to remember that in November.
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