Dem
47
GOP
53
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), who fancies herself as "The Voice of the Base," took Donald Trump to task on Friday. This is actually fairly unusual, since she is generally with him most of the time. In particular, she doesn't like the minerals deal Trump is trying to pull off in Ukraine. Here are her exact words:
I represent the base and when I'm frustrated and upset over the direction of things, you better be clear, the base is not happy.
I campaigned for no more foreign wars.
And now we are supposedly on the verge of going to war with Iran.
I don't think we should be bombing foreign countries on behalf of other foreign countries especially when they have their own nuclear weapons and massive military strength.
And on top of that, now we are told that we have signed a deal for mineral rights in Ukraine, in order to pay us back for the hundreds of billions of dollars that we gave Ukraine and they used for money laundering, sold the weapons we gave them to our enemies, and their leader is a dictator who canceled elections, was involved of the first impeachment of Trump, and campaigned for Biden.
Didn't we learn our lesson when we went to war in Iraq and killed Saddam Hussein because of "weapons of mass destruction?" Did we ever find any? And did any of that oil over in the Middle East make us rich? The answer is no, we are $36 trillion in debt today.
So why on earth would we go over and occupy Ukraine and spend an untold amount of future American taxpayer dollars defending and mining their minerals as well as potentially putting American lives at risk and future war?
Why don't we just mine our own rare earth minerals that are tied up on federal lands that the government confiscated years ago?
I also campaigned on accountability for the communist and tyrannical acts made by the government during Covid. Yet the Covid vaccine still has FDA approval even though there are millions reported injuries and deaths, and this mRNA vaccine is known to have horrific side effects and DOES NOT STOP PEOPLE FROM CATCHING COVID. And to this day, it's still on the childhood vaccine schedule, why on earth is this happening? Hasn't big pharma made enough billions and billions and billions of dollars on this lie?
I also campaigned on accountability for all the law fair that was waged against the American people in the past four years. What about all the people that were locked up in jail and the abuse that they went through? And when are those vicious attorneys and judges ever going to be held accountable for the lives they ruined?
And I campaigned for an end to waste fraud and abuse of the American people's harder tax dollars. I believe the DOGE mission is one of the most important things happening today in our government, and yet where are the rescissions that we should be voting on in Congress?
And one of the biggest issues in the nation that I have fought for, and early on I was one of the only ones that took a loud screaming stand against, is the evil transgender assault against our children. Most normal people in this country can't even comprehend how it's allowed to happen to kids who by law can't even get a tattoo, drive, or vote. And how did so many of our teachers turn into the predators themselves that groom children with gender lies? This should be an all out effort by Republicans to end this insanity.
And look at the extreme nature of our rogue judicial system that is so defiant that there are judges that defy our nation's laws and block the deportation of literal enemies of the United States of America. Where is the outrage and moral courage to dispose of this treason? Sadly not in Congress.
And what about election integrity? This should be the most important issue that the Republicans aggressively fight to protect because without secure elections protected from illegals voting and protections from stealing our votes, the American people have lost their power.
When you are losing MTG, you are losing the base.
And Trump isn't on the ballot in the future, so do the math on that.
It's quite an earful (eyeful?). It starts out with her opposition to foreign wars. She is from Georgia and obviously has a strong preference for domestic wars. It is probably true that many Trump voters oppose certain kinds of wars but so much of what she said is either nonsense or generic boilerplate.
But there is a kernel of truth in her objection to Trump obtaining mineral rights in Ukraine because then Trump will have skin in the game and might want to defend Ukraine or at least help it in order to protect his interest in the mineral rights. However, her idea that the taxpayer will pay to mine the minerals is crazy. U.S. companies will bid for the rights, pay for all the mining, and pay royalties for the minerals extracted. If the U.S. has a real stake in Ukraine, it is more likely than not that Vladimir Putin will realize that messing with Trump's investment is not a good idea.
As to mining our own rare earth elements, she obviously has no knowledge of how that works, but the mining process pollutes the environment badly and the states that have deposits of them understand this.
Most of the rest of the post has nothing to do with anything in particular. Maybe it is too subtle, but we miss the connection between mining terbium in Ukraine and transgender children in America.
What really caught our eye is the unmitigated arrogance of the next-to-last sentence: "When you are losing MTG, you are losing the base." It has echoes of the remark Lyndon Johnson is supposed to have said about TV newsman Walter Cronkite: "If I've lost Cronkite, I've lost Middle America," except that was said in sadness, not in arrogance. Apparently, Marge thinks she's the Queen of England, and should be referring to herself in the third person. We look forward to the tweet when she advises that "We are not amused."
All that said, it is possible that a substantial fraction of Trump's base really does not want the minerals in Ukraine, even for free, and no matter how useful they are for American industry. They want to build a wall, not just on the Mexican border, but around the entire country and just withdraw from the world. (V)