steny hoyer
Steny Hoyer.
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  • Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene was stripped of her committee assignments in the House today.
  • House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer called out a graphic Greene posted to Facebook in September.
  • Greene is holding an AR-15 next to Reps. Omar, Ocasio-Cortez and Tlaib, captioned “Squad’s worst nightmare.”
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House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer delivered a powerful speech on the House floor, moments before Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene was stripped of her committee assignments due to her past social media posts, which supported violence against Democratic lawmakers and spread conspiracy theories.

Rep. Steny Hoyer blew up and printed one of the threats posted to social media by Rep. Greene: a graphic the congresswoman uploaded to Facebook in September, where she is brandishing an AR-15 next to the faces of Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar, and Rashida Tlaib. The caption read, “Squad’s worst nightmare.”

“I urge my colleagues to look at this photo,” Hoyer said, hoisting the poster up high and walking around the House floor showing it to colleagues.

 

Back at the mic, Hoyer began to defend his colleagues and downplay the sincerity of Rep. Greene's earlier comments. 

"They're not 'the Squad.' They're Ilhan. They're Alexandria. They're Rashida. They are people. They are our colleagues," Hoyer said. Hoyer mentioned the progressive policies championed by the three, and sarcastically said, "How awful."

The graphic, posted on Facebook in September, was eventually removed by the platform for violating its policies.

"I have never, ever, seen that before. Is this a precedent-setting event? It is?" Hoyer exclaimed. "Is that what it was intended to do, that each one of these ladies would have a nightmare about somebody with a gun, an AR-15?"

The three congresswomen have been regularly subjected to violent threats and conspiracies from the right since their elections.

The House voted and passed a resolution to remove Greene from the House Education and House Budget Committees due to her extremist embrace of conspiracies denying school shootings.

"School shootings are absolutely real," said Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene after backlash and prior to the vote. "I also want to tell you, 9/11 absolutely happened. I do not believe that it's fake."

Only 11 Republicans voted to strip her of her committee assignments, a day after a tense internal GOP meeting where Greene reportedly received a standing ovation after apologizing to Republican colleagues. 

Almost six times as many Republicans voted to strip Liz Cheney from her GOP leadership role for her vote in support of impeaching former President Donald Trump. Cheney retained her leadership position.

Read the original article on Business Insider