Two Sentences

From David Badash, RAW STORY:

All 26 Republicans on the powerful House Oversight Committee have refused to sign a simple, two-sentence statement denouncing white supremacy.

“We, Members of the Committee on Oversight and Accountability, together denounce white nationalism and white supremacy in all its forms, including the ‘Great Replacement’ conspiracy theory. These hateful and dangerous ideologies have no place in the work of theUnited States Congress or our Committee,” the statement from Ranking Member Jamie Raskin (D-MD) reads.

It comes after several Oversight Committee Republicans “invoked dangerous and conspiratorial rhetoric echoing the racist and nativist tropes peddled by white supremacists and right-wing extremists,” during a February hearing on the “border crisis,” Ranking Member Raskin said in a March 5 letter to Committee Chair James Comer  The Washington Post first reported on Raskin’s letter.

“In particular, some Members repeatedly described the number of migrants arriving at the border as an ‘invasion,’ and even went so far as to falsely accuse the Biden-Harris Administration of implementing a plan ‘to deliberately open our border’ for purposes of ‘changing our culture’—mirroring language often used by MAGA extremists who believe that pro-immigration policies are designed to replace white populations with non-white immigrants and other racial minorities,” Raskin’s letter says.

Congressman Raskin is a former constitutional law professor who gained national prominence as the impeachment manager during the second impeachment of Donald Trump.

“As I explained to you at the hearing,” his letter to Comer continues, “such language borrows from the ‘Great Replacement’ theory, the central dogma of contemporary white supremacy that has been repeatedly invoked by white nationalists to justify violent acts of domestic terrorism, including the mass murders of dozens of Americans at a Tops Supermarket in Buffalo, New York, the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and a Walmart in El Paso, Texas.”

All 21 Democrats on the Oversight Committee signed the statement, all 26 Republicans refused. A Committee spokesperson called the statement a “distraction,” according to The Independent.