September 10, 2022

Marjorie Taylor Greene Shows Up to Celebrate Vocational School She Won’t Support in Congress

The latest in a long line of Republicans taking credit for stuff they had nothing to do with.

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., waves at supporters as she arrives to speak ahead of former President Donald Trump at a rally in Wilkes-Barre, Pa. Mary Altaffer/AP Photo

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Here’s the latest installment of Republicans showing up for photo ops and otherwise taking credit for programs they refuse to support in Congress: On Friday, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene put on a hardhat and hoisted a shovel at a groundbreaking ceremony for the new Chattahoochee Technical College Aviation Academy, a long-delayed new program designed to train aircraft maintenance and service technicians for well-paying jobs in the industry. 

While Greene touted her support for vocational education, her record in Congress says something rather different. She was one of only 15 GOP members to vote against a bill in June that would help increase participation in technical programs like the aviation academy, while also boosting graduates’ post-school prospects. Greene’s fellow Republican, Rep. Roger Williams (R-Texas) is the bill’s primary sponsor, and it had wide bipartisan support when it passed the House this spring.

Greene apparently has bigger and better ideas than vocational education for serving the good people of Georgia while in Congress, like losing money on her investment in Truth Social, Donald Trump’s floundering social media company, passing resolutions for impeaching everyone from Attorney General Merrick Garland to Joe Biden, and introducing legislation to award Kyle Rittenhouse the Congressional Gold Medal for “protect[ing] the community of Kenosha, Wisconsin, during a Black Lives Matter (BLM) riot on August 25, 2020,” where the teenager shot and killed two people. Unlike Williams’ bill to support vocational education, that last measure from Greene had exactly zero co-sponsors.

At the technical college in Chattahoochee, Greene appeared with a gaggle of state legislators, local chamber of commerce types and school administrators at an event that garnered little news coverage and virtually no social media traffic. It’s a miracle she was able to find the time to pick up the shovel at Chattahoochee at all, given her busy schedule appearing at Trump rallies; last week she travelled to Pennsylvania to speak at an event supporting GOP gubernatorial candidate Doug Mastriano, a fervent election denier, and Dr. Mehmet Oz, who is running for the Senate. The rally, where Greene was greeted like a rock star, was clearly far more exciting than discussing aviation maintenance at the humble northwest Georgia vocational college. “Your president called all of you extremists!” Greene exclaimed to her fans from the stage. “Joe Biden has declared that half of this country are enemies of the state!” 

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WE CAME UP SHORT.

We just wrapped up a shorter-than-normal, urgent-as-ever fundraising drive and we came up about $45,000 short of our $300,000 goal.

That means we're going to have upwards of $350,000, maybe more, to raise in online donations between now and June 30, when our fiscal year ends and we have to get to break-even. And even though there's zero cushion to miss the mark, we won't be all that in your face about our fundraising again until June.

So we urgently need this specific ask, what you're reading right now, to start bringing in more donations than it ever has. The reality, for these next few months and next few years, is that we have to start finding ways to grow our online supporter base in a big way—and we're optimistic we can keep making real headway by being real with you about this.

Because the bottom line: Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism Mother Jones exists to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. We really need to see if we'll be able to raise more with this real estate on a daily basis than we have been, so we're hoping to see a promising start.

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