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

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.

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!” 

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate