Senate Republicans Block Creation Of ‘Domestic Terrorism Task Force’ Bill

First came the now defunct (and utterly humiliated) Biden administration ‘Ministry of Truth’, then the push to take away Americans’ guns even as billions in weaponry are simultaneously sent to Ukraine’s citizens, and now… introducing the Democrats’ “domestic terrorism” agency.

It was proposed in the Senate in the wake of the May 14 Buffalo grocery store massacre. “Senate Republicans on Thursday blocked a bill to create domestic terrorism offices within federal law enforcement agencies in response to a mass shooting in Buffalo, N.Y., that left 10 people dead,” The Hill reports Friday.  

Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) failed to convince his Republican colleagues of the need for the Domestic Terrorism Prevention Act, given growing conservative skepticism over astounding government overreach in the wake of the whole ‘Disinformation Board’ fiasco.

“The bill is so important because the mass shooting in Buffalo was an act of domestic terrorism. We need to call it what it is, domestic terrorism. It was terrorism that fed off the poison of conspiracy theories like white replacement theory,” Schumer said just before the vote.

Not a single Republican voted in favor of the measure, with it breaking down exactly along party lines.

But when it was in the House, “Only one Republican – Rep. Adam Kinzinger of Illinois – voted for the measure when the Democrat-led House approved it after the Buffalo supermarket shooting,” CNN points out.

The proposed interagency domestic terrorism task force was described by Democrats as focusing on combating white supremacy, particularly far right ideology supposedly embedded inside law enforcement and the military.

Republicans in turn have argued that existing laws provide full legal prosecution of politically motived as well as hate crimes. “It’s a lot of stuff they already have authority to do,” Senate Republican Whip John Thune of South Dakota said.

Mere “MAGA Republicans”… would have been targeted, apparently:

Leader Schumer on the domestic terrorism bill: “This is a test; this is about accountability. Republican Senators: do you reject the views of MAGA Republicans? Do you reject white supremacy and replacement theory? Taking a stand … should be the easiest thing in the world.”

— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) May 25, 2022

But perhaps GOP Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky brought the most devastating critique during his floor speech on Thursday. “Today we will have a bill before us ostensibly titled and ostensibly about the subject of domestic terrorism. But this bill would be more accurately called the Democrat plan to brand and insult our police and soldiers as White supremacists and neo-Nazis – how insulting,” Paul said.