Black History Month: John Lewis — The Last Of The True Heroes

On the night of July 17, 2020, a breaking news flash crossed my screen that took my breath, caused me to utter aloud, “NO!”, and broke my heart.  Congressman John Lewis had died.  Even today, reading about him, thinking about all that he stood for and all that he accomplished can bring a tear to my eye.  Today’s post is a reprise of the one I wrote on that night and published the following morning.  He was a man who I certainly think is deserving of being remembered for a very long time.

John-Lewis-quoteThere are few people alive today who deserve the title ‘hero’ in every sense of the word.  John Lewis was one such person.

When President Obama awarded John Lewis the Medal of Freedom in 2011, he said …

“Generations from now, when parents teach their children what is meant by courage, the story of John Lewis will come to mind — an American who knew that change could not wait for some other person or some other time; whose life is a lesson in the fierce urgency of now.”

obama-lewis John Robert Lewis was born in Troy, Alabama, on Feb. 21, 1940, one of 10 children of Eddie and Willie Mae Lewis. According to “March,” his three-part autobiography in graphic novel form, he dreamed from a young age of being a preacher. He was in charge of taking care of his family’s chickens and would practice sermons on them: “I preached to my chickens just about every night.”  But life had other plans for young John Lewis.

John Lewis was the last of the most relevant civil rights leaders from the 1950s and 1960s.  In 1955, Lewis first heard Martin Luther King, Jr. on the radio, and, when the Montgomery Bus Boycott (led by King) began later that year, Lewis closely followed the news about it. Lewis would later meet Rosa Parks when he was 17 and met King for the first time when he was 18.  By the time he came of age, his path was chosen.

I could not possibly list all of Mr. Lewis’ accomplishments in this single post, but I would like to highlight a few.

As a student at American Baptist Theological Seminary in Nashville, Tennessee, Lewis first became a part of the Civil Rights Movement, organizing sit-ins at segregated lunch counters that eventually led to the desegregation of Nashville’s lunch counters.

John-Lewis-lunch-counter-sit-in

Lewis was arrested and jailed many times in the nonviolent movement to desegregate the downtown area of the city. He was also instrumental in organizing bus boycotts and other nonviolent protests in the fight for voter and racial equality.

John-Lewis-early-arrest

In 1961, Lewis became one of the 13 original Freedom Riders. There were seven whites and six blacks who were determined to ride from Washington, D.C., to New Orleans in an integrated fashion. At that time, several states of the old Confederacy still enforced laws prohibiting black and white riders from sitting next to each other on public transportation.  The Freedom Ride was initiated to pressure the federal government to enforce the Supreme Court decision in Boynton v Virginia (1960) that declared segregated interstate bus travel to be unconstitutional.

In the South, Lewis and other nonviolent Freedom Riders were beaten by angry mobs, arrested at times and taken to jail. At 21 years old, Lewis was the first of the Freedom Riders to be assaulted while in Rock Hill, South Carolina. He tried to enter a whites-only waiting room and two white men attacked him, injuring his face and kicking him in the ribs. Nevertheless, only two weeks later Lewis joined a Freedom Ride that was bound for Jackson.

“We were determined not to let any act of violence keep us from our goal. We knew our lives could be threatened, but we had made up our minds not to turn back.”

Lewis was also imprisoned for forty days in the Mississippi State Penitentiary in Sunflower County, Mississippi, after participating in a Freedom Riders activity in that state.  But John Lewis was not a quitter.

In Birmingham, the Riders were mercilessly beaten, and in Montgomery, an angry mob met the bus, and Lewis was hit in the head with a wooden crate.

“It was very violent. I thought I was going to die. I was left lying at the Greyhound bus station in Montgomery unconscious.”

In February 2009, forty-eight years after he had been bloodied in a Greyhound station during a Freedom Ride, Lewis received an apology on national television from a white southerner, former Klansman Elwin Wilson.

In 1963, Lewis was named one of the “Big Six” leaders who were organizing the March on Washington, the occasion of Dr. King’s celebrated “I Have a Dream” speech. Lewis also spoke at the March. Discussing the occasion, historian Howard Zinn wrote:

“At the great Washington March of 1963, the chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), John Lewis, speaking to the same enormous crowd that heard Martin Luther King’s I Have a Dream speech, was prepared to ask the right question: ‘Which side is the federal government on?’ That sentence was eliminated from his speech by organizers of the March to avoid offending the Kennedy Administration. But Lewis and his fellow SNCC workers had experienced, again and again, the strange passivity of the national government in the face of Southern violence.”

John-Lewis-Edmund-Pettus-Bridge

John-Lewis-Edmund-Pettis-BridgeIn 1965, at age 25, Lewis marched with Dr. Martin Luther King from Selma to Montgomery, and was on the Edmund Pettus Bridge on Bloody Sunday, where he was beaten by police and knocked unconscious.  When the marchers stopped to pray, the police discharged tear gas and mounted troopers charged the demonstrators, beating them with night sticks. Lewis’s skull was fractured, but he escaped across the bridge to Brown Chapel, the movement’s headquarter church in Selma. Before Lewis could be taken to the hospital, he appeared before the television cameras calling on President Johnson to intervene in Alabama.  Lewis still bore the scars on his head from the incident.

John-Lewis-CongressIn 1986, John Lewis was elected to the House of Representatives from Georgia’s fifth district, a seat he would win and hold until his death last night.  He was reelected 16 times, dropping below 70 percent of the vote in the general election only once. In 1994, he defeated Republican Dale Dixon by a 38-point margin, 69%–31%. He ran unopposed in 1996, from 2004 to 2008, in 2014, and again in 2018.

Throughout his 34 years in Congress he fought for human rights, for civil rights … for your rights and mine … for our children’s and grandchildren’s.  He spoke out loud and clear in favour of LGBT rights, national health insurance, gun regulation, and has often been called “the conscience of Congress.”

“My overarching duty as I declared during that 1986 campaign and during every campaign since then, has been to uphold and apply to our entire society the principles which formed the foundation of the movement to which I have devoted my entire life.”

Coming from another, that might be considered just political rhetoric, but from John Lewis, truer words were never spoken.  He not only talked the talk, but he walked the walk for his entire life.  The world is a little darker place today without John Lewis in it.  RIP John Lewis … you are missed already.

Snarky Snippets From Da Rabbit Hole

I’m keeping nice and warm down here in the rabbit hole, and the rabbits are generously sharing their carrots with me … so I don’t have much desire to write a lengthy post in this nice warm, dark space, but a couple of thoughts do come to mind …


A hint of … conscience?  Convince me

I have found at least three Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives who maybe … just maybe … actually have a shred of decency and a degree of intelligence.  Their names are Ken Buck (Colorado), Nancy Mace (South Carolina), and Victoria Spartz (Indiana).  I was told a couple of weeks ago that there are about 40 ‘moderate’ Republicans in the House today, but I had begun to doubt, since I hadn’t seen anything to give me reason to believe that.  These three, however, have all said they would oppose removing Representative Ilhan Omar from the House Foreign Affairs Committee on which she serves as the Vice Chair of the Subcommittee on Africa, Global Health, Global Human Rights and International Organizations and the Subcommittee on International Development, International Organizations and Global Corporate Social Impact.

McCarthy’s intention to remove her is retaliatory in nature … he’s still trying to “pay back” the Democrats for removing conspiracy theorists Marge Green and Paul Gosar from their committee assignments last year due to their roles in the January 6th attempted coup and other transgressions that proved them untrustworthy.

“I think that we should not engage in this tit-for-tat.” – Ken Buck

Don’t let that fool you, though, for these three have voted along the party line often enough to prove their loyalty to party and when push comes to shove, I imagine they will toe the line.


And then there were seven … and three more …

First, five police officers were fired, then charged with second-degree murder among other charges in the case of the brutal murder of Tyre Nichols.  I questioned why five officers were even involved in what began as a routine traffic stop.  I still question that, but now we’re up to seven officers having been involved!  Two more, one unnamed, and Preston Hemphill have also been “relieved from duty” but not charged … yet.  Hemphill apparently fired a taser gun at Nichols.

Preston Hemphill

The other officer has not been named, for reasons beyond my comprehension.  I wonder how many more are going to go down in this investigation once the full truth comes out?  How many police does it take to question one unarmed man during a traffic stop?

In addition to police, EMT personnel failed to exercise the standards of care and two of the EMTs and the ambulance driver have also been fired.  They are Robert Long, JaMicheal Sandridge and Lt. Michelle Whitaker.

Not only did the EMTs fail to do an assessment of Mr. Nichols’ condition, but it took a full 27 minutes after their arrival until the ambulance left to transport Mr. Nichols to the hospital.  Was there not one single person there who cared about this human life???  Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.


As if it weren’t bad enough …

Yes, I’m talking about the gun crisis in this country.  As if it weren’t bad enough that on average 117 people lost their lives every single day in the United States this year thus far, now the Florida legislature wants to make it even easier for people to own and carry a gun … in public.  Says Florida’s Republican House Speaker, Paul Renner …

“What we’re about here today is a universal right that applies to each and every man and women regardless of race, gender or background.”

The bill in question is one that would remove the requirement to obtain a government-issued permit to carry a concealed weapon.

Stupidly, the Florida Sheriff’s Association has thrown its support behind the bill, and Florida’s Governor Ron DeSantis has already said he will sign the bill if it reaches his desk.  And it should come as no surprise that the National Rifle Association (NRA) is also 100% behind the bill — in fact, they are laughing and chortling wildly.  The governor recently applauded the Sheriff’s Association for saying they would outright refuse to enforce any and all gun control legislation!  Is Florida still a part of the U.S.???  I’m not so sure it should be!


And on the subject of guns, our friend Keith Wilson had an excellent post yesterday that I urge you to read!

MAINLY FOR AMERICANS, AND THOSE AFFECTED BY THEM — The Debt Ceiling Debate

On Tuesday, I read, saved and bookmarked Robert Reich’s newsletter about the debt ceiling, planning to share it sometime soon, but I hadn’t gotten around to it yet. Meanwhile, our friend rawgod beat me to the draw, so in the interest of not re-inventing the wheel, I shall re-blog rg’s post! Please take a few moments to read this piece, for it clears up some miscomprehensions about what the debt ceiling is and how critical it is to the very survival of this nation. Thanks, rg!

Ideas From Outside the Boxes

Following are the words of Professor Robert Reich, once upon a time the Secretary of Labor in the Clinton administration. He is now, and has long been, an American professor, author, lawyer, and political commentator. He also worked in the administrations of Presidents Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter. I believe he knows the truth about what he is saying.

**********************

Friends,

Few things make me as furious as the mainstream media’s reluctance to tell the public what the Republican Party is doing — and instead hide the truth behind “both sides” rubbish. How the hell can democracy work ifTheNew York Times,CNN, and even National Public Radio obscure what’s really going on?

Let me state five central truths about the pending fight over the debt ceiling and show you how the mainstream media is distorting each of them.

Truth #1: The fight is being waged solely by the…

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No delusions – poor governance in action

The U.S. House of Representatives is supposed to be “the people’s” branch of Congress, but today it is anything but. The goals of about half the members of the House do not align with the goal of a government that is “… of the people, by the people, for the people.” Check out what our friend Keith has to say about the House and responsible governance.

musingsofanoldfart

In case you had any delusions that the new majority in the US House would offer up good governance, please note:

– Returning Congress representatives Marjorie Taylor Greene and Paul Gosar have been seated on Committees by Speaker Kevin McCarthy, after being removed in the last Congress for their inflammatory and inane remarks. When I think of Greene and Gosar, the words reasonable and collaborative are not top of mind.

– New Congressman George Santos, the one with the highly fabricated resume, will be seated on two Committees by Speaker McCarthy. Instead of advocating for his being censured or even removed, Santos gets two Committee assignments. I guess the Speaker holds lying in higher regard than most people. Either that or he needed his vote to remain Speaker and will put up with anything.

– Numerous bills have been proposed to restrict voting. As an independent voter, the greater problem…

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The New Rules

Well, yesterday was the first actual day of business for the House of Representatives, after their week of game-playing and juvenile tactics.  I spent many years of my career in management positions and while I always tried to be fair, I didn’t put up with any b.s. and expected staff members to work as a team to get the job done, whatever it took.  Today, we are all in management positions in a sense of the word … our elected officials are our staff … we pay their salaries with our hard-earned tax dollars, we are their employers and they serve at our will, and are expected to do the best job possible on our behalf.  So, let’s take a peek in at what they accomplished on their first day on the job.

The main thing they ‘accomplished’ yesterday was to pass a new set of rules for the House for the coming two years.

It really isn’t any wonder, is it, that the House Republicans want to eliminate the Office of Congressional Ethics (OCE) … I mean, ethics?  They aren’t quite sure what the word means, but they know that they have none, so why do they need an agency for something they don’t have?  They couldn’t quite just eliminate the office altogether, so they chose to hamstring it instead.  They set term limits of eight years for all members, and any sitting members of the OCE who have already been there for eight years are out as of now.  This effectively removes all but one Democrat from the OCE.  Coincidence?  Of course … such honest people wouldn’t attempt to pad such an important office, now, would they?  I’m certain it is merely coincidence that the OCE was preparing to open an inquiry into certain Republican congressmen over their conduct related to the January 6th attack on the Capitol.

As expected, the new rules package includes a rule that permits a single lawmaker to force a vote to “vacate the chair,” allowing a snap vote to remove the speaker.  This is gamesmanship and nothing I really care about, beyond the fact that it has McCarthy by the short hairs and pretty much assures he will give in to the whims of the radical right branch of the Republicans rather than follow his … um … conscience?  Oh yeah … sorry about that … I sometimes forget that he has no conscience … he sold it long ago.  The only reason I do care somewhat is that it will lead to instability and I strongly suspect McCarthy won’t last as Speaker until the end of the calendar year.

In 1979, the House passed a rule called the Gephardt rule after then Representative Dick Gephardt, that automatically raised the debt ceiling when a budget was passed.  It prevented passing legislation but not funding it, a trick that had been used more than a few times.  Yesterday, however, the House eliminated the Gephardt rule … a move that will almost certainly lead to chaos by mid-summer when the national debt reaches its current ceiling.  Now, the Republicans either don’t understand the debt ceiling, or they know their constituents don’t understand it and therefore they can play their usual games and pull their rabbits out of the hat to fool some of the people all of the time!  The latter is my guess.  I will no doubt be writing more in-depth about the debt ceiling soon, for it is possibly one of the most pressing issues, or will become so, of this Congress.  The consequences of failing to raise the debt ceiling are potentially lethal.  I wonder, though, how the Republicans will sell it back in their districts when elderly people are being evicted from their homes and cancer patients are dying?

They also included a rule that will make it harder to raise taxes, as any bill that would raise taxes would require a 60% majority to pass.  Gee, you don’t think they did this because Democrats have said they plan to raise taxes on the wealthiest people and corporations, do you?  Nah, surely not!  Well, if you want to fund a government, you need income as well as outflow, and right now, the wealthiest in the nation do not pay their fair share … percentage-wise, they likely pay less than you or I do!  But they have something you and I don’t have … they own the congressional Republicans.  We the People cannot afford to give millions of dollars to political candidates, and thus they favour the wealthy 1% over the rest of us.

Passing this rules package was likely the only thing the House of Representatives will actually accomplish this year, for the focus of the majority party in the House is not governance, but rather obstruction.  As their employers, I am going to be suggesting that we continually monitor their activities and call/email/write when we are displeased with what they have done or are doing.  The things the Republicans have said they will do border on fascism, my friends.  It’s easier to nip it in the bud than to oust it once it has taken root.  We will also need to take any and every opportunity to educate those who don’t understand, who fall for the lies and rhetoric of the Republicans, and who are easily distracted by the shiny objects such as all these ‘investigations’ they are threatening to conduct that will come to naught, but will be excitement for their followers.

So, Where Do We Go From Here?

As he so often does, Robert Hubbell has done an excellent job of summarizing the events of last week in the U.S. House of Representatives and what the coming weeks/months might bring.


The loyal opposition!

January 9, 2023

By Robert Hubbell

After the painful spectacle of Kevin McCarthy’s election as Speaker late Friday, I opened the Comments section to all readers to allow them to express their feelings about the confluence of the January 6th anniversary and McCarthy’s corrupt bargain to become Speaker. Several hundred readers took the opportunity to express themselves. Understandably, feelings of upset, anger, disappointment, and dejection were more common than usual from readers of this newsletter. While there is much to discuss regarding what McCarthy’s election as Speaker portends for America, those details will unfold over time (and may shift in the coming days). I want to start my discussion with the emotional reaction to McCarthy’s pathetic victory and our mission as “the loyal opposition” over the next two years.

It is reasonable for people to feel upset and angry over McCarthy’s victory. He is unfit to serve in Congress, let alone serve as its leader. Indeed, he is peculiarly unfit to be Speaker because he participated in the assault on Congress on January 6th by spreading the Big Lie and voting in favor of baseless objections to electors from Arizona and Pennsylvania. (McCarthy has since lied about his votes to overturn the election. See Talking Points Memo, McCarthy Falsely Denies Voting To Overturn Election Results.) And, of course, he was the first major politician to make a pilgrimage to Mar-a-Lago to begin the rehabilitation of Trump only a week after those killed in Trump’s insurrection were buried.

But all of this we already knew. McCarthy’s late-night victory felt like a slap in the face, even though it was based on humiliating groveling before the bottom feeders in Congress and a betrayal of the American people. After fifteen rounds of votes, McCarthy should have slithered out of the House. Instead, he acted like a conquering hero as GOP members chanted “USA, USA!” only moments after saying he could not be trusted to be Speaker. That moment of celebration by a grotesque caricature of a corrupt politician harkens back to the accidental election of singularly unfit Donald Trump to be president.

For some, McCarthy’s election was a replay of election night 2016. One reader (CC), wrote the following in the Comments section:

“Now many of us have PTSD from the first act of Kevin’s Circus, The Clown Show, that just ended in the House of Representatives. It is reminiscent of The Trump Show. But we’ve been through this situation before, and we know how to handle it. We need to stop inundating our nervous systems by listening to constant reporting about the same problems from different sources every day.

I’m not minimizing what we are facing. We’re all sick of having to fight the ugly underbelly of our country. But we don’t need to tackle the next few years all at once. And we really have no idea what tremendous things we will be able to achieve to counter this current set of dangers. We need to take it one day at a time.

We also need to protect our nervous systems from the overwhelming barrage of dung that will be flung from the monkeys in Kevin’s Circus. They will lie constantly. They always do. Expect it.

We fought back against them once. I would have felt a lot better during the four years of the “Trump administration” if I’d known how successfully Americans would fight back against these unimaginable horrors to “right the ship of state.” We have no guarantee, but we need to believe we can do it again instead of sinking into despair, which is easy to do.”

I agree with CC on all counts. We have every reason to be concerned about what McCarthy and the GOP will attempt to do over the next two years—but we are in a position of strength and should act accordingly. (More on that in a moment.) Even so, I acknowledge that it is almost as painful to watch McCarthy thumping his chest after a historic humiliation as it is to listen to Trump bloviate and lie with apparent immunity from Mar-a-Lago.

I am confident we will contain, outmaneuver, and defeat McCarthy over the next two years. But we can’t control the toxic mixture of gratuitous meanness, pomposity, and ignorance that passes for “politics” in the GOP. In the last forty-eight hours, McCarthy has failed to condemn any of the following: (a) George Santos’s use of a “white supremacist” hand gesture from the House floor, (b) a crude and offensive tweet by a freshman GOP member from Florida who tried to connect the Speaker’s gavel to the attack on Nancy Pelosi’s husband, (c) Trump’s claim over the weekend that Ashli Babbitt is a “true patriot”, and (d) the attack on the Brazilian Senate and presidential palace by supporters of defeated former President Bolsonaro.

As reader CC said, we must “expect it” from McCarthy and his gang, but that doesn’t mean we have to accept it. Indeed, our task as members of the loyal opposition is to make McCarthy et al. own every debased, depraved, selfish, corrupt, and ignorant statement made by the reprobates to whom McCarthy has surrendered his manhood. And they are about to start an endless stream of such statements without a moment of reflection on the fact that Americans rejected MAGA extremism in 2022.

With all of that as background, let’s take a moment to put Friday’s events in perspective.

They have McCarthy. We have Jeffries. We win—every time.

The Speaker’s election defined two men: Kevin McCarthy and Hakeem Jeffries. McCarthy is exposed as weak, corrupt, and desperate. He was humiliated on the House floor, begging for votes from Matt Gaetz and Lauren Boebert. It simply doesn’t get more pathetic than that. Conversely, the Democratic caucus unanimously supported Hakeem Jeffries through fifteen rounds of votes. And then the two men spoke—and the differences could not be more pronounced. McCarthy read his speech like the uncomfortable politician whose skill is in the back room, not the podium. Hakeem Jeffries gave an inspiring, lyrical, passionate speech that worth is watching in its entirety: Watch House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries’ historic first speech (Start at 4:15 mark).

When it comes time to communicate competing visions of our future to anxious Americans, Hakeem Jeffries will win every time. We should feel great about that fact.


Hubbell continues to talk about the promised/threatened ‘investigations’ and the debt ceiling threat, but the entire newsletter is too long for this post, so I hope that you’ll take a couple of minutes to pop over there and read the rest!

Fools Rush In

Well, friends, Kevin McCarthy got his wish … it took him four full days and 15 ballots, but he is Speaker of the House of Representatives … for now.  But here’s the thing … in order to get the necessary votes, he made numerous deals, promises, compromises and gave away some things that were not his to give.  For all who voted Republican last year or in 2020, I don’t want to hear a damn word of complaint later this year when the prices of food and fuel skyrocket, when the economy tanks, and Social Security & Medicare are on the chopping block, all because Kevin made a ‘deal’ not to allow the debt ceiling to be raised.  They asked for it, they got it.  Now it’s theirs to own.

In the end, Kevin McCarthy’s greatest legacy will be that he is a coward, a sell-out, and that he had a larger-than-life role in the attempt to bring down democracy and silence the voices of the people of this nation.

And that’s really about all I have to say that’s printable at this moment.  Let the circus commence.

Governance? I Think NOT!

Cowardice, greed, and arrogance are the first three words that come to mind when I ponder Kevin McCarthy’s already-failed tenure in the U.S. House of Representatives.  Make no mistake … I do not support the 20 right-wing radicals who are holding the United States hostage by voting for the likes of domestic terrorist Jim (Gym) Jordan, but McCarthy does not have either the courage or the strength to lead the House for the next two years … he is a coward because he has sold his soul (and our democracy) trying to gain a position he has only been able to dream of, he is a greedy and arrogant bastard because he is putting his own desires for power ahead of the best interests of the nation.  Dan Rather has a rather more well-modulated way of assessing the situation than I do at the moment, so I shall share his words with you instead of mine that would be laced with various expletives.


Burning Down The House

Chaos reigns

Dan Rather and Elliot Kirschner

05 January 2023

Before craziness and chaos engulfed the House of Representatives in the saga of electing a new speaker, a Kodak moment provided a vivid portrait of the relative health of our two major political parties and our nation as a whole.

There stood Nancy Pelosi raising the gavel for the last time as speaker in front of the imposing scroll-back chair from which she had wielded power. Her job at that moment was purely ceremonial — closing the 117th Congress — but the symbolism was poignant. It marked an end to a Congress of action and accomplishment and the beginning of an era of performative pandemonium. The gavel stood there in mid-air like a baton with no one to accept it.

In the reporting on Kevin McCarthy’s travails for gaining the speakership, many have noted how small his majority is, how he can afford to lose only a few votes, and that therein lies his major problem. But as others have pointed out, Pelosi had a small majority in the last Congress — yet she maintained unity in her party and ran the House with efficiency and precision, and to great effect.

The dumpster fire we are witnessing now has been smoldering for years, if not decades. It is what happens when people elect representatives who actively hate the idea of governance. It is what happens when people rack up victories with Fox News rants and not legislation. It is what happens when a quest for power means you’re willing to yield and appease everyone and everything that can help you secure it.

To be sure, crooks, cranks, and malevolent embarrassments have not been the exclusive purview of any one political party over the years. The nature of democracy is that it can be very messy; in moments of passion, fear, or even apathy, it can sweep into office all manner of men and women who have no business being there. The idea of a legislature, however, is that the whims, idiosyncrasies, and destructive instincts of a few can be tempered by the many. Obviously that is not what is happening now.

There is a tendency among some in the beltway press to frame this as a battle of the political extremes, how the far right is undermining Republican initiatives. In this analysis there is often a perfunctory “both sides” mention of the political left, which also supposedly threatens the “center” and the ability to govern.

This simplistic framing misses the mark at this moment. On the Republican side, it is not clear what the renegades want, other than to figuratively burn down the house (or House). Some have specific demands, and McCarthy has caved more than a spelunker. But it’s still not good enough. Furthermore, these demands are almost exclusively about process and not policy. It’s about allowing a nihilistic minority to foment perpetual mayhem, thereby undercutting the debate and responsible compromise that should be the business of Congress. Ultimately, it’s about accommodating Steve Bannon and not delivering for constituents.

There is no analogous movement on the left. Even if one disagrees with the policy positions of the so-called progressive wing of the Democratic Party, ultimately those members of Congress are almost all institutionalists — in that they believe in the idea and work of the legislative branch of government. They understand that you need a speaker for the House to function, so they backed Pelosi. They left the debates and disagreements for individual bills and votes. That, by the way, is how the Founders envisioned it.

But this isn’t just about Pelosi, as formidable as her leadership skills were. The Democrats also have rallied around her successor, Hakeem Jeffries of New York, who occupies more of the moderate middle of the party. As Republicans embarrass themselves on the national stage with rounds and rounds of votes, the Democrats have held steady in unity behind Jeffries. It’s an impressive show of discipline for a political party that was once mocked (including by Democratic members of Congress) for having all the herding instincts of cats.

As much as this spectacle is gaining the attention of the American people, make no mistake that it is being watched with keen eyes around the world — by our friends and foes alike. Our allies wonder, especially in the wake of the last administration, whether they can count on America. Will these renegades blow up the world economy by defaulting on American debt? Will they pass a budget? Will they support Ukraine? Will they actively continue to undermine America’s democratic traditions?

Meanwhile, in places like Moscow, Beijing, Tehran, and Pyongyang, despots, autocrats, and dictators are cheering our divisions and the distance they create between our national ideals and our political reality. In moments of instability in Washington, the entire world becomes more dangerous. Not that the Republican holdouts care.

The public debasement of House Republicans may make for great schadenfreude viewing for Democrats. Some literally broke out the popcorn in the House chamber. But ultimately this is a sad moment for our country. We need strong political parties that believe in negotiating, legislating, and governing. We need individual congresswomen and men of decency and integrity. We need strength and thoughtfulness to tackle our myriad problems.

We need a Congress, not a circus.

For another excellent analysis of the situation, see our friend Keith’s post … he, too, is spot-on!

The New Kid In The Party?

A good governor … and here I am using the term more expansively to include all government decision-makers from state legislators all the way up through the U.S. Congress and even the president … will make every decision based on what is best for the country and for its people – ALL its people, not just white people or male people or Christian people or straight people.  They will sometimes err because they will rarely, if ever, have all the facts upon which to base their decisions, but they will be guided in making decisions by the facts they do have, and their conscience reminding them of their responsibility to the people of the nation.  Federal officials must remember that while they were elected by the people from their state or district, their decisions, their votes and their actions affect every individual within the country, thus they should act accordingly.

I believe there are some in our government who actually do just this, make decisions based on what seems at the time to be in the best interests of the people … ALL the people.  Unfortunately, however, there are more than a few who make their decisions on the basis of what’s in it for them, of their own quest for power, for re-election, for financial gain.  Now, I won’t deny there are some on both sides of the aisle who have forgotten their responsibility, but over the last decade, the Republican Party, aka the GOP, appears to no longer care about either the country or the people.  They have sacrificed integrity.  Their forefathers must surely be doing that proverbial “rolling over in their grave” thing.

I could point to so many, such as Marge Greene who was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives despite being a follower of QAnon, despite believing that Jewish space lasers (hint, in case any Republicans are reading this, there ain’t no such thing as Jewish space lasers) started the California wildfires.  Or the pistol-totin’ barhop, Lauren Boebert who proudly put a photo of all her children holding big guns on her Christmas cards.  And then, there’s Kevin McCarthy, vying to be the next Speaker of the House, whose only platform is revenge against any and all liberal democratic policies and those of us who support those policies.  But for now, I want to focus on one incoming member of the House, a person who will be seated in the House of Representatives next Tuesday, a person who has broken the boundaries of dishonesty:  George Santos.

I wrote about Santos just over a week ago, after the New York Times published a laundry list of the lies he has told … everything from his heritage to his education to his work history to his family to his criminal record to his financial situation … and more!  Last week, a day or two before Christmas, Santos was confronted about his lies and said he would talk about it all ‘next week’ … next week now being this week.  Well, he did.  He admitted to most of his lies, claimed the felony convictions against him for theft in Brazil were false, but the documentation proves the lie.  Did he ‘come clean’ with humility and shame?  Nope … just stated as a matter of fact that yes, he lied, but that he still has every intention of taking his seat in the House of Representatives next Tuesday!  The unmitigated gall left me speechless, but only for a moment.

This is a new low even for the Republican Party and if, in fact, they allow him to be seated in the House on Tuesday, it will be the most definitive statement yet that there is no conscience, no morals, no values, and no integrity within the Republican Party.  One lie of any substance would have disqualified any Democratic candidate, but Mr. Santos told lies about every single aspect of his entire 34 years!!!  I imagine there are some Republicans who are wishing they could crawl under a rock right about now – Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski, Mitt Romney – but the rest seem to be scratching their heads and wondering how to get this out of the news, how to make it disappear.  Not a single word from the otherwise garrulous Kevin McCarthy … funny that.

This is, for the Republicans, as bad a nightmare as the former guy, an egomaniac, planning to run for the Oval Office again.  I would pity the Republicans, but … they brought this mess on themselves when they first began letting unqualified circus clowns run for office.  It seems to me that a person who cannot even be relied upon to tell the truth about where he went to college (he didn’t), property he claims to own (but doesn’t), where he has worked, his ancestry, his criminal past, where he lives, cannot possibly be trusted to be an honest lawmaker!  I thought Herschel Walker told some mighty big lies, but Santos even makes him look like an amateur.  Santos is right up there with the former guy, who wouldn’t recognize the truth if it smacked him upside the head!  This is NOT what this nation needs … lawmakers who cannot ever be trusted, whose words and actions must always, always be fact-checked!  But alas, this is the new GOP – which, by the way, no longer stands for “Grand Old Party”, but rather for “Gaslight Or Perjure.”